Human Rights Watch: Political Prisoners Released in Burma

Allow International Monitors to Account for All Remaining Detainees

Pyone Cho, an activist of the 88 Generation Students Group, center, was released from prison on Friday, Jan. 13, 2012. Photo by Associated Press

(New York) – The release of key political prisoners on January 13, 2012 is a crucial development in promoting respect for human rights in Burma, but all remaining political prisoners should be freed immediately and unconditionally, Human Rights Watch said today.

Among those released are members of the 88 Generation student group that led the 1988 uprising, including leader Min Ko Naing, Nilar Thein, her husband Kyaw Min Yu, known as Ko Jimmy, as well as Htay Kywe. Shan ethnic leader Khun Tun Oo, monk leader U Gambira, journalists Zaw Thet Htwe, Ngwe Soe Linn, Hla Hla Win, and blogger Nay Phone Latt were also released today.

Burma state media said on January 12 that 651 prisoners would be freed so they can participate in the task of nation-building.

“Years of international calls to release long-detained political prisoners seem to have pushed the government to finally do the right thing,” said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should ensure that there are no obstacles to these activists participating in public life and upcoming elections.”

The US State Department had estimated that at least 1,100 political prisoners were detained in Burma and the Thai-based Assistance Association of Political Prisoners in Burma counted more than 1,500. Given the closed nature of Burma's justice system, the lack of a free press and unsophisticated communications in one of Asia's poorest countries – particularly in remote ethnic areas affected by conflict – each of these lists may omit significant numbers of people being held for the peaceful expression of their political views.

Human Rights Watch called on the Burmese government to allow international independent monitors to publicly account for all remaining political prisoners.

“The latest releases are wonderful news for the individuals and their families, but foreign governments should continue to push for the release of all political prisoners, and for international monitors to verify the process,” said Pearson. “For years Burma's prisons have been off-limits to any independent monitoring mechanism. The next step for Burma’s government is to allow international monitors to verify the whereabouts and conditions of remaining political prisoners.”

http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/01/13/burma-political-prisoners-released

Cuban State Security punishes mom by imprisoning her innocent son

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. - Martin Luther King Jr.

Poster translated: Liberty for Josvany Melchor Rodríguez, A youth with mental limitations. Sentenced to 12 years in prison because his mother, a member of MCL, refused to collaborate with the political police. Information: http://www.oswaldopaya.org/es

State Security agents visited Rosa María Rodríguez Gil, a member of the Christian Liberation Movement, and demanded that she spy on the organization for the Castro regime. She was warned by the agents that if she did not comply and spy for them, her son would suffer.

Relatives of Cuban dissidents have suffered harassment, punishment and prison just for being a member of their family. Josvany Melchor Rodríguez who turns 30 in 2012 was detained by State Security on March 19, 2010 housed with convicted criminals and sentenced to 12 years in prison in a sham trial. Although he is mentally challenged, Josvany was accused of helping a baseball player and the player's wife to defect. Another individual had already pleaded guilty to the "offense" and been sentenced to 12 years in prison on November 30, 2010. The reality is that Josvany is serving a 12 year prison sentence for two reasons: his mother refused to spy on human rights activists and he refused to denounce his mother and end his relationship with her.

Unfortunately this is not an arbitrary act of injustice but a deeply ingrained part of the communist system that operates in Cuba and elsewhere.

Rosa María Rodríguez Gil distraught over her son's unjust imprisonment

Since the founding of the Soviet Union and the launching of the Red Terror in 1918 communist regimes have punished the relatives of dissidents and conscientious objectors with great brutality in including shooting one family member from each family.

In 2011, Amnesty International reported how the families of human rights lawyers in China are harassed and mistreated. These are not isolated cases but a tactic within a larger overall strategy to destroy not only the individual who dissents but his family as well.

Brutality against family members was taken to great extreme in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge where a theory of contamination meant that not only was the dissident imprisoned and executed but also his entire family. This was because according to Pol Pot "contaminated people" had to be destroyed. People contaminated by Western influence needed to be exterminated.

The only way to save Josvany Melchor Rodríguez is to let others know of his plight. Please spread the word.

For more information visit the website of Oswaldo Paya, of the Christian Liberation Movement

Mubarak's End: The military coup and the popular uprising

Tahrir Square: One year later

Hosni Mubarak's end did not end the system

Unfortunately, the rising level of violence between the military and the opposition demanding civilian rule was predictable. There was a temporary coalition with one short term goal put an end to Mubarak and his succession plan.

The end of the Mubarak era was the result of a confluence of factors and interests that created a perfect storm against the Mubarak regime. The disenchantment of the army with Mubarak’s son, Gamal Mubarak, as a successor was a main and key factor. Egyptian liberals were put off by the dynastic succession from father to son and the military refused to recognize the son of their military leader who had never served in the military.

During the January 25th Revolution it was said that the army and the people were one hand because the army had refused to fire on the people in Tahrir Square and forced Mubarak's surrender. Furthermore, that it was a combination of the mass protests and disgruntled elements in the military that pressured Mubarak to step down and his son to flee the country. Gamal had made enemies in the senior ranks of the military as he sought to have some of them purged and replaced with his own supporters.

Hosni Mubarak, at age 82, was engaged in a risky venture – a succession/transition from military dynastic rule to Mubarak dynastic rule based on blood descendents. Gamal Mubarak had never served a day in the military. Not even the basic military service required of all Egyptians. This had more in common with the preexisting political order that had been overthrown by the military.

Muhammad Ali Pasha was the first ruler since 1517 to divest the Ottoman Empire of control over Egypt and laid the groundwork for an independent Egypt. He modernized the country and along with his descendents reduced mortality rates, improved the quality of life in Egypt and the population exploded. This royal family would rule Egypt from June 18, 1805 until June 18, 1953.

On July 26, 1952 Egyptian military officers forced the abdication of Farouk I who had ruled over the country since 1936 replacing him with his infant son Fuad II. On June 18, 1953 the constitutional monarchy that had ruled over Egypt since 1805 was abolished and replaced with a republic in name and military rule in practice. It was the end of the Muhammad Ali dynasty.

Over the next 60 years Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak (all from the military) would rule Egypt: Gamar Abdel Nasser from 1956 to 1970, Anwar Sadat from 1970 until his assassination on October 6, 1981 and finally Mubarak from 1981 until he relinquished power on February 11, 2011.

A dynastic succession from a father in the military to a son who had never served a day in uniform had more in common with the previous monarchic system than with the past 60 years of Egyptian military rule. It was unpopular both with democrats and the military but for different reasons.

The demonstrators in Tahrir Square, primarily young Egyptians many of them urban, secular, liberals, social democrats, and leftists along with younger members of the Muslim brotherhood and even some Salafists objected to 30 years of Mubarak rule and its continuation under yet another Mubarak on democratic grounds. The military elite did not want to be purged to make way for Gamal Mubarak's inner circle and was also offended at having to submit to civilian oversight.

Both the demonstrators and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) were on the same page that a Mubarak succession was unacceptable but for profoundly different reasons. In the span of 18 days a 30 years long Mubarak regime was swept away. However, the stark reality is that the military dictatorship that has ruled Egypt since 1952 remains intact and in power.

The continuing conflict between the military and the civilian demonstrators, which includes the Islamists is over the end of military rule in favor of civilian rule that has oversight over the military. The military wants civilian rule to take responsibility for the economy and social services while maintaining its own perks and privileges.

However, that does not detract from the fact of the matter was that in the matter of stopping the Mubarak succession plan the people and the army were on the same page but for entirely different reasons. It is also why the downfall of the Mubarak regime had the characteristics of both a popular uprising and a military coup.

Unfortunately, with the end of the Mubarak dynasty most of the millions of Egyptians that had taken to the streets returned home leaving behind a smaller but determined group of revolutionaries that would occupy Tahrir Squares and other key squares throughout Egypt. The parliamentary elections, although not guaranteeing civilian rule with oversight of the military, further satisfied the public desire for normality and further isolated the liberals and secularists while empowering the Islamic parties.

It is an outcome that benefits the military that will now be viewed as the last line between a secular Egypt and an Islamic theocracy to the international community. This would also explain the calculated raids on human rights organizations and increased violence and repression against activists in Tahrir Square.


Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies on the raids against NGOs in Egypt

The military controls the institutions of government and has superior fire power but the violence committed against activists in Tahrir and raids against non-governmental organizations throughout Egypt endangers its legitimacy with Egyptians. As Gandhi once observed: "The spirit of democracy cannot be imposed from without. It has to come from within." The power of the powerless can wash away the military with nonviolence and civil disobedience as effectively as long ago the Red Sea swept away Pharaoh's army.

There is much work yet to do to achieve a free and democratic Egypt but the good news is that it is an obtainable goal. Courageous Egyptians have demonstrated over the past half century and with great passion over the past year the necessary toughness and discipline in resisting military rule.

My prayers and solidarity with the people of Egypt in achieving freedom and the rule of law in their country.

Guantanamo, Iran and human rights in Cuba

The Castro regime is consistent on human rights. They're against them.

Raul Castro and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, January 11, 2012 Photo by Associated Press

The visit of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Cuba on the tenth anniversary of the opening of the Guantanamo Naval Base to detainees from the war in Afghanistan serves as a double reminder on the Castro regime's support for systematic human rights violations.

Awarding of Honorary degree to Ahmadinejad broadcast on official TV. Photo by Yoani Sanchez

Yesterday, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who represents a regime that murders its own citizens, denies the Nazi holocaust of the Jewish people and the existence of homosexuals in Iran was presented an Honorary degree from the University of Havana and was invited to make a speech there where he denounced capitalism.

No one should be surprised because it is just the latest chapter in a long history of embracing tyrants. What should be surprising is that the same regime in 2002 welcomed the opening of the US prison camp in Guantanamo.

Guantanamo prison camp

On January 12, 2002 the Cuban Communist Party's daily newspaper Granma offered the official position of the dictatorship on the prison camp in Guantanamo: "We will not create any obstacles to the development of the [U.S. military] operation, though the transfer of foreign prisoners of war by the U.S. government to the base—located on a space in our territory upon which we have been deprived of any jurisdiction—was not part of the agreement that the base was founded upon."

The first Cuban to criticize and denounce the United States for housing Afghan prisoners in Cuba and demanding they be treated with dignity was Cuban opposition leader Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas on December 17, 2002:

It's obviously a matter of shame that our land is being used for that purpose, having foreign prisoners brought to Cuba. Even if they are terrorists they deserve respect. Their human rights should be respected.

The Castro dictatorship has been a steadfast apologist for systematic human rights violations not only with friendly regimes such as China, Venezuela, Syria, Libya, Ethiopia, Sri Lanka and Iran but also with adversaries such as the military junta in Argentina and in the beginning with even the United States over Guantanamo.

It can truly be said that the Castro regime in Cuba has two consistent universal enemies: human rights and the rule of law and one consistent ally: tyranny. Some would ask but what about social and economic rights? What about the healthcare system in Cuba. It is a two tiered system that offers little to the average Cuban and everything to a privileged few and tourists who can pay.

The dictatorship fears Cubans that defend human rights and the rule of law. Cuban women like Laura Inés Pollán Toledo, who died after a brief and mysterious illness on October 14, 2011 who nonviolently stood up for human rights and the rule of law and was a unifying figure in the Cuban opposition.


Raul Castro and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, January 11, 2012 (Reuters video)

Ten years later Oswaldo Paya is criticizing the honoring of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and denouncing both his antisemitism and brutal human rights record:

Tyrant lizard on the hill. Currently Ahmadinejad speaks at the University of Havana. It is an insult to the students and an outrage to the sacred remains of Father Varela and against the virtue and the homeland of the Cubans

Mahmoud, why do you deny the Holocaust? Would you repeat it? Never again against any people.

In solidarity with and in the memory of Neda and the other young Iranians murdered in Iran by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his regime.

35 years later: Václav Havel and Charter 77

A worldwide celebration of Charter 77, the landmark human rights declaration co-authored by Václav Havel in Czechoslovakia on January 6, 1977 was carried out with events held on the same day in Prague, Seoul, Brussels, New York City, Washington DC, and Miami.

It was 35 years ago today that Jan Patocka, Jiri Hajek and Vaclav Havel were designated spokesmen by the signatories of Charter 77, a document that denounced the lack of human rights in Czechoslovakia and courageously called for reform and change. Within three months one of the three spokesman, philosopher Jan Patocka would die under interrogation. Hajek would live to see the end of communism but died shortly afterwards in 1993 without achieving political influence in post-communist Czechoslovakia. The last of the three spokesmen, Václav Havel, passed away on December 18, 2011. Both as a dissident and later as a president Havel would leave a deep impact both inside the Czech republic and internationally. Reproduced below is the historic document.

Manifesto of Charter 77, Vaclav Havel (1977)

Manifesto of Charter 77

In the Czechoslovak Register of Laws No. 120 of October 13, 1976, texts were published of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which were signed on behalf of our republic in 1968, reiterated at Helsinki in 1975 and came into force in our country on March 23, 1976. From that date our citizens have enjoyed the rights, and our state the duties, ensuing from them.

The human rights and freedoms underwritten by these covenants constitute features of civilized life for which many progressive movements have striven throughout history and whose codification could greatly assist humane developments in our society.

We accordingly welcome the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic's accession to those agreements.

Their publication, however, serves as a powerful reminder of the extent to which basic human rights in our country exist, regrettably, on paper alone.

The right to freedom of expression, for example, guaranteed by Article 19 of the first-mentioned covenant, is in our case purely illusory. Tens of thousands of our citizens are prevented from working in their own fields for the sole reason that they hold views differing from official ones, and are discriminated against and harassed in all kinds of ways by the authorities and public organizations. Deprived as they are of any means to defend themselves, they become victims of a virtual apartheid.

Hundreds of thousands of other citizens are denied that "freedom from fear" mentioned in the preamble to the first covenant, being condemned to the constant risk of unemployment or other penalties if they voice their own opinions.

In violation of Article 13 of the second-mentioned covenant, guaranteeing everyone the right to education, countless young people are prevented from studying because of their own views or even their parents'. Innumerable citizens live in fear of their own or their children's right to education being withdrawn if they should ever speak up in accordance with their convictions.

Any exercise of the right to "seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print" or "in the form of art" specified in Article 19, Clause 2 of the first covenant is followed by extra-judicial and even judicial sanctions, often in the form of criminal charges, as in the recent trial of young musicians.

Freedom of public expression is inhibited by the centralized control of all the communication media and of publishing and cultural institutions. No philosophical, political or scientific view or artistic activity that departs ever so slightly from the narrow bounds of official ideology or aesthetics is allowed to be published; no open criticism can be made of abnormal social phenomena; no public defense is possible against false and insulting charges made in official propaganda -- the legal protection against "attacks on honor and reputation" clearly guaranteed by Article 17 of the first covenant is in practice non-existent: false accusations cannot be rebutted, and any attempt to secure compensation or correction through the courts is futile; no open debate is allowed in the domain of thought and art.

Many scholars, writers, artists and others are penalized for having legally published or expressed, years ago, opinions which are condemned by those who hold political power today.

Freedom of religious confession, emphatically guaranteed by Article 18 of the first covenant, is continually curtailed by arbitrary official action; by interference with the activity of churchmen, who are constantly threatened by the refusal of the state to permit them the exercise of their functions, or by the withdrawal of such permission; by financial or other transactions against those who express their religious faith in word or action; by constraints on religious training and so forth.

One instrument for the curtailment or in many cases complete elimination of many civic rights is the system by which all national institutions and organizations are in effect subject to political directives from the machinery of the ruling party and to decisions made by powerful individuals.

The constitution of the republic, its laws and legal norms do not regulate the form or content, the issuing or application of such decisions; they are often only given out verbally, unknown to the public at large and beyond its powers to check; their originators are responsible to no one but themselves and their own hierarchy; yet they have a decisive impact on the decision-making and executive organs of government, justice, trade unions, interest groups and all other organizations, of the other political parties, enterprises, factories, institutions, offices and so on, for whom these instructions have precedence even before the law.

Where organizations or individuals, in the interpretation of their rights and duties, come into conflict with such directives, they cannot have recourse to any non-party authority, since none such exists. This constitutes, of course, a serious limitation of the right ensuing from Articles 21 and 22 of the first-mentioned covenant, which provides for freedom of association and forbids any restriction on its exercise, from Article 25 on the right to take part in the conduct of public affairs, and from Article 26 stipulating equal protection by the law without discrimination.

This state of affairs likewise prevents workers and others from exercising the unrestricted right to establish trade unions and other organizations to protect their economic and social interests, and from freely enjoying the right to strike provided for in Clause 1 of Article 8 in the second-mentioned covenant.

Further civic rights, including the explicit prohibition of "arbitrary interference with privacy, family, home or correspondence" (Article 17 of the first covenant), are seriously vitiated by the various forms of interference in the private life of citizens exercised by the Ministry of the Interior, for example by bugging telephones and houses, opening mail, following personal movements, searching homes, setting up networks of neighborhood informers (often recruited by illicit threats or promises) and in other ways.

The ministry frequently interferes in employers' decisions, instigates acts of discrimination by authorities and organizations, brings weight to bear on the organs of justice and even orchestrates propaganda campaigns in the media. This activity is governed by no law and, being clandestine, affords the citizen no chance to defend himself.

In cases of prosecution on political grounds the investigative and judicial organs violate the rights of those charged and those defending them, as guaranteed by Article 14 of the first covenant and indeed by Czechoslovak law. The prison treatment of those sentenced in such cases is an affront to their human dignity and a menace to their health, being aimed at breaking their morale.

Clause 2, Article 12 of the first covenant, guaranteeing every citizen the right to leave the country, is consistently violated, or under the pretense of "defense of national security" is subjected to various unjustifiable conditions (Clause 3). The granting of entry visas to foreigners is also treated arbitrarily, and many are unable to visit Czechoslovakia merely because of professional or personal contacts with those of our citizens who are subject to discrimination.

Some of our people -- either in private, at their places of work or by the only feasible public channel, the foreign media -- have drawn attention to the systematic violation of human rights and democratic freedoms and demanded amends in specific cases. But their pleas have remained largely ignored or been made grounds for police investigation.

Responsibility for the maintenance of rights in our country naturally devolves in the first place on the political and state authorities. Yet not only on them: everyone bears his share of responsibility for the conditions that prevail and accordingly also for the observance of legally enshrined agreements, binding upon all individuals as well as upon governments.

It is this sense of co-responsibility, our belief in the importance of its conscious public acceptance and the general need to give it new and more effective expression that led us to the idea of creating Charter 77, whose inception we today publicly announce.

Charter 77 is a loose, informal and open association of people of various shades of opinion, faiths and professions united by the will to strive individually and collectively for the respecting of civic and human rights in our own country and throughout the world -- rights accorded to all men by the two mentioned international covenants, by the Final Act of the Helsinki conference and by numerous other international documents opposing war, violence and social or spiritual oppression, and which are comprehensively laid down in the U.N. Universal Charter of Human Rights.

Charter 77 springs from a background of friendship and solidarity among people who share our concern for those ideals that have inspired, and continue to inspire, their lives and their work.

Charter 77 is not an organization; it has no rules, permanent bodies or formal membership. It embraces everyone who agrees with its ideas and participates in its work. It does not form the basis for any oppositional political activity. Like many similar citizen initiatives in various countries, West and East, it seeks to promote the general public interest.

It does not aim, then, to set out its own platform of political or social reform or change, but within its own field of impact to conduct a constructive dialogue with the political and state authorities, particularly by drawing attention to individual cases where human and civic frights are violated, to document such grievances and suggest remedies, to make proposals of a more general character calculated to reinforce such rights and machinery for protecting them, to act as an intermediary in situations of conflict which may lead to violations of rights, and so forth.

By its symbolic name Charter 77 denotes that it has come into being at the start of a year proclaimed as Political Prisoners' Year -- a year in which a conference in Belgrade is due to review the implementation of the obligations assumed at Helsinki.

As signatories, we hereby authorize Professor Dr. Jan Patocka, Dr. Vaclav Havel and Professor Dr. Jiri Hajek to act as the spokesmen for the Charter. These spokesmen are endowed with full authority to represent it vis-a-vis state and other bodies, and the public at home and abroad, and their signatures attest to the authenticity of documents issued by the Charter. They will have us and others who join us as their colleagues taking part in any needful negotiations, shouldering particular tasks and sharing every responsibility.

We believe that Charter 77 will help to enable all citizens of Czechoslovakia to work and live as free human beings.

Prague, 1 January 1977