David Cameron flew to the middle east on November 5 for a three day trip, aiming to promote British businesses. The prime minister visited the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to try and showcase the NHS, boost British defence exports to the area and also discuss the unrest to the region Iran is causing.

The most talked about aspect of the trip, however, was his aim to sell weapons to both countries. If successful, his trip could provide a vital boost to the UK’s economy and defence industry, which is worth 5.4 billion in annual exports.

Last year, exports to the Gulf Coast were up by 18% and the government is attempting to continue this trend. Mr Cameron is hoping to sell as many as 100 Typhoon jets during his trip, according to the Daily Telegraph, and this deal could be exactly what BAE need after their failed merger with EADS.

However, the visit has caused concern with human rights groups. Amnesty International said David Cameron shouldn’t be attempting to sell weapons to any countries with such questionable human rights. Amnesty are also doubtful that any assurance either country give to the UK is credible saying “assurances often don’t amount to much.” To prove how likely it is that these weapons will be used to commit human rights abuses, Amnesty highlighted the Saudi Arabian air force operations in North Yemen in 2009, where they killed hundreds/thousands of civilians. Despite calls from Amnesty International, no proper investigation took place into the events. It is likely to have been the UK supplied weaponry that were used in these attacks.

The Human Rights Watch, in their world report 2011, said how “Human rights conditions remain poor in Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah has not fulfilled several specific reform promises.” The European parliament is also critical, releasing a resolution concerning the human rights situation in the United Arab Emirates. In the resolution the European Parliament say how it “expresses great concern about assaults, repression and intimidation against human rights defenders, political activists and civil society actors” and goes on to say “the evidence indicates that national security is the pretext for a crackdown on peaceful activism designed to stifle calls for constitutional reform and reform on human rights issues”

In the face of such evidence, detailing the lack of human rights in both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates one has to wonder why the UK are still attempting to sell weapons and jets to both countries.

The gorvernment claims that it is reducing the risk of arms exports being used for human rights abuses. It is an advocate of the Arms Trade Treaty, that would ensure that no trade in weapons would be allowed if there was any risk they would be used in violations of international human rights.

Its actions belie this though. The Foreign and Commonwealth office lists Saudi Arabia as a cause for concern in its 2011 report. The UK trade & Investment website meanwhile makes no mention of human rights abuses instead mentioning how Saudi Arabia has been “Designated a ‘High Growth Market’ by UK Trade & Investment”

If the UK was truly committed to protecting human rights, if it was committed to creating and following an international Arms Trade Treaty as it says it is, then it would not sell weapons to countries with poor human rights and a history of using UK weapons to repress or kill citizens. Instead it seems to be focusing more on reducing unrest in the middle east and boosting its economy.

Image Courtesy : The Prime Minister’s Office

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Fighting in Burma’s Western state of Rakhine has left thousands of houses burnt down and an estimated 64 dead according to the Burmese government.

The victims were mostly Muslim Rohingya and satellite pictures released by Human Rights Watch show entire districts razed to the ground.

This recent rise in violence is but the latest in a long running civil war that has been ongoing since the country gained its independence from British rule in 1948. Shortly following Burma’s independence, the Burmese government, which mainly consists of Bamar people who make up two thirds of the population of Burma, created the Burmese constitution denying ethnic minorities constitutional rights or participation in government.

There are a total of 135 ethnic minorities officially recognized by the Burmese government as well as several unrecognized groups, the most notable of these being the Rohingya.

The exclusion of ethnic minorities from government is one the main reasons behind the civil war in Burma with many groups, such as the Shan and Chin people, having formed militias to fight for autonomy in their home areas as well as power in the decision-making process of the whole country.

The fighting has not solely been over ethnic minorities struggling to gain the power and rights they believe they deserve. The civil war is also being fought because, according to Burma Campaign UK the ”Burman dominated governments see their own race, culture and religion as the best and have been trying to impose it on others”.

This is particularly true of the Muslim Rohingya who mostly live in Rakhine state, which has been the center of violence last week and also last June. Called “one of the most persecuted minorities in the world” by the UN the Rohingya are officially stateless and not recognized as citizens in the Burmese Constitution. Despite the fact that they have resided in the country for centuries, the Rohingya are viewed by many Burmese as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Thein Sein, the current president of Burma, has called the Rohingya a threat to national security and stated his willingness to hand 800,000 Rohingya over to the United Nations refugee agency to be settled in another country.

With the president of Burma publicly expressing such views, it adds credibility to remarks made by Tun Khin of the Burmese Rohingya organization in the UK, who claimed on channel 4 news that last weeks events were “proper planned by Rakhine National Democratic party”  and that the state incited the local Muslim population to attack the Rohingya. This is confirmed by Burma Campaign UK who say ”what has happened in recent months is clearly mainly instigated and implemented by Rakhine and Burman nationalists with a mixture of overt and tacit backing from the government.” The government also recognized that the violence was not spontaneous, saying in a press release  ”… there are persons and organizations who are conducting manipulation in the incidents in Rakhine State behind the scene”. However they could not be contacted for comment on the matter.

As well as inciting and backing violence against the Rohingya, the government could be guilty of failing to properly protect the Rohingya. This is certainly the view of Human Rights Watch who said,”In Arakan State, the Burmese government inadequately responded to the sectarian violence between the ethnic Arakan and Rohingya populations. When it finally did take action, state security forces targeted the minority Rohingya for killings, mass arrests and looting, causing massive displacement.”

These attacks by either the government or local population on the Rohingya people come shortly after the government made steps towards democracy with several small reforms. First was the release of human rights activist Aung San Suu Kyi in 2010 after 15 years under house arrest. There was then the first elections after 49 years of military rule, even if the elections were widely regarded as being rigged. While these actions were a move in the right direction, these reforms have only distracted the international community from what is happening to the Rohingya.

Right now, the Rohingya are the only ones the government are targeting. But what happens when Thein Sein has successfully got rid of the Rohingya, will it stop there? The international community must wake up and realize that it is not just the Middle East that is in the midst of civil war. We cannot continue to pick and choose which countries we help, and which we ignore. The Libyans and Syrians are not the only ones being persecuted by their leaders, the world needs to hear what is happening to the Rohingya and other minorities in Burma and act to protect them.

Image Courtesy : Government of Thailand [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

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For the first time ever Saudi Arabia has announced that Saudi women will be allowed to compete in the Olympics. Saudi Arabia is one of three countries the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has been pressuring to allow female competitors. The other two countries, Qatar and Brunei, have also announced that they will be sending athletes this year. Qatar will be sending three women: a shooter, a swimmer, and a runner; and Brunei will send a woman for the hurdling title.

The Saudi Embassy in London issued a statement announcing the decision which stated, “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia wishes to reaffirm its support the sublime meanings reflected by Olympic Games and the cherished values of excellence, friendship, and respect that they represent.”

The IOC has been working for several months with the Saudi government and issued a positive statement on March 19 that read, “the IOC is confident that Saudi Arabia is working to include women athletes and officials at the Olympic Games in London in accordance with the International Federations’ rules.”

Minky Worden, the director of Global Initiatives at Human Rights Watch said, “It is only right that the Saudi government should play by the Olympic rules. But an 11th-hour change of course to avoid a ban does not alter the dismal and unequal conditions of women and girls in Saudi Arabia.” Worden did admit that the announcement “pins them down to finding a woman. The Saudis should be on a bit of a desperate search” right now.

The Saudis have already allowed one woman, Dalma Rushdi Malhas, to compete in the equestrian competition at the Singapore Youth Olympics. After hearing the announcement that women will now be allowed to compete in the Olympics Malhas said it was “a dream come true. This just opens so many doors for women.”

Unfortunately, due to an injury her horse has suffered, Malhas missed the June 17 qualification and will not be prepared for this Olympic competition. She is still hoping that she will be able to attend the next equestrian competition at the Olympics.

Earlier this year the Human Rights Watch advocacy group said that the reason why women were not allowed to compete in sports came form a “predominant conservative view that opening sports to women and girls will lead to immorality: ‘steps of the devil’ as one prominent religious scholar put it.”

In Saudi Arabia women cannot drive, vote or hold public office, although some of these restrictions may change in 2015. Women are also not allowed to marry, leave the country, open bank accounts, or go to school unless they have the permission of a male guardian such as a father, husband, or brother.

In 2009 and 2010 Saudi Arabia closed its private gyms for women. The only exception for this restriction is the Jeddah United basketball section which is a private sports company.

Previously, female athletes were banned from the Olympics because the crowd includes both men and women who would be watching these women.

King Abdullah came to the throne in 2005 and has tried to do some modern reforms. However, the king has faced large opposition from religious conservatives on every policy that would ease restrictions against women.

One area that King Abdullah has tried to ease restrictions on is driving, but he has heard opposition on this as well.

Manal al Sharif, a Saudi female activist, was arrested and jailed after posting a video on YouTube of her driving. Sharif is helping to organize- and is participating in- the second annual driving protest. Sharif said about the Olympic decision that it “isn’t one of those things we’re crying out for” because they are more interested in their “basic rights.”

Image Courtesy of  Foxtongue

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South America is facing the worst wave of press censorship since the authoritarian military dictatorships of the 1970′s. Several leaders of Latin American countries have introduced mechanisms to censor the freedom of speech and freedom of the press of their citizens.

Journalists working for media organizations are protected under article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states, “Freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media, regardless of frontiers.” This is a fundamental right that gives the ability to have opinions and write about them without having to worry about whether journalists will get into trouble for what they believe.

However, some countries are taking a step backward in regard to free speech, especially in Latin America. According to FORO Nacional Internacional, “Repression and open threats have come from national and sub-national governments and even from criminal organizations. Moreover, the persistence of such pressures often results in media self-censorship, as they abstain from disseminating political views that are critical of powerful government or private interests.”

Human Rights Watch published last year how Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez undermined journalistic freedom of speech. Chavez officially removed the licenses of 32 private radio stations and 2 television channels in 2009 for “technical and administrative reasons.”

Nicaragua is the best example of the reasons behind the desire to limit freedom of speech in many Latin American countries. President Daniel Ortega has forced all private media companies to join a guild that is associated with his Sandinista Party, but few media businesses are still resisting Ortega’s proposal. Ortega limits what type of information is received by his citizens.

Freedom of expression is fragile in Colombia because it is threatened by state and non-state factions, such as the left-wing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, FARC) guerrilla group and the “Black Eagles,” a paramilitary band.

Catalina Botero, special rapporteur for freedom of expression at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), said to a newspaper in 2010 that “death threats, stigmatization, and spying on journalists by state agencies had led the country to a red alert status.”

Reporters Without Borders (RWB) cited that four journalists have been killed since the start of 2010 in Colombia in connection with their journalistic work. RWB mentioned that, in 2011, the Black Eagles made a campaign threatening the life of five journalists: Hollman Morris (Contravía), Daniel Coronell (Univisión), Marcos Perales (Portada), Claudia Julieta (Radio Nizkor), and Eduardo Márquez, the president of the Colombian Federation of Journalists (FECOLPER). These professionals media activities were spied on and hacked by Colombia’s leading intelligence agency and the Administrative Department of Security which involved the Colombian President Álvaro Uribe with this scandal.

Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries to work as a journalist. Despite the fact that Mexican President Felipe Calderón promised a number of international press monitors in 2010 and a new program to guarantee safety conditions for journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) found that these measures did not work.

According to the CPJ, seven journalists and one media worker were killed in 2011. A total of 80 journalists have been murdered since 2000, and 14 have disappeared since 2003. Even social media as an alternative for journalists to shed light on democracy is threatened by Mexican cartels. For instance, social media journalist Macías Castro was killed last year for her anonymous story on the drug war through social media.

Cuba does not let any independent press operate outside the control of the state. The official media (one television channel, one radio station and two dailies are the official channels to serve propaganda for the regime with just a few Catholic magazines being tolerated. Many Cuban journalists have been forced to publish from Miami and Spain against the regimen.

In general, by monitoring the media, the South American governments have control over all aspects of their citizens’ lives. Governments are able to stop any reports that show the real facts of politicians and is even capable of getting the media to publish false election results to keep the status quo. Censorship is a tyranny mechanism whose practice limits the freedom of speech instead of promoting a real democracy in Latin America.

Image Courtesy of  The Israel Project

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The detention of Dr. Wenceslao Mansogo for medical malpractice has been carried out according to proper legal procedures, the government of Equatorial Guinea said.

In a statement, the government said Doctor Mansogo was arrested following a complaint by the family of a woman who died during surgery. The family objected to the condition of the woman’s body and questioned the care she had received.

According to the government statement, an autopsy revealed that the cause of the patient’s death was different from that given by Dr. Mansogo to the family.

Human rights organizations have issued statements of concern for Mr. Mansogo, who is a leader of the Convergence for Social Democracy (CPDS), an opposition political party, and a human-rights advocate. Human Rights Watch cited “sources close to him” reporting that “he has not been ill-treated and has had access to his family and his lawyers.”

Dr. Mansogo was arrested on February 9 and brought before a judge the following day. According to the judge, Dr. Mansogo was being investigated for crimes involving professional negligence and desecration of a corpse. Dr. Mansogo is currently in the Bata central prison.

In its statement, the Government of Equatorial Guinea noting that Dr. Mansogo practiced freely as a doctor for years without interruption. His detention was not because of political affiliation or work as a human rights activist, it said. It was “caused by a particular complaint from a family,” and was being judged by an independent judiciary.

The statement noted that Dr. Mansogo’s defense lawyers had requested his immediate release. After the judge rejected the request, they appealed to the Superior Court of Bata, which upheld Dr. Mansogo’s preventive detention and returned the case to the lower court.

The Republic of Equatorial Guinea (Republica de Guinea Ecuatorial) is the only Spanish-speaking country in Africa, and one of the smallest nations on the continent. In the late-1990s, American companies helped discover the country’s oil and natural gas resources, which only within the last five years began contributing to the global energy supply.

Equatorial Guinea is now working to serve as a pillar of stability and security in its region of West Central Africa. The country hosted the 2011 Summit of the African Union.

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Human Rights Watch has stated that the investigation led by Russian authorities into the murder of Gadzhimurad Kamalov must be timely, thorough, and bring the guilty party to justice.

The founder and publisher of Chernovik, Dagestan’s leading independent weekly newspaper, was murdered around midnight on Dec. 15, 2011, in Makhachkala, the capital city of Dagestan. Kamalov was working late that night and had left his office to attend to a visitor when a gunman wearing a mask fired 14 bullets at him. The gunman and the accomplices fled the scene in two separate cars, according to the police reports, and Kamalov died while on the way to the hospital.

In Russia, Dec. 15 is a day of commemoration for the journalists that were murdered because of the work they had done. “This is a tremendous blow for the independent press in Dagestan,” stated Tanya Lokshina, senior Russia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “There is hardly any doubt that Kamalov was killed because he was doing his job, in a region that is now known as Russia’s most unstable.”

Gadzhimurad Kamalov founded the weekly newspaper in 2003. He was the paper’s chief editor in 2005-2006 and remained as its publisher. Chernovik became increasingly popular and was known for its investigative reports, editorial independence, and its coverage of controversial topics like human rights abuses and corruption by government agencies. The journalists for the newspaper have been threatened and harassed repeatedly. Four journalists and Nadira Isaeva, the chief editor during that time, were even charged and prosecuted for extremism and slighting government officials. They were eventually acquitted by a court in Makhachkala in the summer of 2011.

In 2010, Isaeva had received the International Press Freedom Award by the Committee to Protect Jounalists. However, she left the newspaper last summer, after an anonymous online campaign targeted her. Isaeva believes that local security officials were behind it. In 2009, leaflets with death threats towards human rights activists, lawyers, and journalists, including Kamalov, appeared in the capital city of Dagestan. They were by unknown authors that wanted, “exterminat[ion of] bandits and vengeance for [killed] policemen.” Kamalov believed that the security services were the ones that wrote the leaflets.

The North Caucasus region of Russia is one of the most dangerous areas for journalists in the world. The Russian leadership has promised to stop the persecution of journalists and activists, but the attacks and murders still continue. The government body that is investigating Kamalov’s murder has said that one of their main theories is that he was killed because of the work he did for Chernovik. Human Rights Watch wants to make sure that Russian authorities do all they can to bring the criminals to justice. “It’s good that the official investigation recognizes that Kamalov could have been targeted because he did his job, but too many investigations into killings like these in the North Caucasus have led nowhere,” Lokshina said.

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The Sri Lankan government report by the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission does not take into account the worst abuses perpetrated by government forces and does not advance accountability for the people victimized by Sri Lanka’s civil armed conflict, said the Human Rights Watch.

The report is 388 pages long and was posted on the government’s website on December 16, 2011. The report, while long-awaited, was unsatisfactory and gave very little new information on accountability that could not have previously been enforced by the government. Its shortcomings bring to light a need for an international investigative power, which was suggested by the United Nations Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts last April.

Though the UN Panel of Experts recommended establishing an independent international power to perform investigations into the suspected violations, the Sri Lankan government report shows no realistic way to make the military and government officials that were implicated in serious abuses accountable for their actions. “Governments and UN bodies have held back for the past 18 months to allow the Sri Lankan commission to make progress on accountability,” stated Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The commission’s failure to provide a road map for investigating and prosecuting wartime perpetrators shows the dire need for an independent, international commission.”

The report’s findings mainly exonerated government forces for laws-of-war violations. This is in stark contrast to the findings of the UN Panel of Experts, who concluded that the Sri Lankan government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam both conducted military operations “with flagrant disregard for the protection, rights, welfare, and lives of civilians and failed to respect the norms of international law.”

Due to a large amount of evidence, the report did admit that there were “considerable civilian causalities” during the last stages of fighting and that hospitals had been shelled, resulting in damage and civilian deaths. “It is important that a government-appointed body has laid to rest the bizarre claims of the government that its forces caused no civilian casualties,” Adams said. “Yet, the commission shockingly fails to call for any criminal investigations into artillery shelling of crowded areas in which tens of thousands of civilians died.”

The report failed to inspect the use of heavy artillery against civilian areas as well, and sexual violence was not talked about in the report, which is probably because the commission lacks any form of witness protection. It also failed to mention the torture of detainees, the months-long detention of hundreds of thousands of people that were displaced by the fighting, or the refusal of due process rights for the detainees in the so-called rehabilitation centers.

“It is clear that justice for conflict-related abuses is not going to happen within Sri Lanka’s domestic institutions,” Adams alleged. “The government has been playing for time by appointing the LLRC. That time has now run out.”

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The international organization Human Rights Watch released a report on Thursday, December 15, concerning violations and abuses in Syria committed by security forces since the beginning of anti-government protests and demonstrations in March 2011.

The 94-pages report called “By All Means Necessary!” is the result of the investigations conducted independently by Human Rights Watch in Syria, and it is based on statements of hundreds of victims and witnesses. In particular, it focuses on the violence and killings that occurred between April and August 2011, in seven of Syria’s fourteen governorates: Damascus, Daraa, Homs, Idlib, Tartous, Deir al-Zor, and Hama.

Sixty-three defectors, both from the army and the intelligence agencies, were interviewed separately and accurately. They provided detailed information and reports on the violations, the abuses, and the orders they received from commanders of the Syrian army at any level for repressive actions, violence, and attacks on civilian protesters.

The orders were to stop the protests “by all means necessary”. The people who were interviewed had firsthand knowledge of the violations. Their statements provide accounts and evidence of the systematic abuse on civilians and of the responsibility of the government forces for these abuses.

Anna Neistat, an associate director for emergencies at Human Rights Watch who participated directly in the investigations for the report, said and wrote to CNN, “But responsibility for these crimes does not stop with the commanders on the ground.

Under international criminal law, al-Assad, as commander in chief of all forces in Syria, bears responsibility for the most serious crimes committed by his forces – even if he did not order them – to the extent that he knew, or should have known, about the abuses and failed to prevent them.”

A quote from the report reads, “Human Rights Watch’s findings show that military commanders and officials in the intelligence agencies gave both direct and standing orders to use lethal force against the protesters (at least 20 such cases are documented in detail in this report) as well as to unlawfully arrest, beat, and torture the detainees.

In addition, senior military commanders and high-ranking officials, including President Bashar al-Assad and the heads of the intelligence agencies, bear command responsibility for violations committed by their subordinates to the extent that they knew, or should have known, of the abuses, but failed to take action to stop them.

Given the widespread public and international criticism of the abuses, it would be incredible for al-Assad to argue that he did not know.” Hence, what comes out from this report is the commitment and the responsibility of the Syrian regime, and its president, in crimes against humanity during the crackdown of the anti-government protests.

The non-involvement and non-responsibility claims of President Bashar Al-Assad were demolished by the witnesses’ accounts and statements documented in the report of Human Rights Watch.

Moreover, the claims of Syrian authorities about the violations and the violence having been committed and organized by armed terrorist gangs that were “incited and sponsored from abroad” and by foreign countries, crumble in view of what has been reported and documented. During the nine-month crackdown, the number of victims is estimated around 5,000 people, of whom at least 300 were children.

Despite the sanctions imposed recently by the Arab League on Syria and the increasing isolation of the country, the violence and the abuses did not stop, and there seems to be no change in the regime’s police. Maybe the worst has yet to come.

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Britain is on the verge of obtaining approval for a set of reforms that would limit the ability of the European Court of Human Rights to overrule British judges in immigration cases.

Kenneth Clarke, the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, told the Daily Telegraph that the changes were intended to limit the use of the court to serious matters involving major points of law. “What we are trying to do is get the role of the court sorted out, so that it deals with serious human rights issues of the kind that require an international court,” he told the Telegraph.

“We want the court back to its proper business as an international court which takes up serious issues of principle when a member state or its courts or its parliament, are arguably in serious breach of the [European Human Rights] convention.”

Ryan Rodrick Beiler / Shutterstock.com

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Authorities often are depriving victims of needed lead testing, treatment, and prevention, as stated in a 75-page report researched by New-York based Human Rights Watch released on Wednesday, June 15, 2011. The report also stated that the government has failed to force polluting factories to close and clean up contamination despite its high-profile effort to crack down on heavy metals pollution.

Millions of Chinese children suffer from lead poisoning despite a crackdown on contamination, and local officials are systematically withholding the right to medical testing in order to cover up the problem. “Children with dangerously high levels of lead in their blood are being refused treatment, and returned home to contaminated houses in polluted villages,” said Joe Amon, health and human rights director at Human Rights Watch.

China has launched a campaign to crack down on lead poisoning, and to clean up contamination. The campaign closed down hundreds of lead-acid battery factories in eastern China’s Zhejiang province after several major pollution cases were brought to attention by state-run media. In the recently reported case, more than 600 people, including 103 children, were reported sickened from tinfoil processing workshops in the Zhejiang town of Yangxunqiao.

All the children and 26 adults suffered from severe lead poisoning. Human Rights Watch’s researchers conducted detailed interviews in heavily contaminated villages in four provinces—Hunan, Henan, Yunnan, and Shaanxi, and found authorities were systematically seeking to silence those who sought help or spoke out. Authorities had even refused testing or given distorted readings to relatives of sick children.

Lead poisoning can damage the nervous, muscular, and reproductive systems. Children are the most at risk because their bodies absorb up to half of what they are exposed, potentially disabling them for life. “Chinese experts are saying lead is one of the leading causes of pediatric health problems,” Amon said. Many parents interviewed for the Human Rights Watch report said that even when their children were confirmed to have dangerously high levels of lead in their blood, doctors just advised them to give their children milk or certain types of foods. Parents reported that local police threatened individuals seeking treatment and information, and those trying to protest against polluting factories have been arrested. Even journalists have been intimidated and threatened when trying to report on lead poisoning.

It seems that the Chinese government is falling back on how they have handled other recent health crises, including AIDS, the SARS outbreak in 2003 or the toxic milk scandal of 2008. The first instinct is to deny, conceal and block any further discussion of the problems.

Though this secrecy is not new, it does make it harder for anyone to bring this problem to light without risking their life. Once the problem is exposed, the Beijing government can act swiftly to reduce harm like in the other crises. However, at what stage is the China lead a crisis? How many more children must become sick from the poisoning, refused treatment, and sent home before Chinese government takes an action? Covering up this epidemic is not the solution; they must protect their children.

Image Courtesy of  Times Union

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The Beijing police department announced on Wednesday that Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei has been released on ‘bail’ after nearly 3 months in detention. He was released from detention after pleading guilty to charges of tax evasion and for intentionally destroying accounting documents.

As an outspoken critic of the Chinese governments human rights record, his arrest in April was seen by many as an attempt to silence him during the widespread crackdown on dissidents called ‘the big chill’ – where human rights advocates, artists and other activists were being arbitrarily arrested within the Chinese mainland.

According to the Chinese news agency Xinhua who first published Mr. Ai’s release, the grounds for his bail were “his good attitude in confessing his crime as well as a chronic disease he suffers from.” It was also taken into consideration that Mr Ai had “repeatedly said he is willing to pay the taxes he evaded,” according to the police.

The high-profile detention has been the focal point of heated debate and criticism from international observers who pointed to China’s faltering effort in living up to international standards of human rights. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York and British sculptor Anish Kapoor were among the prominent people who publicly protested the detention of Mr. Ai. “Without the wave of international support for Ai and the popular expressions of dismay and disgust about the circumstances of his disappearance and detention, it’s highly unlikely the Chinese government would have released him,” said Phelim Kine, an Asian researcher for Human Rights Watch, to the New York Times.

While the 54-year-old artist looked a little slimmer as he arrived back home, he ensured reporters that he was ok. “I am already home, released on bail, I can’t talk to media but I am well, thanks for all the media attention,” he said to the BBC over the phone.

The conditions of his release are complicated. According to his sister, his wife received a phone call on Wednesday night, asking her to come to the police station. Reportedly, the officers informed her then and there that Mr. Ai was free to go. The word ‘bail’ commonly refers to the short translation of the Chinese term ‘qubao houshen’ which entails “obtaining a guarantee pending trial. [...] prosecutors have decided to drop charges against a suspect on certain conditions, including good behavior, and to monitor him over a period of time during which charges could be reintroduced,” The New York Times explains. According to a scholar of the Chinese legal system, the method is sometimes used as a ‘face-saving’ technique to end controversial cases and allows negotiation of the suspects condition of freedom.

Jerome Cohen, adjunct senior fellow for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, told the CNN that Mr. Ai’s bail conditions has lost him his freedom of speech for at least a year. “He will not soon again be on Twitter, Facebook, television, take part in fora, etc. He’s got to keep quiet and behave according to the criteria of the Chinese police for the foreseeable future. He’s not the only one. This has happened many times before.”

Observers have noted that it’s no coincidence that the dissident artist was released on the eve of Premier Wen Jiabao’s upcoming European tour since Mr. Ai enjoys great support in the Western world. “Beijing has been under enormous pressure to free the artist,” says the BBC’s correspondent Damian Grammaticas. Both the US state department and EU representatives have welcomed the news but highlighted the critical circumstances of his arrest as well as those of dissidents and commentators who are still being held at unknown locations.

Image Courtesy of  http://100aiweiwei.org

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The new constitution recently passed by the Hungarian parliament is matter of concern about some of its articles, which seem to put at risk even fundamental human rights and smooth the way for different kinds of discrimination.

On April 25^th President Pal Schimtt signed the new constitutional text presented by the parliament. The new constitution was passed in parliament without the participation of opposition parties, voted only by Fidesz, the right-wing party that has the parliamentary majority and owns the two thirds of the seats, and thus can proceed independently.

The most criticized articles regard abortion, homosexuals’ rights, freedom of religion, freedom of information and expression, and division of powers.

Article 2 is one of the most controversial, it states “The life of a fetus will be protected from conception.” The concern of organizations as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International is that this will provide the basis to restrict the access to abortion or even to ban it completely. Pro-abortion groups are worried about the potential danger of a tougher and stricter abortion law and a restriction of women’s rights.

Another crucial point is about the ban on gay marriage, and the exclusion of sexual orientation from the protected grounds of discrimination. The new constitution recalls the idea of the Christian traditional family and traditional marriage, defined as a union of a man and a woman. Disappointment on this question has been expressed by Amnesty International, and homosexual right’s groups are very critical.

Also freedom of information and expression seem to be undermined. In fact, the rights of being informed about the public interest’s acts and to freely express the personal opinion have been restricted, together with the independence of media. This will be controlled by the National Media and Infocommunication Authority (NMHH), that has strong sanctioning powers and is under the majority party’s control.

Also the powers and the autonomy of authorities and of independent bodies as the Constitutional Court, the regular courts and the ombudsmen, would be rather weakened, scaling down the whole system of checks and balances.

There is another point which has a marked ideological nationalistic connotation. It regards the reference to a broadened Hungarian nation. This model of new Hungary would include also the Hungarians whom don’t reside on the national territory – for example the Hungarian minority groups that live in Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia – that are being considered as member of the nation with the right of participate in the elections. This could appear an actual definition of ethnic nation instead of political, which could even create frictions with the neighboring countries.

The new constitutional document strongly reflects only a one-sided vision of the nation. All the symbols and the elements recalled are ideologically and politically clear expression of the right-wing part. The lack of neutrality and of warranty of normal political balance, competition and change among the parts sounds somewhat anomalous for a modern democratic country.

In a country as Hungary marked by a long and hard history made of totalitarianism, whether black or red, this removal from democratic values rouses worry and the criticism even of the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe. Meanwhile, Europe looks with concerns at this situation as Hungary waits for 2012 when the new constitution will come into force.

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The internationally renowned Chinese artist and activist, Ai Weiwei, was detained by local police on April 3 as he was about to board a flight for Hong Kong. According to The Guardian, the assistant traveling with the artist was told that Ai Weiwei had “other business” and was unable to join. Since then, no one has been in contact with Mr Ai.

The 53-year-old celebrated artist has a long record of groundbreaking and provocative, politicized work but his disappearance this month seems to be part of a wider crackdown on the freedom of expression in China. Writers, artists, lawyers and activists have since mid-February been rounded up and silenced in an attempt to strangle the so-called Jasmine Revolution, inspired by the uprising in the Middle East and Africa. According to a report by Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD), the government of China has since February, “criminally detained a total of 26 individuals, disappeared more than 30, and put more than 200 under soft detention” after anonymous calls for public protests began to circulate online. The New Yorker refers to the crackdown as ‘The Big Chill’, characterising the difficult situation which the politically active in the Chinese mainland are confronted with – the official position of the government is that these measures are necessary to preserve ‘stability’ but as described by Evan Osnos of The New Yorker, the government of China “has sanctified “stability” to such a degree that any dissent is considered unlawful, which may prove to be the very undoing of real stability.” In effect, ‘The Big Chill’ is reminding dissidents and foreign observers about the continuous surveillance and threat from the government; the lawyer Gao Zhisheng has been missing for nearly a year while a court recently gave the democracy activist Liu Xianbin an unusually harsh sentence for “inciting subversion of state power” – the same charge brought against the Nobel Peace Price winner Liu Xiaobo.

Ai Weiwei may join these names – whether he surfaces in the near future or not. Because of his increased international fame after his involvement in the ‘Bird Nest’ stadium for the Olympics, his detention is seen as the beginning of one of the most high-profile cases in recent years. The artist has been a thorn in the side of the Chinese government but has led a surprisingly ‘spacious’ artistic life with only few interventions by the authorities. Some incidents have revealed the government’s supervision of the artist’s work – in August 2009, Ai was beaten by local police for planning to testify on behalf of the investigation into the bad constructions, suspected of having exaggerated the death toll of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. The artist had to undergo acute brain surgery four weeks after the assault, due to a subdural hematoma. Another significant event was the demolition of his studio in Shanghai. However, in spite of these incidents, followers and supporters of Ai Weiwei have said that the artist never delves on these incidents but finds continuous inspiration in their injustice.

Human rights campaigners are viewing his disappearance as a signal to other activists and dissidents to watch out. “Ai Weiwei has been a bit of an outlier and the harassment against him has been more and more intense in the past few months,” Nicholas Bequelin, Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch, told the Guardian. In addition, Mr Ai had been revealing his plans to open up a gallery in Berlin, Germany in response to the constraints he is facing in China, shortly before his detention.

It is believed that The Big Chill was initiated as a response to an online campaign for a Middle East-style protest called the ‘Jasmine Revolution’. Although the anonymous calls were made from overseas and generally showed little domestic support, the Chinese authorities began to detain and harass people within hours of the message’s appearance. Patrick Poon, the executive secretary of the China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group, told the Guardian that he believed the message was simply an excuse to initiate a crackdown on human rights defenders, who have been growing in numbers in the last decade.

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In an article for the Danish newspaper Jyllands-posten, freelance journalist Pola Rojan took a look at the state of press freedom in Turkey, the country at EU’s border which has tried to gain full membership of the Union since 1987. What he found was a country who had started to take the rights of journalists increasingly less serious in what seems to be a deliberate attempt from the government to stifle freedom of speech.

Mid-February, the newly appointed American ambassador to Turkey, Francis Ricciardone, expressed concern over the increased number of cases against journalists and his statement received immediate support from the Foreign Ministry in Washington. At the same time, several international investigations have pointed out the exact same development in the Turkish state. At the start of February, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) concluded in their yearly report that the situation for journalists in Turkey was a great cause of concern. The organization refers to the around 4.000 journalists who are currently on trail at the Turkish court, hundreds of them already serving prison sentences.

The Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, responded to Mr Ricciardone’s statement with anger, saying that the subject was none of the American’s business and called him an ‘amateur ambassador’. The Minister of the Interior, Beshir Atalay followed up by remarking that press freedom was probably better off in Turkey than in the US. This attitude is a sharp contrast to the current situation for many journalists on the ground – a situation which international observes believe can be attributed to the conservative Justice and Development party (AK Party) and their eight year period as the ruling party. Reporters Without Borders release a yearly report on the global conditions of freedom of press and in this period, Turkey took a dive in the organizations country index. From having been placed at number 99 for a stable period until 2002, Turkey had fallen to number 138 out of 178 countries in 2010. The EU commission assigned to oversee the Turkish reform process have been highly critical of this development, stating that the country’s legislation have failed to guarantee the freedom of press in accordance with the European Convention on Human Rights.

According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), the problem is mainly the anti-terror law from which many journalist are prosecuted for propaganda activities. The legislation judges the word as harsh as the sword – meaning that producing material considered to represent a terrorist organization is just as criminal as picking up a weapon and fighting for its cause. Spokeswoman for HRW in Turkey calls the law a political instrument and cites its unspecified language as a major reason for the law’s misuse.

Irfan Aktan, a 30-year-old journalist, is currently serving a 15 months prison sentence, convicted of terrorist propaganda after interviewing two armed militants from the Kurdish resistance movement PKK. He has appealed the conviction but has joined the cabinet of ‘unwanted’ journalist which include more controversial cases such as Verdat Kursun, chief editor of Azadiya Welat who was sentenced to 166 years in prison for “spreading propaganda for an illegal organization” – meaning the PKK. To Jyllands-posten, Mr Aktan explains “I have passed on other people’s opinion to a newspaper audience. It is the most fundamental journalistic discipline for which I am now being punished.”

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