Starting Points: dissidents

Showing posts with label dissidents. Show all posts

Dec 28, 2009

Vietnam Sentences Dissident to Prison

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By SETH MYDANS and MARK McDONALD

BANGKOK — The first in a series of trials of dissidents in Vietnam concluded Monday, when a court convicted a former army officer of subversion for pro-democracy activities and sentenced him to five-and-a-half years in prison.

The conviction of the former officer, Tran Anh Kim, 60, comes as the government is tightening controls on dissent in advance of a Communist Party congress in early 2011.

Mr. Kim is one of five activists who were arrested in June and at first, faced the less serious charge of spreading antigovernment propaganda. But this month, Mr. Kim and at least two others were charged with the capital crime of subversion. Prosecutors asked for a lighter sentence in view of the military background of Mr. Kim, a wounded veteran.

Sentences in political cases are generally determined in advance, and the trial, held in Thai Binh Province in northeastern Vietnam, took just four hours. The other four campaigners are scheduled to go to trial next month. The most prominent among them is Le Cong Dinh, 41, an American-educated lawyer who has defended human rights campaigners and has called for multiparty democracy.

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The others are Nguyen Tien Trung, who recently studied engineering in Paris; Tran Huynh Duy Thuc; and Le Thang Long. They are among dozens of dissidents and bloggers who have been arrested in recent months as the government attempts to set the boundaries of public speech before the party congress, which is held every five years, diplomats and political analysts said.

In court, the defiant Mr. Kim acknowledged his membership in the Democratic Party of Vietnam, an outlawed group of small affiliated parties and opposition factions. In June, Mr. Kim attempted to hang a sign at his house saying, “Office of the Democratic Party of Vietnam.”

He also said he had joined Bloc 8406, a group of petitioners calling for democratic elections and a multiparty state. The petition was released on April 8, 2006 — hence its name — but Mr. Kim was not one of the original 118 signatories.

A principal architect of Bloc 8406, Nguyen Van Ly, a Catholic priest, was convicted and sentenced along with four other dissidents in March 2007. He received an eight-year prison term for “overtly revolutionary activities” and “conspiring with reactionary forces,” according to the official Vietnam News Agency.

Journalists who watched the proceedings on closed-circuit television quoted Mr. Kim as saying he had been fighting for “democratic freedom and human rights through peaceful dialogue and nonviolent means.”

“I am a person of merit,” he was quoted as saying. “I did not commit crimes.”

Judge Tran Van Loan said Mr. Kim had participated in what he called an organized crime against the state, cooperating with “reactionary Vietnamese and hostile forces in exile.”

“This was a serious violation of national security,” the judge said.

The site of Mr. Kim’s trial, Thai Binh, was likely to resonate with government loyalists and dissidents alike. The coastal province is the birthplace of some of the country’s legendary military heroes and political leaders, including Politburo members, senior generals and Vietnam’s first cosmonaut, Pham Tuan.

But Thai Binh also has been home to some of the most ardent critics of the government, notably the writer Duong Thu Huong, whose banned novel, Paradise of the Blind, was a searing description of life in postwar Vietnam, and Thich Quang Do, a Buddhist monk who has been a critic of the Communist government for decades.

In 1997, farmers and workers in Thai Binh staged a violent rebellion against local party leaders over tax increases, land seizures and the misuse of public funds. The violence unnerved the central government, which dismissed a number of party bosses in Thai Binh but also instituted a harsh crackdown there on public gatherings and political dissent.

Seth Mydans reported from Bangkok, and Mark McDonald from Hong Kong.

Dec 25, 2009

Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo sentenced to 11 years on 'subversion' charges

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By Steven Mufson
Friday, December 25, 2009; A10

BEIJING -- China's leading dissident, Liu Xiaobo, was sentenced to 11 years in prison on Friday after a court found the 53-year-old literary scholar guilty of "inciting subversion to state power" through his writings and role in Charter 08, a petition advocating human rights, free speech and an end to one-party rule.

The sentencing sent a signal that the Chinese Communist Party will continue to stifle domestic political critics, especially those who seek to organize their fellow Chinese. And it provided evidence that political modernization might not go hand in hand with China's economic modernization, contrary to past predictions by Chinese dissidents, U.S. business executives, political theorists and proselytizers of the Internet age.

According to the Dui Hua Foundation, a San Francisco-based human rights group, Liu's sentence was longer than any other sentence handed down for "inciting subversion" since the charge was established in the 1997 reform of the criminal law.

"You can think democracy, you can talk democracy, but you can't do democracy," said Li Fan, director of the World and China Institute in Beijing.

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Rebecca MacKinnon, a fellow at the Open Society Institute and co-founder of GlobalVoicesOnline.org, said the case "certainly seems to reflect a high level of sensitivity and very low level of tolerance."

A decade ago, she said, "there was a great deal of optimism" about village elections, plans for separating party and state functions, and talk of other political reforms. Many analysts said a more open society would yield a more open political system.

But reform initiatives have stalled, and there was little evidence of openness in the handling of Liu's case this week.

His trial, which took place at the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court, lasted less than three hours Wednesday. The judge rejected evidence the defense sought to introduce and limited the speaking time of Liu's attorneys to 14 minutes, according to one of Liu's brothers. He said that 18 mostly young people were allowed to listen to the proceedings but that Liu's wife, Liu Xia, could not. She did attend the Friday sentencing, marking only the third time she had seen her husband since he was detained more than a year ago.

The judge also barred journalists and foreign diplomats from attending. In contrast to the 1990s, when visits by leading international envoys often brought the release of dissidents, China has ignored calls by the Obama administration and other Western governments for Liu's release.

After the sentencing, which foreign diplomats were also barred from attending, Gregory May, first secretary with the U.S. Embassy, told reporters outside the courthouse that the United States was concerned about Liu's case and would continue to push for his release.

Chinese diplomats have rejected such calls as interference in China's affairs.

Mo Shaoping, a prominent human rights lawyer, said that the success of the 2008 Olympics, the economic crisis in the West and the 60th anniversary of the communist takeover had made the Chinese government "more and more arrogant" toward international critics.

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Worse yet, Mo said, the judge had violated China's procedures.

"China has solved the past problem that there were no existing laws. Now we have more than 200 laws and over a thousand regulations. We have laws that cover every aspect of social affairs," said Mo, who could not represent Liu because he also had signed Charter 08. "But the government doesn't follow those laws, not even the laws they wrote themselves."

One of Liu's brothers, Liu Xiaoxuan, said the prosecutors focused on 350 words collected from half-dozen of the 490 articles Liu wrote over a five-year period. In those excerpts, Liu Xiaobo sharply criticized the Chinese government, calling it a dictatorship that sought to use patriotism to fool people into loving the government rather than the country, the brother said.

Liu Xiaoxuan, a professor of material engineering at Guangdong University of Technology, said his brother told the court that the country's "progress can't cover up the mistakes you've made and the flaws of your institutions."

Other signatories of Charter 08 also are facing government harassment. Zhang Zuhua, primary drafter of the manifesto, is under heavy police surveillance at his home. Others have lost prize research or teaching posts.

The Communist Party has always been wary of people seeking to organize outside of officially recognized groups, whether for political or other causes. Last week, security officials formally arrested Zhao Lianhai, who was already in detention for organizing families whose babies were affected by last year's tainted-milk scandal.

Many foreign diplomats see the Christmas Day sentencing of Liu Xiaobo as timed to minimize outside attention, with the world focused on celebrations. In 2006, the Chinese rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng was convicted of "subversion" three days before Christmas. In 2007, AIDS activist Hu Jia was arrested five days after Christmas.

The Charter 08 declaration was modeled on Czechoslovakia's Charter 77 drive, which eventually contributed to the end of communist rule there. Started with about 300 signatures, it has gathered thousands more online.

Among other things, Charter 08 says: "For China the path that leads out of our current predicament is to divest ourselves of the authoritarian notion of reliance on an 'enlightened overlord' or an 'honest official' and to turn instead toward a system of liberties, democracy and the rule of law."

On Friday, one of the signers of Charter 08 arrived outside the courthouse where Liu was sentenced to show support for Liu.

Yang Licai, 38, said he was disappointed by the sentence, and saw it as evidence that, despite the government's declarations of a "harmonious society," Chinese still lack basic freedoms. Surrounded by plainclothes police, Yang said he did not fear arrest for being outspoken.

"Right now I am not afraid," he said. "I am willing to shoulder my responsibility."

Researcher Zhang Jie contributed to this report.

Dec 23, 2009

Liu Xiaobo: China's top pro-democracy dissident goes on trial

The trial of leading Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo for 'state subversion' lasted just a few hours Wednesday as supporters and diplomats barred from attending thronged the courtroom in near-freezing cold. A verdict is expected Friday.

By Jonathan Landreth Correspondent
posted December 23, 2009 at 6:13 am EST

Beijing —

The subversion trial of Liu Xiaobo, China's most prominent dissident, opened and shut in Beijing on Wednesday in strict secrecy without an immediate outcome. The verdict is now expected to be postponed until Christmas Day.

The delay and the degree of secrecy – even Mr. Liu’s wife was barred from the courtroom – contrast sharply with the widespread international attention that the case against the Tiananmen-era pro-democracy activist has drawn.

It is "quite unusual" for a Chinese criminal trial to be left hanging this way, said Teng Biao, a prominent human rights lawyer and one of 60 people who stood outside the courtroom Wednesday in near-freezing temperatures before he and seven others were removed by plainclothes police. “Although I cannot predict the outcome, it is very likely that Liu Xiaobo will be guilty and imprisoned for at least five years under Chinese criminal law," he told The Monitor by telephone.

Liu's attorney Ding Xikui, speaking to The Monitor by telephone in defiance of a court order barring press interviews after he left the roughly three-hour morning trial, said the court would announce a verdict on Friday.

Held for a year without trial

Liu faces up to 15 years in prison, the maximum sentence for "incitement to subvert state power," a catchall charge often used by Chinese prosecutors to silence critics of the one-party government.

The essayist and literary critic was detained on Dec. 8, 2008, apparently for his role in drafting "Charter 08," a call for greater democracy in China. The charter, initially signed by 300 people, was published on the Internet two days later to mark the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It has since attracted more than 10,000 signatures, mostly from mainland Chinese.

Meanwhile, Liu was held in a secret location for six months, then formally arrested and transferred to Beijing's Detention Center No.1.

During Wednesday's trial, about 30 supporters hung up and handed out yellow ribbons of support outside the court. Another 30 onlookers, including about a dozen Western diplomats and 50 police, stood by watching, according to eyewitness accounts.

The defendant's brother-in-law, Liu Hui, who was allowed into the courtroom, told The Associated Press that prosecutors had charged Liu Xiaobo with crimes they called "serious."

"Absolutely not," says Teng of the charges against Liu. "His actions, including the organization of Charter 08 and his publishing essays and articles, all deserve constitutional protection, but the Chinese government is used to putting the outspoken away."

US Embassy political officer Gregory May, barred from the courtroom, told reporters sequestered outside that Washington called on Beijing to release Liu "immediately" and "to respect the rights of all Chinese citizens to peacefully express their political views."

Signs of support proliferate

Liu, a former university professor and an outspoken critic of the government, previously spent two years in prison for his role during the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 and three years in a "reeducation through labor" camp for challenging one-party rule in Web postings.

The decision by Chinese authorities to bring Liu to trial defied international condemnation and drew protests from leading authors, including Salman Rushdie, Umberto Eco, and Wole Soyinka.

Though Liu's supporters outside the courthouse had their yellow ribbons taken away by police, followers of the trial using the social networking site Twitter added yellow ribbons to their online profile pictures.

"There are more and more and Chinese people participating in the defense of human rights, but since there's no judicial independence, if the Chinese government wants to continue its persecution, it can,” says Teng. “There is little we can do but continue our work.”

– Wang Ping contributed reporting.

Dec 20, 2009

Iran's dissident Grand Ayatollah Montazeri dies

One of Iran's most prominent dissident clerics, Grand Ayatollah Hoseyn Ali Montazeri, has died aged 87.

Hoseyn Ali Montazeri was a moving spirit in the 1979 revolution which created Iran's Islamic state, and was at one stage set to become its leader.

One of Shia Islam's most respected figures, he was also a leading critic of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The BBC's Jon Leyne says the death comes at a crucial time in a standoff between the government and opposition.

Iran's rulers will now fear the opposition may attempt a big turnout for his funeral on Monday and other ceremonies marking his death, especially in the run-up to the Shia Muslim festival of Ashura on 27 December, our correspondent says.

Mourners gather

Large crowds have gathered outside Montazeri's home in the holy city of Qom, following his death on Saturday evening.

He will be laid to rest at the shrine of Hazrate Masoumeh, one of the most revered female saints in Shia Islam, his office told AFP news agency.

Thousands of people from Isfahan, Najafabad, Shiraz and other cities are on their way to Qom to attend Monday's ceremony, according to one report.

The cleric's son told the BBC that his father had died of natural causes.

He was quoted by Ilna news agency as offering "condolences to... all people who seek freedom and justice, to those who fight in the path of God all over the world," reports AFP.

Illness

Montazeri's doctor told state television the cleric was a diabetic who also had lung problems and asthma.

"In fact he was suffering from several diseases," he said.

DEFIANT CLERIC

Born into provincial family in 1922 and educated at a seminary

Arrested and tortured for leading protests against Iran monarchy

Designated successor to Islamic Republic's founder, Khomeini

Fell out with Khomeini in 1989 over Iran's human rights record

House arrest in 1997 for criticising current Supreme Leader

Issues a fatwa against President Ahmadinejad after 2009's election

A thorn in the establishment's side, Montazeri issued a fatwa condemning President Ahmadinejad's government after June's disputed election.

But that was not his first clash with authority - he repeatedly accused the country's rulers of imposing dictatorship in the name of Islam and said the liberation that was supposed to have followed the 1979 revolution never happened.

During his lifetime, the cleric was transformed from a pillar of the Islamic revolution to one of the most vocal critics of its leadership.

He had been designated to succeed the Islamic Republic's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, but the pair fell out over Iran's human rights record a few months before Khomeini died of cancer in 1989.

In 1997 he famously clashed with Khomeini's successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whom he outranked in the religious hierarchy, after questioning the powers of the Supreme Leader.

This led to the closure of Montazeri's religious school and an attack on his office in Qom. He was placed under house arrest for six years.

After his detention, state-run media began referring to him as a "simple-minded" cleric, references to him in schoolbooks were erased and streets named after him were renamed, but he remained defiant.

Born into a provincial family and educated at a seminary, Hoseyn Ali Montazeri came to prominence as one of the early backers of Khomeini.

Tortured

Prior to the overthrow of the Iranian monarchy, he organised public protests in support of Khomeini, following the latter's arrest.

As a result he was repeatedly detained himself and tortured in jail.

While Khomeini was in exile in Iraq, Montazeri was nominated as his representative in Iran, and after the revolution, he was designated as successor.

But he was marginalised after questioning decisions taken by the Supreme Leader and calling for a transparent assessment of the revolution's failures.

In his opposition to President Ahmadinejad, he became an unlikely inspiration for Iranian reformists.

Despite his old age and failing health, Hoseyn Ali Montazeri backed the opposition's claims that the 2009 election result, which gave President Ahmadinejad a landslide victory, had been widely rigged.

The cleric had often said his opinions were guided by his "sense of religious duty".

Aug 14, 2009

Virginia Laos, Hmong Appeal to Senator Webb To Release Lao Students, End Hmong Abuses

2009-08-14 06:57:51 - An urgent action appeal letter and statement to U.S. Senator Jim Webb by many of the Laotian and Hmong organizations in Virginia, was sent just prior to his departure to Laos, Thailand, Burma and Southeast Asia on behalf of the Center for Public Policy Analysis and many in the Virginia Laotian and Hmong-American community.

Vientiane, Laos, Arlington, Virginia and Washington, D.C., August 14, 2009

The following are excerpts of an urgent action appeal letter and statement to U.S. Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) issued jointly by the Center for Public Policy Analysis ( CPPA ) and a coalition of Virginia and national Laotian and Hmong organizations to request his assistance in ending the current human rights, refugee and humanitarian catastrophe in Laos and Thailand facing the Laotian and Hmong people.

“An urgent action appeal letter and statement to U.S. Senator Jim Webb by many of the Laotian and Hmong organizations in Virginia, was sent just prior to his departure to Laos, Thailand, Burma and Southeast Asia on behalf of the CPPA and many in the Virginia Laotian and Hmong-American community,” said Philip Smith, Executive Director of the CPPA in Washington, D.C.

“The letter appeals to Senator Webb, while visiting Laos and Thailand, to raise key issue regarding the plight of jailed Lao Student Leaders (of the peaceful October 1999 Students Movement for Democracy protests in Vientiane, Laos) and the terrible forced repatriation of thousands of Lao Hmong refugees from refugee camps in Thailand back to the Stalinist regime in Laos that they fled,” Smith said. www.pr-inside.com/secretary-of-state-clinton-end-laos-r1427935.h ..

“The appeal letter and statement request that U.S. Senator Jim Webb raise key issues in Laos to seek to end the horrific religious persecution of Christians, Animists, independent Buddhists and other religious believers and political dissidents who continue to be persecuted and killed; It also asks the Senator Webb’s help in stopping the ongoing brutal military attacks and bloody atrocities against unarmed civilians in Laos, including the Hmong people,” Smith concluded.

During Senator Webb’s trip to Laos and Southeast Asia, eight Hmong children where captured by LPA forces in Laos during a recent attack on civilians that left 26 dead. www.pr-inside.com/laos-8-lao-hmong-children-captured-r1434824.ht ..

In recent days, elements of the Thai Third Army and Ministry of Interior (MOI) used tear gas, electric cattle prods and tazer-like guns to forced back 24 Hmong political refugees from Thailand to Laos following the visit of a Lao communist official to the camp at Ban Huay Nam Khao.

Foreign prisoners and dissidents continue to be jailed in Laos as well as three Hmong Americans from St. Paul, Minnesota.
www.live-pr.com/en/laos-lpdr-gulag-foreign-prisoners-dissidents- ..
www.live-pr.com/en/secret-prisons-in-laos-hold-hakit-r1048311013 ..

Former U.S. Ambassador H. Eugene Douglas, B. Jenkins Middleton, Esq., Distinguished U.S. Foreign Service Officer Edmund McWilliams, U.S. Department of State, Ret., and others have again recently issued appeals and statements regarding the dire plight of the Lao Hmong in Thailand and Laos facing persecution and forced repatriation.
www.pr-inside.com/honorable-h-eugene-douglas-urges-help-r1430464 ..
www.pr-inside.com/secretary-of-state-clinton-end-laos-r1427935.h ..

The following are excerpts of the appeal letter and statement sent to U.S. Senator Jim Webb prior to his departure to Laos, Thailand, Burma and Southeast Asia, by Mr. Philip Smith, Executive Director of the CPPA and a coalition of Laotian and Hmong community organizations in Virginia, and nationally.

”On behalf of the United League for Democracy in Laos, Inc. (ULDL), the Lao Veterans of America, Inc. (LVA), the Lao Veterans of America Institute (LVAI), the Lao Veterans organization and association (LVOA), Hmong Advance, Inc.(HA), Hmong Advancement, Inc., the Lao Students Movement for Democracy (LSMD); the Lao Students Association; the Lao Hmong Human Rights Council (LHHRC), the Center for Public Policy Analysis (CPPA), and a coalition of Laotian and Hmong non-profit organizations in Virginia, and nationally in Washington, D.C., we would like to request that you, Senator Webb:

I. While on your trip to Thailand, urge the Royal Thai Government, and officials you meet with in Thailand, to:

1.) Allow international access to some 5,500 Lao Hmong political refugees being imprisoned in Ban Huay Nam Khao Camp (Petchabun Province) and Nong Khai Detention Center, Thailand and urge the Thai military and Royal Thai Government to cease repatriating them back to the communist regime in Laos they fled;

2.) Urge the Royal Thai government and Thai military to allow the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to have unfettered access to the Lao Hmong refugees and asylum seekers at Ban Huay Nam Khao and Nong Khai Detention Center for the purpose of screening the refugees so that they can be resettled in third countries such as France, Australia, New Zealand and other countries that have agreed to take the refugees;

II. When you travel to Laos, we request that you urge the communist Lao Peoples Democratic Republic (LPDR) regime, and officials that you meet with, to:

1.) Work to immediately seek the release, by the LPDR military junta, of the Lao Student Movement for Democracy pro-democracy dissidents (of the October 1999 Movement for Democracy) who the Lao Communist regime continues to imprison in Laos (as reported by Amnesty International and other independent human rights organizations);

2.) Urge the LPDR regime to provide unfettered access to the Hmong political refugees, and refugee camp leaders, forcibly repatriated from Thailand in June/July 2008 from Huay Nam Khao refugee camp in Petchabun Province, Thailand; many of the Lao Hmong camp leaders forcibly repatriated have disappeared or are imprisoned --or have disappeared in Laos;

3.) Work to immediately urge the LPDR regime to release three (3) Hmong-American citizens from St. Paul, Minnesota, including Mr. Hakit Yang, who were arrested and imprisoned in Laos in August, 2007, while engage in tourism and a business investment trip to Laos; they have since been moved from Vientiane, Laos, to a secret prison in Sam Neua Province;

4.) Urge the LPDR regime and Lao Peoples Army (LPA) to stop its horrific and bloody military attacks largely directed at unarmed Laotian and Hmong civilians, and political and religious dissidents, in hiding at Phou Da Phao mountain and Phou Bia Mountain areas as well as elsewhere in Luang Prabang Province, Vientiane Province, Khammoune Province, Xieng Khouang Province, Savanakhet Province and elsewhere in Laos; Urge the LPDR regime LPA to cease its campaign of starvation against Laotian and Hmong civilians and stop using food as a weapon of war like its ally in North Korea; Amnesty International and other human rights organizations and independent journalists, including reports by the New York Times, have documented this humanitarian and refugee crisis in Laos under the brutal LPDR regime that should warrant the attention of you, Senator Webb. and your colleagues in the U.S. Congress.

5.) Urge the Lao LPDR regime to respect religious freedom and cease its campaign of religious persecution, imprisonment and killing of Lao and Hmong Christians; Urge the LPDR regime in Laos to cease its confiscation of the property of Laotian and Hmong Christians, Animist and Buddhist believers who wish to practice their faith independently from the LPDR regime's close monitoring and oversight.

Again, the Lao and Hmong community in Virginia and nationally, including many of the Laotian and Hmong veterans and their families who served with U.S. clandestine and military forces during the Vietnam war, would appreciate your leadership and your assistance in raising these issues at the highest levels with officials in Thailand and Laos that you meets with on your trip, including Royal Thai and LPDR officials in Thailand and Laos.”

(--End excerpts of the August 2009, appeal letter and statement sent to U.S. Senator Jim Webb prior to his departure to Laos, Thailand, Burma and Southeast Asia, by Mr. Philip Smith, Executive Director of the CPPA and a coalition of Laotian and Hmong community organizations in Virginia, and nationally --)

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