NLD transfers 2.55m Kyats for political prisonsers

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Wednesday, 07 July 2010 00:45 Myint Maung

New Delhi (Mizzima) – The National League for Democracy party headquarters has transferred about 2.55 million Kyats to its state and division branches yesterday for distribution to families of 605 political prisoners.

The funds donated by ordinary citizens were being distributed under the party’s social aid programme for poor family members of some political prisoners, among the more than 2,100 serving sentences across the country, party vice-chairman and leader of the programme, Tin Oo, said.

“There are more than 200 such families across the Burmese states and divisions and the rest are families in Rangoon Division,” he said. “The money will be distributed to appropriate prisoners [via their families] from their townships of origin.”

Recipients would also comprise human rights activists, those who took part in protests over fuel-price increases in 2007, political activists, students and young people, without them necessarily being affiliated with the NLD, Tin Oo said.

NLD central executive committee member Win Tin added that, “Previously headquarters managed this work but it has now been delegated to party branches in the states and divisions … We give this money not only to our party members but to other prisoners as well.”

“In the new programme, the fund-raising and distribution of money will be carried out by each branch office,” he said.

Since 1996, the party has assisted family members of political prisoners at the rate of 5,000 Kyats per month per prisoner, to enable them to visit their loved ones in jail. The party had spent more than 3 million Kyats each month, it said.

The scheme was suspended temporarily on May 6, the deadline for the party to re-register or be annulled under the junta’s electoral laws, but it has now resumed. Apart from the financial assistance for prison visits between political prisoners and their families, the NLD has since 1996 also given annual donations to students from these families towards education.

A family and a conscience, destroyed by North Korea's cruelty

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By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, February 22, 2010; A07

SEOUL -- "I am fool."

That self-assessment comes from Oh Kil-nam, a South Korean economist who moved to North Korea a quarter-century ago, dragging along his unhappy wife and two teenage daughters. He then defected to the West, leaving his family stranded in a country his wife had called "a living hell."

Oh lives alone now in a fusty, computer-filled apartment here in the capital of South Korea. At 68, he is retired as a researcher for a government-funded think tank. He says he drinks too much rice wine and dwells too much on what might have been.

His wife and daughters -- if alive -- are believed to be prisoners in Camp No. 15, one of several sprawling political prisons in the mountains of North Korea.

Nineteen years ago, North Korean authorities, via unofficial intermediaries based in Germany, sent Oh letters that were written in his wife's hand, saying she and the girls were in the camp. There were pictures of them posing in the snow -- and a cassette tape with voices of his daughters begging to see their daddy.

High-resolution satellite images of Camp 15 and several other political prisons have been widely circulated in the past year on Google Earth, arousing increased concern about human rights abuses inside the North Korean gulag, which has existed for more than half a century -- twice as long the Soviet gulag. But documentary evidence of life inside the North's camps remains exceedingly rare.

Oh is the only person known to have received this kind of evidence about inmates, according to Lee Jee-hae, legal advisor to Democracy Network Against the North Korean Gulag, a human rights group based in Seoul.

North Korea officially denies the existence of the camps and has never allowed outsiders to visit them. But about 154,000 people are being held in six large camps, according to the latest estimate by the South Korean government.

Defectors who have been released from Camp 15 say public executions are common there, along with beatings, rapes, starvation and the disappearance of female prisoners impregnated by guards. They say that prisoners have no access to soap, underwear, socks, tampons or toilet paper -- and that most inmates die by age 50, usually of illnesses exacerbated by overwork and chronic hunger.

The self-acknowledged foolishness of Oh began in Germany in 1985.

He was married with two young daughters and studying for a doctoral degree in economics at the University of Tuebingen. He was also an outspoken and left-leaning opponent of the authoritarian government then running South Korea.

His activism attracted the attention of North Korean agents, who approached Oh and offered help with a family medical problem. His wife, Shin Sook-ja, a South Korean nurse, was sick with hepatitis. The North Koreans convinced Oh that she would get free first-class treatment in Pyongyang and he would get a good government job.

"My wife did not want to go," Oh said. "I ignored her objections."

Via East Germany and Moscow, the family arrived in Pyongyang on Dec. 3, 1985, Oh said, and was immediately taken to nearby mountains for indoctrination at a military camp.

"The moment we stepped into that camp, I knew my wife was right and that I had made the wrong decision," Oh said.

His wife received no treatment for hepatitis. Instead, she and her husband spent several months studying the teachings of Kim Il Sung, the "Great Leader" and founding dictator of North Korea. He died in 1994 and was replaced by his son, Kim Jong Il, who continues to run what is often called the most repressive state on earth.

Oh and his wife were given jobs working in a radio station broadcasting propaganda to South Korea. Soon, though, authorities ordered Oh to return to Germany and recruit more South Korean students to live in North Korea. His wife and daughters, he was told, could not go along. Oh recalls that he and his wife argued bitterly about what he should do.

"She hit me in the face when I said I would come back with some South Koreans," Oh said. "She said I could not have that on my conscience. She told me to leave North Korea and never come back. She told me to think of her and our daughters as being dead from a car accident."

En route to Germany, Oh turned himself over to authorities in Copenhagen and was granted political asylum. He was debriefed for several weeks in Munich, he said, by U.S. agents from the CIA.

Shortly after Oh defected, his wife and daughters were detained in Pyongyang and taken to Camp 15, a former North Korean prisoner told Amnesty International. Two years later, according to another former prisoner, the three were moved from a "rehabilitation" section of the camp, where prisoners are sometimes released, to a "complete control district," where they work until they die.

There has been no further information about Oh's wife and daughters since then.

In the early 1990s, Oh wrote a book, "Please Return My Wife and Daughters, Kim Il Sung." It did not occasion a response from North Korea. Oh said he sometimes believes his family is still alive, and sometimes he is convinced that they are dead. Either way, he blames himself.

Special correspondent June Lee in Seoul contributed to this report.

Burma's Political Prisoners

The FCO is running a campaign, in association with the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), Human Rights Watch and Burma Campaign UK to highlight the plight of Burma's over 2100 prisoners of conscience.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Between now and the elections the junta plan for next year, the campaign will highlight the story of one Burmese political prisoner a week, aiming to give these student and civil society leaders, lawyers, union activists, ethnic and religious figures a public personality in their own right, to make these very brave people more than a number. We start be highlighting five of the most high profile of these prisoners.

It's a sobering thought that there are so many prisoners of conscience in Burma that it would take over forty years to profile them all. And numbers do not remain static. The regime continue to imprison anyone who might speak against them, however mildly, and very few genuine political prisoners are released - the long sentences of 65 - 100 years ensure this.

Click here for the full list or subscribe via RSS

U Gambira - Saffron Revolution leader

One of the most emblematic young monks. Played a leadership role in the Saffron Revolution in 2007 when monks overturned their rice bowls to excommunicate the regime.

Sentenced to 63 years in prison, 10 years hard labour. In a remote prison, in poor health and denied family visits. He says: “it matters little if my life or lives of my colleagues should be sacrificed on this journey. Others will fill our sandals”

Su Su Nway - champion of the workforce

An NLD member and a dedicated Labour Activist. Recognised by international human rights awards from Canada and the Czech Republic for her work in bringing forced labour to the attention of the ILO. Aged 38.

Imprisoned for 8 years and six months in a jail 700 miles from her home in Rangoon. Recently placed in solitary confinement for three days for singing an independence anthem.

In frail health, her heart problem has seriously worsened in prison. In 2007 she said. “We held demonstrations for all the people, including those who beat us. [They] are also facing difficult daily lives.”

Thin Thin Aye aka Mie Mie

Leader of the 88 Generation Students Group. Worked for the NLD election campaigning in 1990.

Took part in the Saffron Revolution in 2007. Sentenced to 65 years with hard labour, the court refused her family permission to attend and subsequently handed down prison sentences to her lawyers for representing her.

On sentencing Mie Mie declared “We will never be frightened!” She has a degree in Zoology and is married with two children aged 17 and 12.

Her health is deteriorating in prison in Irrawaddy, a long way from her family in Rangoon.

Zarganar - sentenced to 35 years

Comedian, film actor and director from an intellectual and political family.

Zarganar is a nickname meaning “Tweezers.” A qualified dentist, he was involved in the 8888 uprising and Saffron Revolution in 2007.

Aged 48 and in deteriorating health, he was sentenced to 35 years for his involvement in cyclone relief efforts. He is incarcerated in tiny cell in a prison many miles from his family who have been denied visiting rights - even after making the trip.

He has spoken of previous prison terms - of being kept with dogs,of seeing monks with gunshot wounds and broken bones and of young lives destroyed.

Min Ko Naing - 'nobody can hide from justice'

Talented artist, poet and satirist.

Co-founder and spokesperson of the 88 Generation of Students Group. Sentenced with other 88 Generation Group members to over 65 years in prison. He is 46 and in failing health. He has been held in solitary confinement and is suspected to have been tortured.

At his trial he declared: “You can sentence us to a thousand years in prison for our political activities, but we will continue to defend ourselves in accordance with the law. Nobody can hide from justice.”

Jot ASEAN:- Burma: How many political prisoners released? Remain in prison?

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners in Burma "today confirmed that 127 political prisoners have been released from prisons in Burma." They include:

• 43 members of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy
• 22 women
• 4 monks
• 4 journalists
• U Peter and Daw Nu Nu Swe - arrested and sentenced to six years imprisonment after they refused to open the door to security forces who were searching for their son, Sithu Maung (who is still in prison).

The AAPP press release continues:

According to AAPP, more than 2,000 political prisoners remain in jail, including at least 124 activists who are in poor health. Since November 2004 there have been a total of six amnesties for prisoners. According to the ruling State Peace and Development Council’s own figures, 45,732prisoners were released under those amnesties. According to AAPP, only 1.3% of them were political prisoners.

The latest amnesty was expected. In mid-July the Burmese permanent representative to the U.N., U Than Swe, said the regime was ‘processing to grant amnesty to prisoners on humanitarian grounds’.

The AAPP provides a breakdown of the political prisoners of the regime who continue to languish in the country's brutal jails where prisoners have reported torture and inhuman conditions. For a description of these conditions, see the interview I conducted at the Thai-Burma border with former political prisoner Zaw Nyein Latt (right). There is no evidence that the terrible conditions have improved. It is incumbent that ASEAN and the international community hold Burma's leadership personally to account for the well-being of its prisoners.

Summary of Current Situation

There are a total of 2,211 political prisoners in Burma.
These include:

CATEGORY	NUMBER
Monks	237
Members of Parliament	16
Students	286
Women	191
NLD members	479
Members of the Human Rights Defenders and Promoters network	43
Ethnic nationalities	197
Cyclone Nargis volunteers	21
Teachers	26
Media Activists	51
Lawyers	12
In Poor Health	137

Since the protests in August 2007 leading to last September’s Saffron Revolution, a total of 1,122 activists have been arrested and are still in detention.

Update: A new report prompts us to ask why a Burmese-born American citizen is being held against his will in Burma.

Legal, Diplomatic Issues Stall Guantanamo Detainees' Confinement Challenges

By Del Quentin Wilber
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 31, 2009

In the 13 months since the Supreme Court issued its landmark decision granting detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the right to challenge their confinements before federal judges, most prisoners still have not had their day in court.

In addition, prisoners who have successfully contested their detentions are having difficulty getting released. Nineteen of 28 detainees ordered freed remain at Guantanamo Bay, ensnared in a diplomatic and legal limbo that has frustrated federal judges, the government and attorneys for detainees.

In the days after the Supreme Court's June 12, 2008, decision, federal judges said they would push the government to swiftly resolve civil lawsuits brought in the District's federal court by about 200 detainees under habeas corpus, a centuries-old legal doctrine that allows prisoners to challenge their confinements before independent arbiters.

But the cases quickly bogged down in appeals court rulings and lengthy fights over legal theories and evidence. In some cases, after years of court battles, the government abandoned allegations on the eve of hearings. That was the case involving a young Afghan detainee who was ordered released Thursday.

In many respects, judges and attorneys for the government and detainees have spent much of their time in the past year tussling over some of the same vexing issues that have stymied two presidents and Congress and recently forced a Justice Department task force to announce that it needed six more months to complete its work.

"These cases are difficult," U.S. District Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth said in an interview about the issue last week. "We are having to develop answers to complicated legal questions. These are novel cases in our country's history."

Judges, lawyers, government officials and outside experts said there are myriad reasons for the sluggish progress, despite the declaration in Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's opinion that "the costs of delay can no longer be borne by those who are held in custody."

Although the opinion was sweeping, the high court gave little guidance in how to handle the lawsuits, forcing judges to create rules and procedures on the fly.

The government's evidence is heavily classified, resulting in cumbersome handling procedures. Judges, for example, cannot take most government documents home to review at night. Instead, most of the judges visit the courthouse on weekends to review Guantanamo Bay files. The work is so time-consuming that the judiciary has assigned federal judges from outside the District to help handle routine civil matters.

Battles over legal issues and evidence have also gobbled up time. Attorneys for detainees have aggressively sought access to medical records and documents that might undermine government allegations. Meanwhile, the government has fought the detainees' requests and has continued to defend cases that judges say are surprisingly weak.

David J. Cynamon, a lawyer representing four detainees, accused the Justice Department of enacting a "scorched-earth defense policy in fighting every issue, big and little, that comes up in the cases."

Justice Department officials counter that they are trying to protect national security and classified information. They also rejected criticism from judges and detainee attorneys about the strength of their cases, saying most of their evidence was collected on chaotic battlefields for intelligence purposes, not for a courtroom.

Judges have generally given the Justice Department wide latitude in what information it can present to justify a detention. They set the bar of proof at "preponderance of the evidence," a standard in which the government wins if the evidence slightly tilts to its side. Since November, the government has won orders -- all by U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon -- allowing it to detain five Guantanamo Bay prisoners.

Even so, records and judicial opinions have revealed that many cases are flimsy or even illogical.

Last month, after months of litigation, Leon eviscerated the government's case against a Syrian detainee, saying it was weak and defied "common sense."

Leon even used exclamation points in his opinion to highlight the case's absurdity. Another federal judge, Gladys Kessler, wrote that the government "produced virtually no credible evidence" to justify a Yemeni's confinement.

A third judge has criticized government attorneys for bringing a case against an Afghan because it is "riddled with holes."

"This case is an outrage to me," U.S. District Judge Ellen S. Huvelle said two weeks ago during a hearing on the detention of Mohammed Jawad, who might have been as young as 12 when captured. The Afghan is accused of injuring two U.S. soldiers and an Afghan interpreter in a December 2002 grenade attack.

Under pressure from the judge, the government announced last week that it was no longer contesting Jawad's challenge but was mulling over potential criminal charges instead. Huvelle on Thursday ordered Jawad's release. The government has until at least until Aug. 21 to send him home or charge him.

At Thursday's hearing, the judge criticized the government for its repeated delays in the habeas case. She stopped short of telling the government how to transfer Jawad, saying she didn't have the authority to tread into such territory.

Even when ordered freed, many detainees have remained prisoners. Under a recent appeals court ruling, federal judges have been given little power to enforce the ultimate remedy in habeas challenges: release of prisoners. An appeals court ruled in February that judges cannot order the release of detainees into the United States, and federal judges do not have the power to order other countries to accept detainees.

In another ruling, an appeals court held that judges cannot even compel the government to provide 30 days' notice about an impending transfer.

The decisions have led some judges to delay habeas challenges because the effort seems futile, especially if the government has already designated a detainee for transfer. One judge griped to a colleague that they have the power only to issue "advisory opinions."

Last month, for example, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton delayed proceeding on a detainee's challenge because he did not "see any meaningful purpose in forging ahead."

The case involved Umar Abdulayev, 30, whom the government has approved for release, probably to his home country of Tajikistan. One of Abdulayev's attorneys, Matthew O'Hara, says the detainee does not want to be sent home because he is afraid he might be tortured. He asked Walton to block any such transfer and urged the judge to hold a habeas hearing on the government's evidence. O'Hara said he believes that a ruling in favor of his client might encourage another country to accept him.

Walton denied the request, saying in court that he did not have the power to block a transfer and that a habeas hearing would be pointless in light of the appellate decisions.

The complexities of cases were on display Thursday in a brief hearing before Leon, a judge who has methodically marched through most of his habeas challenges.

In November, Leon ordered the government to engage in diplomatic negotiations to release five Algerians who were picked up in Bosnia in 2001. Since the ruling, the government has transferred three men to Bosnia and one to France. The fifth, Saber Lahmar, 40, remains a prisoner because the government has been unable to find him a home.

Bosnia has apparently refused to accept him. Lahmar is in the same spot as more than a dozen Uighurs, Chinese Muslims who were ordered released but cannot go home because they fear they might be tortured. Four Uighurs were transferred recently to Bermuda, but 13 remain at Guantanamo Bay.

A Justice Department lawyer told Leon on Thursday that the State Department was working hard to find Lahmar a place to live.

The judge said he might eventually order a State Department official to testify to get another progress check. Otherwise there was little else for him to do.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/30/AR2009073004116.html

Reports of Prison Abuse and Deaths Anger Iranians

By ROBERT F. WORTH

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Some prisoners say they watched fellow detainees being beaten to death by guards in overcrowded, stinking holding pens. Others say they had their fingernails ripped off or were forced to lick filthy toilet bowls.

The accounts of prison abuse in Iran’s postelection crackdown — relayed by relatives and on opposition Web sites — have set off growing outrage among Iranians, including some prominent conservatives. More bruised corpses have been returned to families in recent days, and some hospital officials have told human rights workers that they have seen evidence that well over 100 protesters have died since the vote.

On Tuesday, the government released 140 prisoners in one of several conciliatory gestures aimed at deflecting further criticism. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad issued a letter urging the head of the judiciary to show “Islamic mercy” to the detainees, and on Monday Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, personally intervened and closed an especially notorious detention center.

But there are signs that widespread public anger persists, and that it is not confined to those who took to the streets crying fraud after Mr. Ahmadinejad’s landslide victory last month. Several conservatives have said the abuse suggests a troubling lack of accountability, and they have hinted at a link with Mr. Ahmadinejad’s recent willingness to defy even the venerated Ayatollah Khamenei.

“Why did things have to go so far as to require the personal intervention of the supreme leader?” said Ali Mottahari, a conservative Parliament member. “If we are satisfied just to close one detention center, these people will continue to do what they have done elsewhere and nothing will change.”

Although the government has played down the scale of the prison abuses, some detainees’ relatives have come forward recently to confirm them, mostly to opposition-linked Web sites that have provided credible information in the past, including roozonline.com and gooya.com.

Some deaths have been further documented with photographs or videotapes. Hospital officials have described receiving bodies of those killed in protests, with the total far in excess of 20, the government’s initial figure. It is difficult to confirm such reports independently, given the restrictions on reporting in Iran.

The anger has spread from opposition supporters into Iran’s hard-line camp in part because of the case of Mohsen Ruholamini, the son of an adviser to the conservative presidential candidate Mohsen Rezai, who died in prison after a severe beating. A bitter political dispute among conservatives over Mr. Ahmadinejad’s cabinet decisions may also have helped fuel the issue.

The prison abuses have also galvanized the opposition movement, whose leaders asked for permission to hold a mass mourning ceremony on Thursday in honor of those killed since the election. The Interior Ministry on Tuesday refused permission for the gathering, but the main opposition leaders, Mir Hussein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi, said they would hold a public ceremony anyway, several Web sites reported.

Thursday is a day of unusual symbolic importance because it will be 40 days since the shooting of Neda Agha-Soltan, a young woman whose death during a demonstration was captured on video and ignited outrage across the globe. The 40th day marks an important Shiite mourning ritual; similar commemorations for dead protesters fueled the demonstrations that led to the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Questions about the prison abuse have gained more importance in recent days, not only because of the opposition’s public protests but also because the stories have multiplied. One young man posted an account on Tuesday of his ordeal at the Kahrizak camp, which was ordered closed on Monday by Ayatollah Khamenei.

“We were all standing so close to each other that no one could move,” he wrote in a narrative posted online. “The plainclothes guards came into the room and broke all the light bulbs, and in the pitch dark started beating us, whoever they could.” By morning, at least four detainees were dead, he added.

In another account posted online, a former detainee describes being made to lie facedown on the floor of a police station bathroom, where an officer would step on his neck and force him to lick the toilet bowl as the officer cursed reformist politicians.

A woman described having her hair pulled as interrogators demanded that she confess to having sex with political figures. When she was finally released, she was forced — like many others — to sign a paper saying she had never been mistreated.

Mr. Moussavi spoke out Monday in unusually strong and angry terms, accusing the government of brutality and irreligion, and warning that its conduct toward the detainees could set off a much greater reaction.

“They cannot turn this nation into a prison of 70 million people,” Mr. Moussavi said, adding later that “the more people they arrest, the more widespread the movement will become.”

The prisoner release on Tuesday appeared to be the act of a government desperate to defuse the issue, coming just one day after the head of Iran’s judiciary promised that the detainees’ cases would be expedited. Government officials say that of at least 2,500 people arrested in the postelection crackdown, about 150 remain in prison.

In announcing the release, Saeed Jalili, the secretary of the National Security Council of Iran, sounded a defensive note, saying that those still in jail “are people for whom there are documents stating they were in possession of firebombs and weapons, including firearms, and who had caused serious damage to public property.”

But Mr. Mottahari, the lawmaker, said Tuesday that those responsible for the deaths of detainees must also be identified and punished. Others have gone further, saying the prison abuses suggest a government lurching dangerously out of control.

“Those who have turned this society into a police state and have ordered the use of force have to be held accountable,” said Hamid-Reza Katouzian, a hard-line member of Parliament. “The police and the Ministry of Intelligence have told us that they are on the sidelines, and we do not know who is responsible or accountable.”

Mr. Katouzian is a close friend of Mr. Ruholamini’s family, and his comments appeared to reflect personal outrage over that case. But his remarks also echoed a broader, longstanding concern about the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij militia taking over law enforcement functions and acting beyond the knowledge of legislators.

Senior clerics have also weighed in, warning that tolerating such injustices could endanger Iran’s theocracy.

“The shameful recent events have distressed everyone and been a source of worry for all those who love their country and the Islamic republic,” said Grand Ayatollah Abdul-Karim Mousavi Ardebili, adding a plea for the government to release detainees.

The number of those killed since the election is impossible to determine, and it includes at least a few members of the Basij militia as well as protesters. One human rights group, International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, said it spoke to doctors in three Tehran hospitals who registered the bodies of 34 protesters on June 20 alone. Other doctors have provided similar accounts and have estimated a death toll of at least 150 based on corpses they saw.

Earlier this month, family members of missing demonstrators were taken to a morgue in southwest Tehran where they reported seeing “hundreds of corpses” and were not allowed to retrieve bodies unless they certified that the deaths were of natural causes, according to accounts relayed on Web sites and to human rights workers.

Robert F. Worth reported from Dubai, and Sharon Otterman from New York.

Saudi 'Rights Abuses' Criticised

Amnesty International has strongly criticised Saudi Arabia over abuses allegedly committed as part of its counter-terrorism operations.

In a report, the human rights group says since 2001 thousands of Saudi suspects have been detained for years without charge or trial.

The 69-page report describes Saudi Arabia's human rights record as "shocking" and "dire".

It says the international community has been far too quiet about the abuse.

In the report, entitled "Saudi Arabia: assaulting human rights in the name of counter-terrorism", the UK-based organisation accuses the oil-rich conservative kingdom of massive and widespread abuse.

It says that two years ago, the Saudi interior minister said the country had detained 9,000 security suspects since 2001, and 3,106 were still being held.

AMNESTY REPORT ALLEGATIONS

Thousands of people detained arbitrarily

Some of those held are prisoners of conscience

Abuses include beatings, suspension from ceiling, electric shocks

But, says Amnesty International, no information - not even their names and the charges - were forthcoming and unofficial sources put the numbers far higher.

Over the last two years, it says, "new waves of arrests" have been reported.

BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says the Saudi authorities have been widely credited with defeating al-Qaeda in their country.

And, he says, Amnesty International concedes that most of the thousands detained without trial are suspected of links to groups which have committed attacks, on westerners and other targets.

But it says their cases are shrouded in secrecy and, quoting numerous examples, it doubts that even basic human rights standards are being met.

The director of Amnesty's UK office, Kate Allen, said that, except for the re-education programme for ex-jihadists, and the carefully co-ordinated mass trials, Saudi Arabia's habitual cloak of secrecy was wrapped even more tightly than ever in "security" cases.

"It is true", she said, "that Saudi Arabia faces a challenge in dealing with terrorism, but its response has been shocking - something the international community has been far too muted about.

"We are calling for a fundamental change of policy by the Saudi authorities."

Serious violations

This is not the first time Saudi Arabia has been criticised for alleged human rights abuses.

In February, the US-based organisation Human Rights Watch listed what it called "ongoing serious violations of rights" in the kingdom.

They included restrictions on speech, association, assembly and religion; an arbitrary criminal justice system, discrimination against women; and serious abuses against migrant workers in the country.

And in 2008, it published a 144-page report criticising Saudi Arabia's criminal justice system.

It said that it had "found systematic and multiple violations of defendants' rights".

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/8162256.stm

Indonesia says Burma Must Release Democracy Leader for Elections to Be Credible

By Daniel Schearf Phuket, Thailand 21 July 2009

Schearf report - Download (MP3)
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Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi (file photo)

Indonesia's foreign minister has said Burma must release democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi if its 2010 elections are to be credible. Indonesia has been pushing for tougher action against human rights violators during meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations this week in Thailand.

Indonesians Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda on Tuesday gave a clear message to Burma's military government.

He said Burma's elections next year will not be free and fair if anyone is restricted from participating, including Burma's detained democracy leader.

"We have been saying to them (Myanmar) directly that the process must be inclusive for all groups in society … including Aung San Suu Kyi," he said.

Wirayuda made the comments on the second day of meetings of foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which includes Burma.

Indonesia has been pushing for a stronger human rights body to deal with situations like Burma, where more than 2,000 political prisoners are behind bars.

Indonesia is considered a successful Asian model for its transition from military dictatorship to democracy, and has become outspoken about rights violators.

Burma's military government is under intense pressure to release Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest for 13 years. She is now on trial for breaking the terms of her house arrest, and faces five years in jail.

Rights groups and Western governments have called the trial a sham designed to keep Aung San Suu Kyi locked up while the military rigs next year's elections. Her National League for Democracy party won Burma's last elections in 1990, but the military refused to give up power.

The situation in Burma has prompted some ASEAN members to break from the group's tradition of not commenting on the internal affairs of other members.

ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan told journalists Monday as long as Burma's political problems are not resolved, ASEAN will continue to have a burden on its lap to explain to the world. He said ASEAN members are trying to convince Burma's generals that now is the time to open up while governments, such as the United States, are reassessing their policies.

"I think this is a good opportunity and it will take some convincing from ASEAN for Myanmar to take a look at that kind of opening, that kind of opportunity," Surin said. "And, I think we have been able to impress upon them that this is a good time to try to accommodate an international offer, international expectation, and ASEAN desire to help to engage."

Washington evaluating its policy on Burma, saying neither sanctions nor engagement have worked.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Thailand Tuesday and will meet with ASEAN foreign ministers in Phuket.

She is expected to discuss a range of issues from problem states Burma and North Korea to concerns about terrorism and pollution.

Burma is expected to dominate discussions. Thailand's Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya says resolving Burma's political problems is key to ASEAN's future.

Outside World Turns Blind Eye to N. Korea's Hard-Labor Camps

By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, July 20, 2009

SEOUL -- Images and accounts of the North Korean gulag become sharper, more harrowing and more accessible with each passing year.

A distillation of testimony from survivors and former guards, newly published by the Korean Bar Association, details the daily lives of 200,000 political prisoners estimated to be in the camps: Eating a diet of mostly corn and salt, they lose their teeth, their gums turn black, their bones weaken and, as they age, they hunch over at the waist. Most work 12- to 15-hour days until they die of malnutrition-related illnesses, usually around the age of 50. Allowed just one set of clothes, they live and die in rags, without soap, socks, underclothes or sanitary napkins.

The camps have never been visited by outsiders, so these accounts cannot be independently verified. But high-resolution satellite photographs, now accessible to anyone with an Internet connection, reveal vast labor camps in the mountains of North Korea. The photographs corroborate survivors' stories, showing entrances to mines where former prisoners said they worked as slaves, in-camp detention centers where former guards said uncooperative prisoners were tortured to death and parade grounds where former prisoners said they were forced to watch executions. Guard towers and electrified fences surround the camps, photographs show.

"We have this system of slavery right under our nose," said An Myeong Chul, a camp guard who defected to South Korea. "Human rights groups can't stop it. South Korea can't stop it. The United States will have to take up this issue at the negotiating table."

But the camps have not been discussed in meetings between U.S. diplomats and North Korean officials. By exploding nuclear bombs, launching missiles and cultivating a reputation for hair-trigger belligerence, the government of Kim Jong Il has created a permanent security flash point on the Korean Peninsula -- and effectively shoved the issue of human rights off the negotiating table.

"Talking to them about the camps is something that has not been possible," said David Straub, a senior official in the State Department's office of Korean affairs during the Bush and Clinton years. There have been no such meetings since President Obama took office.

"They go nuts when you talk about it," said Straub, who is now associate director of Korean studies at Stanford University.

Nor have the camps become much of an issue for the American public, even though annotated images of them can be quickly called up on Google Earth and even though they have existed for half a century, 12 times as long as the Nazi concentration camps and twice as long as the Soviet Gulag. Although precise numbers are impossible to obtain, Western governments and human groups estimate that hundreds of thousands of people have died in the North Korean camps.

North Korea officially says the camps do not exist. It restricts movements of the few foreigners it allows into the country and severely punishes those who sneak in. U.S reporters Laura Ling and Euna Lee were sentenced last month to 12 years of hard labor, after being convicted in a closed trial on charges of entering the country illegally.

North Korea's gulag also lacks the bright light of celebrity attention. No high-profile, internationally recognized figure has emerged to coax Americans into understanding or investing emotionally in the issue, said Suzanne Scholte, a Washington-based activist who brings camp survivors to the United States for speeches and marches.

"Tibetans have the Dalai Lama and Richard Gere, Burmese have Aung San Suu Kyi, Darfurians have Mia Farrow and George Clooney," she said. "North Koreans have no one like that."

Executions as Lessons

Before guards shoot prisoners who have tried to escape, they turn each execution into a teachable moment, according to interviews with five North Koreans who said they have witnessed such killings.

Prisoners older than 16 are required to attend, and they are forced to stand as close as 15 feet to the condemned, according to the interviews. A prison official usually gives a lecture, explaining how the Dear Leader, as Kim Jong Il is known, had offered a "chance at redemption" through hard labor.

The condemned are hooded, and their mouths are stuffed with pebbles. Three guards fire three times each, as onlookers see blood spray and bodies crumple, those interviewed said.

"We almost experience the executions ourselves," said Jung Gwang Il, 47, adding that he witnessed two executions as an inmate at Camp 15. After three years there, Jung said, he was allowed to leave in 2003. He fled to China and now lives in Seoul.

Like several former prisoners, Jung said the most arduous part of his imprisonment was his pre-camp interrogation at the hands of the Bowibu, the National Security Agency. After eight years in a government office that handled trade with China, a fellow worker accused him of being a South Korean agent.

"They wanted me to admit to being a spy," Jung said. "They knocked out my front teeth with a baseball bat. They fractured my skull a couple of times. I was not a spy, but I admitted to being a spy after nine months of torture."

When he was arrested, Jung said, he weighed 167 pounds. When his interrogation was finished, he said, he weighed 80 pounds. "When I finally got to the camp, I actually gained weight," said Jung, who worked summers in cornfields and spent winters in the mountains felling trees.

"Most people die of malnutrition, accidents at work, and during interrogation," said Jung, who has become a human rights advocate in Seoul. "It is people with perseverance who survive. The ones who think about food all the time go crazy. I worked hard, so guards selected me to be a leader in my barracks. Then I didn't have to expend so much energy, and I could get by on corn."

Defectors' Accounts

Human rights groups, lawyers committees and South Korean-funded think tanks have detailed what goes on in the camps based on in-depth interviews with survivors and former guards who trickle out of North Korea into China and find their way to South Korea.

The motives and credibility of North Korean defectors in the South are not without question. They are desperate to make a living. Many refuse to talk unless they are paid. South Korean psychologists who debrief defectors describe them as angry, distrustful and confused. But in hundreds of separate interviews conducted over two decades, defectors have told similar stories that paint a consistent portrait of life, work, torment and death in the camps.

The number of camps has been consolidated from 14 to about five large sites, according to former officials who worked in the camps. Camp 22, near the Chinese border, is 31 miles long and 25 miles wide, an area larger than the city of Los Angeles. As many as 50,000 prisoners are held there, a former guard said.

There is a broad consensus among researchers about how the camps are run: Most North Koreans are sent there without any judicial process. Many inmates die in the camps unaware of the charges against them. Guilt by association is legal under North Korean law, and up to three generations of a wrongdoer's family are sometimes imprisoned, following a rule from North Korea's founding dictator, Kim Il Sung: "Enemies of class, whoever they are, their seed must be eliminated through three generations."

Crimes that warrant punishment in political prison camps include real or suspected opposition to the government. "The camp system in its entirety can be perceived as a massive and elaborate system of persecution on political grounds," writes human rights investigator David Hawk, who has studied the camps extensively. Common criminals serve time elsewhere.

Prisoners are denied any contact with the outside world, according to the Korean Bar Association's 2008 white paper on human rights in North Korea. The report also found that suicide is punished with longer prison terms for surviving relatives; guards can beat, rape and kill prisoners with impunity; when female prisoners become pregnant without permission, their babies are killed.

Most of the political camps are "complete control districts," which means that inmates work there until death.

There is, however, a "revolutionizing district" at Camp 15, where prisoners can receive remedial indoctrination in socialism. After several years, if they memorize the writings of Kim Jong Il, they are released but remain monitored by security officials.

South's Changing Response

Since it offers a safe haven to defectors, South Korea is home to scores of camp survivors. All of them have been debriefed by the South Korean intelligence service, which presumably knows more about the camps than any agency outside of Pyongyang.

But for nearly a decade, despite revelations in scholarly reports, TV documentaries and memoirs, South Korea avoided public criticism of the North's gulag. It abstained from voting on U.N. resolutions that criticized North Korea's record on human rights and did not mention the camps during leadership summits in 2000 or 2007. Meanwhile, under a "sunshine policy" of peaceful engagement, South Korea made major economic investments in the North and gave huge, unconditional annual gifts of food and fertilizer.

The public, too, has been largely silent. "South Koreans, who publicly cherish the virtue of brotherly love, have been inexplicably stuck in a deep quagmire of indifference," according to the Korean Bar Association, which says it publishes reports on human rights in North Korea to "break the stalemate."

Government policy changed last year under President Lee Myung-bak, who has halted unconditional aid, backed U.N. resolutions that criticize the North and tried to put human rights on the table in dealing with Pyongyang. In response, North Korea has called Lee a "traitor," squeezed inter-Korean trade and threatened war.

An Enforcer's View

An Myeong Chul was allowed to work as a guard and driver in political prison camps because, he said, he came from a trustworthy family. His father was a North Korean intelligence agent, as were the parents of many of his fellow guards.

In his training to work in the camps, An said, he was ordered, under penalty of becoming a prisoner himself, never to show pity. It was permissible, he said, for bored guards to beat or kill prisoners.

"We were taught to look at inmates as pigs," said An, 41, adding that he worked in the camps for seven years before escaping to China in 1994. He now works in a bank in Seoul.

The rules he enforced were simple. "If you do not meet your work quota, you do not eat much," he said. "You are not allowed to sleep until you finish your work. If you still do not finish your work, you are sent to a little prison inside the camp. After three months, you leave that prison dead."

An said the camps play a crucial role in the maintenance of totalitarian rule. "All high-ranking officials underneath Kim Jong Il know that one misstep means you go to the camps, along with your family," he said.

Partly to assuage his guilt, An has become an activist and has been talking about the camps for more than a decade. He was among the first to help investigators identify camp buildings using satellite images. Still, he said, nothing will change in camp operations without sustained diplomatic pressure, especially from the United States.

Inconsistent U.S. Approach

The U.S. government has been a fickle advocate.

In the Clinton years, high-level diplomatic contacts between Washington and Pyongyang focused almost exclusively on preventing the North from developing nuclear weapons and expanding its ballistic missile capability.

President George W. Bush's administration took a radically different approach. It famously labeled North Korea as part of an "axis of evil," along with Iran and Iraq. Bush met with camp survivors. For five years, U.S. diplomats refused to have direct negotiations with North Korea.

After North Korea detonated a nuclear device in 2006, the Bush administration decided to talk. The negotiations, however, focused exclusively on dismantling Pyongyang's expanded nuclear program.

In recent months, North Korea has reneged on its promise to abandon nuclear weapons, kicked out U.N. weapons inspectors, exploded a second nuclear device and created a major security crisis in Northeast Asia.

Containing that crisis has monopolized the Obama administration's dealings with North Korea. The camps, for the time being, are a non-issue. "Unfortunately, until we get a handle on the security threat, we can't afford to deal with human rights," said Peter Beck, a former executive director of the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea.

A Family's Tribulations

Kim Young Soon, once a dancer in Pyongyang, said she spent eight years in Camp 15 during the 1970s. Under the guilt-by-association rule, she said, her four children and her parents were also sentenced to hard labor there.

At the camp, she said, her parents starved to death and her eldest son drowned. Around the time of her arrest, her husband was shot for trying to flee the country, as was her youngest son after his release from the camp.

It was not until 1989, more than a decade after her release, that she found out why she had been imprisoned. A security official told her then that she was punished because she had been a friend of Kim Jong Il's first wife and that she would "never be forgiven again" if the state suspected that she had gossiped about the Dear Leader.

She escaped to China in 2000 and now lives in Seoul. At 73, she said she is furious that the outside world doesn't take more interest in the camps. "I had a friend who loved Kim Jong Il, and for that the government killed my family," she said. "How can it be justified?"

Special correspondent Stella Kim contributed to this report.

U.N. Chief Meets With Myanmar Junta

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

NAYPYIDAW, Myanmar — Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, asked this country’s ruling generals on Friday to free its many political prisoners, including the democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, but there was no sign yet of movement on the issue from the junta.

Mr. Ban also asked to visit Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, but said the military leaders reminded him that she was on trial. Early Saturday, Mr. Ban said that his request to see her before he left the country Saturday night had been rejected.

Mr. Ban is hoping to win the release of political prisoners — estimated at 2,100 by international humanitarian organizations — ahead of elections scheduled for 2010.

Mr. Ban’s rare meeting with Senior Gen. Than Shwe and the other four generals who constitute the ruling State Peace and Development Council came as the government declared a one-week pause in Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi’s trial.

Mr. Ban called his exchange with the generals “frank,” and a senior United Nations official described the discussion as “forceful” on both sides.

Mr. Ban said he told the generals it would be important to release Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi and the other political prisoners to ensure the broadest possible participation in the election.

“This election should be a credible, fair, inclusive and legitimate one where all the Myanmar people can express their will in a free way,” Mr. Ban said after meeting with the generals. “I was assured that Myanmar’s authorities will make sure that this election will be held in fair and free and transparent manner.”

At the same time, Mr. Ban asked for a series of steps toward that goal, though it was unclear whether the military government would endorse such a development, senior United Nations official said. The steps include revamping the election laws publicly and establishing an electoral commission. Not even the aborted election of 1990, which Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi’s party won, truly covered the whole nation, so another step would be allowing the party, the National League for Democracy, to open offices across the country and to permit her to campaign.

Mr. Ban said he also urged the generals to resume their dialogue with the opposition in a substantive and meaningful way, including with Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi.

Mr. Ban is expected to have an additional, unscheduled meeting with General Than Shwe on Saturday, and is due to make a speech about the country’s future to a group of nongovernmental organizations involved in relief efforts for the past 14 months. He also plans to tour the Irrawaddy Delta, where Cyclone Nargis struck a devastating blow in May 2008, killing 138,000 people. His visit at that time opened the door for international aid organizations to play a greater role in relief efforts.

But Bishow Parajuli, the humanitarian coordinator for the country, said there was currently a backlog of about 219 international aid workers seeking visas to work in the country. The visa process has slowed since March, he said, another issue Mr. Ban took up with General Than Shwe.

International human rights groups have urged Mr. Ban to take a tough line on the junta. He tried, however, to play down expectations, saying that it would be a difficult trip, but that it was important to engage the ruling generals.

“I am very pleased to continue our discussion,” Mr. Ban said in his opening remarks to General Than Shwe. “I appreciate your commitment to move your country forward.”

The meeting was held in a soaring reception room painted with a mural of Buddhist temples set in the jungle, the landscape around Naypyidaw (pronounced nay-pee-DAW), the sprawling, isolated capital the generals constructed out of the rice fields and jungle about 200 miles north of Yangon. Yangon, formerly Rangoon, is the country’s main city.

The official reception building here is called Bayinnaung Hall, named after a 16th-century warrior king who united much of what is today Myanmar, as well as parts of India, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam.

The monarch is the favorite historical figure of the authoritarian government.

Shortly after Mr. Ban arrived in the country, the authorities said that the current trial of Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest for 13 of the past 19 years, would be adjourned for one week until July 10. The trial was delayed because of what was described as an administrative error, according to Kyi Win, a lawyer representing her.

“When the judges came onto the bench they announced that the files from the higher court had not been returned,” Mr. Kyi Win said.

“There must be other reasons,” he said in an interview. “But we hate to speculate.”

Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi has not been told whether she will be meeting Mr. Ban, the lawyer said. She is on trial on charges of violating the terms of her current house arrest after an American man swam uninvited across a lake to her home.

Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi has denied the charge, but could be sentenced to five years imprisonment if found guilty. She is being held at the infamous Insein Prison. John Yettaw, the 53-year-old American intruder, was charged with trespassing and is also detained there.

Alan Cowell contributed reporting from Paris.