Starting Points

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.

Indian, Methodist churches form melting pot of the faithful

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By William Wan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 25, 2009; A01

As the choir launched into the Christmas song, Betty Leach sat in her pew and stared at the words on the page, trying to make sense of them. "Puttenesudu nedu," the Indian parishioners all around her sang.

At 79, she has passed more than four decades' worth of Christmases at this Silver Spring church. She brought her children here and her children's children. But now as the congregation broke into song, Leach couldn't begin to pronounce the words or translate their meaning: Jesus is born today. Instead, the bespectacled grandmother resigned herself to humming along.

After years of holiday tradition -- the "O Holy Nights," the turkey and gravy galore -- Christmas has undergone a dramatic makeover for Leach and two dozen other longtime parishioners. Now they celebrate with plates of goat curry with rice, folk songs from halfway around the world, and a people and culture they are only starting to understand.

This is what happens when you take two congregations -- a predominantly white church in desperate need of new members and a booming Indian church desperate for space -- and blend them together. The result at the now merged Memorial First India United Methodist Church is a study in frustration, joy, struggle and, above all, grace. And Christmas has become a chance for everyone involved to live out the season's themes of unity and peace amid what has turned out to be an unusual and sometimes complicated relationship.

* * *

Although many churches share their space with other congregations, full church mergers remain rare. Some experts estimate that 1 percent of Protestant churches merge each year. Two congregations so ethnically distinct agreeing to merge was a first for the denomination in this region.

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And it hasn't been easy.

Since the two churches -- First India and Memorial United -- joined together three years ago, the combined Sunday services, conducted mostly in English, have become a balancing act between the two worlds. And the man doing most of the juggling is the Rev. Samuel Honnappa, the church's diplomatic, soft-spoken pastor.

"Every Sunday is a big challenge," said Honnappa, 60, who is careful to choose someone from the Indian congregation and the original church to do the scripture readings each week. He also makes sure representatives from both groups serve on all the planning committees.

Even the church's decor reflects the delicate position in which it now operates. On one side of the simply adorned altar is the American flag; on the other, the Indian flag.

Two choirs perform during services: a small English choir and a larger choir that sings strictly in Telugu, the language in Andhra Pradesh, from where most of the Indians come.

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Three Indians have joined the English choir to try to bridge the gap, but it's been harder to get the English-only members of the congregation to join the Telugu choir.

"We started printing the Telugu hymns out phonetically, so people can at least sing along on Sundays," Honnappa said. "A lot of them really do try to make the same sounds, but I know it's hard for them."

For Leach, adjusting to the food has been even more challenging. At the new church's first holiday dinner, Leach recalls getting a spoonful of an exotically fragrant green bean dish.

"Try this one," they told her, "it's not too spicy."

She took one bite and went running for a cup of water. "They told me later I was eating the little black pebbles they use to spice the food. 'Betty, you're not supposed to eat that!' they said. All I knew was it was hot!"

There have been adjustments on the Indian side as well.

"We have something called Indian time," Honnappa said. "If an Indian says 5 p.m., what they really mean is 6 p.m. I've had to remind some in the Indian congregation that to an American, 5 p.m. means 5 p.m."

An arranged marriage

For the aging Memorial congregation, the merger was a last-ditch effort to keep the building on Colesville Road where it had worshiped for more than half a century.

When the church was built in 1958, its modern architecture caused a stir with its sharp angles, bright colors and long windows of clear-paned glass. The spacious sanctuary was built with the future in mind, able to fit more than 400 people. But instead of growing, the congregation of more than 200 kept shrinking until only about 25 remained, depending on the week and the weather.

Some members moved or passed away. Others quietly left to join other churches -- a group that eventually included Leach's daughter and granddaughter.

The church tried canvassing for new members, baking raisin nut loaves for visitors, even direct-mail marketing. None of it made a dent.

"On some Sundays, you could fit the entire congregation into the first two rows," said John Roth, 68, a church trustee.

In 2006, the area's denominational leaders told Memorial United that it needed to find new blood or risk losing its church altogether.

That's when Roth and others were told about the Indian group renting a small chapel in Takoma Park. The congregation of more than 120 -- mostly young, professional families -- was practically bursting at the seams. Sunday school classes were being conducted in the hallway.

That first Sunday after the merger, the sanctuary was filled for the first time in years. The old Memorial congregation found itself sitting amid a sea of Indians in colorful saris and suits.

The Indians tried not to seem too excited, afraid of offending the longtime members. But their kids couldn't contain themselves, running through the halls, exploring every new nook and cranny.

Leach smiled at their enthusiasm. "It was odd, yes, but there was something electric in the air," she recalled. "It felt like the church was alive again."

Even with all the changes, Leach said, it still feels like her spiritual home. "This church has been my life. I'll stay here until the day I die."

It is a sentiment shared by Edith Mountjoy, 88, who was baptized in the church, married there, had her children baptized there and her father buried there. With her husband now deceased and her daughter in another state, the church is in many ways her family. "All my friends are there, and the Indian folk, we're all starting to get acquainted, too," she said.

This month, after one of her sons died of cancer, she arrived on Sunday morning and was greeted by the pastor's wife with a long, lingering hug. "Oh, my heart just feels for you," Rachel Samuel told her. Many of the Indian parishioners, people whose names Mountjoy couldn't always remember, told her that they were praying for her and embraced her. It has made this year's tough Christmas, she said, a little easier to bear. "I really needed all those hugs."

Grace and unity

Celebrating Christmas has been a unifying force for Memorial First India.

This year, members of both choirs joined for the first time to present a special holiday recital. Even the food at this week's Christmas dinner has been worked out to the satisfaction of all, with one table for fried chicken and lasagna and several others for slow-cooked lamb dishes, flatbreads and curries.

"It actually has gotten to the point where we have to keep our children from eating up all their American food," said Sukumar Christopher, 69, a founding member of the Indian congregation. "They get tired of the curry at home. All they want is to eat from the American table."

And almost everyone plans to attend the Christmas play, which the snow postponed until this weekend.

Together, they will look on as the children of the church reenact the Nativity scene, with Mary and Joseph wandering from inn to inn looking for someone to welcome them. It is a story that especially resonates among the Indian parishioners, who also searched hard for a place of their own. Now, they say, they've finally found it, alongside their new friends at Memorial United.

Muslim leaders look inward after arrests of N.Va. men

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By Tara Bahrampour
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 25, 2009; 11:34 AM

The adults thought they'd done all they could. They had condemned extremist ideology, provided ski trips and scout meetings, and encouraged young people to speak openly about how to integrate their religion, Islam, with the secular world.

But since five college-age Virginia men were arrested in Pakistan earlier this month after allegedly being recruited over the Internet to join al-Qaeda, many Washington area Muslims are questioning whether mere condemnation is enough.

Mustafa Abu Maryam, a Muslim youth leader who has known the five arrested men since 2006, said he was alarmed by their decision to go to Pakistan after exchanging coded e-mails with a recruiter for the Pakistani Taliban. "I always thought that they had a firm grasp on life and that they rejected extremism or terrorism," Maryam said of the young men from Alexandria.

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Mosques and Islamic organizations across the U.S. regularly issue statements rejecting violence and fringe ideologies. But since the arrests, Muslim leaders are scrambling to fill what they describe as a gap in their own connection with young people, searching for new ways to counter the influence of the extremists young people may encounter, especially online.

"I'm really concerned about what the Internet is doing to my young people," said Mohamed Magid, imam at the All Dulles Area Muslim Society in Sterling. "I used to not be worried about the radicalism of our youth. But now, after this, I'm worried more."

Relatives of the five men have declined to speak to reporters.

"I have to be a virtual Imam," Magid said, explaining that his mosque and other Muslim organizations and institutions need a larger and more effective online presence. Referring to extremists, he added, "Twenty-four hours, they're available; I want to be able to respond to that."

Until now, many Muslim leaders have focused on what they saw as external threats to young people, such as Islamophobia or the temptations of modern secular life. Now they say it is time to look inward, to provide a counterweight to those who misinterpret Koranic verses to promote violence -- and to learn what rhetoric and methods appeal to young people.

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Radicals "seem to understand our youth better than we do," said Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation. "They use hip-hop elements for some who relate to that."

Bray said "seductive videos" gradually lure in young people, building outrage against atrocities committed against Muslims. Extremist videos "play to what we call in the Muslim youth community 'jihad cool' -- a kind of machismo, that this is the hip thing to do."

For some, a new approach cannot come too soon. Zaki Barzinji, 20, a Sterling native and former president of Muslim Youths of North America, said mosques are "sort of in the Stone Age when it comes to outreach. Their youth programs are not attractive, not engaging . . . . They're shooting in the dark because it's always adults who are planning this outreach."

Nor is the threat limited to the Internet, Barzinji said, adding that groups of "traveling Muslim proselytizers" sometimes appear at Virginia Tech, where he is a senior, often attracting foreign students, who tend to be more socially isolated.

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"They go to the dorms, look for Muslim-sounding names, knock on the door and say, 'Hey, we'd like to talk to you about hellfire and how you're heading that way,'" Barzinji said. "All they're offering is social connection and acceptance."

Barzinji said Muslim groups should create online forums where young Muslims can find answers from authoritative sources. Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman at CAIR's Washington headquarters, said he spent a recent day at work with a copy of "The Social Media Bible," trying to figure out how to do just that.

One idea: a Web portal offering video explanations of Koranic verses that are sometimes misinterpreted by radicals, as well as suggestions of "positive things you can do to rectify injustice," Hooper said. Many Muslim parents said they don't worry about the influence of radical strangers on their own children. "I just don't see it as a very widespread phenomenon," said Bob Marro, a Great Falls father of two college students who were active in their high school's Muslim Student Association. "I know for my sons and their friends, if they got a message like that, they would find it just laughingly funny. . . . . If you've been open with your kids and talked to them as they were growing up, they'll have enough of a sense of their own value and their place in the world."

His son, Nicolas Marro, 19, a sophomore at the University of Virginia, said the five young men's decision to go to Pakistan "seems like such an anomaly, especially in this area, where people take their studies so seriously."

Whenever he has seen radical rhetoric on a public forum, he said, it is usually shouted down. "There will be a plethora of responses -- 'Are you crazy?' 'Is something wrong with you?'" he said. But if even a few young people slip through the cracks, the results can be devastating for the community. "They ruin it for the rest of us," said Azraf Ullah, 15, of Herndon, who was attending a scout meeting at the All-Dulles Area center last week. "We have to work harder to show that we're not that."

"The impression is like, 'Every Muslim youth is involved with this thing,'" said Syed Akhtar Alam, a father of three who lives in Ashburn. At an interfaith youth group Alam is involved with, parents of other faiths approached him after the arrests in Pakistan. "They just wanted to know, 'How could this happen?'" he said, adding, "It just happened randomly. Bad people are everywhere. . . . It is parents' responsibility to tell their kids, 'This is your country and you need to protect it.'"

Magid, the imam at the Sterling mosque, said Muslim leaders should be more active on social networking sites and should create an online network of imams to talk to young people, "even addressing questions about jihad," he said. It is no longer enough, he added, to rely only on mosque-based scout troops, basketball teams and religious classes.

Hooper said some leaders are discussing an Islamic Peace Corps through which youth could help Muslims in underdeveloped countries. But someadvocate a more adventuresome approach, borrowing from the extremists' own methods. "A 20-year-old, he's not satisfied with a canned food drive to solve the world's problems," said a religious leader whose mosque would not permit him to be quoted by name. "You've got to give them something more, even a little macho. "These boys who got busted, . . . .they want to be baaaad," the leader said. "You've got to be as bad as the jihadis. You've got to show them jumping out of helicopters. This ain't no Peace Corps. "

Staff writer Brigid Schulte contributed to this report.

U.S. aids Sudanese in independence bid

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Eli Lake

The United States is helping South Sudan prepare for independence after a 2011 referendum, according to a representative of the region in Washington.

Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth, head of South Sudan's mission to the United States, told reporters and editors of The Washington Times on Thursday that a good chunk of the nearly $1 billion in annual U.S. aid to Sudan is going to build roads, train police and professionalize a separate army in the south.

"The United States government, one of their goals now, is to make sure southern Sudan in 2011 is a viable state," he said.

Under the terms of a 2005 agreement that ended a decades-long civil war between the mostly Muslim north and the Christian and animist south, southern Sudanese are to be allowed to vote on Jan. 9, 2011, whether to set up an independent state.

The vote is to be preceded by presidential and parliamentary elections in all of Sudan next year.

Mr. Gatkuoth accused the government of Sudanese President Omar Bashir of trying to prevent free and fair voting by arresting southern Sudanese leaders and interfering with legislation governing the elections.

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Mr. Gatkuoth said the coming 12 months would be crucial to determining the fate of the country.

"In 2010, we either make it or break it," he said. "An election can lead to war if you feel cheated."

On Monday, Sudan's parliament in Khartoum is scheduled to vote on a referendum law. The parliament voted earlier this week on the legislation, but removed compromise language between the Sudan People's Liberation Movement and the Bashir government that required voters to prove their southern Sudanese origin. The new vote was scheduled for Monday after U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly urged Lt. Gen. Bashir's government to "restore the agreed-upon language."

An administration official declined specific comment Thursday on Mr. Gatkuoth's remarks, apart from saying that "the United States continues to call on all parties to work together to ensure the upcoming elections and referenda are conducted in a credible manner."

The 2011 referendum could simultaneously divide Sudan into two countries and reignite a civil war.

Mr. Gatkuoth said that Gen. Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for his purported role in authorizing genocide in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, is determined to prevent the south from gaining independence.

Most of Sudan's oil is located in the south, as are the headwaters of the Nile River. The northern part of the country, however, includes the city of Port Sudan, from which the oil is exported, largely to China.

Mr. Gatkuoth said the U.S. was helping to prepare the south for independence and that the region's most critical needs involve agriculture and policing.

The International Crisis Group, a Belgium- and Washington-based organization that seeks to prevent conflict, criticized the southern Sudanese government in a report Wednesday for failing to provide security in the state of Jonglei.

"The South Sudan police service ... is of abysmal quality," the report said.

Mr. Gatkuoth conceded that the police are weak in South Sudan, but also accused the Khartoum government of exploiting tribal conflicts to provide an excuse to postpone the referendum.

He said Sudan's most important trading partner, China, had recognized the likelihood of southern Sudanese independence by establishing a consulate in Juba, the capital of the southern region. He said that there had already been discussions between the southern government and China's national oil company about arrangements after 2011.

The envoy said he was particularly worried that a national security law gives Sudan's intelligence service the authority to arrest the political opponents of Gen. Bashir and detain them for nine months without trial.

"If there is a free election, Bashir will not win," Mr. Gatkuoth said.

He also warned that demarcating the border between north and south and a border district known as Abyei would be contentious.

Mr. Gatkuoth said he was most worried that Khartoum would try to postpone the 2011 referendum.

"Even if you postpone that for one day, the people of southern Sudan will not accept it," he sa

Obama the party crasher

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Barack Obama is not used to being the guy not invited to a party. At the Copenhagen global warming conference, however, he found that not everyone wanted to hang with him. Our president can't take a hint.

After Mr. Obama's bilateral meeting with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, the Chinese began sending lower-level functionaries to the multilateral meetings. A frustrated Mr. Obama pressed for another bilateral meeting, which was scheduled for Friday at 6:15 p.m. Other leaders of the countries known as the "BASIC" bloc were harder to pin down.

The Obama team tried to schedule a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and was told he was at the airport readying to leave. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva also was unavailable. South African President Jacob Zuma said there was no point meeting without India and Brazil. Then the Chinese pushed the bilateral meeting back to 7 p.m.

"We were told they were at the airport," a senior administration official said. "We were told delegations were split up. We were told they weren't going to meet." So imagine Mr. Obama's surprise when he arrived for the bilateral powwow and found all four leaders in the room already in deep discussion. "Are you ready for me?" he said with an "uncharacteristic edge" to his voice, according to a CBS News report.

"We weren't crashing a meeting," an Obama flack later explained defensively. "We were going for our bilateral meeting." But that didn't stop him from walking in where he wasn't invited. Clearly, Mr. Obama learned a few things from his own White House party crashers.

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There was no chair at the table for Mr. Obama so he announced he would sit next to his "friend Lula," whose staff had to scramble to make room for the president and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. On Monday, Mr. da Silva used his weekly radio program to rebuke the United States for its stance at Copenhagen.

After Mr. Obama arrived, the BASIC group was basically held hostage. They had tried politely to keep Mr. Obama at arms length, but since he showed up, decorum mandated that they find a way to save face.

The countries reached agreement on three pages of noncommittal boilerplate - and Mr. Obama rushed out to declare that he had once again saved the day. "For the first time in history," he said, "all major economies have come together to accept their responsibility to take action to confront the threat of climate change." He then left the global warming conference, hurrying to beat the record-setting blizzard descending on Washington.

U.N. General Secretary Ban Ki-moon declared that the conferees "sealed the deal." But there was no deal. The conference chose not to adopt the Copenhagen Accord after opposition from Latin American nations that are part of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's Bolivarian Alliance. The general session became the scene of high theater, or farce - at one point a Venezuelan delegate cut her hand to dramatize the blood of the poor being spilled by the rich. In the end, the document was officially "noted" by the assembled, which renders it not only nonbinding but nonexistent for those countries that choose to ignore it.

Chinese lead negotiator Su Wei made a point of saying that it was "not an agreed document, it was not formally endorsed or adopted." And while the White House argues that something is better than nothing, in some respects the accord really is nothing. Appendices One and Two, which were supposed to lay out detailed emissions targets and mitigation actions for signatory counties, were left blank.

The Copenhagen conference was a lesson in power and humility. The countries in the BASIC bloc demonstrated that the United States lacks the leverage necessary to convince them to make decisions that work against their national interests. And Mr. Obama is learning the uncomfortable lesson that there are limits to what his personal charisma can achieve.

Mr. Obama did make history at Copenhagen, but not in the way he expected. It says a great deal about American power and prestige when international leaders go to so much trouble to avoid meeting with the president of the United States. The American Century is over.

Dec 24, 2009

European Court: Landmark Ruling on Racial and Religious Exclusion

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Judgment says Bosnia’s Political Ban on Jews, Roma Discriminatory

December 22, 2009

(London) - The ruling today by the European Court of Human Rights, that the exclusion of Jews and Roma from Bosnia's highest state offices is unlawful discrimination, is a major step toward ending racial and religious exclusion in Europe, the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and Human Rights Watch said today. Bosnia, along with the US and European states that continue to play a critical role in the country, should move swiftly to remove all discriminatory provisions from the country's constitution.

"The court's ruling is a major step forward in Europe's struggle against discrimination and ethnic conflict," said Sheri P. Rosenberg, co-counsel for the successful applicant Jakob Finci and a professor and director of the Human Rights Clinic at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. "This decision affirms that ethnic domination should have no role in a democracy."

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The court found, by 14 votes to 3 (16 votes to 1 with respect to the presidency), that the exclusion of Jews and Roma could not be justified. It stated that the "authorities must use all available means to combat racism, thereby reinforcing democracy's vision of a society in which diversity is not perceived as a threat but as a source of enrichment."

"The European Court has made it clear that race-based exclusion from political office, such as that suffered by Jews and Roma in Bosnia, has no place in Europe," said Clive Baldwin, senior legal advisor at Human Rights Watch, who was co-counsel for Finci from his previous employment with Minority Rights Group International. "The US, EU and the other states who still play a major role in Bosnia, should ensure the ruling is put into immediate effect by backing a change in the constitution."

The ruling today was issued by the Grand Chamber of the Court in the case of Sejdic & Finci v. Bosnia and Herzegovina, and concerned the exclusion from the Bosnian presidency and the upper house of parliament of a Bosnian Jew and a Bosnian Roma. The Bosnian Constitution, drafted by negotiators during peace talks in Dayton, Ohio in 1995, restricts the highest offices of state - the upper house of parliament and the presidency - to members of Bosnia's three main ethnic and religious groups - the Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims).

Members of smaller groups (such as the Jewish and Roma communities), those from ethnically mixed backgrounds and those who do not wish to declare themselves members of the three main groups are banned from running for office. Despite the extensive involvement of the international community, in particular the US and the European Union, in the governing of Bosnia since 1995, these discriminatory provisions in the constitution have never been amended.

This ruling is the first under the recent Protocol 12 to the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits discrimination in all rights "set forth by law," a much wider scope than previously existed under the convention.

Jakob Finci, the successful applicant, was born in a transit camp during World War II after his parents, Bosnian Jews, had been deported from the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo. Returning to Bosnia after the war, he has had a distinguished career in public life and is now Bosnian ambassador to Switzerland. But his ethnicity and religion prevented him from the possibility of seeking election to the highest offices of state.

"I am delighted that the European Court has recognized the wrong that was done in the Constitution 14 years ago," Finci said. "The Bosnian politicians need to right the wrongs in the Constitution quickly."

Bosnia's next presidential and parliamentary elections are due in October 2010.Constitutional reform has been under discussion in Bosnia since 2005 but so far has not produced any change.

"This landmark ruling clearly establishes that there is no scope for second-class citizenship in Europe," said Cynthia Morel, who also served as legal counsel in the case. "The court's finding will play an important role in strengthening Bosnia's young democracy." The case was supported throughout by Minority Rights Group International and the Human Rights and Genocide Clinic at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.

Yemen Says It Attacked Qaeda Gathering

By JACK HEALY and SCOTT SHANE

Yemeni fighter jets, acting on intelligence provided in part by the United States, struck what the Yemeni government said was a meeting of Al Qaeda operatives early Thursday morning, and officials suggested that a radical cleric tied to the suspect in the Fort Hood shootings may have been among the 30 people killed.

A statement by the Yemeni Embassy in Washington said the air strike targeted a gathering of “scores” of Qaeda members from Yemen and other countries, including the network’s two top leaders in Yemen, in a remote corner of southern Yemen. The statement said the cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, was “presumed to be at the site.”

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It could take days for investigators to sift through the rubble to identify the dead, and intelligence officials in the United States could not immediately confirm whether Mr. Awlaki or any Qaeda members were among those killed.

The government of Yemen, which has long been a haven for terrorists, has been carrying out strikes that appear to be directed against Al Qaeda’s growing presence in the country.

The group, whose regional affiliate is known as Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula, has mounted frequent attacks against foreign embassies and Yemeni officials in the last two years, adding to the security threats in Yemen that include an armed rebellion in the north and a secessionist movement in the south. There is no indication that the various insurgents targeting Yemen’s government are cooperating, but the concurrent crises have weakened the state’s ability to react.

Yemeni security forces carried out airstrikes and ground raids against suspected Qaeda hideouts last week with what American officials described as “intelligence and firepower” supplied by the United States. The assaults marked Yemen’s widest offensive against jihadists in years. Government forces hit bases in Abyan, a lawless, mountainous area in the south, as well as in the cities of Arhab and Sana, the capital.

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The airstrikes on Thursday were aimed at a large group of Qaeda operatives who had gathered in the southern province of Shabwa to plan attacks against the Yemeni government in retaliation for the offensive last week, the Yemeni Embassy statement said.

Yemeni officials said they had made targets of the leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Nasser al-Wuhayshi, and his deputy, Said Ali al-Shihri, who were believed to be at the meeting with Mr. Awlaki. Mr. Shihri was held for five years in the American detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and after his release in 2007 went through a Saudi rehabilitation program. But he joined Al Qaeda after his return to Yemen, marking a notable failure for the Saudi program, which American officials generally admire.

Although Mr. Awlaki, 38, has not been accused of planting bombs or carrying out terrorist attacks himself, his online sermons champion a radicalized vision of Islam, and he has been linked to numerous terrorism suspects, including Nidal Malik Hasan, the American Army major who faces murder charges in the shooting deaths of 13 people at the Fort Hood army base in November.

Major Hasan and the American-born cleric exchanged about 20 e-mail messages, and shortly after the shootings, Mr. Awlaki praised Major Hasan as a hero.

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In an interview posted on Wednesday on the Web site of Al Jazeera, Mr. Awlaki said Major Hasan had asked in his first e-mail message about what Islamic law dictated about “Muslim soldiers who serve in the American military and kill their colleagues.” Mr. Awlaki also praised the killings at Fort Hood, saying, “working in the American military to fight Muslims is a betrayal of Islam.”

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.

Bin Laden Daughter in Iran Seeks Refuge

By SCOTT SHANE

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WASHINGTON — A teenage daughter of Osama bin Laden, who has lived with at least five of her siblings in a guarded compound in Iran since 2001, took refuge last month in the Saudi Embassy in Tehran, and family members are trying to arrange for a large number of relatives to leave Iran for Saudi Arabia or Syria, one of Mr. bin Laden’s sons said in a telephone interview on Wednesday.

The son, Omar bin Laden, broke with his father, the leader of Al Qaeda, before the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and on the Pentagon and now lives in Qatar and Saudi Arabia. He said that his sister Iman, 19, walked away during a shopping trip in Tehran about a month ago and made her way to the Saudi Embassy, hoping to be reunited with her mother, who lives in Syria.

Omar bin Laden and his wife, Zaina, who is British, said in the interview that at least six of Osama bin Laden’s children and one of his wives live in a comfortable compound in Tehran with other relatives, for a total of about 30 family members there. The couple denied that their relatives were under house arrest, as has been widely reported, but acknowledged that Iranian security personnel accompanied them when they left the compound.

In addition to Iman bin Laden, they identified Mr. bin Laden’s children living in the Tehran compound as Osman, Mohammed, Fatima, Hazma and Bakr.

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The status of another son, Saad, remained uncertain. American officials said last summer that they believed that Saad bin Laden had traveled from Iran to Pakistan and had been killed by an American missile fired from a drone. Omar and Zaina bin Laden said Saad was still in the Tehran compound when the missile attack was said to have occurred, but they said that they did not know where he was now or whether he was still alive.

The presence of some of Osama bin Laden’s family in Iran was previously known, but the report of Iman’s seeking refuge in the Saudi Embassy added to the picture of their ambiguous status in Tehran. By several accounts, the bin Laden relatives left Afghanistan shortly before the 9/11 attacks, and were detained in Iran as they tried to get home to Saudi Arabia.

In Iran, whose relations with Saudi Arabia are tense, the relatives appear to be not exactly prisoners, but not quite guests. Omar and Zaina bin Laden said the bin Ladens in Tehran had been treated well but had no official documents to permit them to leave the country.

Steve Coll, author of “The bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century,” said the news from Tehran “provides the first open evidence of the circumstances under which bin Laden family members have been living in Iran” and “confirms that the Iranians have attempted to keep them under some kind of control.”

Several Qaeda operatives, including Saif al-Adel, have been reported to be in Iran under house arrest or similar status, and they are suspected of having played a role in directing Qaeda attacks in Saudi Arabia in 2003.

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But Omar bin Laden, 28, who recently published a memoir with his mother, “Growing Up bin Laden,” said none of the bin Ladens in Tehran had been involved in Al Qaeda. Speaking of his siblings now in Tehran, he said, “They are all younger than me and they had nothing to do with 9/11 or any kind of terrorism.”

In a statement announcing financial sanctions in January against Saad bin Laden and three people accused of being Qaeda operatives in Iran, the Treasury Department said that he had been “involved in managing the terrorist organization from Iran.” But an American intelligence official said Wednesday that Saad bin Laden played a minor role in the organization.

Omar and Zaina bin Laden said they had spoken with Osman, 26, and he had told them he believed that Iran would eventually permit the family members to leave the country. They said the 30 relatives in Tehran included about 11 grandchildren, born since the family fled Afghanistan.

“People are beginning to realize these children are innocent victims of 9/11,” Zaina bin Laden said.

Robert F. Worth contributed reporting from Beirut, Lebanon.

U.N. Security Council orders arms embargo on Eritrea

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By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 24, 2009; A07

NEW YORK -- The U.N. Security Council on Wednesday imposed an arms embargo on the East African country of Eritrea and vowed to slap financial and travel restrictions on its leaders for arming Islamist militants in Somalia.

The resolution, which was introduced by Uganda, passed by a vote of 13 to 1 in the 15-nation council, with Libya voting "no" and China abstaining.

In opposing the vote, Libya's U.N. envoy, Ibrahim Dabbashi, said: "Libya was a victim of sanctions for many years and as such has committed itself to not be a party to the taking of sanctions against any African country whatsoever."

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The embargo followed months of frustration by U.S., African and U.N. officials over Eritrea's alleged role in arming al-Shabaab, an Islamist group that is trying to overthrow Somalia's U.N.-backed transitional government. The African Union, which has sent thousands of peacekeepers to Somalia, had urged the council to act.

Susan E. Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the United States quietly pressed Eritrea in recent months to cease its support for Somali militants but had made little progress.

"The council acted today, not hastily, not aggressively, but with the aim quite sincerely of encouraging Eritrea to do as this council and so many of its members have repeatedly called upon it to do, which is not to continue actions which destabilize Somalia," Rice said after the vote. "We did not come to this decision with any joy -- or with anything other than a desire to support the stability of peace in the region."

Eritrea's U.N. ambassador, Araya Desta, denied that his country supports Somali militants, saying the resolution was based on "fabricated lies" concocted by Ethiopia, its neighbor and chief military adversary, and Ethiopia's chief foreign ally, the United States.

"The U.N. Security Council has today passed a shameful resolution imposing sanctions against Eritrea," he said after the vote, adding that Eritrea has never given military or financial support to the opposition in Somalia. "We don't want to take sides in Somalia."

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In a recent interview with The Washington Post, Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki also dismissed the allegations as "fabricated" and accused the United States of pursuing years of failed policies in the region.

The resolution expresses "grave concern" over Eritrea's provision of "political, financial and logistical support to armed groups engaged in undermining peace and reconciliation in Somalia." It demands that Eritrea "cease all efforts to destabilize or overthrow, directly or indirectly," the transitional government.

The resolution calls on the U.N. sanctions committee to compile a list of political and military leaders who will be barred from traveling outside Eritrea and whose financial assets will be frozen.

The U.N. council has had an increasingly rocky relationship with Eritrea, which clashed in recent years with U.N. peacekeepers monitoring its border with Ethiopia and more recently refused to abide by U.N. demands to withdraw its troops from territory of its other neighbor, Djibouti. The resolution reiterates a demand that Eritrea withdraw its forces from Djibouti.

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Desta denied that Eritrean troops are occupying any part of Djibouti. He also criticized the council for failing to enforce a 2003 resolution -- and a peace accord -- requiring Ethiopia to withdraw its troops from Eritrea. Ethiopia has never done so.

Little word from U.S. on Nyi Nyi Aung, jailed in Burma

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By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 24, 2009; A07

After his arrest in September, the American was held for 17 days in a dank Burmese jail and denied food, medical treatment, sleep and the chance to speak with a U.S. government official. Even after he finally met with a representative from the U.S. Embassy, the American was transferred to solitary confinement in a cell for military dogs.

But the harsh treatment on what advocates say are trumped up charges has barely merited a peep from the Obama administration.

Nyi Nyi Aung, a Montgomery Village resident and Burmese democracy advocate who has traveled there often, appears to be politically inconvenient for both the United States and the Burmese military dictatorship at a moment when the two countries have taken tentative steps toward engagement after years of stormy antagonism.

"It is shocking to me that an American citizen has been treated this way and higher U.S. officials are silent on that," said Wa Wa Kyaw, Nyi Nyi's fiancee and also a U.S. citizen and Maryland resident. "It will let the generals think, 'We can do whatever we want, even torture and inhumane treatment of a U.S. citizen,' because America wants to do the engagement policy."

In one apparent concession to American sensitivities, the Burmese government in October abruptly dropped charges of instigating unrest in concert with pro-democracy groups. Instead, it accused Nyi Nyi of purely criminal acts -- allegedly possessing a forged Burmese identification document and failing to declare U.S. currency totaling more than $2,000. His lawyers say he is innocent of both offenses; they note that he appears to have been seized by authorities before he even made it through customs, where he would have had to declare the currency.

Officials at the Burmese Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.

Burma, also known as Myanmar, is regarded as one of the world's most oppressive nations, ruled by generals who have enriched themselves while much of the country remains desperately poor. The National League for Democracy, the party of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, won a landslide electoral victory in 1990, but the military leadership refused to accept it. Since then, she has been under house arrest for most of the time, as have hundreds of her supporters.

The 40-year-old Nyi Nyi was one of the leading organizers of demonstrations against the junta in 1988 and fled the country after a violent crackdown, eventually settling in the United States as a political refugee in 1993. He became a U.S. citizen in 2002 and earned a college degree in computer science, but he also remained deeply involved in Burmese democracy efforts.

Wa Wa said that her fiancee managed to often travel to Burma to visit his family and work with the Burmese underground because his U.S. passport is in his legal name, Kyaw Zaw Lwin. In his professional and personal lives in the United States, he has used Nyi Nyi Aung -- an amalgam of a childhood nickname and his father's first name -- and for years the Burmese government never made the connection.

But last summer Nyi Nyi's profile was raised when he helped deliver a petition to senior United Nations officials with 680,000 signatures calling for the release of all political prisoners in Burma.

Wa Wa, who has lived with Nyi Nyi since 2005, also has secretly traveled back to Burma even though she is a political refugee. "We have taken the risk because we want to organize and train the new generation for democracy and freedom," she said.

Nyi Nyi's mother and sister are serving prison sentences of five years and 65 years, respectively, for their involvement in 2007 anti-government demonstrations known as the "Saffron Revolution." Wa Wa said that he tried to enter the country again in part to see his ailing mother. But he appears to have been seized as soon as he landed at the airport in September.

Nyi Nyi's treatment in prison has attracted worldwide attention, with both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International issuing statements on his case. Fifty-three members of the House of Representatives, including House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard L. Berman (D-Calif.), sent a letter last week to Senior Gen. Than Shwe calling for Nyi Nyi's immediate release and return to the United States.

On Nov. 6, Sen. Barbara Milkulski (D-Md.) sent Wa Wa a letter saying she had asked Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to condemn the detention in the "strongest terms possible." But Clinton -- who over the summer called for the release of another American, John Yettaw -- has been silent. Yettaw, who was tried for entering Aung San Suu Kyi's compound, eventually was freed through the intervention of Sen. James Webb (D-Va.), when he traveled to Burma and met with senior leaders in August.

Sources also said that Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell did not raise the case when he met with senior Burmese officials in a rare high-level visit to Burma last month, though it has been raised at lower levels. Jared Gensler, a Washington lawyer who is assisting Wa Wa, said Westerners put on trial in Burma are usually treated well and then deported, but Nyi Nyi appears to be the first American of Burmese descent on trial, which might account for the rough treatment.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the department is handling the case as it would for any American citizen. "Embassy representatives have monitored his court appearances and been able to talk with him in that setting," he said. "We continue to press the Burmese government for ongoing consular access as required by the Vienna Convention so that we can ensure that he is treated appropriately."

Black men hit hard by unemployment in Milwaukee

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By Krissah Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 24, 2009; A03

MILWAUKEE -- Radolph Matthews was taught that hope starts at home. He followed the path his strict father set out and checked all the right boxes. But there he was last week on his way to cash an unemployment check -- $388. He ran the numbers through his head -- $200 for the cellphone bill, $60 for gas for the truck and the rest for food for nine people.

"I thought, I got my MBA, I'm set. I graduated with honors. I'm perfect. All of a sudden all of that was snatched from up under me," said Matthews, whose $60,000-a-year job at a nonprofit group was eliminated two months ago. "It's days before Christmas. I have four babies in the house."

At this moment, Milwaukee is a hauntingly jobless place for African Americans, who are more likely to be out of work than whites, Hispanics or Asian Americans. It's a reality reflected in the Matthews home, where Radolph's wife, Daniela, is the family's provider. His mother-in-law is disabled. His wife's sister has a newborn and is unemployed, and his wife's brother, who stays with them sometimes, also has no job.

For black people in Wisconsin, the jobless numbers reached a new high in October, the month Matthews lost his job. The unemployment rate for African Americans surpassed that of every other state, reaching an average of 22 percent for the past 12 months, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nationally, the unemployment rate is 10 percent, but according to the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, nearly one out of every two black men in Milwaukee is not working, compared with 18.1 percent of white men and 22.1 percent of Hispanic men.

Unemployment or fear of it consumes conversations in corners of this city of 600,000, and it sounds nothing like the talk about jobs in Washington.

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The same day Matthews cashed his unemployment check, President Obama stood outside a Home Depot in Alexandria pushing for tax rebates for home energy-efficiency renovations -- an idea dubbed "cash for caulkers." The next day, House members cast a largely symbolic vote on a $150 billion jobs package that won't be debated until next year. The Congressional Black Caucus, meanwhile, continued to prod the White House and Congress to do more for unemployed black people, spending a late night on the House floor reading flowery resolutions to an empty chamber about their districts' troubles.

Milwaukee's jobless are wrestling with those troubles. Four times the usual number of people are showing up at the emergency food pantry saying they recently lost their jobs. A training program promoting "green" jobs for women and minorities has 30 slots but nearly 150 applicants. And Matthews, who has applied for more than 45 jobs each week for the past three weeks, says his advanced degree hasn't eased his search.

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In interviews with more than 30 African Americans here, the emotions among the jobless ranged from deflated to defiant, angry to hopeless. Nearly all said their frustrations have not affected their support for Obama. Most blamed Wall Street or the Bush administration for the deteriorating economy, though some said they think Obama should do more to create jobs. A few sided with members of the black caucus who have accused the president and those around him of not being sensitive to the higher unemployment rates among blacks.

All the same, the long-standing problem of joblessness among blacks in Milwaukee -- only intensified by this latest recession -- holds opportunity and fear for the people here. There is some hope that the federal government will find a way to spur job creation, and there is fear that the rest of the country will recover, leaving chronically jobless communities jobless.

That's what scares Vanessa Luster, an unemployed 42-year-old mother of two sons. On Tuesday she applied for technical school. On Wednesday she applied for food stamps.

"It's a mess out here," she said, standing inside the Milwaukee Hunger Task Force office.

Luster, who was born in the city, said her parents had a more stable life. Her mother worked off and on at the post office. Her stepdad worked in cutting and leather tanning. Government and manufacturing jobs were the way to a solid middle-class life for Luster's family and many other black families.

Everyone has lamented the havoc wreaked by deindustrialization, but Luster points out that right now the post office isn't hiring, either. She applied there recently.

"He should send more help to the community," Luster said of Obama before heading out into subzero weather.

* * *

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, a two-term Democrat who recently announced his candidacy for governor, remembers a time when a worker could quit a first-shift job and have another by the third shift. "We know that this is a big problem," he said of the double-digit black unemployment rate.

The city is dotted with reminders of its boom days. There is the massive, hollow A.O. Smith plant that stretches from 27th Street all the way to 35th Street in the center of the black community. In the early 1980s, it employed more than 5,500 workers, said Michael Rosen, an economics professor at Milwaukee Area Technical College. The work began to peter out in the 1990s, and the plant closed in 2006.

Last week, the city bought the property with plans to turn it into an office park. What concerns Barrett is that not enough people have the skills for the jobs that will come. To deal with the problem, he is trying many "micro-solutions to macro-problems."

Last week, the city, in partnership with a local nonprofit group, held an informational session for an urban forestry course in its green-jobs program, funded in part by federal stimulus money. It promises to pay 30 minorities and women $12.76 an hour for six months while they train to become licensed arborists.

At the session, for which 46 men and two women were crammed into a room, one man said: "Say you don't make the cut. What y'all offering then?" He looked around. "Obviously all of us aren't going to get hired."

Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) said questions like his are the reason she joined other members of the black caucus in a boycott of one of Obama's legislative priorities. "We wanted to punctuate what we see is a serious risk in allowing the entire minority community to entirely collapse," she said.

Obama has rejected the idea that his administration should target specific groups, saying that fixing the broader economy will help everyone, including African Americans. Moore, whose father made his living dumping vats of molten steel in a foundry, testily disagrees. "He's made statements that's he's going to try to resist making this about race," Moore said. "Well, that's fine. Let's target the poorest, and we are sure to reach our constituents."

But the struggle over unemployment and whether Obama is doing enough is more complex for some. Elizabeth Coggs, who is part of one of the state's prominent black political families and a county supervisor in Milwaukee, said, "Everybody wants him to pull a rabbit out of a hat in a year." A few minutes later, she complained that jobs funded by the stimulus program aren't trickling down.

Lauri Wynn, a retired schoolteacher who once headed the state teachers union, feels the same kind of contradiction. She said Obama "is enough to make the worst of us proud." But when she looks at her hometown, she is angry and wonders whether his historic presidency will change anything there.

"Should we put our hope in Obama?" Wynn asked herself. "I don't know."

* * *

Ralph Hollman, who has led the local Urban League chapter for seven years, said a pervasive level of unemployment has become the community's "silent destroyer," leading to disparities in health outcomes, incarceration rates, educational achievement and other issues. In this economic crisis, he sees three groups of unemployed blacks: the chronically unemployed with little education and job training; the recently unemployed; and the disproportionate number of black men in the city who have felony convictions that effectively bar them from many jobs.

"Each of those groups needs a different response," he said.

But what response?

Matthews's has been to begin looking outside Milwaukee for work. He is not sure that the jobs programs being hatched in Washington will do anything to bring down the unemployment rate for minorities. But his wife hopes they will, for their family and for Obama, whose success she links to the larger black community.

"I just hope it turns around before he leaves office so it's not, 'Well we gave y'all a chance and look what happened,' " said Daniela Matthews.