The United Nations recently announced that internally-displaced persons (IDPs) in Sri Lanka, housed in refugee camps since the time they fled their homes during the final and fatal offensive against the LTTE, can now go back to their homes. The questions are whether they still have homes to go back to and how safe is it for them to go back.

The Sri Lankan government has earned harsh international criticism over the news that the squalid Tamil refugee camps were actually prison camps where harsh interrogation has been conducted on Tamils suspected to have been connected to the eradicated LTTE. Criticism against the country’s human rights abuses have largely come from the West.

‘Despite mounting evidence of abuses in Sri Lanka, the response from Western countries was initially weak, though eventually several governments, including the United States, the United Kingdom and France, raised their voices. They strongly condemned indiscriminate attacks and urged a humanitarian corridor for civilians trapped in the war zone.’ Sri Lanka, however, has been dismissing such criticism, confident and proud that the government has finally expunged the violent insurgent group LTTE.

Sri Lanka has, instead, turned to mostly Eastern countries for support, while ignoring all criticisms from the West. Countries with significant records in human rights abuses such as China, Pakistan, Burma, Libya, Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran have been sympathetic to the Sri Lankan government, as well as commending the government’s policies, and pledging to aid the country.

Image

Via Foreign Policy in Focus

Although suffering a steady and growing censorship, more and more Chinese use the Internet to express their opinion using the great ease to write good articles, and at the same time circumvent government control.

“The Chinese bloggers are the smartest in the world. In addition to writing a good and interesting article, they should think how to evade the government,” said the journalist Wang Xiaofeng, author of the blog Bu Xu Lian Xiang, which receives an average of 40 thousand visits per day.

Also editor of a weekly cultural magazine in Beijing, Wang explains that a major difficulty is moving in so-called “sensitive words” so that they are not identified by the filter control.
Although censorship is strong, the Internet is the preferred means of expression among many Chinese. The network has helped uncover corruption among local authorities and served to organize protests, but the main function is to be a mural for writing articles criticizing or mocking the communist government.

China topped the list of countries with censorship omnipresent on the Internet, according to a series by the NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in 2007. The list includes other schemes such as Myanmar, Cuba, Iran, Vietnam, Maldives, North Korea, Syria, Tunisia and Uzbekistan.

Imager credit.

Via: Folha.

The social investigation was conducted by Freedom House. The organization’s Freedom in the World report entitled Worst of the Worst: The World’s Most Repressive Societies 2009 enumerates the bottom 21 countries and territories with regards to repression of human freedom. Here are some of the worst of hell on earth:

North Korea is the nadir of freedom in the world. The power resides in one man, Kim Jong Il, who assumed power in 1994 upon the death of his father, North Korea’s founding leader Kim Il Sung. Kim’s communist regime maintains a network of prison camps where thousands of political prisoners are subjected to torture. A North Korean’s social status is based on perceived loyalty to the regime.

Burma’s ruling military junta led by Senior Gen. Than Shwe controls all branches of power. The brutal regime has sunk the country into depths of poverty. Widespread human rights abuses that come with impunity are a mark of the regime.

President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo enjoys unprecedented political powers in Equatorial Guinea where there have never been credible elections. The oil-rich country is one of the most corrupt regimes in the world. The leader, his family, and cronies have amassed huge wealth from the country’s oil profits. Widespread poverty characterizes the country, along with human rights abuses, torture, detention of political opponents, and extrajudicial killings.

Saudi Arabia is an authoritarian monarchy. The entire political power is owned by the royal family. ‘All Saudis are required by law to be Muslims, and the government prohibits the public practice of any religions other than Islam.’ Women suffer the most from bias and unequal human rights as intrinsically embodied in the Muslim Sharia law.

Image

Via Foreign Policy

Burmese Court and Burma’s military dictatorship did what the world and Aung San Suu Kyi herself had been speculating. They found her guilty of violating terms of previous house arrest and sentenced her to 18 more months of house arrest. She had committed ‘crime’ of giving shelter to an eccentric American. Meanwhile American John Yettaw too will have to pay heavily for his eccentricity – he has been sentenced seven years of imprisonment and hard labour.

In fact court had sentenced her to 3 years of hard labour and it was Burma’s military leader Senior General Than Shwe who commuted it into one and a half years of house arrest. Everyone had expected this too. Military had to make a show of their ‘generosity’ to the West and the world after the sham trial and the verdict.

With this ruling Burmese military dictatorship achieved what it intended. The popular Opposition leader of Burma Aung San Suu Kyi will be serving yet another sentence during the coming elections due next year. They could not have risked her taking part in the elections next year.

Yes, there has been international outrage. Britain, France and other nations within EU have decided to push for total arms embargo and other total sanctions which will directly affect military regime. Will things ever change in Burma?

Via Timesonline

This question seems totally meaningless. Aung San Suu Kyi has spent most of her life between prison and house-arrest. The verdict at the end of this week will again be one of the two. Freedom and justice will again be denied to world’s most popular brave Burmese opposition leader and to the people of Burma.

The trial of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is coming to an end this week. This most publicized trial started after an eccentric American swam across to the meet her at the house where was she spending last months of long house arrest. She is accused of violation of the terms of her house arrest by offering the mad man food and shelter and is likely to be convicted and sent to prison for another five years.

Some diplomats speculate that if at all due to international pressure Burma’s General Than Shwe decides to pardon her, the sentence may be commuted to house arrest once again. Diplomats of some countries have been allowed to witness the trial. It seems Aung San Suu Kyi told the diplomats during the trial, “I’m afraid the verdict will be painfully obvious”. Burma’s ruling military regime will not let her walk free before next year’s election or even after that.

Wars are being fought to reinstate democracy in countries like Iraq, Afghanistan but unfortunately Burma continues to be ignored.

Image

Via Timesonline

The term Third World should not be based on any political or economic criteria. Whose arbitrary criteria are those, anyway? But there may be common characteristics today, post-Cold War, among so-called ‘Third World’ countries.

The aggregate term ‘Third World’ has come to mean:

1. The demand and receipt of foreign aid (more aptly called Western aid). Some countries such as Myanmar (after Cyclone Nigris) and Sudan (in the wake of the Darfur war) are just some examples of countries that have repelled Western aid. In the process, they have become tagged as more repressive than ever.

2. The seemingly legalized dumping of toxic waste in exchange for bilateral trade relations and bilateral aid. An example of repelling this hidden and unspoken arrangement is the Philippines that is not too receptive in accepting Japan’s offer for bilateral aid under the already signed Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA).

Next time that you encounter the term ‘Third World’ or are even tempted to use it, think of it beyond those lands of starving children and savage tribes. Stretch your imagination a little bit more. Think of it as:

1. Those countries that are seduced to borrow from the IMF and ultimately languish in debt servicing hell

2. Countries whose agricultural livelihood is eradicated because of their forced ties to the World Bank, again through aid that isn’t really for free, comes by the name Official Development Assistance or ODA which is actually a loan package that they have to pay for in terms of being a dumping ground for foreign surplus agricultural products

3. Countries whose migrant labor runs the agricultural and industrial machinery of rich countries

4. Countries whose citizens are used as human guinea pigs for multinational big pharma’s latest vaccine testing

5. Countries whose populations reeling under the devastating effects of malaria and dysentery are pronounced dying with AIDS and thus administered antiretrovirals which are actually chemotherapy that lays their bodies wasted, but whose production means huge funding

Next time, please ask yourself the question: who holds the appropriate definition for the term repression?

And while you’re at it, also ask the question: who holds the franchise for the correct definition of freedom?

Image 1
Image 2

The tragedy of the Rohingya refugees occupies a special issue in the migrant debate as it has affected many ASEAN member countries. The Rohingya boat people, part of a Muslim minority group living in western Burma’s Arakan State, fled their country in waves over the recent months because of the tremendous pressure they were under from the military junta. They do not have citizenship in Burma. They do not have any legal rights. Considered the lowest of the low in a mainly Buddhist country, the Rohingya have been called one of the world’s most persecuted people. Some believe that they are also one of the most forgotten.

Composed of about three million people, the Rohingya are descendants of Arab traders. According to Human Rights Watch, more than 250,000 people from the Rohingya community fled the ethnic cleansing in 1992 that was being undertaken by the totalitarian regime. Their main receiving countries are Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Bangladesh, India, and some Middle Eastern states.

Last January, Indonesia found several migrant boat people belonging to the Rohingya population in its territorial waters. They had been adrift in the ocean for 20 days, aiming to reach Malaysia or Thailand but found themselves drifted to Indonesia. The country rescued nearly 400 survivors who are now in shelters in Aceh province which occupies the northern part of Sumatra. They are now seeking refugee status.

Image 1, 2, 3, 4

Via Jakarta Globe