Why is Madhu Kishwar Maligning Mansi Soni – Investigate the Stalker | Mukul Sinha

Truth of Gujarat, November 17, 2013


Why is Madhu Kishwar Maligning Mansi Soni – Investigate the Stalker
Mukul Sinha November 17, 2013 |

Narendra Modi Stalking Mansi-Soni-Amit-Shah-Madhuri

As reported by NewsRoomPost.com, when Madhu Kishwar, a self-acclaimed women’s activist and a staunch supporter of Modi, was asked by NewsRoomPost to react to the Gulail-CobraPost exposé regarding the

Javed Iqbal: The unending struggle of Bastar adivasis

Years after the Muria and the Koya were displaced from Dantewada by the atrocities of the Salwa Judum and the Maoists, their houses would be destroyed repeatedly by the Forest Department who calls them 'encroachers'. The IDPs would also fight with the local koya tribes over resources. Yet the Forest Department simply blames the adivasis for forest loss in Khammam, without even asking how much land all the Koyas and the Murias lost in the last 100 years in Khammam - massive land alienation studied by the late civil servant Girglani. The latest settlement that was destroyed as an 'encroachment', was only two kilometres away from Badrachalam town centre, which is actually adivasi land.

Around 43 families from the villages of Millampalli, Simalpenta, Raygudem, Darba and Singaram in Dantewada district, lost their makeshift homes for the second time in three months in the Mothe Reserve Forest of Khammam district of Andhra Pradesh on March 26, when the forest department, mandated to protect the forests, evicted them using force. A large number of families are internally displaced persons who’ve escaped the Salwa Judum-Maoist conflict of Dantewada and have lived in Khammam as informal labour.

Most originated from Millampalli, that was burnt down by the Salwa Judum in 2006 and Maoists have killed at least three people — Sodi Dola, Komaram Muthaiya and Madkam Jogaiya in the past 10 years. Another resident of Millampalli, Dusaru Sodi, used to be a member of the Maoist Sangam but would eventually become a special police officer who witnesses from Tadmentla and Morpalli alleged was present during the burnings of the villages or Tadmetla, Morpalli and Timmapuram in March 2011 by security forces. His name again reappeared in testimonies by rape victims, submitted to the National Commission of Women and the Supreme Court by anthropologist Nandini Sundar.


Madvi Samaiya and Madvi Muthaiya from the village of Raygudem were also killed by the Maoists. In Simalpenta, the Sarpanch’s brother Kurra Anda was killed by the Maoists in 2006.In Singaram, an alleged encounter that took place on January 9, 2009, where 19 adivasis were killed by security forces as alleged Maoists.

In Khammam, most of the IDPs/migrants have worked as informal labour during the mircchi cutting season, earning around Rs100/day and live off their savings in the summer season when there is no work, and little access to water to a majority of the settlements. The Muria from Chhattisgarh, or the Gotti Koya as they are known in Andhra along with Koyas from Chhattisgarh, have been in a struggle to appropriate the reserve forest land of Khammam for podu cultivation, often leading the forest department to evict them, aware that the entire forest cover is turning into a ‘honeycomb,’ as described by the DFO Shafiullah, who pointed out to satellite imagery of a pockmarked forest in Khammam, back in 2010...

http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/column_the-unending-struggle-of-bastar-adivasis_1684183

With Photos:
http://moonchasing.wordpress.com/2012/05/04/the-unending-struggle-to-exist-for-bastars-adivasis/

Chen Guangcheng's nephew flees in fear for his life

Four days after the blind activist Chen Guangcheng made his audacious bid for freedom, dropping over a wall under cover of darkness and limping away on an injured leg, his nephew also made a desperate escape through fields of peanut and sweet potato plants. Friends say the older man reached the safety of the US embassy in Beijing, but when last heard from on Sunday night, his nephew, Chen Kegui, was on the run – penniless, frightened, struggling for breath and hiding from a black car he feared was following him. The 33-year-old's flight is the most potent reminder that his uncle's incredible escape from 19 months of house arrest has come at a bitter cost.

On Monday, the European Union urged China to avoid harassing the activist's family and associates. But many are already in the hands of furious officials; Chen Kegui fled after lashing out with a knife at men who had broken into his home and detained his father. Shortly afterwards, two police officers marched his mother away from the hospital where she was caring for his sick child. Chen Kegui's wife is now too frightened to reveal her location. "She's afraid she will be next and the whole family will be taken away. She's terrified," said lawyer Liu Weiguo, whom she hired before she left.

The family lived just a few hundred metres away from Chen Guangcheng, in the village of Dongshigu in eastern Shandong province. But the family members had not seen each other for more than a year thanks to the state of siege in which the activist lived following his release from jail in 2010. His wife, Yuan Weijing, their six-year-old daughter and his mother are thought to remain under the watch of up to 100 hired guards – armed with hi-tech surveillance and phone-jamming equipment – who have beaten, threatened or harassed supporters, journalists and even diplomats trying to visit. They are said to have broken Yuan's bones in one beating last year...


Perhaps the most immediate cause for concern is Chen Kegui. Hours after the incident he told blogger Cao Yaxue that a group of men – armed with wooden clubs and led by a local official – had broken in at around midnight on Thursday after realising his uncle had escaped. Sobbing as he spoke, Chen Kegui described how he had grabbed kitchen knives to use for self-defence and slashed at the intruders as they tried to grab him. It is unclear how badly the men were injured.

"In China, law is trampled over at will. I love my motherland, but this is what she gives me," he told Cao. "Chen Guangcheng is innocent. But they forced a charge on him. My father is getting old, couldn't walk, and where did they take him? I feel helpless. "If I am sentenced to death, I hope someone will help take care of my father, my mother, my family, my child … I hope the case will be dealt with according to rights provided for by the law, not manipulated by the privileged people."...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/30/chen-guangcheng-nephew-flees

See previous report: China dissident escapes:
http://dilipsimeon.blogspot.in/2012/04/china-dissident-chen-guangcheng-escapes.html

Bahrain hunger striker will get retrial

Bahrain has announced a retrial for a hunger-striking political activist and 20 other people accused of trying to overthrow the western-backed monarchy in the Gulf state's Arab spring protests last year. Abdulhadi al-Khawaja is to be tried in a civilian court – rather than a military court as before – suggesting an attempt by the Bahraini government to respond to domestic and international criticism of its policies by finding a face-saving solution. Khawaja, 52, was sentenced to life imprisonment for plotting against the state last summer. But a three-month hunger strike and an energetic campaign by family and supporters have kept his case in the spotlight. It was raised too in the runup to the recent controversial Formula One Grand Prix in Bahrain. Khawaja is currently in a military hospital in a serious condition, having lost 25% of his body weight. The Bahrain defence forces denied in a statement on Sunday that he was being force-fed.

The decision to give him a retrial is a partial victory for Khawaja, but his family said immediately that it did not go far enough as he is to remain in custody. "Abdulhadi al-Khawaja did not go on hunger strike saying death or retrial, he said death or freedom," his daughter Maryam wrote on Twitter. "A retrial doesn't mean much." Khawaja's wife, Khadija al-Moussawi, told the BBC: "I think it is ridiculous. What sort of legal process is this? They are playing for time, and should have transferred his case to a civilian court at the first hearing, not the third." The Bahrain Human Rights Society noted that the retrial would still be based on interrogations carried out by military prosecutors.

The retrial decision is line with the so far largely ignored recommendations of the Bahrain independent commission of investigation (BICI) appointed by King Hamad Al Khalifa, which found that Khawaja had suffered prolonged torture while in detention. Khawaja has dual nationality with Denmark, and the Danish ambassador criticised the decision to keep him in custody and renewed his call for Khawaja to be transferred to Denmark on humanitarian grounds. Bahrain's government, meanwhile, has been accused of urging supporters to vote in an online opinion poll on the Radio Times website to ensure that a highly critical film about repression during last year's protests does not win the current affairs prize at this year's Bafta Television Awards. On Saturday, the Bahraini foreign minister, Khalid Al Khalifa, tweeted to his nearly 80,000 followers urging loyalists to vote against the al-Jazeera documentary Bahrain: Shouting in the Dark. The film has already won numerous awards for al-Jazeera. Human Rights Watch said in a new report at the weekend that Bahraini police were beating and torturing detainees, including minors, despite the recommendations of the BICI and public commitments to end torture and police impunity.

"Bahrain has displaced the problem of torture and police brutality from inside police stations to the point of arrest and transfer to police stations," said Nadim Houry, the deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "This abuse contradicts one of the most important recommendations of the independent commission and shows why investigations and prosecutions of abusers to the highest level are essential to stopping these practices."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/30/bahrain-retrial-hunger-striker-khawaja

See also: A call from the international  network - Secularism Is A Women’s Issue (SIAWI)
To the authorities in Bahrain and to Member-States of the European Union:
http://dilipsimeon.blogspot.in/2012/04/bahrain-freedom-not-death-for-human.html

China dissident Chen Guangcheng escapes house arrest

One of China's best known dissidents, Chen Guangcheng, has escaped from house arrest and has released a video addressed to Premier Wen Jiabao. In it he makes three demands, including one that Mr Wen investigate what Mr Chen, who is blind, calls the brutal beating up of his family members. Rights activists say Mr Chen slipped out of his home in Dongshigu town in Shandong province on Sunday. His whereabouts are unclear, but supporters say he is safe in Beijing. Unconfirmed reports say Mr Chen may have taken refuge in a diplomatic mission. Mr Chen, 40, had been under house arrest since he was released from a four-year jail sentence in 2010.

In the video, delivered from a darkened room and posted online by Boxun, a Chinese dissident news website based in the United States, Mr Chen asks that:

Premier Wen investigate and prosecute local officials Mr Chen says beat up his family members
The safety of his family be ensured
Corruption in general in China be dealt with and punished according to the law
Mr Chen names some local officials who told him that they "do not care about the law" and that "a few hundred people" were hired by the local government to "lock down" the village he lives in.

The Chinese authorities have come under international criticism for their treatment of him. At one point his daughter was barred from school. Many sympathisers who have tried to visit his home say they have been beaten up. In the video, Mr Chen says: ''I may be free but my worries are for my family… my wife, my child, my mother. Perhaps because of my leaving, they may become the target of more brutal abuse.'' The plight of Mr Chen has become famous around the world. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has repeatedly called for his release and is due to visit Beijing next week. An activist based in the United States who has been in close contact with Mr Chen confirmed that the dissident had left Shandong - about eight hours' drive from Beijing.

"Now I can share with you Chen is now in the 100% safe location in Beijing. That's how much I can share with you,'' Bob Fu, founder of ChinaAid, based in Texas in the US, told the BBC via email. Another activist based in China, He Peirong, who has been campaigning for his freedom, told various sources that she drove him to "a safe place" outside Shandong. There are also unconfirmed rumours that Mr Chen is at the US embassy in Beijing. The US embassy ''would not comment'', says an Associated Press news report. In the same report, Ms He denied the rumours published in Singapore's Lianhe Zaobao newspaper, saying that she had spoken to people at the embassy.

"I can tell you he's not at the US embassy, and he's not in Shandong,'' she told AP. The authorities appear to be moving against those believed to have been involved in Mr Chen's escape. Reports on Friday said that local authorities had surrounded the house of Mr Chen's brother, Chen Guangfu, and nephew, Chen Kegui, in Dongshigu, near Linyi...

The fact that Chen Guangcheng has chosen to address Premier Wen Jiabao rather than President Hu Jintao or other leaders suggests he wants to challenge Wen Jiabao to put into practice his repeated calls for political reform and action to root out corruption among officials. Wen Jiabao often presents a more caring side than most in the leadership, frequently appearing in disaster areas and showing sympathy with the victims. In this case, however, it is highly unlikely that Premier Wen - or anybody else in the Chinese leadership for that matter - will respond to Mr Chen's request.

Nevertheless, Mr Chen's dramatic escape and videotape once again put his situation in the spotlight of international attention. Awkward questions will be asked of Chinese officials at news briefings, and human rights organisations are likely to resume putting pressure on the authorities in China over the treatment of Mr Chen and his family. While dissidents like Chen Guangcheng pose a constant headache to the authorities, they themselves have few options. If they leave China and start a life in exile in the West, they gain freedom, but lose contact with their families, relatives and friends.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-17865465

Chinese activist fears 'insane retribution' on family after escape:

In a video message, Chen confirmed he was beaten and said 90 to 100 local officials were involved in his detention. He expressed "extreme concern" about retaliation against his family. Chen confirmed reports about his maltreatment that have appeared over the years. "The truth was even worse," he said. "I formally made three requests to Premier Wen Jiabao. First, severely punish criminals. Second, look into this yourself, and third, send a special investigation team to find out the truth." Chen is believed to have used the cover of darkness in which his blindness – he lost his sight at the age of five – gave him an advantage over his captors. He previously attempted to dig a tunnel without success.

It is not yet clear how Chen evaded the officials, police and plainclothes thugs who have been permanently camped in and around his home in Linyi since his release from prison in 2010. But activists said it was not an individual, opportunistic bid for freedom. "This wasn't a sudden thing. In order to escape from a place with so many guards must have taken a great deal of planning," said Phelim Kine of Human Rights Watch. Chen's exact whereabouts are unknown. Several sources said he was in a place that was safe from the scrutiny of security agencies, prompting speculation that he may have taken refuge in a foreign embassy or consulate. The US embassy has declined to comment on the case.

According to the US-based group China Aid, Chen was "100% safe" in Beijing. But the group said that the activist He Peirong, one of the people who helped Chen flee, was arrested at her home in Nanjing on Friday morning. He, who is said to have been in close contact with the Chen family, had earlier told CNN that Chen's hands were trembling, but his spirits were high. She said he was injured in the escape... http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/27/chinese-activist-fears-insane-retribution

Fang Lizhi: distinguished professor of astrophysics (1936–2012)

Fang Lizhi, a distinguished professor of astrophysics, luminary in the struggle for human rights in contemporary China, and frequent contributor to The New York Review, died suddenly on the morning of April 6...News of his passing spread quickly on the Chinese Internet. Students whom he had taught in the 1980s and admirers of his eloquent championing of human rights wrote their accolades. State Security officials noticed, and within hours ordered Internet police to delete all messages that mentioned the words “Fang Lizhi.” After that, tweets about Fang on weibo (the Chinese version of Twitter) disappeared about a minute after posting...


Fang’s father was a postal clerk and he grew up in modest circumstances. But soon it became clear that Fang had a brilliant mind, and his outstanding work as a student led him to the Physics Department of China’s elite Peking University in the early 1950s. The campus atmosphere of optimistic socialism attracted him, and he joined the Communist Party. In courting his girlfriend (a fellow student who later became his wife, the physicist Li Shuxian), he once invited her to “watch me grow into a good Communist.” During Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s, he was persecuted and confined in a reeducation camp at a coal mine in southern Anhui province. It was this treatment that led him to specialize in theoretical astrophysics, which he later told me was “the only field of physics I could pursue without equipment.” After Mao died Fang’s star rose again, and in 1984 he became vice-president of China’s prestigious University of Science and Technology in Anhui.

By then he had shed his attachment to Marxist dogma and, in addition to teaching physics, began delivering trenchant speeches on human rights and democracy. For example, when the government of Deng Xiaoping began using the slogan “modernization with Chinese characteristics” (i.e., modernization without power-sharing by the Communist Party), Fang responded satirically by asking students if they believed in physics with Chinese characteristics. Students were charmed; the authorities were not. In January 1987 they fired him from his university job (for this and other speeches), expelled him from the Party, and compiled excerpts from his speeches that they then distributed to campuses all across China as examples of “bourgeois liberalism” that students should avoid. But students found the excerpts themselves far more attractive than the warnings, and Fang suddenly became famous everywhere in China. He became the spirit behind the nationwide pro-democracy demonstrations in the spring of 1989. He lived on the outskirts of Beijing at the time, but refused to go to Tiananmen Square. He wanted to make it clear to the authorities that the students were acting autonomously.

After the June 4 massacre that ended the protests, the government published a list of people wanted for arrest. Fang Lizhi and Li Shuxian were numbers one and two. On June 5 they took refuge in the US embassy in Beijing, where they lived for thirteen months in a basement apartment that had no windows. On being told that Deng, in a conversation with Henry Kissinger, had said he wanted him to write a confession, Fang wrote one in the form of a forthright statement of human rights principles. In June 1990 the Japanese government negotiated the release of Fang and Li by offering economic concessions to China, and for the next nearly twenty-two years they lived in exile.

Fang’s path through life observed a pattern that is common to China’s dissidents: a person begins with socialist ideals, feels bitter when the rulers betray the ideals, resorts to outspoken criticism, and ends in prison or exile... http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2012/apr/13/on-fang-lizhi/

'They're killing us': world's most endangered tribe cries for help

Logging companies keen to exploit Brazil's rainforest have been accused by human rights organisations of using gunmen to wipe out the Awá, a tribe of just 355.


Trundling along the dirt roads of the Amazon, the giant logging lorry dwarfed the vehicle of the investigators following it. The trunks of nine huge trees were piled high on the back – incontrovertible proof of the continuing destruction of the world's greatest rainforest and its most endangered tribe, the Awá. Yet as they travelled through the jungle early this year, the small team from Funai – Brazil's National Indian Foundation – did not dare try to stop the loggers; the vehicle was too large and the loggers were almost certainly armed. All they could do was video the lorry and add the film to the growing mountain of evidence showing how the Awá – with only 355 surviving members, more than 100 of whom have had no contact with the outside world – are teetering on the edge of extinction.

It is a scene played out throughout the Amazon as the authorities struggle to tackle the powerful illegal logging industry. But it is not just the loss of the trees that has created a situation so serious that it led a Brazilian judge, José Carlos do Vale Madeira, to describe it as "a real genocide". People are pouring on to the Awá's land, building illegal settlements, running cattle ranches. Hired gunmen – known as pistoleros– are reported to be hunting Awá who have stood in the way of land-grabbers. Members of the tribe describe seeing their families wiped out. Human rights campaigners say the tribe has reached a tipping point and only immediate action by the Brazilian government to prevent logging can save the tribe...

...the Awá also face a more direct threat. Earlier this year an investigation into reports that an Awá child had been killed by loggers found that their tractors had destroyed the Awá camp. "It is not just the destruction of the land; it is the violence," said Watson. "I have talked to Awá people who have survived massacres. I have interviewed Awá who have seen their families shot in front of them. There are immensely powerful people against them. The land-grabbers usepistoleros to clear the land. If this is not stopped now, these people could be wiped out. This is extinction taking place before our eyes."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/22/brazil-rainforest-awa-endangered-tribe

Also see: Campaign to save 'world's most threatened tribe':
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/apr/25/colin-firth-campaign-awa

Crime And Punishment, In Rajapaksa Sri Lanka

For the Tamil families of Dilithura, a small village of mostly estate workers in Elpitiya, Galle, the Sinhala and Tamil New Year was not to be an auspicious one. Their tragedy, which ended in burnt homes and looted possessions, began with a simple, everyday inconsequence: a young villager not calling a soldier on holiday, ‘sir’. The enraged soldier reportedly responded to this non-crime with disproportionate and extra-judicial punitive action. According to the ‘Ada Derana’ Tamil website, he assaulted the young man, as well as another Tamil youth who tried to mediate. Subsequently, “around 30 youths had gathered at the location, beaten up the two Tamil youths and set fire to seven houses, push cycles, motorcycles and three wheelers. They had also got away with money and jewellery…” (Sri Lanka Mirror 16.4.2012). The villagers informed the police. Instead of arresting the perpetrators, the police detained two Tamil youths!

When seven Tamil families loose their homes and all their possessions because one Tamil boy did not call a soldier ‘sir’, does it not smack of collective punishment? If an outrage of this order can happen in the South, in 2012, what could not have happened in the North, in the midst of a total war without witnesses? If a soldier on leave can take the law into his own hands with such alacrity and impunity, in Galle, what cannot the tens of thousands of soldiers on duty do, in those villages beyond Omanthai, and beyond the reach of law?

The soldier’s actions would have been explicable if he believed, however mistakenly, that the Tamil youth was a Tiger. He did not. Military personnel suffering from Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder (PTSD) commit crimes, including homicide and suicide. The soldier’s assault on the Tamil youth could have been explained away as a result of (unacknowledged and untreated) PTSD, but not the subsequent orgy of looting and arson. The composite picture points to a crime of an entirely different order, a crime premised on and informed by the primordial identities of the perpetrators and the victims and the total imbalance of power between the two.

In the North, Sinhala soldiers rule; Tamils have only one right – the right to obey. Such a state of affairs is bound to habituate even the most junior soldier into being treated with grovelling obsequiousness by every Tamil. That mindset, born in the North, is permeating the South, affecting the manner in which the armed forces, as an institution, perceive and deal with Tamils, as a community. This does not mean that every serviceman will act as criminally as the soldier in Dilithura did; some will; many, due to an innate sense of decency or kindness or an inborn aversion to excess, will not. But all will have the capacity to do so..
http://www.thesundayleader.lk/2012/04/22/crime-and-punishment-in-rajapaksa-sri-lanka/

Bahrain: FREEDOM NOT DEATH FOR HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER AL-KHAWAJA !

A call from the international  network - Secularism Is A Women’s Issue (SIAWI)
To the authorities in Bahrain and to Member-States of the European Union

April 15, 2012
The network Secularism Is A Women’s Issue demands the immediate release of human rights defender Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, detained and tortured, sentenced to life imprisonment in total disregard of his fundamental right to freedom of expression, on hunger strike for more than two months, and now risking death. His death in detention would be an assassination which the authorities of Bahrain would be entirely responsible for.

Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, aged 50, has dual citizenship from Denmark and Bahrain. Today, April 15, he has been on hunger strike for 65 days, as this is the only means left to him to protest the numerous violations of his rights since his arrest, in jail, in court and even in the military hospital where he was transferred on April 3 and where he is now detained.

His human rights defender record is impeccable: Persecuted for his opinion in Bahrain, he spent twelve years in Denmark, from March 1989 to June 2001, ’with (his) wife and four brave daughters’, as he reminds the Danish Foreign Minister  in an open lettere dated February 14; this is where he was trained as a human rights defender and how he acquired Danish citizenship. He
subsequently became the Director of the Bahrain Human Rights Organisation ( BHRO) based in Copenhagen. From 2002 to 2008, he was the Director of the Bahrein Center for Human Rights, and from August 2008 to February 2011, he was the MENA regional field coordinator for Frontline, the international foundation for the protection of human rights defenders based in Dublin, Ireland.

As women, we give special consideration to the fact that Abdulhadi A-Khawaja is also a women’s rights defender. Both his  daughters, Zainab and Maryam, are activists in human rights organisations, both are presently persecuted by the authorities, one facing numerous arrests, the other now in exile. This testifies to the high standard of universal humanist values their father raised them in.

Back to Bahrain after a general amnesty, he is arrested on April 8, 2011. -Following a crackdown on a wide popular protest, he is ’severely beaten, arbitrarily detained, held in solitary confinement and subjected to torture for more than two months, brought before a military court on charges faked by the National Security Apparatus, and sentenced to life imprisonment’. In this above mentionned letter to the Danish Minister, he also denounces previous other violations of his rights: ’detained in 2004, severely beaten during peaceful protests in 2005 and 2006, subjected to unfair trials, travel ban and continuous defamation campaigns in official and semi official media’.

The deterioration of the detained defender is as follows:
Al-Khawaja was gravely tortured in detention. He was in very bad physical condition when he started his hunger strike,  on February 8, 2012. Since then, he was surviving on one liter of salted water with glucose a day. From the 10th of March, in protest against bad treatment, he puts an end to all forms of cooperation: he refuses any check ups. On March 14, he has already lost 25% of his weight. On April 2, his lawyers request his ’release pending court decision’. The court of Cassation refuses. The court also refuses to include BICI’s report  (Bahrain Independant Commission of Inquiry )  in the case records. Al-Khawaja then calls his family and lawyer and informs them of his decision to stop intake of glucose.

He is hospitalised on April 3. On April 4, he is completely unable to move, he has very low blood pressure and blood sugar. Since April 7, we know that he can hardly breathe. He told his wife about mistreatment from military hospital staff and the guards. He asks to be transferred to another
hospital and threatens to stop drinking water if there is no change. He declared: ’I will not accept this. I lived free and proud outside your prison and I live free and proud inside’. On April 12, he was informed by doctors that his condition was very critical and that he may go into a coma. Photos show a man in highly distressed physical condition. He was put on a IV that kept him conscious, but doctor said hospital IV drip ’would not be enough to keep him alive’.

However, neither his family nor his lawyer were given permission to visit him. His wife, Khadija Al-Mussawi, confirms that he was allowed to make a brief call to his family -may be his last one - to inform them of his likely going soon into a coma, in exchange that he will drink a little water.

National and international protests for his liberation were numerous: On February 23, Al-Khawaja calls on EU Member-states  to stand up to their obligation to protect human rights defenders.
On February 28, a sit-in is organized in Bahrain. On March 14, Bahrain starts a Twitter campaign.
On April 8, thousands of protesters take to the streets in Bahrain to show support for the hunger stricker. His daughter Zainab is arrested and detained while trying to see her father in hospital on April 8. On April 14, a human chain is organized in front of the office of the United Nations in Beyrouth, Lebanon, and demands his release.

The UN Human Rights High Commissioner Bureau, Human Rights Watch, Frontline, Amnesty International, Human Rights First, the International Coalition of Women Human Rights Defenders which gathers together numerous human rights and women’s rights organisations, made pressing calls to the authorities in Bahrain. Civil society in Europe, Asia and Africa are now mobilizing.

Meanwhile, Denmark officially demands Al-Khawaja’s transfer to Denmark ’on humanitarian grounds’: he would receive treatment not just for the effects of his hunger strike, but also for the consequences of tortures he was subjected to in detention. Denmark Ambassador in Bahrain was not allowed to visit him on April 8 and 9. Denmark Ambassador in Saudi Arabia, Christian Köningfeldt visited him for about twenty minutes on April 10; he confirms that Al-Khawaja was still conscious. On April 10, Denmark Prime Minister, Helle Thorning Schmidt confirmed during a press conference that : 'Denmark demands that Danish-Bahraini citizen and human rights activist Khawaja be freed’. On April 9, the Head of Foreign Ministry’s consular services, Ole Engberg Mikkelsen, confirmed that no official response was given yet:  'Unfortunately, there is not much time. It is a case where the clock is ticking’, he declared.

It is now most likely that Al-Khawaja will die in the coming days unless the authorities of Bahrain accept his being transferred to Denmark.

The international network  Secularism Is A Women’s Issue vigorously denounces this foreseeable murder and protests the fact that neither the UN Council of Human Rights nor EU member-states manage to obtain Al-Khawaja’s liberation at the earliest, as is their obligation under the ’Guidelines for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders’ they adopted. Al-Khawaja in his open letter to the Danish Foreign Minister stated: ’As a human rights defender, regardless of being a Danish citizen, I am entitled for protection by EU member-states in accordance with the EU Guidelines on the Protection of Human Rights Defenders around the world’.

Secularism Is A Women’s Issue insists on reminding the authorities in Bahrain that international laws, as well as universal humanist values and the religious principle of respect for human life  which Bahrain adheres to, all concur and agree on this issue. Al-Khawaja must recieve treatment, keeping him in detention is a disguised death sentence.

Secularism Is A Women’s Issue calls for a mass media campaign through the mobilisation of civil society organisations in the EU member-states in order to force the states to fulfill their obligations of defending those who defend rights. Secularism Is A Women’s Issue also calls on the powerful women’s organisations and networks in Muslim countries for a wide mobilisation across continents.

Together, let’s snatch Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja’s life from the hands of its persecutors.
Before it is too late


French then English versions of the appeal in this email
http://www.siawi.org/article3519.html
http://www.siawi.org/article3518.html

China land rights lawyer Ni Yulan and husband jailed

Ms Ni was sentenced to two years and eight months, while her husband was handed a two-year term. The couple are known for providing legal help to people whose homes have been seized by the government. They were jailed on charges of "picking quarrels, provoking trouble and wilfully destroying private and public property", a court spokesman said. The couple were detained last April as authorities rounded up scores of activists amid online calls for protests similar to those taking place at the time in the Arab world.



Their trial took place in December 2011, with the hearing closed to the press and foreign diplomats. Their supporters said charges were meant to silence them and the trial was a sign of China's growing intolerance of dissent. Their daughter, Dong Xuan, told reporters then that the trial had been "a very abnormal legal process". "This is completely unfair, I urge the government to release my parents," she told AFP news agency after the sentencing on Tuesday. "Both my parents looked very thin. I was unable to see my mother's face, she didn't turn around. She was in a wheelchair and looked very weak. My father saw me and asked me how I was. He told me that he was OK."


Fighting 'land grabs': Ms Ni's fight against land grabs began in 2002 after her home in central Beijing was requisitioned and later demolished. She has been banned from working as a lawyer but she and her husband have continued to advise others whose land has been seized. She was sentenced to a year in jail in 2002 for "obstructing official business" and to two years' imprisonment in 2008 for "harming public property". Fifty-one-year-old Ms Ni uses a wheelchair - a consequence, she and her supporters say, of mistreatment by police. Amnesty International said her kneecaps and feet were broken during her detention in 2002. She has also described the ill treatment by authorities in media interviews, saying that she was pinned down and kicked until she was not able to walk. The European Union issued a statement saying it was "deeply concerned" about Ms Ni's sentence and calling for her immediate release given her poor health. The sentencing took place with heavy security around the courthouse, reports said.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-17661224

‘The Government Will Kill Me’ : Will there be justice for Soni Sori, the schoolteacher from Chhattisgarh?

Soni Sori, 35, is an innocent tribal schoolteacher from Chhattisgarh, arrested on charges of aiding the Maoists. She alleges she was sexually assaulted and administered electric shocks in police custody. A PIL filed on her behalf is yet to be heard by the Supreme Court. Below is an excerpt from her last letter dated 7 March.
“Three months have passed and I am not being given any medicines. Even after obtaining a Supreme Court order, my treatment has been left incomplete. I have problems walking. At times, my body swells up while walking and, at other times, my feet just go numb. Why this injustice? Why have I been condemned to this life of torment and punishment? I was taken to Kolkata for treatment after the Supreme Court directive to the Chhattisgarh Government. The doctor advised me to take my medicines regularly. But I am not being given these medicines and the pain is just unbearable. I have complained about this. I told the jailor madam many times. I even told the doctor madam from the jail that I need to be treated. She said, “You have come here through the administration.” She put in writing that I am a Naxalite and, thus, I was put through mental harassment. Then, I kept quiet for a few days. My pains go on increasing.


One of these days, the Chhattisgarh government will surely kill me. Subjecting Adivasis to atrocities and then awarding us with death penalty is the biggest success of this government. The sonography was supposed to be done as per the doctor’s recommendations. These people did not allow it to be conducted. The government is simply waiting for me to die. I am telling you all the Chhattisgarh government will kill me. I am not safe here. In future, if something happens to me, the Chhattisgarh government will be responsible for it. Please do something. My health is not good. I don’t know if it is because of the electric shocks or something else, but my body has become weak. I want to remain alive to be able to fight this battle. I pray to all of you, please help me stay alive.”
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main52.asp?filename=Ne070412Government.asp


The Dantewada SP whom Soni Sori accuses of brutal torture was awarded a Gallantry medal on Republic Day: http://www.tehelka.com/story_main52.asp?filename=Ws030412spLanding.asp

DAWN report: Pakistani Hindus seek safety in India

KARACHI: Preetam Das is a good doctor with a hospital job and a thriving private clinic, yet all he thinks about is leaving Pakistan, terrified about a rise in killings and kidnappings targeting Hindus. A successful professional, he lives in mega city Karachi with his wife and two children, but comes from Kashmore, a district in the north of Pakistan’s southern province of Sindh.

His family has lived there for centuries and in 1947 when the sub-continent split between India, a majority Hindu state, and Pakistan, a homeland for Muslims, Das’ grandparents chose to stay with the Muslims. They fervently believed the promise of Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah that religious minorities would be protected. Sixty years later, their grandson says life in Kashmore has become unbearable. “The situation is getting worse every day,” he says. Two of his uncles have been kidnapped and affluent Hindus are at particular risk from abduction gangs looking for ransom, he says.


Rights activists say the climate is indicative of progressive Islamisation over the last 30 years that has fuelled an increasing lack of tolerance to religious minorities, too often considered second class citizens. Das says the only thing keeping him in Pakistan is his mother.“She has flatly refused to migrate, which hinders my plans. I can’t go without her,” he said. Hindus make up 2.5 per cent of the 174 million people living in the nuclear-armed Muslim nation. Over 90 per cent live in Sindh, where they are generally wealthy and enterprising, making them easy prey for criminal gangs.


An official at the ministry of external affairs in New Delhi who declined to be named said: “Every month about eight to 10 Hindu families migrate from Pakistan. Most of them are well-off.” He had no comment on whether the number was on the rise, but Hindu community groups in Pakistan say more people are leaving because of kidnappings, killings and even forced conversions of girls to Islam...


http://dawn.com/2012/03/06/pakistani-hindus-seek-safety-in-india/

Wave of Tibet immolations among history's biggest; Talks possible if Dalai Lama gives up independence demand: China

Read Tibet News blogspot: http://www.tibetnewsonline.blogspot.in/


Dozens of Tibetans have set themselves on fire over the past year to protest Chinese rule, sometimes drinking kerosene to make the flames explode from within, in one of the biggest waves of political self-immolations in recent history. But the stunning protests are going largely unnoticed in the wider world — due in part to a smothering Chinese security crackdown in the region that prevents journalists from covering them. While a single fruit seller in Tunisia who lit himself on fire in December 2010 is credited with igniting the Arab Spring democracy movement, the Tibetan self-immolations have so far failed to prompt the changes the protesters demand: an end to government interference in their religion and a return of the exiled Dalai Lama. Still, experts describe self-immolations as, historically, a powerful form of protest, and the ones in Tibet might yet lead to some broader uprising or stir greater international pressure on Beijing...


********
As suicide bids continued unabated in Tibetan-inhabited areas seeking return of the Dalai Lama, China, for the first time in recent months, has indicated its willingness to reopen the stalled talks with him if he "truly gives up Tibetan independence." "The central government has also made clear its willingness for talks if the Dalai Lama truly gives up Tibetan independence. The door remains open to him," the state-run 'China Daily' said today.

This is perhaps the first time that an indication has come up in the official media after the previous dialogue between Chinese officials and representatives of the Dalai Lama failed to make any headway in 2010. It follows a barrage of criticism unleashed against him in recent weeks, with China alleging that he was instigating suicides, specially among the Buddhist monks in Tibetan-inhabited areas. Besides, he wanted his authority to cover all of Tibet, including, Sichuan, Qinghai, Gansu and Yunnan. All these regions put together constitute one fourth of China's territory, Qu said. Though the Dalai says on one hand that he renounced the independence demand, his other demands that all troops and mainland Chinese should leave the areas amounted to seeking independence, he said. Asked about the prospects of the resumption of talks, Qu had said the Chinese Central Government can consider if the Dalai abandons his "independence political objective.".. 
Read more:  http://www.tibetnewsonline.blogspot.in/

Rohini Hensman: Democratic Rights at Home and Abroad: The Case of India

"It is cause for grave concern that non-violent activism in support of fundamental rights is currently under so much attack by the state.. If the Indian government wishes to take its place in the international community as a supporter of democracy, it cannot afford to contradict the principles it upholds abroad by its actions at home"

"...all‘civil society’ really means is capitalist society, with its multiple divisions and contradictions between capitalists and workers, majority and minorities...as well as competition within each category. Its ‘other’ is political society or the state, which is supposed to rise above the struggle of ‘each against all’ and manage it... In a democracy it is also supposed to protect the interests of weaker and more vulnerable sections of the population.. There are a few instances where this actually happens. But in general, the reality is much more complicated. Often, individuals carry their greed and prejudices with them from civil society into the state..."

An unintended by-product of the Anna Hazare movement was some welcome publicity for Irom Sharmila’s eleven-year fast for the repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). Like several other draconian laws, AFSPA allows state security forces the power to act against civilians, upto and including killing them, with virtual impunity. It was after witnessing such a massacre of civilians in Manipur, and realising there would be no redress because of AFSPA, that Sharmila embarked upon her marathon fast, during which the authorities, who keep her locked up, have kept her alive by nasogastric feeding. She fasts alone, but has many supporters in the Northeast and throughout India.

AFSPA has unsuccessfully been challenged in the Supreme Court on the grounds that it violates the right to life, but it also violates the right to equal protection of the law (which is denied to the victims of crimes by the security forces) and the right to equality before the law (since perpetrators in the security forces are effectively placed above the law). The result has been to turn forces vested with the power to protect civilians into predators who rape, torture and kill civilians with impunity.

That the Armed Forces chiefs cling tenaciously to this ‘privilege’ is evident from their obdurate opposition to the repeal or amendment of this law, even when it is proposed by other state actors. The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and many state-level laws suffer from the same weaknesses, allowing the police and other security forces to frame, arrest, incarcerate and torture innocent people (including democratic rights activists) with complete impunity. It should be abundantly clear that putting state personnel above the law, as these laws do, is a sure way of encouraging them to engage in unlawful activities and undermining the rule of law.

A country in which the police and state security forces routinely violate the fundamental rights of the civilian population cannot be called a democracy. This does not happen in all parts of India, but in some areas it is the rule rather than the exception. That these tend to be areas where there is anti-state militancy is no excuse: far from solving the problem of militancy, indiscriminate attacks on unarmed civilians generally make it worse. Therefore even in such areas, as Sharmila and her supporters correctly contend, it should not be lawful for security forces to rape and kill unarmed civilians, and if they engage in such behaviour, they should be punished just like anyone else. But is anybody in the state listening?

The Pathribal case, in which five civilians were killed by army personnel in a fake encounter, may answer this question. The army, as usual, claims that its personnel cannot be prosecuted without sanction from the central government, which the Ministry of Defence has always refused to give even in the few cases where the Ministry of Home Affairs has given the go-ahead. But on 4 February 2012, a Supreme Court bench of Justices B.S.Chauhan and Swatanter Kumar told the army that rape and murder committed by its personnel should be considered normal crimes, and there should be ‘no question of sanction’ from the government before prosecution of offenders in such cases, since AFSPA gives only very limited protection for action ‘in discharge of duty.’ The Court’s observations are eminently logical, and echo the argument implicit in Sharmila’s protest. What would it say about India if army personnel could claim, ‘We raped these women in discharge of our duty’ or ‘We rounded up and killed these innocent civilians in discharge of our duty,’ and the judiciary accepted their claims? Wouldn’t this be an admission that India is not, in fact, a democracy where the rule of law prevails? Yet as of now, it is not clear that the Supreme Court’s order will reflect its observations, nor have excessive powers and impunity clauses in other laws been challenged by the courts. The Centre continues to insist that sanction from it is required before armed forces personnel can be prosecuted. Irom Sharmila’s struggle for democracy and the rule of law is not yet over.
Read more: http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/03/democratic-rights-at-home-and-abroad-the-case-of-india/

China unveils new legislation on police powers of detention

"The real issue is not what the laws say, but how they are enforced," Pu Zhiqiang

China has unveiled legislation enshrining police powers to hold people at unknown locations, but has removed a controversial secrecy clause after an outcry. Experts had warned that the original draft would have legalised disappearances by allowing police to hold some suspects for up to six months without informing their families.

The revisions to the criminal procedure law were unveiled at the National People's Congress on Thursday, and will be passed by what is essentially a rubber stamp parliament. Lawyers have welcomed other elements offering additional protection to suspects. Reformers have long battled for such measures – which include improving legal access, increasing protection for juveniles and outlawing evidence gathered through torture – although many are sceptical about how they will be observed.

"The real issue is not what the laws say, but how they are enforced," Pu Zhiqiang, a Beijing lawyer who has taken on sensitive cases such as those involving dissidents, said. "The pattern is that the Communist party can play by rules when there aren't special circumstances – but whenever there are special circumstances, it doesn't have to play by them."

Police later arrived at Pu's office, preventing him from granting further interviews. Many of the dissidents detained in a sweeping crackdown last year, including the artist Ai Weiwei, appear to have been held under "residential surveillance" at unknown locations. Some experts believe that is illegal, while others say the existing law does not spell out whether the measure should only apply at someone's usual residence.

"The law has not only not changed to prevent that practice but has embraced it, and that is what I find disturbing," Joshua Rosenzweig, an independent human rights researcher in Hong Kong, said. Many of those held last year said they suffered beatings, sleep deprivation and other abuses.

The new law states that police have the right to hold suspects or defendants at places other than their home or an official detention centre if they are "involved in crimes concerning state security, terrorism or especially serious corruption and notification of where they are residing could obstruct investigations"...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/08/china-legislation-police-powers-detention

Odisha: violent repression of 2-day tribal convention at Narayanpatna

About 5000 tribals from across Narayanpatna and Bandhugan blocks in Koraput district were stopped by heavily armed security forces at different places this morning as they were on their way to attend the two-day convention on preservation of tribal language and culture. This convention, planned for 21st and 22nd February 2012 at Balipeta Hatpada, was to be attended by 10,000 tribals from 12 different tribes across Koraput district. The tribal convention was first of its kind called by Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangh, Narayanpatna. the tribal convention was to be addressed by Dandapani Mohanty, President, Jana Adhikar Manch, Prafulla Samantray, convener, Lok Sakti Abhiyan, Rabi Das, noted poet and journalist and Lenin Roy, editor of Nishan Magazine.

But violent repression and brutal force was used by the district administration and security forces today to ensure that no one was able to reach the convention venue. Eye witnesses recounted how the security personnel used brutal force to disperse a crowd of about 1000 tribals at Jodijam crossroads near Tentulipadar Panchayat headquarter village. They lathi charged the tribals in which a 40-year old tribal woman Wano Nachika suffered heavy bleeding due to deep wounds on her left hand. Apart from this many people showed swelling due to heavy blows of a thick lathi. Seeing the beatings these tribals retreated to a small hillock from where they discussed about taking a different route to the meeting venue. But the security forces arrived on the hillock and stripped a youth of about 20 years Pitera Wangadika of Tanginipadar and after tying him to tree publicly beat him to almost unconscious state. This forced the tribals to retreat and return to their villages. After the security forces departed from the hillock, a few tribals came and took the youth back home after helping him put on his clothes.

Meanwhile at Balipeta Hatpada a huge posse of about 200 above Security personnel stood watch over the meeting venue from 6 o’clock in the morning today to prevent any participation. At about noon they finally set fire to the entire fooding and lodging arrangements set up at the venue for the participants which included fuelwood and small wooden shades. At the meeting venue, some journalists present there asked IIC of Narayanpatna Police Station Atanu Rout about the brutal repression, beating and setting fire to the venue to which Mr. Rout responded that he knew nothing about the allegations because since morning not a single person had come to attend the tribal convention.

Similarly, near Palaput-Bikrampur crossroad, security personnel abused and forced back a group of about 1000 tribals who were coming in procession to the meeting venue singing, dancing and playing their traditional instruments. These people hastily retreated fearing further beating and harassment. They also feared the same fate as the tribals who were beaten at Tentulipadar. Due to these incidents of violence of security personnel the two day tribal convention could not be held.

It is learnt from reliable sources that 9 tribal men were picked up near Balipeta village when they were on their way to the convention. They were severely beaten by BSF personnel and illegally detained inside Podapadar BSF Camp. Till now there is no news about their whereabouts. Family members of these 9 persons are afraid that their men would either be killed or tortured inside the camp. They urged media persons to highlight the news and help rescue their menfolk. 


http://orissadiary.com/CurrentNews.asp?id=32166

Book on communal violence in Kandhamal: The law must change course

The tragedy of Kandhamal is that the attack on the Christian community in August 2008 was familiar and the subsequent failure of the legal system to accord justice to the victim-survivors predictable. This book critically examines the patterns of impunity as they unfold in Kandhamal. There is today a vibrant debate seeking legal reform to ensure accountability for mass crimes by extending culpability to those who sponsor and profit from the carnage.

Despite warning signals that concerted communal mobilization was underway for almost two decades in Orissa, no preventive measures were taken to secure life and property. Perhaps governance was guided by lessons learnt from India’s contemporary history - one of which appears to be that communal killings are expected to pay rich electoral dividends. The failure of the criminal justice system to punish those who planned the killing and destruction in Kandhamal has left a deep sense of injustice and discrimination. The state’s failure to provide adequate reparation to the victim-survivors and their cruel abandonment has deepened this alienation.

The Nellie massacre of 1983; the anti Sikh pogroms of 1984; the Bhagalpur riots of 1989; the anti Muslim violence in Mumbai in 1992; the genocidal attack on the Muslims of Gujarat in 2002; & now the Kandhamal attack on Christians, indicates that mass crimes committed with overt or covert State sanction, pose a grave challenge to the secular, pluralist idea of India.

This book critically examines the pattern of impunity as it continues to unfold in Kandhamal. Civil society in India urgently requires to debate legal reforms on accountability for mass crimes. The claim to ‘civilisation’ by any society is dependent above all, on the degree to which it ensures the dignity of its citizens, and their equality in the eyes of the law. That is why it is essential to extend culpability to those who sponsor and profit from such acts. This publication seeks to contribute to the effort to forge new legal tools to alter this pattern of continuing injustice and rampant impunity. It is rooted in the firm belief that without justice there can be no peace.

Read and download the full text of the book here

Related article on Staines judgement

A Grain In My Empty Bowl: A journalist remembers Shahid Azmi 1977-2010

By Ajit Sahi: "...martyr Azmi is, no less than Anna Politkovskaya, the Russian journalist and human rights activist who had already become a western icon for her courageous campaign against Vladimir Putin himself when she was shot dead at her Moscow apartment three years ago. Indeed, Russian, Chinese and Iranian dissidents take much heart from the western might backing them. Azmi’s campaign was, therefore, more courageous, for his work was doubly tainted as he defended “terrorists” allegedly once removed from anti-US terror groups, Al Qaeda and the Taliban.


We need to directly ask just who benefits from Azmi’s killing. The answer is a Who’s Who of Indian security: the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, RAW and the Intelligence Bureau, whose grand constructs on terrorism Azmi demolished each time he won a case. Maharashtra Police despised Azmi, for he represented, mostly successfully, many accused in a string of blast cases. Azmi had been preparing for the defence of dozens arrested since 2008 as members of Indian Mujahideen, which has been linked with last Saturday’s blast in Pune that killed 10 people. Azmi was also actively involved in organising legal defence for many arrested in Gujarat on charges of masterminding and carrying out terror attacks.

Last July, Azmi made enemies at Mumbai’s Central Prison winning a historic ruling from the Bombay High Court against jail warders who had assaulted several terror accused. “I grew up seeing the police barge in night and day in our slum, terrorising and kidnapping people,” Azmi told me on December 11 as we sat chatting after office hours, he on his chair, where he was shot dead exactly two months later...

By any account, Azmi led an incredible life: he was only 32 when he was killed. The third of five brothers, Azmi’s life turned the day sword-wielding Hindu fanatics rushed at him as he walked home from school just days after mobs razed the disputed Babri mosque in Uttar Pradesh in 1992. A Hindu neighbour saved him. “Shahid was never the same again,” his oldest brother, Arif, said as I sat with him last week at Azmi’s house a block away from his office. One day, at age 16, Azmi upped and left, ending up first in the Kashmir valley, and then across the border, with a gun on his shoulder. But he soon came back, disillusioned with the insurgency.

NONETHELESS, POLICE arrested him from home in 1994 for conspiring to kill India’s top politicians. The only evidence was a confession he never made. Yet, he was given five years. While at New Delhi’s Tihar Jail, Azmi enrolled for graduation and began writing legal documents for other inmates. Freed in 2001, he came home and joined journalism and law schools. Three years later, he quit a paying sub-editor’s job to join defence lawyer Majeed Memon as a junior at Rs 2,000 a month. “I want to work for the poor,” Azmi told his brother, Arif. It was widely known that Azmi wouldn’t charge any fees from a majority of his clients.

But his past never left him. Some years ago, in a heated moment, Azmi argued in court that even Lord Ram had waged violence to secure justice. The media screamed blue murder. A police case was launched. The judge called in Azmi for a chat. “But it’s true,” Azmi said when the judge cautioned that there were rumours he had been convicted for terrorism. “I wear that conviction as a badge of honour.” The judge told the police he never heard Azmi speak of Lord Ram. The case collapsed. On Monday this week, another judge wept in court. People stood around in silence. Outside that court, Azmi’s long-time lawyer-partner, Saba Qureshi, hung out listless, trying to talk to clients, some beyond grief. “I see him everywhere,” she said, looking out from the balcony. “What will I do?”.."
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main43.asp?filename=Ne270210a_grain.asp

Tibetan Group Releases Photos of Chinese Crackdown

Tibetan Group Releases Photos of Chinese Crackdown: February 4, 2012

A Tibetan activist group has released photos it says are from the sites of recent protests, showing Chinese riot police beating and dragging bloodied demonstrators. The group says the photos prove China is acting brutally toward unarmed, peaceful demonstrators.

The photographs, released by the group Students for a Free Tibet, show Chinese riot police standing over and dragging protestors, one of them appearing to have blood on his head. The group says the photos were taken in Serta, in China's Sichuan province. Dorjee Tseten, the India director of the group, based in the northern Indian city of Dharamsala, says the photos show China has not been telling the truth about the demonstrations in recent weeks.

"The Chinese government says like those protestors were shot on self defense but in the picture we can clearly see the protestors are like unarmed, they are protesting with non-violent protest and then police crackdown the protest very brutally and kill Tibetans," he said. Tibetan exile Prime Minister Lobsang Sangay was quoted Thursday as saying he is “very disturbed by the growing number of Chinese military personnel” moving into Tibetan areas with truckloads of paramilitary forces and automatic machine guns. Senior Chinese officials say the demonstrations were "well planned beforehand" by "trained separatists" who tried to use violence against police. 

Dorjee, a member of Students for a Free Tibet, says getting images like the ones the group released this week is not easy. "The area around Serta and nearby place where there are lot of protest happening are totally locked down. Whether it's Internet, whether it's online, it's all locked down," he stated. "So one of his friend who is actually there and taken the picture. He actually came out of the province, out of the region and then he could able to send it from the different place to India."

Tibet analysts have expressed concerns that a younger, more restive generation of Tibetans may become embroiled in mass riots like the ones that took place in Chinese-controlled Tibet in 2008 -- especially if the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, dies without returning to his historical home.

The Dalai Lama crossed into India with tens of thousands of followers after a failed uprising in 1959. Dorjee says young Tibetans will continue to express themselves peacefully. "It is not true that Tibetans' younger generations are like frustrated and getting to violence. But then we are taking the non-violent protest, our movement in a more active way," he explained. The exiled Tibetan prime minister has called for a global vigil next week to protest events in Chinese-controlled Tibet, and is pleading with the United Nations to send a fact-finding team to the region. To view releases photos of Chinese Crackdown, please visit www.tibetnewsonline.blogspot.com

"Blood Stains in Jindal Steel, Orissa - January 2012" - Shocking video

Blood Stains in Jindal Steel, Orissa. 25th January 2012

See what happens to displaced villagers who protest against Jindal Steel in Angul, Orissa.

A shocking video from Samadrusti TV.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tU7uphTnLw&feature=email