Human Rights Watch Weekly Digest

Israel: Investigate 'White Flag' Shootings of Gaza Civilians Internal Israeli Military Investigations Inadequate During Israel's recent Gaza offensive, Israeli soldiers unlawfully shot and killed 11 Palestinian civilians, including five women and four children, who were in groups waving white flags to convey their civilian status.

US: Students With Disabilities Face Corporal Punishment at Higher Rates ACLU and Human Rights Watch Seek Ban on Physical Discipline at School. Students with disabilities face corporal punishment in public schools at disproportionately high rates. The physical discipline, which often includes beatings, can worsen these students' medical conditions and undermine their education.

UN Security Council: Create Senior Post on Women and War. The UN Security Council should urgently establish a high-level post to fill a leadership gap relating to women and armed conflict. A special representative of the secretary-general assigned to this issue would be able to push for protection against sexual violence and to promote equal participation by women in peace talks.

Karzai has made an unthinkable deal to sell Afghan women out in return for the support of fundamentalists in the August 20 election. So much for any credentials he claimed as a moderate on women's issues.

Burma: Aung San Suu Kyi Verdict 'Reprehensible' This trial was a farce, a brutal distortion of the legal process. By silencing prominent opponents through bogus trials, the generals are clearly showing why the elections they have been touting for next year won't bring change.

DRC: Clinton Should Highlight Rape and Justice IssuesKillings and brutal sexual violence against women, girls and also men have massively increased in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo since the start of military operations in January 2009.

Russia: Ensure Independent Inquiry Into Activists' KillingsThis is a ghastly crime, and its authors must be brought to justice. These killings, less than a month after the murder of Natalia Estemirova, make it absolutely clear that anyone trying to help the people of Chechnya is in mortal danger.

Mexico: Calderon Denies Military Impunity. The claim by President Felipe Calderón of Mexico today that army abuse cases are effectively prosecuted in Mexico flies in the face of all available evidence.

UK/Iraq: UK War Inquiry Should Cover Rights Investigate Allegations of Serious Abuses Committed Against Civilians, DetaineesThe British Government's Inquiry into its Iraq War policies should include human rights abuses as part of its investigation.

Saudi Arabia: Counterterrorism Efforts Violate RightsIndefinite Detention, Inappropriate Reeducation, and Flawed Trials Saudi Arabia's response to terrorism for years has been to lock up thousands of suspects and throw away the key. The authorities made believe that religious counseling could replace trials, and now they are pretending that convictions after secret trials can legitimize continued detention.

The lady's not for turning

By David Scott Mathieson

May 19, 2009

Published in the New Statesman

Aung San Suu Kyi rarely receives visitors. Apart from the regular visits by her doctor and Special Branch police officers, there is only the occasional United Nations envoy, and on a rainy day in September 2007, hundreds of Buddhist monks who walked to her house chanting prayers in her honour before leading the biggest uprising in Burma since 1988.

Suu Kyi's latest visitor came uninvited and, unwittingly, cast her from seclusion back into the center of Burma's long drawn out political drama. An American called John William Yettaw swam across Inya Lake in Rangoon, spending two days as an unwelcome house guest with Suu Kyi. Authorities arrested Yettaw on his return journey on May 6. This bizarre incident became the pretext for the ruling military government to file charges against Suu Kyi for breaching conditions of her house arrest order, in force since 2003.

On May 14 Burmese authorities arrested the pro-democracy leader and 1991 Nobel Peace prize winner, along with her two maids. They are currently detaining the three in Rangoon's squalid Insein prison. On May 18, she went on trial and faces a potential prison term of three to five years, even though many Burmese expected her house arrest to be extended for another year anyway. International condemnation was immediate and widespread, including from some of Burma's southeast Asian neighbors and usual protectors.

Burmese authorities last detained Suu Kyi in Insein Prison in May 2003, after a pro-government mob attacked her motorcade in Depayin in upper Burma. Scores of Suu Kyi's supporters were killed in what was clearly a ham-fisted attempt to murder her. After several weeks in Insein prison, authorities sent Su Kyi to her Rangoon home where she has remained in isolation for the last six years.

Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), has been eviscerated by government repression --offices closed, members forced to resign, many thrown in prison or forced into exile, only the old leaders, the 'uncles' allowed to speak to the outside world. Burma's prisons hold more than 2,100 political activists, a cross section of society incarcerated as an example to deter broader dissent.

The military government continues to deny the NLD freedom to function as a normal opposition. Widespread scepticism is the attitude towards elections that are scheduled for 2010 as part of a tightly scripted sham political process - the generals' 'Road Map to Disciplined Democracy.' But what role does 'The Lady', as she is popularly referred to, have in this sham process of reform designed to ensure future military rule with a civilian veil?

The question of Aung San Suu Kyi's relevance to Burma's political future has been clearly answered by the military government's latest move. If the generals did not think she still embodied a challenge to their rule, they would have released her long ago. Suu Kyi's remains the symbol of defiance to a rotten system of military rule.

The generals aren't the only ones impatient with her principles. Lately, some diplomats, aid workers and journalists have criticized Su Kyi's 'hard-line' approach and lack of compromise in dealing with the generals, and bemoan her support of Western sanctions. But sanctions are hardly to blame for the paranoia and xenophobia of Burma's generals and socio-economic atrophy. Burma's dire poverty is a direct result of four decades of military rule, political instability, and economic mismanagement. It cannot be blamed on a woman held in isolation for 14 of the past 20 years.

Su Kyi's unflinching commitment to peaceful change and rights for all in Burma explains her popularity inside and outside the country and fuels the military's enmity against her. The generals have proved once again Suu Kyi's pivotal personification of freedom in Burma. The military government can go through the motions of legal proceedings, but it only shows their mendacity, and boosts her popularity. Burma's rulers should set her free, and start learning from her example.

Burma: Free Aung San Suu Kyi

Pressure From ASEAN, China, and India Needed

May 14, 2009

(New York) - All of Burma's international trade and aid partners should strongly condemn the renewed imprisonment of the democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, in the notorious Insein Prison, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch called on the UN secretary-general, members of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), China, and India in particular to press the authorities for her immediate, unconditional release.

"Burma's military authorities have taken advantage of an intruder's bizarre stunt to throw Aung San Suu Kyi into one of Burma's most notorious and squalid jails on trumped-up charges," said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "China and India, as Burma's main supporters, and ASEAN should condemn this injustice and use their leverage to push hard for her freedom."

New, spurious charges that she violated her house arrest relate to the unwanted intrusion into Aung San Suu Kyi's home on May 3-5, 2009, by John William Yettaw, an American who allegedly swam across Inya Lake in Rangoon to visit her.

On May 14, Special Branch police arrested Aung San Suu Kyi and her two live-in party supporters and domestic workers, Daw Khin Khin Win, and her daughter, Win Ma Ma, at Aung San Suu Kyi's home in Rangoon, and transferred the three to Insein Prison. Authorities charged them under Section 22 of the State Protection Act, which states, "any person against whom action is taken, who opposes, resists, or disobeys any order passed under this Law shall be liable to imprisonment for a period of from three years up to five years, or to a fine of up to 5,000 Kyats, or to both." The trial is set for May 18.

Burmese authorities have held Yettaw since his arrest on May 6. A US embassy official visited him on May 13. He was charged today under the same provision as Aung San Suu Kyi.

Human Rights Watch called on ASEAN member states, China, and India to put pressure on Burma's rulers to free Aung San Suu Kyi immediately and unconditionally, as well as more than 2,100 other political prisoners.

Burma's military government has announced elections for 2010, as the next step in their "road map to democracy," a sham political process that has dragged on for more than 15 years. Most of Burma's main trading partners and diplomatic supporters - China, India, Thailand, Singapore, and Russia - have repeatedly expressed support for the process. But in the past two years, arrests and intimidation of political activists have intensified. The number of political prisoners has doubled, offices of the Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition National League for Democracy party (NLD) have been forcibly closed, and freedom of expression, assembly, and association have been sharply curtailed.

"China, India, Singapore, Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries should be calling for a genuine and participatory political process in Burma, which means serious public pressure for the release of political opponents," said Pearson. "Aung San Suu Kyi's latest arrest shows how their silence simply encourages more contempt for basic freedoms."

The United Nations has attempted mediation between Burma's military government and Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the NLD, calling for "national reconciliation" without success. Ibrahim Gambari, the current special adviser on Burma for the UN secretary-general, has visited Burma several times and met with Aung San Suu Kyi without obtaining any tangible results. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued a statement today expressing "grave concern" and calling "on the government not to take any further action that could undermine" the process of national reconciliation.

"There is no process of national reconciliation whatsoever as long as political opponents like Aung San Suu Kyi are behind bars," said Pearson. "The UN has tried talking nicely to Burma's generals for years, but now the secretary-general should simply insist on Aung San Suu Kyi's unconditional release, from prison and from house arrest."

Aung San Suu Kyi, general secretary of the NLD and winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, has spent more than 14 of the past 20 years under house arrest. She has been detained in Insein Prison only once before, following the Depayin incident, when a pro-government mob attacked her motorcade in upper Burma on May 30, 2003.

Her five-year house arrest detention order was set to expire at the end of May 2009, after authorities imposed a one year extension in 2008. Aung San Suu Kyi's health has deteriorated in the past two years. Last week, members of her party said she suffered acute dehydration and low blood pressure.

Japan: Speak out for Human Rights

(Tokyo) - The Japanese government, parliament, and bureaucracy should become much stronger proponents for human rights in Asia and worldwide, Human Rights Watch said today at a news conference to open its Tokyo Office.

Human Rights Watch released a letter to Prime Minister Taro Aso, urging the Japanese government to press Burma's military government to free political prisoners, hold free and fair elections, end rampant torture, and stop attacks on ethnic minorities.

"One of our most important tools for defending human rights is our capability to persuade powerful governments to use their leverage on behalf of victims of human rights violations," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, who is in Tokyo for the opening. "As a major power and one of world's largest aid donors, Japan can play a much stronger role in promoting human rights. We are opening our new Tokyo office to help Japan live up to its potential on human rights."

Human Rights Watch said that Japan has been vocal about human rights abuses in North Korea, but has otherwise been more inclined to use quiet diplomacy.

"For Japan to promote human rights successfully and be taken seriously internationally, it needs to use a mixture of private and public diplomacy," said Roth. "Too often, as with the current crisis in Sri Lanka, Japan's voice is missing when it could be a powerful force to protect people from harm."

Human Rights Watch works in more than 80 countries to expose human rights violations and to urge governments to develop policy to protect and promote human rights. In Asia, it is working to raise awareness worldwide of abuses in countries that include Burma, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, the Philippines, and Vietnam, where Japan is the single-largest bilateral aid donor.

"We hope, through our Tokyo office, to contribute in various ways to Japan's more active support for human rights, particularly in Asia," Roth said. "The accurate, detailed, and impartial human rights information collected by Human Rights Watch researchers around the globe can help the Japanese government to shape policy and act in a timely and effective manner to address such abuses."

Human Rights Watch is headquartered in New York and has offices in London, Brussels, Washington, DC, Paris, Johannesburg, Moscow, and many other cities around the world. To maintain its independence and impartiality, it receives no funding from any government.

"The opening of our Tokyo office demonstrates Human Rights Watch's commitment to advancing human rights across Asia, and we welcome the participation of the people of Japan in assisting us in this important effort," Roth said.

Roth said that Human Rights Watch intends to share its research with the Japanese press and people in the hope that this will encourage the government to use its influence to promote human rights. Providing more information about human rights issues in countries that benefit from Japanese largesse will help the Japanese people and government evaluate aid programs, he said.

The opening of the new office will be celebrated at a dinner on April 9 in Tokyo. The hosts for the dinner will be 19 major figures in Japan: Minora Fujita, Glen S. Fukushima, Sakie Fukushima, Nobuyuki Idei, Joichi Ito, Yuko Kawamoto, Aki Kinjo, Kiyoshi Kurokawa, Kathy Matsui, Oki Matsumoto, Krishen Mehta, Makoto Miyazaki, Aiko Okawara, Thierry Porté, Ken Shibusawa, Yu Serizawa, Mamoru Taniya, Kimiya Yamamoto, and Yoshinori Yokoyama.

The guest of honor is Ko Bo Kyi, a former political prisoner in Burma and the co-founder of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners in Burma (AAPPB), who is the winner of the 2008 Human Rights Watch Defender Award.