June 4 is the day that authorities in China go to great lengths to ensure a mute nation. 15 years since hundreds were massacred in Tiananmen Square and thousands incacerated and still the persecution, censorship and repression continues. The internet is one chink but even that faces a hard time as Beijing casts an all seeing virtual eye across the web. However much Beijing tries to muzzle the anniversary though, the sore will continue to fester.

Amnesty International has records of more than 50 people still detained for taking part in the protests in the capital. There are hundreds more, but the government has never released statistics on how many people it imprisoned following the extraordinarily violent crushing of the student-led demonstrations. Beijing prefers to use statistics to trumpet economic growth, not political repression.

Jiang Yangyong, the doctor who blew the whistle on the SARS coverup in China was working at a nearby hospital on the night of 3 June 1989 treating close to 90 victims. He was questioned this March following an open letter in which he castigated the leadership for acting “in a frenzied fashion, using tanks, machine guns, and other weapons to suppress the totally unarmed students and citizens, killing … innocent students… Now 15 years have gone by and the authorities are expecting the people to forget the incident gradually. On the contrary, the people have become increasingly disappointed and angry.”

The 72-year-old doctor went missing this Tuesday in the run up to today’s symbolic day. He and his wife appear to have been whisked away and his daughter has appealed to the government to release them.

The government moved early this year to quash any grassroots June 4 campaigns with reports of arrests across the country from January onwards.

Hong Kong is one place where June 4 can be commemorated in the People’s Republic of China. This year, the fifteenth anniversary of the brutal act of repression, is especially important as civil liberties in the former colony are very much under attack.

Veteran activist Leung Kwok-hung (known throughout the territory as Long Hair) spoke to the little red email yesterday about the importance of this evening’s candlelit vigil in Victoria Park as well as the abject failure of the democracy parties in Hong Kong to show a real model or vision for democracy in the region.

“People will use tomorrow to show the struggle for democracy in Hong Kong will continue,” Leung (pictured) said. “After the handover in 1997 the whole regime was picked by the central government. The territory suffered. The people became very frustrated and angry after Tung Chee-hwa [Hong Kong’s chief executive] was reelected in 2003.” He cited the amendment to Article 23 of the Basic Law and the failure to deal with Sars properly as further angering the public. The Basic Law was enshrined in the handover, and was meant to last 50 years, through to 2047, but it is already being laid to waste. Universal suffrage has been put on hold indefinitely. Recently three radio broadcasters have quit amid pressure from mainland officials, further eroding the questionable free press. Hong Kong’s newspapers are, with the exception of two, pro-Beijing.

Part of the problem, said Leung, was the poor performance of the democratic political parties. “The problem is the lack of sufficient leadership to visualize democracy,” Leung said, sitting outside Club 64, a location named after the climatic date in China’s recent history. “Most politicians in the so called democracy camp are from the middle class. They want some kind of change, but they don’t want to rock the boat. They haven’t found a real alternative form of government yet.”

Leung will be handing out fliers today with his own serious and timely message: “Give me liberty or death.”

Leung told the little red email that he was considering running in the legislative elections later this year and he is demanding a referendum on democracy on the same day as the elections.

Leung is a member of a socialist group called the April Fifth Action Group named after an earlier Tiananmen massacre in 1976 where 4,000 were arrested and 60 were executed.

A candlelit vigil takes place in Victoria Park at 6pm.

Amnesty International has just published its comprehensive annual report ­ a look across the world at the acts of injustice committed everywhere. It’s interesting to note how many atrocities are committed by far flung nations under the spurious banner of the War on Terror™. Also noteworthy is that the column inches spent on human rights abuses in the US is longer than that of either Saudi Arabia or China ­ two bastions of torture.

Anyway, the little red email has digested this enormous volume of work to provide you with a glimpse of some worrying developments that took place around the world last year

Israel
Around 600 Palestinians, most of them unarmed and including more than 100 children, were killed by the Israeli army last year in random and reckless shooting, shelling and bombings or as a result of excessive use of force. Some 90 Palestinians were killed in extrajudicial executions, including more than 50 uninvolved bystanders, of whom nine were children.

Singapore
By September last year the Singaporean government admitted there had been 86 executions since 2000­ one of the highest rates of executions in the world relative to its smallish population of 4m people. The majority are for drug-trafficking. Vignes s/o Mourthi, a Malaysian national arrested in 2001, was hanged in September despite serious concerns that he had not received a fair trial and may have been innocent. His lawyer’s applications for a retrial on account of a miscarriage of justice were rejected. Under Singapore law, anyone found in possession of specified quantities of drugs is automatically presumed to be trafficking in the drug unless the contrary can be proved. This presumption conflicts with the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.

 

Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region
The authorities continued to use the international "war against terrorism" to justify harsh repression in Xinjiang, which continued to result in serious human rights violations against the ethnic Uighur community. The authorities continued to make little distinction between acts of violence and acts of passive resistance. Repression was often manifested through assaults on Uighur culture, such as the closure of several mosques, restrictions on the use of the Uighur language and the banning of certain Uighur books and journals.

Tibet
Choedar Dargye, Gedun Thogphel and Jampa Choephel, three monks from Khangmar monastery, Ngaba prefecture, Sichuan province, were tried in August. They had been arrested for distributing material calling for independence for Tibet, painting a Tibetan flag and possessing photographs of the Dalai Lama. They were sentenced to 12 years in prison. Three others were arrested in connection with the same case. Some sources indicated that they had been sentenced to between one and eight years in prison. One of the three, Jamyang Oezer, was reported to be seriously ill in hospital.

UK
Serious human rights violations continued to take place in the context of the United Kingdom authorities’ response to the 11 September 2001 attacks in the USA. Detention conditions in some facilities were inhuman and degrading.

Pakistan
At least 278 people were sentenced to death, bringing the total number of people under sentence of death by the end of the year to over 5,700. At least eight people were executed.

US
In Unit 32 of Parchman Prison, Mississippi, nearly 1,000 prisoners, many severely mentally ill, were reportedly confined to insect-infested, insanitary cells for between 23 and 24 hours a day and were not allowed fans or sufficient water despite extreme summer heat. Litigation to improve conditions for death row prisoners in Unit 32 was being pursued at the end of the year.

 

 

While the world’s businessmen and politicians flock to China in pursuit of wealth, the country’s human rights record shows no sign of improvement.

Beijing has been heavily criticized by the United Nations for its handling of refugees spilling over from the decrepit nation of North Korea. The government works illegally with the Kim Jong Il regime to forcefully repatriate those who have fled. Returning to the crumbling, outdated native country guarantees a life (which is likely to be curtailed) in the notorious North Korean hard labour camps. Jean Ziegler, a UN food rights observer, has besseched the Chinese leadership to quit these “man-hunts” since those fleeing are desperate and starving.

“The systematic and widespread persecution of North Korean refugees in China is a grave and repeated violation of (international) food rights,” Ziegler said.

He contends China is going against the 1951 Geneva Convention by colluding with Pyongyang. The convention calls for those who have signed it, including China, to protect refugees whose foreign lands are in serious danger or threatened.

“The most common type of punishment is sentencing entire families to prison camps,” Ziegler said explaining what those deported could expect.

The exact number of North Korean refugees in China is not known. According to figures reported by the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Beijing and Seoul, there have been around 30,000 refugees counted since 1999. However, the South Korean NGO, Good Friends, which grants assistance to North Koreans, the figure is approximately 300,000 ­ a huge mass of frightened, displaced people.

For fear of persecution, North Koreans are constantly in hiding oce they cross the border into China, unable to lead any kind of normal life. Their plight can often be worsened by snakeheads who force the men to work for next to nothing and force the women into prostitution.

Amnesty International’s annual report, published this week, discusses in some detail the plight of North Koreans crossing into China.

“Reports suggested that the majority of those crossing the border were women who were at risk of being sold as brides or forced into prostitution. In August China reportedly increased its military presence along the border in an apparent attempt to curb the flow of North Koreans into China.

“In May, Seok Jae-hyun, a South Korean journalist, was sentenced to two years in prison for "trafficking in human beings" after he photographed a group of refugees boarding boats bound for South Korea and Japan. It was not known what became of the several dozen North Koreans boarding the boats who were detained at the same time.”