David L. Chaplin II

Impunity Watch Reporter; Asia

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia – Former Khmer Rouge prison chief Duch has been found guilty of crimes against humanity by Cambodia’s UN-backed war crimes tribunal. Duch, 67, whose full name is Kaing Guek Eav, was sentenced to 35 years in prison.

The man who ran a notorious torture prison where more than 14,000 people died during the Khmer Rouge regime was found guilty of war crimes Monday and sentenced to 35 years in prison — with 5 years taken off that sentence for time served.  The verdict against Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, also convicted him of crimes against humanity, murder and torture.  Duch ran Tuol Sleng prison, where “enemies” of the Khmer Rouge regime were sent.  Read more...

By David L. Chaplin II
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

HAMGYONG, North Korea – Human rights group calls on international community to help end regime’s ’systematic neglect’ and prevent humanitarian disaster.  North Korea is failing to provide the most basic healthcare needs for its people, Amnesty International warns.  Barely functioning hospitals, poor hygiene and epidemics made worse by widespread malnutrition was revealed from human rights watch dog.  An investigation by the human rights watchdog found many people were also too poor to pay for treatment.

Many children in North Korea are at risk of serious malnourishment  Read more...

David L. Chaplin II
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

DHAKA, Bangladesh – Police in Bangladesh have charged 824 people for the massacre of 74 senior military officers during a mutiny by border guards in February last year.   All suspects could face the death penalty if found guilty.

Prosecutors say the border guards rebelled over low wages and poor treatment

Seventy-four people, including 57 senior army officers, were killed during the siege of a military base in Dhaka, the capital, in an uprising that briefly threatened the government of Sheikh Hasina, the prime minister.  Read more...

David L. Chaplin II
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BEIJING, China – Wen Qiang, 55, former director of the Chongqing Justice Bureau in the Chongqing region and highest ranking official also an ex-deputy police chief, was sentenced to death in April on massive corruption charges, for sponsoring and protecting five gangs as well as rape and taking bribes.

Chinese Highest Ranking Official Executed on Massive Corruption Charges

He was executed in Chongqing, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday.

Wen’s case was part of a huge operation that exposed illegal activities in Chongqing, a city of more than 30 million people, as well as highlighting China’s problem of rampant official corruption.  Read more...

David L. Chaplin II
Impunity Watch Reporter; Asia

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The death toll climbed to 50 on Friday after a pair of suicide bombers detonated their explosive vests at one of Pakistan’s holiest shrines, police said.  Police are on high alert in Pakistan as demands grow for a tougher crackdown on armed religious groups in the central Punjab province after bombers targeted a popular Muslim shrine.

Sufi shrine of Data Darbar mosque, Lahore Pakistan where thousands visit daily  Read more...

By David L. Chaplin II
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

KASHMIR, India - The killings of civilian protesters, most of them teenagers, have angered many in the valley.  One newspaper headline described 2010 as the “year of teenage killings” in Kashmir. 

Even the pro-India People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has accused the government of declaring war on its own people, our correspondent reports.

Kasmir and Jammu Police holding assault rifles.

Hundreds of thousands of troops are based in Kashmir to fight a two-decade insurgency against Indian rule.  Read more...

By David L. Chaplin II
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

DHAKA, Bangladesh - Dozens of political activists have been arrested in Bangladesh after the main opposition parties called for a dawn-to-dusk general strike across the country.  The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), led by Khaleda Zia, the former prime minister, said the strike on Sunday was in protest against misrule by the government.

Walid Hossain, a police spokesman, said at least 12,000 officers had been deployed in Dhaka to prevent violence as the shutdown of transportation and businesses brought much of the capital and the country to a standstill.  Hossain said around 200 opposition activists were arrested in a precautionary crackdown, many of whom were picked up for torching and damaging vehicles on Saturday night.  Read more...

By David L. Chaplin II
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

KASHMIR, India – “We want freedom” was the resonating chant as protests in Kashmir turned deadly when troops open fired on hundreds of demonstrators on Sunday, killing one person and wounding at least five.

A defiant protester shouts slogans in Jammu on Monday

Hundreds of people took to the streets, throwing rocks at security forces and surrounding an armored vehicle belonging to paramilitary soldiers, in a protest against the death of Mohammed Rafiq Bangroo, a 25-year-old who died Saturday after being beaten by troops in an earlier demonstration last week.  After the demonstrators tried to light a bunker on fire, the officers fired as an act of self defense, authorities say.  Read more...

By Kwangmin Ahn
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

GUANGDONG, CHINA – China’s Premier Wen Jiabao has called for better living conditions for migrant workers from rural areas. He said China owed them its wealth and tall buildings, and officials should treat them as their own children. The comments follow a wave of strikes and labour-related suicides.

The speech was a familiar one for the premier, known as “Grandpa Wen” for his ability to display empathy on behalf of the country’s struggling masses. But it was also the first public intervention by the leadership since strikes and other incidents at some of the country’s most modern factories focused global attention on an agitated younger generation of workers.  Read more...