Asia

Cambodian Workers Faint in Factories

By: Jessica Ties
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia – Cambodian factory workers have been forced to work overtime beyond the limits allowed by law in poorly ventilated buildings contributing to recent incidents of mass fainting.

Cambodian factory workers have been fainting due to poor working conditions and long hours (Photo Courtesy of Radio Free Asia).

The recent faintings have occurred in the country’s textile industry where a union activist claims harmful chemicals are present and at least partially at fault for the fainting of workers.

Approximately 200 factory workers at the Nanguo Garment Co. Ltd. in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh fainted on Monday while working.

Although the Ministry of Labor medical department director has reported that tests reported no signs of toxic chemicals, workers who were taken to the hospital after fainting reported to Free Trade Union of the Kingdom of Cambodia president Chea Mony that the factory had recently sprayed pesticide around the premises.

A female worker explained her experience by stating that “…I saw a few workers faint, and then others. We were shocked, and we all began to cry.” She then added that had felt exhausted and could not move before fainting.

The International Labour Organization’s Better Factories Program has reported that within a six month time span in 2011 at least 1,500 workers from eleven different factories have reported fainting.

In addition, in August almost 300 people fainted in one week while working in a  factory supplying popular clothing store H&M. In addition, another 100 people were reportedly taken to the hospital after fainting at M&V International Manufacturing factory.

Last April, approximately 100 workers fainted at a factory supplying Puma and another forty-nine fainted at the same factory two months later.

Just one week before the mass faintings, workers in Cambodia held a people’s tribunal to investigate the pay and conditions of factories for brands such as H&M and Gap.

Given the history of faintings at a factory supplying H&M products, many were unhappy at the company’s decision not to attend the people’s tribunal.

The minimum wage in Cambodia is $66 per month which is half of what is required to meet the basic needs. As a result, workers are often forced to work ten to thirteen hours a day to get the money that they need to support their families.

 

For more information, please see:

Radio Free Asia – Faintings Blamed on Overwork, Ventilation – 14 February 2012

The Guardian – Cambodian Workers Hold ‘People’s Tribunal’ to Look at Factory Conditions – 2 February 2012

Chinese Dissident Receives Seven Year Sentence for Poem

By: Jessica Ties
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BEIJING, China – A Chinese dissident was sentenced to seven years in prison for subversion after he wrote a poem calling for the Chinese citizens to vote with their feet.

Zhu Yufu was sentenced to seven years in prison for writing a poem (Photo Courtesy of Radio Free Asia).

After being formally arrested last April, Zhu Yufu was sentenced on Friday based on an indictment citing a poem shared online and calling for a ‘Jasmine’ rallies inspired by the 2011 protests in the Middle East.

The poem features the lines, “It’s time, Chinese people! The square belongs to everyone. The feet are yours it’s time to use your feet and take to the square to make a choice.”

During his trial, Zhu argued that he was exercising the freedoms granted to him by the Chinese Constitution.

Following the announcement of the sentence Zhu’s wife expressed her surprise at it’s severity by stating, “that is so cruel. I don’t know what else to say.”

Zhu’s son, who was also at the sentencing,  claimed that his father appeared weak and described him as walking very slowly and stated that he “…looked quite weak, and had to lean on two prison guards.”

The sentencing comes just days before China’s likely presidential successor, Xi Jinping, is scheduled to visit the United States.

This timing has caused international director Renee Xia to state that it “…seems a strange time for the U.S. to engage in diplomatic niceties or good will overtures to China’s likely future president.”

Xia further stated that there have been “…a whole batch of heavy sentences for crimes that would in the past 10 years get three, four, five years.”

China has recently attracted criticism for it’s decision to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for the resignation of the Syrian president amid increasing violence.

Besides writing poems Zhu has also been known for writing articles that drew attention to corruption and political prisoners.

Zhu has been twice before for his activism. In 1999 he served seven years in prison for founding a controversial political magazine and in 2007 he served another two years for confronting a police officer who was questioning his son.

Human Rights Watch official statistics estimate that there are between 250 and 500 protests in China each day.

 

For more information, please see:

AFP – China Jails Prominent Activist Ahead of Xi’s US Visit – 10 February 2012

BBC – China Dissident Zhu Yufu gets Seven Years for Poem – 10 February 2012

Los Angeles Times – The Chinese Poem that Helped Spur Seven-Year Prison Term – 10 February 2012

Radio Free Asia – Seven Years in Jail for a Poem – 10 February 2012

Another Tibetan Self-Immolation Amid Tensions in China

By: Jessica Ties
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BEIJING, China – Another Tibetan protester has set himself ablaze in protest of China’s rule over a Tibetan region in the Sichuan province of China.

Scheduled Tibetan protests and recent self-immolations have led to increased security in China (Photo Courtesy of Free Tibet Now).

The most recent occurrence adds to the wave of self-immolation being used to express resistance to the role the Chinese government is playing in the Tibetan region.

Since March 2009 twenty-one Tibetans, a majority of which were monks, have self-immolated causing the Chinese government to crackdown on monasteries.

Although the individual has not been identified, witnesses have reported that he appeared to be a monk and was shouting slogans before being carried away by the soldiers and the police. Two other monks were also detained and have yet to be identified.

Reports have indicated that three other self-immolations occurred just five days ago in the same province in which at least six Tibetan protesters were killed and sixty injured.

Security in China has been extremely tight in preparation of the planned prayers and protests of Tibetans across the world who intend to bring attention to and show respect for those who have sacrificed their lives for the Tibetan effort.

According to Lobsang Sangay, the leader of the exile government, Chinese security forces have been seen moving toward Tibet in the past few days in preparation for the Tibetan New Year on February 22 and the March anniversary of a failed uprising that occurred in 1959 and resulted in the exile of the Dalai Lama.

India-based monk, Kanyag Tsering, told Radio Free Asia that “[t]he Tibetans in Tibet are aware of the exile Tibetans’ global solidarity protest today, and as a result there was a massive security presence in Ngaba. During the daytime, almost no Tibetans were seen in the street.”

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Liu Hei, has warned that “the Chinese government will resolutely crack down on any attempt to incite violence or to disrupt national unity and integrity.”

Following the protests links to telephone and internet communication have been cut in certain tumultuous regions and foreign journalists, such as CNN, have been shut out.

In addition, Tibet’s official newspaper has warned that leaders who do not maintain stability would be fired and as part of a “thankfulness education” campaign, Tibetans are required to hang the portraits of Chinese leaders in their homes.

Urges by the United States for China to allow independent observers into the restive areas have gone ignored and the authorities in China’s northern and western provinces have indicated that they will recruit 8,000 police officers to deploy in all villages for added security.


For more information, please see:

The Australian – Beijing Warning on Tibet Vigils – 9 February 2012

ABC News – Exile Prime Minister Decries Chinese Rule in Tibet – 8 February 2012

Radio Free Asia – New Self-Immolation Amid Tensions – 8 February 2012

Wall Street Journal – Tibetans Burning – 8 February 2012

CNN – CNN Crew Detained Amid Chinese Tibet Crackdown – 30 January 2012

1,000 Kyrgyz Prisoners Sew Mouths Shut

by Hibberd Kline
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — More than 1,000 Kyrgyz inmates sewed their mouths shut as part of a coordinated, nationwide hunger-strike following a January 16 prison riot.

Inmates reportedly stitched their mouths shut in order to prevent prison authorities from force-feeding them (Photo courtesy of Al Jazeera).

Approximately 6,400 of Kyrgyzstan’s nearly 7,600 inmates participated in the 10 day hunger strike. Estimates put the number of inmates who sewed their lips shut between 1,175-1,300.

More than 400 of the striking inmates sewed their mouths shut using wire, staples and whatever other materials they could find after prison guards attempted to break the hunger strike by force-feeding them. The sewing tactic soon spread to other prisons through the use of smuggled cell phones in what the prisoners pronounced to be “an act of solidarity.”

Prisoners claim that the hunger-strike was aimed at securing improved living conditions including better mattresses, basic “liberties” and an end to abuses by prison guards. The hunger strikers also called for the resignation of the head of the national prison service and the director of the Bishkek Detention Center Number 1, where the protest began.

However, Kyrgyz authorities paint a very different picture. Kyrgyz officials accuse the prisoners of striking in coordination with Kyrgyzstan’s notorious crime syndicates, who have historically exercised a significant degree of influence in Kyrgyzstan’s prisons.

Sheishenbek Baizakov, head of the Kyrgyzstan State Penitentiary Service, told reporters that the strike began with calls to re-institute the policy of “common prison cells,” in which prisoners had previously been allowed to roam about the prison largely unrestricted by the guards at all times. Officials claim that the common cells reduced control by prison guards and allowed criminal gangs to more easily conduct smuggling and drug trafficking operations as well as to coerce and intimidate inmates.

Baizakov further told reporters that the prison staff itself had been heavily infiltrated by the syndicates. Baizakov explained that he had fired 80% of Kyrgyzstan’s prison directors for “creat[ing] corrupt schemes and forg[ing] alliances with the criminal underworld.”

Chairman Baizakov was appointed last year with a mandate from President Almazbek Atambayev to crackdown on organized crime in Kyrgyzstan’s penal system. The Administration sees the criminal syndicates’ powerful influence as a threat to Kyrgyzstan’s stability. Under Baizakov’s direction, prisons have begun to institute more stringent rules and several former prison directors now face criminal charges including drug trafficking.

The hunger strike followed on the heels of a prison riot that erupted in Detention Center Number 1 in Bishkek on January 16 leaving 30 prisoners and five guards injured. Additionally, reports indicate that at least one person was killed.

Authorities allege that the riot was sparked by the transfer of a crime boss to another facility as part of Baizakov’s crackdown on organized crime in the prison system. Special riot police raided the prison and used force to put down the riot.

The center’s director Mars Zhuzubekov told the press that during the raid authorities confiscated contraband items such as plasma televisions and refrigerators. Zhuzubekov did not mince his words when he laid out his vision of how a prison should be run; “This is not a hotel, this is not a holiday resort, they should serve their time.”

As the protest ended, Chairman Baizakov echoed Zhuzubekov’s sentiments stating that inmates would not be allowed to continue “to make fools of the guards.” Baizakov pronounced; “let them all sew their mouths shut.”

Inmates’ parents, who have been picketing the Kyrgyz Parliament since the January 16 riot, have called for Chairman Baizakov’s resignation.

According to deputy head of Kyrgyzstan’s prison services Kubanychbek Kenenbayey, the prisoners finally called off their protests on January 28. Kenenbayey informed the press that inmates at a women’s prison in Stepnoe village were the last to agree to break their fast. Tursunbek Akun, Kyrgyzstan’s human rights ombudsman, explained that the prisoners had ceased their protest after “being convinced that there would be no more excesses on the part of their guards.”

Prison spokeswoman Eleonora Sharshenaliayeva informed the press that as the protest drew to a close more than 200 prisoners appealed to medical services for help in removing stitches from their mouths.

In the aftermath of the protests, Kyrgyzstan’s authorities have continued to implement plans to tighten control over the country’s prison system. Proposed measures include the installation of new video surveillance systems and cell-phone jamming technology in Kyrgyzstan’s prisons and penal colonies. Chairman Baizakov announced that it would likely take the authorities 3 months to install the new systems, which have been estimated to cost 22 million soms (approximately $USD 470,000).

Current state penitentiary service policy allows inmates to make 8 phone calls per year using prison phone services. Blocking the use of cell phones in prison facilities is expected to reduce inmates’ ability to coordinate with outside criminal contacts or prisoners in other facilities.

Regardless of whether or not the protests were engineered by the crime syndicates, the situation has once again highlighted conditions in Kyrgyzstan’s penal system.

In response to the protests, Matteo Mecacci, the chair of the human rights committee for the parliamentary assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, called for conditions to be eased in Kyrgyzstan’s detention facilities.

Kyrgyzstan’s prisons have long been notoriously overcrowded and prone to pestilence. There are currently 7,600 inmates incarcerated in Kyrgyzstan’s 11 penal colonies and 6 detention centers. An additional 7,000 people who have been convicted of  lesser crimes are required to check in daily with the police and are confined to their home regions.

For more information, please see:

Kyrghiz Telegraph Agency — 22 Million Soms to the Purchase of Equipment to Jam Cellular Communications in the Colonies and the Jail-GSIN — 02 February 2012

Al Jazeera — Kyrgyz Prisoners End Self-mutilation Protest — 28 January 2012

The Associated Press — Kyrgyz Prisoners Sew Lips Shut; Is Mafia to Blame? — 28 January 2012

The Korea Herald — Kyrgyz Inmates Sew Mouths Shut — 27 January 2012

Reuters — Hunger-striking Kyrgyz Prisoners Stitch Mouths Shut — 27 January 2012

Voice of America — 1,000 Kyrgyz Inmates Sew Lips in Protest — 27 January 2012

BBC News — Kyrgyzstan Prison Protest: Inmates Sew Lips Together — 25 January 2012

South Korean Indicted Over Twitter Posts

By Greg Donaldson
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

SEOUL, South Korea – Twenty-three year old Park Jung-geun was indicted last Tuesday on charges that he violated South Korea’s controversial National Security Law. The National Security Law broadly bans “acts that benefit the enemy” referring to North Korea. However, the law does not explain what acts are violations of the law. If convicted, Park could receive up to seven years in prison.

North Korean poster than Mr. Park modified and posted to his Twitter account (Photo Courtesy of The New York Times)

Park is a well-known social media and freedom-of-speech activist and a member of the Socialist Party. Park, who runs a photo studio in Seoul where he specializes in taking pictures of babies, was arrested last month for re-tweeting messages posted on the Twitter account of North Korea’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea.

Park reposted messages such as “Long live Kim Jong-Il” and “Dear General Kim Jong-Il is the genius of the military and the symbol of victory who the entire world looks up to and follows,” according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.

In his personal postings on Twitter, Park has compared himself to “The Young General ,” referring to Kim Jong—un, because he inherited his photo studio from his father. Park has also posted links to North Korean propaganda songs and a North Korean poster that he altered. Park transformed the soldier’s face to his own and replaced the soldier’s gun with a bottle of whiskey.

Park, whose Twitter profile picture shows him standing in front of a red-starred North Korean flag with a near-empty bottle of whiskey in his hand, says he re-tweeted posts from Pyongyang’s Twitter account that he thought were ridiculous. In an interview last December, Mr. Park said “it was humiliating and ludicrous to have to wear a straight face and explain all my jokes to the detectives.”

The South Korean government has taken Mr. Park’s actions very seriously. When investigators searched Park’s apartment they copied computer hard drives and confiscated books and photographs. After five interrogation sessions Mr. Park was arrested.

Sam Zarifi, Asia-Pacific director of Amnesty International, called the charges “ludicrous” and said they should be dropped immediately. She further explained, “This is not a national security case; it’s a sad case of the South Korean authorities’ complete failure to understand sarcasm.”

The United Nations Human Rights Commission and Amnesty International have called for the National Security Law to be diluted or repealed. Rajiv Narayan, a researcher for Amnesty International, has said the law has a “chilling effect on critics of the government’s North Korea policies. Proponents of the National Security Law defend it vigorously explaining that the law is a defense against North Korea and it is especially important as Kim Jong Un gains power.

For more information please see:      

Los Angeles Times – South Korean Security Law is used to Silence Dissent, Critics Say – 5 February 2012

CBC News – South Korean Charged for Re-Tweeting North Korean Posts – 2 February 2012

New York Times –South Korean Indicted Over Twitter Posts from North—2 February 2012

Washington Post – South Korean Indicted for Re-Tweeting Messages from North Korean Government – 2 February 2012