David L. Chaplin II
Impunity Watch, Asia

BEIJING, China – In Ai Weiwei, the globalized contemporary art world has found its first true star. His arrest has sparked world-wide condemnation, while his international schedule of exhibitions continues to unfold. In London, two are set to open next month, one at the Lisson Gallery, and another in the Somerset House courtyard.

The artist has disappeared into the Kafkaesque black hole of the Chinese legal system.

Can China just shrug off outrage about Ai and his fate?  Chinese has expressed indifference toward international opinion regarding Ai.

Ai has been missing since officials stopped him at Beijing airport on 3 April. Authorities say the 53-year-old artist is under investigation for economic crimes, but police have not notified his family of detention.

Several friends and colleagues have also disappeared, although his lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan returned home on Tuesday after several days’ absence. His friend Wen Tao, his driver and Cousin Zhang Jinsong, accountant Hu Mingfen and designer Liu Zhenggang remain missing.

Despite widespread expressions of concern from, among others, the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, not a word has been heard from him. His family, it was reported by the BBC, still don’t know where he is, whether he has been charged with an offense or even whether he has been formally arrested.

The social campaigns website Change.org has alleged Chinese hackers have launched a distributed denial-of-service attack on it, after it hosted a petition calling for the release of detained artist Ai Weiwei. The founder of the US-based site said the initial attacks had all been traced to IP addresses in China, although hackers often use several computers to disguise their whereabouts.

“We do not know the reason or exact source of these attacks,” said Ben Rattray, the founder of Change.org.

On April 14, a state-backed publication in Hong Kong, the Wen Wei Po newspaper, stated that Ai was being investigated for tax evasion (crimes of bigamy and putting obscene images on the Internet also were mentioned).

“Ai Weiwei has had quite a good attitude in co-operating with the investigation and has begun to confess,” the report continued. Since then, nothing more has been heard about that.

This and other publication are believed to be state motivated articles to pierce the strength of protest behind Ai’s disappearance.

Ai is 53 suffering from high blood pressure and diabetes, according to his wife. Two years ago, in August 2009, he was struck violently on the head by a Chinese policeman, one of several who burst into his hotel room in the early hours of the morning. He asked for identification, and that was the reply.

Dozens of rights lawyers and activists have been detained or lost contact with friends and relatives since February, when fears of contagion from Middle East and North Africa uprisings triggered a crackdown by China’s domestic security apparatus.

A Chinese rock musician, Zuoxiao Zuzhou, was briefly detained by police after voicing support for prominent artist and rights campaigner Ai Weiwei, a Hong Kong-based rights group said on Thursday.

During a gig at the 2011 Modern Sky Folk& Poetry Festival in eastern China, he displayed the words “Free Ai Weiwei” on a large screen, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said in a statement.

Critics say Hong Kong is under political pressure from Beijing to arrest the artists, potentially testing the limits of tolerance in the free-wheeling capitalist hub which was once a British colony but reverted to Chinese rule in 1997.

“The Ai Weiwei case, in essence, is not a human rights matter, nor is it about freedom of speech. No one is above the law. Just like in other countries, acts of violations of the law will be dealt with by the law,” the embassy wrote in the letter, carried in the English-language China Daily.

The China Daily said the letter had been written in response to an article in a British newspaper written by author Salman Rushdie calling on China to set Ai free.

For more information, please see:

Wall Street Journal – In Absentia, a Retrospective for Chinese Dissident Artist Ai Weiwei – 6 May 2011

Guardian.uk – Ai Weiwei campaign website ‘victim of Chinese hackers’ – 20 April 2011

Bloomberg – Ai Weiwei Won’t Be Intimidated by Chinese Thugs: Martin Gayford – 27 April 2011

Reuters – Chinese rocker reported detained after backing Ai Weiwei – 28 April 2011

Reuters – Pro-Ai graffiti in Hong Kong sparks warning by Chinese army – 29 April 2011

Reuters – China says Ai case nothing to do with freedom of expression – 29 April 2011

David L. Chaplin II
Impunity Watch, Asia

SEOUL, North Korea – North Korean political prisoner camp is a place where public executions, death by starvation and torture are rampant.

Human Rights group, Amnesty International, conducted an investigation into this death camp. Amnesty held interviews with fifteen former inmates and prison guards, expressing their daily experiences in the camps and describing the lack of food, conditions of hard labor.

200,000 people are reported to held in these camps, which according to satellite imagery obtained by the Amnesty, are being built across central North Korea.

“North Korea can no longer deny the undeniable. For decades the authorities have refused to admit to the existence of mass political prison camps,” said Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International Asia Pacific Director.

Satellite images show four of the six camps occupying huge areas of land and located in vast wilderness sites in South Pyongan, South Hamkyung and North Hamkyung provinces, and producing products ranging from soy bean paste and sweets to coal and cement.

As facilities expand common detainees include house prisoners accused of criticizing the leadership, those believed to be part of anti-government groups and even those caught listening to South Korean broadcasts.

“As North Korea seems to be moving towards a new leader in Kim Jong-un and a period of political instability, the big worry is that the prison camps appear to be growing in size.” reports Amnesty.

“Guilt-by-association” is reported to keep thousands confined to these camps.

Amnesty estimated that 40% of inmates die from malnutrition. And testimonials reveal that every former inmate at one camp had witnessed a public execution.

Conditions in these camps are very poor for children who are often tortured through inhumane living conditions.

One child was held for eight months in a “torture-cube-cell” so small it was impossible to stand or lie down.

Many witnesses say that other more common forms of torture include sleep deprivation, bamboo slivers under the fingernails, water-boarding and suspending prisoners whose feet and hands have been bound behind them.

One former inmate told Amnesty how he and his father were forced to witness the public execution of his mother and brother.

A former prison guard expressed how inmates would eat snakes, rats and pig feed for survival. In particular a former inmate told how she had picked, cleaned and eaten corn kernels from cow dung.

Education was limited or non-existent inside these camps; the youth are frequently worked until they collapse.

Aidan Foster-Carter, Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Sociology and Modern Korea at Leeds University in England, said: “It is difficult to get hard data (on North Korea) for obvious reasons, and it could be that the numbers of people in the camps are growing. What may be happening is that as part of the changing political situation the government has conducted a purge of people opposed to the succession (of leader Kim Jong ll by his son Kim Jong-un).”

In its most recent human rights report on North Korea, the U.S. State Department describes the country’s human rights record as “deplorable.”

Amnesty International believes an estimated 40% of inmates at Yodok, the prison camp, died from malnutrition between 1999 and 2001.

“These are places out of sight of the rest of the world, where almost the entire range of human rights protections that international law has tried to set up for last 60 years are ignored.”

“Hundreds of thousands of people exist with virtually no rights, treated essentially as slaves, in some of the worst circumstances we’ve documented in the last 50 years,” said Sam Zarifi.

Amnesty International is urging North Korea to close its prison camps and release political prisoners.

For more  information, please see:

CNN – Report: Torture, starvation rife in North Korea political prisons – 4 May 2011

Amnesty International – Images reveal scale of North Korean political prison camps – 3 May 2011

Arirang – Korea for the World, The World for Korea – 4 May 2011

Bangladesh News – North Korea jail camps ‘growing’ – 4 May 2011

David L. Chaplin II
Impunity Watch, Asia

KARACHI, Pakistan – The city of lights is becoming more like a jungle to local residents who fear the city has been overrun with predators: extortionists, drug lords, weapon dealers, the land mafia…the list goes on. Criminals guard their turf and have allegedly formed links with political parties, making controlling the violence difficult, if not impossible says the Tribune.

Within Karachi, an annual billion dollars in revenue province, political rivalry, sectarian tension, ethnic hatred, and a bloody chase of a multi-billion rupee pie are the ongoing explanation for the increased violence.

Nasrullah Khan, Station House Officer of Mauripur Police Station battles targeted killing on a daily basis and has survived numerous shootouts as a result.

“The police is combating crime efficiently,” he claims, “which is evident from the numerous arrests and the seizure of illegal arms, the courts are overflowing with trials and the  jails are overcrowded with all the people we have arrested.”

The statistics Nasrullah offers tell one story, but there are other numbers as well, and they tell a different story.

Targeted killings for the month of March are 135. This number is twenty more than two months ago were January witnessed 105 people killed.

According to the Human Rights Commission in Pakistan, target killings in the city have risen by 175 per cent from 2009 to 2010. Last year 748 people lost their lives on the violent streets of Karachi. Only 447 of them were political activists.

“This is indeed a turf war,” says Nasrullah Khan. “There is a battle for drugs, for weapons, for confiscation of land, for extortion, for dominance — ultimately it’s a battle to own Karachi.”

But adding to the turmoil is a sluggish judicial process where the police and prosecutors lack the ability to produce evidence or witnesses before the court.

Despite the confession of nine target killing suspects, they were acquitted by the court because of a lack of evidence and witness testimony. Only to be let loose without any surveillance so they often continue committing crime without any fear.

Reports indicate that on May 12th a message was sent to political parties to strengthen their militant wings or find themselves on the receiving end of political violence. Lacking alternatives, party workers chose to arm themselves or align with ‘sympathetic’ criminal groups for protection.

Politics in this case are unquestionable the “Muttahida Qaumi Movement” or MQM and the “Awami National Party” or ANP share the coalition government in Sindh with the ruling Pakistan People’s Party or PPP.

They share the responsibility of governance and maintenance of the law and ultimate order.

ANP chief Asfandyar Wali Khan says that no single political party should be allowed to dominate the city. He stressed “that the Pashtun presence in Karachi was a reality, as was the existence of other ethnicities.”

The ANP chief says that “elements” intending to destabilize the city were feeding on political strife and that neither the MQM nor the ANP were solely responsible for target killing.

Interviews with the International Herald report that the ANP and MQM now apparently seem to be in agreement that peaceful co-existence is the solution to Karachi’s problems.

The citizens pay the price for this targeted violence.

Citizens are targeted for their ethnicity, their sect, their politics…and sometimes, just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The father of a victim says, “the Katchi community is fed-up of the PAC and has decided to gang up against them under the banner of the Katchi Rabta Committee” or KRC.

Uzair Jan Baloch, chief of the now-defunct People’s Aman Committee or PAC, refutes the allegations leveled against him. “I am a victim of gang wars myself. My father was abducted in front of my eyes fifteen years ago. His dead body was found in Jahanabad in a sack.”

“I am a social activist and the Aman Committee is a social welfare outfit,” claims Baloch.

To back up his claims, Uzair Baloch shows Sabin Agha of the Tribune, three applications from the residents of Lyari for financial assistance.

One is a request for payment of a student’s school fees in Australia, the other two also ask for monetary help due to lack of income and the absence of a breadwinner. Baloch claims he took care of all three applications.

Administrative neglect over the years have left Lyari so impoverished that it is not surprising that people find their saviors in people like Uzair Baloch or Rehman Dakait.

Citizens believe that as long as political parties feel the need to maintain militant wings and ally themselves with criminals, the slightest spark will continue to set this city ablaze.

Police have lost credibility in the eyes of the people, the law enforcement agencies suffer from endemic lawlessness and rampant corruption, ironically the same problem Karachi faces.

For more information, please see:

International Herald Tribune – Welcome to the Jungle – 17 April 2011

Xinhua News (China) – Tension grips Pakistan coastal city Karachi as target killing continues – 15 April 2011

Hindustan Times – Fresh Political violence kill 10 in Karachi-17 April 2011

The News (International) – No PPP man named in Joint Team report on Karachi target killings – 11 April 2011

David L. Chaplin II
Impunity Watch, Asia

KATHMANDU, Nepal – After nine years of waiting, Bhutanese refugees by the thousands are still living in miserable conditions in Nepal, India, and elsewhere. They have survived this long with hope of being able to return to their homeland. Their hopes have been reignited, as on Saturday Bhutan’s Prime Minister Lyonchhen Jigmi Y Thinley said they would have to prove again that they were bona fide Bhutan citizens, but the conversation alone is progress.

Some 108,000 Bhutanese of Nepali-origin were forced to flee the country after Druk Government stripped them of their citizenship and forcefully evicted them from Bhutan in a manner of ethnic cleansing.

Prime Minister made these unfortunate remarks after talks with Nepal’s Prime Minister Jhala Nath Khanal due to regional as well as bilateral concerns and issues.

Over 105,000 Bhutanese refugees waste away in closed camps within Nepal since their eviction in the 1990s and almost 30,000 more living in India  and all over the world including Syracuse, New York. These refugees remain yet hopeful, as Thinley agreed to resume talks to allow them their return home.

The issue of repatriation for Bhutanese refugees has continued to be a foreign relations concern since their forced displacement.

A large number of Bhutanese refugees continue to live in seven camps within eastern Nepal, and have done so for over 18 years.

The two leaders held discussions regarding the bilateral relations and upcoming summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), Thinley told reporters after the meeting. Bhutan is the current chair of the SAARC.

Thinley also said that consensus has been forged to hold dialogues which further strengthen the five-decade long relationship between the two countries.

In a separate interview the Prime Minister Jhala Nath Khanal’s foreign affairs advisor Milan Tuladhar also said consensus was forged regarding the issue of Bhutanese refugees’ repatriation through dialogues.

Ministerial Joint Committee talks have been delayed since 2003 with Nepal to resolve the lingering Bhutanese refugee problem, reports Kosh R. Koirala of the Asian Tribune.

“The date for the talks will be settled through diplomatic channels,” said Prime Minister Jhala Nath Khanal’s foreign affairs advisor Milan Tuladhar.

Frustration has risen as the Bhutanese side had not shown any interests to resume talks after an angry mob of refugees tried to manhandle the Bhutanese members of the Joint Verification Team (JVT) on December 22, 2003 reports Koirala, Asian Tribune.

Prime Minister Khanal´s request comes at a time when a significant number of Bhutanese refugees have opted for repatriation with full dignity.

Although the government has maintained that it wants to respect the rights of those wishing to return to their homeland over 44,000 refugees have already left for third country settlement in eight countries, a program spearheaded by the United States.

For more information, please see:

The Times of India – Bhutan dashes refugees’ home-coming dreams – 16 April 2011

Xinhua News (China) – Nepal, Bhutan agree to resolve refugees issue through dialogue – 15 April 2011

Asian Tribune – Bhutan agrees to resume bilateral talks to resolve refugee problem –  16 April 2011

South Asian News Agency – Bhutan resumes talks on refugees – 16 April 2011

By Joseph Juhn
Impunity Watch Desk Reporter, Asia

2011 census reveals that boys are preferred to girls, leading families to abort girl babies (Photo courtesy of the Nation).

NEW DELHI, India – If you are a girl in India, you are less likely to be born. The figures speak for itself: the latest 2011 census show that the sex ratio, the number of girls to every 1,000, was 914 in the 0-6 age group, which is 13 less than the 2001 census.

As medical technology continues to improve and more commonly implemented in rural areas, the abortion of female fetuses has also increased. This is because technology has made it easier to detect the sex of an unborn child.

Lakshmi Rani, 30, is one of many women who was forced to abort her unborn baby, multiple times. From Bhiwani district in Uttar Pradesh, Ms. Rani’s first three pregnancies were terminated due to family pressure.

“My mother-in-law took me to the clinic herself,” she said. “It wasn’t my decision, but I didn’t have a choice. They didn’t want girls.”

She and her husband are pushing for another pregnancy and she prays that the next one will be a boy. Although sex determination tests, let alone abortion itself is illegal in India, women like Ms. Rani is powerless before family pressure and general societal preference of boys.

There is also a stark regional difference. The divide between the north and south has gotten worse as J&K’s child sex ratio fell steeply to 859, making it the third worst state after Haryana and Punjab. Just ten years ago In 2001, J&K had a better child sex ratio than the Indian average. With the exception of Himachal Pradesh, no state in the north now has a child sex ratio above 900.

The reasons behind the preference of boys over girls are complex, according to the Center for Social Research, a research organization in New Delhi. Ironically, the aborting practice happens in some of India’s most prosperous states — Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh — indicating that economic growth does not guarantee a shift in social attitudes. Ranjana Kumari, spokesperson for the research center gives several factors that may attribute to the preference of boys in many parts of India, especially the conservative north: sons are the source of the family income, daughters marry into another family and are not available to look after their parents, dowries make a daughter a liability and, in agricultural areas, there is the fear that any woman who inherits land might take that property to her husband’s family.

“It (the decline in child sex ratio) was expected, but it is a warning signal for the nation to wake up,” Ms. Kumari said, also adding that law banning sex-based abortion “is not stringently implemented”.

Her findings and facts lead to conclusion that India’s sex ratio is a feature not just of dictatorship and poverty. Unlike China, India is a democracy: there is no one-child policy to blame.

“The caution should be taken seriously. We are leading to a crisis situation,” she said.

For more information, please see:

The Times of India – Sense of Census 2011: Save the Girl Child – 1 April 2011

The Economist – Gendercide in India: Add Sugar and Spice – 7 April 2011

The New York Times – A Campaign Against Girls in India – 12 April 2011