By Joseph Juhn
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

YANGON, Myanmar – Myanmar’s first election in two decades is causing much controversy. On Sunday, people voted in about 40,000 polling stations opened across the country. However, the vote is widely expected to end in victory for the Union Solidary and Development Party (USDP), which is backed by the country’s military junta.

Some of the larger parties contesting in this election, such as the Democratic Party and National Democratic Force, have accused the government of unfairness, including illegal collection of advance ballots and voters being threatened by the government if they don’t back the ruling junta’s party.

Signs of voter intimidation were also reported by the Chin Human Rights Organization, which said that in a ward in Chin State, western part of country, one of the polling stations was at an army checkpoint.

”How can people feel free to vote for the party of their choice if soldiers are watching them?” said programme director Salai Za Uk Ling.

Another problem was allegedly related with advance voting. Local authorities are believed to have helped the USDP to force people to vote early and for the junta party.

”We have learned that the USDP, together with ward authorities, is trying to get advance votes by cheating, bribing or threatening people,” said a letter from the Democratic Party to the Union Election Commission in the capital Naypyidaw.

International communities were quick to criticize this election procedure, the one notably by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“You look at Burma holding flawed elections today that once again expose the abuses of the military junta,” she said.

“It’s heartbreaking because the people of Burma deserve so much better,” she told university students in Melbourne, Australia.

The military junta has banned foreign journalists and international monitors from scrutinizing the vote. Thirty-seven parties were on the ballot, but most of these parties not backed by the military junta suffered from severely restricted campaigns and high fees for candidacy. Most of these parties’ political statements were also censored.

The constitution of Myanmar reserves 25 per cent of the seats in parliament for military appointees, while opposition parties have suffered major barriers. As a result, hundreds of opposition politicians, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, are under house arrest or in prison. Aung San Suu Kyi, now 65, has been held under house arrest for most of the time since the past election in 1990.

According to the military junta, her latest term of detention is to end one week after the election. However, similar promises have been breached in the past and there is no way to know what restrictions might be imposed even if she is set free.

“These elections are going to be neither free, nor fair, or inclusive. There is nothing in these elections that could give us grounds for optimism,” British Ambassador to Burma Andrew Heyn said.

For more information, please see:

Bangkok Post – Junta faces threat claims – 6 November 2010

The New York Times – Myanmar Votes in Election Controlled by Military – 7 November 2010

CBC News – Burma holds 1st vote in 20 years – 6 November 2010

Bloomberg Business Week – Complaints mount on eve of Myanmar election – 6 November 2010

David L. Chaplin II
Impunity Watch; Asia

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – The Roman Catholic priests of Sri Lanka have been vocal and resilient to the government forces since the country’s civil war that recently ended. As a result of their diligence as leaders of their land, several bishops have gone missing after reported conversations with government officials.

In the past four years at least two Roman Catholic priests have gone missing after reporting the government troops brutality against the last Tamil offensive, the church says.

The archbishop of Colombo, Malcolm Ranjith, who is soon to become a cardinal, said that attempts were being made to change the demographic make-up of northern and eastern Sri Lanka, which currently have an ethnic Tamil majority.

“This could be a dangerous trend if it is not arrested; unless people are allowed to move in and move out in a proper way without any colonization as such, with or without government approval.”

Kingsley Swampillai, the bishop of Trincomalee and Batticaloa, said one of the priests disappeared after security forces conducted special questioning on him.

Recently Bishop Swampillai along with several of the diocese in the region testified before a commission looking into the governments function and handling of the country’s civil war.

The civil war, which ended just last year, when troops defeated a rebel group called the Tamil Tiger, who raised wide spread tensions over the fight for a separate state.

The conflict, according to the United Nations estimates that up to 100,000 people were killed. And similar numbers disappeared as infighting came to a halt.

The government’s response to the whereabouts of missing priests is that, the commission will promote reconciliation and they have rejected all international calls for an external investigation.

Bishop Swampillai, who heads the main diocese in eastern Sri Lanka, told the commission there were numerous missing and disappeared Sri Lankans whose fate had been unknown for many years now.

The government has not recorded any of the missing cases over recent years.

A timeline and snapshot of the missing bishops include- Rev Father Nihal Jim Brown, who vanished in Jaffna in 2006; and another, Father Joseph Francis, in his late 70s and had “got involved with” the Tamil Tiger militants while living in their heartland.

Bishop Swampillai said Father Francis was among those leaving the war zone in May 2009 and passing through the military checkpoint at Omanthai when people travelling with him saw him taken in for special questioning.

“And then he was no more – nobody saw him thereafter,” the bishop said.

Former wife of a Tamil Tiger official, testifying at the commission hearings in northern Sri Lanka six weeks ago mentioned that Father Francis had vanished.

Most bishops have remained highly critical of the security forces, and more so with the recent trend of events.

“The rights have been violated with impunity by the security forces and by unidentifiable persons and groups especially in the north and east. The situation has worsened by the state sponsorship of paramilitary groups during the height of the war, out of the former militants.”

For more information, please see:

BBC – Sri Lanka bishop accuses forces over missing priests – 4 November 2010

Journalist for Democracy in Sri Lanka – Sri Lanka bishop accuses forces over missing priests – 4 November 2010

CathNews Asia – Lankan bishop accuses sercurity forces – 4 November 2010

By Joseph Juhn
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BEIJING, China – A month after Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Chinese jailed dissident, Lui Xiaobo, the Chinese government has increased its crackdown on human rights activists advocating for release of Mr. Xiaobo and improvement in human rights.

A series of report reveals that various methods are used by the government to subdue conscience voices of these activists. Some are confined to their homes, others were followed and harassed while some went completely missing.
After all, there is no sign of abating.

One prominent human rights lawyer, Chen Guangcheng, released in September after years in prison became subjected to house arrest since early October in his hometown in Shandong Province. He is not allowed to receive any visitors or get out of his home. Mr. Guangcheng has been a vocal critic of government policies, especially of forced abortions by local officials in an attempt to enforce the one-child policy.

Pu Zhiqiang, a civil rights lawyer, claims that he was detained for three days in a hotel after the Nobel announcement October 8 and remains under heavy surveillance. “Everywhere I go, a policeman will follow me for sure,” he said by phone. “Sometimes I ask them to drive my car for me.”

Li Heping, another human rights lawyer, said that after Liu was announced as Nobel Peace Prize winner, police officers brought comforters and slept at the door of his apartment and now follow him everywhere, including to meetings with clients. “Once my friend sent me a text message to invite me to dinner,” he said. “They knew, and came and asked me for the details.”

Similar things happened to another lawyer, Li Fangping, who claims that three policemen have been following him ever since there was announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Some are facing a more dire situation. Ding Zilin, who heads a group of relatives of victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown disappeared along with her husband, Jiang Peikun, on Oct. 14. Activist Feng Zhenghu in Shanghai was also missing after being taken away by police Monday.

Many fear that such surveillance, harassment and detainment will continue at least through the Nobel awards ceremony scheduled in Oslo on December 10.

Hong Kong-based Human Rights Watch researcher Nicholas Bequelin called the date of awards ceremony “the big looming deadline.”

“The government doesn’t want to make the situation worse by arresting anyone,” Bequelin said. “But they want to keep an eye on all the known activists and dissidents.”

For more information, please see:

The New York Times – China: House Arrest For Rights Lawyer – 4 November 2010

The Washington Post – China continues crackdown on activists – 28 October 2010

AP – China pressures European governments over Nobel – 3 November 2010

David L. Chaplin II
Impunity Watch, Asia

KABUL, Afghanistan – Imagine local American police forces joined local and state gangs, and then attacked the very police station which they were previously employed. This is precisely what took place in Afghanistan according to the provincial governor of the Ghazni region.

In Khogeyani, volatile area southwest of the capital, the entire police force on duty Monday morning appears to have defected to the Taliban side. The New York Times is reporting that the “entire police force on duty Monday morning” in the district of Khogeyani “appears to have defected to the Taliban side.”

Musa Khan Haidar Zada, governor whom reported these events to CNN, indicated that defections were due to the poisonous influence of the Taliban.

Spokesman for the governor, Sayeed Esmaial Jahanger, told CNN that the Taliban took over the district without any violence and that 20 police were not seen again.

“This was not an attack, but a plot,” said Mohammed Yasin, the chief of the Khogeyani police force. “The Taliban and the police made a deal.”

Even a spokesman for the Taliban, said deal were cut and “the movement’s fighters made contact with the Khogeyani’s police force then sacked and burned the station. As officers vanished, so did their guns, trucks, uniforms and food.”

For months, through the tactic of “reintegration” American and Afghan officials have been promoting a plan to persuade multitudes of rank-and-file Taliban fighters to switch and fight on the side of the government. This tactic is one of the big hopes for turning the tide in the war, according to military officials.

The Taliban have developed a reintegration plan of their own.

The local police chief, who missed the attack, said he suspected a defection.

Zabiullah Mujahid, member of the Taliban said the Afghan officers decided to defect after “learning the facts about the Taliban.”

The Taliban reports that, “We never force people to join us,” said Mr. Mujahid, whose name is fictitious. “The police joined us voluntarily and are happy to work with us, and to start the holy war shoulder to shoulder with their Taliban brothers.”

The takeover of the station did not last long. Akbarzada said his office lost contact with the police station at about 5 a.m. Government forces arrived in Khogeyani about three hours later and found the station smoking and abandoned.

Mr. Akbarzada said his Afghan forces would be relentless in their recruitment.

“The Taliban exist in and around the district centers, and we have our own judges, courts, district governors and other officials,” he said. “We do our guerrilla attacks and then leave the district center. This is just a building.”

Provincial Governor Musa Khan Akbarzada insisted that security forces will continue to search for the police and the Taliban they joined with. Taliban spokesman Mujahid insisted that they were long gone, having melted into the countryside.

For more information, please see:

New York Times – Afghan Police Unit Defects to Taliban – 1 November 2010

CNN World – Police in Afghan might have defected – 2 November 2010

AntiWar.com – Afghan Police Defect to Taliban in Secret Deal – 1 November 2010

By Joseph Juhn
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

Xiao Aiying allowed cameras to film her in the hospital after being beaten and forced into abortion by government officials. (Photo Courtesy of Al Jazeera)

BEIJING, China – Twelve government officials entered into Xiao Aiying’s house where they kicked Xiao in the stomach before dragging her out of the house. Apparently, she was eight-months pregnant, which violated China’s one-child-per-family law. The officials said she and her husband already had a daughter. Xiao was then taken to nearby hospital where she was forced to have an abortion. The 36-year-old was restrained as doctors injected her with a drug to kill the fetus.

Her husband, Luo Yanquan, described the moment when officials burst into his home to Al Jazeera.

“They held her hands behind her back and pushed her head against the wall and kicked her in the stomach,” he said. “I don’t know if they were trying to give her a miscarriage.”

He also told Al Jazeera that they were informed by officials a month prior to the due date that they weren’t allowed to give birth to the new baby because they already have a daughter.

It’s been 30 years since the Chinese government implemented and began enforcing one-child-policy to reduce the 1.3 billion-plus population and cut unsustainable demand on resources.

This policy leads to an estimated 13 million abortions every year, with many of those ordered by local authorities. This kind of forced abortion is illegal in China, but such banning doesn’t prohibit or define late-term abortions.

When asked about the event, one official in the district where Mrs. Lou lives said that the procedure was undertaken voluntarily by Mrs. Lou and she consented to such an abortion, a claim which both of Lou’s strongly deny.

Mrs. Lou allowed Al Jazeera’s reporter to secretly interview and film her in hospital, but feared official retribution after making their ordeal a public one. In the footage she can be seen with large bruises on her arms.

“I have had this baby, feeling it moving around and around my belly. Can you imagine how I feel now,” she said.

Mrs. Lou’s experience comes a month after the government in Beijing said there would be no change of relaxation in strict family planning laws.

“Our ten-year-old daughter has been excited about having a little brother or sister but I don’t know how I can explain to her what has happened,” Mr. Lou said.

For more information, please see:

The Daily Mail – China forces woman into abortion at EIGHT months for breaching one-child policy – 22 October 2010

The Uyghur News – China’s One-Child Policy Forces Woman to Have Abortion at 8 Months – 25 October 2010

Metro – China ‘forces’ woman into having abortion while eight months pregnant – 22 October 2010