By Megan E. Dodge
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

SHAOGUAN, China– A court in the southern region of China sentenced a man to death for his involvement in a brawl in July. Chinese officials believe that he was the trigger to the deadly riots which occurred in the far western region of Urumqi located in the Xinjiang province.

 Map of Xinjiang. Courtesy of BBC News.

The factory brawl in Guangdong province in June left two Muslim Uighurs dead and 14 others seriously injured. According to State media, the fight erupted between a group of Han Chinese and ethnic Uighur workers from Xinjiang at a Hong Kong owned toy factory in Shaoguan, in the Guangdong province. The violence broke out after a rumor spread that some Uighurs had raped two women form the factory.

A report was released and stated that two Uighur workers were beaten to death in the fight, and three men were severely injured. Other Han then turned on the Uighurs, beating them with iron bars and stopping medical personnel from treating the wounded, it added. Two men faced charges of intentionally harming others. Nine others were given prison sentences of five to eight years, Xinhua news agency reported. The courts in Shaoguan also gave another man life imprisonment, and nine others got sentences ranging from five to eight years in jail, the official Xinhua news agency reported. The man given the death sentence is reportedly a Han Chinese.

The incident sparked the fighting in July between Uighurs and members of China’s dominant Han ethnic group. A subsequent protest by the Uighur community in Urumqi, the capital of the western Xinjiang region, erupted in violence on July 5, with at least 197 people killed and another 1,700 injured. The turmoil is thought to be the worst ethnic violence in China for decades. The government says most of the dead were Han Chinese, but the exile activist group the World Uighur Congress claims many Uighurs were also killed.

 

For more information, please see:

BBC World News – Death sentence over China riots – October 9, 2009

Reuters – China gives death sentence over Uighur brawl case – October 10, 2009

Kyodo News – Man sentenced to death over southern China factory brawl – October 10, 2009

By Hyo-Jin Paik
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

SEOUL, South Korea – In an effort to defend mothers’ right to raise their own children, activist are trying to set up what would be South Korea’s first organization of unwed mothers.  This is seen as an unusual step in a “society that ostracizes unmarried mothers.”

South Korea has been trying to improve their image as a “baby exporter.”  However, due to social and cultural pressure, thousands of unwed South Korean mothers choose abortion, which is illegal but widespread, or adoption, which is “socially shameful.”

For example, in 2008, about 90% of babies who were adopted were born to unwed mothers.  In general, almost 96% of unmarried, pregnant women in South Korea choose abortion.

Some Korean families with pregnant, unwed daughters often move to hide the pregnancy, and unmarried women with children usually lie about their marital status in fear that they will be evicted by landlords and their children shunned at schools. 

Unwed single mom, Mok Kyong-wha, with her son.  Courtesy of International Herald Tribune.

33-year old unwed mother, Lee Mee-kyong, said, “Once you become an unwed mom, you’re branded as immoral and a failure.  People treat you as if you had committed a crime.  You fall to the bottom rung of society.” 

Another South Korean woman Chang Ji-young, who gave birth last month, said, “My former boyfriend’s sister screamed…over the phone demanding that I get an abortion.  His mother and sister said it was up to them to decide…because it was their family’s seed.”

One American doctor, Richard Boas, who adopted a Korean baby girl back in 1988, started a group called “Korean Unwed Mothers Support Network,” which defends the rights of unwed pregnant women so that these women can receive support and resources if they choose to keep their babies, instead being compelled to choose adoption. 

Jane Jeong Trenak, Korean adoptee who grew up in the U.S., said, “What we see in South Korea today is discrimination against natural mothers and favoring of adoption at the government level.”  Activists are claiming that “Culture is not an excuse to abuse human rights.”

For more information, please see:

Korean Unwed Mothers Support Network – On further reflection – 13 September 2009

NYT –Group Resists Korean Stigma for Unwed Mothers – 7 October 2009

Yonhap News – Korean Unwed Mothers Pushed to the Brink Become Brave – 8 October 2009

By Michael E. Sanchez
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

KABUL, India– A Taliban suicide bomber has struck the Indian embassy in Kabul, with at least 17 dying in the second attack the building has suffered in little over a year.  Kabul has been attacked regularly in recent months, and the previous bombing occurring in July 2008, where dozens of people were killed. 

Officials say a car bomber blew himself up near the Indian embassy and the Afghan interior ministry.  The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attack and state that the embassy was the target.  Insurgent militants would like to force India to decrease their influence in Afghanistan, where the government is spending $1.2 billion on projects supporting the U.S. backed- government’s development drive, important to gaining popular support.

Nirupama Rao, India’s Foreign Secretary said the suicide bomber “came up to the outside wall of the embassy with a car loaded with explosives”.  Habib Jan, an eyewitness said the victims were civilians, “A [Toyota] Corolla car was parked in front of the Indian embassy.  It was rush hour, about 10 minutes after I arrived at the office when we heard an explosion.  There were lots of workers cleaning the street – most of them have been killed.”

The bombing comes at a critical time.  President Obama is deciding whether to increase the number of troops, as Gen. Stanley McChrystal has advised.

The American Embassy has condemned the attack.  In a statement it said “There is no justification for this kind of senseless violence,”  Most the people killed were ordinary Afghans, with many of them being Merchants working at a market that had been refurbished in the last few months.

Muhibullah, a merchant in the market, said the blast so powerful he felt it in his chest.  Mr. Muhibullah said he had hoped that security had improved when city authorities reopened the road in front of his shop.  But now as a result wants to move

Edrees Kakar, an office worker stated that the bomb attacks are happening so frequently that people are no longer feeling safe.  “People are leaving their homes less and less.  We are frustrated and feel we are not getting sufficient help from the international community.”

For more information, please see:

BBC NEWS- Afghan Bomb Strikes India Embassy – 8 October 2009

The New York Times- 17 Die in Kabul Bomb Attack– 8 October 2009

Reuters- Kabul Bomb Likely Aimed to Influence US Afghan Policy– 9 October 2009

The Times of India- ‘India Will Take All Steps To Protect Its Citizens’– 9 October 2009

By Alok Bhatt
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

KARNATAKA, India – Monsoon rains catalyzed the worst flooding India has experienced in over 100 years on Monday.  India’s monsoon season annually leaves scores of flood victims dead and displaced, yet it has been decades since flooding as caused such immense destruction and alarm.  Between the southern states affected by the torrential rains, flooding has claimed the lives of over 270 victims and displaced more than 2.5 million people. 

Rescue workers responded expediently to the news of imminent tragedy.  Prior to the most intense flooding, relief organizations began reinforcing the embankments of the Krisha river with over 300,000 heavy sandbags to prevent the floodwater from penetrating the trade-center city of Vijaywada.  Rescuers also dropped rations and plastic sheets to the displaced population from helicopters.  In Andhra Pradesh, over a quarter-million people have been relocated to makeshift relief shelters.  Aid workers in Karnataka were able to move over 450,000 into similar temporary housing.  
 

 
While the government and relief workers have taken significant initiatives in their rescue mission, the relentless flooding in southern India carries risks and ramifications other than loss of property and life.  With so many people placed into temporary shelters, conditions at the shelters prove inadequate and resources scarce.  Displaced persons have questioned whether the government could have provided further amenities, but funds for improving the relief camps are currently insufficient.  The influx of rescued people into the makeshift shelters over the coming weeks will undoubtedly cause overcrowding issues while the government strains for the money to accommodate the homeless and rebuild the rain-ravaged cities.  Also, flooding of travel-ways has made the efficient distribution of already scant resources difficult for the government and aid workers.  

Furthermore, aid workers fear the rapid spread of water-borne disease to which hundreds of thousands of people are now vulnerable.  India must also bear the significant loss of agriculture, as the monsoon flooding submerged vast acres of corn, sugarcane, paddies, and other crucial crops.  

While the Indian government continues to calculate the monetary cost of the damage, relief workers continue to provide food and shelter to the displaced, and the military works continual rescue operations.  Though the lack of necessary funds keeps rescued persons in derisory conditions, measures are being  taken to secure the lives of the displaced.  
For more information, please see:

Al-Jazeera – Millions homeless in India floods – 7 October 2009

CNN – Over 270 killed in India floods – 5 October 2009

Times of India – Flood water recedes, new worries surface – 6 October 2009

Yahoo! News – India floods leave 2.5 million homeless, 250 dead – 5 October 2009

By Michael E. Sanchez
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia  

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan– A suicide bomber garbed in military uniform attacked the UN World Programme offices in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital city, killing at least five people and injuring five others, according to police and U.N. officials.The interior minister of Pakistan stated that an investigation had begun into security lapses after guards had allowed the suicide bomber into the compound to go to the bathroom.

Taliban militants on Tuesday, claimed responsibility for the deadly bombing, saying that international relief work in Pakistan was not in “the interest of Muslims”.  Revenge was promised by the Pakistani Taliban for the killing of their leader Baitullah Mehsud in a U.S. drone strike in August and has been behind a series of recent attacks, including an attack last week, where at least 16 people died in two suicide car bomb attacks in north-western Pakistan.

The five confirmed dead worked for the WFP and the injured were hospitalized, some of them with critical injuries.  Of the dead four were Pakistani: Abid Rehman, a senior finance assistant; Gulrukh Tahir, a receptionist; Farzana Barkat, an office assistant; and Mohammed Wahab, a finance assistant. The fifth was Botan Ahmed Ali al-Hayawi, an Iraqi information and communication technology officer.

“All of the victims were humanitarian heroes working on the front lines of hunger in a country where WFP food assistance is providing a lifeline to millions,” the agency’s executive director, Josette Sheeran, said in a statement.  “This is a tragedy—not just for WFP—but for the whole humanitarian community and for the hungry.”

This was an unwanted reminder that their capital remains vulnerable to attack, and is further proof that militants can cause harm in the face of heightened security precautions and ongoing army operations.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik said the attack would not “slacken the resolve” of Pakistan’s efforts in battling the Taliban.  He said: “The operations that we carried out against them in Swat, North Waziristan and South Waziristan have broken their back. They are like a wounded snake.”

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari condemned the blast, stating, “Pakistan will not be deterred in its efforts to fight extremism and terrorism and will continue its quest to bring peace by eliminating the terrorists.”

For more information, please see: 

BBC News- Suicide Bomb hits UN in Pakistan– 5 October 2009

ABC News- Bomb rips through UN Office, 4 dead– 5 October 2009

Washington Post- Bomb Blast Hits U.N. Agency in Islamabad– 6 October 2009

Associated Post- AP Top News at 10:58 a.m. -6 October 2009