By Ariel Lin
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BEIJING, China – The family of Gao Zhisheng, one of China’s most prominent dissidents, fled China last week. Gao Zhisheng’s wife paid human smugglers nearly $6,000 to smuggle her and two children over the border.  After an exhausting journey, they ended in Thailand.  The US government granted refugee status to the family, and they are now in Los Angeles.

Gao Zhisheng’s wife, Geng He said their life is unbearable in China.  The family live under constant surveillance, and two children are not allowed t go to school.  Their 15-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son had been deeply traumatized.  The15-year-old daughter tried to commit suicide and talked about it.  “She cut her arms with a knife and slashed an artery. It bled a lot. She still has scars today,” she says.

Geng He did not say goodbye to her husband, who was not at home in Beijing during the time.  She wrote a note to him, “I’ve taken the children so they can get schooling.”  With the help of a network of people, Geng He and two children managed to get to the southwestern border province of Yunnan in early January.  Then, she paid the traffickers to smuggle her and the children across the border by motorcycle. They moved mostly at night, along winding mountain roads.

“From a wife’s perspective, I really wish that I could stay and take care of him,” Geng said tearfully. “But I had no choice. For the children’s good, I had to take them away with me.”

As to for Gao Zhisheng’s safety, sources say he was interrogated three times after his family fled. He was escort away by police on February 4, and he has not been seen since then.

A Chinese law expert at New York University, Jerome Cohen, says Gao Zhisheng’s case shows a new trend of “prison at home” in China.  He urged International Community to pressure the Chinese authorities to release Gao immediately.  “In light of the terrible, obscene tortures to which he was previously subjected, I think there’s a reasonable question as to whether he’s alive, and I think the Chinese authorities ought to be called upon to produce him,” he says.

For more information, please see:

AP – Dissident lawyer’s family flees China to US asylum – 13 March 2009

AFP – Chinese rights leader’s family ‘defects to US’ – 13 March 2009

NPR – Family Of Chinese Activist Lawyer Escapes To U.S. – 16 March 2009

Radio Free Asia – Chinese Dissident’s Family Defects – 12 March 2009

Reuters – China dissident’s family flee to U.S. – 13 March 2009

By Shayne R. Burnham
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

KABUL, Afghanistan – The Supreme Court of Afghanistan upheld the 20 year sentence for blasphemy of student and part-time journalist Parwez Kambakhsh.

The decision was made in secret on February 12.  Kambakhsh’s family and counsel learned of the outcome Wednesday when the attorney general’s office issued orders to the northern province of Balkh to enforce the decision.

In 2007, Kambakhsh was arrested for having written and circulating an article about women and Islam.  Kambakhsh said that he did not write it, but rather, downloaded it from the Internet.  In 2008, the appeals court converted a sentence of death to 20 years imprisonment.  Last month, this decision was upheld by the Supreme Court.

“Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has confirmed the 20-year prison sentence for my brother,” said Yaqoub Ibrahimi, who is Kambakhsh’s brother. “We did not expect it at all.”

Kambakhsh’s lawyer Azfal Nooristani said that the entire proceeding was completely unfair.  “This case has been a conspiracy, it is about politics,” Nooristani told Human Rights Watch. “I had a legal right to see the Supreme Court judges, but they would not see me; they did not let me submit my defense statement. They had already made up their minds.”

Kambakhsh’s family is also shocked and disappointed in the criminal justice system of Afghanistan.

“This is the tragic level of justice in Afghanistan today,” Ibrahimi, the brother, said in a statement. “It is just a make-believe system of justice and humanitarianism. The reality is that the Afghan government and judiciary, although supported by the U.S., the UN, the EU and other democracies worldwide, is morally bankrupt.”

Human Rights Watch, among other human rights organizations, urges President Karzai to issue a pardon.

“The Supreme Court represented the last hope that Parwez Kambakhsh would receive a fair hearing, but once again justice was denied,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Kambakhsh has committed no crime. Now it is up to President Karzai to act on principle and free him.”

For more information, please see:

Human Rights Watch – Afghanistan: 20-Year Sentence for Journalist Upheld – 10 March 2009

International Herald Tribune – Student’s Long Blasphemy Term Upheld in Afghanistan – 12 March 2009

Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty – Afghan Court Upholds Journalism Student’s 20-Year Blasphemy Sentence – 12 March 2009

By Shayne R. Burnham
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

GUWAHATI, India – An Indian human rights advocate, Irom Sharmila, was released from prison last Saturday only to be rearrested Monday.  She was sent back to prison when she declared that she would continue fasting in protest of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) of 1958.

The AFSPA provides the military the power to kill suspected rebels without prosecution.  The AFSPA applies only to Kashmir and northeast India due to the prevalence of insurgency these areas.   Human rights groups state that the AFSPA allows security forces to kill, torture and rape with impunity.

Sharmila first began protesing against the AFSPA and its abuse in quelling rebellion in the northeast in 2000.  A prominent event during that time was when troops shot ten young men in Manipur.  Her brother, Irom Singhajit Singh, describes how it began, “The killings took place on November 2, 2000. It was a Thursday. Sharmila used to fast on Thursdays since she was a child. That day she was fasting too. She has just continued with her fast.”

Three days later, Sharmila was arrested and charged with trying to take her own life.  She was taken to the security ward of a hospital where she continued to fast in protest of the law. She was force fed a liquid diet through a nasal tube.  She remained imprisoned until her release, last Saturday.

Sharmila was then rearrested upon her declaration that she would continue to fast.  “I will only withdraw the fast when the government withdraws the Armed Forces Special Powers’ Act unconditionally. Not before that,” she stated to the media.

The Indian government claims that the AFSPA is a necessary measure to maintain and secure the northeast.

“There’s tremendous pressure from the army and paramilitary forces not to scrap the AFSPA. The government cannot overlook that pressure. But that alienates the government from the Manipuris all the more,” says Manipur’s leading civil society activist Binalaxmi Nephram.

For more information, please see:

Asian Centre for Human Rights – Arrest of Irom Sharmila Condemned – 8 March 2009

BBC – Manipur Fasting Woman Re-Arrested – 9 March 2009

Reuters – India’s Iron Lady Rearrested a Day After Release – 9 March 2009

By Ariel Lin
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

YANGON, Myanmar – The United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, visited Myanmar earlier this week.  According to a Myanmar official, he met with the junta’s ministers in charge of foreign affairs, home affairs, immigration and border areas.  Mr. Guterres also toured Myanmar’s border with Bangladesh and Rakhine state where most of the Rohingya reside.

Rohingya is a Muslim ethnic group that Junta refuses to recognize as citizens of Myanmar.  Earlier this year, Myanmar’s consul general to Hong Kong says that the Rohingya could not possibly be Myanmar since they were “dark brown” and “ugly as ogres.”

Rohingya issue has caught attention from the international community recently.  Thousands of Rohingya fled Myanmar to escape poverty and hardship were mistreated by Thai military.   The international media published photographs that show the Thai military rounded up Rohingya and set adrift in boats towed out to sea with limited supplies.  Some of them were rescued in Indian and Indonesian waters.  The UN refugee agency has expressed concern over the fate of hundreds rescued Rohingya.

At the Association of South-East Asian Nations last month, Myanmar agreed to allow Rohingyas to return to the country if they could prove they were Bengalis.  Bengalis is included on the government’s list of 135 recognized ethnic minority groups in Myanmar.

For more information, please see:

AFP – UN refugee chief visits Myanmar – 10 March 2009

Reuters – UNHCR chief in Myanmar, to visit Rohingya area – 10 March 2009

Time – Visiting the Rohingya, Burma’s Hidden Population – 09 March 2009

Voice of America – UN Official to Discuss Refugees with Burmese Government – 09 March 2009