By Pei Hu
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

DHAKA, Bangladesh – Noor Ahmed of the daily Sylhet Protidin was tortured several times by the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) while being held in custody last year. Ahmed was arrested at the same time as two other journalists, Sajol Daash and Apurbo Sharma. All were arrested for the same charges.

RAB arrested Ahmed in April 2007, blindfolding him and throwing him into the back of a truck. Upon his release on bail in September 2007, Ahmed told local rights groups that he was tortured and threatened because he was investigating allegations that the police chief of RAB was taking bribes in the northeastern city of Sylhet. Ahmed thought his arrest was intended to intimidate other journalists out of publishing similar reports.

Ahmed told rights groups that he was subject to mental and physical torture while in RAB custody where he was beaten on the leg by a stick for 20 minutes and then beaten again when he denied involvement on an extortion case. RAB also threatened Ahmed with the possibility of imprisonment again if he did not close down his newspaper when he returned to journalism after he was released. After being tortured for a night, Ahmed was forced to sign a paper which he was unable to read.

Ahmed’s case is similar to Tasneem Khalil and Jahangir Alam Akash, who were also arrested and tortured by RAB in 2007. RAB is a Bangladesh security force established in 2004 to combat specialized crime, Islamic militants, and Maoist rebels. Human rights groups have accused RAB of hundreds of extrajudicial killings.

International human rights group, Reporters Without Borders, said “It is appalling that local officials, including those responsible for law and order, can attack journalists with complete impunity,” and demanded justice on the perpetrators that tortured and intimidated Ahmed.

For more information, please see:

APF – Media Watchdog Demands Bangladesh Torture Probe – 11 October 2008

RSF – Government Challenged Over Torture of Editor in Sylhet – 10 October 2008

UNHCR – Government Challenged Over Torture of Editor in Sylhet– 10 October 2008

By Ariel Lin
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BEIJING, China – China plans to issue its first national action plan to protect human rights, said the State Council Information Office.  The action plan would cover aspects such as improving government function, expanding democracy, strengthening the rule of law, improving people’s livelihood, protecting rights of women, children and ethnic minorities and boosting public awareness of human rights, said a statement of the office.

According to the statement, the office and Foreign Ministry, joined by more than 50 departments, public associations and non-governmental organizations, including the country’s legislature, top political advisory body, Supreme Court, Supreme Procuratorate and the National Development and Reform Commission will draft the action plan.  More than 10 human rights experts from key universities and academic institutions would form a group to advise the panel, the statement said.  Once the plan was done, it would guide China in the development of human rights.

However, the government did not release the timetable of drafting and when the plan would be implemented.  The government issued its first white paper on human rights in 1991, officially adopting the concept of “human rights” in its political strategy.  Since then, it has issued 40 such documents, but never a State action plan in human rights. Dong Yunhu, vice-president and secretary-general of the China Society for Human Rights Studies, said: “As the first of its kind, the plan will have a major impact on development of human rights.”

The Chinese government faces constant criticism from international rights groups for censorship and jailing peaceful dissidents and protesters, as well as rising demands from increasingly assertive citizens.

For more information, please see:

China Daily – Govt to draft plan on human rights – 5 November 2008

Reuters – China to issue human rights plan: official – 4 November 2008

XinHua – China to outline first national action plan to protect human rights – 4 November 2008

By Kristy Tridhavee
Impunity Watch Senior Desk Officer, Asia

TOKYO, Japan – The Defense Minister of Japan dismissed the Air Force Chief of Staff, General Toshio Tamogami, after he wrote an essay asserting Japan was not an aggressor in WWII.

In his essay, which had the theme of “true views of modern history,” Tamogami wrote: “Even now, there are many people who think that our country’s ‘aggression’ caused unbearable suffering to the countries of Asia during the Greater East Asia War.  But we need to realize that many Asian countries take a positive view of the Greater East Asia War. It is certainly a false accusation to say that our country was an aggressor nation.”

Tamogami went on to say that Japan’s military action in China in the early 1900’s was based on treaties, and that the Korean peninsula had been “prosperous and safe” under Japan’s 1910-1945 colonial rule.  He also contended that Japan was drawn into the war by President Franklin D Roosevelt because Roosevelt had been manipulated by the Comintern, an international communist organization founded in Moscow. Tamogami wrote, “Roosevelt had become president on his public pledge not to go to war, so in order to start a war between the United States and Japan, it had to appear that Japan took the first shot,” he wrote.

In a news conference, Yasukazu Hamada, the Defense Minister, said, “It is inappropriate for him to remain in this position and I will swiftly dismiss him.  What he said was inappropriate for an air chief of staff.”  He should not remain in the job.” The quick dismissal is seen as an attempt to stop critical remarks from China, South Korea, and other Asian nations that have reacted angrily to past denials of Japan’s wartime past.

In the 1990’s, Japan officially apologized for its wartime past and acknowledged its aggression in Asia.  Recently, however, national politicians belonging to the right wing of the Liberal Democratic Party began a campaign to revise Japan’s wartime history.

For more information, please see:

BBC – Japan Air Force Chief Faces Sack – 31 October 2008

Japan Times – ASDF Chief Justifies the War, is Axed – 1 November 2008

The New York Times – Japan Fires General Who Said U.S. ‘Trap’ Led to Pearl Harbor Attack – 31 October 2008

By Ariel Lin
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

YANGONG, Myanmar – Two defense lawyers have been sentenced for six months at the Northern District Court in Myanmar’s former capital of Rangoon. Nyi Nyi Htwe and Ko Saw Kyaw Kyaw Min represented 11 Kemmendine Township National League for Democracy (NLD) members that are being held in prison.

The NLD members were accused of demonstrating against the military regime, and calling for the release of detained opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.  Nyi Nyi Htwe was taken into custody Oct. 29 at a teashop near the Hlaing Thayar courthouse, witnesses said.  Ko Saw Kyaw Kyaw Min is now in hiding.  The Hlaing Thayar judge has charged them under Mynamar Criminal Act 128.

Saw Kyaw Kyaw Min and Nyi Nyi Htwe appeared in court Oct. 23 with their clients.  At that hearing, three of the youths called Information Minister Gen. Kyaw  Hsan as a witness, Saw Kyaw Kyaw Min said, speaking from an undisclosed location.  The judge told the lawyers to control their clients, but Nyi Nyi Htwe replied that he was required to represent his clients’ wishes.

In an interview with Democratic Voice of Burma, Nyi Nyi Htwe says that the charges were deliberately oppressing political activists and those lawyers who are working for political activists.  “As a lawyer who handles political cases, I feel this is deliberate pressure,” Nyi Nyi Htwe said.  “I already knew that my legal licence was not secure and that we could end up in jail at any time,” he added.

Similar pressure is being directed at other defense lawyers representing clients in political cases.  Khin Maung Shein said he was also threatened by a judge to take care when recently attending a political case at a Sanchaung Township court hearing.  “The Sanchaung Township court judge threatened me yesterday, saying I could be sentenced to a prison term for interruption of judicial proceedings and told me to take care in handling the case,” he explained.

For more information, please see:

Democratic Voice of Burma – Lawyer and activists jailed for six months – 3 November 2008

Radio Free Asia – Burma Jails Lawyers for Contempt – 30 October, 2008

Voice of America – US Group Says Burma Detained Opposition Activists’ Lawyer– 29 October 2008

By Shayne R. Burnham
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

Moscow, Russia – On October 23, 2008, a court in Manget, Karakalpakstan, a region in Uzbekistan, sentenced human rights activist Akzam Turgonov to a prison term of 10 years.  Turgonov was convicted of extortion.  He is the chairman of the human rights organization, Mazlum.

Turgonov was arrested on July 11, 2008.  He traveled to Manget to help a woman to seek child support payments from her husband.  The parties reached an out-of-court settlement and Turgonov went to meet the husband to give him the settlement money.  As soon as the plastic bag containing the alleged money reached Turgonov’s hands, police arrived at the scene and subsequently arrested him for extortion.

Since he was taken into custody, human rights groups stated that Turgonov has been denied basic human and legal rights such as ill-treatment and denied his right to counsel.  There is evidence of burns on his back, of which he claims authorities poured boiling water in order to obtain a confession.

Human rights organizations also urge that Turgonov’s arrest was politically motivated.

In 2005, the European Union (EU) imposed sanctions upon Uzbekistan in response to the Andijan massacre, when militia opened fire upon hundreds of unarmed protestors.  In addition, the EU required that the government cease in their harassment of civil society, to free human rights activists and dissidents and to allow experts from the United Nations to enter the country.

Approximately, two weeks prior to the Turgonov trial, the EU lifted the sanctions, citing the progress with regard to human rights.

Igor Vorontsov, Uzbekistan researcher for Human Rights Watch, said, “Now that the EU has lifted sanctions, the Uzbek government seems to feel freer than ever to crack down on dissidents.”  He continued, “Turgonov is yet another example of a human rights defender arrested on fabricated charges, ill-treated in custody, and subjected to a blatantly corrupted trial.”  Uzbekistan will not allow Vorontsov to enter the country.

Salijon Abdurakhmanov’s trial has recently commenced on his drug charges.  Abdurakmanov is an independent journalist.  At least 18 human rights defenders and government critics are currently detained.

For more information, please see:

Human Rights Watch – Uzbekistan:  Activist Sentenced to 10 Years – 23 October 2008

Institute for War & Peace Reporting – Criminal Charges Used to Smear Uzbek Regime Critics – 24 July 2008

WorldNews – Uzbekistan:  Free Human Rights Activist – 16 September 2008