By Kristy Tridhavee
Impunity Watch Senior Desk Officer, Asia

BANGKOK, Thailand – The Thai Cabinet has extended emergency rule in Southern region of the country to deal with a separatist rebellion by Malay Muslims despite criticisms from human rights groups.

Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej extended the state of emergency for three more months Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat provinces, where a separatist insurgency is raging. The emergency rule has been extended 10 separate times, putting emergency rule in place for a total of thirty-three months.

In response the repeated extensions, Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej, said, “The emergency rule will not continue forever because the situation is improving, but as of now we really need it.”

The emergency rule provides security forces with broader immunity from prosecution while giving them wider powers of search and seizure. Persons may also be detained up to thirty days without charges.

Several human rights groups have criticized the continued emergency rule inSouthern Thailand because it creates a culture of impunity.

More than three thousand have died since 2004 when the separatist insurgency began. The killings have become more frequent and brutal as time has gone on despite the Thai government’s assurances that things will improve.

For more information, please see:

AFP – Thai Cabinet Extends Emergency Rule in Muslim South – 18 April 2008

Bangkok Post – Emergency Decree Extended in Deep South – 18 April 2008

MCOT Thai News Agency – Cabinet Approves Three-Month Extension of Emergency Rule in Restive South – 18 April 2008

By Ariel Lin
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

A new study that concerns treatments of North Korean refugees after they are forcibly returned from China to North Korea puts pressure on the Chinese government to stop repatriating North Korean refugees. Tens of thousands of North Koreans are thought to have crossed into China, propelled by hardship or persecution. China treats them as economic migrants and sends them back.

The 48-page report is titled “A Prison Without Bars.” The chairman of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, Michael Cromartie, says the report is based on interviews with 32 refugees who fled North Korea for China from 2003 to 2007 and with six former North Korean security agents who defected to South Korea during the past eight years.  He called on countries to press the Chinese government to stop sending North Korean refugees back to their homeland and provide increased protections as required by international protocols.

The report said that repatriated North Korean refugees were often subjected to harsh interrogation, torture and long detentions without trial if found to have converted to Christianity or had contact with South Korean Christians or churches while in China. Former North Korean security agents told the commission that authorities set up mock prayer meetings to entrap new converts in North Korea and train staff in Christian practices for the purposes of infiltrating churches in China.

Refugees said that merely owning a Bible could lead to arrests, disappearances and even deaths of those repatriated.  “Its up to the condition of the guards. Because killing a prisoner will do no harm for them,” one interviewee said.  Another refugee, claimed that “a person was shot to death” on a riverside in Hoeryeong, a North Korea city along the border with China, for accepting a Bible from South Korean priests.  According to the report, the treatment was part of Pyongyang’s efforts to prevent the spread of religion.

For more information, please see:

AFP – China slammed over “grave” crisis facing NKorean refugees – 16 April 2008

BBC – China ‘must not return N Koreans’ – 16 April 2008

Chosun News – U.S. Report Hits North Korea On Religious Rights – 16 April 2008

International Herald Tribune – U.S. congressional report finds abuse of returned North Korean refugees – 15 April 2008

Reuters – U.S. panel urges China not to repatriate North Koreans – 15 April 2008

Washington Post – NKoreans with religious ties face peril – 15 April 2008

BEIJING, China – The reporter, Jamyang Kyi, 42, an announcer at the state-run television station in Qinghai, a western province bordering Tibet, was detained on April 1 and has not been seen since April 7, according to colleagues and friends. The authorities also confiscated her computer and a list of contacts, they said.

Jamyang Kyi is better known for her singing and song writing in the Tibetan language and performs abroad, sometimes alongside musicians associated with the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan government-in-exile.  However, she has avoided themes or language in her music and writings that could be construed as challenging the Communist Party’s hold over Tibet.

Chukora Tsering, a researcher at the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Dharamsala, India, said he knew of nothing in her music or writings that might have provoked the authorities.  Her husband, Lamao Jia, who is also a journalist and a writer, said he had received no word from his wife for more than a week and did not know where she was being held. “She is in serious trouble.  I’m very worried for her safety. I’m very sorry. I can’t say more,” he said in a telephone interview.

Asked about Jamyang Kyi’s detention, Jiang Yu, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said she was unaware of the songwriter’s case. She insisted, that the Chinese legal system dealt fairly with all its citizens. “China is a country under the rule of law.  The law protects freedom of speech and other rights of its citizens. Only when a person goes against the law will they be punished by the law,” she said during a regularly scheduled news conference.

For more information, please see:

New York Times – China Detains Tibetan Reporter – 18 April 1008

International Herald Tribune – Tibetan entertainer detained in China following anti-government protests – 16 April 2008

BAGRAM, Afghanistan – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) announced this week that it disapproves of the way the United States runs its prison at the Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan, and urged for reforms.

Over 600 prisoners are held at Bagram, and the US military does not reveal who is held there or why.  Family and other public visitors are not allowed, including journalists.

The ICRC, however, has visited Bagram 120 times.  This recent announcement was made after the ICRC President, Jakob Kellenberger, visited last week.

Kellenberger commended the US for following some of the ICRC’s past recommendations, such as allowing video-conference communication between prisoners and their families.  He also appreciated the founding of new “enemy combatant review boards” that will examine Afghan detainees’ cases every six months and determine whether they can be released.

Nevertheless, he urged for further reforms to expand prisoner rights and allow them to introduce outside testimony:  “This [enemy combatant review board] should also get evidence from the persons outside, … evidence which can speak in favor of those who are detained … Evidence of people who know them, so that this evidence is brought into the process.”

Over the past five years, the US has been criticized for holding prisoners in places like Bagram without charge.

Kellenberger emphasized that the prisoners in Bagram “do not know what the future brings, how long will they be there and under which conditions will they be released.”

For more information, please see:

Associated Press – Red Cross: Change Needed at US Prison – 15 April 2008

The Jurist – Red Cross chief urges US military to allow outside evidence in Afghan detainee hearings – 14 April 2008

By Ariel Lin
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

A new study that concerns treatments of North Korean refugees after they are forcibly returned from China to North Korea puts pressure on the Chinese government to stop repatriating North Korean refugees. Tens of thousands of North Koreans are thought to have crossed into China, propelled by hardship or persecution. China treats them as economic migrants and sends them back.

The 48-page report is titled “A Prison Without Bars.” The chairman of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, Michael Cromartie, says the report is based on interviews with 32 refugees who fled North Korea for China from 2003 to 2007 and with six former North Korean security agents who defected to South Korea during the past eight years.  He called on countries to press the Chinese government to stop sending North Korean refugees back to their homeland and provide increased protections as required by international protocols.

The report said that repatriated North Korean refugees were often subjected to harsh interrogation, torture and long detentions without trial if found to have converted to Christianity or had contact with South Korean Christians or churches while in China. Former North Korean security agents told the commission that authorities set up mock prayer meetings to entrap new converts in North Korea and train staff in Christian practices for the purposes of infiltrating churches in China.

Refugees said that merely owning a Bible could lead to arrests, disappearances and even deaths of those repatriated.  “Its up to the condition of the guards. Because killing a prisoner will do no harm for them,” one interviewee said.  Another refugee, claimed that “a person was shot to death” on a riverside in Hoeryeong, a North Korea city along the border with China, for accepting a Bible from South Korean priests.  According to the report, the treatment was part of Pyongyang’s efforts to prevent the spread of religion.

For more information, please see:

AFP – China slammed over “grave” crisis facing NKorean refugees – 16 April 2008

BBC – China ‘must not return N Koreans’ – 16 April 2008

Chosun News – U.S. Report Hits North Korea On Religious Rights – 16 April 2008

International Herald Tribune – U.S. congressional report finds abuse of returned North Korean refugees – 15 April 2008

Reuters – U.S. panel urges China not to repatriate North Koreans – 15 April 2008

Washington Post – NKoreans with religious ties face peril – 15 April 2008