By Ariel Lin
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BEIJING, China – The International Olympic Committee [IOC] is under fire for refusing to publicly articulate concerns about the human rights situation in China before the Beijing Games.  Amnesty International, the London-based human rights watchdog said, “The Olympics have so far failed to catalyze reform in China and pledges to improve human rights before the Games look disingenuous after a string of violations in Beijing and a crackdown in Tibet.”

Human Rights Watch is also accusing the IOC of operating in a moral void, undermining human rights in China and flouting the spirit and letter of the Olympic Charter.  The letter issued by Human Right Watch  earlier in the week urgedthe Ethics Commission to articulate standards compatible with the respect of human rights to guide the Olympic movement. Human Rights Watch is also urging the IOC to publicly assess the extent to which current human rights violations are linked to the preparation of the Games.

Australian IOC member Kevan Gosper fired back, saying the committee was not an activist group or a government.  Chairman of the IOC’s inspection commission for the Beijing Games, Hein Verbruggen called the suggestion by Amensty International that awarding the Games to Beijing had worsened human rights in China “blatantly untrue.”  He also said at a news conference at the end of the final IOC inspection, “We are not a political organization, so in spite of all the criticism we get, I am not afraid to tell you that we should not speak out on political issues.”  Verbruggen said it would be unfair to link Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Olympics to issues such as “Guantanamo or Iraq,” and unjust to tie Madrid’s bid for 2016 to problems with Basque separatists.

However, Asia advocacy director of Human Rights Watch, Sophie Richardson said, “The question is not whether the IOC is a human rights organization.  It’s whether the Olympic movement respects human rights. If it does, remaining silent as China’s crackdown intensifies isn’t acceptable.”

IOC officials have made their final inspection ahead of this year’s games in Beijing and “satisfied with renewed assurances” over a number of concerns, includes making sure foreign news websites are unblocked and live television pictures are beamed around the world without any delay.

For more information, please see:

ABC – IOC pleased with China censorship pledges – 3 April 2008

AP – IOC: We’re can’t interfere in politics – 3 April 2008

Reuters – Amnesty lays into China on rights before Olympics – 2 April 2008

Reuters – IOC vigorously defends non-political role in China – 3 April 2008

Human Rights Watch – China: Letter to Ethics Commission of International Olympic Committee – 31 March 2008

Human Rights Watch – China: International Olympic Committee Operating in Moral Void – 1 April 2008

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia – Dith Pran, photojournalist and survivor of the Khmer Rouge Regime, died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 65 years old. Before the Khmer Rouge Regime took power in 1975, Dith Pran worked with the NY Times taking notes, translating, and taking pictures. After the Khmer Rouge Regime took power, Dith Pran became a prisoner. Although he and his family had the opportunity to flee Cambodia, Dith Pran choose to stay and let his family go because he believed that “his country could be saved only if other countries grasped the gathering tragedy and responded.”

Soon afterwards, he was sent to the countryside to work all day in the fields. He survived in the countryside doing backbreaking labor and eating only a tablespoon of rice a day for four years. Dith Pran avoiding summary execution by hiding his education, passing himself as a taxi driver, and throwing all his money away. In 1978 he returned to his hometown of Siem Reap and discovered that 50 members of his family had been killed. The wells had been filled with skulls and bones. In 1979 Dith Pran escaped the country over the Thai border and then later come to New York to continue his journalistic career.

For more information, please see:

The NY Times – Dith Pran, Photojournalist and Survivor of the Killing Fields, Dies at 65 – 31 March 2008

YANGON, Myanmar – According to a new proposed constitution, Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Laureate and leader of the opposition party, cannot stand for election because she was once married to a foreigner. Reuters obtained a copy of the charter and confirmed that it says a “person who is entitled to rights and privileges of a foreign government, or a citizen of a foreign country” cannot run for office. The provision is not a new creation but copied over from the 1947 and 1974 country’s constitutions. The proposed constitution will go to referendum in May, but voters are unsure how to vote because the public is not allowed to see the final version yet. The constitution is a key provision in the country’s seven-point “road map to democracy.”

For more information, please see:

Reuters – Proposed Myanmar Charter Bars Suu Kyi from Office – 31 March 2008

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – Action Against Hunger/Action Contre la Faim (ACF), an international human rights organization, has claimed that the Sri Lankan government is responsible for and is covering up the massacre of 17 of their aid workers in 2006.

The mostly Tamil ACF workers were helping rebuild in the town of Muttur after the tsunami when they were murdered.  They were found on the ground of a ACF compound, shot in the head.

The University Teachers for Human Rights (UTHR), a Sri Lankan organization, recently published a study on the murders.  The report stated that a local guard and two police constables killed the ACF workers, and that senior police officers covered up the murders.  It stated that three witnesses to the event had already been killed, one was missing, and others had left the country in fear of their lives.  The report also mentioned that since the ceasefire between the government and rebel Tamil Tigers collapsed in 2002, there has been an environment of impunity which has prevented justice from being reached.

The Sri Lankan government originally claimed that the aid workers had been caught in civil war fighting and had been killed by the Tamil Tigers.  The government responded to this latest report by saying that they will conduct an inquiry into the deaths.

Rajan Hoole, a UTHR spokesman, said, “The killing of civilians during time of conflict is a war crime. The perpetrators and their superiors should be brought to justice.”

For more information, please see:

Action Against Hunger – The Muttur Massacre: ACF Demands International Inquiry into Sri Lankan Assassinations – 1 April 2008

BBC News – Sri Lanka accused over massacre – 1 April 2008

By Ariel Lin
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

KATHMANDU, Nepal – A group of 200 Tibetan exiles and Buddhist monks tried to storm the Chinese Embassy in Kathmandu, Nepal on Sunday. Tibetan exiles and their children tried to gain entry to the Chinese embassy’s visa office near the city center.  Shouting “stop the killing”, the protesters attempted to open the office’s metal gate before they were stopped by a police bamboo baton charge.  A Tibetan activist said a girl and a monk were badly hurt and taken to hospital.

At least 200 police officers surrounded the building and hauled the demonstrators away in police vans as they sought to approach the mission.  “A total of 227 Tibetan protesters, including 113 women, were detained and would be freed later,” Surnedra Rai, a police officer at the station where the protesters were held, said.

Nepal is home to around 20,000 Tibetans who began arriving in large numbers in 1959 after a failed Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule.  Exiled Tibetans in Nepal have been protesting regularly since a riot broke out in the Tibetan, China on March 14.  Nepal’s government has said it cannot allow the protests because it recognizes China’s claim to sovereignty over Tibet.  The BBC Charles Haviland in Kathmandu says the authorities in Nepal have been adopting a “zero tolerance” attitude to Tibetan demonstrations for fear of annoying the country’s powerful neighbor, China.

The UN has criticized the continued mass arrests of pro-Tibetan protesters in Nepal, saying it violates the right to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression. International rights groups, like New York-based Human Rights Watch have repeatedly criticized Nepal’s handling of the Tibetan protests and beating of the protesters.

For more information, please see:

BBC News – Nepal police halt Tibet protest – 30 March 2008

Reuters – Tibetans scuffle with Nepal police, 113 detained – 30 March 2008

Reuters – Nepal police break up Tibet protests, 284 held – 30 March 2008