By Michael E. Sanchez
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

HANOI, Vietnam– Vietnamese officials have denied allegations about the intentionally censoring of Facebook, the social networking site. The state owned internet service provider FTP announced that there are negotiations with foreign companies to solve existing faults in the network to ensure access to Facebook’s US servers.

Many of the one million users in Vietnam have been reporting problems for days in accessing the recently launched Vietnamese –language version of Facebook. In addition, employees at web-management firms have said that the government ordered them to block access to the social networking site. It remains unclear the nature of the malfunctions.

Facebook is a global social networking site where users can manage their personal profiles by adding videos, pictures, and other friends. Facebook is also renowned for the social groups, and forums of political nature where the users express their views in various issues.

Vietnamese authorities have requested internet users to restrict the online publishing of personal concerns, and political views. Many bloggers and online journalists have been arrested in the last few months.

Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights assures the right to freedom of opinion and expression. This right also includes the ability of individuals to express their personal opinions without interference, and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any means that the individuals wish.

This incident of internet censorship is not new to the country. Vietnam strictly regulates internet access through legal and technological means.  The government says that their major concern is the flow of obscene and sexually explicit material. However, according to Sr. Emily Nguyen, a resident of Vietnam, “most of the filtered sites contain politically or religiously sensitive materials that have been observed as undermining the Communist Party’s hold on power, while porn site can be accessed unrestrictedly.”

Earlier in the year, after Asia News published a story about persecution Catholic in the country, popular Catholic English-language sites were also blocked.

Other sites which have been blacklisted include websites for groups such as Human Rights Watch, Writers Without Borders, Amnesty International and other human rights groups.

For more information, please see:

Catholic News Agency- Vietnamese Government Expands Internet Censorship to Block Catholic Websites–  6 August 2009

Rocket News- Vietnam Denies Blocking Facebook – 20 November 2009

BBC News- Vietnam Government Denies Blocking Networking Site – 20 November 2009

United Nations- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

By M.E. Dodge
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BEIJING, China –  Unlicensed clinics and illegitimate doctors are treating China’s ill citizens too poor to seek professional care. Beijing city government admits that the Chinese capital has a problem with illegal medical centers – known as black clinics. 

In 2008, Beijing city government closed down more than 3,300  unregulated, and sometimes dangerous, clinics. The facilities are set up to serve the capital’s poorest people, most of whom are migrant workers who have traveled to the city in search of work. They offer a cheaper alternative to the city’s government-backed clinics and hospitals. Though less expensive, the clinics are often dirty and lack the trained medical personnel to offer professional medical advice. It is also uncertain where these clinics obtain their medical treatment and equipment.

Most of these ‘black clinics’ are found on the outskirts of the city, often near large construction sites that can employ hundreds of migrant workers. The clinics are popular among migrant worker communities because most migrant workers are left out of the health care system in cities in China. According to one construction worker, Hu, he stated, “We never visit big hospitals. It costs at least 300 ($44) to 500 yuan ($73) to go there.” This figure is significant when laborers like Hu earn a monthly income of about 1,000 yuan ($146). As a result, a recent report issued by the Chinese government shows that unlicensed clinics and illegitimate doctors still rampant on 26 streets and compounds in seven districts, in Beijing, despite government attempts to rid the city of these illegal practices.

The problem persists even though China is currently in the middle of reforming its health care system and is trying to provide everyone with basic health insurance. Officials hope to persuade poorer people that they could be endangering their health by visiting black clinics.  According to one health authority, “As illegal medical practices are mainly concentrated in the hidden integration of urban and rural districts and rural areas, they are difficult to combat.”

Foreigners and many non-locals of Beijing have access to most of the public and private hospitals. It follows that, a number of foreign hospitals have become popular among expats and wealthy locals. Only by investing 20 million yuan ($2.9 million) can foreign-funded hospitals and clinics meet the government standards, in an attempt to ensure quality, and as a result, these foreign funded hospitals are more likely to accept private health insurance from abroad rather than their Chinese publicly funded counterparts – leaving poorer local citizens to fend for themselves.  

For more information, please see:

Global Times – Beijing outlines ills and cures for popular but bogus clinics – November 20, 2009

BBC News – Beijing’s poor visit illegal clinics  – November 20, 2009

China Daily – Illegal clinics put patients at risk – October 20, 2009

By Alok Bhatt
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BAGRAM, Afghanistan – U.S. military officials in Afghanistan recently afforded international journalists the opportunity to inspect the newly refurbished Bagram Air-Base.  The air-base currently serves as the largest U.S. hub in Afghanistan, holding over 24,000 U.S. military personnel and private, contracted personnel working within the facility.  Although the air-base was already almost inundated with the immense forces of U.S. troops, the base, utilized as a make-shift prison by the U.S. army, had been undergoing significant refurbishment to accommodate for an increase in armed forces occupying the area. As the base stood before the adjustments, approximately 65,000 American troops and 45,000 allied troops held station at the Bagram Air-Base.  The new Bagram is supposed to be able to hold an estimated 80,000 troops in addition to those already there.  The new prison facilities cost about $60,000,000 to construct.  The U.S. military suggested that the new Bagram will represent a progressive step towards more transparent practices in the treatment of detainees.

Human rights and activist groups have long chastised the U.S. military for its history of subjecting Bagram detainees to harsh mistreatment.  Numerous allegations of torture and violent interrogation methods have arisen since the U.S. military’s utilization of the Bagram Air-Base in 2003.  Bagram Air-Base has even earned the infamous title of “Guantanamo II”, or the “evil twin of Guantanamo.” Numerous investigative reports have released throughout the U.S. military’s years of using Bagram Air-Base have revealed consistent information suggesting that the mistreatment of Bagram prisoners far superseded the abuse Guantanamo detainees endured.  

Additionally, Bagram Air-Base detainees apparently received less process rights than Guantanamo prisoners, raising human rights issues besides torture and abuse.  Many Bagram inmates were apparently denied legal representation altogether and held without knowledge as to why or for how long.

Ex-employees of Bagram have expressed skepticism towards the purported purposes and policies of the refurbished facility.  Many believe that the new developments will do nothing to alter the practices of Bagram personnel.  Ex-guards described situations in which inmates lived every moment in continual fear of being abused or even killed, as gunmen stationed themselves at high points within the confines of Bagram walls.      

Reporters were not allowed to correspond with the inmates in the new Bagram facility to ascertain their perspective on the supposedly new, more rights-based policies.  Without these first-hand accounts, the truth of that matter remains to be seen.

For more information, please see:

Al-Jazeera – US unveils extended Bagram prison – 16 November 2009

Yahoo! News – Already the main Afghan war hub, Bagram is growing – 1 November 2009  

Zimbio – Bagram Air Base To Under $60 Million Expansion – 2 November 2009