As he watched a horrifying crackdown unfold in his homeland of Syria after the start of popular protests on 15 March last year, US-based Syrian composer and pianist Malek Jandali felt obligated to speak out, believing that it was his “duty to reflect the reality on the ground”.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights now estimates approximately 16,500 deaths since the start of the country’s uprising 18 months ago, in a conflict that the United Nations now considers to be a civil war.
“For me, it is not a political issue. As soon as a bullet hit a child, it became a humanitarian issue for me” Jandali told Index.
Jandali decided to speak out through his music, in order to “support the Syrian people and give a voice to the people who don’t have it”.
Around the start of the uprising, Jandali was visiting Syria and was inspired to write a song entitled I Am My Homeland, releasing it on Syria’s Independence day, 17 April. Without any explicit reference to Syria, Jandali made sure that the song pulled on a universal sense of a loss of homeland. He then sent a copy of the composition to every Syrian embassy across the globe.
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee invited the artist to perform at their annual convention last year, but only on one condition: he could not perform I Am My Homeland.
Jandali was told by organisers that they “did not want to divide the community — especially the Syrian one”. After a heated debate, Jandali said organisers told him, “if you want to perform it, you are not welcome to come”.
Jandali took this as a revoked invitation, as he would not perform at the conference without performing the controversial song.
The composer slammed the organisation publicly for their decision, and the committee then released a statement claiming that his invitation to the event was never withdrawn. Organisers of the event then played his song without his approval. Jandali responded by filing a lawsuit against the organisation for copyright infringement. The case was eventually settled, on the condition that a donation be made to Syrian refugees in Turkey, as well as an apology to Syrian-American people. Jandali says the organisation told him they would not fulfill either request.
At a protest for Syria at the White House on 23 July 2011, Jandali played I Am My Homeland after playing both the Syrian and American national anthems. Four days later, his parents were brutally attacked in Damascus. Jandali says security forces beat his mother while his father was handcuffed and forced to watch.
While the attack against his parents was meant to silence him, Jandali became even more determined to speak out against Syria’s regime. “When you get attacked in such a brutal way, and you know you are on the right side of humanity, it gives you more determination,” he says.
His mother told him to continue to speak out, telling him what happened to her was “at least worth one more concert”. Jandali performed the next weekend, despite concerns over his safety.
After his parents fled Syria, Jandali published the photographs of their injuries. Following the publicity, Jandali said that in September last year Syrian security forces raided the home of his parents with intent to kill, as he said footage showed armed men forcing entry to the house.
Jandali continues to speak out in support of Syria’s revolution, and has faced attacks both on and off-line. After releasing his Freedom Symphony in February 2012 — the video for which containede powerful images of protest and clashes with security forces — Jandali said his home was bombed, and his official website hacked.
The artist continues to receive threats via Facebook, but will continue to speak out.
“There’s no grey,” says Jandali. “It’s either for or against murder of innocent children. I always talk about innocent children because they have no political affiliation.”
Sara Yasin is an Editorial Assistant at Index. She tweets from @missyasin
Twitter refused to hand over the tweets of a Occupy Wall Street protester to New York authorities on Monday. The social media giant rejected a court order issued by the Manhattan district attorney, requiring it to release three months worth of tweets from protester Malcolm Harris, who was arrested along with 700 other activists last autumn. Harris made attempts to crush the subpoena in February. His motion was blocked by a judge on 20 April, who ruled that Twitter, rather than Harris owned the tweets.
In a day of dramatic developments, the blind Chinese lawyer who left the US embassy in Beijing yesterday has called on Barack Obama to do everything possible to let his family leave China.
“I would like to say to (President Obama): Please do everything you can to get our whole family out,” 40-year-old activist Chen Guangcheng told CNN.
Chen, who spent six days under US diplomatic protection, says originally he did not plan to leave China but he was forced to leave the embassy for Beijing’s Chaoyang hospital because US officials told him of threats by Chinese authorities to send his wife and children back to their home in Shandong province — where they were subject to house arrest.
I came [to Chaoyang hospital] because of an agreement. I was worried about the safety of my family. A gang of them have taken over our house, sitting in our room and eating at our table, waving thick sticks around.
They’ve turned our home into a prison, with seven cameras and electric fence all around.
He has also said he hopes to leave the People’s Republic on US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s plane when she leaves China after bilateral talks later this week.
US officials said today that they are still trying to assist Chen and denied he was pressured to leave the embassy.
Chen’s jarring account emerged after a spectacularly brave move by his close friend Zeng Jinyan (who wrote for Index about growing support for the dissident here). The activist tweeted yesterday that she had spoken to Chen and and his wife, Yuan Weijing, who said they had received threats of being beaten to death if he left the country.
Chen’s wife told CNN that the family’s life was in danger and that matters had worsened since the activist’s escape. “Right now, we can’t even freely use our phone. I can’t even freely walk out of the hospital,” she said, adding:
After Guangcheng got out, the government was persuading me to stay here. But they were also tightening their grip on me. I became really worried. If they ever get us back home, they would put us in an iron cage.
These developments contrast with US officials’ prior claims yesterday that Chen had planned to remain in China to continue his work by studying law at university, and that the Chinese government had given them assurances of his safety.
In the last the 36 hours the unsettling — and often confusing — story has unravelled into a diplomatic storm between China and the United States. Negotiations had been ongoing since Chen’s dramatic escape to Beijing from over 18 months under house arrest in the village of Dongshigu, Shandong province last week. Clinton said earlier this week that a “constructive relationship” between the two powers “includes talking very frankly about those areas where we do not agree, including human rights”.
Meanwhile, nationalist Chinese tabloid the Global Times said in an editorial today that it was “meaningless” to use Chen’s case to attack China’s human rights, arguing that the country’s progress in improving its human rights record would not be “beleaguered” by such moves:
It is certain that Chen’s case is only an interlude for China’s development. It will not undermine social stability, nor will it hinder the normal development and progress of China’s human rights. China can take a composed attitude when such cases happen again.
Chen, noted for his efforts to expose forced abortions, spent four years in prison on charges of disturbing public order before being placed under house arrest. He won the Index on Censorship whistleblowing award for his activities in 2007.
Marta Cooper is an editorial researcher at Index. She tweets at @martaruco
Update: the Associated Press has spoken via Skype to a close friend of Chen, Zeng Jinyan, who claims that Chinese officials forced the activist to choose between going into exile alone or staying in China with his family. More details as we get them.
Chinese dissident activist Chen Guangcheng has left the US Embassy in Beijing, been treated at a hospital in the city and reunited with his wife, reports said today.
In the first confirmation that the blind legal activist had been housed under US diplomatic protection following his escape from house arrest last week, US ambassador Gary Locke called the Washington Post to say he was with Chen en route to Chaoyang Hospital in east Beijing. Chen is also said to have spoken to US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who is due to arrive in Beijing today for bilateral talks, with whom he “shared a mutual admiration”.
State news agency Xinhua said that 40-year-old Chen, a prolific human rights activist known for his campaign against forced abortions in China’s Shandong province, left the embassy “of his own volition” after staying there for six days.
China’s foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin has demanded an apology from the United States, accusing the country of taking a Chinese citizen “via abnormal means” into its embassy and of having “interfered in the domestic affairs of China”.
US officials told Reuters that “this was an extraordinary case involving exceptional circumstances, and we do not anticipate that it will be repeated.” They added that Chen plans to remain in China to continue his work, and that the Chinese government had given them assurances of his safety.
Today’s developments come after several days of sensitive negotiations designed to resolve the activist’s fate ahead of Clinton’s arrival in Beijing. US president Barack Obama signalled his support for Chen yesterday, noting that China would “be stronger” if it were to improve its human rights record. Clinton said that a “constructive relationship includes talking very frankly about those areas where we do not agree, including human rights”.
Chen spent four years in prison on charges of disturbing public order before being placed under house arrest in the village of Dongshigu in September 2010. He fled to the Chinese capital last week and a video was released online in which he claimed he and his family had been tortured by officials.
Whether or not Chen is indeed “a free man”, as one of his lawyers Li Jingsong was quoted as saying today, remains to be seen. “I am highly sceptical in terms of promises about the rule of law,” Beijing-based writer and documentary film-maker Charlie Custer told Index, noting that the government has “virtually a zero per cent track record” of treating Chen according to Chinese law.
He added: “I highly doubt Chen will be allowed to be entirely free; I suspect he’ll be sent back to where he was before. He won’t be allowed to operate as a regular Chinese citizen would and should be.”
“He should have been a free man 18 months ago when he should’ve been released from prison,” said Joshua Rosenzweig, a human rights researcher based in Hong Kong, adding that the Chinese government had a long time to protect the activist.
“They only gave these assurances because of the actions of Chen to escape and because this became a high-profile diplomatic incident,” he said.
The safety of several of Chen’s supporters, such as activist He Peirong (@pearlher) also remains uncertain. He, a Nanjing-based activist and one of Chen’s most prolific supporters, is thought to still be detained after police took her from her home on 27 April for having helped Chen escape house arrest. Chen’s nephew, Chen Kegui, is understood to be in hiding.
“If China was serious about assuring Chen’s safety then they’d release them [his supporters],” Beijing-based writer and documentary film-maker Charlie Custer told Index. “The fact that they’ve not done that speaks volumes as to China’s intentions of how they’ll treat Chen.
“All He Peirong did was drive him to Beijing, why is she being held by police?” Custer added.
Meanwhile, security was tight at the hospital where Chen was being treated. Tom Lasseter, Beijing bureau chief for McClatchy Newspapers, tweeted from the scene:
Today’s developments need to be monitored closely to ensure the guarantees promised to Chen are not a one-off, Rosenzweig added. If China does not fulfill its promises, he said, “there is not much in the way of progress.”
“Serious questions need to be asked about nature of political system that places a high priority on maintaining stability above all else, and how that kind of a system makes it possible for local agents to carry out egregious infringements on individual rights for such a long time without intervention,” he said.
Marta Cooper is an editorial researcher at Index. She tweets at @martaruco
