20 Jun 12 | Russia
Russian investigators are planning to question 600 people accused of participating in clashes with police during an anti-Putin rally on 6 May. More than 1,200 people have already been interviewed, one of whom— Stepan Zimin — faces criminal charges for using force against policemen.
Russia Day — a national holiday on 12 June — was marked with mass protests against Vladimir Putin’s presidency. Up to 100,000 people condemned the persecution of opposition activists and demanded an end to it.
In the meantime State Duma passed a scandalous law, increasing fines for breaking rules relating to holding rallies and stipulating up to 200 hours of forced labour for rally organisers. Dozens of activists who protested against the law near Duma building were arrested, including Yabloko party leader Sergei Mitrokhin.
Just Russia and Communist Party deputies attempted to prevent United Russia, which has a majority in Duma, from passing the law talking out the bill: they slowly read aloud a number of amendments they proposed to the controversial law. But United Russia passed the law in the end, and the next morning it was approved by the upper house of Russia’s federal assembly – the Federation Council.
Senator Lyudmila Narusova — widow of prominent Russian politician and mentor of Putin, Anatoly Sobchak, and mother of well-known “it-girl” turned political activist Ksenia Sobchak — questioned the hasty approval of the law. She was the only senator who suggested that the law should be discussed.
The council’s speaker, Valentina Matvienko, told her “not to insult” the house. The only senator who voted against the law was Larisa Ponomareva, mother of opposition leader Ilya Ponomarev. The rest, according to Russian human rights activists, proved the council’s full dependence on the Kremlin.
Finally, the law was signed by president Vladimir Putin, despite recommendations from his human rights counsellor Mikhail Fedotov. Presidential council made a resolution stating the new law violates the Russian Constitution and a number of laws, as it criminalises the right for peaceful demonstrations. According to the resolution, the law stipulates punishments for deeds, which are defined very vaguely, and as such, any opposition leader is likely to be sentenced to forced labour or up to 300 000 roubles fine (about £6000).
The law came into force right before the 12 June rally, but no organisers were fined. Most of them — Sergei Udaltsov, Alexey Navalny, Ilya Yashin and Ksenia Sobchak — were searched by investigators instead because of their participation in the opposition.
13 Jun 12 | Middle East and North Africa, Tunisia
Journalist and activist Ramzi Bettaieb ended a 15-day hunger strike yesterday.
Three other activists and bloggers, Azyz Amami, Houcem Hajlaoui and Emine M’tiraoui, who went on hunger strike in solidarity with Bettaieb have also ended their action.
Bettaieb, who works for the blogger’s collective Nawaat, went on hunger strike to highlight the lack of transparency in a crucial case being tried in front of a military court. On 21 May, the military authorities confiscated two of Bettaieb’s cameras as he tried to cover trials at the Military Tribunal of El Kef in the investigation of the murder of protesters during the 2011 Tunisian revolution
Tunisian journalists’ video coverage of court hearings is currently restricted to three minutes inside court rooms and Bettaieb accuses the military of deliberately preventing journalists from documenting what Nawaat has described as “the most important trials of Tunisia’s modern history”.
Bettaieb has now his cameras back, and the support of Tunisia’s constituent assembly, which pledged to look into his demands of lifting the restrictions on journalists and activists seeking to cover the court hearings in the martyrs’ case.
Bettaieb has also demanded the case be tried instead by an independent judicial structure instead of miltary judges.
“Our bodies’ powers are limited, but our determination is unlimited,” Bettaieb said at a press conference.
06 Jun 12 | Europe and Central Asia, News and features
Political activist Siarhei Kavalenka may have given up his hunger strike but his fight for freedom in Belarus continues, says Andrei Aliaksandrau
In January 2010 Siarhei Kavalenka, a political activist and small businessman from Vitsebsk, northern Belarus, climbed a 40-metre high New Year tree in the centre of the city and hung a red and white flag as a symbol of the Belarusian opposition.
If he had climbed the tree for any other reason, he might have faced a minor administrative trial and got away with a fine. But a red and white flag, once a national symbol and now an oppositional hallmark so much hated by the authoritarian government, cost Kavalenka a criminal conviction and a three-year suspended sentence.
On 19 December 2011, on the first anniversary of Belarus’s controversial presidential elections, Kavalenka was detained again, accused of violating the probation rules. Two months later the judge announced the verdict: 25 months in prison.
Kavalenka considers his conviction to be politically motivated. In protest against his imprisonment, he went on hunger strike for almost half a year, with only two breaks. He lost nearly 40 kilograms. His family and friends were worried for his life, let alone his health. According to his wife, Alena, who was able to meet her husband several times during his imprisonment, Kavalenka has serious health problems. In addition, she reported he faced physical torture and psychological pressure behind bars.
Many voices inside and outside Belarus and have demanded that the Belarusian authorities release Kavalenka together with all other political prisoners.
But the government of Belarus remains deaf to these appeals. Kavalenka has been refused civil medical assistance and is treated by prison doctors. In April, the authorities started force feeding him to keep him alive.
“The situation itself is beyond the legal framework because Kavalenka is sentenced illegally,” Uladzimir Labkovich, Belarusian human rights defender and lawyer, said. “He is a victim of the reprisal imposed on him by the authorities.”
Kavalenka ended his hunger strike at the end of May, but he is not giving up his fight, and nor are his family and friends. His wife, other relatives and Belarusian civil society activists have been detained several times after staging public actions of solidarity; some of them have been beaten by the police. At the moment Alena Kavalenka, Kavalenka’s cousin Kanstantsin and activist Alena Semenchukova are awaiting court hearings for chalking “Freedom to Siarhei Kavalenka!” on the pavement in front of the court building in Vitsebsk.
“He is very weak physically, but has no access to quality medical help,” Alena Kavalenka told Radio Liberty after she met her husband in prison. “I don’t know why he is being exterminated for his love for his motherland.”
Andrei Aliaksandrau is the former vice-chair of the Belarusian Association of Journalists
You can write a letter of support to Siarhei Kavalenka to his prison. The address is: PK No. 19, 3 km, Slauharadskaja shasha, Mahiliou, 213030, Belarus (In Belarusian: Каваленка Сяргей, 213030, г. Магілёў, Слаўгарадзкая шаша, 3 км, ПК №19)
06 Jun 12 | Americas, Mexico
A youth revolution has been brewing in Mexico in the last month.
Known as the Yo Soy 132 movement (I am 132), the phenomenon is made up of university students who until a few months ago were a sleeping giant: most planned to vote in blank, or to stay away from the ballot boxes on 1 July elections.
It all changed on 11 May — the day candidate Enrique Peña Nieto of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), and the favourite to win in July, visited the campus of Universidad Iberoamericana, an upper-class university in Mexico City. At that rally Peña Nieto answered questions and spoke to students allowed to enter a meeting hall. But at he exited at the end of his presentation, he was pinned against a wall by a large group of student protesters who challenged him.
The candidate’s handlers were so rattled they issued a statement saying the students were “brought in” as professional protesters hired by forces that dislike the PRI. Enraged by the remarks, the students created a video titled “YoSoy131”, which launched the political movement. In it each of the 131 individual students who had taken part in the protest identified themselves with their university cards, proving they existed and were not fake. Since then, 74 universities around the country including private and public campuses have joined the movement, which has remained non-partisan, although it has allowed other more politicised citizen movements to join their group. The name change to Yo Soy 132 reflects the addition of the later activists.
The youth movement has injected doubts into the certainty the PRI will win the presidential elections next July. Recent polls showed the two other contenders closing in on the PRI candidate.
Since 2000, Mexico has been governed by a centre rightist party, the Partido de Accion Nacional. In 2006, Felipe Calderon took office under heavy dissent, as he beat left of centre candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador with a single digit percentage. Obrador and his party refused to accept defeat, holding work stoppages that threaten the country’s stability. Eventually, Obrador went quiet but continued to call himself the legitimate president.
The drug war launched by President Calderon since he took office in 2006 and bad economic times have depleted any support for PAN, sinking the possibility that they could return to power.
The PRI ruled Mexico for 70 years in a one-party system that was wrought with corruption and cronyism. The youth movement has energised an otherwise stilted political process. Nobody know what will happen, but the youth have responded.
In the meantime State Duma passed a scandalous law, increasing fines for breaking rules relating to holding rallies and stipulating up to 200 hours of forced labour for rally organisers. Dozens of activists who protested against the law near Duma building were arrested, including Yabloko party leader Sergei Mitrokhin.