05 Jul 10 | Index Index, minipost
Three prominent environmentalists have been jailed by the Chinese authorities amidst allegations of torture, judicial bias and harassment. Karma Sandrup, one of Tibet’s wealthiest businessmen, who used the profits of his antiques business to fund several small-scale environmental projects on the Tibetan plateau, was given a 15 year sentence on 24 June for dealing in looted relics. Sandrup’s wife has accused the police of fabricating evidence and assaulting him while in custody. On 3 July, Karma’s elder brother Rinchem Sandrup was charged with “endangering state security” and sentenced to three years in prison, after he failed to register a small local ecological group. The family’s youngest brother, Chime Namgyal, is serving a 21-month sentence for organising litter collections, tree plantings, and patrols to prevent the hunting of endangered animals. Namgyal, who is disabled, has been in hospital since 11 June after receiving serious injuries whilst in custody. None of the three are on record as having criticised the Chinese government or engaging in opposition activism.
03 Jul 10 | Uncategorized
This week an Iranian military court convicted a number of officers accused of torturing and killing three men detained during the protests that followed last year’s controversial presidential election. The officers were accused of murdering Amir Javadifar, Mohsen Roohol-amini, and Mohammad Kamrani. Ramin Aghazadeh also died as a result of injuries he sustained in the detention centre, located south of Tehran. However, the Iranian authorities denied they were responsible for his death.
The prison was closed on the order of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei after details of torture, rapes and murders leaked into the public domain. At the time officials denied allegations of abuse and the only reason given for closing Kahrizak was “non-standard” conditions.
Now one year on, a military court in Tehran has issued verdicts on 12 officers who were accused of beating prisoners to death. Two of them were sentenced to death and nine other officials were sentenced to jail. Those found guilty will be lashed and forced to pay blood money fines. One man was acquitted. The verdicts are designated “not final” and can be reconsidered in the court of appeal.
So do the sentences satisfy the victim’s family and the opposition movement? Certainly not. They have a number of questions about the trial.
First, why were the trials held in secret? Was it to ensure the victim’s family and reporters could not take part? Second, why were the soldiers’ names and ranks not mentioned in the verdicts? Third, what about the commanders who gave the orders?
A special committee of parliament has already declared that former Tehran prosecution attorney Saeed Mortazavi was in charge of moving these prisoners to Kahrizak. However, nothing was mentioned about him or the chief of police during the trial. As details of the charges against the officers are not known, it is still not clear what happened there, and why.
Opposition websites call it a “dummy trial” with “unreal convicted officers”; they regard it as an attempt to placate the anger of society. Other activists and journalists say: ignore the crimes the officers committed, if we oppose the death penalty we must oppose their execution. They are tagging their blogs and Facebook pages: “Say no to the execution of Kahrizak criminals!”
Those who oppose execution refer to Parvin Fahim. Her 19-year-old son, Sohrab Arabi, was killed in last year’s demonstrations; yet she says she does not want her son’s murderers to hang. She doesn’t want scapegoats. She wants justice and for the senior officers responsible for her son’s death to be exposed.
Not all the other families agree. Ali Kamrani, father of Mohammad Kamrani, wants to see the execution of his son’s killers. He does not want blood money as he says it cannot bring his son back..
So this trial has opened up a much wider debate than expected. Fighting to stop executions in Iran is one of the big challenges for the opposition now. Maybe it’s time to stand firm against the death penalty even if this time the rope is around our enemy’s neck!
Maral Mehryari is a freelance journalist living in Iran, writing under pseudonym
02 Jul 10 | Uncategorized
PRESS RELEASE
Index on Censorship is calling upon the new government and mayor of London to re-affirm the right to protest in Parliament Square. With police planning to remove the “Democracy Village” protests in Parliament Square tomorrow after campaigners lost a legal battle with the mayor of London, Index is concerned that a precedent will be maintained that prohibits any form of overnight protest.
Index is also concerned that the police will remove long-term protester Brian Haw, who has maintained his vigil for 3,294 days since June 2001. At the state opening of Parliament on 25 May, Brian Haw was arrested, hardly an auspicious start for a new government that has committed to a “Great Repeal Bill” of illiberal legislation.
Index on Censorship is calling upon politicians to make it clear that the right to protest in Parliament Square is a “non-negotiable” right for the British people and that the legislation that restricts protest there is repealed.
The mayor of London also has an important role in protecting protest in Parliament Square. In 1999, under the Greater London Authority Act, the square was transferred from the Parliamentary estate to the Greater London Authority. As such, the mayor of London has responsibility for the use of Parliament Square and so could enshrine the space as a designated space for protest.
John Kampfner, chief executive of Index on Censorship said:
“The right to protest in Parliament Square is non-negotiable. Whilst there may be long-term consequences in letting the ‘Democracy Village’ stay, it is the duty of politicians to maintain the right to free expression and assembly, and then deal with associated public order issues. The new government has an opportunity to repeal the previous administration’s authoritarian legislation prohibiting protest around Westminster.”
Jo Glanville, editor of Index on Censorship, said:
“Brian Haw’s dogged campaign became one of the most enduring symbols of opposition under the last government. Labour actually changed the law to try and remove him — and undermined the right to protest of the entire nation in the process. The treatment of protesters — and the use of legislation, including counter-terrorism to control them — was one of the most significant blots on the copybook of the previous government, but now it seems the new government wishes to follow suit.”
02 Jul 10 | News and features
The right to freedom of expression does not entitle indefinite occupation of public land. Brett Lock of Harry’s Place responds to Index’s support for Parliament Square protesters
The right to freedom of expression is precisely that: a right to receive and impart ideas. It does not enable a man to live in a tent on public land for nearly a decade, if he has no independent right to do so.
It is legal to advertise goods and services but illegal to fly-poster the side of a public building with advertising material. There is no law against singing sea shanties, but you may be ejected from a cinema if you decide to do so in the middle of a film. You cannot play a country and western record at top volume at 2am. All these examples restrict what can be said, expressed or broadcast, but none are forms of censorship. They are merely controls on the time and place of expression.
This is a crucial distinction. Censorship seeks to silence and suppress ideas. Telling a person to shut up at this particular moment, in this particular place, is not censorship. Doing so does not seek to suppress their ideas. It protects the rights of others to peace and quiet. All reasonable people understand this.
So, what of Brian Haw, the “protester” who has lived in a tent on Parliament Square for almost a decade, wafting from one issue to another and drawing all manner of fringe causes to his orbit? Recently I walked past and there was a wall of placards claiming the Freemasons had murdered a range of people, including the late wife of Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, who died in a car accident. Haw also believes that 9/11 was an “inside job”.
That said, we should not be distracted by the fact that many of the views presented for our consumption by the Haw camp are quite mad. They are ideas and they are being expressed. That is sufficient for their protection. That is why temporary and short-lived demonstrations, in the symbolically important environment of Parliament Square, should most certainly be permitted.
However, I would not be allowed to install a booth providing information about the products and services of my business in Parliament Square or on any other public land. I would not be allowed to set up a small stage and host an alternative Glastonbury. So why should Haw and his colourful troupe be any different? Disseminating his ideas he is free to do. He may push leaflets through our doors. He may participate in radio phone-ins. He can set up a website. He can even hold a daily protest. But what he can’t do is live in a tent on public ground indefinitely merely because he’s scrawled a political slogan on a bit of old cardboard.
Haw’s protest is repetitive to the point where it is just white noise. He can’t shut up because he’s afraid not for his ideas (which are expressed daily by millions) but for himself: that he might be an irrelevance without his tent and his bit of cardboard.
Quite frankly, I am alarmed that Index on Censorship has taken such an
unsophisticated view of this case, and indeed, is enabling the self-destructive behaviour of a man who strikes me as quite possibly mentally ill. I feel so strongly about it, that I’ve written an article on the subject. But I most emphatically do not have the right to express my opposition by setting up a permanent camp outside Index on Censorship Chair Jonathan Dimbleby’s house.
Or do I?
Brett Lock was the editor of Gay Humanist Quarterly. He is also a regular contributor to the political blog Harry’s Place and a campaigner with the gay human rights group, OutRage!.
As Boris Johnson wins his fight to “democracy village”, Bibi van der Zee asks if the courts intend to end the great British tradition of camping in protest
