Posts Tagged ‘China’
September 16, 2016
The European Parliament awards the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought every year to honor individuals and organisations defending human rights and fundamental freedoms. Nominations for the Sakharov Prize are made by political groups or by at least 40 MEPs. The 4 nominees for this year’s Sakharov Prize are:
Can Dündar, the former editor-in-chief of Turkish daily Cumhuriyet, was arrested last November after his newspaper reported on Turkey’s intelligence service smuggling arms to rebels in Syria. He was later sentenced to five years and 10 months in prison for “revealing state secrets”, survived an assassination attempt and now lives in exile. He was nominated by Greens/EFA, EFDD and GUE/NGL.
Mustafa Dzhemilev, former chair of Mejlis of the Crimean Tatars People (Tatar parliament), a former Soviet dissident and a Ukrainian MP, has been standing up for human and minority rights for more than half a century. He was six months old when he and his family were deported to central Asia along with all other Crimean Tatars and was only able to come back 45 years later. Now, after Russia annexed Crimea, the human rights activist is again barred from entering the peninsula. He was nominated by EPP and ECR.
Nadia Murad Basee and Lamiya Aji Bashar are advocates for the Yazidi community and for women surviving sexual enslavement by Islamic State. They are both from Kocho, one of the villages near Sinjar, Iraq, which was taken over by Islamic State in the summer of 2014, and are among the thousands of Yazidi girls and women abducted by Islamic State militants and forced into sex slavery. Murad is also a promoter for recognition of the Yazidi genocide. They were nominated by S&D. Murad Basee was also nominated separately by ALDE.
Ilam Totti, a peaceful advocate of China‘s Uyghur minority, is serving a life sentence in prison. He was convicted on charges of “separatism” for co-founding the website Uyghur Online, designed to promote understanding between Uyghurs and Han Chinese. He was nominated by MEP Ilhan Kyuchyuk and 42 other MEPs. Ilam Totti – also spelled as Ilham Totti – was announced on 27 April as one of the Final Nominees of the MEA [https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2016/04/27/breaking-news-final-nominees-2016-martin-ennals-award-tohti-zone-9-bloggers-razan-zaitouneh-annoucement/]
The vote for the shortlist of three finalists will be held during a joint meeting of the foreign affairs and development committee. The Conference of Presidents, made up of the Parliament President and the political group leaders, will announce the winner(s) of the 2016 Sakharov Prize on 27 October.
For more on the Sakharov award: https://thoolen.wordpress.com/tag/sakharov-prize/
Source: Sakharov Prize 2016: nominees revealed | News | European Parliament
Posted in awards, EU, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 2 Comments »
Tags: Can Dündar, China, Crimea, European Parliament, human rights award, Ilam Totti, Ilham Tohti, Lamiya Aji Bashar, Mustafa Dzhemilev, Nadia Murad Basee, nominations, Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, Turkey, Ukraine, Uyghur, Yazidi
August 2, 2016
China‘s use of ‘video confessions’ would be almost comical if it was not so serious for the individuals concerned [see e.g. https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2016/01/21/confessions-abound-on-chinese-television-first-gui-minhai-and-now-peter-dahlin/]. Now it is the turn of Wang Yu, a well-known Chinese human rights lawyer who was released on bail after she purportedly “confessed” to some wrongdoings. Wang Yu, 45, who was arrested by mainland police in July last year on charges of political subversion [https://thoolen.wordpress.com/tag/wang-yu/], appeared in a video expressing “deep remorse” for her actions. In the televised confession, Wang is shown rebuking her profession and accusing “foreign forces” of using her law firm to smear the Chinese government.
The lawyer also said that she will not recognize, endorse or accept the Ludovic Trarieux International Human Rights Prize awarded to her in June, the Hong Kong Economic Journal reported [https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2016/06/07/detained-chinese-lawyer-wang-yu-wins-ludovic-trarieux-prize/].
Chan Kit-man, secretary-general of the Hong Kong-based Chinese Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group, noted that the Wang case is similar to that of another human rights lawyer, Zhao Wei, who was also set free after a videotaped confession.
The Chinese lawyer has handled several politically sensitive lawsuits, including the case of Cao Shunli, who was detained for months for staging sit-ins at the foreign ministry and later died. She also defended Ilham Tohti, a Uyghur economist who was handed a life sentence on separatism-related charges. Tohti is one of 3 final nominees for the MEA 2016. She also provided legal assistance to the families of six schoolgirls who were sexually abused by their teachers in Hainan province and to practitioners of Falun Gong, a spiritual movement banned in China.
(Wang appeared on Phoenix TV on July 31 in an interview apparently conducted at a restaurant in Tianjin. She said she is physically well after recovering from a mammary gland tumor in February and March this year. Wang said arrangements had been made for her to undergo surgery. The action made her realize the “human touch and care” of Chinese authorities.)
Front Line Defenders also issued on 2 August 2016 an Update on Wang Yu’s case: https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/profile/wang-yu>
“In her confession released on 1 August, Wang Yu criticised fellow human rights lawyers, saying that they were motivated by money and fame and blamed overseas activists for using human rights defenders as tools to tarnish the reputation of the Chinese government. Wang Yu’s confession is the most recent in a series of televised confessions of human rights defenders which have been broadcast in an attempt to undermine human rights work in the country. At least two of those who had previously appeared in such videos later said that their confessions were scripted and that they were pressured to participate”. … Wang Yu had been held incommunicado since 9 July 2015 and her husband, Bao Longjun , remains in detention, having been seized on the same day. Their 16 year old son, Bao Zhuoxuan, is under tight surveillance at the home of his grandparents following an unsuccessful attempt to flee China last year with the help of two human rights defender friends of his parents.”
A day later a court in Tianjin Tuesday handed down a guilty verdict for Chinese rights defender Zhai Yanmin, who was given a three-year jail term with a four-year probation period after being found guilty of “state subversion.”
Source: China human rights lawyer freed after video ‘confession’
http://www.voanews.com/content/rights-groups-denounce-court-ruling-against-chinese-activist/3445329.html
http://international.thenewslens.com/article/45644
Posted in awards, Front Line, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 2 Comments »
Tags: Cao Shunli, Chan Kit-man, China, Chinese Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group, detention, forced confession, Front Line (NGO), human rights lawyers, Ilham Tohti, Ludovic Trarieux Prize, Wang Yu, woman human rights defender, Zhai Yanmin, Zhao Wei
July 1, 2016
The 2016 Martin Ennals Award Ceremony, organized annually by the City of Geneva and the Martin Ennals Foundation, will this year take place on 11 October, 6.00 pm, at Uni Dufour, Geneva, as the the opening of the Human Rights Week hosted by the University of Geneva from October 11 to 14 and with the support of the Canton of Geneva.
The laureate will be selected from among three 2016 finalists:
Mr. Ilham Tohti (China) was sentenced to life imprisonment after working for two decades to foster dialogue and understanding between Uyghurs and Han Chinese.
Mrs. Razan Zaitouneh (Syria) was kidnapped after dedicating her life to defending political prisoners and documenting crimes against humanity in Syria.
Zone 9 Bloggers (Ethiopia) have been prosecuted for documenting human rights abuses in their country.
See also: https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2016/04/27/breaking-news-final-nominees-2016-martin-ennals-award-tohti-zone-9-bloggers-razan-zaitouneh-annoucement/
The finalists and laureate are selected by the Jury of the Martin Ennals Award, made up of ten of the world’s leading human rights organizations: Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights First, International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), Frontline Defenders, the International Commission of Jurists, EWDE-Germany, the International Service for Human Rights, and HURIDOCS. The detailed programme of the ceremony will follow at the beginning of September.
Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders
For the conversation in the social media, use the hashtag: #Ennals2016.
You can register already now through: http://www.martinennalsaward.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=296%3Amea-2016-save-the-date&lang=en.
Posted in awards, human rights, Human Rights Defenders, MEA | 4 Comments »
Tags: "Zone 9” bloggers, ceremony, China, City of Geneva, Ethiopia, human rights award, Ilham Tohti, Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, MEA, NGOs, Razan Zaitouneh, registration, save the date, Syria, Uyghur
June 22, 2016
On 21 June 2016 it was announced that Louise Arbour, a Canadian lawyer and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, was named the winner of the second Tang Prize in rule of law. The Tang Prize is awarded to Arbour “for her enduring contributions to international criminal justice and the protection of human rights, to promoting peace, justice and security at home and abroad, and to working within the law to expand the frontiers of freedom for all,” Arbour, 69, was also the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and for Rwanda (ICTR) between 1996 and 1999. In 1998, Arbour became the first prosecutor to get a conviction of genocide in an international tribunal, when the ICTR convicted Jean-Paul Akayesu, a mayor in Rwanda, of genocide. Tribunal defined rape as a means of perpetrating genocide — the first time that rape was considered an act of genocide by an international tribunal. The following year, as the chief prosecutor for the ICTY, Arbour again made history by indicting Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who became the first sitting head of state to be tried for war crimes by an international tribunal.
A Tang Prize award ceremony will be held Sept. 25 in Taipei. The laureate will receive a cash prize of US$1.23 million and a research grant of up to NT$10 million to be used within five years.
The biennial Tang Prize was established in 2012 by Taiwanese entrepreneur Samuel Yin to complement the Nobel Prize and to honor top researchers and leaders in four fields: sustainable development, biopharmaceutical science, sinology and rule of law.
This year the Tang Prize in the category sinology also has a human rights component as the laureate is William Theodore de Bary, Professor Emeritus of Columbia University. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in awards, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 1 Comment »
Tags: China, Columbia University, Confucianism, Louise Arbour, rule of law, Samuel Yin, sinology, Taiwan, Tang Prize, William Theodore de Bary
June 7, 2016
Radio Free Asia reported on 6 June 2016 that detained (on suspicion of “subversion of state power”) lawyer
Wang Yu was awarded the prestigious
Ludovic Trarieux Prize in Athens on Saturday. [for more info on award see:
http://www.brandsaviors.com/thedigest/award/ludovic-trarieux-international-human-rights-prize]. The jury said it wanted to “
hail the courage” of a woman who “
decided that she could no longer keep her mouth shut,” founder Bernard Favreau said. “
She chose to expose herself to dangers in order to defend the rights of women, children and persecuted minorities,” he told Agence France-Presse.
Wang’s attorney Wen Donghai welcomed the award. “They used a serious of objective criteria, for example, the fact that Wang Yu often gave legal assistance to clients from vulnerable groups,” Wen said. “This has nothing to do with any government, nor with diplomacy.” But he said the award is unlikely to help Wang’s case with the Chinese authorities. “I don’t hold out much hope of that, because our government has a very biased attitude to such prizes, and they see human rights groups as trying to interfere in China’s internal affairs,” Wen said. “In reality, rights groups aren’t targeting China, but trying to help victims and vulnerable people around the world.” Wang has unfortunately figured regularly in this blog: https://thoolen.wordpress.com/tag/wang-yu/
[The award comes as the families of dozens of rights lawyers detained on similar charges hit out at the government for denying the detainees access to their lawyers, and amid concerns that some detainees may have been tortured or sexually abused in police detention centers.]
On 5 June 2016, in a
joint letter Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, China Aid, Freedom House, Human Rights in China, Initiatives for China, International Campaign for Tibet, Reporters without Borders, Uyghur Human Rights Project, and World Uygur Congress – urged the US to:
- Meet with representatives of civil society in China during or immediately after the meeting;
- Press Chinese counterparts to repeal or bring into line with international law new national security laws, including the Counterterrorism and the Foreign Non-Governmental Management laws;
- Publicly call for the release of specific individuals detained for peacefully exercising their rights; and
- Publicly discuss US concerns about growing restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression and religion, among others.
In Hong Kong, protesters marched to Beijing’s Liaison Office in the former British colony on Monday, demanding an inquiry into the 2012 “suicide” death of Chinese labor rights activist Li Wangyang in police custody four years ago. Rights activist Ou Biaofeng said Li’s friends and relatives are under house arrest or close police surveillance on the anniversary of his death. “They are all under surveillance by the state security police, and are cooperating”
For the Lucovic-Trarieux prize 2015: https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2015/06/14/saudi-arabian-human-rights-lawyer-waleed-abu-al-khair-wins-ludovic-trarieux-prize/
Source: Detained Chinese Lawyer Wins Award Amid Calls For Pressure on Human Rights
https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/06/05/us-show-breadth-rights-commitment-china-dialogue
Posted in awards, HRW, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 4 Comments »
Tags: Agence France-Presse, China, digest of human rights awards, Foreign Policy of the USA, human rights awards, Human Rights Defenders, human rights lawyer, illegal detention, Li Wangyang, Ludovic Trarieux Prize, NGOs, Ou Biaofeng, Radio Free Asia, Wang Yu, Wen Donghai, woman human rights defender
May 13, 2016
Uyghur human rights defender and democracy activist Dolksun Isa is disappointed with India’s cancellation of his visa after issuing it. In an interview to Tehelka Correspondent Riyaz Wani on 12 May 2016, Isa says he is a strictly non-violent campaigner for Uyghur rights and China‘s attempt to label him a terrorist is to delegitimize the human rights work that he does to support the Uyghur community. Very much in one with the work of MEA 2016 nominee Ilham Tohti [https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2016/04/27/breaking-news-final-nominees-2016-martin-ennals-award-tohti-zone-9-bloggers-razan-zaitouneh-annoucement/] Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: China, Dolksun Isa, freedom of expression, Human rights defender, Ilham Tohti, India, MEA nominees 2016, minority rights, non-violence, stigmatization, Tehelka, Uyghur, visa denial
April 27, 2016
Just now the Martin Ennals Foundation announced that the three Final Nominees of the 2016 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders are: 
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in awards, films, human rights, Human Rights Defenders, MEA | 6 Comments »
Tags: "Zone 9” bloggers, announcement, China, detention, Ethiopia, final nominees 2016, Human Rights Defenders, Ilham Tohti, Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, MEA 2016, Razan Zaitouneh, Syria, Uyghur, Violations Documentation Center (VDC), Zeitouneh
April 27, 2016
While waiting for the breaking news of who will be the Final Nominees of the 2016 Martin Ennals Award (in 2 hours) I received the sad news that the first winner of the MEA in 1994, Chinese human rights defender Harry Wu has died at the age of 79.
Harry Wu at the official award dinner in March 1994
His short bio and a film on his work can be viewed at: http://www.martinennalsaward.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=87&Itemid=120&lang=en
Posted in awards, human rights, Human Rights Defenders, MEA | Leave a Comment »
Tags: China, death, Harry Wu, Human rights defender, in memoriam, lao gai, Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, MEA, MEA 1994, video
April 8, 2016
reports that on 8 April 2016 that human rights defender He Xiaobo (not to be confused with Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo) was released on bail after over four months in custody in Guangzhou, Guangdong province. The workers’ rights campaigner had been detained on 3 December 2015 along with a number of colleagues and on 8 January he was formally charged with ’embezzlement’. Two other human rights defenders detained at that time, Zeng Feiyang and Meng Han remain in detention and are facing charges of “gathering a crowd to disrupt social order”. He Xiaobo runs Nanfeiyan Social Work Service Centre, an NGO campaigning for compensation on behalf of workers who have been injured during the course of their work. The centre’s registration was rescinded in 2015. https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/case/case-history-he-xiaobo.
It is not a breakthrough in the treatment of human rights defenders in China (https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2015/01/19/the-plight-of-chinas-human-rights-lawyers-worsened/) but even small good news is welcome. On the other hand, also today Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD人权捍卫者@CHRDnet) reports that 6 human rights defenders collectively received 20.5 years in prison for exercising their rights to free speech, assembly and association
Posted in awards, Front Line, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: China, Chinese Human Rights Defenders, freedom of association, Front Line (NGO), He Xiaobo, Human Rights Defenders, human rights lawyers, labour activists, Liu Xiaobo, Meng Han, Nanfeiyan Social Work Service Centre, release on bail, Zeng Feiyang
April 8, 2016
Photo U.S. Department of State/Flickr
Human rights lawyer and activist Ni Yulan became one of the 2016 recipients of the International Women of Courage Awards conferred by the U.S. Department of State on 29 March. The wheelchair-bound human rights lawyer Ni Yulan from China was not present; she he told the BBC that her passport was withheld. Yulan Ni won the Dutch Human Rights Tulip in 2011.[https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2013/10/06/chinese-human-rights-defender-ni-yulan-freed/]
She shares the 2016 recognition from the USA with 13 other women: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in awards, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 2 Comments »
Tags: awards, China, Fatimata M’baye, Foreign Policy of the USA, human rights awards, International Women of Courage Award, John Kerry, Latifa Ibn Ziaten, Ni Yulan, Nisha Ayub, US State Department, women human rights defenders, Zuzana Stevulová
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 