Human rights

(caption: homeless tent in Osaka's public park by Elijah under CC)

The Osaka city government plans to evict squatters at Nagai Park (Feb 5) to prepare for the 2007 IAAF World Championships in Athletics. Earlier in Jan, the authories issued an order stating that if homeless did not leave by Jan 21 they would be forced to remove their tents.

After reading Jamie's link in mediascapes, I looked through all the links and found the arrest out of my imagination. Eventhough South Korea has been democratized for 20 years, the Cold War / Witch-hunting rationality is so predominant.

According to Korean Teacher Union (KTU), the two teachers merely quoted remarks made by North Korean officials and media (which was cited in KTU's website), saying that "Why does North Korea want to produce nuclear weapons?" from a North Korean perspective: "North Korea claims that to possess self-defensive nuclear deterrence is its justifiable right."

As one of the more progressive newspapers in South Korea, the Hankyoreh has organized a series of features on the so-called 386 generation that brought democracy to South Korea. 386 means a generation who were born in the ’60s, entered college in the ’80s, and were in their ’30s at the time the term was coined.

Note- the local authorities have confiscated and deleted the photos taken

Ampang, 20 November 2006

After almost 8 hours of defending 62 houses in Kampung Berembang, finally the police and local authorities crushed the resistance resulting in 23 arrests including arrest of PSM and JERIT leaders, houses being demolished and burned down and one women in a very critical condition, fighting for her life in the hospital.

Human rights and peace activitists from the HK Campaign for the Advancement of Human Rights and Peace in the Philippines (HKCAHRPP) held a picket protest against Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her murder crimes at Four Seasons Hotel in Hong Kong today (Nov 2, 2006).

"Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo can never hide from the ghosts of the murders and injustices committed to victims of human rights violations. The Filipino people and human rights advocates the world over shall make sure of this." Eman Villanueva, the convenor of HKCAHRPP said.

In 1995, during the 4th World Conference of Women in Beijing, the World Rural Women's Day was launched. Since then, October 15 is celebrated as World Rural Women's Day.

A decade after, who is celebrating?

Not the wives, mothers and daughters of those activists and community organizers who have been victims of political killings under the Arroyo government in the Philippines. Nor those women human rights defenders working in the communities who are living a life of uncertainty of when and where their own death would come.

If we do not look into the gross abuse of 'strike harsh' policy by the police force and rectify it within the justice system, there will be more unfortunate incidents of innocent people being wrongfully convicted of crimes that they did not commit.

By Zan Ai Zong

On September 9th, 2006, the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 incident, a report in China Youth Daily exposed a horrific incident of police brutality: four students in Chaohu, Anhui Province were wrongfully (illegally) detained and tortured for a hundred days.

Today (Sept 22), the Korean police launched a national wide attack on 8 office branches of Korean Government Employee Union (KGEU), over 70 union activists were arrested, many wounded. The KGEU has 140 offices across the nation. Tonight, there is a peaceful candle gathering at Gwangwhamun in Seoul to protest against police violence. The Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs (MOGAHA) claimed that KGEU is an illegal union.

The KGEU president Mr. KWON Seung Bok started a hunger strike and sit-in protest in front of the central government building on September 12th.

"We have been carrying out just union activities but the government is forcibly closing offices just because we have not registered them," said Kwon to Korea Times on Sept 22. "We will continue to fight together other civil organizations and labor unions such as the Korea Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU)."

Chen Guangcheng lost his sight when he was very young, but he has been searching for lights all these years against darkness. He is a peasant living in Shangdong province, Dongshegu village.

Even though he is blind, he studied very hard to become a barefoot lawyer and has been giving legal advice to disable people since 1996. In 2005, he revealed the illegal forced abortion practice in Linyi County to Time magazine and the National Family Planning and Population Commission was forced to launch an investigation in August 2005. A month later, several Linyi officials were detained.

Four months of waiting after the last appeal court hearing in April, justice is not delivered on behalf of freedom of association. Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) denied its right to association again today, when the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal from PSM.