Attacks on Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore changes everything
Kylie refused to meet SRK
A Royal launch to troubled IPL 2
Geert Wilders Prosecuted for Hate Speech, Long live Freedom of Speech!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcW-_TVfxAs&feature=channel
NDTV's Hate Speech: Abuses Gujarati Indians
Indianmediazoom notes that NDTV made hate speech against Gujarati Indians. Check the video at 0:47. This video exposes NDTV's hypocrisy. NDTV abused Gujrati Indians as "traditionally effete people"...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2C-vMPOuaY
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hate speech is a term for speech intended to degrade, intimidate, or incite violence or prejudicial action[citation needed] against a person or group of people based on their race, gender, age, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, language ability, ideology, social class, occupation, appearance (height, weight, hair color, etc.), mental capacity, and any other distinction that might be considered by some as a liability. The term covers written as well as oral communication and some forms of behaviors in a public setting[citation needed]. It is also sometimes called antilocution[citation needed] and is the first point on Allport's scale which measures prejudice in a society. Critics have claimed that the term "Hate Speech" is a modern example of Newspeak, used to silence critics of social policies that have been poorly implemented in a rush to appear politically correct[1][2][3].
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech
The hatred campaign in South Asia hitherto had been limited in social Political heirarchies, Political Bodies like RSS and leaders of HEGEMONIES.
The DALIT QUEEN, projected as the Prime Minister face of Left dominated Third Front, was known for her controversial Slogan:
TILAK TARAJU TALWAR
"It feels very frightening to see what happened in Lahore. Hopefully such incidents will not happen in the future," Ganguly told reporters in Patna.
"It is terrible for the game of cricket where players are attacked by terrorists. Definitely, Pakistan is not safe now," he added.
Six Sri Lankan cricketers and assistant coach Paul Fabrace was injured, while eight people, including six policemen were killed when 12 gunmen opened fired at the team convoy on Tuesday while it was on its way to Gaddafi stadium for the third day's play in the second Test.
In Moscow, a prominent Russian legislator and former presidential candidate introduced legislation to strike down Russia's hate speech law.
Murdoch made his remarks Wednesday evening in New York upon receiving the National Human Relations award from the American Jewish Committee.
Murdoch also said of Israel: “In the end, the Israeli people are fighting the same enemy we are: cold-blooded killers who reject peace… who reject freedom… and who rule by the suicide vest, the car bomb and the human shield.”
“These are men who can't abide by the idea of freedom, tolerance and democracy, they hate Israel, they hate us," the 77-year-old media baron, who owns News Corporation, said. "No sovereign nation can sit by while a civilian population is attacked."
Joking that some of his enemies think he is Jewish and that some of his friends wish he was Jewish, Murdoch said: “Let me set the record straight: I live in New York. I have a wife who craves Chinese food. And people I trust tell me I practically invented the word ‘chutzpah.’”
The AJC award recognizes Murdoch’s professional and philanthropic work.
Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the parliamentary vice-speaker and outspoken leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, made the proposal Wednesday about Article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code, which is the center of nearly all prosecutions in Russia for anti-Semitic hate speech. It prohibits public incitement of ethnic or religious hatred.
In a memo attached to the proposal, Zhirinovsky pointed out that a broad interpretation of the law could be used to prosecute journalists for identifying the race of criminals in news stories or anyone for telling ethnic jokes.
"Who can say whether it is a crime to tell ethnic joke that are inciting hatred or hostility to Natives, Jews, Gypsies or Russians," the memo argues.
Zhirinovsky goes on to argue that the law should not be defined by the speaker's actions or words but by their goal.
Human rights activists also have similar concerns about the law, fearing that such anti-extremist measures could be used to crack down on dissidents and restrict free speech in general, according to a report from the Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union.
Terrorists attacking 'very soul' of South Asia: US
"They are going after the very soul of South Asia, the very heart of the Pakistani people," Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Richard Boucher told reporters in Washington.
His remarks came when he was asked to comment on Tuesday's attack on the Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore that left seven players and an assistant coach injured and eight people dead.
He said these attacks are something which is a cause of concern. "We would watch for the Pakistani authorities to investigate and find out who did it," Boucher said.
So far neither the Pakistan Government nor the Sri Lankan authorities have approached the United States for help in their investigations. However, the US is always ready to offer all its assistance, if requested for, he said.
Boucher spoke with Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitta Bogollagama on Friday and extended the Obama Administration's condolences over the attack on the cricketers.
When asked if there is any link between the attack on the Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore and the LTTE, Boucher said "the basic answer is, I do not known."
"I do not know of any link like that at this point, but what we need to do is to let the Pakistani authorities do the investigation. I think they have said that they have some leads and some people in custody. So we look to see what they say about this," he said.
Asked if he had reasons to believe that LTTE or Al-Qaeda had any links in the past, Boucher said: "I do not know anything about that."
"Frankly, God knows", he said when asked what these terrorists are trying to achieve.
"I do not have any idea. Right around the same time (of Lahore attack), there was an attack on a Sufi shrine in Peshawar. Attack on a Sufi shrine, cricket team, I mean who are these people? What they are trying to do, it is not just to disrupt modern school or things like that?" he asked.
"They are going after, the very soul of South Asia, the very heart of the Pakistani people. So all of us understand very clearly that terrorists are a real threat to any aspiration that the people of Pakistan have to living a normal life, living a modern life. I do not have a clue why somebody would attack people like these," Boucher said.
Church seeks security of minorities during polls
Kalinga Times Correspondent
Bhubaneswar, March 2: The Church in India has called upon all people, and specially Christians, to fully take part in the political democratic process, including exercising their voting rights in the coming general elections.
The community leadership which met in national consultations in New Delhi last week reaffirmed its faith in democracy, according to a press release issued by All India Christian Council from New Delhi on Monday.
The community wanted India to be strong and condemns terrorism, communalism, and casteism. It was deeply concerned at the rural crisis, urban poverty, and rise in unemployment, displacement in the SEZs and the plight of women and the girl child.
The Church and the Christian Community also felt that democracy would be strengthened if political parties speak out against corruption and communalism, human exploitation and assault on the dignity of women, Dalits, labour, children and minorities.
“The Christian community puts its own interests subservient to the interests of the Nation. But it feels that there are certain issues which are paramount – security of religious minorities, ending persecution of Christians in Odisha and other places, and punishment of those found guilty, rehabilitation of the displaced, compensation to the victims at par with that given in other states, proportionate share to Christians in funds and projects earmarked for all minorities, as also in government jobs, civil services, police and other services.”
The community has also demanded a National Commission on the lines of the Justice Rajender Sachhar for Muslims set up by the Union government to assess the economic deprivation of Dalit Christians, landless labour and tribal Christians, in particular.
The consultations were presided over by Archbishop Vincent Concessao. Participants included representatives from the Catholic Church, the National Council of Churches in India , the All India Christian Council, the All India Catholic Union, the Believers Church , Truthseekers International, Evangelical Fellowship of India, United Christian Action, and Independent and Pentecost Churches .
Prominent signatories included Bishop Mar Barnabas of the Syro Malankara Catholic Church, Bishop Simon John of the Believers Church and John Dayal, Member, National Integration Council, Government of India, and Secretary General, All India Christian Council, Council national secretary Sam Paul, Rev Sunil Sardar, Vijayesh Lal and Advocate Lalsinglau.
The community will present a memorandum to all political parties before the coming Lok Sabha and Assembly polls.
“All political parties must put the security of all religious minorities, and especially of the Christian community, at the top of their electoral agenda. Parties must assure they will bring the culprits of crimes in Orissa and Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh, to book, and ensure that the unceasing hate and disinformation campaign, through media and political activities, is brought to an end,” the community has said in its memorandum.
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Slumdog just reinforces all the old stereotypes
There was no need to use the 50:50 option or phone a friend, as the issue was locked from the beginning, ever since Slumdog Millionaire was nominated for the Oscars. We all knew Danny Boyle would get the award, having portrayed India negatively, projecting the slums and drains of Bharat, the inhuman behaviour of the police and highlighting the brothels of Mumbai.
Hindu fundamentalists are eroding India’s claim of being a tolerant and progressive society
MANOJ MITTA
INDIA has always claimed to be wedded to secularism and pluralism. Indeed, this has been one of the moral justifications of the Hindu-majority country for holding on to the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley. But whether the Indian Government does in practice treat all religions alike is of course a matter of debate. This is especially so when the country is ruled, as it has been for the last five years, by a coalition led by a self-confessed Hindu nationalist party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The BJP is originally part of a family of organisations, Sangh Parivar, that espouse a Hindu supremacist ideology called Hindutva. The most rabidly sectarian member of the Sangh Parivar is the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) or the World Hindu Council, which dealt a grievous blow to Indian secularism a decade ago by demolishing a medieval mosque in a town called Ayodhya in order to build a Hindu temple in its place. The compulsions of keeping together a coalition regime however had the salutary effect of forcing the BJP to reign in its hot-headed sibling - the VHP.
Unfortunately, that tenuous family arrangement was disrupted by 9/11. The anti-Islamic reverberations that followed around the world emboldened the VHP to break free of its leash. And there was no stopping the VHP when, within three months of 9/11, India itself suffered a major terrorist strike in the form of an attack on its Parliament House. It added fuel to the fire because of the evident involvement of Kashmiri Muslims in the Parliament attack and India's accusation of Pakistan's complicity. In retaliation, the VHP revived more aggressively than ever before its campaign to build the Ayodhya temple.
It was in such a communally surcharged environment that on 27 February 2002 an entire compartment of the train in which a batch of VHP supporters were returning from Ayodhya was set on fire allegedly by a mob of Muslims at a town called Godhra in the state of Gujarat. The charred remains of over 50 persons found in the train were allowed to be used by the VHP to engineer communal riots which went on in Gujarat for several weeks. But Hindu right-wing leaders chose to describe the massacre and rape of Muslims and the destruction of their homes and shops as "a spontaneous reaction" to Godhra. With an estimated death toll of 2,000, the Gujarat riots proved to be the biggest communal violence seen by India since the riots that followed the demolition of the Ayodhya mosque in December 1992.
The BJP chief minister of Gujarat, Mr. Narendra Modi, called for an early poll to cash in on the religiously polarised electorate. In the run-up to the Gujarat election that finally took place in December 2002, the BJP and VHP unleashed hate speech with unprecedented ferocity. Sample what a prominent VHP leader, Mr. Ashok Singhal, is widely reported to have said at a public meeting in September 2002: "Godhra happened on February 27 and the next day, 50 lakh (five million) Hindus were on the streets. We were successful in our experiment of raising Hindu consciousness, which will be repeated all over the country now." He gloated over entire villages having been "emptied of Islam" and Muslims having been dispatched to refugee camps, terming that as "a victory for Hindu society." Spewing more venom a month later, Singhal said during a press conference: "What happened in Gujarat will happen in the whole of the country. Hindus were not born to be cut like carrots and radishes, and that the Hindukaran (a term to denote the process of the re-baptism of Hinduism into a militant Hindu identity) of the people of Gujarat was the direct result of the jehadi mentality of Muslims." The reference to the Muslim notion of jehadi is a recurring theme in the right-wing Hindu rhetoric, whether the context is communal riots or terrorism or Pakistan or anything undesirable. It is as if the Hindutva adherents are feeding on the jehadi groups. Anybody who does not subscribe to their thinking runs the risk of being branded "Musharraf ki aulad" (literally, 'progeny' of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, a pejorative in India today).
The lead provided by Singhal in violating all norms of civilized discourse has been followed by the rising star of the VHP, Dr. Praveen Togadia, a medical professional specialising in cancer. Pointing out to his doctor status, Togadia said he had a medicine to deal with anti-national and anti-Hindu elements, whom he called "modern-day Ghaznis" (after Mohammad Ghazni who was ruler of a small Afghan principality called Ghazni who repeatedly led forays into India to loot and pillage). He said there were three types of Ghaznis: "jehadi Ghaznis, secular Hindu Ghaznis and political Ghaznis." And for each, he said - urging the audience to repeat after him - there was a prescription: "Hang the jehadis, ostracise the secular Hindus and snatch the chair from political Ghaznis."
One obvious feature of the hate speech spewed out by the VHP is its uninhibited use of unparliamentary or abusive language regardless of the stature of the persons it is targeting. The manner in which Togadia attacked Sonia Gandhi, India's main Opposition leader, for condemning the killing of Muslims in Gujarat was clearly outside the norms of any codes of behaviour in a democratic society. He said: "First, the local pups started barking (against Hindus). They were then joined by dogs from other parts of the country. And last, came Italy ni kutri (a b**** from Italy)." The reference to Italy is because Sonia Gandhi is Italian-born and acquired Indian citizenship a decade after marrying into the Nehru political dynasty.
The accident of the Opposition leader being a person of foreign origin has also given the hate speech in India a xenophobic edge. In the VHP's worldview, Indian Muslims are largely native people who had converted because of pressure from a succession of Muslim rulers from abroad. But when it comes to foreign Christian missionaries or Sonia Gandhi, the VHP is clearly xenophobic. "We believe that Sonia is an import, unlike Indian Muslims who have their roots here and whose forefathers were Hindus but had to convert to Islam because of their helplessness," Togadia said, adding that "a genetic test would show that Indian Muslims had the blood of Lord Ram or Krishna (Hindu Gods), not that of Mohammad."
The upsurge of hate speech politics in India post 9/11 is despite express provisions in the Indian Penal Code (IPC). It prescribes criminal prosecution for "wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot" (Section 153), "promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion" (Section 153A), "imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration" (Section 153B) and "uttering words with deliberate intent to wound the religious feelings of any person (Section 298). So, if the likes of Togadia and Singhal have got away with their hate speech, it is not because of any legal lacunae as much as it is due to a clear lack of will on the part of the dispensation in New Delhi to enforce the letter and spirit of the law. Given the long and close nexus between the VHP and the BJP, the reason for the Government's failure or reluctance to book such cases is not far to seek. The police in India do not have the autonomy to act on their own. And even if they happen to book any case on a hate speech, the police or the prosecution would have to seek the Government's sanction before filing charges in the court under provisions such as Section 153A or Section 153B.
While the executive is anyway notorious for balking at anything that is politically inconvenient, what is less obvious is the judiciary's complicity in the growth of hate speech in India. The freedom of speech conferred by the Indian Constitution is not absolute as it is subject to reasonable restrictions. Article 19 (2) lays down that such restrictions on speech are permissible for the interests of sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the state, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, decency and morality or in relation to contempt of court, defamation and incitement to an offence.
Yet, on the one and only occasion on which the Supreme Court of India sat in judgment on the Hindutva ideology, Justice J. S. Verma ended up giving a verdict favouring the Sangh Parivar. Disregarding all evidence to the contrary, Verma put a liberal gloss on Hindutva and rejected the contention that it was against other religions. Little wonder then that the VHP and BJP repeatedly referred to the Supreme Court judgment in a bid to justify their hate speech politics during the Gujarat campaign.
Another judicial failing, which has allowed hate speech to rear its ugly head post-9/11, was in the context of the gruesome murder a couple of years earlier of Australian Christian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons. The murder was the culmination of a vicious campaign launched by Bajrang Dal, the militant wing of the VHP, accusing foreign Christian missionaries of converting poor Indians to their religion on the strength of material allurements. But an inquiry conducted by a Supreme Court judge, Justice D P Wadhwa, said there was no evidence to suggest that Bajrang Dal had directed the main accused, Dara Singh, to murder Staines. That was a needlessly technical finding as it glossed over the Bajrang Dal's concerted hate speech campaign that preceded the murder. (The census figures, incidentally, show that despite the alleged conversions the percentage of the Christian population has actually been dropping in recent decades.)
The impunity with which Hindu fundamentalists have been engaging in hate speech erodes India's much-vaunted claim to being a tolerant and progressive society upholding the rule of law. If anything, its obsession with Pakistan seems to be making India become more and more like its theocratic neighbour.
Manoj Mitta is CGK Reddy Fellow and legal correspondent for The Indian Express, New Delhi
http://www.hrdc.net/sahrdc/hrfchr59/Issue2/hate%20speech.htm
Star TV plays Modi hate speech, nailing his lie
New Delhi: For days the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) ruling the western state of Gujarat has been denying chief minister Narendra Modi‘ s hate campaign against Muslims at his "pride" rallies. Nailing the lie, Star TV played the speech repeatedly Sunday and Monday, September 15-16.
Instead of being ashamed and saying sorry, BJP, many of whose functionaries, including Modi, have been accused of involvement in the recent anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat, have said the Star TV tapes were "doctored."
One Gujarat minister, seen by victims as a perpetrator of the pogrom, went to the extent of defending the hate speech. "There has been a trend in Gujarat of delivering such speeches over the past 40 years," he said.
The Gujarat chief minister, who has often been compared to Slobodan Milosevic for his viciousness, was reported by the Times of India, the country’ oldest and most prestigious daily, as having told a rally that relief camps housing Muslim survivors of the pogrom should be closed because they had become "factories for producing babies".
He said people (Muslims) who multiplied thus "should be taught a lesson." He made quite a few anti-Muslim remarks at the rally. These pre-election rallies were part of Modi’s weeks-long "pride march" through the state, in which he addressed crowds every few kilometres.
The "pride" in the "pride march" is regarding having taught the Muslim minority a lesson during the pogrom which lasted more than two months—March, April and early May. As many as 2,000 Muslims were killed, hundreds others raped, thousands of homes destroyed and 100,000 forced into relief camps across the state.
Victims and a dozen private inquiry commissions have indicted BJP leaders for the monumental crime. Even state organisations like National Human Rights Commission, National Minority Commission and Election Commission have censured the state government.
The BJP, which leads the ruling coalition at Centre, has been backing Modi despite tremendous pressure to sack him for his acts of ommission and commission.
Deputy prime minister LK Advani, instead of reining him in, patted Modi on the back for his pride marches. BJP general secretary and former Union law minister Arun Jaitley claimed there were "inaccuracies" in media’s reports on Modi’s speech.
Hate speech is a serious offence under Indian law as well as per obligations India has to honour as a signatory to international covenants.
Despite condemnation from national media and intelligentsia the BJP is unrepentant. Even party chief Venkiah Naidu, who had cautioned Modi against using too blatant anti-Muslim rhetoric, is now backing him.
Outraged by the virulence of Modi’s speech, the National Commission for Minorities had demanded the audio and video tapes of the speech from Gujarat government. However, the state bureaucracy said they were not able to procure them.
The fascist tactics of Modi have scandalised the civil society here. Quite a few have drawn parallels with Milosevic and Hitler. Yet others have compared him to General Rex Dyer, who in 1919 opened fire on a meeting of Indian civilians and killed 379, wounding another 1500.
Those were the last years of the all-powerful British Empire. Popular columnist Swaminathan Anklesaria Aiyar wrote in his column in the Times of India that Modi was teaching Muslims a lesson as Dyer taught Indians.
Dyer took pride in his act like Modi does in his. For that Dyer was sacked by the empire. "Let us mete out the same fate to Narendra Modi," Aiyar wrote.
¯ MG Correspondent
http://www.milligazette.com/Archives/01102002/0110200268.htm
Press Release
Hindu Americans Condemn Religious Violence in India: Hate Speech and Politics to Blame
Washington, D.C. (October 8, 2008) -- A recent spate of inter-religious riots in India, pitting mostly Hindu and Christian communities against each other, have been widely covered in the international media. The clashes began after a Hindu monk was killed in the eastern Indian state of Orissa in early September, and in the southern city of Mangalore, a pamphlet blaspheming Hindu beliefs was distributed by an evangelical group. The riots have left nearly two dozen people dead and many more remain displaced and homeless.
"Religious violence is contrary to the India's long history of pluralism and co-existence that threatens the fabric of the country," said Suhag Shukla, Esq., the Hindu American Foundation's managing director. "We unequivocally condemn the violence and demand justice for the aggrieved as we mourn for all of the innocent victims."
"Disturbing images of Hindus and Christians clashing were widely covered in the U.S., and several media inquiries have been addressed at HAF's offices," Shukla added. Difficulty obtaining accurate on-the-scene reports from some isolated areas led to frenzied reports with several oversights and omissions, the Foundation maintained. Shukla said that parsing events in India to soundbites depicting rampaging Hindu "extremists" attacking Christians does nothing to increase understanding of root causes of the conflict or promote interfaith dialogue.
Swami Lakshmananda Saraswati, a Hindu monk known for working for the upliftment of isolated tribal populations in Orissa, had run afoul of several evangelical Christian groups--almost all supported by funds received from U.S. based churches--that are providing services, but at the same time aggressively seeking converts. He was severely injured in an attack by a Christian mob comprised of the Pana tribe on Christmas Eve, 2007, and then assassinated on August 24 after receiving several death threats.
The assassins have not been apprehended, but Maoist terrorist groups allegedly took responsibility claiming that the Swami was disturbing "social stability"--a reference to his Hindu advocacy. The Pana tribe of Orissa state, some of whom belong to these Maoist groups, has been clashing with the mostly Hindu Kandha tribe over access to affirmative action type benefits to which only certain tribes are entitled.
"Swami Lakshmananda was a highly revered spiritual leader who lived a life dedicated to the service of the most in need and those from traditionally forsaken segments of society," said Shukla. "Clearly, his assassination coupled with the underlying tension of tribes and castes that are pitted against each other competing for limited government sops, led to the tragic events we witnessed."
Meanwhile, the disturbances in Mangalore began, according to several media reports, when the New Life Fellowship Trust, a pentecostal group allegedly supported by U.S. based churches, began distributing anti-Hindu leaflets blaspheming Hindu deities and scripture. The publication, received at the HAF office in Washington was condemned by the local rector of the Catholic Church, and sparked a response allegedly instigated by a youth group, the Bajrang Dal. Prayer halls in the area that they said were used to convert Hindus away from their faith were attacked. That many evangelical groups use hate speech condemning Hindu beliefs was previously documented in HAF's report, "Hyperlink to Hinduphobia" released last year.
"Christianity has a long, peaceful history in India which we celebrate as a part of the pluralistic ethos of India," said Sheetal Shah, HAF"s Director of Development. "But when proselytizing outfits resort to hate speech, they share responsibility for provoking the highly condemnable events that followed. Communal harmony can truly be fostered only in an environment where practitioners of all religions respect other faiths as equally valid pathways to the Divine."
Both Shukla and Shah expressed concern that the mushrooming of evangelical groups funded by U.S. based churches, many of whom have the sole purpose of proselytizing and "harvesting" converts--often through hate speech, is endangering peaceful, religious coexistence in India. Pluralism cannot be sustained in the face of unrestrained and aggressive proselytization and coerced or fraudulent conversions, they argued. Hate speech is also a form of violence, they said.
The Foundation supports the initiatives of pluralistic Christian and Hindu groups in India and around the world for an ethical code of conversion, which the Foundation believes can prevent inter-religious strife between proselytizing and non-proselytizing faiths, Shukla added.
The Hindu American Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3), non-partisan organization, promoting the Hindu and American ideals of understanding, tolerance and pluralism.
http://www.hinduamericanfoundation.org/media_press_release_orissa.htm
Q&A: 'Hate speech provisions have almost become a dead letter'
14 Jul 2008, 0000 hrs IST
He was the counsel who, during cross-examination, got Shiv Sena leader Madhukar Sarpotdar to enunciate to the Srikrishna Commission the Sena policy
of retaliation during the 92-93 riots. Yusuf Muchhala is the only lawyer of that time still fighting in the Supreme Court to get the commission report implemented, Muchhala speaks to Jyoti Punwani:
What's the significance of this conviction?
For the first time, Shiv Sena leaders have been convicted for hate speech. This is very important because people who provoke riots normally go scot-free. As it is riot convictions are very rare, and they normally relate to acts of violence at the street level. Those who provoke violence normally remove themselves from the scene and have the ability to escape responsibility for the actual acts of violence. The provisions of Section 153 A have almost become a dead letter because the government lacks the political will to go after those who create enmity. For the first time, these sections have been rightly invoked and conviction rendered on the basis of evidence before the court.
Does this conviction change your perception of the special courts set up exclusively for riot cases?
So far as the courts are concerned, they decide matters on the basis of evidence produced before them. But my opinion on the political will to prosecute the guilty of the riots remains unchanged. In fact, this conviction — one of three convictions amid 50 acquittals — proves the rule.
A general impression is being created that this conviction will please Muslims who are unhappy about the 1993 bomb blast convictions.
It's wrong to assume that Muslims are unhappy with the bomb blast judgment. If the evidence was rightly weighed and the Supreme Court will decide that in appeal the convictions were right too. The bomb blasts were the misguided acts of a few individuals to which the community was not a party. At the community level, it was rightly felt that while
the miscreants of the Muslim community were rightly brought to book, why are the miscreants of the other community, who had indulged in equally heinous acts, not being punished? One conviction is not enough to remove this feeling of discrimination.
Both the Sena and the Congress government are bound to use this case electorally.
Whatever political advantage politicians may take from it does not mean that the guilty should not be prosecuted. Whatever be the political fallout, civil society must bear it. Mumbai has seen a number of bomb blasts, but the aftermath of every blast has shown that civil society has acquired the maturity not to get divided on communal lines, despite grave provocation.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Editorial/QA_Hate_speech_provisions_have_almost_become_a_dead_letter/articleshow/3229457.cms
Hate Speech enters Oracle forums
When balancing the First Amendment rights to free speech on the web, some folks say that "anything goes" even racism, bigotry and "hate speech", nasty words which are tolerated in the USA, but are highly illegal in many countries.
The Oracle Usenet newsgroups have a long history of offensive, profane and vile postings, and most companies ban their use at work. Sadly, it's getting more offensive than ever before and we are now seeing racist remarks being directed towards entire groups of Oracle professionals:
Could you please explain why many Asians like you are not too lazy to
- take over our jobs
- spam this group like hell with job postings
but are too lazy to do the work they robbed from us, and continue to parasite on this forum?
If you want us to do your work for free, please get lost. . .
And, yes, they are usually Asian, and, yes, they are usually 100 percent incompetent.
If there are any competent Asians, I failed to meet them.
It's not clear if the person who published this offensive will be arrested or jailed since it requires a concerted effort to track-down web bigots.
In corporations worldwide, employees are bound by an “acceptable use policy” that prohibits the viewing of pornographic or racist material while at-work. In the link below we see racist remarks on Oracle’s OTN web site.
Warning to employees: If your employers acceptable use policy (AUP) prohibits you from visiting web sites with racist content while at-work, NO NOT click this link
The OTN terms of service notes that promoting racism is a violation, yet the offending bigots continue to publish on OTN:
You agree not to . . . post, . . . any Content that: (a) is false or misleading; (b) is defamatory; (c) is harassing or invades another's privacy, or promotes bigotry, racism, hatred or harm against any group or individual; . . . or (g) violates any applicable laws or regulations.
Complaints were made against several OTN users for promoting bigotry and racism. The complaint was addressed by Oracle’s Justin Kestlyn, Editor-in-Chief of Oracle Technology Network:
“Yes - please report them here. This is not necessarily a violation of Terms of Use however - just boorish behavior.”
Hate speech is a serious crime in many countries
While the First Amendment generally protects racist hate speech, some countries are less tolerant of bigots. The country of India has blocked the Oracle usenet newsgroups because they allows hate speech.
In countries like Germany, publishing hate speech is punishable by a stiff prison term:
"A German historian who claimed that Auschwitz prisoners enjoyed cinemas, a swimming pool and brothels was sentenced to 10 months in jail.
In Germany and Austria, it's a crime to deny the Holocaust, even if you are living in America. Germany does not agree with what Voltaire said "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it".
Laurent Schneider notes the French Law Loi Gayssot which makes it an offense to question the Holocaust:
"[It is an offense to] question the existence of the category of crimes against humanity as defined in the London Charter of 1945, on the basis of which Nazi leaders were convicted by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg"
The long arm of the law reaches out across borders
Germany has exercised their right to extradite anyone who published a web site that can be seen in Germany, regardless of where the author is residing, and Mr. Zündel was extradited from Tennessee and imprisoned in Germany.
There are many other countries across the glob who do not tolerate racism and bigotry. The Indian government has blocked Google Blogs because some sites publish libel, defamation and pornography:
“Sites can be blocked if they contain "pornography, speeches of hate, contempt, slander or defamation, or if they promote gambling, racism, violence or terrorism".
"Such sites may be blocked within the provisions of the Fundamental Right to free speech and expression, granted in India's Constitution," said cyber-law expert Praveen Dalal.”
Stopping hate speech in Oracle publications
Many Oracle professionals are clamping-down on racists. Steve Feuerstein, one of the bestselling Oracle authors in the world announced that he does not like "acerbic" anonymous comments, and no longer accepts anonymous comments on his Oracle blog:
"I have decided to change my blog settings so that you must be a registered user at Blogger in order to post a comment. . .
I realized that I very much don't like having people post fairly acerbic comments without having to have some kind of identification as to who they are.
So, goodbye Anonymous, hello minimally-accountable Commentators!"
Feuerstein goes-on to elegantly explain what types of people bother him and what types of non-anonymous comments he will allow to be published on his blog:
“The world is full of brutal, hate-filled, and/or greedy people. They make the world a much uglier, harsher place. I can't stop them from existing, but I can keep them off my blog.
So...no haters on my blog. I will not accept comments from people with hateful tags. I will not publish comments that contain vile, spiteful, malicious comments.
So Hater of Liberals can now change his/her tag and then perhaps his/her comments will make it onto my blog. Maybe not.”
Dr. Tim Hall also notes problems with anonymous people publishing unacceptable content on his blog:
“I've just deleted a couple of anonymous comments and prevented anonymous posting. I'm not totally happy about it because it seems like censorship, but I'm not going to sit in the middle and let people use my sites as a forum to slag off others.”
Bestselling Oracle author Robert Freeman has similar problems with anonymous comments. A responsible publisher, Freeman notes the potential that his publication might be used to hurt people:
"Pending a review with my lawyer on current libel law, I have removed the ability to post comments at all from this Blog. . . . It's a shame that I have to do this, but the risk seems to great to do otherwise. In fact, pending the review, I may just shelve this blog all together."
Robert Freeman also notes that "evil people" had published unkind comments that he removed:
"There are evil people in the world. I firmly believe this, and it's evidenced every day. You will notice on my blog that one of these evil people has appeared. How can we tell this person is evil?
1. The posts were anonymous.
2. The posts were unkind and out of context.
3. The posts were presumptuous, at best.
http://www.dba-oracle.com/oracle_news/news_hate_speech.htm
Hate speech or free speech? What much of West bans is protected in U.S.
By Adam Liptak
Published: June 11, 2008
VANCOUVER, British Columbia: A couple of years ago, a Canadian magazine published an article arguing that the rise of Islam threatened Western values. The article's tone was mocking and biting, but it said nothing that conservative magazines and blogs in the United States did not say every day without fear of legal reprisal.
Things are different here. The magazine is on trial.
Under Canadian law, there is a serious argument that the article contained hate speech and that its publisher, Maclean's magazine, the nation's leading newsweekly, should be forbidden from saying similar things, forced to publish a rebuttal and made to compensate Muslims for injuring their "dignity, feelings and self respect."
The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal, which held five days of hearings on those questions in Vancouver last week, will soon rule on whether Maclean's violated a provincial hate speech law by stirring up animosity toward Muslims.
As spectators lined up for the afternoon session last week, an argument broke out.
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Today in Americas
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"It's free speech!" yelled another.
In the United States, that debate has been settled. Under the First Amendment, newspapers and magazines can say what they like about minority groups and religions - even false, provocative or hateful things - without legal consequence.
The Maclean's article, "The Future Belongs to Islam," was an excerpt from a book by Mark Steyn called "America Alone." The title was fitting: The United States, in its treatment of hate speech, as in so many areas of the law, takes a distinctive legal path.
"In much of the developed world, one uses racial epithets at one's legal peril, one displays Nazi regalia and the other trappings of ethnic hatred at significant legal risk and one urges discrimination against religious minorities under threat of fine or imprisonment," Frederick Schauer, a professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, wrote in a recent essay called "The Exceptional First Amendment."
"But in the United States," Schauer continued, "all such speech remains constitutionally protected."
Canada, Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, South Africa, Australia and India all have laws or have signed international conventions banning hate speech. Israel and France forbid the sale of Nazi items like swastikas and flags. It is a crime to deny the Holocaust in Canada, Germany and France.
Last week, the actress Brigitte Bardot, an animal rights activist, was fined €15,000, or $23,000, in France for provoking racial hatred by criticizing a Muslim ceremony involving the slaughter of sheep.
By contrast, U.S. courts would not stop the American Nazi Party from marching in Skokie, Illinois, in 1977, though the march was deeply distressing to the many Holocaust survivors there.
Six years later, a state court judge in New York dismissed a libel case brought by several Puerto Rican groups against a business executive who had called food stamps "basically a Puerto Rican program." The First Amendment, Justice Eve Preminger wrote, does not allow even false statements about racial or ethnic groups to be suppressed or punished just because they may increase "the general level of prejudice."
Some prominent legal scholars say the United States should reconsider its position on hate speech.
"It is not clear to me that the Europeans are mistaken," Jeremy Waldron, a legal philosopher, wrote in The New York Review of Books last month, "when they say that a liberal democracy must take affirmative responsibility for protecting the atmosphere of mutual respect against certain forms of vicious attack."
Waldron was reviewing "Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment" by Anthony Lewis, the former New York Times columnist. Lewis has been critical of attempts to use the law to limit hate speech.
But even Lewis, a liberal, wrote in his book that he was inclined to relax some of the most stringent First Amendment protections "in an age when words have inspired acts of mass murder and terrorism." In particular, he called for a re-examination of the Supreme Court's insistence that there is only one justification for making incitement a criminal offense: the likelihood of imminent violence.
The imminence requirement sets a high hurdle. Mere advocacy of violence, terrorism or the overthrow of the government is not enough; the words must be meant to, and be likely to, produce violence or lawlessness right away. A fiery speech urging an angry racist mob immediately to assault a black man in its midst probably qualifies as incitement under the First Amendment. A magazine article - or any publication - aimed at stirring up racial hatred surely does not.
Lewis wrote that there is "genuinely dangerous" speech that does not meet the imminence requirement. "I think we should be able to punish speech that urges terrorist violence to an audience, some of whose members are ready to act on the urging," Lewis wrote. "That is imminence enough."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/11/america/hate.php
Introduction to 2008 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
“Remarkable gains” in last 60 years, but millions still denied freedom
26. February 2009. | 08:00
Source: U.S. Department of State
The year just ended was characterized by three trends: a growing worldwide demand for greater personal and political freedom, governmental efforts to push back on those freedoms, and further confirmation that human rights flourish best in participatory democracies with vibrant civil societies.
Human progress depends on the human spirit. This inescapable truth has never been more apparent than it is today, when the challenges of a new century require us to summon the full range of human talents to move our nation and our world forward.
Guaranteeing the right of every man, woman, and child to participate fully in society and live up to his or her God-given potential is an ideal that has animated our nation since its founding. It is enshrined in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and was reflected in President Obama’s Inaugural Address, when he reminded us that every generation must carry forward the belief that “all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.”
Our foreign policy must also advance these timeless values, which empower people to speak, think, worship, and assemble freely, to lead their work and family lives with dignity, and to know that their dreams of a brighter future are within reach.
The promotion of human rights is an essential piece of our foreign policy. Not only will we seek to live up to our ideals on American soil, we will pursue greater respect for human rights as we engage other nations and people around the world. Some of our work will be conducted in government meetings and official dialogues, which is important to advancing this cause. But we will not rely on a single approach to overcome tyranny and subjugation that weaken the human spirit, limit human possibility, and undermine human progress.
We will make this a global effort that reaches beyond government alone. We will work together with nongovernmental organizations, businesses, religious leaders, schools and universities, and individual citizens – all of whom play a vital role in creating a world where human rights are accepted, respected, and protected.
Our commitment to human rights is driven by faith in our moral values, and also by the knowledge that we enhance our own security, prosperity, and progress when people in other lands emerge from shadows and shackles to gain the opportunities and rights we enjoy and treasure.
In that spirit, I hereby transmit the Department of State’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2008 to the United States Congress.
Hillary Rodham Clinton Secretary of State
Introduction to the 2008 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
The year just ended was characterized by three trends: a growing worldwide demand for greater personal and political freedom, governmental efforts to push back on those freedoms, and further confirmation that human rights flourish best in participatory democracies with vibrant civil societies.
These congressionally mandated reports describe the performance in 2008 of governments across the globe in putting into practice their international commitments on human rights. We hope that they will help focus attention on human rights abuses and bring action to end them. At the same time, we hope that the hard-won advances for human freedom chronicled in the reports will hearten those still pressing for their rights, often against daunting odds.
These reports will inform U.S. government policymaking and serve as a reference for other governments, intergovernmental institutions, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), human rights defenders, and journalists. United States foreign policy revolves not only around effective defense, but also robust diplomacy and vigorous support for political and economic development. A vigorous human rights policy reaffirms American values and advances our national interests. As President Obama stated in his inaugural address: "America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity...", but to "those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist."
Since the days of our own nation's founding, we have endeavored to correct injustices and fully promote respect for fundamental freedoms for all of our citizens. These efforts have been spurred and sustained by an accountable, democratic system of government, the rule of law, a vibrant free media, and, most important of all, the civic activism of our citizenry.
As we publish these reports, the Department of State remains mindful of both domestic and international scrutiny of the United States' record. As President Obama recently made clear, "we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." We do not consider views about our performance voiced by others in the international community--whether by other governments or nongovernmental actors--to be interference in our internal affairs, nor should other governments regard expressions about their performance as such. We and all other sovereign nations have international obligations to respect the universal human rights and freedoms of our citizens, and it is the responsibility of others to speak out when they believe those obligations are not being fulfilled.
The U.S. government will continue to hear and reply forthrightly to concerns about our own practices. We will continue to submit reports to international bodies in accordance with our obligations under various human rights treaties to which we are a party. United States laws, policies, and practices have evolved considerably in recent years, and will continue to do so. For example, on January 22, 2009, President Obama signed three executive orders to close the detention facilities at Guantanamo and review U.S. government policies on detention and interrogation.
We drew the information contained in these reports from governments and multilateral institutions, from national and international nongovernmental groups, and from academics, jurists, religious groups, and the media. The reports have gone through a lengthy process of fact checking to ensure high standards of accuracy and objectivity. Each country report speaks for itself. However, some broad, cross-cutting observations can be drawn.
One: In 2008, pushback against demands for greater personal and political freedom continued in many countries across the globe. A disturbing number of countries imposed burdensome, restrictive, or repressive laws and regulations against NGOs and the media, including the Internet. Many courageous human rights defenders who peacefully pressed for their own rights and those of their fellow countrymen and women were harassed, threatened, arrested and imprisoned, killed, or were subjected to violent extrajudicial means of reprisal.
Two: Human rights abuses remain a symptom of deeper dysfunctions within political systems. The most serious human rights abuses tended to occur in countries where unaccountable rulers wielded unchecked power or there was government failure or collapse, often exacerbated or caused by internal or external conflict.
Three: Healthy political systems are far more likely to respect human rights. Countries in which human rights were most protected and respected were characterized by the following electoral, institutional, and societal elements:
Free and fair electoral processes that include not only a clean casting and honest counting of ballots on election day, but also a run-up to the voting that allows for real competition and full respect for the freedoms of expression, peaceful assembly, and association;
Representative, accountable, transparent, democratic institutions of government, including independent judiciaries, under the rule of law to ensure that leaders who win elections democratically also govern democratically, and are responsive to the will and needs of the people; and
Vibrant civil societies, including independent NGOs and free media.
To be sure, even in countries where these elements were present human rights abuses at times occurred. Democratic elections can be marred with irregularities. There can be abuses of power and miscarriages of justice. States having weak institutions of democratic government and struggling economies can fall far short of meeting the needs and expectations of their people for a better life. Corruption can undermine public trust. Long-marginalized segments of populations in some countries have yet to enjoy full participation in the life of their nations. Insecurity due to internal and/or cross-border conflict can hinder respect for and retard progress in human rights. But when these electoral, institutional and societal elements obtain, the prospects are far greater for problems to be addressed, correctives to be applied and improvements to be made.
Taken together, these three trends confirm the continuing need for vigorous United States diplomacy to act and speak out against human rights abuses, at the same time that our country carefully reviews its own performance. These trends further confirm the need to combine diplomacy with creative strategies that can help to develop healthy political systems and support civil society.
Below, readers will find overviews highlighting key trends in each geographic region. Each of the regional overviews is followed by thumbnail sketches of selected countries (ordered alphabetically) that were chosen for notable developments-–positive, negative, or mixed-–chronicled during calendar year 2008. For more comprehensive, detailed information, we refer you to the individual country reports themselves.
Regional Overviews
Africa
Several African countries served as stabilizing forces on the continent and as powerful examples of the peace and stability that come with respect for the rule of law. Nevertheless, during the year, human rights and democratic development in the region continued to face severe challenges, especially in a number of countries plagued by conflict and others in which a culture of rule of law was fledgling or did not exist.
In many countries, civilians continued to suffer from abuses at the hands of government security forces acting with impunity. In several countries, the systematic use of torture by security forces on detainees and prisoners remained a severe problem, and conditions in detention centers and prisons often were squalid and life threatening. Many detainees suffered lengthy pretrial detentions, waiting months or years before going before a judge.
For those countries embroiled in conflicts, ending violence remained central to improving human rights conditions. Warring parties failed to implement political agreements designed to bring peace and stability. Violent conflict continued or erupted anew in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, and Sudan, resulting in mass killings, rape, and displacements of civilians. The Sudanese government continued to collaborate with janjaweed militias to bomb and destroy villages, killing or displacing hundreds of thousands more innocent civilians.
Authoritarian rule continued to characterize many African countries, for example: in Zimbabwe, the Mugabe regime unleashed a campaign of terror that resulted in the killing, disappearance, and torture of hundreds of opposition party members and supporters following the March 29 elections that were not free and fair. Government repression, restrictions, and mismanagement caused the displacement of tens of thousands, increased food insecurity, and created a cholera epidemic, which killed 1,500 people by year's end. Previously postponed presidential elections were further delayed in Cote d'Ivoire. A coup ousted a democratically elected government in Mauritania. Following the death of Lansana Conte, Guinea's longtime president, a military junta seized power in a coup and suspended the constitution.
There were, however, some bright spots during the year. Angola held its first elections since 1992 and there were peaceful, orderly, and democratic elections in Ghana and Zambia. Due process and respect for the rule of law prevailed in Nigeria as opposition candidates from the 2007 presidential election respected the Nigerian Supreme Court's ruling upholding President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua's election. The United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda sentenced a former Rwandan army colonel to life in prison for organizing the militants responsible for the killing of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Selected Country Developments
The human rights situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) deteriorated further during the year, severely undermining the country's progress since national elections in 2006. Despite the signing of the Goma peace accords in January and the presence of UN peacekeepers, fighting continued in North and South Kivu throughout the year. Security forces and all armed groups continued to act with impunity, committing frequent serious abuses including arbitrary killings, disappearances, arbitrary arrest and detention, torture, rape, looting, and the use of children as combatants. The conflict continued to fuel the worst humanitarian crisis in Africa, resulting in as many as 45,000 Congolese deaths each month, a total of more than one million internally displaced persons, and dozens of attacks on humanitarian workers by armed groups. Pervasive sexual violence continued, including more than 2,200 registered cases of rape in June in North Kivu alone. Throughout the country, security forces harassed, beat, intimidated, and arrested local human rights advocates and journalists, resulting in a marked deterioration in press freedom.
Eritrea's poor human rights record worsened and the government continued to commit serious abuses including unlawful killings by security forces with impunity. The ruling People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) is the only legal political party and no national elections have been held since Eritrea gained independence in 1993. The constitution, ratified in 1997, has never been implemented. The independent press remained banned, and most independent journalists were in detention or had fled the country. Government roundups of young people for national service intensified in 2008. Credible reports indicate that national service evaders were tortured while in detention, and security forces shot individuals trying to cross the border into Ethiopia. Religious freedom, already severely restricted, declined further. At year's end over 3,200 Christians from unregistered groups were detained in prison, as were more than 35 leaders and pastors of Pentecostal churches, some of whom had been detained for more than three years without charge or due process. At least three religious prisoners died in captivity during the year, from torture and lack of medical treatment.
The violence following Kenya's December 2007 local, parliamentary, and presidential elections ended in February when an international mediation process produced an agreement to form a coalition government under which President Mwai Kibaki retained his office, and opposition candidate Raila Odinga was appointed to a newly-created prime ministerial position. The political settlement established a reform framework to investigate and address the underlying causes of the violence, which killed approximately 1,500 persons and displaced more than 500,000. Progress on reform was slow and efforts to address the economic and social aftermath of the violence were incomplete. Separately, the deployment of security forces to Mount Elgon to quell an abusive militia resulted in human rights abuses by security forces.
Mauritania's human rights record deteriorated, with an abridgement of citizens' rights to change their government, arbitrary arrests, and the political detentions of the president and prime minister following an August 6 coup. The president was released from detention in December; however, the military junta, known as the High State Council (HSC), remained in power with General Mohamed Aziz as head of state at the end of the year. Members of the international community, including the African Union, strongly condemned the coup. Prior to the August 6 coup, the then-democratically elected government supported nationwide sensitization on a new antislavery law and increased public discussion on formerly taboo issues, such as ethnic divisions and social injustices. That government also supported national reconciliation efforts regarding the country's 1989–1991 expulsion of Afro-Mauritanians through the launch of a repatriation program in coordination with UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
In Nigeria, the courts continued to adjudicate the results of the seriously flawed 2007 presidential, gubernatorial, and legislative elections. On December 12, the Supreme Court rejected the appeals of two major opposition presidential candidates, upholding the election of President Yar'Adua. The two opposition leaders respected the court's ruling. Election tribunals nullified nine senatorial elections and 11 gubernatorial elections during the year. Violence continued in the oil-producing Niger Delta region, where over 400 persons (Nigerian nationals and expatriates) were kidnapped in approximately 100 incidents during the year. In November, ethno-religious violence erupted in Jos, resulting in the deaths of several hundred persons and the displacement of tens of thousands. Corruption continued to plague the resource-rich country and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission's anticorruption efforts declined, with little progress on prosecutions of federal, state, and local officials accused of corruption.
In Somalia, fighting among the Transitional Federal Government (TFG)/Ethiopian National Defense Forces and their militias, the Council of Islamic Courts militias, antigovernment and extremist groups, terrorist organizations, and clan militias resulted in widespread human rights abuses, including the killing of more than 1,000 civilians, the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people, kidnappings and disappearances, and attacks on journalists, aid workers, civil society leaders, and human rights activists. The political process to establish peace and stability in the country continued as the TFG and the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia reached the Djibouti Agreement on June 9 and began to implement its terms; however, implementation was slow and marred by political infighting.
In Sudan, conflict in Darfur entered its fifth year and civilians continued to suffer from the effects of genocide. UN data from 2008 indicated that, since it began, the protracted conflict has left more than 2.7 million people internally displaced and another 250,000 across the border in Chad, where they sought refuge. Government, government-aligned militias, and intertribal attacks killed civilians. Government forces bombed villages, killed internally displaced persons, and collaborated with militias to raze villages. The government systematically impeded and obstructed humanitarian efforts, and rebels and bandits killed humanitarian workers. Unidentified assailants killed several joint AU-UN peacekeeping mission troops, and government forces attacked a peacekeeping convoy. On May 10, the Justice and Equality Movement, a Darfur rebel group, attacked Omdurman, near Khartoum. The government committed wide scale politically- and ethnically-motivated detentions and disappearances in Omdurman and Khartoum following the attack. The government severely restricted freedom of the press, including through direct and daily censorship. Since 2005, when the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the North and the South was signed, approximately 2.1 million displaced persons and refugees have returned to the South. However, tensions over the implementation of the CPA persisted, and fighting between northern and southern forces destroyed much of Abyei town, killing civilians and displacing more than 50,000 people.
Zimbabwe’s illegitimate government engaged in the systematic abuse of human rights, which increased dramatically during the year, in conjunction with an escalating humanitarian crisis caused by repression, corruption, and destructive economic and food policies, which the Mugabe regime persisted in applying despite their disastrous humanitarian consequences. Civil society and humanitarian organizations were targeted by government and militant groups for their efforts to protect citizens' rights and provide life-saving humanitarian assistance. A nearly three-month ban on the activities of NGOs exacerbated the humanitarian crisis as well as food insecurity and poverty. After the ban was lifted, the Mugabe regime continued to impede humanitarian access. Millions of Zimbabweans were food insecure at year's end.
The regime's manipulation of the political process, including the presidential elections, through intimidation, violence, corruption and vote fraud negated the right of citizens to change their government. Security forces and ruling party supporters killed, abducted, and tortured members of the opposition, student leaders, civil society activists and ordinary Zimbabweans with impunity. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) factions gained a parliamentary majority in the March 29 election, but the results of the presidential race were not released until May 2, calling into question the credibility and independence of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission. Government-sponsored violence in the period leading up to the June 27 run-off left more than 190 dead, thousands injured, and tens of thousands displaced. The Electoral Commission declared Mugabe the winner of the run-off election after MDC candidate Morgan Tsvangirai-–who had scored a strong plurality in the first round--withdrew because of the Mugabe regime's violence directed at the MDC and its supporters and out of recognition that a free and fair election was not possible. Negotiations mandated by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) led to a September 15 power-sharing agreement; however, due to government intransigence, the provisions of the deal had not been implemented by year's end and the country remained in crisis.
East Asia and the Pacific
During the year there were both advances and setbacks in human rights in the vast East Asia and the Pacific region, particularly in the areas of accountability for past abuses, freedom of speech and the press, democratic development, and trafficking in persons.
Countries in the region continued to come to terms with past abuses. The Bilateral Commission of Truth and Friendship, created to examine the atrocities committed by both Indonesians and Timorese during the period surrounding Timor-Leste's 1999 independence referendum, delivered its final report during the year. Indonesian President Yudhoyono acknowledged and accepted the report's finding that assigned institutional responsibility to the Indonesian Armed Forces. In addition, in August the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia refined its internal rules to prosecute more rapidly egregious crimes of the 1975 1979 Khmer Rouge regime. However, the trials had still not begun by year's end.
Some countries increased repression in response to popular efforts to secure respect for human rights. Vietnam increased restrictions on freedom of speech and press, and in China the government increased its severe cultural and religious repression of ethnic minorities in Tibetan areas and the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region and increased its detention and harassment of dissidents and petitioners.
Other unelected rulers attempted to cloak their illegitimacy with trappings of democracy and manipulated the law to their own ends. The Burmese regime pushed through a constitutional referendum characterized by widespread irregularities and intimidation in the immediate aftermath of the devastating Cyclone Nargis. While the constitution technically came into effect in May, by the constitution's own terms, the regime will continue to "exercise state sovereignty" until multiparty elections are held in 2010. The constitution will ensure that the military will continue to exercise a dominant role in political life regardless of the outcome of any electoral process. At the end of the year, the regime imposed draconian sentences on more than 100 democracy activists who participated in the 2007 Saffron Revolution and individuals who engaged in the Cyclone relief effort. Many were moved to prisons in remote parts of the country, isolating them from family. In Fiji, the Suva High Court ruled to validate the 2006 Fiji coup, despite simmering opposition to the interim government's refusal to hold elections in March 2009.
Trafficking in persons was another area where results were mixed during the year. Several countries enacted new antitrafficking legislation-–such as Thailand and Cambodia–-and began to investigate and prosecute a broader range of trafficking offenses, such as the trafficking of men for labor exploitation. However, in Malaysia, widespread NGO and media reports alleged that Malaysian immigration officials were involved in the trafficking of Burmese refugees along the Malaysia-Thai border.
Selected Country Developments
The military regime in Burma continued its oppressive methods, denying citizens the right to change their government and committing other severe human rights abuses. The regime brutally suppressed dissent through extrajudicial killings, disappearances, and torture. Human rights and prodemocracy activists were harassed, arbitrarily detained in large numbers, and sentenced up to 65 years of imprisonment. The regime held detainees and prisoners in life-threatening conditions. The army continued its attacks on ethnic minority areas. The regime routinely infringed on citizens' privacy and restricted freedom of speech, the press, assembly, association, religion, and movement. Violence and discrimination against women and ethnic minorities continued, as did trafficking in persons. Workers' rights were restricted and forced labor persisted. The government took no significant actions to prosecute or punish those responsible for such abuses. The regime showed contempt for the welfare of its own citizens when it persisted in conducting a fraudulent referendum in the immediate aftermath of a cyclone that killed tens of thousands and blocked and delayed international assistance that could have saved many lives.
The government of China's human rights record remained poor and worsened in some areas. The government continued to limit citizens' privacy rights and tightly controlled freedom of speech, the press (including the Internet), assembly, movement, and association. Authorities committed extrajudicial killings and torture, coerced confessions of prisoners, and used forced labor. In addition, the Chinese government increased detention and harassment of dissidents, petitioners, human rights defenders, and defense lawyers. Local and international NGOs continued to face intense scrutiny and restrictions. China's human rights record worsened in some areas, including severe cultural and religious repression of ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region and Tibet. Abuses peaked around high-profile events, such as the Olympic Games and the unrest in Tibet. At the end of the year, the government harassed signatories of Charter '08 who called for respect for universal human rights and reform and arrested writer Liu Xiaobo for his participation in the drafting of the Charter. In October, the government made permanent temporary Olympic Games-related regulations granting foreign journalists greater freedoms.
The Government of Malaysia generally respected the human rights of its citizens; however, there were problems in some areas, including the abridgment of its citizens' right to change their government. Despite their complaint that the ruling party exploited the powers of incumbency, opposition parties made significant gains by capturing 82 of 222 parliamentary seats in March 8 elections, effectively denying the ruling coalition the two-thirds supermajority needed to amend the constitution at will. The government continued to restrict freedoms of press, association, assembly, speech, and religion. The government arrested opposition leaders and journalists. Internet bloggers were arrested for apparently political reasons. Deaths in police custody remained a problem, as did police abuse of detainees, overcrowded immigration detention centers, and persistent questions about the impartiality and independence of the judiciary. Some employers exploited migrant workers and ethnic Indian-Malaysians with forced labor, and some child labor occurred in plantations.
North Korea's human rights record remained abysmal. While the regime continued to control almost all aspects of citizens' lives, denying freedom of speech, press, assembly, and association, and restricting freedom of movement and workers' rights, reports of abuse emerged from the country with increased frequency. However, these reports continued to be difficult to confirm. Reports of extrajudicial killings, disappearances, and arbitrary detention, including of political prisoners, continued to paint a grim picture of life inside the reclusive country. Some forcibly repatriated refugees were said to have undergone severe punishment and possibly torture. Reports of public executions also continued to emerge.
Despite a tumultuous political atmosphere, Thailand avoided unconstitutional disruptions in governance. Nevertheless, there continued to be reports that police were linked to extrajudicial killings and disappearances. Police abuse of detainees and prisoners persisted as well, as did corruption within the police force. The separatist insurgency in the south resulted in numerous human rights abuses, including killings, committed by ethnic Malay Muslim insurgents, Buddhist defense volunteers, and government security forces. The government maintained some limits on freedom of speech and of the press, particularly through the use of lese majeste provisions. Members of hill tribes without proper documentation continued to face restrictions on their movement; however, the 2008 Nationality Act, which took effect on February 28, increased the possibility of citizenship for hill tribe members.
The government of Vietnam continued to restrict citizens' rights in significant ways. Citizens could not change their government, political opposition movements were prohibited, and the government continued to suppress dissent. Individuals were arbitrarily detained for political activities and denied the right to fair and expeditious trials. Suspects were abused during arrest, detention, and interrogation. Corruption was a significant problem among the police force, as was impunity. The government continued to limit citizens' privacy rights and freedom of expression. There was a general crackdown on press freedom throughout the year, resulting in the firings of several senior media editors and the arrest of two reporters. These actions dampened what had previously been a trend toward more aggressive investigative reporting. Restrictions on assembly, movement, and association continued. Independent human rights organizations were prohibited. Violence and discrimination against women remained a problem, as did trafficking in persons. The government limited workers' rights and arrested or harassed several labor activists.
Europe and Eurasia
The key challenges in the region remained: strengthening new democracies, stemming government restrictions on and repression of human rights NGOs, and addressing hate crimes and hate speech while protecting fundamental freedoms against a backdrop of migration, rising nationalism, and economic recession.
In several post-Soviet countries, previous gains for human rights and democracy were reversed or the slide towards authoritarianism continued. A number of elections failed to meet democratic standards set by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and media freedom remained under attack. Journalists were killed or harassed, and laws often restricted rather than protected freedom of expression.
During the August conflict that began in the Georgian separatist enclave of South Ossetia, military operations by Georgian and Russian forces reportedly involved the use of indiscriminate force and resulted in civilian casualties, including a number of journalists. After the Russians entered South Ossetia, there were allegations that South Ossetian irregulars engaged in executions, torture, ethnic attacks, and random burning of homes, and at least 150,000 Georgian citizens were displaced by the fighting. Russian and South Ossetian forces occupied villages outside of the administrative borders of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the other separatist region in Georgia. Although Russian forces mostly withdrew by October 10 from the regions outside of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, they blocked access to both regions for Georgians and international organizations, making it dangerous for residents and difficult to monitor conditions in the region with respect to human rights and compliance with humanitarian law.
In many countries, governments impeded the freedom of the press. In Azerbaijan, increasing numbers of attacks on journalists went unpunished, while journalists themselves remained in prison on purported criminal charges. Russia remained a dangerous place for journalists, a number of whom were killed or brutally attacked during the year. In Belarus, President Lukashenka signed a new media law that could further restrict press freedoms, including Internet publications. Developments in Georgia, including the opposition's loss of control of Imedi Television, which had been the sole remaining independent national television station, raised significant concerns about the state of media diversity.
NGOs and opposition parties were the targets of government oppression in several countries. The government of Bosnia and Herzegovina forced the closure for several days of an international anticorruption NGO after a report accusing government officials of corruption. In Russia, authorities increasingly harassed many NGOs that focused on politically sensitive areas and during the year the government amended the law on extremism, making it easier to bring charges against an organization. The previous version of the law had already raised concerns about restriction of the freedom of association and legitimate criticism of the government. In Belarus, while the release of nine political prisoners was welcome, concern remained about the government's arbitrary constraints on freedom of assembly and association and its frequent harassment of independent activists. In Russia, police sometimes used violence to prevent groups from engaging in peaceful protests, particularly opposition protests.
There were both hopeful and troubling indicators for democratic governance in the region. On a positive note, Kosovo's democratically-elected government successfully declared its independence on February 17, and put in place a constitution and laws with model provisions for human rights. Unfortunately, other nations did not have such encouraging results. The February presidential elections in Armenia were significantly flawed and followed by days of peaceful protests that the government ultimately put down violently. In Russia, the March presidential election was marked by problems both during the campaign period and on Election Day, including bias by government-controlled or –influenced media in favor of the ruling party and its candidates, authorities' refusal to register opposition party candidates, lack of equal opportunity for conducting campaigns, and ballot fraud. Parliamentary elections in Belarus fell significantly short of OSCE commitments for democratic elections, and all of the 110 declared winners were government supporters. Elections in Azerbaijan failed to meet key OSCE commitments.
Human rights concerns were not limited to the eastern portion of the continent. A number of the well-established democracies of western and central Europe wrestled with continuing challenges resulting from the large influx of new migrants from the Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere that strained economic and social resources and led to restrictive practices toward immigrants and many charges of mistreatment. In many countries, detention facilities for undocumented migrants suffered from poor conditions and were inferior to those for other detained individuals. The majority of hate crimes in Ukraine during the year involved people of African, Middle Eastern, and Asian origin. In Russia the disturbing and steady rise in xenophobic, racial, and ethnic attacks continued. There were manifestations of anti-Semitism in many countries in the region and incidents of violent anti-Semitic attacks remained a concern. In a number of countries, including Italy and Hungary, members of the Roma community were targets of societal violence, which in some cases was more frequent and lethal than in previous years.
France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom sought to outlaw hate speech in order to protect minorities from discrimination and violence. However, some human rights observers worried that this impinged on free speech.
Selected Country Developments
There were significant setbacks for democracy in Armenia, including the worst post-election violence seen in the Caucasus in recent years. After weeks of generally peaceful protests following a disputed February presidential election, the government used force to disperse protestors on March 1-2, which resulted in violent clashes and 10 deaths. The violence ushered in a 20-day state of emergency and a blackout of independent media during which the government severely curtailed civil liberties. During the remainder of the year, there were significant restrictions on the right to assemble peacefully or express political opinions freely without risk of retaliation, and several opposition sympathizers were convicted and imprisoned with disproportionately harsh sentences for seemingly political reasons. Fifty-nine opposition sympathizers reportedly remained imprisoned on seemingly political grounds at year's end; no government officials were prosecuted for their alleged role in election-related crimes. Despite the mixed success of a politically-balanced fact-finding group established by the government to investigate the March events, the climate for democracy was further chilled by harassment, intimidation, and intrusive tax inspections against independent media and civil society activists.
In Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev was re-elected president for a second term in October in a process that international observers assessed did not meet international standards for a democratic election, despite some government improvement in the administration of the election. Shortcomings included serious restrictions on political participation and media, pressure and restrictions on observers, and flawed vote counting and tabulation processes. During the year restrictions and pressure on the media worsened. A media-monitoring NGO reported that during the first half of the year there were 22 acts of verbal or physical assault on journalists, up from 11 in the same period of 2007, with no accountability. Several journalists remained imprisoned on charges that many criticized as politically motivated. On December 30, the government announced that as of January 1, 2009, it would no longer permit Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Voice of America, or BBC to continue to broadcast on national television and FM radio frequencies; without these international broadcasters, the public no longer had access to unbiased news on any widely accessible broadcast media.
In Belarus, the government's human rights record remained very poor, and authorities continued to commit frequent serious abuses. Despite prior government assurances, parliamentary elections in September were neither free nor fair. Authorities failed to account for past politically motivated disappearances. Prison conditions remained extremely poor, and reports of abuse of prisoners and detainees continued. The judiciary lacked independence. The government further restricted civil liberties, including freedoms of press, speech, assembly, association, and religion. State security services used unreasonable force to disperse peaceful protesters. Corruption remained a problem. NGOs and political parties were subjected to harassment, fines, prosecution, and closure. Religious leaders were fined or deported for performing services and some churches were closed.
In Georgia, President Mikheil Saakashvili was reelected in January in an election that international observers found consistent with most OSCE democratic election commitments. However, they also highlighted significant challenges, including widespread allegations of intimidation and pressure and flawed vote counting. Problems also were noted in parliamentary elections in May. There were allegations of politically motivated detentions. Media diversity was reduced when opposition voices lost control over the one remaining national television station. During the August conflict, military operations by Georgian and Russian forces reportedly involved the use of indiscriminate force and resulted in civilian casualties, including of a number of journalists.
The Russian Federation continued a negative trajectory in its overall domestic human rights record with numerous reports of government and societal human right problems and abuses during the year. During the August conflict, military operations by Georgian and Russian forces reportedly involved the use of indiscriminate force and resulted in civilian casualties, including of a number of journalists. The government's human rights record remained poor in the North Caucasus with security forces reportedly engaged in killings, torture, abuse, violence, and other brutal treatment, often with impunity. In Chechnya, Ingushetiya, and Dagestan, security forces allegedly were involved in unlawful killings and politically motivated abductions; for a second year, there was a significant increase in the number of killings, usually by unknown assailants, of both civilians and officials in Ingushetiya.
Civil liberties continued to be under siege, reflecting an erosion of the government's accountability to its citizens. Government pressure weakened freedom of expression and media independence, and it remained a dangerous environment for media practitioners. Five journalists were killed during the year, in one case in Ingushetiya by police. Killings of journalists in past years remained unresolved. The government limited freedom of assembly, and police sometimes used violence to prevent groups from engaging in peaceful protest. Authorities' hostility toward, and harassment of some NGOs, in particular those involved in human rights monitoring, as well as those receiving foreign funding, reflected an overall contraction of space for civil society. Given an increasingly centralized political system where power is concentrated in the presidency and the office of prime minister, the problems that occurred in the December 2007 Duma elections were repeated in the March presidential elections, which failed to meet many international standards.
Near East and North Africa
Continued serious challenges for the promotion of democracy and human rights characterized the Middle East region during the year, though there were some notable steps forward.
Several governments, including Egypt, Iran, Libya, and Syria, continued to imprison activists because of their beliefs. Ayman Nour, the runnerup in the 2005 Egyptian presidential election, remained in prison in Egypt throughout the reporting period (although he was released on February 18, 2009). Iran's government regularly detains and persecutes women's rights and student activists, labor unionists, and human rights defenders. Iranian authorities continued to crack down on civil society institutions, notably by closing the Center for the Defense of Human Rights on December 21 as it prepared to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The government of Libya announced in March that it had released political activist Fathi El-Jahmi, but he remained in detention at the Tripoli Medical Center during the year and was granted only sporadic visits by his family. In Syria, the government detained several high-profile members of the human rights community, particularly individuals affiliated with the national council of the Damascus Declaration for Democratic National Change, an umbrella organization of reformist opposition groups.
Along with greater access to information through the Internet and satellite television came greater restrictions on media, including Internet bloggers. In Egypt, police detained and allegedly tortured bloggers. Iran's best-known blogger, Hossein Derakhshan, was arrested late in the year. Tunisia regressed on media freedom, with authorities arresting or harassing bloggers. In Iraq, journalists continued to struggle for safety while reporting on politics, women's rights, and homosexuality. Although the number of killings of journalists in Iraq dropped last year, the death rate remained high.
Many countries in the region continued to restrict religious freedom and expression. Iran detained seven leaders of the Baha'i faith since May, and the Iranian president continued to denounce the existence of Israel. Saudi Arabia strictly prohibited public worship of faiths other than Sunni Islam, and religious minorities faced discrimination in access to education, employment, and representation in government. Members of religions that are not recognized by the government experienced personal and collective hardship in Egypt. Other countries, such as Bahrain and Algeria, enacted discriminatory legislation or, like Jordan, continued to implement policies that favored the majority religions.
Legal and societal discrimination as well as violence against women continued throughout the region. Iranian women's rights activists were harassed, abused, arrested, and accused of "endangering national security" for participating in peaceful protests and demanding equal treatment under Iranian law through the One Million Signatures Campaign. However, other countries in the region witnessed incremental progress on women's rights and women actively sought leadership roles in local and national governments. In Kuwait, 27 women ran for office in May 2008 national elections, although none of the female candidates won. Also during the year, the UAE appointed its first female judge and two female ambassadors.
Some countries in the Near East have taken significant steps over the past several years to address worker abuse and to raise labor standards. Oman and Bahrain enacted comprehensive laws to combat human trafficking and Jordan extended labor law protections to expatriate household workers. Significant challenges remain, however, regarding protection for foreign workers and implementation of existing labor laws and regulations for all workers, especially for construction and household workers.
Selected Country Developments
In Egypt, there was a decline in the government's respect for freedoms of speech, press, association, and religion during the year. In particular, detentions and arrests of Internet bloggers appeared to be linked primarily to their efforts to organize demonstrations through their blogs and participation in street protests or other activism. The state of emergency, enacted in 1967, remained in place, and security forces used unwarranted lethal force and tortured and abused prisoners and detainees, in most cases with impunity.
The government of Iran intensified its systematic campaign of intimidation against reformers, academics, journalists, and dissidents through arbitrary arrests, detentions, torture, and secret trials that occasionally end in executions. Executions of defendants who were juveniles at the time of their arrest continued. Iranian-American dual nationals, as well as Iranians with contacts in or travel to the United States, continued to be targets of intimidation and harassment. Prior to parliamentary elections in March, the Guardian Council disqualified almost 1,700 reformist candidates.
The general security situation throughout Iraq substantially improved and some reconciliation and easing of tensions occurred in several provinces. However, continuing insurgent and extremist violence against civilians undermined the government's ability to uphold the rule of law, resulting in widespread and severe human rights abuses. However, there were positive developments including the passage of the Provincial Election Law on September 24 calling for elections in 14 Arab majority provinces on January 31, 2009, with elections later in the year in the three Kurdish provinces and Tameem (Kirkuk). The November 16 adoption of a law authorizing the establishment of the constitutionally mandated Independent High Commission for Human Rights also marked a step forward to institutionalize protection of those rights.
In Jordan, civil society activists expressed concern about a new law on associations. The law, which has yet to be implemented, allows the government to deny registration of NGOs for any reason; dissolve associations; and intervene in the management, membership, and activities of NGOs. According to international and local NGOs prisons continued to be overcrowded and understaffed with inadequate food and health care and limited visitation. Although Jordanian law prohibits torture, Human Rights Watch reported that torture remained widespread and routine. There were reports by citizens and NGOs that political prisoners, including Islamists convicted of crimes against national security, received greater abuse than other prisoners, and guards abused prisoners with impunity. Women held a limited number of government leadership positions, albeit at levels higher than elsewhere in the region; at the same time, domestic violence and so-called honor crimes persisted. A 2007 press law abolished imprisonment of journalists for ideological offenses; however, limited detention and imprisonment of journalists for defamation and slander continued through provisions in the penal code. Many journalists reported that the threat of stringent fines led to self-censorship. In July the Labor Law was amended to include agriculture workers and domestic servants, placing them under some legal protections.
For a fourth consecutive year, internal violence and political battles hindered Lebanon's ability to improve the country's human rights situation. On May 7, opposition fighters led by Hizballah, a Shia opposition party and terrorist organization, seized control of Beirut International Airport and several West Beirut neighborhoods. On May 21, after 84 died and approximately 200 were wounded, rival leaders reached a deal to end the violence and the 18-month political feud. Despite the cessation of hostilities and parliament's May election of President Michel Sleiman, Hizballah retained significant influence over parts of the country, and the government made no tangible progress toward disbanding and disarming armed militia groups, including Hizballah.
The Syrian government continued to violate citizens' privacy rights and to impose significant restrictions on freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and association, in an atmosphere of government impunity and corruption. Security services disrupted meetings of human rights organizations and detained activists, organizers, and other regime critics without due process. Throughout the year, the government sentenced to prison several high-profile members of the human rights community, especially individuals affiliated with the national council of the Damascus Declaration for Democratic National Change (DDDNC), an umbrella organization of reformist opposition groups.
In Tunisia, the government continued its systematic, severe repression of freedom of expression and association. The government remained intolerant of public criticism by human rights and opposition activists and used intimidation, criminal investigations, and violent harassment of editors and journalists to discourage criticism. Authorities strictly censored publications both in print and on line, and routinely harassed journalists. Security forces killed a political protestor during the year and detainees faced torture, sexual assault, and coercion in attempts to elicit confessions.
South and Central Asia
Significant attacks on basic rights, including the freedoms of expression, religion, and association, marked 2008 in South and Central Asia.
A number of governments in the region continued to harass individual journalists and media outlets, and several countries continued to restrict free access to information on the Internet, particularly in Central Asia. In Kyrgyzstan, the government removed programs of a prominent independent broadcaster from state-run radio and television. A government-controlled Internet provider in Kazakhstan intermittently blocked specific news and opposition-focused Web sites. Both governments levied heavy criminal libel penalties against journalists and, in some cases, the journalists left the country due to fear for their own safety. As in years past, journalists working in Turkmenistan were subject to government harassment, arrest, detention in psychological clinics, and violence. In Afghanistan, the government convicted a student journalist of blasphemy and sentenced him to death for distributing an article he downloaded from the Internet about women's rights in Islam; an appeals court reduced the sentence to 20 years in prison. In Pakistan, arrests of journalists declined following the election of a new government. Even so, unidentified actors continued to intimidate, abduct, and kill journalists, particularly in regions of internal conflict. In Sri Lanka, defense and government officials made threatening statements against independent media outlets in the aftermath of several unresolved attacks against members of the free press.
Freedom of religion came under attack in the region with the parliaments of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan introducing laws that would increase restrictions on religious freedom, disproportionately affecting religious minorities, and through violence against minorities in the Indian state of Orissa. These actions took place in the context of increased harassment of minority religious groups by the governments of Kazakhstan and Tajikistan and continued harassment by the government of Uzbekistan. Turkmenistan welcomed a visit by the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, but the government closely controlled and monitored all religious activity.
Significant issues remained on labor rights across the region. Child labor continued in agriculture and manufacturing sectors in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. There was widespread child labor in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in cotton and other sectors, and Uzbekistan continued to compel many schoolchildren to work in the cotton harvest. Although the government of Kazakhstan is making strides to eliminate child labor, the practice still occurs in the cotton and tobacco sectors. Forced labor, especially in the large informal sectors and among socially disadvantaged minorities, continued in Nepal, Pakistan, and India. Labor organizers in Bangladesh reported acts of intimidation and abuse as well as increased scrutiny by security forces.
Although some governments in the region restricted political opposition and prohibited genuine electoral competition, there were several improvements with regard to elections and political competition in South Asia. In Pakistan, the two main opposition parties, Pakistan People's Party and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, together won majority seats in competitive parliamentary elections and formed a coalition government ending nine years of military rule. The people of Maldives elected a former political prisoner as president in a free and fair election, peacefully unseating the longest-serving Asian leader. The Afghan Independent Election Commission led preparatory efforts for Afghanistan's second round of elections since the fall of the Taliban. Elections in Nepal produced the most diverse legislature in the country's history, and the new parliament subsequently declared Nepal a federal democratic republic, peacefully dissolving the monarchy. Bangladesh held free and fair parliamentary elections with isolated irregularities and sporadic violence. The elections and subsequent peaceful transfer of power ended two years of rule by a military-backed caretaker government. In Bhutan, elections for the lower house of parliament completed the country's transition to a constitutional and limited monarchy with genuine popular oversight and participation.
Selected Country Developments
Although human rights in Afghanistan have improved significantly since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the country's record remained poor due to weak central government institutions and a deadly insurgency. The Taliban, Al-Qa'ida, and other extremist groups continued attacks against government officials, security forces, NGOs and other aid personnel, and unarmed civilians. There were continued reports of arbitrary arrests and detentions, extrajudicial killings, torture, and poor prison conditions. Government repression and armed groups prevented the media from operating freely.
In Bangladesh, levels of violence declined significantly and the caretaker government oversaw successful elections, but the government's human rights record remained a matter of serious concern. The state of emergency, which the government imposed in January 2007 and lifted on December 17, curtailed many fundamental rights, including freedom of expression, freedom of association, and the right to post bail. The government's anticorruption drive was greeted by popular support but gave rise to concerns about fairness and equality under the law. Although the number of extrajudicial killings decreased, security forces committed serious abuses, including extrajudicial killings, custodial deaths, arbitrary arrest and detention, and harassment of journalists. Some members of security forces acted with impunity and committed acts of torture, and the government failed to investigate fully extrajudicial killings.
In Kazakhstan, the political opposition faced government harassment via politically motivated criminal charges and restrictions on freedom of assembly. The government continued to harass independent and opposition-oriented media outlets and journalists. At year's end, the government was considering amendments to laws governing political parties, media, and elections. Some civil society representatives and opposition parties criticized the process as lacking transparency. The government was also considering amendments to the religion law that, if enacted, would represent a serious step backward for religious freedom.
Although Kyrgyzstan has a vibrant civil society and independent media, in the past year the government increasingly sought to control various aspects of civil life. New laws or amendments placed restrictions on public assembly, religious freedom, and media. In October, the National Television and Radio Network took Radio Free Liberty/Radio Europe off the air, reducing the public's access to this independent source of information. The Central Election Commission chairwoman fled the country after claiming she had been pressured by the president's son over registering an opposition candidate for October local council elections.
Nepal became a federal democratic republic shortly after national elections in April produced the most diverse legislature in the country's history. Although there were reports of political violence, intimidation, and voting irregularities, observers reported that the elections reflected the will of the people. Violence, extortion, and intimidation continued throughout the year; and impunity for human rights violators, threats against the media, arbitrary arrest, and lengthy pretrial detention were serious problems. Members of the Maoists, the Maoist-affiliated Young Communist League, and other small, often ethnically based armed groups committed numerous grave human rights abuses. Such abuses included arbitrary and unlawful use of lethal force, torture, and abduction. Several armed groups, largely in the Terai region, attacked civilians, government officials, members of particular ethnic groups, each other, or Maoists.
Pakistan returned to civilian democratic rule during the year. Opposition parties prevailed in February parliamentary elections and formed a coalition government. The coalition lasted only part of the year though the government remains in power. In September, Asif Ali Zardari, widower of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, succeeded Pervez Musharraf as president. The new government put back on the bench under a new oath five of the 13 Supreme Court judges Musharraf deposed during the November 2007 state of emergency, while three retired or resigned. The chief of army staff withdrew 3,000 army officers from civilian government posts they held during Musharraf's tenure. Despite these positive steps, the human rights situation remained poor. Military operations in the country's northwest killed approximately 1,150 civilians, militant attacks in that region killed 825 more civilians, sectarian violence in the country killed an estimated 1,125 persons, and suicide bombings killed more than 970 individuals. Ongoing battles with militants left approximately 200,000 persons displaced at year's end.
In Sri Lanka, the democratically elected government's respect for human rights declined as armed conflict escalated in the country's 25-year civil war. By year's end, there was little movement on political inclusion of minorities and they continued to suffer the majority of human rights abuses, such as killings and disappearances. The government expelled most international humanitarian assistance providers from the northern conflict zone. Although the government took initial steps to address the use of child soldiers by progovernment militias, the problem was not resolved. The government failed to investigate and prosecute any security forces for human rights violations and to implement constitutional provisions that would provide oversight of government institutions. Civil society was intimidated and independent media and journalists came under particular pressure through attacks and threats from pro-government actors.
Although there were modest improvements, the government of Turkmenistan continued to commit serious abuses and its human rights record remained poor. Political and civil liberties continued to be severely restricted. In June authorities arrested former activist and former political prisoner Gulgeldy Annaniyazov after he allegedly reentered the country illegally and sentenced him in a closed trial to 11 years in prison. December parliamentary elections fell far short of international standards. The government continued its effort to revise laws, including its constitution, to bring them into conformity with relevant international conventions.
The Government of Uzbekistan took steps to address human rights concerns such as defendants' rights, trafficking in persons, and child labor in the cotton industry. However, serious human rights abuses continued and torture remained systemic in law enforcement. Auth
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