By: Cuthbert Nzou, Zim Online, November 11, 2009
The African Regional Organisation of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC-Africa) has written to President Robert Mugabe demanding the immediate release from police custody of trade union leaders arrested on Sunday. Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) president Lovemore Matombo and staff members Michael Kandukutu and Percy Mcijo were arrested in Victoria Falls while addressing members of the union for allegedly convening a political meeting without authority from the police as outlined by provisions of the draconian Public Order and Security Act.
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Zimbabwe: ‘Slow boat to China’
By: Faatimah Hendricks, All Africa, November 11, 2009
When Zimbabweans were being attacked and killed in political violence, a little-known South African musician was inspired to act by the stories she heard from refugees living illegally in South Africa. Johanna Booysen was particularly angered when she heard about a Zimbabwean who died outside an office of South Africa’s home affairs ministry, which handles refugees. So she wrote a protest song.
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Zimbabwe: Tortured MDC activist dies from injuries
By: Lance Guma, SWRA, November 10, 2009
A former MDC security officer who was tortured by state security agents in March 2007 died two weeks ago, from the injuries he sustained. Gift Nhidza was one of several activists arrested when police brutally crushed an opposition protest in Harare’s Highfields suburb.
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Zimbabwe: More students arrested in Bindura
By: Alex Bell, SWRA, November 10, 2009
Four more students were arrested on Monday at the Bindura University, in what appears to be an intensifying clampdown on student activists in the country. The four student leaders were arrested during a campaign meeting at the Bindura University of Science Education, where SRC elections have been underway. The group, including outgoing SRC President Respect Ndanga, had just finished addressing students at a campaign rally for one of the new presidential candidates, Paul Dakarai.
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Zimbabwe: Police arrest ZCTU president Matombo
By: The Zimbabwe Times, November 9, 2009
Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) president, Lovemore Matombo, was arrested on Sunday night while addressing members of his union in Victoria Falls. According to the ZCTU information officer, Khumbulani Ndlovu, Matombo was arrested together with two union officials, Michael Kandukutu and Percy Mcijo. Last year, Matombo was arrested and detained together with several human rights activists after organizing a mass action against the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s unpopular cash withdrawal limits.
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CENTRAL AMERICA/CARIBBEAN
Over 240 Academics and experts on Latin America call on Obama to denounce human rights abuses by Honduran dictatorship
By: Common Dreams, November 12, 2009 Over 240 academics and experts on Latin America sent a letter to President Obama yesterday urging him to denounce the ongoing human rights violations perpetrated by the coup regime in Honduras ahead of the planned November 29 elections. They also urged him to demand the immediate restitution of President Manuel Zelaya and to support a full three months of electoral campaigning after the coup has been overturned. This would mean that this month’s elections- which Latin America and the European Union have said they will not recognize- would need to be rescheduled. Read full article… Letter to the President – Honduras human rights violations and elections US envoy ‘hopeful’ of Honduras pact Honduras accord is on verge of collapse Tourists of the Honduran counter-revolution Honduras revisited Honduras: Fiddling while Tegucigalpa burns Cuba’s blogosphere has developed a sharper edge US expresses outrage over ‘assault’ on Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez “Tell Yoani to shut up” Manuel Zelaya’s backers boycott Honduran election Voices of Honduran resistance call for deepening of democracy Costa Rica: Youth-led disarmament campaign launched |
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NORTH AMERICA
Mexicans up in arms against mine
By: John Holman, Al Jazeera, November 12, 2009 Armando Mendoza points to the huge cracks in the walls of his house in San Pedro, Mexico. Gesturing to the ceiling that recently fell in, he shows the damage caused by the daily explosions from the Canadian-owned mine San Xavier, which crouches over this small village. Armando is one of the residents who opposed the mine when it was proposed by New Gold, the Canadian gold-mining company, in 1996. Watch the video… US: Health care protest spurs counter-demonstration US: Five people arrested for theatrical protest against Sen. Joe Lieberman taking money from health insurance corporations US: Social media for social change in the 1800’s US: A ‘symbolic blockade’ in Florida |
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SOUTH AMERICA
Kenyan tribe to Ban Ki-Moon: ‘We condemn Peru repression’
By: Survival International, November 11, 2009 A spokesman from a tribe in Kenya has condemned the Peruvian government’s attempt to destroy Peru’s Amazon indigenous movement. The condemnation comes from Kiplangat Cheruyot from the Ogiek tribe in response to the revelation that Peru’s government plans to disband Peru’s national organisation for indigenous people in the Amazon. Read full article… Repression of Amazon Indian movement condemned worldwide Guyana: The critical imperative of self-determination and the rise of nonviolent consciousness |
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CENTRAL ASIA
Kazakh activists’ prosecution politically motivated
By: Michael Allen, Democraocy Digest, November 11, 2009 The prosecution of leading Kazakh democracy and human rights activist Yevgeny Zhovtis is politically motivated, new reports suggest. His lawyers and a leading independent journalist told RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service that the Kazakh authorities’ actions prove the political nature of the prosecution. They note that a Supreme Court judge admitted that he did not read the verdict against Zhovtis but still said that it was correct. Read full article… Azerbaijan: Court convicts youth activists and bloggers Uzbekistan: Activist ‘beaten’ after BBC story Turkmenistan jails green activist for five years |
China ‘running illegal prisons’
By: BBC, November 12, 2009
China is running a number of unlawful detention centres in which its citizens can be kept for months, according to campaign group Human Rights Watch. It says these centres- known as black jails- are often in state-run hotels, nursing homes or psychiatric hospitals. Among those detained are ordinary people who have travelled to Beijing to report local injustices.
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Group accuses China of abuses in secret jails
By: Keith Bradsher, NY Times, November 12, 2009
In a report released in Hong Kong and based on interviews with 38 former detainees from so-called black jails, Human Rights Watch accused guards at these prisons of beating, sexually abusing, intimidating and robbing men, women and teenagers. The former detainees had gone to Beijing to submit petitions to the national government after suffering what they described as corruption or other abuses of power at lower levels of government.
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China says Obama should understand about Tibet
By: Tania Branigan, The Guardian, November 12, 2009
A Chinese government official has said Barack Obama should understand China’s opposition to the Dalai Lama and Tibetan independence because he is a black president who lauded Abraham Lincoln’s role in America abolishing slavery. Qin Gang, a foreign ministry spokesman, likened slavery in America to Tibetan society under the Dalai Lama, and Lincoln’s opposition to the secession of southern states to China’s opposition to Tibetan independence. Tibetan groups were quick to respond by claiming the mantle of Lincoln for their own cause.
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Chinese activist stuck in limbo at Tokyo airport
By: Straights Times, November 12, 2009
A Chinese rights activist said on Thursday he had been stuck in limbo at a Tokyo airport for nine days after his country’s communist government denied him the right to return home. In a situation reminiscent of the stateless man portrayed in the movie The Terminal, Feng Zhenghu has been camped out on a couch near the immigration checkpoint at Narita International Airport since Nov 4.
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South Korea: Concert on Friday for North Korean defectors
By: The Korean Herald, November 11, 2009
“We hope to help raise the public’s awareness of the defectors’ issue and increase the number of sponsors to support their settlement as South Korean citizens,” said Kim Il-joo, a state-funded aid group’s chairman. The number of new defectors has been on the rise annually, from 1,138 in 2002 to 2,809 last year. About 75 percent of those who recently entered the South are women, according to Kim.
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A necessary addition to Obama’s China trip agenda: Public interest lawyers
By: Elizabeth Lynch, Huffington Post, November 11, 2009
With constant surveillance and random harassment by Chinese police, a public place like McDonald’s decreases the very real risk that the police will arbitrarily drag these public interest lawyers, known in Chinese as weiquan lawyers into custody. “The government took away our ability to work … to help the people achieve their rights,” Beijing lawyer surnamed Xie* (pronounced Syeah) said as he explained the recent disbarment of over 20 weiquan lawyers from practicing law in China.
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China: Protest gathering ‘illegal,’ police say
By: Ding Xiao, RFA, November 10, 2009
A signature campaign that recently brought thousands of residents in the northern Chinese city of Datong onto the city’s streets was an “illegal assembly,” police said. “Local citizens held an event to sign a petition against the rise in heating costs,” an officer who answered the phone at the Datong municipal police department said.
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China: Laid-off teachers, workers protest
By: Qiao Long and Fang Yuan, RFA, November 10, 2009
More than 100 laid-off elementary school teachers in central China petitioned the local government Tuesday over retirement pensions, members of the group said. The teachers, who work for the education system in Dawu county of central China’s Hubei province, said they were angered over back premiums they would have to pay to be eligible to receive their pensions.
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China: ‘Wall protests’ for Obama’s eyes
By: Luisetta Mudie, RFA, November 9, 2009
Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Chinese netizens have lodged protests on a commemorative site against Internet controls in their country, with some calling for the attention of U.S. President Barack Obama, who travels to Beijing next week. “Mr. Obama, help us KO the bloody GFW. Yes, you can! Thank you very much,” wrote a user called “Trigant” on the microblogging service Twitter. The “GFW” denotes what Internet users call “the great firewall of China”- an elaborate system of virtual blockades aimed at preventing users from accessing content the authorities want to keep off-limits.
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North Korea: The defectors’ tale
By: Hattie Garlick, Times of London, November 4, 2009
Mr. Jung, 46, was one of two North Korean defectors who yesterday spoke to The Times before giving evidence in Parliament of the human rights abuses they had suffered. The rare glimpse they provided of life inside the notoriously closed and secretive regime was given in the hope of refocusing international attention, long distracted by the country’s nuclear ambitions, on North Korea’s human rights abuses.
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