Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Facebook

Amazing isn't it? I try through all the usual channels to contact Uighurs and to establish a news route. Exasperated by the lack of response I create a Uighur group on Facebook and lo - in a matter of days I find 350! Admitedly not all of them are actual Uighurs, but the level of sympathy from other groups has heartened me. Many of those on my list do not show a photograph. Fear is rife. These people feel little safer here than in their own country.
Another Facebook friend, Craig Murray, who has previously published a book underlying human rights abuses in the name of the UK and the USA (particularly confessions extracted under torchure - again, in our name) is fighting to get his next book published. I recommend Murder in Samarkand as a first hand insight for all those who suspected that the British Government was no better than any other, but had so far not found the evidence.
The Olympic Games are almost upon us. Journalists say they do not have the promised free access to the internet. In particular Human Rights sites such as Amnesty International are blocked. A spokesman for the Chinese Government said that the Olympic Games would not be affected by journalists having access to these sites, and saw no reason why they should be available. Is there a Chinese word for 'context'?
Over 8,000 people a year suffer the death penalty in China. Thats the official figure. Then we have the Detention Without Trial scenario. As you can imagine, this last one has been very popular in the run up to the Games.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Uighurs shot dead on 9th July

Well, I asked for Uighur news and I got it. Needless to say it is not good. A party of fifteen Uighurs was raided by Chinese troops and 5 were shot dead. Those taken captive have confessed that they were plotting against China. I wonder, was that confession extracted under the a)' good cop/bad cop' scenario we have come to accept in our own country, or was it b)'Confess to x happening or I will dip your grandchildren in boiling water' type of scenario.
We will never know the truth. But we can know that is was not scenario a).
A Burmese friend stated that her facvourite torture was not the 'rolling an iron bar up and down your shins until the skin breaks down to the bone' type of thing. She should know. Another friend is not too keen on the 'hanging naked for days in below zero temperatures and having buckets of freezing water splashed over you' type of scenario. And he should know.
I tried to find a picture of torture for this post, but the ones I found were just too awful for me to contemplate. I can't even stand a picture of it.
Don't let torture go unchallenged whether it be Uigurs or Tibetans or anyone else. Our own government condones the use of confessions extracted under torture. Do the people? Stay silent and you are agreeing to torchure by default. So don't stay silent!

Monday, July 7, 2008

And another thing - Guantanamo


Guantanomo Bay is apparently no longer the US Base it used to be and I am getting fed up with the new rhetoric which goes out of its way to site the horrible Guantanamo Bay Detention Centre in Cuba.
I guess that the US are now trying to distance themselves from the whole sorry affair. But blaming it on Cuba just rubs salt into Cuban wounds. Guantanamo Bay is quite beautiful as you see from my picture above. But the Detention Centre is nothing to do with Cuba. The US have been allowed to keep this site in exchange for not bombing the living daylights out of this beleagured nation. Cubans do not even acknowledge the existance of the naval base - as I found out first hand.
I am feeling very cross today. The whole Cuban thing is annoying. Why do we force economic sanctions on Cuba? Can anyone remember why we prevent trade with Cuba? Oh, I do believe that we don't like the government because it upset out 'friends' in the US. Does anyone know why we don't use economic sanctions on Zimbabwe? Oh yes, because we say that sanctions hurt the people.

Thanks Patrick


Well, I've been away on a short break, but my friends have been on the ball. Patrick brought to my attention a massive piece of news:

In the first ruling of its kind, a US court has overturned the designation of an inmate at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp as an "enemy combatant".

How could I have missed that?

Huzaifa Parhat is an ethnic Uighur from East Turkistan. He was rounded up by China after 9/11 when every misguided government thought 'whoopee' and incarcerated anyone with the wrong shaped beard because obviously they were terrorists. Unfortunately the poor bloke has not even heard this news because they have not let him out of solitary confinement. The judges have said he must be freed, transferred or be the subject of a fresh hearing. I suppose they will dither around indefinately, meanwhile it has just been the 7 years of wrongful imprisonment and misery. Hands up those who have been in solitary confinement. I have met only one person - Rebiya - and she hadn't done anything wrong either.

So this poor man (who is at worst a petty criminal) faces even more time in solitary confinement despite the fact that he poses no threat to our beloved friends in the US, and no-one says a word. Great. I so love the bloody human race.