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Sunday, 21 June 2009 |
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SPECIAL SECTION: ELECTION AND PROTESTS IN IRAN
 Iran regime likely shaken for good
By: Barbara Slavin, Washington Times, June 16, 2009
The brazen way in which the regime announced the election results when the polls had barely closed and gave figures that many Iranians found implausible have now put Ayatollah Khamenei on the defensive before his own people, analysts say. Even if Mr. Ahmadinejad prevails, specialists said, Iran has been irrevocably changed by the unprecedentedly open debate that preceded the election, the more than 80 percent voter turnout and the massive demonstrations that have followed.
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Iran's election: Democracy or coup?
By: Ramin Jahanbegloo, openDemocracy, June 15, 2009
There is no light without shadow. Though the level of public engagement in the Iranian presidential election of 12 June 2009 is extraordinary, the controversial result in favour of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the vote overshadows the democratic passion of the Iranian population. Ahmadinejad was elected in 2005 on a populist platform of fighting corruption and promoting better income-distribution. Many people - especially the rural and urban poor - bought into this. But in the last four years, he has failed on all counts.
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Iran's stolen election has sparked an uprising - What should the U.S. do?
By: Stephen Zunes, AlterNet, June 15, 2009
As the fraudulent outcomes in the presidential races of 2000 in the United States and 2006 in Mexico demonstrate, elections can be stolen without the public rising up to successfully challenge the results. There have been cases, however, where such attempted thefts have been overturned through massive nonviolent resistance, as in the Philippines in 1985, Serbia in 2000, Georgia in 2003, and Ukraine in 2005.
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Iran election fraud questions focus on speed of the count
By: Jason Keyser, Truthout, June 15, 2009
How do you count almost 40 million handwritten paper ballots in a matter of hours and declare a winner? That's a key question in Iran's disputed presidential election. International polling experts and Iran analysts said the speed of the vote count, coupled with a lack of detailed election data normally released by officials, was fueling suspicion around President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's landslide victory.
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Iran: Obama's Mullah Moment
By: Hossein Askari, Truthout, June 15, 2009
What the Iranian people want is security from external aggression, a functioning economy with decent jobs, economic and social justice and generally the opportunity to pursue a better life. They also seek equality for women, freedom of speech and of the press, freedom to choose their government and a chance to revisit the constitution, which they may want to amend now that time has elapsed since the traumas of the revolution. Will the mullahs deliver on this? No.
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Iran protestors speak out
By: Saeed Kamali Dehghan, The Guardian, June 15,2009
"It's not only youths or north Tehrani guys who have come out here to denounce the vote-rigging; just look around and you'll see lots of conservative religious people wearing chadors and hijab who are defending Mousavi. I'm pretty sure that if these protests spread in the whole country in next few days, then something might happen. The problem is that they have blocked provinces' access to media, they have even cracked down on satellite channels like BBC Persian because it has become the only way reformists and protesters can talk to people in provinces."
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Democracy could still win in Iran
By: Gideon Rachman, Financial Times, June 15, 2009
Thirty years after the Iranian revolution, could we be witnessing an Iranian counter-revolution? In the short term, events in Iran are depressing and alarming - a stolen election, violence in the streets, repression. In the long term, the weekend has provided heartening evidence that Iran, and the Middle East in general, need not be immune to the great wave of democratisation that has swept the world since the late 1970s.
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Iran: Zahra Rahnavard - Wife who urges protesters on
By: Esther Addley, The Guardian, June 15, 2009
A diminutive 64-year-old grandmother dressed top to toe in a modest black chador, Zahra Rahnavard is an unlikely icon, but the wife of the presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi emerged as the star of Iran's presidential campaign, and the secret weapon in what may yet prove to have been his electoral success. Rahnavard appeared at a protest at Tehran University today to urge students to continue their resistance and climb on to their rooftops to shout: "God is great!"
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US 'deeply troubled' by Iran violence
By: AFP, June 15, 2009
The United States said Monday it was "deeply troubled" by the escalating violence in Iran which has flared since the disputed election victory of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The State Department and the White House both expressed concern about claims of irregularities, but stopped short of branding the elections as fraudulent, although they did call for the rights of free expression to be respected.
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Iran puts curbs on media after disputed election
By: Boston Herald, June 15, 2009
Iranian authorities criticized international media reports and took steps to control the flow of information from independent news sources as anti-government protests raged in the country for a second day Sunday. The British Broadcasting Co. said that electronic jamming of its news report, which it said began on election day Friday, had worsened by Sunday, causing service disruptions for BBC viewers and listeners in Iran, the Middle East and Europe. It said it had traced the jamming of the satellite signal broadcasting its Farsi-language service to a spot inside Iran.
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Bypassing Iran's firewalls
By: BBC News, June 15, 2009
Despite widespread blocks on mobile phones, internet sites and satellite TV stations, people in Iran have managed to tell the BBC's Persian and English interactive services what is happening in their country in their own words and pictures. Several Iranians spoke to BBC Persian TV's live interactive programme "Your Turn" on Monday, before the channel became blocked to viewers in London. The programme's producers say they repeatedly invited supporters of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to get in touch, but none has contacted them so far.
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Iran: Tehran rising
By: The Economist, June 15, 2009
At least one protester was reported to be dead, and many others injured, after shots were fired, apparently by security forces, into a huge crowd of demonstrators in Tehran on Monday June 15th. Three days since officials announced the result of a presidential election in which the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was handed an implausible landslide victory, furious residents took to the streets and the rooftops of the capital city. Protesters shouted that the election result was fraudulent.
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Iran protests: They came to demand justice - but then the shots rang out
By: Saeed Kamali Dehghan and Ian Black, The Guardian, June 15, 2009
The march to Azadi (Freedom) Square set out under the hot early afternoon sun from the main gate of Tehran University. They came from across the city: students and office workers, the young and the old. By 4pm the crowd had swelled to ¬hundreds of thousands - some said as many as 1.5 million - and they stretched five miles down the capital's main roads. "Mousavi, take back our votes," the marchers chanted as they moved down Azadi Street.
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Top Ayatollah calls for investigation of Iran's election
By: Ian Black and Matthew Weaver, Truthout, June 15, 2009
The turmoil following Iran's disputed presidential election intensified today, after the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ordered an investigation into claims of vote rigging and an opposition protest rally was cancelled amid fears protestors would be fired upon. The government declared on Friday that the incumbent president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had won in a landslide victory, a claim disputed by his rivals headed by the moderate Mir Hossein Mousavi, whose supporters took to the streets and clashed with police.
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Iran: Rafsanjani - Shark or kingmaker?
By: Simon Tisdall, The Guardian, June 15, 2009
The man accused by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of masterminding the opposition campaign to oust him from the presidency has dropped out of view since election day. But Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani remains a formidable figure in Iranian politics with a network of well-placed allies straddling the reformist and moderate conservative camps. If any one leader is able to force a re-run of last Friday's disputed poll, it may be the two-term former president nicknamed the "shark".
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Culture war erupts in Iran
By: Patrick Martin, Truthout, June 15, 2009
Iran's presidential election may be over, the protesters subdued, but the cause that brought so many Iranians to the ballot boxes and into the streets endures. "This was much bigger than just one man against another," says Iranian Saeed Rahnema, a professor of political science at York University in Toronto. "It was a movement - several civil society groups - that decided to make [challenger Mir-Hossein] Mousavi their candidate. They existed before his campaign. They made him a contender, and they won't go away."
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Activists launch hack attacks on Tehran regime
By: Noah Shachtman, Wired, June 15, 2009
While demonstrators gather in the streets to contest Iran's rigged election, online backers of the so-called "Green Revolution" are looking to strike back at the Tehran regime - by attacking the government's websites. Pro-democracy activists on the web are asking supporters to use relatively simple hacking tools to flood the regime's propaganda sites with junk traffic. In both Iran and abroad, the cyberstrikes are being praised as a way to hit back against a regime that so blatantly engaged in voter fraud.
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Iranian media crackdown prompts tweets and blogs
By: Arthur Bright, CS Monitor, June 15, 2009
As protests against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's declared electoral victory continue in cities across Iran and the Iranian government cracks down on media coverage, Iranians are using Twitter and blogs to spread information about events on the gorund there. Over the weekend, following the Iranian government's announcement of Mr. Ahmadinejad's proclaimed landslide victory over challenger Mir Hussein Mousavi, protesters flooded the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities.
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Iran: The Twitter revolution
By: Kevin Drum, Mother Jones, June 15, 2009
Ahmadinejad's and Khamenei's websites were taken down yesterday - I saw the latter go down within a couple of minutes because of a DDOS attack organised via Twitter. @StopAhmadi is a good source for tweets on this. The other important use of Twitter has been distribution of proxy addresses via Twitter. This would be how most video and pictures of today's rally have gotten out. Andrew comments: "I have to say my skepticism about this new medium has now disappeared. Without it, one wonders if all this could have happened."
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48 hours later: A tipping point in Iranian resistance
By: Sam Sedaei, Huffington Post, June 15, 2009
Ever since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared himself the winner of the election by a wide margin, various groups have had different reactions. On one side are Ahmadinejad supporters who have been expressing themselves in the form of showing up at a victory rally on Sunday and beating up and even killing members of the opposition. On the other side are the much more numerous supporters of the reformist candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, who have understandably been outraged about the regime's set-up election and are protesting by the millions.
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Iran: Confiscated election, FIDH and LDDHI fear a bloody repression
By: International Federation for Human Rights, June 15, 2009
The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the Iranian League for the defense of Human Rights in Iran (LDDHI) express their deepest concern regarding the repression under way in Iran: several foreign journalists were forced to leave the country, spontaneous protests to denounce the official result of the election are being violently repressed, several hundreds people have been arrested, including reformers, students and human rights defenders... «The scene is set up for a bloody repression behind closed doors », concluded Karim Lahidji, President of FIDH.
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Musavi calls for Iran election result to be canceled, as protests continue
By: Golnaz Esfandiari, RFE/RL, June 15, 2009
Reformist presidential candidate Mir Hossein Musavi has formally appealed against Iran's election result to the powerful legislative body the Guardians Council, as protests against the disputed vote continued on Tehran's streets for a second day. "Today, I have submitted my official formal request to the council to cancel the election result," Musavi said in the statement. "I urge you, Iranian nation, to continue your nationwide protests in a peaceful and legal way."
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Iran does have some fishy numbers
By: Renard Sexton, FiveThirtyEight, June 15, 2009
A most strange storyline has emerged with regard to the provincial vote totals for the Iranian election. Around 1600 GMT Sunday, the ministry of Interior released the official vote totals by province. As others have mentioned, by law candidates have three days following voting to contest the result, before the final totals are approved by the Supreme Leader. As such, it is notable that both the aggregate totals and provincial totals were certified, approved and released before the three day deadline.
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Iran protest photos key to Twitter coverage
By: Daryl Lang, Editor and Publisher, June 15, 2009
There are two uprisings right now related to Iran. The most important one is visible in the massive street demonstrations, in Iran and worldwide, by people dissatisfied with the contested reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. A lesser, but still important, uprising concerns dissatisfaction with news coverage. You'll notice this crystallizing right now among Internet users -- especially on Twitter. (If you haven't done so yet, search Twitter for the hashtag #iranelection.)
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How to follow the events in Iran
By: BBC News, June 15, 2009
All over the world people are monitoring unfolding events in Iran via the internet, where an apparently decisive election victory by the incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is being challenged on the streets. Although there are signs the Iranian government is trying to cut some communications with the outside world, citizen journalism appears to be thriving on the web. Here is a selection of popular links, that when taken together provide a wide range of perspectives.
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The Iranian vote: Citizen journalism round-up
By: Jessica Reed, The Guardian, June 15, 2009
As Iranian commenters claim that "traditional media have completely failed" them following the outcome of Friday's vote, many turned citizen journalists overnight - using collaborative platforms to publish their pictures and live accounts of what has been happening on the ground as efficiently as possible. Here's a selection of links to some interesting pages in English.
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Iran: A face in the crowd, a cry from the heart
By: The Independent, June 15, 2009
I cannot put my feeling into words. I can only express my sorrow for my country. The result is unbelievable. It is a blatant lie. And now we have this kid, this stupid child who claims that his re-election is a victory of the people. How can we withstand this man ruling us for four more years?
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Iran elections: What's next for U.S. policy?
By: Peter Kiernan, World Politics Review, June 15, 2009
The circumstances surrounding Iran's presidential election, and in particular the declaration of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the winner despite opposition accusations of vote rigging, will present difficulties for any attempt by the Obama administration to diplomatically engage the Islamic Republic of Iran. The administration had been circumspect during Iran's election campaign, but clearly it was hoping for a reformist victory by either Mir Hossein Moussavi or Mehdi Karrubi.
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Growing up in Iran and watching the election from the U.S.
By: Sara Dehghan, Huffington Post, June 15, 2009
As an Iranian-American journalist, I think foreign media is being a little naive in covering the election's aftermath. First of all, we have to acknowledge that neither Mr. Mousavi nor Mr. Karoubi (the other reformist candidate) were elected by people of Iran. Unlike the United States' electoral system in which voters in each state choose among slates of electors pledged to one candidate or another, in Iran candidates have to be vetted by the Guardian Council, which is selected by the Supreme leader.
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Malaysia police fire tear gas on Iran election protest
By: Bangkok Post, June 15, 2009
Malaysian police on Monday fired several rounds of tear gas to break up a noisy protest held by Iranians residing here against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's controversial election victory. Earlier more than 200 people gathered at the city's United Nations building to hand over a protest note demanding the world body nullify elections the Iranian opposition allege was rigged. "We want all the countries in the world not to recognise Ahmadinejad as Iranian president. The election was fraud. The actual winner is (Mir Hossein) Mousavi," Ali Bozrgmer, a 28-year-old student told AFP.
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Iran: Globe freelancer detained, beaten
By: George McLeod, The Globe and Mail, June 14, 2009
Riot police had driven off anti-government demonstrators and the sting of tear gas in the air was fading Sunday when the heavy-set man in a camouflage uniform grabbed me, shouting in Farsi, and pushed me into a throng of riot police. They shouted while I waved my hand and said "Canadian" to no effect. Before I knew what was happening, I was whisked away on a motorcycle to the Interior Ministry headquarters, and taken to a large basement room.
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Photo gallery: Iran - "Where is my vote?"
By: CNN, June 14, 2009
The landslide defeat of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's leading opponent, Mir Hossein Moussavi, who some analysts predicted would win the election, triggered protests around the world. Many Iranians overseas sent in absentee ballots, and the overwhelming sentiment among the demonstrators was their votes had not been counted.
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Iranian people turn digital smugglers in battle for information
By: Haroon Siddique, The Guardian, June 14, 2009
In days gone by, crushing a revolution was a lot easier. There were no mobile phones to co-ordinate street action or relay what was happening to the outside world. Even more importantly, there wasn't an internet. Now it is common to hear of "internet" or even "twitter revolutions" - as Andrew Sullivan on the Atlantic has already described the current protests in Iran.
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Photos: Protests in Iran after 'rigged' elections
By: Iran Focus, June 14, 2009
Iranians took to the streets on Saturday in the largest anti-government protest since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Massive demonstrations erupted in Tehran and other major cities and turned into hit-an-run clashes with State Security Forces throughout the day following the announcement that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won re-election. The demonstrators believe the elections were rigged.
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Foreign media say Iran blocking coverage of protests
By: AFP, June 14, 2009
Several foreign news organisations complained Sunday that Iranian authorities were blocking their reporters from covering protests against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election. German public television channels ZDF and ARD said their reporters were not allowed to broadcast their reports, while the BBC said the signals of its Persian services were being jammed from Iran.
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BBC says election broadcasts disrupted from Iran
By: AFP, June 14, 2009
The BBC said Sunday that the satellites it uses to broadcast in Persian were being jammed from Iran, disrupting its reports on the hotly-disputed presidential election. The corporation said television and radio services had been affected from 1245 GMT Friday onwards by "heavy electronic jamming" which had become "progressively worse". Satellite technicians had traced the interference to Iran, it said.
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Iran: High-definition democracy
By: Daily Kos, June 14, 2009
The voting is over in Iran, but the protests have just begun as thousands take to the streets to contest the re-election of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The concept of citizen-selected leadership itself is ancient, but we are witnessing today the latest chapter in how technology is strengthening that democracy, one byte at a time.
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Iran: Genie of democracy won't go back in the jar
By: Peter Beaumont, The Guardian, June 14, 2009
There is an Iranian expression which became pregnant with meaning during the lead-up to the country's most vivid and exciting post-revolution election: mardum salari. It means "rule of the people." Whatever happened this weekend, the reformists' ideas have had enough traction to see Iran's politics gradually transformed. Even conservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been forced to present himself in the terms of mardum salari.
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Has the election been stolen in Iran?
By: Stephen Zunes, AlterNet, June 13, 2009
It is certainly not unprecedented for Western observers to miscalculate the outcome of an election in a country where pre-election polls are not as rigorous as Western countries. At the same time, the predictions of knowledgeable Iranian observers from various countries and from across the political spectrum were nearly unanimous in the belief that the leading challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi would defeat incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad decisively in yesterday's presidential election.
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Massive censorship accompanies Ahmadinejad "victory"
By: Reporters Without Borders, June 13, 2009
Reporters Without Borders condemns the measures taken by the Iranian authorities to prevent the media, especially websites, from covering the apparently widespread fraud that marred the first round of the presidential election yesterday. Opposition candidates Mirhossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi have appealed to their supporters not to accept the "rigged results."
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Iran: Storm of protest after election
By: Hamid Tehrani, Global Voices, June 13, 2009
Thousands of people demonstrated in Tehran, Mashhad and several other major cities in Iran to protest against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's proclaimed victory in the Iranian presidential election on Friday. Two different reformist rivals and their supporters insist there was election fraud at play.
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Iran: The election that changed a nation
By: Mardo Soghom, RFE/RL, June 12, 2009
Iran will never return to where it was two months prior to this presidential election. The campaign took unexpected twists and turns and created strong popular interest. It galvanized hundreds of thousands of mainly young people to take part in political rallies and even engage in street brawls for or against incumbent President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.
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Mapping Iran's blogosphere on election eve
By: Hamid Tehrani, Global Voices, June 11, 2009
Based on our monitoring of the Iranian blogosphere on election eve, it looks like Mousavi has broader support in the online blog community than Ahmadinejad. This online interest doesn't necessarily translate to the offline world, but it may indicate a broader level of excitement about Mousavi in the electorate, particularly among those outside his expected base of supporters, which could ultimately lead to higher voter turn out for Mousavi.
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AFRICA
Facebook Swahili launched
By: BBC News, June 15, 2009
The social-networking website Facebook has launched in Swahili, targeting more than 110m speakers of the language. A group of Swahili scholars launched the new version with the permission of the California-based internet firm. Facebook use has spread over the past five years in East and Central Africa, where most Swahili-speakers live.
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Independent radio station for Eritreans begins broadcasting from Paris
By: Reporters Without Borders, June 15, 2009
Radio Erena ("Our Eritrea"), a Tigrinya-language station broadcasting by satellite to Eritrea, began operating today in Paris, five days ahead of World Refugee Day. The result of an initiative by Eritrean journalists based abroad and supported by Reporters Without Borders, the station is offering freely-reported, independent news and information to Eritreans in Eritrea.
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AMERICAS
US: Unions and migrant workers coalesce from coast to coast
By: Peter Costantini, Human Rights Tribune, June 15, 2009
Up the Pacific Coast from California to Washington, through the heartland in Texas and Illinois, and over to the Atlantic Seaboard in New Jersey and New York, local trade unions and mainly immigrant workers centres are experimenting with new modes of cooperation. In some places the form has been an organisational alliance through the local labour council. In others, they are joining forces on ad hoc projects that give both groups traction on common goals.
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Washington Post editorial on Tsvangirai's US visit
By: ZimOnline, June 15, 2009
As Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai presses on with his tour of key Western capitals to try to raise crucial aid for Zimbabwe, many in the West - including US President Barack Obama who Tsvangirai met last Friday - insist the power-sharing government of Tsvangirai and President Robert Mugabe must do more before the world's rich nations can give financial support. An editorial we reproduce says until Mugabe yields power, nothing should be done that would serve to prop up the Harare administration.
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Venezuela: Government may shutter critical TV channel
By: Christopher Toothaker, Miami Herald, June 12, 2009
President Hugo Chavez threatened to close down an opposition-sided news network, saying the defiant Globovision channel's days on the airwaves will be numbered if its directors don't stand down. Chavez on Thursday urged executives at Globovision "to reflect" upon the TV channel's tough anti-government stance - or else the station "won't be on the airwaves much longer."
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Peru: Worldwide protests in support of Amazon Indians
By: Survival International, June 12, 2009
Thousands of protesters marched in towns and cities around the world yesterday in support of Peru's Amazonian Indians. Demonstration and vigils were held outside Peruvian embassies and consulates in Bonn, Milan, Madrid, Barcelona, Rome, Paris, Washington DC, Brussels, Quito and many other cities. There were also demonstrations across Peru, from Iquitos in the Amazon to the capital Lima.
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Police fire tear gas in Peru protests
By: Carla Salazar, Miami Herald, June 11, 2009
Riot police used tear gas to turn student protesters away from Peru's Congress on Thursday as thousands marched to back Amazon Indians resisting oil and natural gas exploration on their land. At least 20,000 students, labor union members and indigenous Peruvians from the country's Andean highlands to its jungle lowlands joined the mostly peaceful nationwide protests.
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US: Immigrant rights activists ask transit system to stop raids
By: 10News, June 11, 2009
Immigrant rights activists want to make sure no one else is detained at San Diego trolley stations, 10News reported. Local activists said they want the transit system to stop the raids that occur on public transportation. In May, authorities conducted a sweep of public transportation and at a trolley stop in Old Town as part of Operation Viper.
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ASIA/SOUTH ASIA
New tax plan sparks China protest
By: BBC News, June 15, 2009
Protesters in the south-eastern Chinese city of Nankang have overturned police cars and blocked roads over plans to more strictly enforce payment of taxes. Officials in Nankang said several hundred protesters blocked a major road while others delivered a petition to a local government office. Nankang officials blamed the protest on a misunderstanding over the tax plan.
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Vietnam: Call for release of lawyer who defended bloggers and free expression activists
By: Reporters Without Borders, June 15, 2009
Reporters Without Borders today called on Vietnam to immediately release the lawyer Le Cong Dinh, author of many pro-democracy articles and a known human rights activist, who was arrested two days ago. The 41-year-old lawyer, who has defended several bloggers and free expression activists, is facing a long prison sentence for his articles and commentaries in the Vietnamese press and online.
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Burma: Suu Kyi trial postponed
By: United Nations Development Programme, June 15, 2009
The trial of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been adjourned until June 26. The court ordered the two-week postponement during a brief hearing Friday [12 June 2009] at the notorious Insein prison near the main city of Rangoon. Aung San Suu Kyi is on trial for violating the terms of her house arrest after allowing an American man to stay at her lakeside Rangoon house after he swam there uninvited last month. She faces five years in prison if convicted.
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World campaign in support of Burmese dissident
By: CeskeNoviny, June 14, 2009
Former Czech president Vaclav Havel is among the celebrities, political prisoners and other activists who have joined the world campaign for the release of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on the occasion of her 64th birthday, AP reported today. She is to spend her 64th birthday in detention ordered by the Burmese junta. "Ms Aung San Suu Kyi is a world-known person, she is a Nobel Prize winner, and naturally every voice in her support can make her personal situation easier, but above all it can contribute to a change of the situation in Burma," Havel told reporters today.
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Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng missing for over 120 days
By: Hao Xianghua, VOA News, June 14, 2009
Chinese attorney Gao Zhisheng mysteriously disappeared in February and hasn't been seen for more than 120 days. Chinese ambassador to the United States Zhou Wenzhong issued a letter to U.S. Senators denying that Chinese public security had anything to do with his recent disappearance. However, some overseas organizations believe Chinese authorities have kidnapped the famous human rights defender.
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Northwest China cab drivers stage sit-in amid license dispute
By: Xinhua News Agency, June 14, 2009
Hundreds of cab drivers in northwest China's Xining City staged a sit-in in front of the municipal government headquarters on Sunday to demand assurances that they will be able to renew their business licenses. The drivers were angered after a newspaper reported that the Qinghai Provincial Government would cut their license periods from 12 years to eight, prompting a government official to accuse them of "misunderstanding" the regulations. More than 5,000 drivers began a one-day strike on Saturday night and hundreds of them convened the sit-in at around 10 a.m. Sunday, causing a brief traffic jam in the downtown area.
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Gay festival in China pushes official boundaries
By: Andrew Jacobs, NY Times, June 14, 2009
It was shortly after the "hot body" contest and just before a painted procession of Chinese opera singers took the stage that the police threatened to shut down China's first gay pride festival. The authorities had already forced the cancellation of a play, a film screening and a social mixer, so when an irritated plainclothes officer arrived at the Saturday afternoon gala and flashed his badge, organizers feared the worst.
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Philippine military grabs upper hand in Mindanao
By: Luke Hunt, World Politics Review, June 12, 2009
The Philippine military has gained the upper hand over militants fighting for an independent Islamic homeland in the country's south, after a series of deadly raids resulted in the destruction of rebel bases and pushed the conflict deeper into countryside. Given the geography and the thousands of islands that surround Mindanao, no one expects the Philippine military to achieve a definitive victory over the insurgents and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
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Chinese slam 'compulsory' filters
By: Radio Free Asia, June 11, 2009
Chinese computer users and commentators have lashed out publicly at a Web filtering program that the government has ordered installed on all new personal computers in China, saying it wants to protect young people online. The "Green Dam Youth Escort" is a Windows executable file, which claims to be able to prevent young people from gaining access to undesirable content such as pornography, as well as providing monitoring reports to supervisors about users' activities online.
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China: A leaking dam?
By: Oiwan Lam, Global Voices, June 10, 2009
Chinese information activists have been testing and collecting information about the government sponsored filter software, "Green Dam Youth Escort" via blog posts, twitter (search #greendam) and collaborative platforms since the WSJ's news about Beijing government required PC makers to install filter software for all the PCs shipped to China from July 1 2009 onward popped up. Some of them collectively put together a technical analysis of the software at google document and the result shows that the filter is full of flaws.
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Prospects for political change in China
By: Bernard Gwertzman, Council on Foreign Relations, June 2, 2009
New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof, along with his wife Sheryl WuDunn, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1990 for their coverage of the events in 1989 in Tiananmen Square where the Chinese government brutally cracked down on pro-reform protestors, killing hundreds. Reflecting on the events twenty years later, Kristof says that Chinese leaders have shown themselves to be exceptional economic managers.
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Afghanistan: Video - Rights of women
By: America Abroad Media, June 2009
Eight years after the fall of the Taliban, Afghan women are still fighting for justice and independence. Host Mariam Nawabi sits down with prominent women's advocates and a member of the Muslim clergy to discuss the legal and religious rights of women in Afghanistan and who they can turn to for help if they are facing abuse. Mariam also speaks with Rebecca Grossman, co-founder of the Grossman Burn Foundation in Kabul, to examine the tragic effects of hopelessness and isolation on one young Afghan girl.
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CENTRAL ASIA
Azerbaijan: Dynamic blogosphere
By: Onnik Krikorian, Global Voices, June 15, 2009
In what is fast becoming the most dynamic blogosphere in the South Caucasus, and especially in English, Azeri bloggers continue to write poignant entries. Following the April 30 massacre of students at the Azerbaijani Oil Academy and the later detention of dozens of youth activists and bloggers, Flying Carpets and Broken Pipelines updates its readers on the aftermath of the tragedy.
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Tajikistan: New anti-corruption boss pledges to clean up agency first
By: EurasiaNet, June 12, 2009
Tajikistan's newly appointed anti-corruption chief, Fattoh Saidov, says he will begin work with a sweep of the agency tasked with the fight against financial crime. Saidov was appointed head of the State Financial Control Agency on June 4 after Sherhon Salimzoda was moved to the president's office as a political advisor. "The first issue that I intend to devote special attention to is [the agency's] cadre. The main anti-corruption department should set an example," Saidov said in an interview with the Asia Plus news agency.
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Kyrgyzstan: Harassment of journalists mounts in run-up to next month's presidential election
By: Reporters Without Borders, June 8, 2009
Reporters Without Borders condemns the severe beating that Abduvakhab Moniev, the deputy editor of the Kyrgyz-language weekly Achyg Sayasat (Open Politics), received from an unidentified individual on 5 June in Bishkek. The newspaper has often been the target of harassment by the authorities. "The increase in harassment of the media in the run-up to the 23 July presidential election is worrying," Reporters Without Borders said.
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EUROPE
Georgian police beat opposition activists, arrest dozens
By: LA Times, June 15, 2009
Georgian police clashed with opposition activists in the capital Monday, arresting dozens and beating demonstrators, along with several journalists. The clash was the latest violence to hit Georgia, as the opposition presses its more than 2-month-old campaign to force President Mikhail Saakashvili from office.
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Iryna Krasouskaya: "In Belarus people were murdered for their political stand"
By: Charter '97, June 12, 2009
"Over the period of 10 years many times we heard different versions of disappearances of oppositionists in Belarus, and the most monstrous of them were originated by Lukashenka," stated the widow of the abducted businessman and public leader Anatol Krasouski. This is how Iryna Krasouskaya responded to the reacted statement of Alyaksandr Lukashenka about the disappeared oppositionists.
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Russian ambassador: "I wish there were more freedom of speech both in Russia and in Belarus"
By: Charter '97, June 11, 2009
For the first time in 11 years, journalists of the Charter'97 press center have been invited to a press conference given by the Russia's ambassador in Minsk. Though a formal reason for the today's press conference was Day of Russia, celebrated in the neighbouring countries on June 11, Aleksandr Surikov answered topical questions about Belarusian-Russian relations.
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MIDDLE EAST/NORTH AFRICA
Western Sahara: Treading a mined path to freedom
By: Mohamed Brahim, Western Sahara Echo, June 14, 2009
Hot with anger and clutching a stone, Brahim Labid abandoned caution and charged straight into a minefield towards the defences of the Moroccan army. The accident happened in April, when Mr Labid, a refugee from Western Sahara, joined a protest march beneath a security barrier that seals most of the desert territory annexed by neighbouring Morocco in 1975 as Spanish colonisers departed following the death of the dictator Francisco Franco.
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Acquitted Egyptian dissident accepts White House congratulations
By: Rachelle Kliger, The Media Line, June 14, 2009
The most internationally recognized critic of the Egyptian regime may have turned 70 recently, but he has no intention of surrendering in his quest to promote democracy and freedom in Egypt. Sa'ad A-Din Ibrahim, a resolute supporter of a democratic electoral system and set terms for presidential office, celebrated triumph on May 25 after an Egyptian court overturned a 2008 verdict sentencing him to two years in prison for tarnishing Egypt's reputation. An Egyptian judge acquitted him after many months of failed appeals.
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Saudi Arabia commits to women's rights
By: Human Rights Tribune, June 13, 2009
Saudi Arabia made important commitments on women's rights, on ending the juvenile death penalty and on other human rights issues during its review by the UN Human Rights Council on June 10, 2009 and should now work to carry out these reforms rapidly, Human Rights Watch said today. Saudi Arabia accepted a recommendation put forward by UN member states in February to take steps to end the system of male guardianship over women, to give full legal identity to Saudi women, and prohibit gender discrimination.
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Lebanon's elections: Reading the signs
By: Hazem Saghieh, openDemocracy, June 12, 2009
A national election is usually an occasion for reviewing the performance of a governing party, endorsing it for another term or (in the event of a change) announcing an emergent movement endorsed by popular legitimacy. Such a turning-point is at once a judgment of past policies, an affirmation of the future, and a dissolver of myths. At its democratic best there is a sense of completion about the whole process.
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Iran: 1,022 cases of press rights violations during Ahmadinejad's government
By: Iran Human Rights Voice, June 11, 2009
The Freedom of Press Defense Society called the number of restrictions against the press in Iran during the last four years a record. The Society issued a statement in which they noted the banning and revoking of print licenses for more than 450 publications and the summoning or detention of hundreds of Iranian journalists and weblog publishers.
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ARTICLES OF INTEREST
ProtectionLine: New Protection Manual for Human Rights Defenders
By: Enrique Eguren, Marie Caraj, ProtectionLine, June 16, 2009
The purpose of this new manual is to provide human rights defenders with additional knowledge and some tools that may be useful for improving their understanding of security and protection. It is hoped that the manual will support training on security and protection and will help defenders to undertake their own risk assessments and define security rules and procedures which suit their particular situation.
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Guide to training programs in conflict resolution and related fields
By: Craig Zelizer, Peace and Collaborative Development Network, June 15, 2009
One avenue to develop additional skills related to peace and conflict resolution is through various training programs. Pursuing academic studies is one great method to developing expertise and for more information about programs see the Academic Guide. In this section, I provide some general suggestions for key questions to ask in researching opportunities.
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Campaign: DreamActivist making "dream" reality
By: DigiActive, June 14, 2009
What happens when an immigrant child who comes to the United States as a minor without documents graduates high school, but doesn't have the papers to go to college or get a job? These students, many of whom graduate at the top of their class or as star athletes with promising futures as teachers, lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs, and public servants, end up living in the shadows for no fault of their own.
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UNDP: Citizens must engage and respond to new global crises
By: United Nations Development Programme, June 9, 2009
Climate change and the current global economic crisis bring an unprecedented opportunity to transform global governance, which must start giving priority to human development and citizen engagement. This was one of the main conclusions of a two-day consultation between the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and 25 representatives of civil society organizations and foundations in New York on June 5 and 6.
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Awesome Words
“I used to think I was poor. Then they told me I wasn't poor, I was needy. They told me it was self-defeating to think of myself as needy. I was deprived. Then they told me underprivilege was over-used. I was disadvantaged. I still don't have a dime. But I have a great vocabulary. ” Jules Feiffer
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