Tag Archive for 'Human Rights Watch'

No rights = No Olympics

Published
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asianwindow
on April 11, 2008
in Sport
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In an open letter, Human Rights Watch has asked world leaders to stay away from the Olympic Games, unless China agrees to make key human rights improvements

World leaders should defer accepting invitations to the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing until the Chinese government makes key human rights improvements, Human Rights Watch said in an open letter today. In order to secure leaders’ participation, the Chinese government should allow an independent international investigation into events in Tibetan areas since March 10, lift restrictions on the press nationwide, stop jailing dissidents, and increase pressure on Sudan.

To win its bid to host the 2008 Games, which open on August 8, the Chinese government made both broad commitments to improving its human rights record, and specific pledges to improve media access in advance of the Games. The participation by heads of state and government at the opening or closing ceremonies, which is crucially important to the Chinese government, remains a key point of leverage to press for positive changes in the coming months.
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[Pic: Tibet activists hang up banners on the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco. K White, Reuters]

Putting faces on 5 victims of Tibetan riots

Published
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asianwindow
on March 27, 2008
in Tibet
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From The New York Times:

Shanghai: In life, the five young women who burned to death in a Chinese clothing store during rioting in Tibet on March 14 were not the types who would make headlines.

One received permission from her family to follow her fiancé to Lhasa; another sent home most of her wages to support 13 relatives; several sent text messages in the minutes before they died warning loved ones to stay indoors as violence erupted.

In death, though, the women are being treated as martyrs. The Chinese government has been using their deaths to support its version of what happened on “3/14,” when Tibet saw its worst day of violence in 20 years. In that version, broadcast by state-controlled media, ethnic Tibetans took to Lhasa’s streets, unprovoked, burning and looting shops that were owned by Han Chinese.

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Human Rights Watch speaks up for Tibet

Human Rights Watch has asked the government of Nepal to stop its arbitrary detention and ‘intimidation tactics’ against peaceful Tibetan protestors, including threats to deport them to China. Read that report here.

Meanwhile, a note circulated by ’some Chinese intellectuals’, including dissidents and writers, has called for an independent United Nations investigation into Tibet. The note supports the Dalai Lama’s appeal for peace and includes 11 other suggestions for solving the Tibet situation.

Finally, HRW has called upon China to investigate its crackdown before the Olympic torch passes through Tibet. It has asked the government to account for those dead or missing and it wants Lhasa to be reopened to media and to monitors.

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The Olympic torch, which was lit today in Olympia, Greece, should not go through Tibet unless the Chinese government agrees to an independent investigation into the recent unrest in Tibetan areas, Human Rights Watch said today.

The Olympic torch is set to pass through the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, on June 20-21. Chinese government officials have confirmed their plans to continue despite the ongoing protests and crackdown across ethnic Tibetan areas.

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For a backgrounder and a complete HRW list of Tibet reports, go here.

[PIC: Monks and protestors rally on a street in Labrang, Gansu province, March 14. Reuters]

Human Rights Watch: Sri Lanka ‘disappearances’ are a national crisis

Published
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asianwindow
on March 11, 2008
in Sri Lanka
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Mahinda Rajapaksa gets his knuckles rapped by Human Rights Watch. A new report indicts his government for wide-spread abuse.

The Sri Lankan government is responsible for widespread abductions and “disappearances” that are a national crisis, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. Human Rights Watch urged the government to reveal the whereabouts of the “disappeared,” immediately end the practice, and hold the perpetrators accountable.

Since major fighting between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) resumed in 2006, Sri Lankan security forces and pro-government armed groups have “disappeared” or abducted hundreds of individuals, many of whom are feared dead.

The 241-page report, “Recurring Nightmare: State Responsibility for ‘Disappearances’ and Abductions in Sri Lanka,” documents 99 of the several hundred cases reported, and examines the Sri Lankan government’s response, which to date has been grossly inadequate. In 2006 and 2007, the United Nations Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances recorded more new “disappearance” cases from Sri Lanka than from any other country in the world.

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