Visit with Senator Boxer's Staffer

On October 15 four of us from AI Group 22 met with Mr. Corey Jackson from Senator Boxer's Los Angeles office. We discussed our group's work on Eritrea prisoners of conscience, the AI special focus case of Shi Tao, and the Darfur crisis. Corey told us that input from constituents would be very helpful, so we're asking all you California folks to go to Senator Boxer's official web site and let her know that you're concerned about one or more of the three topics. For information on Eritrea POCs, see our sample letter to Boxer or visit the AIUSA Eritrea page or learn about imprisoned Eritrean journalists. Here's AIUSA info about Shi Tao, and here's the country page for Sudan/Darfur. We hope to report next month on what progress we've made toward obtaining Senator Boxer's help in these issues.

The Olympics Come to Pasadena

Update: The Pasadena Weekly covers the Council presentation (‘We need to speak out on that’) including Council reaction in this week's issue.

We are a little late in pointing out the Pasadena Weekly's article (No cause for celebration) on local Falun Gong members disappointment in the Tournament of Roses decision to highlight a float celebrating the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Our own Wen Chen was prominently featured,

“If we want to invite the Chinese government to have a float in Pasadena, we should raise the issue of a family member of a [former] Pasadena resident in a labor camp because of the Olympics,” said Wen Chen, an employee of Caltech and member of its Falun Gong Club.

On Monday night (June 25) Wen and some of her friends took their moving stories of persecution and imprisonment to the Pasadena City Council. You can visit the City of Pasadena - City Council Streaming Video page to hear the presentation (second agenda item - you can try to use the "jump to" feature to get there a little faster).

Pasadenans! We suggest further educating your council members by sharing with them key points from Amnesty's recent report China: The Olympics countdown. The report highlights the case of Bu Dongwei, the husband of one of Wen's colleagues,

Case update - Bu Dongwei: Falun Gong practitioner Bu Dongwei is now known to be held at Tuanhe RTL facility in Beijing, where he is reportedly forced to do packing work. His family only received official confirmation of his whereabouts at the end of August 2006, three months after he was first detained. The authorities have reportedly claimed that he decided not to appeal against his two-and-a-half year term, but his family dispute this. Officials from Tuanhe RTL facility have reportedly asked Bu Dongwei’s family to contribute money towards his living expenses – around 400 Yuan per month (approx. US$52).

Bu Dongwei (also known as David Bu) was assigned to two-and-a-half years’ RTL on 19 June 2006 in Beijing for "resisting the implementation of national law and disturbing social order" after police discovered Falun Gong literature at his home. The authorities initially refused to disclose his place of detention to his family. Bu Dongwei had been working in Beijing for the U.S. aid organization, the Asia Foundation, before he was taken away by police from his home in Haidian district on 19 May 2006. Amnesty International considers Bu Dongwei to be a prisoner of conscience, detained in violation of his fundamental human rights to freedom of expression, association and religion, and continues to call for his immediate and unconditional release

City officials should bear in mind in their dealings with Chinese officials-- for example in activities that support Pasadena's sister city relationship with Xicheng-- that there are Pasadena residents directly affected by China's disregard for the rule of law and the principles of democracy. In the Weekly, Alan Lamson, chair of the China Subcommittee of the Pasadena Sister Cities Committee is quoted,

“Our position is that it's much better to get to know someone, even if you disagree with them... to hear their point of view and to get them to see your point of view. That's been more beneficial than to say, ‘Sorry, we don't want to have a relationship with you.'”

Yes! Relationships are good! We are just afraid that 'our point of view' in these transactions seldom includes expressing concern over cases like Bu Dongwei's or Shi Tao's. City officials and civic representatives such as Mr. Lamson need to become educated about human rights and make that a part of our relationship. Be an educator! City council contacts can be found here. Sister City Committee contact info here.

Final Note: Of course, the treatment of prisoners of conscience is not the only reason for our representatives to be cautious about celebrating China's Olympic spirit. There is also the matter of China's involvement in Darfur, Sudan and the ongoing campaign to get China to use its influence on the Sudanese government to end atrocities in that region. There's a whole project devoted to drawing attention to this concern (including alternative torch relay) via the interest in the 2008 games: Olympic Dream for Darfur. Other resources to use in your project to educate your councilperson about the Olympics and human rights include Human Rights in China's Incorporating Responsibility: 2008 and Human Rights Watch's Beijing Olympics 2008.

Internet Freedom of Expression Webcast

More fuel for my iPod. Yesterday Amnesty-UK sponsored a webcast of a conference on the Irrepressible.info campaign on internet censorship and one can now view the archived version online. Interviews relating to the campaign can also be subscribed to as podcasts via iTunes (and perhaps the webcast will show up there soon as well). Here's a written account of the conference. Of special note as regards our ongoing concern for journalist and Amnesty prisoner of conscience Shi Tao, attorneys representing Shi Tao's wife discuss her lawsuit against Yahoo! for disclosing her husband's identity, leading to a ten year prison sentence. On a related note, check out these maps of internet filtering from the Open Net Initiative.

Our Visit with Congressman Schiff

Yesterday, several members of our Amnesty chapter made a visit to Congressman Adam Schiff's district office here in Pasadena. While we will be waiting to see what actions Rep. Schiff takes as a result of our discussion, we all felt it was a very productive visit.

We spoke first about our concern for human rights in Eritrea, and urged him to contact Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice (as several other Congresspersons have already done) to ask her to inquire into the status and treatment of Eritrean prisoners of conscience, including imprisoned opposition figures, journalists and religious leaders. Rep. Schiff appeared very receptive to this request. We were happy to have informed him of our on-going interest in the human rights crisis in Eritrea as we know it is easy to overlook among the more headline-grabbing international conflict zones.

We had noted Congressman Schiff's interest in press freedom from his website. You can read a recent floor speech he gave on World Press Freedom Day here and it appears that he intends to be a leader on this issue. This is good news for our work on behalf of Eritrean journalists, as well as Russian journalists such as the late Anna Politkovskaya (Rights Readers selection Putin's Russia). But we also thought this was a great opportunity to ask the Congressman's support for the Global Online Freedom Act (H.R. 275) which would help ensure that the Internet remains an open forum for free expression in every part of the world, and help American companies resist pressure from authoritarian governments to compromise their principles. The act may help to prevent cases such as Chinese Journalist and Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience Shi Tao whose identity was revealed to Chinese authorities by Yahoo! and who subsequently received a ten year sentence for exercising his right to free speech. You can help urge the Congressman to support this legislation by taking action here.

Finally, we got ahead of Amnesty's effort to turn activists out to lobby for fair judicial proceedings for Guantanamo detainees in conjunction with the annual International Day for Survivors of Torture in late June and asked for Rep. Schiff's support for H.R. 1416 The Habeas Restoration Act. The right to challenge one’s detention in front of an independent court is one of the most fundamental protections against arbitrary detention and other human rights violations. We're all proud of our judicial tradition and these are the principles we want to export not hide from! Rep. Schiff emphasized that he opposed the revocation of habeas and was very receptive to supporting this bill, commenting that he might look into a broader approach. (Broader is good! How about we close Guantanamo?!) In any case we suggest that you urge Rep. Schiff to become a co-sponsor of the bill here.

You can also take action on H.R. 275 and H.R. 1416 at Congressman Schiff's website.

We'll keep you up to date on these actions when we get more information.

Prisoner of Conscience Shi Tao

Amnesty International USA's Western Region has recently adopted Chinese prisoner of conscience Shi Tao as its "Special Focus" case, so its a good time to review with a few links. AI provides an online action and additional background on the writer's ten year sentence for "illegally providing state secrets to foreign entities" when he emailed a US-based website, sharing the details of an internal government directive barring media reports that could fuel unrest during the 15th anniversary of Tiananmen. Yahoo! provided information to the government for his prosecution. Human Rights in China, the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Guardian also have profiles of Shi Tao that include links to the poet and journalist's writings. More on Amnesty's campaign against internet censorhip in China here.

Tags: censorship, Shi Tao, China

Banned Books Week

For Rights Readers, Banned Books Week has a little twist-- its more like Banned Writers Week. Please check here for profiles and downloadable actions to take on behalf of jailed journalists, bloggers, poets, editors and publishers. As a bonus, the action for Shi Tao (a case we've touched on before) can also be done electronically. For inspiration, read (or watch on video) journalist and former prisoner of conscience Akbar Ganji's discussion of censorship in Iran.

Tags: banned books, censorship,

Happy New Year!

Happy Lunar New Year!

This post is partly an excuse to add a little color to the site (decoration courtesy of my local nail salon), but also a reminder that as we do an annual card action for prisoners for the December holidays, its good to think about those who can't celebrate. With all the buzz about Google's capitulation to Chinese censors, here's an update to Amnesty's continued monitoring of this issue and a plea to take action on behalf of journalist, poet an d prisoner of conscience, Shi Tao (Guardian profile), who is serving a ten year sentence, no thanks to Yahoo.

Closer to home I was interested in the Los Angeles Times coverage of the difficulties of Falun Gong groups (some friends of ours included) who want to participate in Chinese New Year parades here in the San Gabriel Valley and in San Francisco, as well as quite pleased at their subsequent editorial criticizing parade organizers. What the world needs is more parades where freedom of expression is celebrated. (Wait a minute! That sounds familiar!)