DENPASAR Indonesia — The long overdue reform of the murky Indonesian intelligence service, Badan Intelijen Negara (BIN), could be spurred by revelations emerging in the trial of the alleged killer of the country’s top human right activist. Munir Said Thalib, known simply as Munir, died from arsenic poisoning while on a flight on Garuda, Indonesia’s national airline, from Jakarta to Amsterdam via Singapore on Sept. 7, 2004. Pollycarpus Budi Priyanto, an off-duty pilot who travelled on the same flight to Singapore, was first jailed for the murder, but then acquitted in October 2006 by the Supreme Court due to lack […]

Editor’s Note: Rights & Wrongs is a weekly column covering the world’s major human rights-related happenings. It is written by regular WPR contributor Juliette Terzieff. SCHOLAR FREED ON BAIL; FUTURE UNCERTAIN — Iranian authorities released Iranian-American scholar Haleh Esfandiari Aug. 21 after securing more than $300,000 in bail, ending her 100 days in solitary confinement. Esfandiari, who is one of four dual citizens currently facing legal difficulties in Iran, will face legal proceedings at some point based on authorities’ charge that she endangered Iran’s national security by encouraging a “velvet revolution” to topple the current government, though Iranian authorities have […]

Editor’s Note: Rights & Wrongs is a weekly column covering the world’s major human rights-related happenings. It is written by regular WPR contributor Juliette Terzieff. CHINA’S ID PLAN — Beginning this month, the more than 12 million residents of the Chinese city Shenzen will be required to carry identity cards fitted with powerful computer chips including not only their names and address, as with previous identity cards, but also data on their work history, education, religion, ethnicity, police record and even personal reproductive medical history. Chinese authorities have ordered all large Chinese cities to phase in similar high-tech residency card […]

SHYMKENT, Kazakhstan — While seven political parties are campaigning to win seats in Kazakhstan’s lower house of parliament, common Kazakhs remain largely indifferent to the election, believing the results aren’t likely to bring change from a government whose commitment to democracy is lately in doubt. Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev dissolved the parliament’s lower house, the Mazhilis, June 20 and called for new elections. Ninety-eight deputies of the Mazhilis will be elected Aug. 18 in accordance with a system of party-list proportional representation that allocates seats among parties winning at least 7 percent of the vote. (The remaining nine seats of […]

Editor’s Note: Rights & Wrongs is a weekly column covering the world’s major human rights-related happenings. It is written by regular WPR contributor Juliette Terzieff. OLYMPIC COUNTDOWN BRINGS CHINA CRITICISM — Condemnation of China’s human rights record rained down from all sides this week as Chinese authorities marked the one year countdown to the beginning of the 2008 Beijing Games with a lavish celebration. Amnesty International released a scathing report on the status of human rights in China Aug. 7, charging China has broken promises it made when bidding to host the games by increasing abuse and surveillance of political […]

LONDON — Alighting from his vintage Rolls Royce limousine with a cursory nod to the mounted ceremonial guard that escorted him to the steps of Zimbabwe’s parliament July 26, Robert Mugabe was every inch the defiant and bombastic African leader, telling the West to “go hang” after imposing another round of travel restrictions and sanctions on his penurious country. Bearing with him a sheaf of economic bills to support the latest price-stabilization scheme for a country bare of virtually every necessity for daily life — from food to fuel to foreign exchange — the 83-year-old president railed against “Western detractors […]

Rights & Wrongs: Congo, Iran, Cambodia, and More

Editor’s Note: Rights & Wrongs is a new weekly column covering the world’s major human rights-related happenings. It is written by regular WPR contributor Juliette Terzieff. BARBARIC VIOLENCE AGAINST CONGO WOMEN — A United Nations expert on violence against women reported July 27 that violence against women in the Democratic Republic of Congo is widespread and brutal to the point of incomprehension. Yakin Erturk said her investigations revealed massive incidents of torture, gang rape, sexual slavery, forced incestuous rape and women being forced to eat human excrement and flesh. Violence against women, Erturk said, is committed by armed groups, civilians, […]

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — When the Cuban government in 2005 selected Andres to treat the sick in Venezuela’s barrios, the chance to help poor Venezuelans was less important for the Cuban doctor than the opportunity to escape his communist homeland. “I didn’t arrive in Venezuela to work, I arrived and deserted right away,” he recalled in a recent interview in Bogotá while awaiting a hoped-for United States visa. Like other Cuban defectors, Andres asked that his full name not be used in order to prevent possible retaliation against relatives in Cuba. Cuba, whose socialized medical system is admired by many, has […]