WIN SOME, LOSE SOME — Almost the same day that foreign ambassadors in Washington received invitations to attend Wednesday’s presentation of the Congressional Gold Medal to the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan ruler, they got letters from the Chinese ambassador urging them to boycott the ceremony. Predictably, the decision to honor the Dalai Lama has drawn strong protests from the Chinese government, which controls his mountainous country. The presentation was initiated by the U.S. Congress, and is supported by the Bush administration. But Congress also has plans to declare the death of up to 1.5 million Armenians in Turkey in [...]
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. EGYPTIAN BACKLASH AGAINST CRACKDOWN — Egyptian authorities found themselves contending with an avalanche of public anger Sunday over widespread allegations of police brutality and an ongoing crackdown against the media, political opponents and labor rights activists. Private newspapers across the country staged a blackout day, withholding their products from store shelves in protest over the September convictions of seven prominent journalists and an ongoing government assault on press freedom. Local clashes between Bedouin tribes in [...]
The crisis in Myanmar has bedeviled the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) at a time when its members had hoped to focus on celebrating the organization’s 40th anniversary. Although most other ASEAN governments oppose the military government’s repression of Myanmar’s peaceful opposition, they have proven unable to break fully with their traditional policy of non-interference in member governments’ internal affairs. The decision to invite Myanmar into ASEAN in March 1997 resulted from a fleeting consensus among members that granting Myanmar membership was preferable to its continued exclusion. Even those ASEAN states most censorious of the Myanmar government, led since [...]
