The IOC's Parallel Universe

As the Spanish say goes, the worst blind person is the one who refuses to see.

In an outrageously self-serving report about the Beijing Olympics, the International Olympic Committee  shows no shame in a futile attempt to rewrite history. Here is a morsel of this whitewash presented last week during a meeting in London, as reported by The New York Times:

“The Games expanded and strengthened the Olympic movement by advancing the universality of sport,” the three-page fact sheet said. “They also brought many tangible and intangible benefits to China, especially in terms of public infrastructure improvements. While some of the positive benefits were immediately apparent, others will emerge with time.”

The document praised the Beijing organizers’ nearly flawless execution of the Games, detailing the successful coordination of a half-million volunteers and the maintenance of a complex transportation and security system. It noted that facilities for the news media were “widely praised as the best ever,” and that the Chinese government had indefinitely reduced restrictions on foreign journalists reporting in the country.

Pro-Tibet protest in front of the IOC's headquarters
last August in Lausanne, Switzerland. (EPA photo)

Obviously, the IOC is talking about an Olympic Games that took place in some parallel universe, because it makes no mention of the Internet restrictions at "the best ever" media facilities or the harassment on foreign journalists or of so many press freedom violations during those two weeks in August.

The Times reminds the IOC bosses about a few other crucial details left out in the report:

Thousands of people were evicted from their homes to make way for construction of Olympic venues, and some activists were detained before the Games. Authorities set up protest zones during the Olympics, but no demonstrations took place. Several people who applied for protest permits were detained, including two elderly women who were sentenced to up to a year of “re-education through labor.” The sentences were later rescinded.

Despite promises by the Chinese that foreign journalists would have unfettered access to the Internet, authorities initially blocked access to several Web sites at the main press center. Although some of the restrictions were loosened, the I.O.C. member overseeing press operations, Kevan Gosper, accused the Olympic committee of betrayal. In addition, the Foreign Correspondents Club of China logged more than 60 incidents of reporting interference during the Olympics, including several cases in which foreign journalists were physically harassed.

This blog features many entries denouncing the Chinese Organizing Committee's endless broken promises it made in exchange for hosting the Games and how the Chinese bosses cynically used both the IOC and the Games to booster its image at home and abroad. Just type "Chinese Olympics" in the search window on top of this page.

The Times gives us a few other reminders indicative of the callowness of the IOC report:

The I.O.C. report praised the Games for improving public health in China, saying that authorities “took new steps to improve food and water safety.” It quoted a World Health Organization official, Hans Troedsson, as saying the public-health legacy of the Games was a “long-term gift to China.”

There was no mention of the tainted-milk scandal that broke just after the end of the Games and led to the death of four infants and sickened more than 50,000. [Media Director of Human rights Watch Minky] Worden pointed to reports that a Chinese journalist’s blog post about the contaminated milk was removed from a Web site just as the Games were beginning.

The damage is done as far as the Chinese Olympics and human decency are concerned. What the international human rights community feared was that the IOC would learn nothing from this fiasco and repeat the same mistakes in the future. Those fears now are nothing but reinforced by the IOC’s actions.

Many activists are already focusing on the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, which they say may raise many of the same issues as Beijing.

Human Rights Watch has called on the I.O.C. to set up an internal mechanism that would audit a host city’s human rights record before the Games. Human Rights Watch has lobbied several national Olympic committees to endorse the idea — including the United States Olympic Committee; so far only the German committee has formally expressed interest.

Meantime, President Jacques Rogge and the rest of the IOC insist on turning a blind eye on the deeds of a dictatorial regime that so handsomely profited from the Games and brandishes the same old, tired PR excuse, that "the Games should serve as a refuge from international conflicts and politics."

The truth is the Games have become an irresistible opportunity for autocratic regimes the world over to show what we could accurately describe as "dictatorship with a human face."

And China has showed them how.

Voodoo Gets Its Day in Court and Wins

The French prime minister better not be superstitious. Or else, he is going to have his hopes for economic recovery pinned down in an instant. And the French courts are not helping one bit.

(EPA photo)

Nicolas Sarkozy twice asked the French courts to ban the sales of a voodoo figurine (above) made of his image, and twice his efforts backfired, turning the dolls into a national sales phenomenon.

An appeals court not only declared the dolls rightful objects of free expression but also "the judges ordered that it be sold with a bright-red banner on the packaging entitled 'Judicial Injunction' and a warning that sticking needles into the doll affronts Sarkozy's dignity," the International Herald Tribune reports.

The doll's light-blue body, which comes with a set of 12 needles and a manual explaining how to put a curse on the president, also features some of Sarkozy's best-known quotes and gaffes: "Work more to earn more" reads one quote, a slogan from Sarkozy's presidential campaign. "Get lost, you poor jerk," reads another, a swipe Sarkozy took at a bystander at a farm fair who refused to shake his hand.

In keeping with the often meticulous nature of French officialdom, the ruling Friday was very specific. The distributor of the dolls, K&B Editions, was ordered to write the notice that will be distributed with the doll in black block-lettering and it must say exactly this: "It was ruled that the encouragement of the reader to poke the doll that comes with the needles in the kit, an activity whose subtext is physical harm, even if it is symbolic, constitutes an attack on the dignity of the person of Mr. Sarkozy."

The court also awarded the president a symbolic euro in damages and ordered K&B Editions to pay the equivalent of about $2,000 in legal costs.

But the court also stuck to the initial ruling by a lower court last month: "The demanded ban is disproportionate," the judges ruled, "in that it is a measure that would compromise freedom of expression." The earlier ruling had already argued that the case fell under what it dubbed "the right to humor."

And humor can be a very profitable enterprise. According to the doll manufacturer, K&B Editions, "The Sarkozy figurine went on sale on Oct. 9 and sold out by Oct. 28. Another 20,000 will be delivered to newsagents from mid-December, this time with the court-ordered label."

You may very well call it "voodoo economics."

Tunisian President Called to Testify in Torture Case

 

(EPA photo)

Tunisia's perennial President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali (above) has been subpoenaed to testify in a case of torture by a Strasbourg, France, court, Lebanon's Daily Star reports.

Khaled Ben Said, Tunisia's former Strasbourg vice consul, will go on trial on December 15 on charges of committing torture and barbarity in Tunisia. He is accused of torturing a woman for almost 24 hours about her husband's alleged anti-government activities in 1996 when he was a police commissioner in Tunisia.

According to [victim's lawyer Eric] Plouvier, it is the first time a French court will try a foreign diplomat for acts of torture committed abroad.

Zoulaikha Gharbi, who lived in France with her family for many years, filed the complaint against Ben Said when he held the Strasbourg vice-consul post in 2001. On Tuesday Tunisia's government denied the charges against Ben Said as "totally unfounded and aiming to mislead public opinion."

A spokesperson from the Tunisian government called the charges "completely made up" and questioned the French court's jurisdiction to call Ben Ali to testify.

But Plouvier said a number of factors point to the former vice consul's involvement. "Ben Said has never replied to any police or judicial summons," she said. "The Tunisian authorities have never deigned to respond to the international investigation commission launched by a Strasburg judge to help his inquiry."

She added that as Zoulaikha Gharbi's husband received political asylum in 1993 "he is considered a victim of persecution and torture in Tunisia for his political opinions" because of the treatment inflicted on his wife.

Human rights groups say torture and other forms of repression have been common under Ben Ali's authoritarian regime.

The Tunisian Regime Continues Roughing up the Media

It takes a lot of courage to be a journalist in Tunisia. One risks being the punching bag of a repressive police force or worse.

Take Faten Hamdi, a reporter of Kalima Radio, one of the few independent media outlets braving the official harassment left in that country. She was covering student protests at a local school when she "was savagely assaulted by a group of policemen," reports Observatoire OLPEC's Secretary General Sihem Ben Sedrine.

She was then arrested and violently dragged to a police station. More from Ben Sedrine:

Hamdi was taken to an isolated room inside the police station where officers continued to beat and insult her. They seized her tape recorder and destroyed it. They also searched her purse and tore up her ID card. The officers then tried get to Hamdi to collaborate, offering her money or a military posting if she agreed to leave Kalima Radio.

The reporter was finally released at 8:00 p.m., after four hours in detention. The other detained students were released at the same time.

Given the seriousness of this incident, which constitutes a flagrant attack on press freedom and the rights of journalists, OLPEC:

- condemns the violent and barbaric actions of the security agencies, in particular the El Gorjani police, which violate the law as well as the physical integrity of a journalist;

- believes this incident to be reflective of a systematic practice by Tunisian authorities against journalists and human rights advocates;

- calls on Tunisian authorities to cease the harassment and attacks on journalists and respect freedom of the press and the media as the world celebrates 60 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

We have recently reported on other cases of official harassment of the Tunisian media here and here.

WPFC Protests Prison Sentence of Colombian Editor-In-Chief

The World Press Freedom Committee sent the following letter of protest to the Constitutional Court in Bogota, Colombia:

Honorable Magistrates
Manuel José Cepeda Espinosa
Humberto Sierra Porto
Sala de Selección de Tutelas
Honorable Corte Constitucional
Calle 12 No.7-65
Bogota
Colombia
 
Your Honors:
 
The World Press Freedom Committee (www.wpfc.org) —an organization representing 45 press freedom groups from throughout the world—expresses its profound rejection of the decision by a Bogota court that ordered the arrest of the Editor-in-Chief of  Semana magazine, Alejandro Santos, for not exactly following the court’s instructions in the publication of a correction.
 
Magistrate Amanda Vargas de Norato, of Bogotá’s Criminal Circuit Court, ordered the arrest of Mr. Santos because he allegedly failed to follow the Court’s instructions in the publication of a correction ordered during a criminal defamation suit filed by José Alfredo Escobar, a former top official at the Supreme Council of the Judiciary. The alleged failure to comply, considered as a case of contempt of court, carries a penalty of three days in prison and the payment of a fine of 2.7 million pesos (US$1,200). This sentence must be delayed until it is revised by your Constitutional Court.
 
The original sentence stems from a Semana article published on April 28 about the alleged close relationship between Mr. Escobar and a person linked to drug trafficking. Mr. Escobar filed a criminal defamation suit claiming his honor, good name and privacy were blemished.
 
We consider this decision and the continuous judicial harassment on Mr. Santos and therefore his entire editorial team as an attack on press freedom and on the human rights of Mr. Santos, and more importantly, of his readers. These rights are consecrated in the Colombian Constitution. Also, Colombia is bound by two major international documents:  Section 13 of the American Convention on Human Rights, as applied by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and also in the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, whose biding power Colombia acknowledges, and by Article 19 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This criminal procedure clearly constitutes a violation of these and other principles of free expression.
 
Both the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court and the recommendations of the UN Commission on Human Rights support the concept that public officials should expect more, and not less, scrutiny and criticism from the rest of society. This acceptance of being a willing target of the media’s slings and arrows also implies public officials should restrain themselves from using these laws in order to silence criticism directed at them.
 
Both institutions also state that criminal defamation and insult laws, in the hands of public officials, can become a potent censorship tool to shield themselves from the scrutiny of the press and the rest of society. This legal feature, of great toxic power, is typical of autocratic regimes and not of democratic nations such as Colombia.
 
As a matter of fact, international human rights jurisprudence recommends that all laws that allow criminal penalties for defamation, particularly those that are applied against journalists and media outlets, ought to be decriminalized in all the countries where they exist, including Colombia. Likewise, they maintain that any fines that were to result from civil proceedings ought to be applied in a sensible way so they do not become intimidation weapons that impede the necessary flow of information in a democratic society.
 
Therefore, your Honors, I urge you to put an end to this judicial harassment on Mr. Santos and his Semana magazine by declaring the case null and void.
 
Respectfully,
E. Markham Bench,
Executive Director
World Press Freedom Committee
 
CC: To the members of the Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations:
Committee to Protect Journalists

Commonwealth Press Union

Inter American Press Association

International Association of Broadcasting

International Federation of the Periodical Press

International Press Institute

North American Broadcasters Association

World Association of Newspapers

World Press Freedom Committee
 
To members of the Colombian press.

It's Hazardous to Your Health Being a Journalist in Somalia

The National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) issued two alerts about the kidnapping or arrest of three reporters.

British reporter Colin Freeman and Spanish photographer José Cendón were kidnapped in the commercial city of Bossasso, in the Puntland province, northeastern Somalia.

Both were gathering news for the Daily Telegraph of London about the recent cases of pirate attacks off the Somali coast when they were kidnapped as they were leaving their hotel.

"This business of kidnapping journalists for any reason is unacceptable. Puntland authorities must immediately secure the liberty of these journalists while cooperating with intellectuals and clan elders in order not to put in danger their safety” said Omar Faruk Osman, NUSOJ Secretary General.

NUSOJ also reports that police arrested Hilal Sheik Shuayb, director of independent Warsa Radio in Baidoa, southwestern Somalia, after airing live the ruling of a judge who sentenced a soldier to death. The soldier had allegedly killed a police officer.

“Transitional Government and its regional administration in Baidoa are working to paralyze journalists’ independence and professionalism by forbidding them to report current issues, including important issues like this court case” said Osman. “Hilal Sheik did not cross his professional line of duty and he must gain his freedom immediately”.

The arrest apparently was ordered by local Governor Abdifatah Mohamed Ibrahim, who also happens to be a former owner of Warsa Radio.

The Cruel Suffering of the Zimbabwean People

Interesting Times has been closely monitoring the plight of the people of Zimbabwe, the victims of an unreasonable dictatorship that has turned a formerly prosperous country into a valley of tears.

We have reported on the formerly bread basket of southern Africa becoming a country on the brink of widespread famine, a former democracy collapsing under the extreme burden of corruption and malfeasant, a free press environment giving way to an asphyxiating censoring regime that will prosecute anyone deviating from the official version of events.

The situation in Zimbabwe has become so desperate, a mission of some of the world's most prestigious peacemakers finally decided to travel to the country to help the victims of the humanitarian catastrophe triggered by Robert Mugabe's rejection of democratic elections and stubborn stance on relinquishing power.

The peace mission, however, was a terrible failure. The Mugabe regime denied entry in the country to the ambassadors of peace, (above from left to right) Former UN General Secretary Kofi Anan, Former US President Jimmy Carter and Nelson Mandela's wife, Graca Machel.

From the Washington Post:

Annan said no official reason had been given for the refusal, but Zimbabwe's state-run Herald newspaper reported that the group had been asked to "come at a later date" to accommodate the crop-planting season. It quoted an unnamed source as saying they were seen as antagonistic toward Zimbabwe's government.

Zimbabweans are suffering from disease and hunger while political crisis over a power-sharing government occupies its politicians. A current cholera outbreak has killed nearly 300 people in Zimbabwe, the United Nations said.

It takes a special kind of cruelty to keep your country suffering as Zimbabweans are in the face of international efforts to alleviate their pain. But then again, Mugabe has proven to be an unassailable bunker totally oblivious to his people's tears.

Thanks to the cooperation of our friends at South West Radio Africa, we can offer you a photo gallery that depicts this suffering in excruciating detail. Warning: these pictures are very graphic.

China Gets Spanked Because of Its Torture Record

This is yet another example of "you can run all you want but you cannot hide."

China's shameful record as a torturing regime is well documented, especially when it comes to extracting information from suspects that can be used against other suspects. You know, old dictatorship ways die hard, in more ways than one.

So we welcome with open arms the UN Committee against Torture's study, concluding that it "remains deeply concerned about the continued allegations, corroborated by numerous Chinese legal sources, of routine and widespread use of torture and ill-treatment of suspects in police custody, especially to extract confessions or information to be used in criminal proceedings."

We hear a lot of noise coming from Beijing about how committed the regime is to improving its dismal human rights record. And we all are used to being disappointed in how little progress those promises ever achieve.

But this time around, the UN commission gives a detailed recipe for the Chinese bosses to follow if they are actually willing to mend their ways.

Here is from Human Rights in China (HRIC):

The report describes a criminal justice system that allows "prolonged police detention without charge," uses "black jails" - secret detention facilities - to hold suspects, routinely deprives detainees of the right to counsel, and in which justice is severely hampered by conflicting laws and laws providing inadequate safeguards against police abuses.

The Committee recommended: "As a matter of urgency, [China] should take immediate steps to prevent acts of torture and ill-treatment throughout the country."

"The Committee against Torture's findings are a critical and much-needed reminder of the pervasive and ongoing human rights abuses in China," said Sharon Hom, executive director of Human Rights in China (HRIC). "These abuses, which were overshadowed by the spectacle of the Beijing Olympics, victimize millions in China and need urgent remedy."

For a while we thought China would abide by its human rights commitments as stated by the regime when it was bestowed the organizing of the Games. And we all know how that went. But now China is again given specific steps as to how to move forward in this very sad situation.

Again, HRIC:

In particular, the Committee identified "three over-arching problems": the 1988 State Secrets Law, which "severely undermines the availability of information about torture"; the reported harassment of lawyers and human rights defenders; and the physical violence against rights defenders carried out by unaccountable "thugs" who enjoy de facto immunity. The Committee highlighted the cases of many rights defenders, including Teng Biao, Gao Zhisheng, Chen Guangcheng, Hu Jia, and Li Heping. It also expressed grave concern about "the allegations of targeted torture, ill-treatment, and disappearances directed against national, ethnic, religious minorities and other vulnerable groups in China, among them Tibetans, Uighurs, and Falun Gong practitioners."

There is more here.

Chinese Bullies Beware, the Internet Is Watching

They call them the "human flesh search engine."

A Beijing Internet cafe, part of the so-called
'human flesh search engine.' (photo EPA)

They are a large part of the world's largest Internet community and China's private vigilante network. And a recent example reported by the Los Angeles Times perfectly illustrates how powerful Chinese common citizens have become in the face of an unforgiving regime.

Take an unsuspecting family at a restaurant being bullied by a Communist official, who felt empowered by his position to grab an 11-year-old girl and try to force her into a bathroom. The bully then tried to intimidate her father into submission by pulling his rank.

Chinese people are all too used to being pushed around by powerful party members. But then, in this case, the bully was caught on camera and the outrageous scene spread throughout the Internet like wildfire.

The video enraged Internet users, setting into motion the human flesh search engine. These investigations -- some would say witch hunts -- include the use of databases, photo analysis, search engines, social networking sites and hacking into online accounts. This is complemented and often trumped by kibitzing on a massive scale in a culture where personal connections are key to getting things done.

"With that kind of speed and manpower, sooner or later someone gets lucky," said Liang Shuxin, 33, a blogger and deputy editor of the popular online Tianya forum, who has participated in human flesh searches.

In short order, the white-shirted, pot-bellied official on the video was identified as Lin Jiaxiang, 58, party secretary of the Shenzhen Maritime Administration.

Lin was subsequently fired, his reputation left in tatters.

"This case is a perfect storm," said Xiao Qiang, director of the China Internet Project at UC Berkeley. "You have a scandal, conflict, sex and power, plus video footage. And it also says a lot about the system."

In particular, some said, it underscores the huge power imbalance between citizens and Communist Party officials who have few checks on their behavior.

"Mr. Lin was not bluffing," blogger "Luo Ben" said on the website 163.com. "He told the brutal truth: Ordinary people are nothing in their eyes, they can abuse ordinary people any way they want to."

Yes, but only for so long. A country pretending to come out of the dark ages must depend on an educated work force. And the better educated they are, the harder they become to be controlled.

China, 'A Threat to Democracy'

A threat because the Chinese regime is doing its darnest best to convince the world that one can get rich without an indispensable ingredient: democracy.

Former Hong Kong Governor Chris Patten, in an interview with the BBC, says the Chinese threat has nothing to do with cheap exports but with the "dooming of democracy."

Ex-Hong Kong Governor Chris Patten during
a visit to the former British colony. (EPA photo)

Conventional wisdom will tell you the "Chinese giant" and its staggering economic growth will gobble up international markets, not only economically but also politically by giving autocratic regimes around the world an "alternative" to democratic institutions.

But Lord Patten, an outspoken critic in world affairs, insists China has taken advantage of an international economic system "that was largely created under American leadership, of freer markets, freer trade, leading to freer politics as well."

And even though some other autocracies, such as Burma or Zimbabwe, have welcomed the Chinese model of bold capitalism within a frame of tight central control, its model is doomed to fail.

Patten told the BBC he "did not think the Chinese model of 'authoritarian, illiberal, proto-capitalism' would win out, because it did not have the 'safety valves' provided by democracies when times were tough."

We agree with Lord Patten that the indispensable ingredient for social development is democracy. And we add that social development, without which economic development makes no sense, involves an unconditional commitment to transparency and accountability.

China can huff and puff all it wishes about the unprecedented magnitude of its economic expansion. But hard as it may try, a people, especially one that comprises 1.3 billion members, can be lulled by economic carrots for only so long.

And the current economic downturn, accompanied by strong popular disillusionment, is one piece of evidence of this contention.