Engnews February 2009

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RFA News: Lawyer for Guantanamo Bay Uyghurs Vows To Fight

by Sarah Jackson-Han

Lawyer for Guantanamo Bay Uyghurs Vows To Fight Also on www.rfa.org <http://www.rfa.org> Defiant Vietnamese Cyber-Dissident Freed www.rfa.org/english/news/vietnam/release-02182009154739.html Khmer Rouge Trial Lawyers Clash www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/hearing-02192009121437.html WASHINGTON-The lead lawyer for 17 ethnic Uyghurs held for years at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba is vowing to fight a new legal order keeping the men in U.S. military custody and is calling on U.S. President Barack Obama to free them quickly, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reports. "We are bloodied but unbowed. We will fight this," Sabin Willet, who represents the 17 Uyghurs-Muslims from China's northwestern Xinjiang region-said in a telephone interview on his way back from visiting the men at Guantanamo Bay. "Precisely what our next legal filing will be we have not decided, but the courts have not heard the last from us," said Willet, who spent all day Thursday with the detainees and translator Rushan Abbas at Guantanamo. "There is a mechanism for seeking further review in the Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court is a second option." On Wednesday, a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals reversed an earlier ruling that the Uyghurs-who have been cleared of the terrorism charges on which they were initially detained-must be released in the United States. The panel said a federal judge who ordered the men released into the United States in October 2008 lacks the authority to make such a ruling, and that only the executive branch can make such a determination. The Uyghurs have remained at Guantanamo because the United States has been unable to find a country willing to take them and won't return them to China because they would face persecution there. Albania, which took in five other Uyghurs in 2006 after they were released from Guantanamo, has balked at welcoming the others-apparently fearing reprisals from Beijing. The 17 detainees "are deeply disappointed and frustrated," Willet said. "They were a few hours from freedom on Oct. 9... This is a long time to be in a military prison. There is deep disappointment and frustration among these men." "At the same time we mean to remind President Obama every day that this is his problem. The court concluded that the courts can't solve this problem, and that's wrong, but that's what they concluded," Willet said. Obama "can solve this problem, and he should do it, and he should do it tomorrow morning," he said. Willet said his clients were being held in better conditions recently, with military officials "working hard in the last two weeks to arrange calls" between the detainees and their families. The Uyghur detainees resettled in Albania have tried to send letters to the Uyghurs still held at Guantanamo, he said, although whether they reached Guantanamo was unclear. He also said his request for a phone call to his clients from the Uyghurs in Albania hasn't been met. Previous order The Obama administration has vowed to close Guantanamo within a year but hasn't decided what to do with the 245 detainees still held in custody there. U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina ruled in October that there was no evidence the detainees were "enemy combatants" or a security risk and ordered them freed to live with Uyghur families in the United States. The Chinese government says the men are members of the outlawed East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which Beijing and Washington regard as a terrorist organization. Beijing blames ETIM for a series of violent attacks inside China in recent years. Uyghurs twice enjoyed short-lived independence after declaring the state of East Turkestan during the 1930s and 40s, and many oppose Beijing's rule in the region. Chinese officials have said Uyghur extremists plotted terrorist strikes during the Beijing Olympics. Original reporting by Sarah Jackson-Han in Washington. Radio Free Asia is a private, nonprofit corporation broadcasting and publishing online news, information, and commentary in nine East Asian languages to listeners who do not have access to full and free news media. RFA's broadcasts seek to promote the rights of freedom of opinion and expression, including the freedom to "seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." RFA is funded by an annual grant from the Broadcasting Board of Governors. If you no longer wish to receive RFA news releases, send an e-mail to engnews-leave(a)rfanews.org. To add your name to our mailing list, send an e-mail to engnews-join(a)rfanews.org #####

15 years, 6 months

RFA News: Burmese Prisoners Killed After Cyclone

by Joshua Lipes

Burmese Prisoners Killed After Cyclone Burmese guards beat prisoners and deprived them of food after a riot following last year's cyclone. A group of survivors was sentenced on Jan. 11 to additional terms of 2-12 years. Also on www.rfa.org <http://www.rfa.org> Asian Women in their own words www.rfa.org/english/news/women <http://www.rfa.org/english/news/women> BANGKOK-Guards at Burma's Insein Prison beat scores of inmates following a disturbance nine months ago, according to sources who asked not to be named. Nine of the prisoners later died from their injuries, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reports. The beatings occurred during questioning aimed at identifying prisoners who rioted after the prison was damaged by Cyclone Nargis. After being beaten, the men were denied water for four days and food for 11 days. "They told us they would give us food if we confessed," a prisoner said. "But even after some confessed, we didn't get any food. Then, 11 days later, we began to receive a spoonful of rice puree twice a day." Rioting at Insein Prison broke out after the prison was pummeled by Cyclone Nargis beginning around midnight on May 2. The storm tore zinc roofs off some of the prison's colonial-era buildings and left prisoners exposed for several hours to heavy rains and wind, according to RFA's Burmese service. Frustrated at the long delay in being moved, prisoners in storm-damaged Halls No. 3 and 4 threatened to break out of their cells. Then, as prisoners in the damaged buildings were being relocated, the assistant warden and more than 20 armed guards began to argue with the prisoners and fired gunshots into the air. "One of the bullets hit an iron bar, ricocheted off the wall, and hit a prisoner named Thein San in the chest," a prisoner said. "The rest of the prisoners tried to hide, and some of the younger prisoners in Hall No. 8 started a fire." Suspects questioned, beaten Authorities then moved prisoners suspected of taking part in the disturbance to a central part of the prison, where they were questioned and beaten on their heads and backs, sources said. Prisoners who were beaten included Wai Moe, Khin Kyaw, Soe Kyaw Kyaw, Tun Lin Aung, and Aye Min Oo, according to friends of the men's families.Interrogations continued for several weeks and ended with 103 prisoners identified as rioters, with 41 identified as key leaders. On Jan. 11, a special court inside Insein handed down sentences of two years each to 28 participants in the riot. Wai Moe and six others were given 12 years each for arson, damaging public property, and leading the riot, according to sources close to the trial and the prisoners. But Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma) spokesman Bo Kyi said that it is the prison authorities themselves who should have been charged with crimes. "Under international conventions, beatings and other forms of torture should not be used as punishments in prison procedure," he said. "The perpetrators of such beatings should be convicted for their actions. If they are not, we must assume that torturing prisoners is state policy." Original reporting in Burmese by Kyaw Min Htun. Burmese service director: Nancy Shwe. Executive producer: Susan Lavery. Written for the Web in English by Richard Finney. Radio Free Asia is a private, nonprofit corporation broadcasting and publishing online news, information, and commentary in nine East Asian languages to listeners who do not have access to full and free news media. RFA's broadcasts seek to promote the rights of freedom of opinion and expression, including the freedom to "seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." RFA is funded by an annual grant from the Broadcasting Board of Governors. If you no longer wish to receive RFA news releases, send an e-mail to engnews-leave(a)rfanews.org. To add your name to our mailing list, send an e-mail to engnews-join(a)rfanews.org ##### Joshua Lipes Online Copy Editor Radio Free Asia 2025 M Street, NW Washington DC, 20036 (202) 266-4094 CONFIDENTIAL COMMUNICATION This e-mail message is intended only for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is privileged and confidential. Any unauthorized dissemination, distribution, or copying is strictly prohibited. If you receive this transmission in error, please contact network(a)rfa.org <mailto:network@rfa.org> . Visit us at www.rfa.org <http://www.rfa.org> P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail.

15 years, 6 months

Asia Society/Radio Free Asia: Reception with Author Yiyun Li on Feb. 18, Washington DC

by Sarah Jackson-Han

Radio Free Asia & the Asia Society present award-winning author Yiyun Li, who will discuss her new novel The Vagrants. Date: February 18th Time: 6:40 - 8:15 pm Location: Radio Free Asia, 2025 M Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036. Ground-floor conference center. Cost: Asia Society members and RFA staff $5, nonmembers $10. Please RSVP at https://secure.acceptiva.com/?cst=375965 RSVP deadline: noon, Tuesday, February 17th. Set in China in the late 1970s and inspired by author Yiyun Li's own experiences, The Vagrants is a deeply imaginative, beautifully realized story of life in the provincial city of Muddy River. "Magnificent. . . . Li records these events dispassionately and with such a magisterial sense of direction that the reader can't help being drawn into the novel, like a sleeper trapped in an anxiety dream." - Publishers Weekly (Starred review) A young woman from Muddy River, Gu Shan, always a bold spirit and a former follower of the late Chairman Mao, has renounced her faith in communism. A political prisoner, she is to be executed for her dissention. Her distraught mother, determined to follow the superstitious custom of burning her only child's clothing for the journey to the next world, is about to make another bold decision. Her father, who has already buried his rebellious daughter in his mind and heart, begins to retreat into memories of the past. Neither can imagine that their daughter's execution will have profound and far-reaching effects on other people, in their town, and in Beijing beyond. Yiyun Li is a winner of the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, and the Guardian First Book Award. She grew up in Beijing and attended Peking University. She came to the United States in 1996 to study medicine and started writing two years later. After receiving a master's degree in immunology from the University of Iowa, she attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she received an MFA. The author of A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, Li was selected for a Whiting Award and named by Granta as one of best young American novelists. Yiyun Li teaches at the University of California, Davis and lives in Oakland, California. Sarah Jackson-Han, Media Relations Director at Radio Free Asia and formerly with NPR and Agence France-Presse, will moderate the discussion. Radio Free Asia is a private, nonprofit corporation broadcasting and publishing online news, information, and commentary in nine East Asian languages to listeners who do not have access to full and free news media. RFA's broadcasts seek to promote the rights of freedom of opinion and expression, including the freedom to "seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." RFA is funded by an annual grant from the Broadcasting Board of Governors. If you no longer wish to receive RFA news releases, send an e-mail to engnews-leave(a)rfanews.org <mailto:engnews-leave@rfanews.org> . To add your name to our mailing list, send an e-mail to engnews-join(a)rfanews.org <mailto:engnews-join@rfanews.org> ##### Sarah Jackson-Han Director, Media Relations Radio Free Asia (RFA) jacksonhans(a)rfa.org 202 530 7774 w 202 907 4613 m

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Engnews February 2009