Here is an email from Asma Jahangir, head of the Pakistani Human Rights Commission and the UN’s Special Rapporteur for freedom of religion worldwide. Now under house arrest in Lahore, she’s one of many Pakistanis urgently asking the world community to raise our voice:

There is a strong crackdown on the press and lawyers… The Chief Justice is under house arrest (unofficially). The President of the Supreme Court Bar (Aitzaz Ahsan) and 2 former presidents, Mr. Muneer Malik and Tariq Mahmood have been imprisoned for one month under the Preventive Detention laws…

There are other scores political leaders who have also been arrested. Yesterday I was house arrested for 90 days… the President (who has lost his marbles) said that he had to clamp down on the press and the judiciary to curb terrorism. Those he has arrested are progressive, secular minded people, while the terrorists are offered negotiations and ceasefires.

Lawyers and civil society will challenge the government and the scene is likely to get uglier. We want friends of Pakistan to urge the US administration to stop all support of the instable dictator, as his lust for power is bringing the country close to a worse form of civil strife…

–Asma Jahangir
Lahore, Pakistan

(still from Avaaz:)

General Musharraf claims that martial law is necessary to combat extremist terror. But it just doesn’t add up. Musharraf retains strong links with the Pakistani Taliban (see PS below). His emergency powers are being directed only against the democratic opposition, free press and judiciary – just days before a scheduled ruling on whether Musharraf could run for president while remaining army chief. In an August poll, too, Pakistanis rated “ensuring an independent judiciary, free press and free elections” as their top priority.

Right now, leaders around the world are deciding how to respond. The General is dressing up his crackdown in the rhetoric of “anti-terrorism” because Musharraf and his military supporters depend on foreign military aid and international recognition to maintain their legitimacy. That’s why we have to speak out now.

The world can’t ignore the threat of chaos in Pakistan, or the voices of our fellow democrats there. Let’s come together as we did on Burma, and move our governments to act. In these crucial early days, the voice of the world’s people has tremendous power. Let’s use it. Sign the petition and tell your friends today -

http://www.avaaz.org/en/emergency_pakistan

With hope,

Paul, Pascal, Galit, Ricken, Graziela, Ben and the whole Avaaz team

PS for more background on Pakistani polls and Musharraf’s links to the Pakistani Taliban, see: http://www.avaaz.org/blog/en/pakistan

While China will try to assert itself as a new model of global development, opponents and the outside world will also see more and demand more of China. The coming year will be a tense one in Taiwan, where President Chen Shui-bian is pushing for constitutional reforms that China sees as a move towards de facto independence – something it says it will resist with force. Chen, who is at the end of his maximum term, has little to lose and he may gamble that China is so worried about the Olympics it will compromise rather than start a conflict that would overshadow the Games. The Dalai Lama will also look for some concrete results from his emissaries’ years of talks with Beijing. If there is no agreement over the future of Tibet before the Olympics, he may wonder whether it is worth continuing the negotiations.

China may wonder if the political price it has to pay for the Olympics is worth it. Civil rights groups will push harder for reform in the coming year. In the latest attempt to use the Games, Human Rights Watch called last week for a moratorium on the death penalty ahead of the Olympics.

Beijing has shown a willingness to compromise and take into account international opinion. The impact on foreign policy is already evident from North Korea to Sudan to Burma. Gone are the days when China could get away with vetoing or abstaining from every UN Security Council resolution aimed at criticising or punishing other countries for human rights abuses. Last year, Beijing signed up to sanctions against its old ally North Korea after Kim Jong-il went ahead with its first nuclear test. And, this month, China surprised many observers by agreeing to a statement condemning Burma’s crackdown on anti-government protesters. It has also reportedly put distance between itself and Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. Most significantly, it put pressure on Sudan to accept a peacekeeping force after threats by US activists to call for a boycott of the ‘Genocide Olympics’.

None of these measures goes as far as Europe and America would like, nor are they all being implemented because of the Olympics. But they imply recognition by China that there are norms of global behaviour and governments can be held accountable if they transgress. More should be expected. Thirty thousand foreign journalists are expected for the Games. They will push and probe and expose China like never before.

For this reason – and after a concerted campaign by the Foreign Correspondents Club of China and foreign embassies – the government relaxed its controls at the start of this year. Under new Olympics-period regulations, correspondents are no longer obliged to get permission every time we leave our home base, which – in theory – means we will be arrested less often. Detentions are still far too frequent to say China has lived up to its promise to give the media complete freedom to report on the Games.

According to the state media, there will also be unprecedented access to the party congress for the foreign media. It remains to be seen what that means in a country that organises one press conference a year for its Prime Minister and none for its President.

Political reform still lags far behind the economic changes. However dull, the old style one-party politics of the congress needs to be placed next to the modern, dynamic nation that will be on show during the Olympics.

source.

Despite the strong words at the U.N., veto-wielder China has made it clear it will not allow any formal action such as sanctions to be taken against Myanmar, where Beijing is lining up deals to buy huge reserves of natural gas.

India, another energy-hungry regional giant, is equally reluctant to act, and the army-appointed government in Thailand, which buys $2 billion of Myanmar gas each year — also said it would not be taking any concrete measures against its neighbour.

source.

I saw signs of poverty everywhere in Rangoon – children with distended stomachs, people scavenging through rubbish and families buying coal to cook on open fires, owing to the intermittent and expensive electricity supply.

Outside the major cities, the situation is far worse.

Foreigners are rarely allowed into the northern and eastern states, but reports from refugees who have left these areas suggest conditions are on a par with the worst parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

Unsurprisingly, the main thing most Burmese people want is an improvement in their standard of living.

As a result, many Burmese are sceptical of sanctions, saying they have already made the country poor and will only make the situation worse if they are tightened further.

“Sanctions don’t work – they’re not the solution,” one elderly man said to me in a Rangoon teashop, as we discussed Burma’s future.

Walking around the city, watching the Japanese and Chinese cars go by, and looking at the plethora of Chinese and Indian goods on sale, it is easy to see how he has drawn this conclusion.

The US and EU sanctions that are already in place have undoubtedly affected Burma’s overall economy, but they do not seem to have done much harm to the rich military generals, who are busy making deals with the rest of Asia.

Let down?

While they might not favour sanctions, the people of Burma definitely want the international community’s help in other ways.

Many of those who telephoned the UN during the crackdown asked why no-one was sending a peacekeeping force.

I was faced with a similar question when I was in Burma last year. “Why have the US and the UK invaded Iraq, and not done the same here?” one man asked me at the time.

After the events of recent weeks, some Burmese people feel let down by the outside world.

“The international community did nothing to stop a three-day killing spree,” one woman said. “That was when I realised we were on our own.”

source.
and another reliable source for more Burma news (because lord knows it’s difficult to find on front pages now)

And you know, sometimes I agree with a Bush, Laura this time:

“Gen. Than Shwe and his deputies are a friendless regime,” Bush said. “They should step aside to make way for a unified Burma [Myanmar] governed by legitimate leaders.

(…)

In Wednesday’s commentary, Bush called on Myanmar’s military leaders to release Suu Kyi and other opposition leaders so they can meet with and plan for a transition to democracy.

“Meanwhile, the world watches — and waits,” Bush warns.

“We know that Gen. Than Shwe and his deputies have the advantage of violent force. But Ms. Suu Kyi and other opposition leaders have moral legitimacy, the support of the Burmese people and the support of the world.

“The regime’s position grows weaker by the day. The generals’ choice is clear: The time for a free Burma is now.”

source.

New Delhi claimed Operation Leech had smashed a group of gunrunners who had been aiding anti-Indian separatists. However the men say they are Karen National Union (KNU) and National Unity Party of Arakan (Nupa) rebels who were fighting Burma’s junta and who had been provided with arms and a sanctuary by India.

The Indian authorities held the men in jail for six and a half years before charges were brought. Now the trial is taking place in secret – no reporters are allowed and the public has been banned.

The case has become a cause célèbre among India’s pro-democracy activists, especially since the uprising in Burma earlier this month. “We have to ask our government why Burma’s freedom fighters have been imprisoned in India like this when people are taking to the streets in Rangoon for freedom,” said Nandita Haskar, a civil rights lawyer who is campaigning for the men’s release.

Their case is supported by a retired Indian intelligence officer and the leadership of the two anti-junta groups, which are based in Thailand but which had close dealings with New Delhi until Operation Leech.

The men say they were double-crossed by an Indian army colonel named Grewal, who was in the pay of the junta. The army says it has never heard of the colonel.

“These people are not gun runners, they are our men,” said Khin Maung of Nupa. “They were promised a camp in the Andaman islands by this colonel, but he took them there and they were [either] captured [or] shot. ”

During the 1990s, India began to reverse its historic stand against the junta and to jettison its pro-democracy links. Since Operation Leech, it has emerged as Burma’s second largest export market, after Thailand. The Indian defence establishment now trains and supplies Burma’s armed forces. India is also in a race with China to acquire gas reserves off Burma’s coast.

DB Nandi, a former Indian intelligence officer who worked in Burma, said he suspected that New Delhi had too much at stake to allow the truth to be told. “This whole thing was designed to smash the revolt of the Arakanese. These people were not prejudicial to the security interests of India. But they were butchered and imprisoned,” he said.

source.

There were many arrested but we cannot say how many … thousands of monks and activists have been detained,’ said one. The activist said many had been taken to the Government Technical Institute, north of the airport in Rangoon, which has been converted into a detention centre. Others have been rounded up at the old racecourse, which is also serving as a makeshift prison.

‘By day and night they are raiding monasteries. They blockaded some monasteries and sent troops to monitor them. Many students have disappeared too. They have put them in detention centres because the prisons are full after so many arrests,’ the activist said.

Demonstrations that began in mid-August over a fuel price increase swelled into Burma’s largest anti-government protests in 19 years, inspired largely by thousands of monks who poured into the streets.

TV images in the past week showed soldiers shooting into crowds of unarmed protesters. The government described the troops’ reaction as ’systematically controlling’ the protesters.

source.

A federal jury in Duluth, Minn., on Thursday ordered a Minneapolis woman to pay US$220,000 to six music companies for illegally downloading and sharing copyrighted music over a peer-to-peer network.

The 12-person jury said Jammie Thomas must pay $9,250 for each of the 24 songs that were the focus of the case. In their complaint, the six music companies that sued her had claimed that Thomas had illegally shared a total of 1,702 songs over the Kazaa file-sharing network, but they chose to focus on a representative list of 24 songs.

The verdict was greeted with dismay by many in the blogosphere who have been following the case closely for some time now.

New York lawyer Ray Beckerman, writing in the Recording Industry vs The People blog, called the verdict “one of the most irrational things I have ever seen in my life in the law.”

“A verdict of $222,000 for infringement of 24 song files worth a total of $23.76?” he asked. “It is an outrage, and I hope it is a wake-up call to the world that we all need to start supporting the defendants in these cases.”

Commenting on Gizmodo.com, a reader identifying himself as DirtyBacon said he was shocked but not surprised by the verdict. “I guess my two mp3 players, that have thousands of songs that I bought on CD, are illegal contraband,” he said. “My options of moving to Asian countries for work are looking more appealing. I’ve officially lost faith.”

The six music companies that sued Thomas were Capitol Records Inc., Sony BMG, Arista Records LLC, Interscope Records Inc., UMG Recordings Inc. and Warner Bros. Records Inc.

source.

Find out more about Jammie Thomas and the case here.

Just last Sunday – as marches led by Buddhist monks drew thousands in the country’s biggest cities – Indian Oil Minister Murli Deora was in Burma’s capital Rangoon for the signing of contracts between state-controlled ONGC Videsh Ltd and Burma’s military rulers to explore three offshore blocks.

Companies from China, South Korea, Thailand and elsewhere are also looking to exploit the energy resources of the desperately poor Southeast Asian country.

France’s Total SA and Malaysia’s Petroliam Nasional Bhd, or Petronas, currently pump gas from fields off Burma’s coast through a pipeline to Thailand, which takes 90 per cent of Burma’s gas output, according to Thailand’s PTT Exploration & Production PLC.

source

In a sign the junta was confident it had squeezed the life out of the uprising, barbed-wire barricades were removed from the Shewdagon Pagoda, rallying point for monks leading the marches.

Soldiers and government security men, however, were searching bags and people for cameras, and the Internet, through which images of the crackdown have reached the world, remained cut.

State-run media say order was restored “with care, using the least possible force,” but soldiers continued to be stationed at the four corners of Shwedagon, the country’s holiest Buddhist shrine, as well as the Sule Pagoda, the other focal point of the rallies.

Having raided more than a dozen monasteries and hauled off at least 700 monks, according to the Asian Human Rights Commission, soldiers and riot police are penning the rest behind the monastery walls.

source

Monks are missing and nearby nations are content to divy up the spoils…
Meanwhile, on a Chinese policy website, claims like this are made:

Jiang Zemin said China stands for going along with the historical tide and safeguarding the common interests of mankind; for establishing a new international political and economic order that is fair and rational; for maintaining the diversity of the world and in favor of promoting democracy in international relations and diversifying development models; and for fighting against terrorism of all forms.

“We are ready to work with all nations to advance the lofty cause of world peace and development,” Jiang said.

source

The contradiction is an embarrassment, and I hope leaders here in Canada and in India and China feel that shame deeply and manage to do something more then politely request ‘restraint’ or wag their fingers.

In my opinion the crucial issue is one of communication. Canada and the US try to communicate to people all over the world that violence is not an acceptable or effective means of pursuing change, freedom, progress. Fair enough, but this requires backbone. It means that when people do come together against horrifying odds (decades of torture and complete and total dictatorship) to demonstrate peacefully as the monks and citizens of Burma did this month, they are doing so because they have believed in the message of peaceful resistance. They believed if they could hold out one more day, the world would decide to help, and instead they got another UN envoy and hundreds of people are missing, many being held in buses for days now.

With a democratically elected leader in prison and 70 000 people risking their lives peacefully in the streets I cannot fathom how China, India, Thailand, France, the UK, Canada and others can continue to use the military as security force for mining operations torturing local citizens and claiming to be working for international peace and justice. Canada is no better then these others in some ways – while our government has no investments there, Canadian companies like Ivanhoe and Air Canada are in there – here’s a full list.

Please note most especially that while the Canadian peacekeepers in Afghanistan are among the only international force with no helicopters, making them hugely vulnerable to the deadly road mines being used against them, a Canadian company does provide helicopters to the Burmese junta to help them demolish villages and squash peaceful dissent. Great.

Here’s a new report from inside (small yay for nerds with proxy servers everywhere. god bless ya.):

Reports emerging from Rangoon indicate that the temporary detention
centres based in Yangon Institute of Technology and General Institute
of Technology (GTI) is currently detaining 500 hundred monks.

The monks are refusing to accept Sune (Alms food…..food offering given to monk
by layperson just before 12 noon as main meal of the day) from the
military junta. The local population approached these detention
centres to offer food and they have been turned away by the
authorities. Technically, the monks are unintentionally on huger
strike.

We contacted the International Red Cross’s (ICRC) office and UNHCR in
Rangoon. The UN’s office refused to help and ICRC bucked the
responsibility on their head office in Geneva.

Please write or Phone to ICRC, e-mail Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister
Gordon Brown. Every governments contribute funds in the running of
the UN bodies and therefore you persuade the PM and the Foreign
Secretary to pressure the UN organisations to take action on or least
ask them if they provide value for money service to the world
humanity.

Please be professional when writing to PM Gordon Brown and Secreatarty
. You can thank the British Government for their efforts so on Burma
and persuade them succinctly with sound arguments. Contact details
are:

ICRC headquarters in Geneva

Postal address
International Committee of the Red Cross
19 avenue de la Paix
CH 1202 Geneva

Fax
ICRC general: ++ 41 (22) 733 20 57
Production, Multimedia, Distribution Division: ++ 41 (22) 730 27 68

Phone
++ 41 (22) 734 60 01

UK prime minister office

10 Downing Street,
London,
SW1A 2AA

Fax
+442079250918

source.

An eyewitness from inside Burma reports that injured protesters are being taken to the Yay Way cemetery outside of Rangoon, and burned alive in an effort to destroy the evidence of the genocide occurring.

This shocking report comes only hours after news that dozens of high school students were shot and beaten to death.

Regardless, the junta continue to claim responsibility for only 9 deaths. They have cut off internet and telephone connections to the country almost entirely, to shield their horrific actions from world scrutiny.

China and India need to do more then urge restraint and turn a blind eye hoping for oil, and the UK and Canada are little better.. Their action – lack thereof – stems I believe from a desperate sense of how bad their position is in terms of environment. With resources depleted and environmental disasters almost every week nations are trying to keep up an image of themselves as super powers while seeing the collapse that looms pretty damn near inevitable on the horizon. With this in mind however, and calmly considered, they must realize that supporting violence and cruelty in the hopes of profiting from the regime that commits it is a terrible short term option, only that only builds up hatred against them and only shortens the length of days the people will let them rule. It relies on some imagined future date where these insane-with-power brutal leaders will suddenly decide to negotiate rationally. Which is like thinking if you support a drug addict who abuses their kids you’ll be able to trust them with your own later. It’s ridiculous and vile.

Please help make peaceful public noise – Here’s an Amnesty International Petition.

Here’s the world’s Facebook group for supporters.

And here is the email address for the Olympics – this is one area where we can really exert pressure:

China has played a role in Tibet, Darfur, and Burma (…) I suggest we e-mail International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge to reconsider Beijing 2008 in lieu of China’s recent Security Council veto on Burma: pressoffice@olympic.org

(…)

“China is the puppet-master of Burma. The Olympics is the only real lever we have to make China act. The civilised world must seriously consider shunning China by using the Beijing Olympics to send the clear message that such abuses of human rights are not acceptable.” Edward McMillan-Scott, vice-president of the European Parliament

Another column of thousands of people are coming to their way to reinforce the peaceful demonstrators who are in confrontation with armed military troops.

A respectful old monk is in the vanguard of the column singing national anthem and holding flags of fighting peacock.

Despite peaceful demonstrators having been beaten to break up the crowd, the demonstrators are still together reciting “metta sutta”(A discourse on loving-kindness, about disseminating love to those who are aggressive)

source.

Please sign the Petition here to help the peaceful demonstrators. China and India, Canada and everywhere: Don’t let this happen! When people rise up peacefully and call for help, peacekeepers should respond! Wouldn’t this make more sense then going in where we’re unwanted? I’m just saying.