Burmese Tyrants Can't Laugh, Dance or Sing!

And you can be sure they can't dance! The great Emma Goldman reportedly advised: "If I can't dance, I won't be part of your revolution,"

Let's not forget that Burma suffers from the same oppressive control over their every thought that holds the Tibetans down, and the Uyghurs and ANYONE who challenges the politburo. Some "People's" Republic!

Myanmar court hands comedian 45-year prison term

From Associated Press

21/11/08

YANGON, Myanmar - Myanmar's courts continued a crackdown on activists, handing out a 45-year prison sentence to a comedian who went to the delta to help cyclone victims and criticized the junta's slow relief response.

Comedian and activist Zarganar, whose birth name is Maung Thura, on Friday joined the at least 100 people to receive sentences of two to 65 years since early November. Many of the trials were held in closed sessions, sometimes without defense lawyers or family present.

[...] The government holds more than 2,100 political prisoners, up sharply from nearly 1,200 in June 2007 - before last year's pro-democracy demonstrations, according to international human rights groups.

[...] Among those sentenced Friday was Buddhist monk Ashin Gambira, who helped organize the protests, said a lawyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of antagonizing the government. The monk's 12-year sentence and prison terms for earlier charges brought his total to 68 years in jail.

[...] Zarganar, whose name means "tweezers" and whose comedy routines are banned for their jokes about the junta, and several other activists delivered donations of relief supplies to the Cyclone Nargis-shattered Irrawaddy delta. The May cyclone killed more than 84,000 people.

Zarganar was arrested in June after he gave interviews to foreign news outlets in which he criticized the junta's slow response.

Zarganar was sentenced for violating the Electronics Act, which regulates all forms of electronic communication, said his lawyer, Khin Htay Kywe. The comedian still faces other charges, she said.

Zarganar has been imprisoned several times before, including a three-week stint for providing aid to Buddhist monks during last year's demonstrations.

Three associates were tried with him. Sportswriter Zaw Thet Htwe and video journalist Thant Zin Aung were given 15 years each and face further charges, while Tin Maung Aye got 29 years, Zarganar's lawyer said.

Those sentenced recently included some 70 members of the opposition National League for Democracy party of detained Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

Some of the most severe sentences were handed to 23 members of the 88 Generation Students group, veteran activists who have been spearheading nonviolent protests for the past several years.

On Thursday, well-known hip-hop singer Zeyar Thaw, a member of the band "Acid," was jailed for six years, and 14 members of Suu Kyi's party got 2 1/2 years each for calling for her release on her birthday in June, party spokesman Nyan Win said.

Zeyar Thaw is thought to be a leader of Generation Wave, an illegal student group formed in the wake of last year's pro-democracy protests.

http://my.earthlink.net/article/int?guid=20081121/49264050_3426_13350200811211771208311

Petition for Justice for Uyghur Detainees

17 Uighur detainees still stuck in limbo at Guantanamo Bay:

Demand Justice for the Uighurs Now!

Online Action Center

17 Uighur detainees held at Guantánamo

In a landmark ruling on October 7, 2008, Judge Ricardo Urbina ordered the government to release into the USA the 17 Uighur detainees still held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The government had earlier conceded that the 17 men are not "enemy combatants", but the government appealed the order, arguing that it "directly conflicts with the basic principle that the decision whether to admit an alien into the United States rests exclusively with the Executive".

On October 8, the appeals court granted a temporary stay to allow the government time to file its appeal. As Judge Urbina noted, "the separation of powers does not trump the right to liberty." [my bold] Call on the U.S. government to comply with the order, drop its appeals, bring the Uighur detainees into the USA, and work to find lawful, fair, safe and durable solutions in all their cases.

Several ways to take action:
1) Send the prewitten email below as is or use our bullets to personalize it
2) Send a fax or mailed letter using our template or in your own words using our bullets
3) Share this action with your friends and family

See the full Urgent Action for bullets and target addresses

Print sample letter: PDF | RTF (Word)
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/c.jhKPIXPCIoE/b.2590179/k.C43E/Take_Action_Online/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&aid=11366&tr=y&auid=4106807

The People's Heroes Demand The Right to Protest

When people ask why I’m so passionate about Tibet, I feel confused by the question. I don’t understand why the Tibetan struggle isn’t apparent to all liberty loving people. Their struggle is exactly the same as the desire for Sicilians to remain Sicilian in nature and practice. Sicilians are (so far) lucky to not be persecuted for practicing cultural activities or demeaned (at least in public and with government support) for cuisine, clothes, live styles, etc. Unfortunately for their cousins the Roma, Northern League fascists have signaled them out as scapegoats for all that’s wrong with Italy today. But be sure that the heat can come down on any other group that does not see exactly the same world as il imperatore Napolesconi. But in Tibet today people are afraid to display their ethnic pride. It is also not the case for the 56 “recognized” ethnic minorities that make up part of the Han dynasty, such as the Zhuang, Uyghurs, Mongols, Taiwanese, etc.
But I digress…
Two women in China are sentenced to one year at a labor camp because they asked, A S K E D permission to publicly protest the loss of their homes due to the Olympics! Are you shocked? Wait, there’s more … THEY’RE IN THEIR SEVENTIES AND ONE IS LEGALLY BLIND! Tell me more about how fabulous China is, please!
Chinese Woman, 79 with Disabilities, Sentenced to Labor Camp
As we draw nearer to the close of the Summer Olympics and the wall-to-wall coverage of the various events, stories of the toll these games have taken on the Chinese people continue to leak out, despite incredible efforts by the government of that nation to hide the reality of life in China. Now we read of two women in their late 70's and how they have been sentenced to a year in a labor camp as part of what the chinese government refers to as a re-education program. While you pause and wonder what threat two little old ladies could pose to China, know also that one of them is blind and has other disabilities.
Perhaps you caught the NBC Nightly News Report earlier this week that examined the process that China established through which citizens could petition for the right to protest at three specially appointed locations during the Olympics. It turns out that of 77 requests filed by citizens that none of them were granted. [my bold] Further, it appears that some who have made these requests have been arrested or, as in this case, sentenced to re-education programs which appear to be nothing more than a quick and convenient way to punish people without allowing the individuals any rights or chance to defend themselves.
Wu Dianyuan, 79, and her neighbor Wang Xiuying, 77, [right on, sisters!] were notified Sunday that they were to serve a yearlong term of re-education through labour, said Wang’s son, Li Xuehui. Officials did not specify a reason and still had not acted on the order, he said.
Instead, the pair were under the observation of a neighbourhood watch group and it was unclear if they would be sent to prison, he said.
The order followed the pair’s repeated attempts to apply for permission to protest their forced eviction from their homes. China agreed to allow demonstrations in three designated areas during the games, which end Sunday. So far, there have been no protests in any of the official areas.
The re-education system, in place since 1957, allows police to sidestep the need for a criminal trial or a formal charge and send people to prison for up to four years to perform penal labour.
Beijing has pointed to the special zones — public parks far away from Olympics venues — to defend its promise to improve human rights in China that was crucial to its bid to host the games.
Obviously China never had intentions of allowing citizens or foreigners for that matter any right to voice or exhibit opposition to their way of rule, especially during the Olympic games. Unfortunately, while the world is being treated to one of the finest exhibitions of sport and athletics ever to have taken place at the summer games, many of the people of China have been moved from their homes, lost their jobs and been displaced so that we don't see their reality.
I don't expect that NBC will revisit this story and report to the average American that people wanted to protest but have been sentenced to hard labor and prison for daring to consider the possibility. The average person will only remember Michael Phelps and is incredible gold metal performances. However, at least for the next year and perhaps longer, a blind chinese woman will pay for wishing for the right to express her views while the world moves on to other issues.

http://www.disabilitynation.net/blog/chinese-woman-79-disabilities-sentenced-labor-camp

Mongolians Demand Liberty, Police Murder Five

Well, are we supposed to believe this another CIA plot? Aren't Mongolians, like Tibetans and the Uyghurs simply demanding the same civil liberties we have here and shouldn't we be supporting them? Messers Parenti and Michel Chossudovsky would disagree, along with numerous China-is-ONE nuts who troll the internets. Shame on China for not listening to the people!

5 Killed in Riots After Mongolia Vote
By JIM YARDLEY
July 3, 2008
BEIJING — The president of Mongolia, Nambariin Enkhbayar, declared a national state of emergency on Tuesday after hundreds of people angered by election results rioted in the capital, Ulan Bator, leaving five people dead. Troops were patrolling the capital to enforce martial law, Mongolian state media reported.
Mongolia’s national news agency, Montsame, said 710 people were detained after groups of protesters, alleging fraud in last weekend’s national elections, clashed with the police. [my bold] Preliminary results of the elections gave a parliamentary majority to the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party, the successor to the country’s Communist Party, which dominated the nation when it was a puppet of the Soviet Union. The opposition Democratic Party rejected the election results but disavowed the violence, Reuters reported.
Both political parties held closed meetings on Tuesday, and the Parliament was planning to hold a special session to address the crisis, the national news agency reported. “At this moment, the situation in the capital city is relatively normal,” the Ulan Bator police chief, Amarbold, said on state television, according to Reuters. “It is very peaceful compared to yesterday, but the troops need to stay on the street.”
[...] The UB Post, an English language newspaper in Ulan Bator, reported that 74 percent of the country’s 1.6 million eligible voters cast ballots in Sunday’s parliamentary races. [my bold] [Doesn't the fact that 74% of eligible voters turned out indicate a desire for change?] It also reported that the People’s Revolutionary Party had won at least half of the 76 legislative seats even as votes were still being counted. “Based on information we got through our primary units, we have won all mandates in nine provinces,” Yo Otgonbayar, secretary general of the party, told a news conference in Ulan Bator.
A 16-member team of international election observers confirmed the results of the race. Leaders of the Democratic Party disagreed with the preliminary results but also wanted to meet with the People’s Revolutionary Party to defuse the crisis.
“From the Sea of Japan to the eastern border of Europe, we are the only functioning democracy, and we have a duty to save it,” the Democratic Party leader, Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj, told Reuters. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/03/world/asia/03mongolia.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

For previous posts on ethnic struggles in China, please click on the tags below.

Pro-China Propagandists Determined to Strike in the US Media

Now that I have your attention, please observe the tactics being used by an increasingly frustrated mob with little factual evidence to back their claims.
Today's blogs are regurgitating a report, allegedly from the Italian sports daily, Corriere della Sera:

Chief Tibet separatist clamors for suicide attacks
(Xinhua), Updated: 2008-04-20 08:38
ROME -- Cewang Rigzin, president of the separatist "Tibetan Youth Congress" (TYC), has preached seeking "Tibet independence" through suicide attacks.
"Maybe it is time now for the 'Tibetan People's Uprising Movement' to use the means of suicide attacks to carry on the struggle," Cewang Rigzin said in an interview with Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper recently.
http://chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-04/20/content_6629515.htm

I searched for the original link on the Internet and the newspaper itself, but could not find it or any direct references to this plot, except for those which came from the Chinese news agencies. Click below for a bigger picture to see for yourself:

But time is short and more important are the issues of why this disinformation is getting serious attention and who is behind the campaign. Every time I try to watch one of those “informative” videos put out by the anti-CNN’ers, the creepy, sickeningly-sweet or rousing patriotic music puts me off so badly that I must immediately turn it off. (BTW--Why does their “truth” need a soundtrack, and why do they have such bad taste in music? Is that part of their PsyOps?)
This bit of "news" was reproduced in many forms and on many sites, obviously to boost morale, such as this one:

Chinese protest Tibet independence
Sat Apr 19, 2008 10:52am EDT
By Ben Blanchard
BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese people took to the streets in several cities on Saturday to denounce calls for Tibetan independence and demand a French goods boycott following anti-China protests on the Paris leg of the Olympic torch relay.
Pictures from the central city of Wuhan showed large crowds marching with banners reading: "Oppose Tibet independence, support the Olympics", and "Say no to French goods".
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSPEK27628620080419

Whooh! Shades of neo-cons and fleedom flies! And this one:

Demonstrators in U.S. call Dalai Lama a liar
Sun Apr 20, 2008 7:50pm EDT
By Eric Olsen
ANN ARBOR, Michigan (Reuters) - The Dalai Lama on Sunday urged the world to work for a sustainable planet while pro-China demonstrators accused him of lying about the turmoil in his homeland.
There were no arrests among the 300 to 400 people who showed up outside his speech at a University of Michigan sports arena where the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader spoke to about 8,300 people in an Earth Day-themed lecture.
The demonstrators repeatedly chanted "Dalai Liar!" and cheered when a plane circled overhead trailing a large banner reading "Dalai Please Stop Attacking Olympic Flame."
The vast majority of the demonstrators appeared to be of Chinese ancestry and wore white shirts emblazoned with "Support Beijing Olympics 2008" and red shirts printed with the Chinese flag.
"Tibet Belongs to China and So Do I" read one sign in the crowd.
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN1836025720080420

How nicely the police behaved for them, almost as nicely as they did here in NYC when the Falun Gong suddenly appeared everywhere (and all at once) during the RNC. Anyone who wore a peace sign did so knowing they could be arrested just for crossing the street, while these folks trotted out stage sets on every other corner, complete with music and costumed "police" beating the practitioners. And where did these people get the money for a PLANE?
The question remains: If they were given an honest assessment of the problems faced by minorities and the inevitable resistance that would accompany occupation, why would the people of China not want independence for Tibetans? The whole of China’s future certainly isn't contingent upon Tibet. People go about their daily lives and don’t want trouble, whether they are Hans or Tibetans, Mongols or Muslem Uyghus.
But these propagandists fear any dissent or alternative to the great Motherland. (Say it all together now: "One World!")
It’s really bad over there, but too much is spilling over into our own left wing by people who should know they are being used. It's bad and sad and completely unproductive unless the goal is to spill blood.
Let people live their lives according to their cultural traditions and all will be well. I think I've said enough about Tibet and China for today.

Uyghur Muslems Want Liberty!

The "terrorism" talking points sound like they came right out Michael Chernoff's mouth. But this is China!
Chinese Police Raid Houses in Xinjiang
2008.04.02
HONG KONG—Chinese police have conducted raids on several houses in the restive northwestern region of Xinjiang, possibly looking for weapons, sources in the area have told Radio Free Asia (RFA).
Authorities in Yengiyer township near Gulja (in Chinese, Yili) city raided four familiy homes belonging to Muslim Uyghurs, detaining several people, the sources said.
Police dug up the yard at one house, although they gave no indication what they were looking for, a Uyghur source in Gulja told RFA’s Uyghur service.
[...] Police dug up the yard at one house, although they gave no indication what they were looking for, a Uyghur source in Gulja told RFA’s Uyghur service.
[...] A Han Chinese resident of Alamatuya village in Yengiyer township said that at least one house had been searched by police in his neighborhood.
“Because the Uyghurs were causing trouble...They had explosives in their house,” he told RFA’s Mandarin service.
Several people detained
“Maybe someone reported it,” he said, adding that he believed the Uyghurs had been influenced by recent unrest in Tibet and were possibly connected to unrest in Gulja which was brutally suppressed by Chinese security forces in the 1990s.
[...] Many Uyghurs, who twice enjoyed short-lived independence as the state of East Turkestan during the 1930s and 40s, are bitterly opposed to Beijing’s rule in Xinjiang.
Beijing blames Uyghur separatists for sporadic bombings and other violence in the Xinjiang region. But diplomats and foreign experts are skeptical. International rights groups have accused Beijing of using the U.S. “war on terror” to crack down on nonviolent supporters of Uyghur independence.
[...] The raids come one week after several hundred ethnic Uyghurs staged protests following the death in custody of a prominent Uyghur businessman and philanthropist.
Numerous sources said the demonstrations followed the death in custody of a wealthy Uyghur jade trader and philanthropist, Mutallip Hajim, 38. Police returned his body to relatives March 3 after two months in custody, saying he had died in hospital of heart trouble. According to an authoritative source, police instructed the family to bury him immediately and inform no one of his death.
[...] China has waged a campaign over the last decade against what it says are violent separatists and Islamic extremists who aim to establish an independent state in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, which shares a border with Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Mongolia.
In March 2008, Chinese authorities announced that they had foiled a plot by Uyghur terrorists targeting the Beijing Olympics. In the early 1990s, Uyghurs in Xinjiang launched large-scale riots, attacking and killing Chinese officials. Chinese authorities alleged that such acts killed 162 people and injured another 440, prompting a harsh crackdown.
U.S.-based Human Rights Watch says authorities in Xinjiang maintain “a multi-tiered system of surveillance, control, and suppression of religious activity aimed at Xinjiang’s Uyghurs...At a more mundane and routine level, many Uyghurs experience harassment in their daily lives.”
“Celebrating religious holidays, studying religious texts, or showing one’s religion through personal appearance are strictly forbidden at state schools. The Chinese government has instituted controls over who can be a cleric, what version of the Koran may be used, where religious gatherings may be held, and what may be said on religious occasions.” http://www.rfa.org/english/news/2008/04/02/uyghur_raids/

Chinese Police Imprison Tibetan Students, But Uyghur Muslims Join in Solidarity

Chinese Muslims Support Tibet
Tibetans Around China Feel Fallout From Crackdown
2008.03.19
KATHMANDU—Tibetans around China felt the weight of state power following Beijing’s armed crackdown on anti-Chinese protests and riots that have swept through Tibetan regions of the country since last week.
A Han Chinese teacher in the northwestern province of Gansu said students at the Maerkang Normal College had been forbidden to return to their homes in the rural area of Maerkang county, leading to clashes with police and campus security guards.
[...] Meanwhile, authorities in Beijing threw a police cordon around colleges with large Tibetan student populations.
A Tibetan student enrolled at the Southwest University for Nationalities in Sichuan’s provincial capital, Chengdu, said communication with his family and friends in rural Ngaba had been difficult.
[...] And a Tibetan student enrolled in a university in Shanghai said he was under surveillance by the authorities. “It is inconvenient for me to talk,” he said.
“My cell phone is under surveillance. I cannot tell you if there have been protests on campus. It’s inconvenient.”
Many remote areas of the Sichuan, Gansu, and Qinghai plateau are home to large Tibetan populations, many of whom are nomads. Tibet also has an internal border with China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang, home to the Muslim Uyghur ethnic group, who also deeply resent Beijing’s rule.
Exiled Uyghur leaders are expressing support for Tibetans who have been staging protests through much of western China over the last week.
Uyghur American Association president Rebiya Kadeer, a businesswoman and leading dissident, accused the Chinese authorities of “atrocities” and defended the Tibetans’ right to protest peacefully.
[...] “Tibetans and Uyghurs have been living under the yoke of Chinese oppression for decades. They have been subjected to Beijing’s assimilationist policies aimed at eroding their religious identity and at accelerating cultural alienation,” Kadeer said.
[...] “The world community cannot turn a blind eye to the obstinate refusal of the Beijing regime to fully engage in open, serious, and meaningful negotiations with leaders of Tibet and East Turkestan,” Kadeer said, using the Uyghurs’ own name for China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
Dolkun Aysa, chairman of the Eastern Turkestan Union in Europe and general secretary of the World Uyghur Congress, led a three-hour protest in Munich on March 18 to show solidarity with the Tibetans.
“The main purpose of this demonstration is to show solidarity and cooperation between Tibetan and Uyghur people and to inform the world” about Chinese repression, Aysa said in an interview with RFA’s Uyghur service.
“We are cooperating with Tibetans to organize demonstrations expressing our full support for the Tibetan people, while at the same time informing the public and the media regarding the existence of the same problems, the same political reality, and the same suffering of the Uyghur people in Eastern Turkestan,” he said.
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/2008/03/19/tibet-arrest/