Blogging the democratic revolution
Gateway Pundit rounds up the news on pro-democracy dissidents imprisoned in Cuba for protesting the regime. One of these dissidents is a woman named Martha Beatriz Roque, an organizer of the first ever Assembly for Civil Society in May. Now, at least five of the 20 dissidents have been freed. Cuban authorities have released some of the group of 20 dissidents detained shortly before a planned protest in Havana on Friday. According to the independent Cuban Commission for Human Rights, at least five people have been released. Among those who have been allowed home after being questioned overnight, is a…
It’s going to be a horror show. Sumate, the voter-rights civil society group whose leadership is now headed for Hugo Chavez’s dungeons on treason charges, warns that the next election will not be fair. Hugo Chavez has gerrymandered and manipulated it already in his favor. He can’t lose. But that doesn’t mean Venezuelans aren’t trying to fight back. Daniel reports a new blog project ahead called The Sumate Files that is well worth reading for its updates on the Sumate situation and the coming problems with holding a fair election in Hugo Chavez’s New Venezuela. Read it here.
The following is a translated letter from Akbar Ganji, courtesy of the Free Ganji blog. It is an interesting read, from a man who is becoming the largest rallying cause for human rights inside Iran.
I’ve heard about this for two weeks and have been awaiting its release. Rep. Christopher Smith (R-NJ) and Co-chairman of the Helsinki Commission has introduced legislation into the House entitled the Central Asia Democracy and Human Rights Act. Under CADHRA, all non-humanitarian assistance to each government covered under the legislation would be conditioned on the President certifying that the country is making ???????substantial, sustained and demonstrable progress toward democratization and full respect for human rights.??????? U.S. assistance would be reduced by 33% for each year a positive determination cannot be made. In the third year, all aid to that government…
Three students were shot dead in cold blood this week by Venezuelan police who claim they mixed the students up with some criminals they were hunting. Just like that, three lived snuffed out on a sunny street in Caracas. It was all just … another … mistake. That’s brought thousands of people into the streets this morning in Caracas. It’s one of the first big demonstrations since the demoralization of the Venezuelan opposition in the wake of the widely-believed fraudulent recall referendum on Hugo Chavez last August. The shootings of course represent the projection of Hugo Chavez’s power. So it…
As I mentioned here last April, Luis Ramirez at Voice of America is the best China reporter there is. I noted his daring efforts to report the truth about what is going on in China and and cited his long string of impressive pieces. I was right. Luis has now won one of the most prestigious journalism awards in Asia for this very work I cited. I am so happy for him, it’s what he truly deserved! (As I mentioned in that earlier item.) Sometimes things turn out they way they should. Way to go, Luis, FANTASTIC WORK! Congratulations!
An unbelievable 1150 people have been murdered in cold blood by police in just one Venezuelan state. The death squads, which have never before been seen in Venezuela until Hugo Chavez came along, are now spiraling out of control as lawlessness reigns. Activists are taking it to the National Assembly. Alek Boyd has the news here and here.
King Gyanendra ended the three month state of emergency this past April 30, meaning he was supposed to ease up tight controls on civil liberties imposed since February. Of course, that didn’t happen. In the most recent example of his power grab, over 100 journalists were arrested for protesting against the restrictions. Police arrested nearly 100 journalists Monday after scuffling with them during a protest to demand King Gyanendra immediately lift media restrictions in Nepal imposed four months ago. … Protesters from the Federation of Nepalese Journalists were arrested as they marched into a restricted area near the royal palace,…
Miguel at MABB on Bolivia has a very significant item utterly ignored in the U.S. media about how Bolivia’s protestors are being coerced. They are being shaken down by Marxist social movements like Evo Morales’ ally FEJUVE, which sends block committees into neighborhoods of El Alto, checking to see that at least one member of the household is out there protesting for Morales’ suicidal nationalization causes. I knew those Indians weren’t doing this on their own! There were too many of them at the pro-Mesa protests in March. They are being forced to protest! Or else. The Morales crew puts…
Joe Katzman from Winds of Change pens how Mugabe changed his mind about guns. As many of you know, I’m from Canada. We have a pretty different attitude to guns up here, and I must say that American gun culture has always kind of puzzled me. To me, one no more had a right to a gun than one did to a car. Well, my mind has changed. Changed to the point where I see gun ownership as being a slightly qualified but universal global human right. A month ago in Yalta, Freedom & The Future, I wrote: “Frankly, if…
Mark Steyn’s latest is out, and it’s absolutely stunning. I won’t even bother to excerpt anything here, just go and read the whole thing.
It is a unique blessing of the free world that its people can express a wide variety of opinions and choose how to live peacefully without being persecuted by their own governments. These are examples of real, universal human rights that need to be defended and brought to the dark corners of the world. This is why we need human rights organizations that can recognize the difference between sporadic crime in the free world and regimen genocide where the press doesn’t exist to report it. This is the problem with much of the human rights movement today. Its leadership does…
Before anything, read Austin Bay’s fabulous piece fisking Amnesty International on their bizarre claim that Gitmo and Abu Ghraib are modern day gulags, and that the U.S. is the leader in human rights abuses in the world. Hahahahahaha. Right. Anyhow, I received an email with a really good idea: Go to Google News and search for stories about “human rights abuses xxx” where xxx is the name of a country. Let’s see the results as of this moment. United States: 2,740 Iran: 374 China: 824 Sudan: 400 Zimbabwe: 265 Belarus: 39 Russia: 483 Burma: 68 Saudi Arabia: 142 Nepal: 232…
When I lived in Oxford, I remember how tough the U.K. courts were in granting asylum to Romanians fleeing Ceaucescu’s communist hellhole, perhaps fearing a flood of people. They gave almost no one a break. This being England, things don’t change that much, and I doubt U.K. courts are any less tough. So it tells you something when a British court acknowleged the intolerable reality of Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela and granted a young Venezuelan couple asylum. Alek Boyd’s gotten hold of some court documents that show the ordeal of the dissidents, and with the court’s note that Venezuela has assumed…
Note: I posted this earlier at Bloggledygook, but then realized that the back story has a lot to do with the struggle for Cuba. Make no mistake: there are those who will do anything to make excuses for Fidel. A post in abdymok on Reporters Without Borders (or RSF for Reporters sans fronti????res) caught my eye this morning. Founded in 1979 by Robert Menard, RSF is a rights organization based in France that monitors press freedom abuses around the globe, with special focus on Cuba. It has been a frequent and vocal critic of the US, most recently over “self-censorship”…
Castro’s henchmen have disappeared their first delegate to the Conference on Civil Society. His name is Antuan Clemente Hernandez. His event is to be held this weekend. They know what a threat it is to the communist regime. It’s Cuba’s Charter 77, its Declaration of Independence. And its participants face the same risks as those brave men of history. Stefania has the first alert, and my writeup on Babalu about this struggle against a monster who cannot countenance freedom is here. UPDATE: Juan Paxety has information about a new support center for the Civil Society assembly inaugurated in Miami here.
Luis Tascon, the Venezuelan congressman who put signers of a recall referendum against dictator Hugo Chavez on a special Internet-accessible blacklist, has met a miserable demise. In this way, he would seem to parallel Joseph McCarthy, who died an isolated drunk. That said, the signers of the petition cannot be compared to McCarthy’s targets – they were not interested in operating in secrecy, for one, they were not interested in subverting the U.S. system in the name of Joseph Stalin, and they were not doing anything illegal. No, Venezuelans just woke up one morning and realized that signing a legal…
“Fidel Castro asserted terrorist should be judged in Venezuela” goes one headline from one of those impartial and objective Cuban propaganda sources; another one reads “New York Times Urges US Government to Deny Asylum to Terrorist Posada Carriles”… The majority of the 176 Posada Carriles-related articles, indexed by Google News, originate from Cuban or Venezuelan funded sources. Fidel Castro’s and his toyboy’s ‘assertions and demands’ aside -as if words uttered by them had any relevance or weight- the US administration is faced with a dilemma; that of returning a long time collaborator to Venezuela in the know that revolutionary justice…
An envoy from the United States met with King Gyanendra yesterday evening to press for the restoration of civil liberties. As you may recall, the king imposed a state of emergency on February 1 and dissolved the parliament, leading to the arrest and detainment of hundreds of journalists, students, and political opponents. Constitutionally, the state of emergency can only last for three months, so it was lifted on April 30. Despite this, however, the media remains curbed and only a few dozen, at most, have been released from jail. The official sent for this visit was U.S. Assistant Secretary of…
It was the winter of 1982. It was the freezing nadir of the Cold War. Soldiarity’s Revolution in Poland had been bitterly crushed. I was a student in England, passionate about Soviet studies and in the center of great scholarship. As Greenham Common leftists camped out to protest cruise missiles, Ronald Reagan and the U.S. troops there to defend Europe, not far from my university. As Lady Thatcher and Ronald Reagan stood firm. As the Soviet Union under the fearful, edgy, oppressive gray heirs to Stalin of the Kremlin prepared to hit the nuclear button. Never did the world come…
I’ve been talking to a 37 year old man named Andrew (last name withheld) over email, who was born in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and moved to the United States, joined the navy, and is now a citizen. He notes to me that while we in the blogosphere have talked a lot about the election there and what Mugabe does now, no historical context has been provided for his rule. With his permission, I’m posting Andrew’s email here about Mugabe coming to power. You know, Africa is a pretty simple place…really. But there is a great tendency for the West to…
No, it’s not a democracy. No, Hugo Chavez was not fairly elected. Yes, there are arbitrary arrests. Yes, there are political prisoners. Alek Boyd has an ever-lengthening list here.
Last year, Castro threw 75 brilliant, thinking people – economists, journalists, leaders – into his dungeons. This wasn’t the usual garbage from him, it was a desperate effort to destroy a new generation of potential opposition leaders as he declines into his fading years. The U.S. embassy put up its Christmas display to let them know they are not forgotten, triggering a rabid reaction from Castro’s goons. But most of the imprisoned are still there. Val at Babalu blog doesn’t forget. He has a tribute to them here.
You may remember earlier in the week a couple Bahraini bloggers were arrested and people protested. Well, they’ve been released and with an added boon to all of us: They’ve passed some pro-democracy legislation. The Cabinet yesterday appr????oved the Chamber of Deputies???????? decision to introduce human rights and democracy as subjects at the intermediate and secondary levels and asked the Ministry of Education to consider both subjects in its curricula development plans. Check it all out. MORE: Babbling Bahrania is certainly covering this well.
A story so hideous I can barely think about it. This is the third such incident in Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela. This is how Chavez deals with dissidents and troublemakers … and warns the others. To make it even more suspicious, the soldiers, ages 19 and 20, injured in the incident were improving – but all of a sudden died. I do not know any other country where this grotesque ‘punishment’ happens. Read the details here, here and here.