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A leading Iranian human rights activist and journalist was arrested Wednesday, activists said. Kaveh Ghasemi Kermanshahi was taken by seven security agents who searched his home and took personal belongings including his computer, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said in a statement.It is not clear where he is being held."Kermanshahi is one of the most important sources of objective human rights information and analysis in Iran, and one of the few still courageously working to document, in a scientific way, the deprivation of human rights there," said ICHRI representative Hadi Ghaemi from New York.
Political observers have praised the recent Ukrainian elections, saying the outcome of Sunday's second round contest between Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and one of her predecessors, Viktor Yanukovych, is not predetermined. That's in stark contrast to neighboring Russia, where the 2008 election of President Dmitri Medvedev was a forgone conclusion. VOA Moscow Correspondent Peter Fedynsky contrasts presidential elections in two former Soviet republics.About 3,000 foreign election observers declared that, despite a few irregularities, the first round of Ukraine's presidential election on January 17 met international standards for honesty.
Russian officials have scrambled to contain the damage after thousands of people took part in the country's biggest anti-government protest since the start of the economic crisis.The governing United Russia party led by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin dispatched a delegation to Kaliningrad, a western exclave bordering the EU, where protesters called for economic and political change over the weekend."We have plans to go to Kaliningrad and get ourselves familiar with the situation on the spot ... and find out what was the basis of the demonstration," said Sergei Neverov, a senior United Russia official.Speaking on the Ekho of Moscow radio, he said the delegation planned a series of meetings, including with local officials and prominent figures.At least 10,000 people turned up for a demonstration in Kaliningrad on Saturday, according to organisers. Police put the turnout at 6,000.
Security forces fire tear gas and plastic bullets at thousands of protesters in Caracas and elsewhere after RCTV is banned for violating a law that requires stations to air the president's speeches.Reporting from Caracas, Venezuela, and Quito, Ecuador -- Protests broke out in Venezuela on Monday after cable companies dropped transmission of a popular channel that the government declared had broken telecommunications laws by not broadcasting President Hugo Chavez's speeches.Government critics and supporters of Radio Caracas Television took to the streets of Caracas, the capital, and several other cities after companies dropped RCTV's programming under threat of losing their licenses.
Ahead of a planned opposition rally on Monday, Iran tightened security and arrested over 20 mothers who were mourning children killed in the unrest that has broken out since the disputed June 12 elections.The mothers took part in an antigovernment protest in Leleh Park in central Tehran every Saturday since the death in June of Neda Agha-Soltan, 26, whose shooting became a symbol of the government’s violent repression. The rally had been attacked by the police before, but Saturday was the first time the mothers were arrested. An opposition Web site reported that the protest was broken up by the police and many demonstrators were taken away. The BBC Persian service quoted a witness who said 29 women were arrested, some of whom were later released. But at least 21 remained in jail, the BBC said.
TEHRAN -- Iranian security forces and paramilitary groups broke up anti-government demonstrations in central Tehran on Monday, using clubs, tear gas and electric batons to disperse crowds outside the University of Tehran, witnesses said. Authorities blocked main roads into the city center and arrested dozens of demonstrators who sought to turn Iran's annual "Student Day" rallies into the latest in a series of protests against the government that began about six months ago. Officials had declared such demonstrations illegal and threatened to meet them with force. Despite the warnings, thousands of demonstrators tried to join students at sealed-off campuses of Tehran's main universities. Deployed to head them off were hundreds of riot police, Revolutionary Guard Corps troops and members of the Basij, a pro-government militia.
Thousands of riot police and Revolutionary Guards in Iran have surrounded Tehran University to prevent student demonstrations. Pro-government militia members armed with tear gas and firearms have been turned out to control the anticipated protest which is likely to attract a large amount of demonstrators on university campuses across the country. Police have been conducting ID checks on anyone entering the campus to prevent opposition activists from joining the students. Over the past week, the government sent threatening emails to many students, warning them not to participate in Monday's demonstrations. Some student-activist opponents of the government were out in Iran over the weekend, some shouting "Death to the Dictator" from Tehran's rooftops.
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian security forces fired warning shots in Tehran on Monday and beat opposition protesters among thousands seeking to renew their challenge to the government six months after a disputed election, witnesses said.The security forces fired shots into the air as they clashed with supporters of opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi at a state rally marking the killing of three students under the former Shah, the reformist website Mowjcamp said."Security forces are beating demonstrators, men and women. Some of them are injured and bleeding," said one witness in Tehran's central Haft-e Tir square.The June 12 presidential election, which secured President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election, sparked Iran's worst unrest since the Islamic revolution three decades ago and exposed deep divisions in the establishment. Authorities deny allegations of vote-rigging.
Iranians are marking University Student Day, traditionally an anti-US event that commemorates the killing of three students in 1953. Opposition supporters are expected to try to hijack official protests by chanting their own anti-government slogans.Olivia Cornes navigates some of the opposition chants heard in Iran since June's disputed presidential elections, with the help of BBCPersian.com and protesters themselves.The waves of street chanting among anti-regime protesters are spontaneous but many are not new. Slogans that Iranians used 30 years ago to call for an end to the Shah's regime are now thrown back at the Islamic regime which replaced it.
Romania's opposition Social Democrat party says Sunday's presidential election was rigged and plans to contest the result. Official results showed incumbent President Traian Basescu with a winning margin of less than 1%. Earlier, exit polls had predicted victory for his Social Democrat rival, former Foreign Minister Mircea Geoana. Both candidates had claimed victory on Sunday night in what correspondents describe as a bitter contest. "We have proof of fraud," Social Democrat vice-president Liviu Dragnea was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency. "The exit poll, the large number of annulled votes... massive electoral tourism and other things obviously force us to contest the result."
Two interesting media stories – one is the next installment of the case recounted here, about the allegations by a regional Georgian newspaper that one of its journalists had been blackmailed by officials from the Georgian special services and the subsequent launch of an internal investigation by the Interior Ministry. Now President Saakashvili has received a letter from the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers and the World Editors Forum urging him to ensure thorough investigation and saying “We are seriously concerned that Georgian security services would seek to blackmail a journalist and interfere in editorial freedom. Such tactics are reminiscent of the Soviet-era KGB and have no place in a modern democracy”.
HAVANA — Activists from 32 little-known organizations opposed to Cuba's communist government issued a call for an end to social repression on the island at a Thursday gathering in the home of a prominent human rights activist.The event took place in the western Havana home of internationally known activist Francisco Chaviano, a veteran Cuban dissident who was released in 2007 after 13 years in prison.Participants crowded into a small room where Chaviano read a statement on behalf of the grass-roots political groups from 10 Cuban provinces.They demanded free elections, the release of all prisoners held for political motives and full state respect for human rights. The statement also said the only way for Cuba to survive the global economic crisis was for the government to ease bans on private business ownership and free enterprise.
As the situation in Xinjiang calms down, people from across China discuss the cause of the unrest and the impact it might have on social stability in the future. Harry He, tradesman, XianI used to work for a travel company, so I've travelled to Xinjiang a lot. I was totally shocked when I heard what happened there. Uighurs believe this is their land, and it is. But Han Chinese have been settling down there since the Tang dynasty, when the Silk Route opened up new cities and new opportunities. Maybe the Chinese did rule Xinjiang with an iron first. But we are learning the lesson.Things have already got better for ethnic minorities. In some ways, they enjoy more privileges. For example I have to study really hard to get into university while it's easier for Uighurs, as there is a reserved quota for them regardless of how well they've performed.
SEOUL, South Korea — A group of activists and North Korean defectors urged an international tribunal Thursday to investigate alleged human rights abuses in the North and put its authoritarian leader Kim Jong Il on trial.The group is to fly to Hague next week to file its petition calling for an investigation at the International Criminal Court, the first such move on the North Korean rights issue, lead activist Ha Tae-keung told reporters in Seoul."Our aim is to get the arrest warrant on Kim Jong Il to be issued," Ha said. "North Korea's crimes against humanity are no less serious than Sudan's."In March, the court charged Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir with war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur — its first action against a sitting head of state.
MANILA — Two United Nations human rights officials urged the government of the Philippines on Thursday to pursue a thorough investigation of the election-related massacre in which 57 people were killed, and the police recommended that murder charges be filed against 11 more suspects.The massacre “must be seen as a watershed moment for the country,” said Philip Alston, the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, and Frank La Rue, the special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, in a statement. The killings, they said, “demanded a more extensive reflection on the elite family-dominated manipulation of the political processes and the need to eliminate such practices.”
India is marking the 25th anniversary of the leak at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in the city of Bhopal. The victims have generally been left in a legal haze since the ill-fated night (Dec. 2, 1984) when a toxic-gas cloud spread across the central Indian city. Children put candles on the ground during a candle light vigil on eve of 25th anniversary disaster, in Bhopal, 2 Dec 2009"We are cautiously hopeful that the American courts will see that Union Carbide is playing a game here," New York-based lawyer Rajan Sharma said.
(CNN) -- Nestle, one of the world's largest food companies, has shut down a factory in Zimbabwe after a dispute with the government, it announced Wednesday.The company came under pressure from the government to buy milk from suppliers not of its own choosing, it said. The dairy at the center of the dispute is owned by the wife of President Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwean media reported.Government officials and police paid an "unannounced visit" to the Nestle factory on Saturday, and a tanker of milk was "forced" upon the factory, the company said. Two company managers were questioned and released the same day, the company said. "Since under such circumstances normal operations and the safety of employees are no longer guaranteed, Nestle decided to temporarily shut down the factory," the company said.
The go-ahead to build the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam, planned for the Xingu river in the Brazilian Amazon, has been delayed following protests by Indians and objections by local and international organisations.If constructed, the dam will be the third largest in the world, costing over US$10 billion, bringing more than 200,000 workers into the area and forcing an estimated 20,000 people from their homes.A large proportion of those displaced will be indigenous peoples who have been living in the area for centuries. Nine million hectares of rainforest will be affected.
Tens of thousands of people, government protesters and supporters alike, demonstrated Saturday in the Nicaraguan capital of Managua."The only way for the government to change, as it has been shown in all these years, is for the people to go to the streets," said Dora Maria Tellez, who was a main figure in President Daniel Ortega's government during the 1980s but who now leads an opposition party."There is no other way," she said at the protests, which appeared to be peaceful. It was not immediately clear how many of the masses were demonstrating against the government and how many had gathered to support it.
Failed Elections in Honduras: Peaceful Resistance Boycotted Coup efforts while Repression causes one Dead and Dozens Tortured and Detained A peaceful resistance movement in Honduras successfully boycotted today's marred presidential elections. Following a plan of civil disobedience, most Honduran citizens didn't vote today as a sign of protest against the coup government of Roberto Micheletti. Since the coup d'etat carried on June 28 this year, the opposition in Honduras have organized what is known as the National Front of Peaceful Resistance. Today they organized several acts of disobedience to boycott the elections that will not be recognized by most countries in the Americas -except the United States- and which only included candidates of the officialism, and ignored the popular demand for a ballot that supported a Constitution reform.
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