Raif Badawi wins EU's Sakharov human rights prize

Raif Badawi, the Saudi blogger and activist sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for insulting Islam, has won the EU’s Sakharov prize for human rights.

The announcement was greeted on Thursday with a standing ovation at the European parliament in Strasbourg, France, but will be seen by Saudi Arabia as another diplomatic slight at a time when its domestic and international policies are coming under growing criticism. Martin Schulz, the European parliament president, said: “I urge the king of Saudi Arabia to free him [Badawi], so he can accept the prize.”

Named after the Soviet scientist and dissident Andrei Sakharov, the award was created in 1988 to honour people and organisations defending human rights and fundamental freedoms. Badawi was one of three nominees this year, along with the Venezuelan opposition movement Mesa de la Unidad Democrática and the assassinated Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov.

More at The Guardian

Over 20 Chinese Human Rights Lawyers & Staff Arrested, Kidnapped or Missing

The mass arrests started since lawyer Wang Yu, her husband Bao Longjun and their young son were kidnapped on July 9 (Wang Yu’s arrest, Radio Free Asia). Their son has been released, according to information on WeChat. Her colleague at Fengrui Law Firm,  Beijing lawyer Zhou Shifeng was abducted from his hotel room on July 9, after he picked up Zhang Miao, Chinese news assistant to German magazine Die Zeit since last October for her support to Hong Kong’s Umbrella Revolution.

About a dozen lawyers throughout China were summoned to police station on late July 10 for interrogation, including Lu Fangzhi, Wen Donghai, Yang Jinzhu of Hunan province, Zeng Weixu of Shangdong, Xue Rongmin of Shanghai, Fu Jianbo of Chongqing, Wang Cheng of Zhejiang province, Ji Laisong of Henan province. Lawyers Zou Lihui of Fujiang province, Jiang Yongji of Gansu province have been allowed to returned home after police interrogations. Activist Ou Biaofeng @oubiaofeng Tweeted around 2:50am quoting Yang Jinzhu who’s under interrogation at a police station in Hunan province as saying the Domestic Security officers told him lawyer Zhou Shifeng has committed “severe criminal offence”, according to a decree issued by Beijing.

Human RIghts Lawyer Wang Yu

Renowned legal scholar and lawyer Zhang Xuezhong is suspected to have been detained. The police broke into Zhang’s home, and homes of lawyer Li Dawei in Gansu province, lawyer Guo Xiongwei in Hunan province. Police ransacked a dozen lawyers’ homes in Chongqing city, Yunnan, Hunan, Shangdong, Zhejiang, Henan provinces. According to New York-based activist Wen Yunchaos Tweet @wenyunchao, Chongqing human rights lawyer You Feizhu wrote: “There’re guests outside the door…I firmly believe I’m innocent. You need to firmly believe that, too! I love this country and the people on this land deeply. What I’ve been doing, is just trying to make this country and lives of ordinary people a bit better.”

The mass arrests and kidnapping by Chinese police followed last Wednesday’s passing of National Security Law which lawyers and scholars say gives Beijing more legitimacy to create a garrison state. “This law will legitimize the abuse of power by state and public security bureaus,” said prominent human rights lawyer Teng Biao, who was detained before.

revolution-news.com

The Internet's Own Boy

The film follows the story of programming prodigy and information activist Aaron Swartz. From Swartz's help in the development of the basic internet protocol RSS to his co-founding of Reddit, his fingerprints are all over the internet. But it was Swartz's groundbreaking work in social justice and political organizing combined with his aggressive approach to information access that ensnared him in a two-year legal nightmare. It was a battle that ended with the taking of his own life at the age of 26. Aaron's story touched a nerve with people far beyond the online communities in which he was a celebrity. This film is a personal story about what we lose when we are tone deaf about technology and its relationship to our civil liberties.

Saudi Women Drivers Referred To Terrorism Court

Two Saudi women detained for nearly a month in defiance of a ban on females driving were referred on Thursday to a court established to try terrorism cases, several people close to the defendants said. The cases of the two, Loujain al-Hathloul and Maysa al-Amoudi, were sent to the anti-terrorism court in connection to opinions they expressed in tweets and in social media, four people close to the two women told The Associated Press.

They did not elaborate on the specific charges or what the opinions were. Both women have spoken out online against the female driving ban. Activists say they fear the case is intended to send a warning to others pushing for greater rights. The four people spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear of government reprisals.

The Specialized Criminal Court, to which their cases were referred, was established in the capital Riyadh to try terrorism cases but has also tried and handed long prison sentences to a number of human rights workers, peaceful dissidents, activists and critics of the government. For example, this year it sentenced a revered Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a vocal critic of the government, to death for sedition and sentenced a prominent human rights lawyer, Waleed Abul-Khair, to 15 years in prison on charges of inciting public opinion.

Huffington Post

Here’s How We Take Back the Internet

Here’s an extremely interesting, educational, and important video interview with Edward Snowden on the right to privacy. Appearing by telepresence robot, Edward Snowden speaks at TED2014 about surveillance and Internet freedom. The right to data privacy, he suggests, is not a partisan issue, but requires a fundamental rethink of the role of the internet in our lives — and the laws that protect it. “Your rights matter,” he say, “because you never know when you’re going to need them.”

HoweStreet.com

Chelsea Manning petitions Kansas court for legal name change

Jailed transgender whistleblower Chelsea Manning has petitioned a Kansas Court to allow her to legally change her name to Chelsea Elizabeth Manning. According to the Leavenworth Times, Leavenworth County District Court has scheduled an April 23 hearing on the name change request.

The petition was filed on January 27 and published 1 March, but only came to light today. It was submitted by Manning’s lawyer David Coombs, of Providence, Rhode Island. Manning, 25, is being held Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, for leaking classified material to the website WikiLeaks. She was sentenced to 35 years behind bars last August.

The former US soldier, who came out as transgender last year, is still being denied access to hormone replacement therapy by the military prison. A civil prison would be required to respect her transition and provide her the treatments she requested, but military prisons provide no support, as transgender people are already banned from military service.

PinkNews

Free Leonard Peltier

Leonard Peltier (born September 12, 1944) is a Native American activist and member of the American Indian Movement (AIM). In 1977 he was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment for first degree murder in the shooting of two Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents during a 1975 conflict on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Peltier's indictment and conviction have been the subject of much controversy; Amnesty International placed his case under the "Unfair Trials" category of its Annual Report: USA 2010, citing concerns with the fairness of the proceedings. Peltier is incarcerated at the United States Penitentiary, Coleman in Florida. Peltier's next scheduled parole hearing will be in July 2024. Barring appeals, parole or presidential pardon, his projected release date is October 11, 2040.

Wikipedia - leonardpeltier.info

Sign the only OFFICIAL Petition to FREE LEONARD PELTIER!

Femen protesters held in Ukraine after topless protest near Crimean Parliament

Two members of Femen have been detained in Crimea's capital today after staging a topless protest near the regional parliament.

Dramatic pictures show security guards, believed to be Cossack irregulars, dragging the women who had 'stop Putin's war' written across their chests away from the Autonomous Republic building in Simferopol.

Femen released a statement on their website saying their members had been "severely beaten" by "pro-Russian activists" and arrested. Video footage has also emerged showing the women being carried away by security guards before being put into a police van.

The Independent

Nelson Mandela - A Tribute To Madiba!

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (born 18 July 1918) is a South African politician who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, the first ever to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before being elected President, Mandela was a militant anti-apartheid activist, and the leader and co-founder of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC). In 1962 he was arrested and convicted of sabotage and other charges, and sentenced to life imprisonment. Mandela went on to serve 27 years in prison, spending many of these years on Robben Island. Following his release from prison on 11 February 1990, Mandela led his party in the negotiations that led to the establishment of democracy in 1994. As President, he frequently gave priority to reconciliation, while introducing policies aimed at combating poverty and inequality in South Africa.

In South Africa, Mandela is often known as Madiba, his Xhosa clan name; or as tata (Xhosa: father). Mandela has received more than 250 awards over four decades, including the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize.

Wikipedia

"I Do Not Want to Die in Prison": Cancer-Stricken Lawyer Lynne Stewart Seeks Compassionate Release

Lawyers for imprisoned attorney Lynne Stewart head to federal court today to seek her release from prison. Now 73 years old, Stewart is dying from cancer in a Texas prison.

Last month, Stewart’s treating physician in prison estimated her life expectancy is approximately 18 months. This comes after the Federal Bureau of Prisons denied Stewart’s request for early release — a denial her lawyers are appealing and hope to address today in a hearing before her original sentencing judge, Judge John Koeltl. In 2010, Stewart was sentenced to 10 years in prison for passing messages from her client, Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, to his followers in Egypt. In a letter to Judge Koeltl, Stewart wrote: "I do not intend to go 'gently into that good night' as Dylan Thomas wrote. There is much to be done in this world. I do know that I do not want to die here in prison — a strange and loveless place. I want to be where all is familiar — in a word, home. ...

More on Democracy Now! - Justice for Lynne Stewart

Turkish Workers Join Mass Protests

Confederation of unions, stage two day strike in solidarity with protestors, against police brutality and for a more democratic Turkey.

'Woman In Red', Becomes Iconic Image of the Turkey Uprising

Perhaps the most iconic picture yet taken of the uprising in Turkey, the image of “the woman in red” shows Ceyda Sungur, an academic at Istanbul’s university, stood defiantly in Taksim Square, centre of the uprising that has swept across the capital and beyond in recent days.

She is one of the so-called “extremists” who Prime Minister Erdogan and his government are blaming for the demonstrations.

Huff. Post

Tunisian FEMEN activist must be released

19-year-old Tunisian activist for the FEMEN network is facing further accusations after having been convicted and fined on Thursday for the possession of a self-defence spray.

Amina Sboui – who has also been known as Amina Tyler – was remanded in custody yesterday on accusations of desecrating a cemetery, belonging to a criminal organization and undermining public morals, offences which carry punishments of several years' imprisonment under the Tunisian Penal Code.
The charges she faces appear to stem from her having written the word "FEMEN" on a wall surrounding a cemetery in Kairouan on 19 May, the day when Ansar al Charia, a Salafist group that opposes equality for women, had called a rally for its supporters in the city.

Amina Sboui was arrested outside the cemetery and charged with possession of a self-defence spray – for which she was convicted and fined 300 Tunisian dinars (about US$184).
She is due to be interrogated by the investigative judge on 5 June for the new accusations.
"Amina should be released from custody right away. She is being investigated for exercising her right to freedom of expression, and she should not be facing imprisonment for doing so," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Director Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.

Amnesty International USA – Aminas Facebook – FEMEN Website – FEMEN Info

#Operation Rohingya

Anonymous - Rohingya people on Wikipedia

Bradley Manning Speaks: In Leaked Court Recording, Army Whistleblower Tells His Story for First Time

A leaked audio recording has emerged of the statement Army whistleblower Bradley Manning delivered at his pre-trial hearing in military court late last month. Manning acknowledged he gave hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks, saying he wanted to show the American public the "true costs of war" and "spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general as it related to Iraq and Afghanistan." This is the first time Manning's voice has been heard publicly since he was arrested nearly three years ago. We air excerpts of his remarks, hearing Manning describe in his own voice the moment he decided to release the documents, and the outrage he felt at the "Collateral Murder" video of an Apache helicopter attack in Iraq.

http://www.democracynow.org

Vatican, Russia and Iran resist U.N. efforts to fight abuse of women

The Vatican, Iran and other religious states are resisting efforts by a U.N. conference, which started Monday, to demand tougher global standards to prevent violence against women and children.

More than 6,000 non-governmental groups are registered at the annual U.N. Commission on the Status of Women, one of the biggest events held at the U.N. headquarters and one that regularly turns into a diplomatic battle. This year’s meeting has been made more emotive after an attack in October by the Taliban on 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai for her attempts to promote girls’ education in Pakistan and widely publicized gang rapes in India and South Africa.

Diplomats said the Holy See, Iran and Russia are leading attempts to wipe out language in a final statement that says religion, custom or tradition must not be used as an excuse to avoid a government’s obligation to eliminate violence. They have also opposed references to rape by a woman’s husband or partner, diplomats said. “Violence against women must be seen as a human rights issue and that has nothing to do with culture or religion,” Norway’s Gender Equality Minister Inga Marte Thorkildsen told AFP.

“The Vatican, conservative religious forces within the United States and Europe, Catholic and Muslim countries are joining forces to stop women from gaining sexual rights,” the minister said, predicting tough negotiations during the two-week conference.

The Daily Star (AFP)

Turkey's Press Freedom Crisis

The Dark Days of Jailing Journalists and Criminalizing Dissent

Turkish authorities are engaging in widespread criminal prosecution and jailing of journalists, and are applying other forms of severe pressure to promote self-censorship in the press, a CPJ analysis shows. CPJ has found highly repressive laws, particularly in the penal code and anti-terror law; a criminal procedure code that greatly favors the state; and a harsh anti-press tone set at the highest levels of government. Turkey’s press freedom situation has reached a crisis point. 

A special report by the Committee to Protect Journalists - Two of Turkey's leading journalists speak from jail

All Americans must see this!

Activists and Journalists beaten and detained in Belarus

Several people were detained and beaten in the Belarusian capital Minsk on Tuesday as they attempted to hold a rally calling for a nationwide boycott of this weekend's parliamentary elections in the former Soviet republic.

"Opposition activists were going to hold another picket near the Frunzensky store in Minsk calling on people not to vote in the elections to the Chamber of Representatives of the National Assembly," the opposition Charter 97 group said on its website. (RIA Novosti)

Agents in plainclothes repeatedly hit several journalists covering an opposition protest organized by activists calling for a boycott of Sunday's parliamentary vote, according to news reports. Sergei Grits, a photographer for The Associated Press, said his face was covered with blood after one of the assailants punched him and broke his glasses, according to AP.

All of the journalists were shoved into a minivan with no license plates and driven to a police station where their equipment and documents were confiscated with no explanation, news reports said. Police held the journalists without charge for two hours and then released them, the AP reported. The officials also deleted the images and video recordings from the journalists' cameras before returning the equipment, Reuters reported.

Committee to Protect Journalists

Russian blogger Navalny charged with embezzlement

Russian anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny has been charged with embezzlement in a case he describes as "strange and absurd". Federal investigators in Moscow brought charges over a timber deal in the Kirov region in which he was involved as an unofficial adviser three years ago.

The case was previously investigated and dropped by regional prosecutors. Mr Navalny, who was also ordered not to leave the country, suggested the new charges were aimed at discrediting him. Supporters of the anti-corruption lawyer, who led mass protests in Moscow against Russian leader Vladimir Putin this winter, demonstrated outside the offices of the Investigative Committee (SK) in Moscow, where he was charged on Tuesday.

Under Article 160 of the Russian criminal code on "misappropriation or embezzlement", Mr Navalny faces between five and 10 years in prison if convicted.

Reacting to news of the case, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said on Twitter: "We should be concerned with attempts in Russia to silence fierce opposition activist Alexei @navalny."

BBC