An Azerbaijani activist who was sentenced to two years in prison following demonstrations in Baku last year, has been released before completing his jail term. Elnur Majidli, an opposition activist, was charged with disturbing public order after his involvement in protests that took place on 3 April last year. Majidli made a formal request to be released, and in a hearing on 15 May was granted release. In an interview with an opposition newspaper, Majidli said his release was “unexpected”.
Update: the Associated Press has spoken via Skype to a close friend of Chen, Zeng Jinyan, who claims that Chinese officials forced the activist to choose between going into exile alone or staying in China with his family. More details as we get them.
Chinese dissident activist Chen Guangcheng has left the US Embassy in Beijing, been treated at a hospital in the city and reunited with his wife, reports said today.
In the first confirmation that the blind legal activist had been housed under US diplomatic protection following his escape from house arrest last week, US ambassador Gary Locke called the Washington Post to say he was with Chen en route to Chaoyang Hospital in east Beijing. Chen is also said to have spoken to US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who is due to arrive in Beijing today for bilateral talks, with whom he “shared a mutual admiration”.
State news agency Xinhua said that 40-year-old Chen, a prolific human rights activist known for his campaign against forced abortions in China’s Shandong province, left the embassy “of his own volition” after staying there for six days.
China’s foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin has demanded an apology from the United States, accusing the country of taking a Chinese citizen “via abnormal means” into its embassy and of having “interfered in the domestic affairs of China”.
US officials told Reuters that “this was an extraordinary case involving exceptional circumstances, and we do not anticipate that it will be repeated.” They added that Chen plans to remain in China to continue his work, and that the Chinese government had given them assurances of his safety.
Today’s developments come after several days of sensitive negotiations designed to resolve the activist’s fate ahead of Clinton’s arrival in Beijing. US president Barack Obama signalled his support for Chen yesterday, noting that China would “be stronger” if it were to improve its human rights record. Clinton said that a “constructive relationship includes talking very frankly about those areas where we do not agree, including human rights”.
Chen spent four years in prison on charges of disturbing public order before being placed under house arrest in the village of Dongshigu in September 2010. He fled to the Chinese capital last week and a video was released online in which he claimed he and his family had been tortured by officials.
Whether or not Chen is indeed “a free man”, as one of his lawyers Li Jingsong was quoted as saying today, remains to be seen. “I am highly sceptical in terms of promises about the rule of law,” Beijing-based writer and documentary film-maker Charlie Custer told Index, noting that the government has “virtually a zero per cent track record” of treating Chen according to Chinese law.
He added: “I highly doubt Chen will be allowed to be entirely free; I suspect he’ll be sent back to where he was before. He won’t be allowed to operate as a regular Chinese citizen would and should be.”
“He should have been a free man 18 months ago when he should’ve been released from prison,” said Joshua Rosenzweig, a human rights researcher based in Hong Kong, adding that the Chinese government had a long time to protect the activist.
“They only gave these assurances because of the actions of Chen to escape and because this became a high-profile diplomatic incident,” he said.
The safety of several of Chen’s supporters, such as activist He Peirong (@pearlher) also remains uncertain. He, a Nanjing-based activist and one of Chen’s most prolific supporters, is thought to still be detained after police took her from her home on 27 April for having helped Chen escape house arrest. Chen’s nephew, Chen Kegui, is understood to be in hiding.
“If China was serious about assuring Chen’s safety then they’d release them [his supporters],” Beijing-based writer and documentary film-maker Charlie Custer told Index. “The fact that they’ve not done that speaks volumes as to China’s intentions of how they’ll treat Chen.
“All He Peirong did was drive him to Beijing, why is she being held by police?” Custer added.
Meanwhile, security was tight at the hospital where Chen was being treated. Tom Lasseter, Beijing bureau chief for McClatchy Newspapers, tweeted from the scene:
Today’s developments need to be monitored closely to ensure the guarantees promised to Chen are not a one-off, Rosenzweig added. If China does not fulfill its promises, he said, “there is not much in the way of progress.”
“Serious questions need to be asked about nature of political system that places a high priority on maintaining stability above all else, and how that kind of a system makes it possible for local agents to carry out egregious infringements on individual rights for such a long time without intervention,” he said.
Marta Cooper is an editorial researcher at Index. She tweets at @martaruco
The detention of an Egyptian human rights lawyer shortly after his arrival in Saudi Arabia last week to perform Umrah (or lesser pilgrimage) has evoked outrage and a wave of anti-Saudi protests in Egypt. The case has brought to light the deep resentment harboured by a sizeable portion of Egypt’s population against the oil-rich kingdom for alleged rights violations practiced by the monarchy against Egyptian migrant workers. It has also caused a rift between Egypt and the ultra-conservative Gulf country — one that has culminated in the withdrawal of the Saudi Ambassador to Egypt.
Scores of protesters gathered outside the Saudi Embassy in Dokki on Tuesday demanding the immediate release of activist and lawyer Ahmed El Gizawi who was tried in absentia and sentenced to one year in prison and 20 lashes for insulting the Saudi monarch. El Gizawi had earlier sued Saudi King Abdalla Bin Abdel Aziz for “the unlawful detention of Egyptian workers in Saudi prisons without charge.” He was arrested on arrival in the Saudi kingdom despite having obtained an entry visa to perform the religious rituals of Umrah.
In a show of support for El Gizawi, the protesters chanted “down with the Saudi family”. They vowed to take their revolution to Medina. Some waved their shoes in the air in a sign of disrespect for the Saudi authorities.
“It is unacceptable that Egyptian authorities are turning a blind eye and allowing Egyptians to continue to be stripped of their dignity after our revolution, ” retorted an angry middle-aged protester.
“If Gizawi is not released in the next few days, we will take matters in our own hands,” threatened another.
Protesters’ cries of “one hundred lashes for the Saudi Ambassador” could be heard several blocks away from the Embassy.
The issue is the subject of a lively debate on social media, which is once again being used by the activists to vent their frustration. This time the anger is directed at the Saudi royal family, not the Egyptian authorities. Facebook posts and tweets on the issue teeter between humorous sarcasm and offensive insults.
“You have recalled the Saudi Ambassador. We are hoping that the next step will be for the Saudis to stop the sweeping tide of Wahhabism exported to us from Saudi Arabia,” noted cyber-activist Yasmin Amin.
“When a Danish cartoon insulted Prophet Mohamed, Saudi officials did not react but when King Abdalla was insulted by an Egyptian lawyer, the Saudi Ambassador in Cairo was recalled to his country,” read another Facebook post.
Many of the activists are sceptical about Saudi accusations that El Gizawi was trying to smuggle narcotic tablets into the country — a serious charge punishable by death in Saudi Arabia. Egyptian Foreign Ministry officials have tried to appease the public, saying they are “in constant contact with Saudi counterparts to diffuse the crisis.”
Since the oil boom in the seventies, millions of Egyptian migrant workers have traveled to the oil- rich country seeking jobs and better lives for themselves and their families. But earning higher incomes has not come without a price. Graphic stories of their maltreatment by Saudi nationals and authorities have for years been reported by the Egyptian press fuelling anger and deepening the divide between the peoples of the two countries (staunch allies under ousted President Hosni Mubarak).
Before last year’s mass uprising in Tahrir Square, Egypt was a popular holiday destination for many Saudis because “Egypt is a freer, more open society and because of its affordable holiday rates,” according to a Gulf tourist who did not want to be named. Many wealthy Gulf holiday-makers frequent Egypt’s nightclubs, gambling casinos and brothels, lavishly spending petro-dollars on alcohol and prostitution because of restrictions on both in their own countries.
In a country where tourism is the number one foreign currency earner and a source of livelihood for millions of Egyptians, Egyptian authorities have for years encouraged tourism from the Gulf turning a blind eye to some of the negative aspects this type of tourism brings, such as the seasonal marriages that are commonplace in Egypt and which are considered a form of human trafficking: Deprived Egyptian families “sell” their daughters in marriage to wealthy Gulf visitors seeking brides who are often a lot younger than their ageing grooms. Many of these elderly husbands abandon their young Egyptian wives after a few brief months (sometimes weeks) returning home to their countries never to be heard of again. In many cases, the brides become pregnant and are left to fend for their children on their own after the disappearance of their “husbands”. Worse still, these child brides are exposed to an increased risk of HIV/AIDs because their husbands practice polygamy.
Liberal Egyptians are also concerned about the growing tide of Wahhabism, a rigid type of Islam exported to Egypt in recent decades from Saudi Arabia. Ultra-conservative Salafi principles like the face veil or nikab for women are a manifestation of this trend, rejected by Egyptian secularists. Many intellectuals and liberals complain that Egypt has been “Saudised” thanks to numerous Saudi-funded satellite channels infiltrating Egypt’s airspace during the Mubarak era. There are increasing suspicions that Saudi Arabia is pouring millions of petro-dollars into Egypt to fund Islamists who want Islamic Sharia law to be the source of all legislation in the country. “The Saudis are ready to do whatever they can to stop our revolution from reaching their shores,” explained Ibrahim el Toukhy, who owns a Red Sea tourist resort.
“We had our revolution to claim Egypt back from the grip of the Saudis, ” said political analyst Emad Gad from AlAhram Center for Political Studies. “Egypt has always been moderate and must remain so.”
In the meantime, the fate of one Egyptian rights activist hangs in the balance.
Journalist Shahira Amin resigned from her post as deputy head of state-run Nile TV in February 2011. Read why she resigned from the “propaganda machine” here.
A Zimbabwe court on Monday fined six activists 500 USD (315 GBP) each and ordered them to carry out 420 hours of community service for conspiring to commit public violence during a meeting at which they watched video footage of Egyptian mass uprisings. Harare magistrate Kudakwashe Jarabini ordered former opposition politician Munyaradzi Gwisai and five others to do community service or face a year in jail. He said that, although watching a video was not a crime, the “manner and motive” of the meeting showed bad intent, ruling that showing the footage that included “nasty scenarios” was intended to arouse hostility towards Zimbabwe’s government.
