Chinese Blogger Sentenced 3.5 Years for 5 Articles

Zeng Jinyan speaks out on Hu Jia’s sentencing
Published by John Kennedy April 13th, 2008
On the day after her husband’s sentence to 3.5 years in prison for his blogging activities, house arrested blogger Zeng Jinyan wrote a letter explaining her side to their story. Here now thanks to one friendly netizen is an English translation:
Please tell me: is this a just verdict?
Zeng Jinyan, 4 April 2008

In a hearing on 3 April 2008, the court convicted Hu Jia (胡佳) and sentenced him to three years and six months imprisonment and subsequent deprivation of his political rights [1] for one year. They also confiscated his laptop computer, his wireless internet access card, his WiFi router, ZTE ADSL modem, an internet access card, one sheet of A4 printer paper with Cai Chu’s (蔡楚) e-mail address written on it, and his PHS limited-range mobile phone.
After the verdict was announced, I had to struggle with the state security squad police just for the right to walk by myself. They dropped me off at the Babaoshan subway station exit. A group of friends, some of whom I recognised, came running up to meet me. Many of them asked me: ‘Is this a just verdict?’
Now let me ask you: if someone in your family got sentenced to three and a half years imprisonment and one year of deprivation of their political rights for writing five articles and giving two interviews, having already been subjected to long term house arrest – would you think that just?
And let me ask President Hu Jintao and our various leaders responsible for the administration of justice: given that the Constitution accords priority to the protection of freedom of speech, does a verdict of three and a half years of imprisonment and one year of deprivation of one’s political rights for writing five articles and giving two interviews manifest the ‘spirit of the rule of law’? Does it exhibit the justice of our judicial system?
[more]
http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/2008/04/13/zeng-jinyan-speaks-out-on-hu-jias-sentencing/

Shrpaev's Last Post: Creating Dissenters for Sport

Shurpaev’s Last Post

'Russia: Two Dagestani Journalists Killed'

by Veronica Khokhlova

Shurpaev's last blog entry (RUS) has received much attention both in the Russian blogosphere and in the media. In it, he wrote that he'd been "blacklisted" by a Dagestani newspaper critical of the republic's president:

Here we go! I'm a [dissident] now! Not sure if I should laugh or cry. I already wrote here that there's a battle going on at one Dagestani paper between its journalists and founders. The latter, according to the journalists, wanted to use them as informational killers. The potential killers [the journalists] rebelled. But all this business is way too serious and I don't understand it. But here's what blew me away. The founders came up with a list of people who it's forbidden to publish in this paper, mention them or [...] even interact with them in the newspaper's building. And there I am, in the front row! Heading the list! The funniest thing is that I've never written anything subversive for this paper - only notes on my travels, in which I did not touch upon the political situation in Zimbabwe, but just describe where I'd been, what I'd eaten and who I'd seen. I haven't taken part in the political life of the republic [Dagestan] or even of my region, because I'm lazy and,
in general, I had to go to the gym and take my daughter to the movies and to the playground. And then boom! Such a turn of events... Perhaps the [newspaper's] founders know something about me that I do not know myself? Maybe I should do the "suitcase-train station-Israel" thing, so as not to become a second [Khodorkovsky]? Anyways. Matilda [a frequent anonymous addressee of Shurpaev's blog postings]! Knit me some woolen socks. Just in case. The size is 43 1/2. [...]

Among other individuals on the newspaper's "black list" was Gadzhi Abashilov, head of Dagestan's state TV. Around 8 PM on Friday, Abashilov was shot dead in the republic's capital, Makhachkala.

Timur Aliev posted some thoughts (RUS) on this murder as well:

The second murder of a Dagestani journalist in two days - now, following Ilyas Shurpaev (in Moscow), Gadzhi Abashilov has been killed in Makhachkala.

I don't know whether these two murders are connected. But here's one version (I do not possess any insider information whatsoever). Abashilov was a pro-government journalist, a media bureaucrat - head of the "Dagestan" [State TV and Radio Company]. Ilyas [Shurpaev] could have also been perceived to have ties with the government - because he worked for [state-owned Channel One] - the main federal channel. Both were on some list of journalists who had been banned from being published and mentioned in an independent (and, lately, more of an oppositional) Dagestani newspaper. Thus, they were both identified more like pro-government people.

This leads to two conclusions (of course, only in case these two murders originate from the same source) - either the opposition is retaliating, or someone wants to compromise the opposition - namely, [Suleiman Kerimov] (who has been mentioned as the newspaper's sponsor). [...]

According to media reports on the ongoing investigation, the killings of Shurpaev and Abashilov are not connected.

You may view the latest post at

http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2008/03/23/russia-two-dagestani-journalists-killed/
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Tunisia Denies Human Rights to Jailed Blogger

Tunisia Savages Imprisoned Blogger Journalist

Published by Sami Ben Gharbia, Global Voices Advocacy

TAGS: blogger, Boukhdhir, prison, Tunisia.

In the last few weeks, Slim Boukhdhir, the 39-year old imprisoned blogger and journalist, is reported to have been subjected to an unusual level of harassment by prison authorities in the Sfax prison where he is serving the one-year sentence imposed by a Tunisian court on December 4th, 2007. Boukdhir was charged with “aggression against a public employee” and “affront to public decency”.

His wife, Dalenda Boukhdhir, told Global Voices that the prison authorities placed Slim in “dry cell” for three days, from 20-23 March, 2008, turning off the water in his cell so he couldn’t wash. These measures have further aggravated the already serious health condition of her husband, she said. Mme Boukdhir has complained to the Red Cross about prison conditions and is hoping the Red Cross staff will visit Slim at the prison.

Slim Boukhdhir has staged several hunger strikes to protest the inhumane conditions under which he is being detained. His most recent hunger strike was called off on February 2, 2008, on the urging of his wife.

“Preventing a prisoner from seeing his family or having a clean cell is a flagrant violation of human rights,” Reporters Without Borders has said, “the injustice of sentencing this journalist to a year in prison is being compounded by his conditions of detention and staging a hunger strike has become his only way of making himself heard.”

We include below an alert from Luiza Toscane, a Human right activist, posted on the forum section of the Tunisian website Nawaat. (The English translation was done by Jennifer Brea, Global Voices’ French Language editor):

Lors de la visite qu’elle a rendu jeudi 13 mars à son mari, Slim Boukhdhir, journaliste incarcéré à la prison de Sfax, Dalenda Boukhdhir a pu constater que l’acharnement des autorités pénitentiaires à l’endroit de son mari ne connaissait pas de répit : ce dernier lui a dit que non seulement il vivait toujours dans sa cellule infecte et exiguë, mais aussi que depuis trois jours, il n’avait plus accès à un point d’eau. Les autorités pénitentiaires ont fait couper l’eau, et à la différence de ses co détenus, il ne peut sortir pour se laver ailleurs.

During her March 13th visit to her husband, Slim Boukhdir, a journalist incarcerated in Sfax prison, Dalenda Boukhdhir saw that the prison authorities’ relentlessness knew no bounds: Slim told her that not only he still confined to a foul and cramped cell, but for the last three days, he had no access to a water source. The prison authorities cut off the water, and unlike his fellow prisoners, he could not leave his cell to wash himself elsewhere.

Slim Boukhdhir a alors envisagé une nouvelle grève de la faim pour protester contre cette nouvelle atteinte à ses droits élémentaires, projet que ses proches lui ont proposé d’abandonner. Et aujourd’hui, le couffin de nourriture qui lui a été apporté par sa mère a été accepté par l’administration pénitentiaire, signe que le détenu aurait consenti à renoncer à sa grève, signe aussi que Slim Boukhdhir renvoie la balle dans le camp des défenseurs des droits de l’homme : à nous d’exiger que soit mis un terme à ses conditions infra humaines d’incarcération, à nous de tout mettre en oeuvre pour sa libération.

So Slim Boukhdhir planned a new hunger strike to protest against this new affront to his basic rights, a project his family and friends urged him to abandon. And today, the prison authorities allowed him the food basket his mother brought, a sign that the prisoner agreed to renounce his strike, and also a sign that Slim Boukhdhir is tossing the ball back to the human rights defenders, into their court. It is up to us to demand an end to the inhuman conditions of incarceration. It is up us to do all we can to secure his freedom.

Slim Boukhdir was arrested on November 26 and charged with “aggression against a public employee” and “affront to public decency”. He started blogging on the Arabic Blog Service: Maktoob Blogs after losing his job as journalist at the Tunisian “Akhbar Al-Joumhurya” (News of the Republic) newspaper on August 2004. In July 2007, his blog was hacked into and deleted. Until his arrest on November 26, 2007, Slim Boukhdhir continued his work as correspondent for the Al-Arabiya TV Website, the London-based pan-Arab daily Al Quds Al Arabi and the German Qantara web portal.