Monday, 28 December 2009
Final hours for Briton on China's death row
No one has told him that he is about to die. But unless last-minute pleas for his life prove successful, a Kentish Town taxi driver who suffers from mental illness will be shot dead by the Chinese authorities within 24 hours.
Akmal Shaikh, a 53-year-old father of five who has been accused of smuggling four kilos of heroin into China's western Xinjiang province in 2007, could become the first Briton to be executed in China in modern times, and the first EU national to face the death penalty there in 50 years. But he has not been informed that his execution by a bullet to the neck has been scheduled for 10.30 tomorrow morning. The Chinese government says the information is being withheld on "humanitarian grounds".
Mr Shaikh's friends and family say he suffers from bipolar disorder and was too ill to stand trial. His cousins Soohail and Nasir Shaikh have travelled to China to try and deliver pleas for mercy to President Hu Jintao. But so far those pleas have fallen on deaf ears.
In his petition, his cousin Mr Soohail says: "We plead for his life, asking that a full mental health evaluation be conducted to assess the impact of his mental illness, and that recognition be made that he is not as culpable as those who might, under Chinese law, be eligible for the death penalty."
Clive Stafford Smith, the director of the human rights charity Reprieve, has petitioned for his pardon, amid fears that Beijing is aggrieved by the international reaction to its stance at the Copenhagen climate talks – in particular that of Britain, which blamed China for the failure of the talks when Ed Miliband said it had "hijacked" discussions.
"I like to think the Chinese will show compassion but I don't know," Mr Stafford Smith said yesterday. "I think on one level China is aggravated by what happened at Copenhagen, but I hope it won't hold that against him."
China executes more people than all other countries put together but rarely executes Westerners. The Foreign Office says it has pressed hard for his release. Over the last six months, the UK has forcibly raised the case with senior Chinese officials 10 times to no effect. Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the actor Stephen Fry are among many who have tried to intercede.
One of the key pieces of evidence in favour of the argument that Mr Shaikh is a sadly deluded figure, is a pop song he recorded called "Come Little Rabbit". Reprieve released the song in the hope that it would help convince the Chinese judiciary of his fragile mental state and halt his execution. Before he left for China, Mr Shaikh recorded the song, which he was convinced would bring peace to the world.
Among other possibly delusional moves, Mr Shaikh wrote emails to US and British officials calling himself a millionaire and a messiah. He moved to Poland several years ago, where he intended to set up an airline, which he was in no position to do. While in Warsaw, he wrote the song with a man named Carlos, who said he knew a producer in Kyrgyzstan who could help.
Mr Shaikh had no experience of singing in public before he headed to China, and campaigners say he was tricked into carrying the suitcase in Kyrgyzstan by the "producer", who was working for a criminal gang for whom he unwittingly carried drugs.
The UN special rapporteur on summary executions, Philip Alston, has condemned Beijing's stance. Insisting that there are "strong indications" Mr Shaikh suffers from mental illness, he called the prospective death penalty "a major step backwards for China".
Mr Shaikh's brother Akbar has written to the Chinese ambassador in London invoking the suffering of his mother. "She is a frail woman," he wrote, "and our family have not been able to break the news to her that she may lose her youngest child next week."
Working against Mr Shaikh are his insistence on holding his own defence, and his insistence during his trial that neither he nor his family have a history of mental illness. Witnesses say that his testimony was at times so absurd that even the judges were laughing.
The Chinese government says Mr Shaikh's conviction was carried out according to the country's laws. "Drug smuggling is a grave crime in international practice. During the entire process, the litigation rights and the relevant rights and interests of the defendant were fully respected and guaranteed. China has offered prompt consular information to the UK and arranged consular visits," said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu.
New Wave of Democracy & Freedom! 冲破堤坝和高墙, 让自由和民主之河流入中国, 伊朗, 阿富汗和加沙地区. 2010, 新一波民主浪潮! #Iran #ch4iran ##iranelection#china#RT
During today’s protests in Iran, as always, Twitter saw a surge of tweets from protests in Iran giving updates on the latest developments and using Twitter for coordination purposes.
However, this time around, people in China quickly joined Iranians in spreading the word and we witnessed an outpouring of tweets in Chinese reporting on the situation. ‘CN4Iran’ quickly became one of the top ten trending topics on twitter.
The people of China, who like Iranians, live under an oppressive regime are standing in solidarity with freedom fighters of Iran and drawing inspiration from them; one tweet read “Today we free Tehran, tomorrow we take on Beijing”.
Riot Guards Beg for Forgiveness
People have cornered these security forces. People ask them 'why do you do this to your people?' and the riot guards ask for forgiveness.
Translation:
'You are Yazid's - the Khalif against whom the Ashura uprising took place -forces', the woman shouts at them. One of the protesters then reassures them that they will not be beaten up, all they have to do is say Khameneii is a bastard. The woman can then be heard saying 'All you can do is kill your people is it?' and again they plead saying 'Please We are not killers'. PHOTOGRAPHS
Mehdi Karroubi has issued a statement offering condolences for today’s martyred protesters and condemning those carrying out oppression: “The sins that you have committed today cannot be forgiven by God. If you don’t have a belief in God, at least be a human.”
Karroubi offered a sharp comparison, asserting that even the Shah respected the day of Ashura and gave orders for people to be able to commemorate it as they wished...
The start of an Iranian intifada?
At the beginning of the current period of opposition, which started soon after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's controversial reelection, the demonstrations were less frequent, with quiet periods of seeming normalcy in between.
Judging from the events of Ashura, however, they now seem to have the potential to turn into a full scale-civil disobedience campaign, not unlike the first intifada that the Palestinians initiated against Israel in 1987. This will mean continuous periods of strikes and civil disobedience, as well as more confrontations between members of the public and security forces.
The main factor contributing to the new status quo is the unrelenting policies of the Supreme Leader, which have pitted his version of the Islamic Republic against longstanding Islamic institutions.
This is a battle that he will find extremely difficult to win. In fact, if developments continue in their current form, they can, at a minimum, result in significant changes to the structure of his regime, or more drastically, lead to its total demise.
His decision to allow the Basij to mount an attack on mourners at Ayatollah Montazeri's funeral was one factor leading to the spread of opposition in rural areas, faster and more efficiently than any campaign the reformist camp could have arranged. Yes, there were members of the opposition who were trying to take advantage of the mayhem, but there were also many genuine mourners who had come to pay homage to a Grand Ayatollah. To Ayatollah Khamenei's forces, they were all the same. To allow attacks against the residents of a holy city where the seeds of the 1979 revolution were planted was not just dead wrong from a religious perspective, it was politically counter productive as well.
And to make matters worst, the very next day, the Supreme Leader's forces attacked mourners who were attending a ceremony for Montazeri at Isfahan's Seyyed mosque and members of the public were beaten up inside. The Basijis also tried to assault Isfahan's former Friday prayers leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Jalaleddin Taheri, who had arranged the ceremony. However his supporters protected him.
If the Shah had done such a thing, one could have attributed it to his brute dictatorial secularism. But for the Supreme Leader of an Islamic Republic to order violence against Islamic institutions means turning against the very establishment that formed the foundation -- or the very DNA -- of the current regime.
In 1987, to Palestinians, Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and the deteriorating political and economic situation there formed the nucleus of the political ideology that legitimized the first intifada.
Khamenei's increasing attacks against the Iranian public, followed by full-scale assaults against mosques and religious members of the community are creating the nucleus of an ideology that is legitimizing opposition, not just in cities, but throughout Iran.
However, ideology is not enough. To succeed, what is needed is to increase the frequency of opposition to the point where the morale of the regime and its forces are sufficiently eroded and they can no longer afford to carry on with their current policies, or even able to function.
Here again Ayatollah Khamenei seems to be helping the opposition. The brutal attack against the mourners at Montazeri's funeral meant that more people were motivated to turn up in the streets on Tasua (the day before Ashura), as well as on Ashura, which happened to fall on the 7th day of Montazeri's passing. In fact, small demonstrations have continued in different places since Montazeri was buried.
Further, on Ashura, his forces killed Seyed Ali Habibi Mousavi Khameneh, the nephew of Mir Hossein Mousavi. It's very possible that he happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. However, the Mousavi family would be forgiven for assuming that he was targeted for assassination. After all, how is it possible that among thousands upon thousands of demonstrators, he was one of the few who was shot dead? Was he followed from the beginning by an assassination team? Was he marked for death before he left the house? These are possible scenarios that cannot be overlooked.
And now his funeral, as well as the 7th day of his death, are going to provide other occasions that the opposition can use to turn up in the streets to demonstrate. Add to this 15 religious holidays, plus at least five major political ones. Meanwhile, more people are expected to be killed or arrested, meaning more mourning congregations and demonstrations. Put all these dates together and the regime could start facing demonstrations in unprecedented intervals.
Things could get much worse if the opposition turns to public strikes. With violence against the public expected to continue unabated, and Ahmadinejad planning to cut subsidies, which means more economic misery, the regime could in fact add to the attraction of this back-breaking scenario.
More than ever, the future of this regime hinges on Ayatollah Ali Khameni. He can save his regime and keep it in its current form if he learns from his recent mistakes and modifies the way his forces and government reach out to the public. Failure to readjust could turn out to be a very costly mistake.
Basij Commander Ordering Guards to Beat Demonstrators
" Pouya, Sadegh (names)"
"Hi- Where are you" "Beat them"
"Enghelab Ave. - Vali Asr Ave....Go there and beat them"
"These Foreigners have gone there to demonstrate, beat them silly, tear them apart, push them toward north, there more Basiji there to beat them"
"Very fast, dont waste time"
"Hi- Where are you" "Beat them"
"Enghelab Ave. - Vali Asr Ave....Go there and beat them"
"These Foreigners have gone there to demonstrate, beat them silly, tear them apart, push them toward north, there more Basiji there to beat them"
"Very fast, dont waste time"
"Jalil (name) go to Enghelab Ave. fast and beat them up"
"Listen, beat and tear them apart, break their legs, god would like that"
"Mohammad - Sadegh - Jalil (Names)"
"Go to east side, about 350 people are gathering there, beat them hard, tear the bodies apart, all of them, send them all to Kahrizak,(the famous prison which beat, turture and rape many prisoners in north of Teharn)"
"Hello Ahmad(name) I can't hear you, yes yes, good news I hope"
"You go ahead and tear them apart, I will take the blame, don't worry, do it right now"
"There are 8 to 10 old ladies there, beat them up and clean them up"
"From Enghelab Ave. downward, send small group there"
"Emad - Sadegh (names), do them real fast, beat them and wait for my order there"
"Emad 2, Emad 2 (name) where are you?...They have attacked the fire department (People) , they have burnt their fir cars, get there fast and stop them, you all wait there and be alarm, wait for my order"
@'Why We Protest'
"Listen, beat and tear them apart, break their legs, god would like that"
"Mohammad - Sadegh - Jalil (Names)"
"Go to east side, about 350 people are gathering there, beat them hard, tear the bodies apart, all of them, send them all to Kahrizak,(the famous prison which beat, turture and rape many prisoners in north of Teharn)"
"Hello Ahmad(name) I can't hear you, yes yes, good news I hope"
"You go ahead and tear them apart, I will take the blame, don't worry, do it right now"
"There are 8 to 10 old ladies there, beat them up and clean them up"
"From Enghelab Ave. downward, send small group there"
"Emad - Sadegh (names), do them real fast, beat them and wait for my order there"
"Emad 2, Emad 2 (name) where are you?...They have attacked the fire department (People) , they have burnt their fir cars, get there fast and stop them, you all wait there and be alarm, wait for my order"
@'Why We Protest'
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