Arcadia Foundation

The following post is brought to us by Amsterdam Group.net, Public Relations liaisons to the Arcadia Foundation:

World Cup fever is in full swing – the event shines a geopolitical spotlight on every nation showcased on a daily basis. This time around, the public relations initiatives behind each team seem to be near-tangible. For some of the more oppressive regimes, they may even be downright embarrassing.

Since leaving the country is an impossibility for prison- er, citizens of North Korea, the marketing gurus from the Jong-Il administration have decided to recruit their Chinese friends to make the trip for them and support the Chollima, the nickname of North Korea’s embattled but unbowed soccer team.

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Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s forthcoming visit to Myanmar will have a profound significance on the traditional friendship between the two countries and further boost bilateral cooperative ties, said Chinese ambassador to Myanmar Ye Dabo.

Premier Wen will start a two-day visit to Myanmar on Wednesday, on the ‘occasion‘ of the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Myanmar.

During his visit, Wen will meet Myanmar’s top leader Senior-General Than Shwe, Prime Minister U Thein Sein and other government officials. The two sides will sign a package of documents aimed at strengthening economic and trade cooperation, Ye told Xinhua.

What is truly astonishing is not simply that the meeting is being hailed as near-joyous by both the Chinese and Myanmar diplomatic communities, but that is critically coincides with the Chinese government being pressured to take a firm international stance on the growing North and South Korean dispute. Watching China’s instant condemnation of the Israeli assault on an aid flotilla bound for Gaza, South Koreans must be wondering more than ever if rather than when China will muster a clear response to their own nautical tragedy.

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The recently concluded U.S.–China human rights dialogue presents an opportunity to reflect on the nature of bilateral engagement with China. Just as intended when such dialogues were masterminded, the recent discussion was a quiet, deferential affair with no outcome: an empty gesture, indicative of an American foreign policy strategy in complete disorganization when faced with a partner on such equal footing.

Thirteen years ago, in March 1997, China threatened trade sanctions against countries that continued to cosponsor the annual U.N. Human Rights Commission resolution on China—a public, periodic reminder of the human rights problems extant in the People’s Republic.

This was part of a shift in the Chinese Communist Party’s response to those who criticized its human rights practices after the Tiananmen Massacre of 1989. Previously, governments had addressed rights violations in China with a combined approach of diplomacy and public censure, bilaterally, and multilaterally.

What changed was a cessation of public censure and multilateral action as a quid pro quo for bilateral dialogue. Engagement became the buzzword. The driver of these changes was, of course, Beijing, “with the objective of eliminating multilateral pressure,” observes NGO, Human Rights in China (HRIC).
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Jamestown Foundation correspondent Giorgi Kvelashvili below discusses the de-Sovietization of Georgia, its progress based on the work and recent writings of President Saakashvili. Though the unorthodox relationship with Russia has hindered the mechanisms of autonomy in the post-Soviet state, the boom we  begin to see with respect to police reform, a crucial element to ongoing civil discourse, is cause for hope.

In his April 15, 2010 article in Foreign Policy Magazine, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili wrote about the significant progress his country has made in nation-building and consolidation of a liberal democracy.

In the piece entitled “Failed No Longer,” Saakashvili touched upon almost all aspects of Georgia’s internal development, foreign policy priorities, security issues, international engagement and, of course, the hurdles erected by Russia’s current leadership to obstruct Georgia’s freedom of choice.

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The announcement from Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng that he is to retire from activism have many both domestically and from human rights groups internationally fearing he is quietly under immense pressure from the authorities to give up his career.

Gao disappeared in January 2009, when he was taken into police custody. For more than a year, his family and associates had no idea of where he was. This week, he unexpectedly returned to his home in Beijing, where he spoke with journalists. Though most of the mystery surrounding human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng’s disappearance has now been solved with his return to Beijing, doubts about his well-being persist.

It is dishearteningly controversial to hear Gao state he will give up political activism and championing the rights of China’s disadvantaged groups. However, many feel for his plight and understand that he is lucky to be alive; the clear message Chinese authorities sent to him over a year ago may have deterred his adamancy for political reform.

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Japan has yet to adopt a comprehensive immigration policy that provides for the protection of migrants’ rights. This deplorable omission inHuman Rights policy has finally been addressed by the United Nations; what happens next will shed light on an issue rarely discussed in the west.

Japanese Migrants in Japan face discrimination, exploitation and a wide variety of other forms of mistreatment, an independent United Nations human rights expert recently stated, as he urged the Japanese Government to strengthen their protection. He also alluded to the atrociously high incidence of domestic violence against migrant women and their children

“They [migrants] still face a range of challenges, including racism and discrimination, exploitation, a tendency by the judiciary and police to ignore their rights, and the overall lack of a comprehensive immigration policy that incorporates human rights protection,” said Jorge A. Bustamante, UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, at the end of a nine-day visit to Japan on Wednesday.

“Japan should establish institutionalized programmes designed to create the necessary conditions for the integration of migrants into Japanese society and the respect of their rights, including to work, health, housing and education, without discrimination,” Mr. Bustamante said.

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Myanmar’s upcoming elections will certainly steal the spotlight at the upcoming 16th ASEAN Summit in Vietnam, as regional leaders no doubt will try to steer clear of the junta’s clear and present agenda to avoid further humiliation.

The 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will convene in Hanoi from April 8 to April 9 with an agenda many officials claim will range from economic integration to the much-needed political reforms in Myanmar.  The goal of course is to push the junta to allow opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to take part in the country’s elections.

The Jakarta Post reports that pressure has mounted over the last few years specifically  for the military junta in Yangon to repeal electoral regulations prohibiting convicts to join political parties and run for office, and in turn allow Suu Kyi to take part in the polls. Many believe these regulations continue to be in place specifically because of the political threat the regime feels Suu Kyi poses.

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Russian prisons have long resembled ‘One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch’ – a mysterious, inhumane series of cramped cells, devoid of retribution and rehabilitation, filled only with danger and despair. Wrongfully accused, of which there are many both notables and unknowns, line the dorms, and many pass away from starvation, hypothermia or disease. The inmates are divided into barracks housing a hundred or so men without regard to the severity of their crimes. At night, a guard locks the door and walks away, leaving first-time offenders and people convicted of nonviolent crimes to fend for themselves in a crowd of gang members, hit men and other career criminals.

Beginning this year, however, the New York Times has reported that first-time offenders may no longer have to live in fear. In the first major effort to upgrade a prison system that has changed little since Stalin established it more than 70 years ago, career criminals will be separated from the general prison population and housed in new prisons with cellblocks, rather than barracks.

President Dmitri Medvedev is pushing the measure to first break up the culture of barracks life and then to do away with common inmate housing almost entirely.

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In the wake of the latest threat by the Chinese government, Google Inc.’s only choice is to pack up and exit the Chinese market, wholesale. In lieu of this, Chinese authorities on Friday told local news websites that if Google China does close, they will be required to use only official news accounts of situations, rather than publish stories from anywhere else.

The departure effectively removes the biggest foreign player from the world’s most populous and fastest-growing internet market. But the ramifications beyond page B1 of the Wall Street Journal are far more severe.

Access to information is a fundamental pillar of human rights. Through forcing Google out, China is now ostentatiously and abhorrently a symbol of prosperity first, society later. With systematic blackouts throughout politically-tumultuous regions of the nation, with millions upon millions of citizens denied even basic access to the internet and with what little information was open and debatable now forced to leave town, China has become a nation under a heavy veil of repression. Read Full Paper

China’s leading dissident, Liu Xiaobo, yesterday lost his appeal against his conviction and 11-year sentence for inciting subversion.

Outside the court, US and European diplomats called for the immediate release of the 54-year-old Liu, a writer and one-time professor who was first detained in December 2008 after co-authoring a manifesto calling for political reform in China.

US ambassador Jon Huntsman said in a statement after the ruling that Washington was “disappointed” and lamented what he called the “persecution” of citizens expressing their political views.

Liu had been jailed before over the 1989 Tiananmen pro-democracy protests.

Last month, four retired Communist Party officials signed an open letter to the government calling for a review of Liu’s case. They suggested his conviction violated some of the principles for which they had fought.

“His harsh sentence is a stark reminder to the Chinese people and the world that there is still no freedom of expression or independent judiciary in China,” says Roseann Rife, a Hong Kong-based researcher for Amnesty International.

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