Aung San Suu Kyi

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), Burma Lawyer Council (BLC) and The Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma (Altsean-Burma) express their outrage regarding the condemnation of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi by the Insein prison court in Rangoon to 18 months house arrest.

“This shocking verdict illustrates once more the Burmese junta’s total disregard for its international human rights obligations and shows the real face of the regime. With the main opposition leader and 2,100 political prisoners behind bars, the elections planned by the regime for next year will be nothing but a mockery”, said Aung Htoo, General Secretary of BLC.

In an advocacy note released today, FIDH, BLC and Altsean-Burma demonstrate that the widespread and systematic violations of international human rights and humanitarian law documented by numerous Burmese, regional and international NGOs and UN mechanisms over the past years amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes. FIDH, BLC and Altsean-Burma therefore call for the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry by the UN Security Council.

“The condemnation of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is not an isolated act of repression : it is taking place in a context where crimes against humanity and war crimes have been perpetrated for decades in Eastern Burma together with other grave human rights violations in the rest of the country. The international community must move immediately to stop this inhumanity : the appointment of a Commission of Inquiry by the Security Council is the first step for any process of justice to be initiated”, concluded Souhayr Belhassen, President of FIDH.

“The ongoing atrocities in Burma increase the urgency for a Commission of Inquiry. Even now, men, women and children continue to be subjected to extreme and systematic forms of violence and murder. The world should not allow this to go on”, emphasized Debbie Stothard, Coordinator of Altsean-Burma.

'Tenuous pretext'

"We call on the Burmese authorities to release her immediately and unconditionally along with her doctor and the more than 2,100 political prisoners currently being held," Mrs Clinton said.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed "grave concern", and called on the Burmese government not to undermine Burma's national reconciliation process, his spokeswoman said.

Ms Su Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), which won a landslide election victory in 1990 only to be denied power by the military, "strongly condemned" the charges, which come two weeks before her latest detention was due to expire.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown earlier said he was "deeply disturbed" by the charges and he accused the Burmese military government of seeking "any pretext, no matter how tenuous" to extend the detention.

The EU special envoy to Burma, Piero Fassino, said there was "no justification" for the detention.

Thailand's prime minister also expressed concern on behalf of the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean), one of the few groups that allow Burma as a member.

"We would like to see positive steps being taken," Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva told Reuters, adding that the group was "concerned" by the recent events.

Unwanted intruder lands Suu Kyi in jail

Supporters criticise American who swam uninvited to dissident's lakeside house

Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's democracy icon, will go on trial inside the nation's most notorious jail on Monday, accused of breaching the terms of her house arrest by allowing an American who swam uninvited to her lakeside home to stay overnight.

If found guilty she could be sentenced to five years' imprisonment, said Nyan Win, a spokesman for her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD).

John Yettaw, a 53-year-old American, reportedly swam to her house last December but Ms Suu Kyi persuaded him to leave. When he arrived last week she again urged him to leave but was induced to let him stay two nights on the grounds that he was feeling unwell. He was spotted by police and arrested as he was swimming away on the night of 5 May.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8050545.stm

Guards at a juvenile-detention boot camp kneed and struck a teenager who had apparently gone limp while being restrained the day before he died, a videotape released Friday showed.

The scenes from the tape outraged the parents of 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson. His mother said it proved the guards killed her son, despite a medical examiner's ruling that Anderson died from internal bleeding unrelated to the confrontation.

Anderson, who entered the camp on Jan. 5 because of a probation violation, complained of breathing difficulties and collapsed during exercises that were part of the entry process. He died the next day at a Pensacola hospital.

The county sheriff's office, which runs the camp, said Anderson was restrained after he became uncooperative. But the camp also admitted Friday that mistakes were made, CBS News correspondent Jim Acosta reports.

"It is very obvious to us that there are valid concerns raised in some of the procedures that are being used in this particular incident," said Bay County Sheriff Frank McKeithen.

On the 1-hour, 20-minute tape, which has no sound, as many as nine guards can be seen restraining Anderson. Guards kneed him and wrestled him to the ground, where he was repeatedly struck by one guard, either on his arm or the side of his torso, while he lay still. He was limp throughout most of it and never appeared to offer significant resistance.

"He was trying to do what they wanted him to do but they still beat him, kicked, punched him, and the nurse stood around there and didn't do nothing," Robert Anderson said.

Anderson's parents watched the tape at their lawyer's office in Tallahassee as the Florida Department of Law Enforcement made it public.

"Martin didn't deserve this right here. At all," said his mother, Gina Jones. "I couldn't even watch the whole tape. Me, as a mom, I knew my baby was in pain, and I am in pain just watching his pain."

She said she walked out of the lawyer's office when the tape showed guards shoving her son up against a pole.

At the beginning of the tape, the guards are seen pinning Anderson against a pole and striking him three times with their knees. At another point, a guard struck him from behind, lifting his feet off the ground.

A woman in a white coat was present while the guards restrained Anderson and at one point used a stethoscope to check him. Near the end of the confrontation, guards appear to become more concerned and several began running in and out of the scene. A few minutes later, emergency medical personnel arrive and put the boy on a gurney and take him away.

Despite all these evidence against the guards, the guards at the Florida boot camphave been acquitted in charges

(CNN) -- A Texas district court judge Friday reversed the conviction of a man who died in prison nearly a decade ago, almost two decades into a prison sentence for a rape he swore he did not commit, CNN affiliate KXAN reported.

Timothy Cole died in prison while serving a sentence for a rape DNA tests show he did not commit.

Timothy Cole was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison for the 1985 rape of 20-year-old Michele Mallin. He maintained his innocence, but it was not confirmed by DNA until years after his 1999 death, when another inmate confessed to the rape.

In the courtroom of Judge Charlie Baird Friday afternoon, Mallin, now 44, faced Jerry Johnson, the man who confessed to the rape.

"What you did to me, you had no right to do," she told him angrily, according to Austin's KXAN. "You've got no right to do that to any woman. I am the one with the power now, buddy."

Cole's family also addressed Johnson.

"He'll never have the chance to have children," Cole's mother, Ruby Session, said. "I want you to know he was a fine young man."

Johnson has been in prison since 1985 on two convictions for aggravated sexual assault, according to the Texas Department of Corrections. He was given a life sentence for the rape of a 15-year-old girl, and a jury later tacked on a 99-year sentence for another rape, according to the Lubbock, Texas, Avalanche-Journal. He cannot be charged with the Mallin case, as the statute of limitations has expired.

Johnson also spoke Friday.

"I am responsible," he said. "I say I am truly sorry."

Then a student at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Mallin was walking to her car, intending to move it to another parking lot, when a man approached her asking about jumper cables, she said. In a matter of seconds, he put her in a choke hold and held a knife to her neck. He forced himself into her car and drove her to the outskirts of town, where he raped her.

The next day, police investigators showed Mallin pictures of possible suspects. She chose a picture of Cole and said he was her attacker. She later identified him in a physical lineup, according to the Innocence Project of Texas.

"I was positive," she said. "I really thought it was him."

But there was one detail: Mallin told police her attacker was a smoker. "He was smoking the entire time."

Cole, who suffered from severe asthma, "was never a smoker," said his brother, Cory Session. "He took daily medications [for asthma] when he was younger."

"He was the sacrificial lamb. To them, my brother was the Tech rapist, there was no backtracking. It was the trial of the decade for Lubbock."

The "Tech rapist" attacked four women other than Mallin -- abducting them in parking lots near campus and driving them to a vacant location, where he would rape them and flee on foot, according to the Innocence Project of Texas. The rapist "terrorized" the Texas Tech campus in the mid-1980s, the organization said.

Cole, like Mallin, was a student at Texas Tech. He had finished two years of college previously and was returning to school after spending two years in the Army, his brother said.

But his dreams of getting married and having children never materialized. He was arrested and charged with Mallin's rape, declining a plea bargain offer that would have put him on probation. A jury convicted him and imposed a 25-year sentence.

That night, "he hugged my mother and he said, 'Mother, why these people lie on me, why they do this to me?'" Cole's brother Reggie Session recounted for the Avalanche-Journal, which published a three-part series on the case in June.

"He said, 'They know I ain't done nothing to that girl. I don't even know that girl. Why they do this to me, mother?' ... He cried in my mother's arms on the floor."

Later, while in prison, Cole rejected an offer of parole that would have required him to admit guilt. "His greatest wish was to be exonerated and completely vindicated," his mother, Ruby Session, told KXAN.

But the asthma that plagued Cole throughout his life brought about his death on December 2, 1999. The cause was determined to be heart complications due to his asthmatic condition. He was 39.

It was 2007 when a letter addressed to Cole arrived at his family's home, written by Johnson. Read the letter »

"You may recall my name from your 1986 rape trial in Lubbock," says the letter, dated May 11, 2007. "Your Lubbock attorney, Mike Brown, tried to show I committed the rape.

"I have been trying to locate you since 1995 to tell you I wish to confess I did in fact commit the rape Lubbock wrongly convicted you of. It is very possible that through a written confession from me and DNA testing, you can finally have your name cleared of the rape ... if this letter reaches you, please contact me by writing so that we can arrange to take the steps to get the process started. Whatever it takes, I will do it."

Johnson did not know Cole had died. In fact, according to the Avalanche-Journal, he had been writing to court officials for years to confess to the rape, but got nowhere.

Upon finding out that Cole was dead, Johnson wrote he "cried and felt double guilty, even though I know the system's at fault," according to the Avalanche-Journal.

"A day later, I am still bothered, terribly, by the death revelation. Because, not knowing Mr. Cole at all, I wonder if the wrongful incarceration contributed to his death."

The Innocence Project became involved after Cole's family received Johnson's letter. DNA tests confirmed that Johnson was Mallin's attacker. Now, Cole's family hopes the court hearing will be the final step in clearing his name.

Mallin is helping them. "I was very traumatized," she said. "I was scared for my life. I tried my hardest to remember what he looked like.

"I'm trying to get his name cleared. It's the right thing to do."

Cory Session said, "We don't blame Michele. She's very gracious."