A number of key witnesses surrounding the assassination of National League for Democracy’s legal advisor U Ko Ni are yet to testify in court despite the 100th hearing having taken place on Friday.
The 63-year-old lawyer was gunned down at Yangon International Airport two years ago this month. So far, four suspects—Kyi Lin, Aung Win Zaw, Aung Win Tun and Zeya Phyo—have been arrested and brought to trial though Aung Win Khaing, believed to be the mastermind behind the conspiracy, remains at large. He was last seen in Naypyitawin February 2017.
Since the beginning of the trial in March 2017, almost all witnesses for the plaintiff have testified in court. Despite witnesses for the defendant beginning their testimonies in July 2018, some key witnesses are yet to testify—including the police colonel who was chief of airport security at the time U Ko Ni was gunned down. Another is the wife of the accused Zeya Phyo.
Police Col. Win Min Thein, deputy chief of the Yangon Police Force, has yet to appear in court despite being summoned three times, each time giving the excuse that he is too busy to attend court. One of the accused, Aung Win Zaw, revealed in his testimony last year that he and his brother, Aung Win Khaing, had met with the police colonel for “some business” shortly before the lawyer’s assassination on Jan. 29, 2017.
In Friday’s hearing, another three witnesses submitted by Zeya Phyo didn’t appear in court, causing the judge to remove their names from the witness list. If the remaining major witnesses, including Win Min Thein, fail to show up for hearings in the coming weeks, they are also likely to be dropped from the list.
The wife of detained Chinese rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang, who has been held incommunicado without trial since 2015, has met with foreign diplomats together with Wang Qiaoling, wife of rights lawyer Li Heping, RFA has learned.
“Yesterday morning, I and Wang Qiaoling met with diplomats in charge of human rights from … the U.K., U.S., Germany, the E.U., Switzerland and Austria,” Wang’s wife Li Wenzu told RFA on Thursday.
“Wang Quanzhang has been detained for three-and-a-half years, and I still know nothing about the trial,” she said. “I am starting to get very worried and anxious, because there has been no new information during the past couple of weeks.”
Li said the conversation had largely focused on her message to the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
“I wanted them to pass on a very clear demand from me to the Chinese government, that the Tianjin No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court issue its verdict immediately,” she said.
“The [trial] ended … so the fact that they still haven’t issued a verdict indicates that they want to drag things out still longer, until everyone has forgotten about the whole thing,” Li said.
“They will then deal with the case when nobody is thinking about it any more,” she said.
Li said state security police had issued the families of rights lawyers and activists detained in a nationwide crackdown since July 2015 with the same warning; not to meet with foreign diplomats.
“The state security police wants the relatives to abide by four prohibitions, the most important of which was that we shouldn’t meet with diplomats,” she said. “But our situation would be far worse if it weren’t for international attention on the July 2015 cases.”
RED BUCKET PROTEST IN SUPPORT OF THE EDELSTAM PRIZE 2018 LAUREATE – LI WENZU
During the Edelstam Prize 2018 award ceremony, the Chinese sign for love was exposed, and all persons engaged in organizing the ceremony, wore the Chinese sign for love on their hearts. The theme of love and happiness pervaded the whole ceremony, especially in the end when children sang “We are the world,” everyone holding a red bucket with the Chinese sign of love to show support for Li Wenzu, responsible for organizing the important “Red Bucket Protest,” which took place on July 7, 2017 in front of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate in Beijing. All the guests received a red chocolate heart when leaving the ceremony.
During the “Red Bucket Protest,” the wives of the detained human rights lawyers gathered in front of the Procuratorate in bright and red clothes with red accessories and red buckets, a color of love and happiness, to publicize their demand for information and access to the prisoners. On their dresses they had printed their husband’s names and messages of love. All the participants in the protest were finally detained, some of them badly beaten. Diplomats were not allowed into the Procuratorate.
Un año más, celebramos el Día del Abogado Amenazado para visibilizar las amenazas, asesinatos, hostigamientos y ataques que nuestros compañeros y compañeras de profesión sufren en todo el mundo por defender los derechos de la ciudadanía.
El Consejo General de la @Abogacia_es se suma a la conmemoración del #DiaAbogaciaAmenazadahttps://t.co/1BM7yffnsA Os recordamos q el próximo día 24 de enero tendrá lugar una concentración de protesta frente a la Embajada de Turquía (C/ Rafael Calvo 18, Madrid). ¡Allí nos vemos!
La Fundación Jesús Pereda junto a CCOO de Zamora y de Palencia mantienen viva la “Memoria de Atocha”, el asesinato hace ya 42 años de cinco abogados laboralistas de CCOO y del PCE por parte de un grupo de pistoleros de extrema derecha.
Una conversación con Alejandro Ruiz-Huerta, uno de las cuatro personas supervivientes, recuperará el significado de aquellos hechos dramáticos y ofrecerá una mirada sindical al presente y hacia el futuro.
Será en Zamora el 28 de enero a las 11h00 y en Palencia ese mismo día a las 19h00, en las respectivas sedes de CCOO.
Please join us at the Turkish Embassy at 12:00pm on 24 January 2019 for the Day of the Endangered Lawyer protest.
The Day of the Endangered Lawyer is the day on which we turn the spotlight on lawyers all over the world who are being harassed, silenced, pressured, threatened, persecuted, tortured. Murders and enforced disappearances as well are not out of the ordinary. The only reason for these outrages is the fact that these lawyers are doing their job, and fulfilling their professional obligations, when they are needed the most.
The 24th of January was chosen to be the annual International Day of the Endangered Lawyer because on this day in 1977 four labour rights lawyers and a coworker were murdered at their office address at Calle Atocha 55 in Madrid. This is known as the Massacre of Atocha.
The International Day of the Endangered Lawyer aims, on the one hand, to create awareness that the practice of the legal profession in many countries involves significant risks, including that of being murdered, but it aims as well at denouncing the situation in a particular country, where lawyers are victims of serious violations of their fundamental rights because they exercise their profession.
More than 100 lawyers held a protest in front of the headquarters of the Courts Complex in Nyala, capital of South Darfur on Wednesday, in solidarity with the Sudanese revolt demanding the immediate step-down of Al Bashir and his regime.
The protesters raised slogans saying: “no to killing protesters, the killers must be held accountable”, and “peaceful, peaceful”.
Security officers arrested a number of lawyers after the protest, including Adam Sharif and Abbas Bashir.
Before his arrest, Sharif told Radio Dabanga from the sit-in in Nyala that the demonstration organised by the Alliance of Democratic Lawyers in South Darfur is “in solidarity with the Sudanese people, as lawyers are the vanguard of their duty to uphold their rights and freedoms”.
The Alliance of Democratic Lawyers in South Darfur appealed to the Sudanese people to uphold their democratic right to peaceful demonstrations and come out to demand a better life in the framework of a democratic alternative that achieves justice, freedom and equality for all Sudanese.
#SudanUprising, Sudan NSS has arrested some lawyers in Nyala, the capital city of South Dafur, for being protested two days, at least 3 lawyers are known up to now, they are: Adam Shereif, Da'oud Jiddu, Tayib Elhadi. pic.twitter.com/9ODxX6vMY3
#Sudan's Omar al Bashir faces arguably the most significant threat to his regime in years, not from armed rebels, but from doctors, pharmacists, lawyers, and unarmed demonstrators. The organizers of the #SudanProtests explain here: https://t.co/TUKOaYBECk
A group of lawyers met Ludhiana police commissioner to seek action againt the SHO of Division 5 Jatinder Kumar, who had allegedly beaten up an advocate on New Year’s Eve. Meanwhile, police have ordered a probe into the matter.
On 10 January 2019, Crimean human rights lawyer Emil Kurbedinov received a letter from the Crimean Directorate of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation notifying him that he will be excluded from the Crimean Bar Association before 1 March 2019.
Emil Kurbedinov is an outspoken human rights lawyer in Crimea. Since the occupation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, he has been actively involved in the defence of the rights of Crimean Tatars who became a targeted group, along with civil society activists and journalists. He provides people with legal aid, observes searches at activists’ homes and uses social media and international conferences to bring public attention to human rights violations in Crimea. Emil Kurbedinov is a recipient of the 2017 Front Line Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk.
On 10 January 2019, Emil Kurbedinov received a letter (dated 18 December 2018) from the Crimean Directorate of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation notifying him that according to 1.2 (4) of Article 15 of the Federal Law “On non-commercial organisations”, a person that has been convicted of extremism cannot be a founder or a member of non-commercial organisation. Emil Kurbedinov is founder and member of Crimean Bar Association. The letter refers to two administrative convictions of Emil Kurbedinov for a post that he published on two of his social media accounts.
Shame! Russian justice ministry must repeal their unjust ruling that calls to disbar our colleague in annexed Crimea, prominent human rights lawyer Emil Kurbedinov based on his retaliatory prosecution on extremism charges! @CommissionerHR@GovernmentRF@KremlinRussiahttps://t.co/yA5C8vcRRS
IAPL Monitoring Committee on Attacks on Lawyers 