court has ordered Prime Minister Yusaf Raza Gilani to reopen a corruption probe against Zardari.Gilani has refused, arguing that Zardari has immunity from prosecution so long as he remains president. If found guilty of contempt for ignoring the order, Gilani could be imprisoned for six months and lose his job.

which after a gap of 16 years has opened an investigation into allegations;  Pakistan’s powerful military establishment is under rare scrutiny from the country’s top court,

Pakistan’s powerful military establishment is under rare scrutiny from the country’s top court, which after a gap of 16 years has opened an investigation into allegations the army funnelled money to politicians to influence elections.

The case has showcased the emerging power of the Supreme Court, which is also hearing a contempt case against the prime minister that could see him imprisoned. The court’s activism has led to some uncomfortable headlines for politicians and pierced the perception of the generals’ invulnerability.

But it’s unclear who, if anyone, will be held accountable.

Indeed, some critics say by moving against the generals now, the court is just seeking to deflect criticism that it focuses solely on the alleged misdeeds of the elected civilian government and wants to dislodge President Ali Zardari, with the supposed nod from the military itself.

The court is also demanding answers from the army and spy agencies over the fate of hundreds of ‘missing’ Pakistanis: suspected militants or separatists picked up and held by military authorities for months and years in secret detentions.

Analysts say the developments are part of jostling between the army, the court and the government, with each wanting to stake a claim on its sphere of influence. There seems to be a balance among them so far, with no side willing or strong enough to strike a decisive blow against another. Speculation of a military coup or the imminent ousting of the government, frequently raised in the media just a few months ago, has receded.

The court is acting on a petition filed in 1996 by former Air Vice Marshal Asghar Khan, demanding it investigate what he claimed were payments to right-wing politicians made by the army-run Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency, known as the ISI. The money was to be used to ensure that the Pakistan People’s Party — currently in power — would not win the 1990 general elections.

Without explaining why, the court began hearing the case last month. Testimony this week has shone a light on longtime allegations that the ISI has tried to influence elections.

On Thursday, Yunus Habib, a 90-year-old banker from the state-owned Mehran Bank, testified that he doled out the equivalent of $1.5 million in bank funds to politicians and ISI officers on the orders of then army chief Gen. Aslam Beg and President Ghulam Ishaq Khan, who was considered close to the army.

Some of the politicians who allegedly took the funds remain powerful political players, including opposition leader and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. He has denied taking any money.

On Friday, former ISI chief Lt. Gen. Asad Durrani testified that he was directed by Beg to distribute the money among politicians from the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad, a right-wing political alliance allegedly set up by the military establishment to counter the PPP. He said Beg told him the money had been collected from the business community in Karachi.

The alliance led by Sharif went on to win enough seats to form a coalition government.

What happens next is uncertain.

Khan’s lawyer Salman Raja said he wanted criminal cases brought against all those who distributed and received the money. That would roil the political scene and likely be opposed by the army. Moreover, the nature of the evidence against them is unclear.

Pakistan’s Information Minister Firdous Awan, a PPP member, urged the court to prosecute those involved.

‘The court has already unveiled the faces. It shall now punish them,’ she said Saturday. The party is enjoying seeing the army and Sharif on the defensive.

Retired justice Tariq Mahmood said the case was a ‘morale booster’ for the current government, but that it was unlikely anyone would be put on trial. ‘The government now has a chance to bring the intelligence agencies ... under its control,’ he said.

Political analyst Moeed Pirzada said the case put both the military and Nawaz Sharif on the defensive, which benefits the current PPP government, but would likely remain inconclusive. He said the court saw the case as ‘an opportunity to assert itself’ following criticism by some over its pursuit of President Asif Ali Zardari. Supreme Court justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudry has been accused of pursuing a vendetta against Zardari’s PPP government. Zardari opposed Chaudry’s reinstatement to the job in March 2009. The court has ordered Prime Minister Yusaf Raza Gilani to reopen a corruption probe against Zardari.Gilani has refused, arguing that Zardari has immunity from prosecution so long as he remains president. If found guilty of contempt for ignoring the order, Gilani could be imprisoned for six months and lose his job. SOURCE : Khaleej Times

Cases of children abandoned by parents have increased in UAE

Cases of children abandoned by parents have increased in UAE. Such children are cared for at hospitals and at the social welfare department. Police are searching for the parents of a baby girl who was found abandoned near a villa in Sharjah March 4. The 10-day old girl is recovering at Al Qasimi Hospital after she was found by a man who alerted the police on March 4. 

Naeemah Al Nakhi, head of the social services section at Al Qasimi Hospital said the infant, whose nationality is not known, was brought to the hospital with symptoms of cold and fever.She has recovered and is in perfect health now, the official said. “She was left in the open with not even a blanket to shield her from the elements. It could have led to her death, but she was saved in time,” said Al Nakhi.

Al Nakhi said the girl will spend two more days in the hospital and then be sent to the social welfare department. A file will be opened on her until her parents are found or she is handed to a new family for adoption. 

In January 2012, a 10-day-old baby boy was found abandoned in Al Dhaid. Two babies were found abandoned in Al Badea and Abu Shagara last December. 

Police are searching for the parents of a baby girl who was found abandoned near a villa in Sharjah on March 4. The 10-day old is recovering at Al Qasimi Hospital. 

Nobody’s Children  ??

From  Archives

18 January, 2012 - A ten-day-old baby boy was found abandoned last week on a street in Al Dhaid area, Sharjah Police said on Tuesday. This is the third incident in two months and police are searching for the parents. 

 Who are The Parents? 

Newborn found abandoned in Sharjah 

(2 June 2011, 10:23 PM; SHARJAH : A three-day-old girl was found abandoned on Wednesday by the Sharjah Police in a building under construction in Al Zubair.The baby was placed in a cardboard box and wrapped in a blanket. Clothes and a feeding bottle were kept beside the child, who was sick, tired and dehydrated, the police said) 

Mother of  a  abandoned  baby held

(26 May 2011, 10:24 PM : The mother of a baby boy found abandoned in a garbage pile near a mosque on the Al Kuwait Hospital Street here a month ago has been arrested, the police confirmed on Tuesday.)

Baby abandoned near mosque in RAK

( 26 April 2011, 12:04 AMAn infant was found abandoned near a mosque on the Al Kuwait Hospital Street in Ras Al Khaimah, police confirmed here on Monday. Residents called the police on Sunday evening after finding the baby boy near a mosque. ‘‘He was crying,’’ said Major Marwan Jikka Al Mansouri, head of the Public Relations and Moral Guidance Department at the RAK Police.)

Mystery of two abandoned babies solved

(4 August 2010, 10:56 PM Sharjah:  They were found on the same day: two babies, wrapped in blankets and placed in cardboard boxes outside of a Sharjah mosque.For a long time police were baffled by the case. But a five-month investigation that led to the arrest of the parents uncovered a final twist to their story.The two children were, in fact, unrelated.)

Newborn found left in a bag in Khor Kalba 

(28 June 2010, 6:25 AM Just a day after a month-old baby girl was found abandoned in Ajman, a newborn girl was found wrapped in a garment and placed in a bag near a house in Khor Kalba.Police said the baby was born only 12 hours before being found abandoned and was doing fine.The man living in the house heard the baby’s cry at dawn and peered out of the house. As he tracked the cry he was surprised to find the infant in the bag with her tiny head sticking out.) 

Another baby abandoned in Ajman 

( 27 June 2010, 06:00 AM : Another abandoned baby was found in Ajman on Saturday — the second such case reported from the emirate this year.The nationality of the child has not been revealed yet. Police are looking for the parents of the month-old infant girl, who was found crying at the entrance of a mosque.)

Unwanted babies, wanted mothers 

( 27 June 2010, 6:26 AM They are no one’s babies. Abandoned and left to survive on others goodwill. Six such cases were reported this year alone. )

Twice Abandoned, Alone Again 

( 27 June 2010, 6:25 AM DUBAI - Sad but true. A 20-year-old woman, abandoned by her biological parents as an infant, has been abandoned again. Now her adoptive family does not want her as it has fallen on bad times. Moreover, some members have set up homes of their own.) 

18 December, 2011 - The Sharjah Police are searching for the parents of a newborn baby boy, who was found abandoned near an under-construction building in Al Badea area in Sharjah.

12 December, 2011: - A newborn baby, found abandoned in the Abu Shaghara area of Sharjah last month, was handed over to the Sharjah Department of Social Services by Al Qasimi Hospital.

25 November 2011: A new-born baby of a few days was found abandoned by the Sharjah Police in the Abu Shagarah area.

30 October 2011: Mother of a newborn baby boy was arrested by the Ras Al Khaimah Police after the body of the baby was found abandoned in a garbage bag in the trash container.

2 June 2011: A three-day-old girl was found abandoned by the Sharjah Police in a building under construction in Al Zubair.

26 April 2011: An infant was found abandoned near a mosque on the Al Kuwait Hospital Street in Ras Al Khaimah. 

28 June 2010: Just a day after a month-old baby girl was found abandoned in Ajman, a newborn girl was found wrapped in a garment and placed in a bag near a house in Khor Kalba.

27 June 2010: A month-old infant girl was found at the entrance of a mosque in Ajman.

March 2, 2010: Two well-dressed baby boys, wrapped in blankets and placed in cardboard boxes, found at the entrance of a mosque in Sharjah 

Feb 14, 2010: Seven-day-old girl found abandoned at the door of a mosque in Jazeera Al Hamra area of Ras Al Khaimah

Feb16, 2010: Newborn girl abandoned by parents found at a mosque in Dubai’s Naif area

Feb 7, 2010: Three-month-old girl found abandoned at the Ajman Corniche

Feb 1, 2010: Boy abandoned in Al Sahabah Mosque, Sharjah

Criteria Of Adoption  in UAE 

1)  The Children’s Welfare Committee scrutinises applications for adoption and select prospective ‘parents’ based on their social and economic status.

2) The age of the wife should not be less than 25 and not more than 45 .The family should undertake that they will provide care to the children and the court should issue them a no-objection certificate (NOC).

3)Only permanent UAE residents can adopt abandoned children.

The Ministry of Social Affairs said in some cases, the ministry has the right to give the child to unmarried, divorced or widowed women whose age is not less than 30, or more than 50.

The foster family has the right to give the first name, while the judge will give the father’s, family and tribe name.

The documents issued to the child should not show that he or she is an illegitimate child. 

Once adopted, the children will bear the name of the adopting father in all records. 

After a child is handed over to a family, social services staff will visit the child frequently. These visits can drop to once a year until the child has turned six.

During the follow up, if a problem is noticed in the care of the child, the adoption is cancelled, but if the child is in good hands, the family is allowed to renew the adoption contract.

Legally speaking...
According to UAE law, an abandoned child can gain citizenship based on Article 17 of 1972
This was amended in1975 which says the abandoned child would be a UAE national
A draft of 2009 law is in the process and will be submitted to the cabinet
The draft law calls to establish shelters for kids and lays down conditions for alternative families and obligations of federal and local departments concerned
Foster families should inform the children of their adopted status only after permission from the social affairs department.
An Indian Neel, holding UAE residence visa EXPRESSED wish to adopt the girl.  Source: Khaleej Times

Libyan art, from the heart;massive patriotic flags with slogans that encouraged the rebels

Art work by Libyan graffiti artist Adnan Al Gargani [Imran Khan]
Over the last four weeks I have crisscrossed what feels like the whole of Libya, but in reality is probably only half of it.

The one constant in every town I have visited is the sometimes extraordinary, sometimes awful graffiti that covers every white wall.

After the fighting (and probably during it knowing the fearless nature of Libyans), graffiti artists took to the streets and painted.They painted massive patriotic flags with slogans that encouraged the rebels.

They painted downright crude and wicked caricatures of the Gaddafi family and regime that compared them to, well, rats.It's worth remembering Gaddafi called the rebels rats.But one piece really caught my eye.

Silhouetted against the red, green and black of the Libyan flag was a scarf-wearing protester, her eyes full of the promise of revolution.

Of all the probably thousands of pieces of graffiti I had seen this one really stood out. It seemed to sum up Libyan hopes and dreams.

I had to track down the artist. We began by asking around the neighbourhood. Someone must know who painted it, surely?

After a couple of hours we gave up.In keeping with the secretive nature of graffiti art, he had simply painted and gone.

But in between the travelling and the deadline pressure of delivering news stories I never forgot those eyes.

After three weeks of fruitless calls I had given up hope of ever meeting the artist behind the mural. Then a breakthrough. A neighbour returned a phone call with a location. Twenty-eight days after first seeing the piece, I had found the person responsible.

I met Adnan Al Gargani at his home in central Tripoli. He's a quiet unassuming man and to see him, in smart shirt, blue jeans and shoes, he is as far removed from the stereotypical, hooded, paint-stricken London graffiti artist as you can imagine. I ask him how he came up with the idea for the painting.

"I saw an image of a woman protesting in a magazine. She was Libyan, but she was out on the streets fighting for freedom, and it struck me. I had to paint it"

It seems the photo had struck Adnan as much as his painting of it struck me.

I then asked him about what life, and art, were like under Gaddafi."There was nothing, no freedom of expression. I was offered lots of money to do paintings of Gaddafi, but I couldn't. I could have been rich, but no."

Adnan lives a modest life. His studio is dotted with canvas, an easel sits in the corner. On his shelves sit model planes, cars, guitars. Everything that suggests a restless and creative mind.

I watch as he patiently paints on canvas his mural I so admire.
I understand that many street art purists will balk at the idea that I had Adnan paint me his mural on canvas.

After all, the point of street art is its temporary nature. It's on a wall one day, painted over the next day.

The same fate awaits Adnan's work. I know one day that Libya's graffiti will be painted over.

The bombed wrecks of its streets will be repaired, the bullet holes filled in.

So, to have one example I can keep of this revolutionary art, a reminder of what once was, is important, to me at least - if only to remind me of my time in Libya.

When the painting is finished I offer Adnan money, after all this is his job, and I appreciate his hard work and time.

He flat out refuses. Instead, in broken English he says, "This is a gift from me."
I am both embarrassed and touched.

My friend jokes, "Libyan art… from the heart"

I laugh along, I don't know why. It's a terrible pun. But one that sums up the graffiti I have seen in the country: From the heart

Hearing on charge framing against Salauddin Quader Chowdhury starts

Dhaka Bureau: The tribunal, headed by its Chairman Justice Nizamul Huq, sunday for the first time began the hearing on charge-framing against Salahauddin Quader Chowdhury for his involvement with the crimes that he allegedly committed during the Liberation War in 1971.
The prosecution on Sunday placed 25 counts of incidents containing 77 crimes against humanity charges allegedly committed by BNP leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury before the International Crimes Tribunal.

The charges include 15 genocide, eleven tortures, 10 confinement, nine abductions, eight murders, eight persecutions, eight “bodily harmed”, seven deportations and one rape.

Prosecutor Zead Al Malum placed the charges as the tribunal for the first time started the hearing on the charge-framing against the detained BNP leader in connection with crimes against humanity committed during the country's Liberation War in 1971.
In connection with crimes against humanity committed during the country's Liberation War
the International Crimes Tribunal is holding hearing on Sunday on the charge-framing against BNP leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury .
Earlier in the morning, detained Salauddin Quader Chy, who faces 24 counts of crimes against humanity, was produced before the three-judge tribunal.
The prosecution on November 14 last year submitted formal charges against the BNP leader, alleging that he had been directly and indirectly involved in crimes including genocide, killing, torture and abduction during the war.
The tribunal on December 19 accepted the charges against Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury and fixed January 15 for starting the hearing on charge-framing against him.
Salauddin committed the crimes as an individual and also as the brigadier of collaborating force Al-Shams in Chittagong, as his father Fazlul Quader Chowdhury was the founder of that force and a loyal supporter of the Pakistan rulers, prosecutor Rana Dasgupta said.
Fazlul Quader Chowdhury, who had been a central minister of Pakistan during Ayub Khan regime, became the Speaker of Pakistan National Assembly in 1963.
He had established a torture camp at his Goods Hill residence in Raozan, where Salauddin tortured many pro-liberation people during the war for independence, the prosecutor said.
Advocate Rana Dasgupta added the prosecution had collected evidence that Salauddin was responsible for killing more than 100 people including Natun Chandra Singha, founder of Kundeshwari Oushadhalaya; Makhanlal Sharma in Madhya Bahira, and Manindra Barua, Dayal Hari and Mahesh Mahajan in Bishwaspara of Raujan,Chittagong.

Naama Margolese, the eight-year-old Israeli girl, whose routine humiliation by ultra-Orthodox Israelis

I can think of about four million Palestinians who can sympathise with Naama Margolese, the eight-year-old Israeli girl, whose routine humiliation by ultra-Orthodox Israelis on her way to school has "shocked" the nation, uniting the majority of Jewish Israelis in anger at the growing power of harshly conservative Jewish movements in the country.

But you won't be hearing from them any time soon the way this story is being presented.

Coming on the heels of the unprecedented and largely secular protests this past summer in Tel Aviv and other cities to press for affordable housing and "social justice" more broadly,and the recent attacks by extremist settlers against Israeli soldiers, this latest conflict has led many mainstream news outlets to talk of a continuing "religious war" in Israel, pitting secular and moderately religious Jews against an increasingly assertive, militant and expanding ultra-Orthodox sector.

"It doesn't matter what I look like, someone should be able to walk around in sleeveless shirts and pants, and be able to walk down the street and not be harassed," the young girl's Chicago-born mother, Hadassa, explained.

Of course, Palestinians couldn't agree more. But somehow, the vast majority of the Israeli and Western mainstream media seems unaware of the obviously parallels between the treatment of Naama Margolese and Israeli girls and women more broadly by ultra-Orthodox, and the treatment of millions of Palestinians by Israel. Even the most recent Haaretz editorial criticising the growing militarism and violence of the ultra-Orthodox did not mention Palestinians.


In fact, as unpleasant as are the images of a young Jewish girl being screamed and even spit at by Israeli Jewish Taliban, it is still preferable from the point of view of Israel's propaganda efforts to being confronted with heartrending images of Jews attacking Palestinians, never mind religious settlers attacking of young Palestinian children, which is a routine occurrence in the Occupied Territories.

It is ironic that today Jewish-on-Jewish conflict is, from a certain perspective, preferable (at least at the level of spectacle) to Jewish-Palestinian conflict, because for several decades, part of the accepted wisdom surrounding the unwillingness of Israelis to reach a viable peace agreement with Palestinians was that doing so would lead to an untenable level of conflict, and even civil war, within Jewish Israeli society.

The alternative to focusing on this story would be a focus on Israeli High Court's determination on Tuesday that Israel can continue to exploit Palestinian mines and other resources for the benefit of Israelis, even though this is a direct contravention of international law. Or to read an email about a young Palestinian boy, so frightened by Israeli soldiers who have given his family 10 minutes to get their belongings out of their house before it's to be demolished that he stood, shivering outside, wetting his pants. The list goes on and on; all of it, tragically, far worse than the already deplorable hatred and discrimination that Naama has daily faced, just for being a girl.

Sacred women

The Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben has described the figure of the "homo sacer", or sacred man, who from ancient Rome to the Middle Ages, and again today, is considered completely outside the law and deprived of all rights of citizenship. He can therefore be killed with impunity, not merely by representatives of the state (the police or army, for example), but by anyone.

Jews and Roma during the Holocaust are the modern epitome of the homo sacer, as are, to a greater or lesser degree, all colonised people, including - and particularly, today, Palestinians, as the South African theorist Achille Mbembe has shown in his work on necropolitics as well as Irish human rights scholar John Reynolds.

But there is a specific manner in which what I would term the "femina sacra", or sacred woman, is also a primary object of violence, whether in Israeli, Palestinian, Egyptian or most other societies for that matter. The much publicised recent army and police violence against women in Egypt is a good example of how, once the general public loses fear of state violence, the state must press even harder by specifically attacking the repository of honour and values - female citizens - as a way of attempting to break down the resistance of society as a whole. (Of course, it rarely works).

Israeli President Shimon Peres declared solemnly that Israelis are "fighting for the soul of the nation and the essence of the state", while a member of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party declared that the harassment the young girl faces "have no place in sane and moderate Judaism". Excluding women from the full rights of citizenship or the realisation of their humanity - at least as that humanity has come to be nearly universally accepted and codified in international law - is, as one sign held up by a female protester in Bet Shemesh against the ultra-Orthodox put it, "my red line".

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu declared: "Israel is a democratic, Western, liberal state... In a Western liberal democracy, public space is open and safe for all - men and women alike - and has no room for any harassment or discrimination."

Neither western nor liberal

Of course, Netanyahu is lying. Israel is not democratic in any meaningful sense if one considers that millions of Palestinians under its control for decades have been deprived of citizenship and its attendant rights - a society in which anyway, from elderly man to young girl can become "sacred" - that is, outside the bounds of civilised law, at any moment. Nor is it Western in any meaningful sense in that it has honoured the core ideal of Western modernity largely in the breach (which, of course, only makes it a microcosm of the West writ large). And while gays might have rights - at least in Tel Aviv, for now - it cannot be considered liberal from any perspective when it so thoroughly violates the rights of millions of people.

But as long as Palestinians are absent from the conversation, as long as the focus is on Naama Margolese and the reprehensible conduct towards her, then the fiction that there is still a struggle to be had for Israel's "soul" can be maintained.

Of course, for some adult ultra-Orthodox women in Beit Shemesh, being forced to the back of buses and being prevented from walking on the same side of the street as men or being attacked for not dressing modestly enough is not a problem. "I feel uncomfortable when men look at me," one woman declared in explaining why she doesn't mind being segregated away from men.

We can debate whether the woman who isn't bothered by segregation or the back of the bus is making a free judgment, or has been so cowed by living in an extremely patriarchal and repressive community that she has internalised male dominance to the point of accepting it as both a given and a source of protection - just as so many Muslim women accept and even defend their second class status in countries across the region. But free adults at least have, in theory, a choice. Naama Margolese has clearly not been socialised into the values of this community, and feels frightened and excluded by what its members are trying to impose on her.

Recognising shared oppression

As her mother complained, "they" want to "push us out of" and "take over the city".

This is, of course, a lament which untold numbers of Palestinians can appreciate, from residents of Jaffa pushed out to make way for expensive condominiums to Bedouins whose villages remain unrecognised when their lands aren't being further expropriated to the millions of Palestinians across the Green Line and in exile.

If Israel is to have a chance at surviving as some approximation of the "Jewish democratic state" envisioned by its founders, Jewish Israelis, like Hadassa Margolese and the protesters on behalf of her daughter, or the J20 protesters this summer who took to the streets in huge numbers for "social justice", are all going to have to accept that the injustices against which they are fighting are inseparable from the injustice their society as a whole continues to inflict, far more intensely, upon Palestinians.

I won't get my hopes up for the adults accepting and acting upon this reality any time soon. But as she grows up, we can hope that Naama's firsthand experience of exclusion, oppression, bigotry and even hatred, will help her see the equal humanity of the Israeli Other - Palestinians - more fully than her parent's generation has been able to do.

If that can happen, then however unacceptable Naama Margolese's experience, it will have prepared her for the even greater struggle for full democracy for all the people, men and women, Israelis and Palestinians, living between the River and the Sea, that will soon enough be her generation's to assume.

Mark LeVine is a professor of history at UC Irvine and senior visiting researcher at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University in Sweden. His most recent books are Heavy Metal Islam (Random House) and Impossible Peace: Israel/Palestine Since 1989 (Zed Books).

Courtesy:Al Jajeera

87-year-old Chinese activist and journalist has been released

Sun Shucai, an 87-year-old Chinese activist and journalist has been released. He fled to Thailand in November 2006 and has been detained by the Thai authorities in Bangkok since December 2010 . CHINESE ARREST SOUTH KOREAN JOURNALISTS NEAR NORTH KOREAN BORDER
PUBLISHED ON SUNDAY 25 SEPTEMBER 2011.

Reporters Without Borders is worried to learn that the Chinese authorities are holding a group of journalists from the South Korean daily JoongAng Ilbo on suspicion of spying. Arrested near China’s border with North Korea on 20 September, they were reportedly travelling on tourist visas.

“We demand an explanation of this arbitrary detention of a group of journalists whose number has not been confirmed,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Press visas are hard to get and, when journalists lack them, the Chinese authorities often use this as grounds for preventing them from working in this sensitive border area. We call on the authorities to release them without delay.”

According to a report in the South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo, the JoongAng Ilbo group consisted of four journalists, the head of a Seoul-based government transport research centre and a local guide. Chinese soldiers arrested them in a supposedly restricted military zone near the River Tumen, which forms the border with North Korea.

South Korean foreign ministry officials told Associated Press on 23 September that the JoongAng Ilbo journalists had been held in a hotel since their arrest near the border. Without saying exactly how many were being held, the officials said the journalists were travelling on tourist visas.

The Chinese authorities do not like foreign reporters visiting the area near the North Korean border. A South Korean freelance journalist, Seok Jae-hyun, was arrested in 2003 for filming North Korean refugees fleeing to China and was held for 14 months on a charge of “trafficking in human beings"

Amnesty accuses Libya's NTC of detainee abuse - Africa - Al Jazeera English

Amnesty accuses Libya's NTC of detainee abuse - Africa - Al Jazeera English