This year we invite you to pray for 10 particular situations:

• groups of people victims of torture, of ill treatment, or subject to the death penalty because of their religion, their ethnos or their political activities

• people victims of torture

SU Zhimin, an emblematic figure of the “clandestine” Church of China, disappeared over 12 years ago. Today at 77 years of age, he has spent more than 30 years in detention.

As a young seminarian, he was arrested in 1956 for having publicly opposed the Beijing government, which was trying to establish a National Church separate from the Universal Church. He was freed in 1979. But this was just the start of a life spent in detention, prison, labor camps or in house arrest.

In 1989, rumor had it that Rome was about to recognize the official Chinese church. To confront this painful eventuality, the clandestine bishops, inspired by SU Zhimin, formed an Episcopal conference. They were all arrested. A few months after being freed in June 1993, SU Zhimin dared to receive an American Senator in private. Since then he has had the support of the American authorities and of the American church. In 1994, SU became the Bishop of Baoding.

In May 1996, as the army was destroying the Donglu sanctuary, a holy site for pilgrims among “clandestine” Chinese Christians, the bishop and the crowd tried to oppose the tanks and the bulldozers. Massive arrests took place. Young priests decided to take Monsignor SU away to hide him. He was discovered in October 1997 by Chinese public security services. He has been secretly imprisoned for more than 10 years, without trial or verdict.

He was last seen for the last time in November 2003 in the Baoding hospital. His eyes were bandaged and he was guarded by twenty policemen in civilian clothes in a section reserved for the authorities. Despite many international interventions, no news of him has filtered to the outside world since then.
 

Officially the Chinese constitution recognizes Christianity. However the Beijing government has always tried to control religious movements and has forbidden any Churches not registered with the state. Thus there exist two Church communities. The “official” Church controlled by state powers is the only one recognized and allowed to name bishops and pastors in China.
The “clandestine” or “domestic” Church refuses to be directed by the Chinese regime and maintains undeclared religious activities (celebrations, education, worship centres), which are illegal in the Party’s eyes.

The Christians of the clandestine Church are constantly harassed, oppressed, imprisoned, and even killed for practising their faith. They can be arrested and pursued for “belonging to a harmful cult” the term used by the Chinese authorities to oppose non-officially recognized religious groups.
 

The Uzbek government is built on a formidable police apparatus. Arbitrary arrests, the non-respect of legal procedures and the organization of show trials are common currency here. Any political opposition is muzzled and any questioning of the government practices by Human Rights defenders is severely punished. Thousands of political opponents and Human Rights defenders are currently behind bars where they are regularly submitted to torture. Poor, even inhumane treatment is generalized in places of detention.

ACAT-France gives its support to several journalists, political opponents and Human Rights Defenders who are victims of torture.

Abdurasul Hudaynazarov

An Uzbek Human Rights defender, he denounced corruption in the Tashkent region. He was arrested on June 25th 2005 and condemned to 9 years in prison at the outcome of an iniquitous trial. He is constantly tortured and mistreated in prison. He was put into a solitary cell for several days after protesting against his ill-treatment. He suffers from cardiac insufficiency and his state of health has diminished considerably.

Habibullo Akpulatov

Habibullo Akpulatov was sentenced in October 2005 to 6 years in prison. His prison sentence was later reduced and he was supposed to be freed in September 2009. However, several months before the date of his liberation, his penalty was prolonged for another 3 years under the terms of Article 221 (on the grounds of his refusal to comply with the legitimate requirements of the administration of a penal establishment). In the course of his detention he was tortured on several occasions and he is in need of medical attention. His right leg is almost paralyzed, his eyes are infected and he has significant weight loss.

Agzam Turgunov

While combating the bad treatment and the torture of prisoners and trying to improve the Human Rights situation in Uzbekistan, he declared that “If everyone remains silent, the situation will only get worse”. In October 2008, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison. His lawyer denounced the acts of torture to which his client had been subjected in order to force a confession from him. (It is likely that Aqzam Turgunov was scalded during the course of his trial). The judicial proceedings during his trial were characterized by numerous irregularities. His health has suffered greatly; he only weighs 40 Kgs (88 lbs or 6 stones). In spite of his poor health, Agzam Turgunov, is obliged to work at the brickyard of the City of Karchi.

Alicher Karamatov

During a prison visit from his wife, Alicher was able to make her understand that he is constantly being humiliated and poorly treated. His conditions of detention are most stringent. His wife could hardly recognize him as he had gone from 94kg to 54kg (206.8 lbs or 14 stones to 118.8 lbs or 8.5 stones).

Dilmurod Saidov

He is an independent journalist, known for his commitment to the defence of farmers wronged by a reform of the agricultural system. He was condemned on July 30 2009 to 13 years in prison and is being badly treated. He lost his wife Barno Djumanova, 33 years-old and his daughter Ruhchana Saidova, 6 years old, on November 5th, 2009. They were killed in a traffic accident. His brother Obid Saidov went to the prison to give him this tragic news. He believes that Dilmurod Said will not be able to survive if he remains in prison. His daughter and his wife were his only support for overcoming this ordeal.

Norboi Khoijiguitov

Held since 2005 in the Karshi prison, he was transferred in December 2009 to a prison hospital for urgent treatment because of the severe deterioration of his health. He no longer had any feeling in certain parts of his body. Black marks had appeared on his arms and legs and on his face. He had lost all his teeth. At the beginning of January he was brought back to the Karshi prison. In February information was received indicated that he no longer could speak or move.

Yusuf Juma

Condemned in April 2008, this Uzbek poet’s state of health is a cause for concern. He is regularly hung by his hands from the ceiling and beaten with rubber truncheons all over his body as well as on his head. During the winter, the prison administration kept him for hours in freezing cold. At every visit from the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) he was transferred to another prison to keep him from meeting with its representatives.

Our other prisoners:
Azam Farmonov, Fahruddinor Ruhiddin, Isaqov Nasim, Isroiljon Holdarov, Mamadali Makhmudov, Mouroud Jourayev, Mukhammed Begjanov, Mukhtorov Farkhodkhon, Rashid Begjanov, Solijon Abdurakhmanov
 

Virgamlem Fisseha Mebrahtu, journalist for Radio Bana, is presently being kept in solitary confinement in the May Srwa prison, north of the capital, Asmara, in such deplorable conditions that they resemble a form of torture. Yirgalen Fisseha was arrested in Asma on February 22, 2009 during a raid which involved all the personnel of the station. She is one of the rare women journalists in Erythria. To this day she has not appeared in court to be judged and her detention is completely arbitrary.

Four Equatorial-Guinean veterans – Jose Abeson, Miguelin Eyegue and two other men whose identity is unknown – were kidnapped around January 28th, 2010 in Benin by members of the Equatorial-Guinean security forces and brought back to their country of origin. They had left Equatorial Guinea in the early 1990s for Benin, where they obtained refugee status.

It is probable that they are today being kept in secret detention in the Black Beach Prison in the Capital Malabo where they may have been tortured. The fact that the authorities have not confirmed the whereabouts of these four men, or even if they are holding them, makes us fear that they have become the object of a forced disappearance. They risk being tortured again or being victim to other forms of mistreatment. The Equatorial-Guinean authorities regularly abduct Equatorial-Guinean refugees in neighboring countries.

Christophe Mbay Mutomb has been detained by the national intelligence service (Agence nationale de renseignements, ANR) in Lubumbashi, in the south-east of the country, since January 22, 2010. He has not yet been allowed to see his family or to consult a lawyer, and has not been able to receive any medical treatment since his arrest. This man suffers from chronic back pains and used to receive daily injections to help alleviate them. He is no longer being treated. Since he was arrested he has not been eating enough and he is described as being dangerously thin.

Christophe Mbay Mutomb was arrested at his home on January 22, 2010 at dawn. He was among some twenty persons arrested in Lubumbashi at about the same time, in connection with a supposed plot to assassinate the president of the DRC, Joseph Kabila,during a presidential visit to that city. Corruption may be the reason why Christophe Mbay Mutomb is being kept in prison. The agents of the ANR are in fact extorting money from his family and friends while promising to free him. It seems that his family has been subject to the threat that Christophe Mbay Mutomb would be transferred to Kinshasa if they did not pay. Secret detention is illegal under all circumstances. According to article 18 of the Congolese Constitution of 2006, no one may be detained for more that 48 hours without charges being made. After that length of time, the person must be freed or charged and placed under the care of a tribunal.

Marcelina Coache Verano is a well known political militant in the state of Oaxaca (Mexico), leader of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) and leader of the Free Union of Workers and Employees of the city of Oaxaca.

In 2009, Marcelino Coache was abducted by four men, one of whom was in uniform. For several hours his captors beat him with their fists and with a pistol and burned his genitals with cigarettes. They released him the next day. After this aggression, a local Human Rights organization appealed to the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights requesting it to adopt preventive measures.

Marcelino Coache had already been the target of several serious aggressions and threats. In January 2008, a man had tried to knife him in the stomach as he left his car, and in August 2007, a policeman had hit him with his pistol, held him to the ground and told him to stop rebelling.

The members of the FRENA resistance network in Guatemala are in grave danger. Three members of this network have been killed since October 2009. The latest victim, Octavio Robiero, was killed on February 17, 2010, in front of the organization’s building. He had tried to obtain an official investigation into the death of his brother-in-law, Victor Galvez, also a member of FRENA, who was assassinated in October 2009. The third victim was Evelinda Ramirez, directress of FRENA. She was killed on January 13, 2010, as she returned home from the capital, Guatemala, where she had met with representatives of the State in connection with her activities on behalf of FRENA.

The Front of Resistance for the Defense of Natural Resources and of the Rights of Peoples (FRENA) is a civil society movement, which organizes activities in 17 municipalities of the San Marcos department, near the border between Guatemala and Mexico.

Other members of this network have received death threats. FRENA has identified 289 militants who could be in danger because of their organizing work for this group. The authorities have offered them no protection.

Faysal Ghazi Moqualled, a 30 year-old Lebanese man, was arrested on February 8, 2006, by agents of Hezbollah and illegally kept in one of their prisons for 5 months. During his detention he was tortured with the explicit purpose of making him admit that he presumably belonged to the Israeli Mossad. According to his testimony, Faysal Moqalled was kept in a cell less than two meters square, tortured with electricity and submitted to a simulated execution by gas.
In July 2006, during the lightning war between Israel and Lebanon, he was transferred to the Lebanese Ministry of Defense, where he stayed till March 26, 2008 and was again interrogated and tortured.
For over 2 years he was denied access to a lawyer.

Faysal Moqualled finally signed confessions. On July 31, 2009 a military tribunal condemned him to life imprisonment, notably for having given information to the enemy (Israel) in order to help it win the July 2006 war, at a time when he had already been in prison for several months.
During his trial Faysal Moqalled told the judge of the tortures he had suffered, but his declaration did not lead to any inquiry and the confessions obtained under torture were accepted, for the lack, it seems, of other substantial proof.
He is presently in prison, awaiting an appeal.
 

The Kurdish minority is the Iranian minority most affected by the present government’s political repression. The Kurds, who live mostly in the east and north-east of the country, are victims of economic, political and cultural discrimination. Some among them are arrested and condemned by the revolutionary tribunals to heavy penalties and sometimes to the death penalty for their presumed activities in forbidden Kurdish organizations, the most important being the Free Life in Kurdistan Party (PJAK).

All are condemned on the same judicial basis: “being enemy of God” (Mohareb baa Khoda). This crime is subject to the death penalty by article 183 of the Iranian penal code. In the great majority of cases judges base their sentences on confessions obtained through torture. The condemnation is pronounced after rapid proceedings, lasting sometimes less than 10 minutes, showing systematic violation of the right to a defense. In most of the cases the lawyer for the accused is not even allowed to be present at the hearing.

Repression of the Kurdish minority has increased in recent months after the assassination in Kurdistan of several officials – judges and religious dignitaries – close to the ruling party.
Although no one claimed those assassinations, the chief of Teheran judicial power is said to have ordered those responsible for judicial power in Sanadj to hang several Kurdish prisoners who had been condemned to death the previous year and were awaiting execution. It is believed that today 17 Kurdish prisoners are on death row because of their presumed activities in the forbidden Kurdish organizations.
 

ASIA

• NV 2006/ Sanjar Umarov – Uzbekistan

Update : freed in November 2009
Sanjar UMAROV was freed last November, after four years in prison.

This PhD in physics and entrepreneur had founded the “Sunlit Coalition” association, which brought together representatives of civil society and intellectuals. The purpose of his association was to create a dialog with the Uzbek government on reforms of the economy to better the people’s standard of living.

In 2005, he had openly criticized the Andijan events (May 2005). He had subsequently supported the demand for an independent international investigation of that massacre. Arrested in October 2005, he was condemned to 14 years in prison following an arbitrary trial. While in detention he was tortured and constantly humiliated.

Sanjar Umarov was able to join his family in the United States on November 21st, 2009. His imprisonment has left him greatly weakened. Surrounded by his family, he is finally receiving proper treatment and attention.

He sent a Christmas message to the groups which had supported him and to the national secretariat of ACAT, in which he thanked us for our support. He sent us this message, trying to write it in French. We have translated it into English.

“Dear friends,
I give thanks to you for your support that ACAT has made for me and my family. Really, in prison, I was encouraged by the spirit of God and the prayers of many people. Permit me to congratulate you on the occasion of the holidays.
Still, dear friends thanks
I kiss you
Sanjar Umarov and family
December 20, 2009

• NV 2007/ Mao Hengfeng - China

Update: liberation
She was released from incarceration on November 29 2008. In prison she was tortured.
Today she is suffering from hypertension, from constant pain due to the wounds caused by torture as well as from a skin infection due to the bad sanitary conditions and also from constant stomach pain. Since she was freed the authorities watch all her activities very closely and have arrested her again several times for short periods.

In December 2009 she was once again arrested for 10 days in Beijing for having organized a demonstration in support of the writer Liu Xiaobo, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison.

• 2008/Mutabar Todjibaeva - Uzbekistan

Update: liberation
Mutabar Todjibaeva, an Uzbek defender of human rights and president of the NGO, “Ardent Hearts”, was freed in 2008, thanks to the common efforts of several human rights organizations and of those who supported her by writing letters. ACAT participated actively in the campaign for her liberation.
She testified at the ACAT-France headquarters: “I learned that letters of support for me came from all over the world. I was told that a truck would be needed to bring them all to me. I am extremely grateful to all those who fought for my freedom, and to each one of them. Not only do I thank them, but I pay homage to those who did not leave me and my family alone during this ordeal.”

• NV 2009/Alimujiang Yimiti - China

Condemned after two secret hearings in May 2009, his lawyers denounced the violation of his right to a fair trial and the use of false documents to charge him. After almost two years in provisional detention, this Christian Uyghur from Xinjiang was condemned on December 8, 2009, by the Kashi tribunal, to 15 years in prison, for “divulging State secrets to foreign organizations”. His lawyer is appealing the decision. The severity of the verdict has surprised the observers of the Uyghur cause.

AFRICA Update on 2009 Night Vigil Cases

Albinos from Tanzania and Burundi

Aggressions against albinos continue in those two countries. Though fewer were murdered in 2009, 7 rather than 27 in 2008 in Tanzania, attacks did not diminish. More than 30 were reported during last year. Because of the death penalty undoubtedly, the tendency of the aggressors is to no longer kill systematically but to flee, leaving behind the body they have amputated. Attacks against albinos occur principally in the remote zones of Tanzania and Burundi, where sorcerers exploit the ignorance of parts of the rural population, who identify albinos with the devil.

In Tanzania, the government has undertaken a census of albinos and created a police service to escort children as they go to school. Certain have been given cell phones so they can call the police rapidly if they are attacked.
In his wishes for the nation at the start of 2010, the Tanzanian president Jakaya Kikwete called for an end of assassinations, “In spite of our national campaign, there are still too many attacks.
Not a single albino must die because of the color of his skin” he declared.

Moulumba Kapepula (DRC)

Report : liberation

Mulumba Kapepula was acquitted and freed on June 5, 2009. However no inquest has been opened about the tortures he endured.

Other individual situations

The four other persons are still detained in Equatorial Guinea, in Erythraea and in Ethiopia.
 

MIDDLE EAST NPV 2009

When we last heard Ridvan Kizgin was still in prison.

Freed in 2007, Abdellatif Bouhjiia has been denied medical care, work and a passport. While his suffering, caused by kidney and heart problems, increases, he is unable to get a medical appointment and he is denied the normal free care booklet. His condition does not allow him to work and he cannot get medical attention in another country as long as he is barred from getting a passport.

According to Amnesty International, on April 14, 2009 Ronak Safarzadeh was condemned to 6 years in prison, 5 years of which are for belonging to an opposition movement and 1 year for making anti-government propaganda.

LATIN AMERICA NPV 2009

Situation of indigenous communities in Columbia

The situation of these communities is always very delicate. They are victims of the conflict and certain of them have had to move.

Last January 31, a community was shelled by the army “by mistake”. But it seems that it is rather a means of making the population move. In fact a multinational corporation has received the government’s permission to use this territory for a mine.

In the south of the country their territories are militarized which makes them the target of attacks from the guerrillas and from the paramilitary.

Javier Giraldo ,S.J., a Colombian Jesuit priest

In 2009 Father Giraldo was victim of a campaign of calumnies by the media and by some high officials of the state. This was the result of false accusations by a former “guerrillo" who is collaborating with the army.

At the beginning of 2009 Father Giraldo was summoned to appear before a prosecutor for a judicial inquest. He had been accused of calumny by a general. He sent the prosecutor a 31 page letter in which he explains the moral and ethical reasons preventing him from going to the tribunal. That letter is a real indictment of the corruption of Colombian institutions.

For the last 25 years Father Giraldo has been denouncing, with calm and determination, the crimes committed against peasant communities. In spite of accusations and threats he continues to seek the truth.