Author: Mick Hartley

es ten further countries near the bottom of Freedom House’s list of the most repressive: Belarus, China, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Laos, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Zimbabwe. The territory of Western Sahara is also included in this group. While these states scored slightly better than the “worst of the worst”, they offered very limited scope for private discussion while severely suppressing opposition political activity, impeding independent organizing, and censoring or punishing criticism of the state.

Of these countries, six are members of the UN’s human rights commission: China, Cuba, Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Zimbabwe.

Have they uncovered the original, in New Orleans? Or was the original in, um, Lowestoft? (Via Metafilter)

In the Murehwa South constituency, about 75 miles east of Harare, it was announced on Thursday night that 8,579 people had voted. On Friday morning, the Zanu (PF) candidate was given 19,200 votes and the MDC candidate 4,586.

According to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) mission, invited by Mugabe to review the poll on Thursday, the election had been “transparent and credible”.

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, a South African Cabinet minister who led the SADC observer mission, said that the peaceful lead–up to the election — in stark contrast to previous campaigns — had allowed people to freely exercise their vote. “We are saying that this election was free,” she said.

One item that is no longer credible is the reputation of Thabo Mbeki:

The choices now facing the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and its courageous leader Morgan Tsvangirai are bleak indeed. The MDC has already ruled out mounting further legal challenges: the high court has still not concluded hearings on its application challenging the 2002 election result. Mr Tsvangirai has continued to reject calls for armed struggle, saying his party is committed to peaceful means. It would be a brave group indeed which would openly confront the thugs of Zanu-PF. This is not a regime that is likely to be moved by any Ukraine-style protest. And the MDC has very limited resources. It has no independent radio or TV stations, in a country where the media have been ruthlessly muzzled. Nor, faced with a Public Order Security Act which bars free assembly, does it have any sympathetic neighbouring states which can provide bases.

This is one of the most shameful aspects of the current situation. President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, the powerhouse in the region, pronounced the latest Zimbabwean elections as free and fair even before they had taken place.

That’s the way to start an article. Tony Cascarino in the Times:

I have never met Lee Bowyer but everyone I have spoken to about him says that he is a toerag.

Sean O’Hagan fawns over John Berger, the grand old man of British Radical Chic:

From the off, he sweeps you off your feet. Here is Berger on smoking, which he does with the fierce enjoyment of a true addict. ‘A cigarette’, he says, inhaling deeply, ‘is a breathing space. It makes a parenthesis. The time of a cigarette is a parenthesis, and if it is shared you are both in that parenthesis. It’s like a proscenium arch for a dialogue.’

How many interviewees, I wonder, if they insisted on smoking, would be portrayed so heroically?

He looks a good 15 years younger than his age, which, unbelievably, is 78, and possesses the kind of contagious energy and creative curiosity one usually encounters only in the very young or indefatigably idealistic. In this, he reminds me, of all people, of Bono: the same hunger for stimulation, the same easy grace, the same seemingly undimmable optimism about a world that seems for ever to be testing the limits of that faith.

And so on, and on…ending on this elegiac note:

‘What seems to have been abandoned of late,’ he tells me at one point, sounding, for the first time, regretful, ‘and what is absolutely fundamental to all we have talked about, is the notion of solidarity. And it is not only to gain something that we should seek solidarity, because solidarity, in itself, is a meaningful quality, that is to say, a quality that gives meaning to life, which makes sense of life. So, I hope it’s there in my work.’

It’s there of course, in abundance, a reminder of what those of us who still adhere to a liberal-left world view have lost, have surrendered, and must surely rediscover if only in order to be heard.

Solidarity? Well, it depends who you want to show solidarity with. Michael Moore, yes:

Fahrenheit 9/11 is astounding. Not so much as a film – although it is cunning and moving – but as an event.

Salman Rushdie, after the fatwa? A fellow author threatened with death for what he’d written? No. Berger was one of those who went public to denounce Rushdie for offending that nice Ayatollah Khomeini.

And he’s a reminder of what those of us who still adhere to a liberal-left world view have lost? You should be so lucky.

, an ally of Hirsi Ali on many issues. Another is Cisca Dresselhuys, editor of the large-circulation feminist magazine Opzij, who drew fire when she announced that she would not hire women who wore head scarves. Dresselhuys wants Hirsi Ali to leave Dutch politics and take up a post where she could pursue her political passions internationally. For Dresselhuys, Hirsi Ali is ”more an activist than a politician.” This is a common view in the Netherlands — though not necessarily a correct one. Hirsi Ali’s legislative work on women’s issues has certainly been substantial. Last year, she drew up a plan to better enforce the law against genital mutilation, which passed the chamber. She has spent recent months trying to stiffen enforcement of laws against ”honor killings,” prevalent among certain Muslim immigrant groups, especially those from Turkey. She wrote a legislative paper on the economic integration of Muslim women and has urged closer scrutiny of new Muslim schools before they are accredited.

But she prefers to describe her legislative achievements in broad terms. ”I confront the European elite’s self-image as tolerant,” she says, ”while under their noses women are living like slaves.”

e not core priorities on the left, then what is? If anyone’s values have been betrayed, it is those of us on the left who believe most deeply in the organisation’s ideals. I am mystified by the reluctance of the left both in the US and the UK (the Guardian ‘s coverage, for example) to criticise Annan’s leadership. The bodies burn today in Darfur – and the women are raped – amid the sound of silence from Annan. How many genocides, the prevention of which is the UN’s very raison d’être, will we endure before the left is moved to criticise Annan? Shouldn’t we be hearing the left screaming bloody murder about the UN’s failure to protect vulnerable Africans? Has it lost its compass so badly that it purports to excuse the rape of Congolese women by UN peacekeepers under Annan’s watch? Is stealing money intended for widows and orphans in Iraq merely a forgivable bureaucratic snafu?

d a press conference at Yanggakdo Hotel today as regards the partial refereeing by referees in the matches between the DPRK and Bahrain and the DPRK and Iran of Group B for the 18th World Cup Asian regional qualifier. Present there were media persons in Pyongyang, foreign journalists who are staying here to cover the recent matches and foreign correspondents here.

The press conference was addressed by acting Secretary General of the association Ri Hi Yon. He referred in detail to the fact that Thai and Syrian referees very partially refereed the matches in violation of the FIFA regulations during the matches between the DPRK and Bahraini teams and between the DPRK and Iranian teams in Pyongyang on March 25 and 30.

He expressed the expectation that FIFA would pay due attention to the recent serious partial refereeing and promptly take relevant measures in accordance with its regulations.

Video tapes were played back at the conference to prove foul plays made by footballers during the matches. […]

The Football Association of the DPRK, as a member of the FIFA, reaffirms that the DPRK players will strictly abide by the rules in every international match and expresses belief that the FIFA will take strict sanctions against the international chief referees who were in charge of matches between the DPRK and Bahraini teams and between the DPRK and Iranian teams and take necessary measures to prevent the recurrence of partial refereeing. A spokesman for the association declared this stand in a statement issued today as regards the biased refereeing by those referees in the above-said matches for the 18th World Cup Asian regional qualifier.

The statement said that some referees are jeered by soccer fans and spectators for their unjust and biased refereeing and, furthermore, such deeds are seriously impairing the image of the prestigious international referees and the FIFA.

Such practices found their vivid expression in the matches between the DPRK and Bahraini teams and between the DPRK and Iranian teams held in Pyongyang on March 25 and 30, it pointed out, and went on:

Supervisors over the matches and the referees are also to blame for taking no measures in time for stopping the partial refereeing though they are obliged to induce the referees to fairly referee matches according to the rules of international soccer games.

The partial refereeing prompted even foreign media persons and TV broadcasters to complain in unison: “The referees should have impartially refereed the matches.” “It is clearly for an 11-metre penalty kick.”

If those referees are allowed to keep partially refereeing matches, they would not smoothly proceed as required by the game rules of the FIFA and rude acts contrary to sports morality would be fostered among players.

Come on ref, are you f***ing blind. It is clearly for an 11-metre penalty kick.

A group of men dressing up in outrageous costumes, parading themselves shamelessly before the cameras, and offending all right-minded people: yes, it’s the clerics getting together in Jerusalem to denounce the proposed Worldpride festival:

Israeli religious leaders rarely agree on anything, but one thing has proved strong enough to bring them together: fear of the effects of a ten-day international gay pride festival in Jerusalem this summer.

Senior Christian, Jewish and Muslim figures, representing communities riven by conflict, have put aside their differences to give warning that the WorldPride event, planned for August, will desecrate the sanctity of the Holy City.

One alarmed Muslim cleric suggested that if the event, last staged in Rome five years ago, is allowed to go ahead, it could invite divine retribution such as that visited on Sodom.

“God destroyed the city and we don’t want this to happen to us,” the Muslim Sheikh Bouchari said, flanked by the multifaith clerics who regard Jerusalem as sacred. “God will punish us if we allow this to happen.”

The organisers of the festival, the theme of which is “Love Without Borders”, were disappointed that religious groups had joined forces to try to stop an event that aimed to promote tolerance and pluralism.

“It’s ironic that the first time that these religious leaders come together is to promote their bigotry,” said Hagai El-Ad, executive director of Jerusalem Open House, the gay and lesbian group hosting the event.

A pity the online Times doesn’t include the photo from the print edition. Nevermind, the NYT has a nice picture (via Secular Blasphemy).

The official story from Iran was that she died after a fall: now the truth is emerging (via Metafilter):

Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi was savagely beaten, tortured and raped while in Iranian custody in 2003, according to an emergency-room doctor who examined her before she died.

The doctor has recently received political asylum in Canada.

Shahram Azam, formerly a physician on the staff of the Iranian Ministry of Defence, says he examined Ms. Kazemi, a 54-year-old Iranian-born dual citizen, at Tehran’s Baghiattulah hospital early on the morning of June 27, 2003 — four days after she was arrested while photographing a demonstration outside Tehran’s Evin prison.

His account of Ms. Kazemi’s condition in the days before her death, the first by a medical eye witness, confirms that she was tortured — far more brutally than even critics of Iran’s hard-line theocratic regime had believed.