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The Week That Was - Bolivian Blogs

For the most part, blogs in Bolivia have been used by students, journalists, musicians, private citizens and by those who simply want a platform to write. Governmental institutions have been slow to warm up to the use of technology to respond to the needs of the general public. Most departments do maintain their own website, which includes email and telephone contact information for the concerned citizen. However, one unlikely institution that has embraced blogging technology has been the Constitutional Tribunal, which launched a blog in September 2005 for its official communication. Interesting enough, it accepts comments from the general public, even though the court strives to maintain objectivity regardless of the pressures and demands from the populace.

From its website's FAQ:

“(This body) exercises constitutional control, guarantees the supremacy of the Constitution, respect and validity of individual rights, as well as guarantees the constitutionality of agreements.”

Comprised of 5 chief magistrates that are designated by 2/3 of the Congress, each serves a term of 10 years. Their rulings are not always popular. Many of the entries on its blog serves as press releases announcing decisions reached by simple majority. For example, in March of 2006, it ruled that the government’s administrative intervention of the failing Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano (LAB) airline was unconstitutional. The entry regarding the ruling produced 46 comments and generated back-and-forth dialogue between various individuals concerned that the airline was placed back in the hands of the company’s president, who was blamed for much of the mismanagement.

It is unclear who actually posts the blog entries and it may seem to be only a service for public record, but the author felt that it was necessary to clarify the controversial ruling.

“Even though it does not form part of institutional policy to provide clarification regarding the decisions reached, the Constitutional Tribunal feels that it is necessary to make some clarifications regarding the case of Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano (LAB), due to the continued questioning and grievances from those who feel wronged”

The entry goes on to clarify the process to which it arrived at the decision. The entry also rejects any of the accusations and rumors that the court may have been illegally influenced to reach the unpopular decision. One frequent commentor, Luis Antonio Peñaranda Valverde, who states that he serves as board president of the Institutional Front of Lawyers (FIA for its initials in Spanish) laments why the blog needed to clarify its decision in the first place. He faults those commentors who know nothing about the law, yet still choose to comment based solely on their opinion and emotional relationship with the airline and not based on legal reasoning. He likens these opinions to opinions from “those who know nothing about structural calculations, but still want to question the construction of a building or a bridge.”

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Kurdistance: Finding Rebirth in Grief

Deborah Ann Dilley · 20:17 · Middle East & North Africa

For my regular readers, I apologize for my absence, I lost a much beloved Uncle to Cancer of the Esophagus and was away dealing with family matters. In reading through the Kurdish blogs this week, I found a posting From Holland to Kurdistan with a similar situation:

I feel sorry for my colleague and friend Sidar Bengin Epozdemir, who lost his uncle because of a dreadful disease. Last year I also lost my uncle because of cancer and another uncle of mine currently has a brain tumour and is slowly dying. When people die fast it’s horrible too, but when people die slowly, you can see it. You see their suffering, the tears in their eyes….. you see them melting away.. And the worst is, you never know when they walk out of your live.

I praise Sidar for writing an article so soon after his uncle’s death, when the pain is still immense. I hope Sidar’s article will inspire the Kurdish people.

Sidar's comments showed me a much more poignant side to death and loss…the regrets of a future never seen….

Last Sunday, I got to know, that my uncle Newzed Sagnic passed away after a long period of illness. It felt like a big blow. I didn’t know how to feel. Should I be glad, because my uncle had suffered so long, and was finally liberated? Or should I be sad, because he didn’t ever know a free Kurdistan? I couldn’t do more than analyse, through this writing.

My uncle was one of the countless examples of people who had experienced the state-oppression against the Kurds from the inside. He was tortured for years in Turkish prison cells for his identity, thoughts and effort for the Kurdish cause. For the last couple years, he lived in freedom, but the influences of the horrible actions were inevitable.

My uncle was also one of the countless people, who never lived in absolute freedom, like we as Kurds all can’t, in Kurdistan.

This is a moment of reflection for me. What is necessary in order to achieve our goals? - First and foremost, unification, a phrase that can’t be repeated too often. Putting people in corners, saying that they’re Kurds from Syria, PKK-men, Barzani-supporters or Iranian Kurds won’t bring us anywhere. We have to realise that we won’t achieve anything without each other.

This reminds me - and hence I am spreading the knowledge to you - that we need to remember the struggle of the Kurdish people to be in control of a homeland of their own. We need to support causes like Save RojTV as it playing a critical role in the continuence of Kurdish culture, language and media in the Diaspora; we need to think in different ways to find the support in the subtle as in Pearls of Iraq Purple Ribbon Campaign; we need to remember to keep the dialouge open.

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China: No lawyer for Hao Wu

John Kennedy · 14:58 · East Asia

Access to a lawyer shall not be granted to illegally-detained Beijing or Bust blogger Hao Wu, as seen in a post dated May 17 on his sister Nina's blog, in which she documents her increasingly desperate drive to see some justice handed down to her little brother Haozi, ongoing translations of which can be found here.

得到答复

Got an answer.

今日下午，突然收到上次见面张警官的电话，要我到市局信访办公室见面，将给于我们聘请律师的答复。仍然在上次的小屋，仍然是上次的两位警官，张警官递给我 “北京市公安局渉密案件聘请律师决定书京公预审字（2006）1号”，上面写着“…….根据《中华人民共和国刑事诉讼法》第九十六条第一款之规定，经审查，决定不准予聘请律师。” 尽管这一答复，不出我们意料，但我还是茫然一片，忙乎一阵，看来任何想寻求法律帮助的努力都堵死了。

This afternoon I suddently got a call from the Sergeant Zhang with whom I had previously met. He wanted me to come down to the police department inquiry office for a meeting, to give me an answer on retaining a lawyer. Still in last time's same little room, still with last time's two officers, Sergeant Zhang gave me ‘Beijing Police Department Decision on the Retaining of a Lawyer for a Preliminary Hearing of Classified Case (2006) #1,' on which was written “…according to Article 96, provision one of the criminal procedure law of the People's Republic of China, following an examination the decision made is the case does not qualify for the the retaining of a lawyer.” Despite this answer, for which we were prepared, I'm still at a loss. After pushing for so long, it seems that any efforts to seek the law's help have been stifled.

皓子现在已经从拘留变为监视居住，由于法律上规定监视居住的时间期限为6个月，在8月份之前警方答应会给家属一个说法。会是什么样一个说法？最后找到一个罪名进入司法程序？家属只能被动等待，法律能帮帮在“人民机构”前显得如此弱小的群体吗？

Haozi has already moved now from detention to supervised residence. As the law stipulates the deadline for supervised residence is six months, the police should give the family an answer before August. But what kind of answer will it be? That a charge has finally been found to begin the judicial process? The family can only passively wait. Can the law help such a puny-looking group in facing ‘The People's Institution'?

把人关押那么久，没有任何解释，不容许律师介入，我对目前如此无力境地感到气愤。最近，也有很多朋友表示他们的关注。的确，大家都在为皓子的事忙碌，但散在各处，连我都没有一个“大图”，大家何以相互了解、组织一起了？我们一定能找到一个方法。

There's no explanation for keeping someone locked up for so long and not allowing a lawyer's intervention. I feel very indignant toward the present powerless situation. Recently I've had a lot of friends express their concern. For certain, everybody's busy doing their part for Haozi. Even though I don't have a clear plan, if everyone could understand each other, couldn't we all work together? We must be able to find a way.

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Banned White-Red-White Flag of Belarus Travels Abroad

Veronica Khokhlova · 05:29 · Eastern & Central Europe

This flag used to be the official state flag of Belarus from 1991 to 1995. Following the controversial referendum of May 14, 1995, president Aleksandr Lukashenko banned it and reintroduced a variation of the Soviet-time Belarusian flag.

During their visit to Kyiv, Ukraine, in early May, Belarusian LJ users lysaye-dzyaucho and ml_forever took turns wearing the white-red-white flag on their shoulders. They were amazed by the friendly reaction of ordinary Ukrainian citizens to this symbol of Belarusian resistance and realized that while they could not carry the flag around openly in their homeland, they were free to do so abroad.

Here're some of lysaye-dzyaucho's thoughts (RUS):

[…]

As usual, we had a Belarusian flag with us. Not a very big one, but not a small one, either, with a large symbol of Minsk in the middle… It was easy to wrap yourself into it, or put it on your shoulders and tie it, using it as a raincoat of sorts. And this is what we did, [LJ user] ml_forever and I: we […] carried it around on us everywhere we went, taking turns. I've never seen such a reaction to our flag before!!!! It was quite a celebration.

Ukrainians were coming over to us, to introduce themselves, and they were asking how we were doing and where we were staying and whether they could help us in some way (and they kept insisting on buying us […] drinks ;)), and they wanted to know about the situation in our country, and they wanted to know about the fate of political prisoners, whether there were young people among them, and they were telling us about [other Ukrainians] who served time in our [Belarusian] prisons, etc.

(more…)

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