Canada says has access to China’s most wanted man

BEIJING: Canadian diplomats have had regular access to China’s most wanted man, who was deported from Canada to China last year after a decades-long legal battle to face smuggling charges, an official told Reuters on Wednesday.

Beijing had sought the deportation of Lai Changxing for years, accusing him of running a multi-billion dollar smuggling ring in the southeastern city of Xiamen in the 1990s in one of China’s biggest political scandals in recent times.

The Canadian official dismissed suggestions that China had barred visits to Lai, about whom little has been heard since he arrived back in China in July after he lost a legal battle lasting almost two decades.

“Diplomats have had regular consular access to Lai,” the government official said, declining to comment any further.

Chinese state media said last December that Lai would be handed over to prosecutors.

The official spoke to Reuters after Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he had raised the question of human rights in a meeting with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in Beijing on Wednesday.

Lai may face life imprisonment, state media has reported. But some legal experts and human rights activists have said it is unlikely Lai will receive a fair trial in China.

Lai fled to Canada with his family in 1999 and claimed refugee status, saying the allegations against him were politically motivated.

Lai’s alleged crimes occurred in the special economic zone of Xiamen in Fujian province in the mid-1990s when Jia Qinglin, now the ruling Communist Party’s fourth most senior leader, was the province’s Party boss.

Beijing has accused Lai’s business empire, the Yuanhua Group, of bribing officials to allow a massive smuggling ring in a scandal that implicated more than 200 senior figures, including Jia’s wife, Lin Youfang. She denied any wrongdoing.

Harper, in China for talks to boost trade, denies toning down his once strong line on human rights as bilateral economic ties boom.

“We look forward to continuing to strengthen our strategic partnership with China while of course also maintaining a frank and respectful dialogue on issues of human rights and the rule of law,” he told a news conference.

Harper said he had raised some consular cases with Wen but gave no details.

China and Canada have argued too about the case of Uighur-Canadian Huseyin Celil, jailed in 2007 for terrorism.

Celil, also known as Husein Dzhelil, fled China in the mid-1990s and sought asylum through the U.N. refugee office in Turkey, according to human rights group Amnesty International.

Canada accepted him as a refugee and he obtained citizenship there in November 2005, according to Amnesty. But China considers Celil a Chinese citizen.

Harper did press Wen about the need for diplomats to visit Celil.

“The prime minister restated the government’s desire to have consular access to Mr Celil,” the official said. AGENCIES

Held Kashmir inquiry confirms mass graves

An Indian government inquiry says dozens of unmarked graves in Indian-held Kashmir (IHK) hold more than 2,000 unidentified bodies.

The Jammu-Kashmir State Human Rights Commission says in a report that police had claimed the 2,156 corpses were militants fighting against Indian rule in portions of the disputed Himalayan region.

Rights groups say, however, that innocent people have been caught up in the conflict and some 8,000 have disappeared since 1989.

The commission was set up in 1997 after widespread allegations of rights abuses by the army, paramilitary and police.

The report is likely to deepen cynicism in restive Kashmir where anti-India sentiment runs deep and most people want independence or merger with Pakistan.

Pakistan’s poor dying in Karachi violence

KARACHI: Life stopped for Pakistani cab driver Ghulam Mohammed when his seven-year-old daughter was shot dead on her way home from school, a victim of senseless political and ethnic violence sweeping Karachi.

Shumaila was Mohammed’s only child, born after he and his wife struggled for 12 years to have a baby. It took two stray bullets to bury all the hopes and dreams they had for the future.

“She was the one who gave meaning to our life. Now we have no reason to live,” said the tearful 36-year-old, a resident of Qasba Colony, one of a series of troubled neighbourhoods in western Karachi turned into a battlefield.

Shumaila was one of 300 people whom the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) says died in political and ethnically linked shootings in Karachi last month and one of the 800 killed since the start of this year.

She was carrying her books when the bullets pierced her abdomen and splintered a rib. Seriously wounded, she was eventually picked up by an ambulance after medics struggled to access the street under gunfire.

“Someone told me my daughter had been shot and I rushed to hospital despite all the risks, only to find her dead in the morgue,” Mohammed said.

Many link the killings to rising tensions between the Mohajirs, the Urdu-speaking majority represented by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), and Pashtun migrants affiliated to the Awami National Party (ANP).

Karachi is Pakistan’s financial capital and, with a population of around 18 million, its largest city. Helped by its Arabian Sea port, industry in Karachi is thought to account for around a fifth of the country’s GDP.

But authorities appear powerless to stop the bloodshed, human rights activists say, pointing out that most of the victims are innocent civilians.

“People have been killed because of their political affiliations, but it seems most are killed because of their ethnic background,” Zohra Yusuf, chairwoman of the HRCP, told AFP.

“The majority of them are poor and destitute.”

Shumaila was Pashtun. Her father arrived in Karachi from the northwest 20 years ago looking for work and then settled down and got married.

Today the northwest is on the frontline of Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked bomb attacks and the migrant flow to Karachi is even greater.

Shumaila’s bereaved parents live on a congested street in a neighbourhood of Urdu and Pashtun speakers, where trigger-happy gunmen from both sides can quickly reduce the area into a battlefield.

HRCP says Karachi suffers political, ethnic and sectarian “polarisation”.

But the government blames vague mafias involved in land grabbing and drug pushing for the killings, and for creating “misunderstandings” among political parties and ethnic hatred.

“It should not be called ethnic violence,” said Sharfuddin Memon, an official in the home ministry of the southern province Sindh, of which Karachi is the capital.

“The mafias are killing people in such a manner that rival communities and parties are left with the impression of an ethnic war which is not there. The mafias do this to get stronger and weaken the writ of the state.”

The Urdu-speaking family of Anwer Ali, 22, say he was walking to work when unknown gunmen shot him dead.

“He was the only bread earner for his mother and two sisters,” said his cousin Mohsin Ali.

The family rent a one-room house in a squatter settlement near the area of Katti Pahari, a flashpoint for the most recent violence, and are deeply frightened about the future.

It is not just shootings. People have seen everything they own go up in smoke, with their houses, buildings and vehicles set alight by arsonists.

Despite the deployment of extra police and paramilitary forces, residents complain that the security personnel do nothing to help.

Leaders in the MQM and ANP have blamed each other.

“Mafias are involved in the killings, but armed wings of political parties have played a big role in creating the mess,” said Tauseef Ahmed Khan, who teaches mass communications at Urdu University.

The armed wings work to maintain party influence, prevent rival groups from infiltrating their territories and force people to remain loyal, he said.

“There are killings on ethnic grounds while most of the victims are poor people who don’t know the reason why they are being killed,” Khan said. AGENCIES

Death toll in Syria Friday protests rise to 44-group

AMMAN: Syrian security forces shot dead at least 44 civilians in attacks on pro democracy demonstrations that had erupted across Syria on Friday, the Syrian National Organisation for Human Rights said on Saturday.

Prominent rights campaigner Ammar Qurabi, who heads of the organisation, said more than half were killed in the northwest province of Idlib, where tanks deployed on Friday to crush large demonstrations against autocratic rule.

Syrian army units refuse to open fire

Syrian army units have clashed with each other over following President Bashar Assad s orders to crack down on protesters in Daraa, a besieged city at the heart of the uprising, witnesses and human rights groups said.

More than 450 people have been killed across Syria about 100 in Daraa alone and hundreds detained since the popular revolt against Assad began in mid-March, according to human rights groups.

While the troops infighting in Daraa does not indicate any decisive splits in the military, it is significant because the army has always been the regime s fiercest defender.

EU wants deeper ties with Bangladesh

BRUSSELS: European Union President Herman Van Rompuy held talks Thursday with Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and called for tighter cooperation on human rights, terrorism and nuclear issues.

“The cooperation between the EU and Bangladesh is excellent,” Van Rompuy said in a statement after the meeting in Brussels, calling for the two sides to “deepen” their relationship.

“I particularly appreciated Bangladesh’s constructive and proactive role both regionally and on the world stage,” he said.

“As democracies with shared values, I underlined that we would like to work more closely with Bangladesh on issues such as human rights, non proliferation and the fight against terrorism.”

Outside EU headquarters, between 200 and 300 supporters of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party held a protest, some holding signs calling Hasani “dictator” and

Egypt blogger released after 4 years in jail

CAIRO: An Egyptian blogger has been released after serving four years in prison on charges of insulting Islam and the president, a human rights group and an interior ministry source said on Wednesday.

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) said blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil, 26, known as Kareem Amer, was in bad health and was beaten by security officers before his release on Tuesday.

A Cairo-based source from the Interior Ministry confirmed Amer had been release on Tuesday but denied the blogger was beaten by officers.

A student at the state-run religious al-Azhar University, Amer was arrested in 2006 on charges of insulting Islam and President Hosni Mubarak in his blog posts. He was sentenced to four years in prison and expelled from the university.

“Kareem was released on Tuesday morning and his health is bad but he is safe now,”

Obama says Suu Kyi release long overdue

YOKOHAMA: U.S. President Barack Obama said on Saturday that he welcomed the release of Myanmar pro- democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

“She is a hero of mine and a source of inspiration for all who work to advance basic human rights in Burma and around the world. The United States welcomes her long overdue release,” the president said in a statement. AGENCIES

Polling begins to elect new SCBA chief

Staff Report

ISLAMABAD: Polling has begun for the much-awaited Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) elections across Pakistan.

Nine polling stations have been set up in different cities, including Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Quetta, Peshawar, Multan, Bahawalpur, Abbotabad and Sukkur.

There are a total of 2,126 voters in the SCBA, including 1,018 from Punjab.

Three candidates are vying for the presidential slot. However, the real contest is being expected between noted human rights activist Asma Jehangir and Hamid Khan-backed Ahmed Owais.

Pity the nation that silences writers: Arundhati Roy

NEW DELHI: Award-winning Indian writer and human rights activist Arundhati Roy had kept her silence after controversy over her statement that Kashmir is not an “integral part”.

Now, she has spoken and may spark another round of controversy. “I write this from Srinagar, Kashmir. I said what millions of people here say every day. I said what related stories

I, as well as other commentators have written and said for years,” she said in a statement on Tuesday.

“Anybody who cares to read the transcripts of my speeches will see that they were fundamentally a call for justice. I spoke about justice for the people of Kashmir who live under one of the most brutal military occupations in the world,” she said.

“What I say comes from love and pride. Pity the nation that has to silence its writers for speaking their minds. Pity the nation that needs to jail those

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