Aung San Suu Kyi, Verdict Delayed

Now would be a good time to contact the Myanmar Mission in your country and let them know of your concerns, here is the list. (note the London email link creates a faulty address, try- melondon at btconnect.com)

(IPS) – A political trial in Burma that could prolong its pro-democracy icon’s isolation by five more years has opened a rare window for the international community to judge the quality of justice in the military-ruled country.

Many foreign envoys based in Rangoon, the former capital, have eagerly grabbed this chance. They have shown up in numbers when given access to the largely secret trial of Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, being held in a decrepit courtroom inside the notorious Insein Prison in northern Rangoon.

Last Friday marked the latest in this diplomatic show of force, when foreign envoys packed the rear of the court to mirror the unprecedented international attention this bizarre trial has drawn since it began in early May.

“There were about 20 to 25 diplomats in the court. They were Europe, the U.S., China, South Korea and other Asian countries,” a European diplomat who attended the trial on Jul. 31 said in a telephone interview from Rangoon. “They were mostly of the ambassadorial rank.”

It was a number as large as that present on the third day of the trial in late May. At the time, some 30 diplomats were given the nod by the junta, otherwise known to be secretive and paranoid, to get a rare glimpse of Suu Kyi’s battle with Burma’s justice system.

And this time, too, the 64-year-old Suu Kyi used the occasion to openly engage with the diplomatic corps, a practice that has been denied to her during the 14 years she has been kept under house arrest in her lakeside home in Rangoon.

Instant Show Trials

From Naj–

The parliament was not informed of this trial. Even the accused were not aware of this; their families and lawyers were unaware, although they were not even given a chance to seek counsel regarding their charges. This is a rare display that can only find parallel in the forgotten medival times, and after the June Coup d’etat of 2009. (22Khorda, 1388). [I have to add something similar to this happened in 1987; which led to the rift between Khomeini and Montazri, as the latter protested the diversions from both Islamic and the constitutional law when hundreds of leftist political prisoners were executed without trial]

What occurred to me is this is an entrenched power bloc defending its position, and is supporting it a bit like defending Stalin because you liked Lenin?!?! But Naj also wrote something that relates to the dynamic the West’s strategies present-

…I have been silent about MANY things because your American and Zionist leaders were saber rattling at my country; at people of the story who were lashed, who were raped, who stayed to make that country better. I have been silent about the atrocity of the IRI BECAUSE of your atrocious McCains and Clintons, because of your criminal Cheneys and your Netanyahus!

Whatever the professed aim of the Western elite’s its effect is chilling human rights in Iran, now they are not stupid, they know this is the case. So you can deduce there is another agenda which roughly I might characterise as regime change to a submissive US client that does not threaten Israel’s place as regional enforcer. In all of that at no point is there real concern for human rights, for the currently imprisoned and tortured, after all we can see both UK and US attitudes to torture in Binyam Mohammed’s case, they torture, conspire to hide evidence and laughably refuse to stand by their own words from a signed letter read out in court by their lawyers! I wonder is the struggle that emerges in this century is by people against governments who refuse democratic control and are in effect authoritarian management on behalf of capital/corporations, a reality kept in the dark by the media, not least ‘liberal’ media (and I told you Richard Wolffe was a wanker). Which is to say help for Iranians resides in us not our governments, and our struggle must also be to gain control of our own affairs.

Update: Some detail from a Mousavi consultant on the factions involved in the torture, they are letting loose previously arrested violent criminals on political detainees [Parliament News; Azam Veisameh- Alireza Beheshti. He, the son of the martyred Ayatollah Beheshti, is one of the close consultants of Mr Mousavi and has been by his side since his days as prime minister.]-

AV: do you have more details on what happened in Kahrizak?
AB: what we hear is not official but stories of people who are released and their families. The reports indicate that people are gradually moved to this center after detention. Those involved in arrest, interrogation and torture are not of the same ilk! we have information that some of the people involved in interrogation and torture of the detainees have a history of being previously arrested during the execution of “public security task force” as thugs.

AV: you mean thugs who have a record in violation of the “public security”? [there was a task force “Tarhe Amniyate Ejtemaii” to confront robbers, thieves, and gangsters harassing women. Those who have a criminal record under that plan are used to torture detainees… ]
AB: They used them in protests, in arrests and in detention centers …

AV: do you have concrete evidence on people who are exercizing violence on detainees?
AB: other than the profiled thugs who are now hired, some of these are official in the government. Some belong to Basij. Some are the Plain Clothes who cannot be considered part of Basij. Some belong to The Guards intelligence; and different groups. This is important for people and media to recognize this is not the entire government who is involved in this; rather it is a segment of the government that acts in this way both internally and externally. Not all of the Basij is involved. They may even be critical of this. Same holds for the Revolutionary Gaurd. It’s a specific segment of the guard that is involved while the majority are unhappy and criticize the current situation.The minister of Intelligence is not very involved. The whole ministry has been kept out. The attorney general enters the game in a later stage. The security forces were involved at the beginning but their roles have been cut back. Truth is, when we know our victims are arrested by the intelligence service or by the security forces we are happier because we know their case is handled in a more or less legal channel. But those who are in the hands of these others are worrisome. We cannot follow up or know where they are