Showing posts with label janice goh. Show all posts
Showing posts with label janice goh. Show all posts
Monday, June 16, 2008

Article #1 from Volume 1, Issue 4: Your Media, Your Human Right


“Tibetan Buddhists Struggle for Justice”
Janice Goh

The Three Jewels, The Buddha, the Teachings, and the Spiritual Community, of Tibetan Buddhism govern the religious community of Tibetans.
Honoring the Three Jewels, the Dalai Lama composed a prayer for the people of Tibet in 1960, praying for freedom of Tibet, praying for ‘the pious people,’ praying for the spread of universal friendship and love, praying for justice. Justice, defined as the quality of being impartial and fair or simply the quality of conforming to law, has been stripped from the people of Tibet since China’s invasion in 1959.

Although China has established the Law of Regional Ethnic Autonomy in Tibet, the implementation of the law is inconsistent with its intended agenda.
The reality in Tibet reveals a suppression of religious freedom and practices that undermines the legitimacy of the law.

Since Chairman Mao ZeDong and his Red Army invaded Tibet in 1950, Tibetans have suffered from religious suppression. Not only was this part of Mao’s Cultural Revolution that prohibited subscribing to religious ideologies, it was also his agenda to assert political control and avoid political competition from the Dalai Lama.

Prior to the Chinese invasion of Tibet, Tibet had a longstanding history of a system of government known as chos srid gnyi ldan, a combined religious and secular system under the rule of the Dalai Lama. This system had been in place since 635 AD where the Dalai Lama was seen as cho rgyal, a political leader and earthly manifestation of the Buddha of Compassion, Chenrezig.

In 1984, China promulgated the law on regional ethnic autonomy that states that Tibetans have the right to inherit and develop traditional culture as well as practice religious beliefs.
However, paralleling the economic growth in the region has been stifling social and cultural development, especially in terms of religion.

This was spearheaded by the exile of the Dalai Lama in 1959. Coupled with the exile of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, 95% of the monasteries and temples in Tibet were destroyed, books were burned, and Buddhists were thrown in jail for practicing their religion. In addition, the Chinese government abolished the traditional practice of reincarnating the Panchen Lama, the second most spiritual figure in Tibet after the Dalai Lama.

When the previous Panchen Lama passed away in 1989, the Chinese government disregarded the Llhasa government’s election of the reincarnation the Panchan Lama. Rather, they elected a Panchen Lama of their choice that is now educated in Beijing, instead of receiving a traditional Buddhist education. This exemplifies a deliberate attempt to control and suppress the religious culture of the Tibetans that the international community of Tibetans and Tibet Government in Exile deem as unfair, unconstitutional, and unjust.

Today, the suppression of religion is furthered by restrictions on the freedom to become a monk in Tibet. The Chinese government places limits on the number of people who may become monks not only to limit the spread of faith but also to relieve the state’s financial burden as lamas enjoy state subsidies for food. Even if people become monks, Tibetan monks do not have the freedom to preach; Tibetan monks have rules on giving public lectures on Buddhist philosophy. If there are more than 100 people, permission must come from the commune, if there are over 500 people, permission must come from county authorities, if the audience is over 1000, permission must come from provincial authorities.

Even on an individual level, there are restrictions on religious practices and freedom. Although government officials maintain that it is legal to possess or display pictures of the Dalai Lama, authorities view possession of such photos as evidence of separatist charges. Therefore, it is taboo to circulate posters or propaganda related to the Dalai Lama or to even display of photographs of him.


There also exists a ban on including religion in the teaching syllabus as well as a ban on displaying religious shrines in the household. This has been implemented on the basis of fearing that this will foster linkages between Tibetans and the exiles.

In 2001, Hu Jintao, President of China, arrived in Lhasa, delivering a speech that boasted of the rights of the people in Tibet.

“Today, people of all ethnic groups in Tibet are fully enjoying political, economic, cultural and other rights, and have complete control of their destiny.”

Contrary to Hu Jintao’s claim, the people in Tibet are deprived religious rights as postulated in the Law on Regional Ethnic Autonomy in Tibet. Justice has not been served since the invasion of the Chinese government and will not be until there is consistency between the promulgation and implementation of the law. Until then, Tibetans will continue to pray for freedom, pray for posterity, and pray for justice.
Posted by UWJHR at 3:30 PM | 1 comments  
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Friday, June 13, 2008

Article #4 from Volume 1, Issue 3: Your Media, Your Human Right

“Media Repression in Myanmar”
Janice Goh

“Whoever controls the media, controls the mind.”
-- Jim Morisson

The year 1962 heralded the end of democracy for Burma. That year also birthed the military coup that marked the ascension of the military junta.

Since 1962, freedom of media has ceased to exist in Burma. According to the Reporters without Borders press freedom ranking, Burma is ranked among the bottom ten countries in the world. Despite international pressures to liberalize the media, the military junta relentlessly monitors and monopolizes the media with an iron grip.

Print and broadcast media are filtered to exclude criticism of the government and social oppression while on the other hand, including religious ritual activities of generals and progress of policy implementation.

As a result of draconian media control, the people of Burma suffer from a lack of privacy, a lack of security and a lack of freedom. Public access to information is tightly restricted. Not only is the internet vigilantly censored, internet cafes are required to install a screen-shot system that automatically takes screen shots of computers every five minutes.

This is done to prevent or ensure that users do not surf political or banned sites. Currently, local Burmese are only allowed to surf Burmese sites and receive e-mails that end with .mm (Myanmar); Google’s Gmail service is not allowed in Burma as the Military Intelligence finds it hard to monitor and regulate. Even telephone conversations are not spared; Burmese civilians are paid by the military to tap phone line, eavesdrop and identify ‘international informers.’

Coupled with the dire access to global information of the Burmese, the absence of independent media allows the junta to mask human rights violations. In addition, writers and journalists that express the slightest discontent with the junta face imprisonment or are banned from writing.

Today, Burma is ranked the 6th most repressive place for journalists, according to the Committee for Protecting Journalists.

Journalists are strictly prohibited to report on Aung San Suu Kyi, debates about government policies, the National League for Democracy and news that negatively reflects the junta. U Win Tin, the 77-year-old former editor of Burma’s Hantawathi newspaper and Burma’s most famous journalist, has been imprisoned for the past 18 years on the basis of different charges, such as promoting ‘anti-government propaganda’ and for supporting Aung San Suu Kyi’s pro-democracy cause.

As of October 12 2007, 11 reporters have been arrested and labeled as ‘liars trying to destroy the nation’ after reporting about the recent pro-democracy movement.

The military junta has definitely managed to suppress the local media by state control and censorship. At the expense of the government’s censorship, the people are deprived access to information and communication. At the expense of the government’s dictatorship, the journalists suffer in silence.

Until the military junta decides to step down or release its iron grip on the media, the Burmese population will be denied access to a free independent media and the imprisoned journalists who stand true to their convictions will remain victims of a media terror.
Posted by UWJHR at 10:04 AM | 0 comments  
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Friday, June 6, 2008

Article #1 from Volume 1, Issue 2: The Many Places of Immigration

"Sex Trafficking"

Janice Goh


It is ironic that with the medical and technological advances of today, HIV is still a growing epidemic. Out of the 42 million people infected with HIV in 2006, the epidemic took the lives of 2.9 million in the world. In the last year 4.3 million adults and children were newly infected. What then leads to the spread of this affliction? As it turns out, there exists a high correlation between HIV and the incidence of sex trafficking; most of these people are not just victims of HIV, and of sex trafficking.


Sex trafficking is defined as the recruitment, harboring, transportation, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act. Many women are trafficked each year and are subject to commercial sex exploitation. Sex trafficking not only increases the risk of HIV to victims, trafficking is also a common means of spreading HIV. Due to the high incidence of unprotected sex, lack of proper sanitation and general health awareness, sex trafficking has been aiding the global dispersion of HIV.


In Bangladesh, for example, condom use among Bangladesh’s 36,000 sex workers varies between a mere 4% to 28% and over 95% of teenage Bangladeshis do not know a single method of HIV prevention.


In South Africa, 70% of the women in prostitution are infected with HIV, and 70% of the 20,000 Burmese prostitutes are HIV positive.


Although sex trafficking is a principle catalyst for HIV, the causal relationship between the two phenomena is actually mutual. The rise in HIV in Southeast Asia has since increased the demand for younger girls, based on the belief that younger, virgin girls are less likely to be infected with any form of disease.


Today, prostitutes as young as 5 years old can be found in countries like Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam. Consequently, this has further triggered the rise in HIV in Southeast Asia, especially amongst children. In 2006 UNICEF estimated that at least 1 million children in Southeast Asia suffer from HIV.


Given the high correlation between HIV and sex trafficking, why then is sex trafficking so prevalent in numerous areas in the world? Sadly, forces of supply and demand have been fuelling this global phenomenon. The lack of job and educational opportunities that plagues women in rural areas renders them vulnerable as victims of trafficking. Being illiterate and impoverished, women are easily misled or coerced into trafficking with false promises of job opportunities.


Further, sex tourism encourages the trafficking of women to fulfill the needs of clients. In return, the profitability from sex tourism promotes the development of sex establishments to attract tourists. Japan, for example, runs a $9 billion sex industry and is home to 10,000 commercial sex establishments. Japan’s flourishing sex industry is in turn a destination for the 150,000-200,000 women trafficked from Southeast Asia.


International action has been taken to combat sex trafficking by raising awareness of the issue. The International Labor Organization, Coalition Against Trafficking of Women, United States Agency for International Development and United Nations Development Fund for Women are some of the organization that play important roles in strengthening prostitution laws in many countries. The US government is also involved in many initiatives such as participating in the negotiation of the protocol on trafficking.


Posted by UWJHR at 9:36 AM | 0 comments  
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