Support calls for Aung San Suu Kyi's speedy release by writing 64 words

64 words for Aung San Suu Kyi is a web initiative encouraging people around the world to write, speak of record 64 words to support the campaign to release her from custody before the upcoming Burmese elections. She is the world's only imprisoned Nobel Prize winner

Aung San Suu Kyi is Burma's imprisoned Democracy leader. The brutal dictatorship that rules Burma has detained her for over 13 years for campaigning for human rights and democracy.

Visit the site to leave your 64 words to support democracy in Burma.

More news of Jestina Mukoko

Roy Greenslade in the Guardian is also now highlighting Jestina Mukoko's situation. She now faces the death penalty after being accused of being involved in a terrorist plot to overthrow Robert Mugabe. Mukoko heads the Zimbabwe Peace Project which provides information about political violence in the country.

"The accusations brought against Mukoko are absurd and baseless," said a statement issued by the Paris-based press freedom watchdog, Reporters Without Borders. "We call on the Zimbabwean authorities to free her and withdraw all the charges at once. Coming after a series of kidnappings, the prosecution of these opposition activists has all the hallmarks of a government conspiracy to sabotage the power-sharing agreement."
A former presenter for the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) and then the privately-owned Voice of The People (VOP), Mukoko was kidnapped from her home in Norton (40 km west of Harare) at around 5 a.m. on 3 December by some 15 men in plain clothes. Thereafter, there had been no word of Mukoko until her court appearance. The police had said nothing, aside from denying any knowledge of her whereabouts.
Mukoko heads the Zimbabwe Peace Project, a human rights organisation that has provided constant information about this year’s political violence in Zimbabwe, where some 200 supporters of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC have been killed since the party’s successful challenge to the ruling ZANU-PF in last March’s general elections.

Meanwhile AP reported this on Christmas Eve:

Les officiels zimbabwéens ont maintes fois lancé ce type d'accusations, et ces accusations largement considérées comme fabriquées de toutes pièces par le régime semblent indiquer que Mugabe n'entend pas céder d'un iota, ni renoncer au pouvoir comme on l'y exhorte de toutes parts.
Pour l'avocate spécialiste des droits humains Beatrice Mtetwa, les disparitions d'opposants, dont au moins 14 ont pu être localisés dans différents commissariats de police par des avocats partis à leur recherche, sont des «enlèvements illégaux».
Me Mtetwa a expliqué que les avocats s'étaient faits chasser du commissariat principal de Harare. Mais dans d'autres locaux de police, ils ont pu constater que tous les militants retrouvés, y compris une mère détenue avec son enfant, n'avaient droit ni à des vivres ou médicaments venus de l'extérieur, ni accès à une assistance juridique.

Kristallnacht

In the night between the 9 and 10 November 1938 the Gestapo arrived at my grandparents' flat in the working class secular Jewish suburb of Berlin Weissensee. My grandfather, a lawyer, was arrested and taken away to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. He had become a Christian several decades earlier. My father and his sister had both not been allowed to attend school for some time. My grandparents had been on a voyage of discovery over the summer to the USA to see whether it would be possible for the family to move and settle there.
With the November Pogromm - or Kristallnacht - it became very clear to the family that they needed to leave but not without my grandfather.
Among the organisations my grandmother tried to get help from was what became known as the "Büro Grüber" - pastor Heinrich Grüber freely confesses in his memoirs both that he voted for Hitler because he felt Germany needed a "strong man" to get them out of the chaos of successive Weimar administrations and that he quickly realised what a wrong choice this had been. Grüber became part of the Confessing Church and the Büro Grüber helped Jewish families to emigrate, but only really those who were baptised - it was known in English as the Church Aid Office for Protestant Non-Aryans. Although this way of bearing witness now seems very partial, it nevertheless landed Grüber and others in prison.
A little more than six weeks after his arrest my grandfather was released, perhaps in part as a result of pressure from the Büro Grüber, particularly around Christmas and New Year. Many others were also released, Kristallnacht was a prelude to the so-called Final Solution, systematic genocide was not yet underway. Three months later in early April 1939 the family emigrated to Britain.
They got visas for Britain in part thanks to the work of my wonderfully feisty great aunt whose story I'm only now beginning to learn about. More in memory of Helene Stranz-Hurwitz soon.

My family were fortunate to be able to become refugees. So many throughout history were not.
Deirdre Good has also written about Kristallnacht quoting a good article from the New Statesman. You can also read the joint statement by the Protestant and Roman Catholic churches in Germany on the 70th anniversary.

Praying for human rights

This week I received a copy of the booklet pictured opposite. On Tuesday colleagues from the World YWCA and World YMCA who helped to preapreit will lead prayers in the ecumenical centre chapel in Geneva. As well as containing meditations on different aspects of human rights, liturgies and prayers, it also includes a Bible reading plan for the year.

For over a century the two movements have issued a joint call to prayer in the second week of November as an important reminder of the spiritual vision that drives their efforts to create a better world for all people. This year’s theme is 'Born Free, Born Equal - Celebrating Human Rights' and highlights how the scriptures call for a commitment to protect freedom and justice.
You can download it in English French and Spanish by clicking on this link.

The annual joint Week of Prayer and World Fellowship will be held from November 9 - 15, 2008 by member associations of the World YWCA and the World Alliance of YMCAs across the world.

Enjoy the sport but don't forget human rights during the Olympics

Yesterday epd reported that Bishop Margot Kässmann's initiative to keep human rights on the agenda during the olympic games in China has had much wider support than expected - even people outside Germany people are now ordering the black armbands. The campaign has already raised more than 30,000euros for the Asian Human Rights Commission which is an independent NGO.
The black armbands have a verse from Psalm 85 on them "that justice and peace may kiss" (read more here).
The Protestant chaplain to the German Olympic team has also taken armbands with him to China.
You can order armbands by writing to the address here - and I'm sure they'll understand English.
You can also find out more about Amnesty International's campaign on Human rights in China here.

Photos Jens Schulze epd and Stephen Brown eni