Bits and Bites from around the World > Suu Kyi moved to Solitary Confinement; 22 Students die celebrating graduation; UFOs in Russia and US Navy

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Myanmar junta moves deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi

to solitary confinement

Has the military had enough of Burma's conscience?

By Clyde Hughes

   

In April, the junta-led government sentenced Aung San Suu Kyi to five years in prison on a corruption conviction.

Military prosecutors said she took hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes, including gold.

File Photo by Pat Benic/UPI | License Photo

June 23 (UPI) -- Myanmar's military-led government said on Thursday that it's moved former civilian leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to a solitary confinement prison in Naypyidaw.

Suu Kyi, 76, has been in the custody of the military junta since a coup on Feb. 1, 2021. She has since been charged with nearly two dozen criminal offenses, including corruption and using unauthorized communications devices. The charges could keep her in prison for the rest of her life.

"By the law, it's confirmed that [Suu Kyi] has been moved to the prison," Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun said, according to CNN. "And she's been kept at separate confinement well."

Deposed civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi has already been sentenced to several years in prison on various

criminal charges that were filed after the junta takeover in Februry 2021. File Photo by Diego Azubel/EPA-EFE

Many senior members of Suu Kyi's government and party are among those held in Naypyidaw. Adviser and Australian economist Sean Turnell is also detained there.

Myanmar military brutalizing children, creating 'lost generation,' U.N. says

In April, the junta-led government sentenced Suu Kyi to five years in prison on a corruption conviction. Military prosecutors said she took hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes, including gold.

Suu Kyi has rejected the accusations and some independent legal experts have said they are sham charges intended solely to legitimize and justify the military takeover last year.

Since Suu Kyi's removal, the Myanmar military has tried and convicted Suu Kyi on other charges -- including possessing unauthorized walkie-talkies and violating COVID-19 restrictions. She'd already been sentenced to six years in prison on separate charges.

I seriously doubt that she will survive prison. The government can do what it likes there. There should be serious international repercussions for this.

At least 22 'students' dead in South African nightclub

while 'celebrating end of exams'

By JACK WRIGHT and ELIZABETH HAIGH FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 16:26 EDT, 26 June 2022

At least 22 people have been found dead inside a nightclub in South Africa amid claims they were poisoned. 

Police rushed to the Enyobeni Tavern in Scenery Park, a township in the southern city of East London, in the early hours of Sunday after receiving reports from the public.

Brigadier Tembinkosi Kinana said those killed in the club are believed to be aged between 18 and 20.

The Eastern Cape provincial community and safety department official Unathi Binqose ruled out a stampede as cause of death. He said he understood the patrons were students 'celebrating pens down, a party held after writing (high school) exams'. 

However, regional newspaper DispatchLive reported claims those who died were exposed to some kind of poison. 

Empty bottles of alcohol, wigs and even a pastel purple 'Happy Birthday' sash lay strewn on the dusty street outside the double-storey Enyobeni Tavern, according to Unathi Binqose, a safety government official who arrived at the scene at dawn. 

Local reports suggest none of the bodies had any obvious wounds or injuries, ruling out suggestions that a stampede or similar tragic incident would have occurred. 

At least once a year you hear about multiple deaths at Indian weddings where alcohol was provided, often made with toxic ingredients. This could be a similar catastrophe.

Crowds gather as forensic personnel investigate Enyobeni Tavern, in Scenery Park, today

Local media also reported: 'Bodies are lying strewn across tables, chairs and on the floor; with no obvious signs of injury'. 

Crowds of people, including parents whose children were missing, gathered on Sunday outside the tavern where the tragedy happened in the city of East London, while mortuary vehicles collected the bodies.

Senior government officials rushed to the southern city. They included national Police Minister Bheki Cele, who broke down in tears after emerging from a morgue where the bodies were being stored.

'It's a terrible scene,' he told reporters. 'They are pretty young... It breaks (you).'

The provincial government of Eastern Cape said at least eight girls and 13 boys had died. Seventeen were found dead inside the tavern. The rest died in hospital.

Drinking is permitted for over-18s in township taverns, commonly known as shebeens, which are often situated cheek by jowl with family homes or, in some cases, inside the homes themselves.

But safety regulations and drinking-age laws are not always enforced.

'We have a child that was there, who passed away on the scene,' said the parents of a 17-year-old girl.

'This child, we were not thinking was going to die this way. This was a humble child, respectful,' said grieving mother Ntombizonke Mgangala, standing next to her husband outside the morgue.

President Cyril Ramaphosa, who is attending the G7 summit in Germany, sent his condolences.

He voiced concern 'about the reported circumstances under which such young people were gathered at a venue which, on the face of it, should be off-limits to persons under the age of 18'.

The authorities are now considering whether to revise liquor licensing regulations. South Africa is among the countries in Africa where most alcohol is consumed.

'The number has increased to 20, three have died in hospital. But there are still two who are very critical,' the head of the provincial government safety department Weziwe Tikana-Gxothiwe said on local TV. This was before the confirmed death toll rose to 22.

A visibly shocked head of the Eastern Cape Province Oscar Mabuyane spoke from outside the scene, a building surrounded by houses in an area called Scenery Park.

'It's absolutely unbelievable, we can't understand it, losing 20 young lives just like that,' he told reporters, condemning 'this unfortunate consumption, unlimited consumption of liquor'.

'You can't just trade in the middle of society like this and think that young people are not going to experiment,' he said.

Local television showed police officers trying to calm down a crowd of people gathered outside the club in the city, which lies on the Indian Ocean coast, nearly 620 miles south of Johannesburg.

Mr Kinana told the Newzroom Africa rolling news channel: 'The SAPS confirms that about 17... were found dead inside a local cabin in Scenery Park, in the area of East London.

'We received this report in the early hours of Sunday. The circumstances surrounding the incident are under investigation as we speak.

'We do not want to make any speculations at this stage. Our investigation is continuing.'

Russia’s secret UFO files reveal fighter jet was buzzed by strange lights

& 600mph craft moving like ‘no human aircraft’

Henry Holloway

10:50, 27 Jun 2022

RUSSIAN pilots encountered strange lights in the sky and soldiers witnessed objects moving in ways like no human aircraft, secret documents reveal.

Newly uncovered Cold War-era files reveal that it was not just the US who was experiencing encounters with strange objects in the sky - but the same phenomena was being seen in the Soviet Union.

KGB documents showing a sketch of a saucer shape firing a beam'

KGB documents show scores of reports by Russian soldiers, airmen and pilots as they observed eerie shapes, huge objects, glimmering lights and mysterious flashes.

Some of the most striking reports include a Russian colonel who reported a shape-shifting object which fired a "beam of light" towards the ground.

Others include a MiG-21 pilot who was baffled by a mysterious object, and a witness who saw an object that did not move like any known human machine.

The Sun Online can reveal these documents as Russia waded into the UFO debate - which has become a hot topic in Washington DC.

There is much more on this story at the Scottish Sun, including more photos and documents.

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Dozens of sailors confirm their warships were swarmed by

'at least 100' otherworldly UFOs

> Naval crew have told documentary maker Jeremy Corbell that US warships were swarmed in 2019 by 'at least 100' UFOs with unexplainable capabilities

>Last year Corbell published videos from the warship incidents that set social media ablaze

>The videos were verified by the Pentagon and showed flashing objects hovering above US Navy ships in the Pacific Ocean 

>In an historic hearing on UFOs last month, Navy chiefs tried to explain away the incident, saying they were 'reasonably confident' the objects were drones

>Corbell is now hitting back, claiming that he has 'dozens' of accounts from crew, investigators and briefed officials who say that the UFOs were otherworldly 

>The nature and origin of the craft are still unknown, and witnesses say that they flew in ways that would put publicly known drone technology to shame

>A crewman with direct knowledge of the case, who spoke to DailyMail.com on condition of anonymity, called the incident 'world-changing' 

By JOSH BOSWELL and CHRIS SHARP FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Please go to the Daily Mail for the full story, more photos and videos.

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Mother of Young Child Arrested, Isolated in Iran - No-one Knows Why

Petitioning Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May MP and 2 others

Free Nazanin Ratcliffe

Richard Ratcliffe United Kingdom   - Change.org

My wife Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 37 year old charity worker, was on holiday visiting her family in Iran. She was at the airport returning to the UK on the 3rd April when she was detained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. She has been transferred to an unknown location in Kerman Province, 1,000 kilometres south of Tehran, and is being held in solitary confinement.

Gabriella Ratcliffe our 22 month old daughter (who has British citizenship only) has had her British passport confiscated, and is stranded in Iran with her grandparents.

Nazanin has not been allowed to access a lawyer or her daughter. She has not been able to call out of the country to speak to me, her British husband, and the Red Cross have not been able to make contact.

There have been no charges. Nazanin has informed her family that she has been required to sign a confession under duress, its content unknown. Her family have been informed that the investigation relates to an issue of ‘national security’.

It is hard to understand how a young mother and her small child on holiday could be considered an issue of national security. She has been to Iran to visit her family regularly since making Britain her home.

Nazanin currently works as a project manager for the Thomson-Reuters Foundation; which delivers charitable projects around the world. It does not work in Iran.

Nazanin has now been in solitary confinement for over 30 days.

Please help bring my wife and daughter home by signing my petition calling on our Prime Minister Theresa May to use her power and intervene.

Iran: Twelve and a Half Years in Prison for Posting Jokes on Facebook

Islam has no sense of humour and no sense of shame,

and certainly no freedom of speech

Soheil Babadi was arrested in 2012 for writing jokes on Facebook about Shiite Islam & has been in prison since. His appeal remains unheard after a year

   The cover picture from the satirical Farsi language Facebook page "Campaign to Remind Shiites a       about Imam Naghi"

Soheil Babadi, 39, was arrested on May 22, 2012, placed in solitary confinement and tortured, according to the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. Babadi had posted 10 jokes on the Facebook page the "Campaign to Remind Shiites About Imam Naghi" in 2011. The page posts satire on political and religious issues focused around the figure of Imam Naghi, the tenth imam or religious leader in Shiite thought.  

Babdi says the post did not use any insulting words,” Babadi said in a letter written from prison. “A year later I was arrested by the IRGC’s [Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps] Intelligence Organization without a warrant and held in Ward 2-A, the IRGC’s exclusive detention center, and beaten and interrogated for 24 hours."

Babadi says the charges against him are as follows:

insulting the Prophet Mohammad

insulting the sacred

assembly and collusion

insulting the supreme leader

propaganda against the state

membership in a group planning to overthrow the state

acting against national security

“I was interrogated while blindfolded in the corner of a room,” he said in the letter. “The agent wanted me to confess to the charges against me, and when I refused he severely beat me. I was constantly under psychological pressure as the agents probed into my personal life and tried to accuse me of sexual relations with friends and relatives, even with my sister-in-law, and even of homosexual relations with one of my friends, Mostafa. But they didn’t succeed and kept me in solitary confinement for 225 days.”

Initially he was sentenced to five and a half years in prison, 74 lashes and two years in exile for "insulting the sacred" and "insulting President Ahmedinejad."

He was later sentenced to an additional seven years imprisonment for "assembly and collusion against national security” and “insulting the supreme leader." He filed an appeal a year ago, but the appeals court has not yet acted on it.

Norway's Monster Wins in Court Against State

Mass killer Anders Breivik's human rights breached in prison, court rules

By Tim Hume and Olav Mellingsater, CNN

Oslo, Norway (CNN)Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik has won part of his lawsuit against the state over his solitary confinement in a high-security prison, a court announced Wednesday.

The Oslo district court found the 37-year-old's treatment in prison violated Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, prohibiting "inhuman or degrading treatment," and ruled that his conditions must be eased.

The court also ordered the government to pay legal costs of 331,000 kroner ($40,600) for the right-wing extremist, who killed 77 people in a shooting rampage and bombing attack in 2011.

Norway has the right to appeal the ruling. It has not announced whether it intends to do so.

The court dismissed Breivik's claim that the government had violated Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees respect for "private life" and correspondence.

The ruling outlined areas of concern in regard to the conditions of Breivik's confinement, which, taken as a whole, constituted a breach of his rights.

These included the duration of his isolation, and inadequate consideration of the mental impact of the regime. It also said the routine nude checks Breivik had to go through were not sufficiently justified from a security perspective.

But it did not give concrete directives on how the conditions should be changed.

Breivik's complaints

Breivik's case centers on the complaint that he is banned from contact with other inmates, has limited contact with prison guards and had had virtually no contact with anyone outside a professional capacity.

It claims his only visitor in a non-professional context has been his mother, before her death in 2013, and that during her visits, they only had about five minutes together when they could hug. His only other visitors were restricted to communicating with him through a glass panel.

His complaint claimed the approval process for visits was so strict that it effectively prevented visits, as were the restrictions on his mail, which denied him the opportunity to build relationships.

It also complained that he had been subjected to more than 800 nude inspections, some of which were carried out by female prison officers, and none of which had found anything.

This, I can agree with as being way over the top. With no visitors except professionals, how is he going to acquire anything contraband? These were obviously for the sake of embarrassing Breivik and for the amusement of the guards.

Boy, I wish my barracks rooms in the military had been this nice

State response

In response, the state legal team argued in papers submitted to the court that the high security restrictions placed on Breivik were appropriate given the seriousness of his crimes, and well within the limits allowed for under the European Convention on Human Rights.

It argued that Breivik was a very dangerous man -- a mass killer who was methodical, rational, and who had shown no regret for his actions.

The documents argued that restrictions, such as the time spent in handcuffs, had been gradually eased in line with ongoing risk assessments.

The defense documents claimed Breivik received regular visits from a "visit friend" and priest, and that he undertook correspondence studies with the assistance of a social worker.

Breivik had access to a computer, without Internet access, as well as writing tools, a TV and a PlayStation gaming console, the documents said.

An exercise room with a scenic view of a wall

They claimed that censorship of his mail was not in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights, and was appropriate given the risk that he would contact far-right sympathizers and potentially encourage them to commit acts of violence or terrorism.

It only takes one Breivik to inspire another, state lawyer Adele Matheson Mestad told the court Tuesday.

Letters, phone calls to sympathizers

Mestad said that out of a total of 4,000 letters sent to or by Breivik, about 600 had been blocked by prison authorities. These were letters attempting to establish networks or encourage extremism, both in Norway and abroad, in countries including the United States, Britain, Russia and Poland, Mestad told the court.

The biggest category of correspondence blocked were mass letters to supporters -- people he didn't know personally, but with whom he was attempting to build networks due to their shared racist ideology.

Another category of blocked mail was sent to prison inmates, attempting to establish "brotherhoods" in prisons.

In my opinion, security trumps human rights, at least to a degree. The Norwegian judge doesn't seem to agree. I hope they appeal.