NEAR Newsletter May 2003
Welcome to the NEAR Newsletter. In this edition you will find our most recent Action Alerts and also an ‘Academic Freedom in the Media’ section, listing news by country (May 2003). Any comments and suggestions about the content and layout of the newsletter will be gratefully received at roisin.joyce@nearinternational.org.
NEAR Action Alerts *Taken from the NEAR website
China: Still Imprisoned for Use of Internet
On November 7, 2002, officers of the State Security Protection Bureau removed Liu Di from her campus. Six months later she has yet to surface. Liu Di, a twenty-two year-old psychology major at Beijing Normal University, frequently posted comments on Chinese Internet chatrooms, under the pen name “stainless-steel mouse.
Burma (Myanmar): Political Prisoner, Professor Salai Tun Than, Released
Various newspapers have reported that Dr Tun Than, the Burmese Scholar, has been released. Reports say that Dr Salai Tun Than arrived home the 4 May 2003 from Insein Prison after serving 18 months of a seven year sentence. Dr Salai Tun Than told reporters, "I staged a hunger strike for two days.
Colombia: Student Disappeared in Colombia
Marlon Mina Gambi, a student at the Javeriana University in Cali (Colombia) has disappeared. The news comes from the Peace and Human Rights Commission of USO (Unión Sindical Obrera-Oilworkers Union). Marlon is the son of Yesid Mina, a worker at the Ecopetrol oil refinery in Cartagena and a member of USO.
Colombia: Civil war 'kills one teacher a week'
One teacher or lecturer in Colombia has been killed every week so far this year according to Fecode, the country's teachers' union. The Times Higher Education Supplement reported that the death toll has increased sharply each year since 1999, when it stood at 27. Officials last month told a visiting delegation, including UK lecturers and education trade unionists, that 83 teachers were murdered in 2002 as a result of Colombia's civil war.
** Please continue to send us any relevant cases involving threats to academic freedom and education rights, for potential alerts.
The Network for Education and Academic Rights (NEAR) is a membership-based, non-governmental organisation which facilitates international collaboration between organisations active in issues of academic freedom and educational rights, and committed to promoting an understanding of, and respect for, the values enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
For more information about NEAR, please visit our website at www.nearinternational.org
For further information please contact:-
Roisin Joyce
Deputy Director
roisin.joyce@nearinternational.org