Political Prisoners

Political satire, from the cartoons of T. J. Nast and Herblock to the sophisticated ditties of Mark Russell, has helped America stomach many a grim election year. And, thanks to the Annapolis Theater Project, 1992 is no exception.Conceived by Tom Magette and Morey Norkin, "Undecided" is a snappy review of songs and sketches that takes no political prisoners. George, Bill, Ross, "Bar," Hillary, Dan, Al, Tipper, Marilyn and our august Congress are poked, prodded, panned and pickled by a very funny succession of political parodies that use music from such sources as "Oklahoma," "Guys and Dolls," "Mame," "Evita," "Annie Get Your Gun" and "Pippin."

- Nearly 40 years have come and gone since Calvin Ash, a hospital kitchen worker, committed his one and only crime: At the age of 21, he shot to death his estranged wife's boyfriend. A Baltimore judge found him guilty and sentenced him to life in prison in 1972. Under the conditions of his sentence, Mr. Ash would one distant day be eligible for parole. Thirty-two years later, in 2004, the Maryland Parole Commission considered and approved Mr. Ash for release. But there was a catch: In Maryland, the governor can reject the commission's recommendations and, unfortunately for Mr. Ash, his case did not reach the governor's desk until after Martin O'Malley had been elected, in 2006.

BEIJING -- Signaling what would be a major policy shift on human rights, China said yesterday that it would give "positive consideration" to allowing the Red Cross to visit more than 3,000 political prisoners.Foreign Minister Qian Qichen, speaking with U.S. journalists in advance of next week's meeting between President Clinton and Chinese Communist Party Secretary Jiang Zemin, said China viewed the meeting not as a "negotiating session" or for "picture taking," but as a discussion of "a broader and longer-term perspective" on bilateral relations.

In June, Gaithersburg resident Kyaw Zaw Lwin traveled from Thailand to New York to deliver a petition to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's special adviser on Burma. The petition, with 680,000 signatures, called on the secretary-general to exert pressure for the release of more than 2,000 political prisoners. Now, in a tragic twist - and as the Obama administration moves forward with a new policy of increased engagement with Burma - Mr. Zaw Lwin, a U.S. citizen who often goes by the name Nyi Nyi Aung, has disappeared into a Burmese jail cell himself.

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- In a potential sign of greater openness after the fall of President Suharto, Indonesia moved yesterday toward the release of some political prisoners.Officials threw open the iron door of East Jakarta's Cipinang Prison and allowed reporters to freely interview inmates as family members and friends devoured cake and celebrated what they hoped might be a speedy release."This is extraordinary," said Colonel Latief, who has spent the past 32 years behind bars for his role in the slayings of six army generals in 1965 that led to Indonesia's "Year of Living Dangerously" and the rise of Suharto.

BEIJING - China has released a political prisoner and allowed her to fly to the United States for medical treatment and to join her husband in exile, fulfilling a longstanding request of the U.S. government just three days before Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's scheduled visit here, a San Francisco-based human rights group announced yesterday. The release of Rebiya Kadeer also came as the Bush administration announced yesterday that it would not propose a U.N. resolution critical of China's human rights policy this year because of recent steps taken by Beijing in the treatment of political prisoners.

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt - Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, the man at the center of an international controversy over an alleged CIA abduction, is being held in Damanhour prison outside Alexandria though he has not been accused of a crime, according to his lawyer, Muntassir al-Zayyat, a Cairo attorney who defends many Islamists. The case has attracted huge publicity in Italy, where lawmakers are enraged at what many regard as a flagrant abuse of Italian laws by the U.S. government. Italian authorities who have charged 13 CIA operatives with his abduction say that they don't know the whereabouts of Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, and that their requests for information from Egyptian authorities have gone unanswered.

KEM, Russia - Step off the Arktika passenger train at one of its half-hour stops on the journey back from the Far North and you can stretch, have a smoke, buy a mess of cooked crawfish, check out a bucket of berries, spit at leisure, and maybe catch a fistfight before the whistle says, "Let's go." Suitably refreshed and back on board, you can find newspaper racks holding 3-week-old newspapers and a dining car full of enthusiastic young men reacquainting themselves with alcohol, as they return to society from one of Russia's remote prison camps.

BEIJING -- China announced yesterday that it was freeing one leader of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and dropping charges against another.The move was indicated privately during U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III's visit two weeks ago, and it has spawned some hope for further leniency toward other political prisoners.In a brief statement titled "China releases two rioters," the state news agency said that Wang Youcai had been paroled from a four-year sentence because of his "repentance" and that charges against Han Dongfang had been dropped.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Nelson Mandela unleashed a blistering attack on the South African government yesterday for failing to meet an agreement to release all political prisoners by the end of April.Mr. Mandela, deputy president of the African National Congress, demanded that President F. W. de Klerk "empty the prisons" of ANC members and others who were jailed for opposing apartheid."There remain large numbers of people in jail who ought to have been released under our agreement with the government," Mr. Mandela told an enthusiastic, mostly black crowd at Johannesburg's City Hall, which had never before housed such an anti-apartheid gathering.

Not long ago, President Bush was listing issues where he and Democrats could work together after the GOP's election "thumpin.'" Democratic leaders also talked the bipartisan talk. Will it instead turn out to be two years of legislative gridlock? The politics of war, of congressional oversight, and of a premature presidential campaign will make it very difficult for this Congress and White House to move ahead on substantial issues - perhaps more difficult than in past presidencies facing an opposition Congress in the lame-duck years.

NEW YORK CITY -- Three of the world's most notorious dictators - Chile's Augusto Pinochet, Iraq's Saddam Hussein and Turkmenistan's Saparmurat Niyazov - died last month. The first two were well-known, out of office and no longer able to terrorize their former subjects. The lesser-known tyrant, Mr. Niyazov, died suddenly while still serving as president-for-life of Turkmenistan, the natural-gas-rich former Soviet republic that borders Afghanistan and Iran. The future of Turkmenistan and its more than 5 million people is up for grabs, and the United States has a splendid opportunity to use its diplomatic influence to effect a democratic outcome.

TEHRAN, Iran -- Iranian officials took the rare step yesterday of allowing international journalists to visit parts of the capital's notorious Evin prison in an attempt to dispel what they say are unfair impressions of their nation's human rights image. Justice Minister Jamal Karimirad said the tour, believed to be the first of an Iranian prison by foreign journalists since 1994, had been arranged to counter criticism of Iran's human rights record ahead of the first session of the new United Nations Human Rights Council next week.

SANTIAGO, Chile -- Michelle Bachelet, a lifelong socialist, former political exile and ex-prisoner of the military dictatorship, was sworn in yesterday as Chile's first woman president with the luminaries of South America's new leftist leadership and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in the audience. "Our strength will be the women," Bachelet, 54, told an animated, largely female crowd of thousands downtown as she made her initial address as chief of state from the ornate presidential palace, La Moneda.

HAVANA - Cuban authorities released opposition leader Martha Beatriz Roque and about 10 other dissidents early yesterday, but continued to detain at least 15 others who had attempted to attend a demonstration for the freedom of political prisoners, according to a human rights monitor in Havana. A 59-year-old economist and former political prisoner who heads one of Cuba's largest opposition coalitions, Roque was headed for a demonstration at the French Embassy on Friday when her car was stopped by Cuban police and she was taken into custody, she said.

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt - Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, the man at the center of an international controversy over an alleged CIA abduction, is being held in Damanhour prison outside Alexandria though he has not been accused of a crime, according to his lawyer, Muntassir al-Zayyat, a Cairo attorney who defends many Islamists. The case has attracted huge publicity in Italy, where lawmakers are enraged at what many regard as a flagrant abuse of Italian laws by the U.S. government. Italian authorities who have charged 13 CIA operatives with his abduction say that they don't know the whereabouts of Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, and that their requests for information from Egyptian authorities have gone unanswered.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- The South African government released eight political prisoners yesterday amid growing concerns that the men would suffer irreparable damage to their health after 23 days on hunger strike.The action brought to nine the number of prisoners freed by the government this week in an apparent response to the combined pressure of the hunger strike and stepped-up protests by the African National Congress.The Human Rights Commission, an independent panel that monitors government human rights violations, said 73 prisoners remained on strike, out of more than 200 at the beginning.

Not long ago, President Bush was listing issues where he and Democrats could work together after the GOP's election "thumpin.'" Democratic leaders also talked the bipartisan talk. Will it instead turn out to be two years of legislative gridlock? The politics of war, of congressional oversight, and of a premature presidential campaign will make it very difficult for this Congress and White House to move ahead on substantial issues - perhaps more difficult than in past presidencies facing an opposition Congress in the lame-duck years.

DAMASCUS, Syria - Anwar al-Bunni works in a low-ceilinged, wood-paneled apartment office in a middle-class district of the Syrian capital, trying to free political prisoners. His closest relatives have served a total of 60 years in prison for opposing the Baath Party regime. For most of that time, the rest of the world ignored him. But since President Bush's democracy campaign, Damascus' small, brave group of human rights advocates and lawyers, former political prisoners and opposition intellectuals have become hot media items.

HAVANA - Under a hand-painted banner proclaiming, "The homeland belongs to all," about 150 Cuban dissidents from across the island gathered yesterday morning for a landmark opposition meeting to demand freedom for political prisoners and to debate the future of their fledging civic and political organizations. The challenge to President Fidel Castro was marred by the Cuban government's expulsion of several European lawmakers, Polish journalists and a member of the Cuban American National Foundation, all of whom who traveled to Havana to attend the meeting.