Japan to free Chinese fisherman amid diplomatic row
Posted : Fri, 24 Sep 2010 08:37:39 GMT
Tokyo - Japan on Friday decided to release a Chinese fishing boat captain whose arrest near disputed islands sparked a diplomatic dispute, a news report said.
Prosecutors in the southern city of Naha made the decision, Japan's Kyodo News agency said.
China reacted to the announcement by reasserting its position that Japan's action against the captain was "illegal and invalid."
"I reiterate that any form of the so-called judicial procedures taken by Japan against the Chinese captain are illegal and invalid," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said in a statement.
Jiang said the Chinese government planned to send a plane to Japan to fly the captain, Zhan Qixiong, back to China.
China had repeatedly demanded the "immediate and unconditional" release of the 41-year-old sailor who was arrested on September 7.
Zhan was taken into custody after his boat collided twice with Japan Coast Guard vessels.
The incident took place near islands known as Senkaku in Japan, Diaoyu in China and Tiaoyutai in Taiwan.
The islands, together with the oil-rich surrounding area, are claimed by all three governments.
Malaysia hands over terrorist suspect to Singapore
Posted : Fri, 24 Sep 2010 07:42:30 GMT
Kuala Lumpur - A suspected Islamist militant who was captured last year in Malaysia after escaping from a Singapore jail was handed over Friday to the city-state, the two governments said.
Singapore accused Indonesian-born Mas Selamat Kastari of being a key member of the regional terrorist network Jemaah Islamiyah and of plotting to hijack a plane and crash it into Singapore's Changi Airport.
Mas Selamat's two-year detention order under Malaysia's Internal Security Act, which allows detention without trial, was revoked ahead of his deportation, said Mohamad Fuzi Harun, the director in charge of counterterrorism for the Royal Malaysian Police Special Task Force Division.
Mas Selamat had been incarcerated in Malaysia since he was caught April 1, 2009, in the southern state of Johor, which borders Singapore. His arrest came after a massive manhunt following his escape from a maximum-security detention centre in Singapore in February 2008.
While being escorted by security guards to the visitors wing of the Whitley Road Detention Center in Singapore to meet his family, Mas Selamat requested to go to the toilet. He was said to have escaped via a small window that was not locked.
Jemaah Islamiyah has been linked to al-Qaeda and aims to establish an Islamic state in South-East Asia. It has been blamed for a spate of bombings in Indonesia.
Hong Kong activists to challenge block on trip to disputed islands
Posted : Fri, 24 Sep 2010 07:46:59 GMT
Hong Kong - A group of Hong Kong activists on Friday said they would challenge a block by the authorities on their attempted trip to disputed islands in the East China Sea, saying they were simply expressing their support for China's claim to the islands.
The seven activists claim their human rights were infringed by the Hong Kong Marine Department, which forced them to turn back twice after they tried to set sail for the islands in the last three days.
They claimed they only wanted to exercise the Chinese right to fish in the area, and said they would mount a legal case against the government for blocking their trip.
On both occasions their vessel was shadowed by the boats from the Hong Kong Marine Department and ordered back to port before leaving Hong Kong waters.
The department claimed they turned the vessel back because it was not authorized to carry passengers and those on board were not fishing crew.
Legislator Albert Ho, chairman of the Democratic Party and a member of the Action Committee for Defending the Diaoyu Islands, said the marine department's action was "totally unjustified."
"It is wrong of the government and it is absurd for them to speculate on the intention of any individual," he said.
Ho said the blocking of the boat by marine police officers was an abuse of human rights and argued Hong Kong people should be free to "express a view on the Chinese claim to sovereignty."
Tensions have risen between China and Japan after the arrest last week of a Chinese fishing boat captain by the Japanese Coast Guard. Japan announced Friday that he would be freed.
Japan accused the captain of colliding with two of its patrol boats on September 7 near the disputed islands north-east of Taiwan.
The islands, which are known as Senkaku in Japan, Diaoyu in China and Tiaoyutai in Taiwan, are uninhabited but sit in an oil-rich area and are claimed by all three governments.
Nationalist protestors in Hong Kong have sailed to the islands previously in support of China's territorial claim. In 1996, a Hong Kong activist died when he fell from a boat near the islands.
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