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Political Prisoner in Australia Chan Han Choi
8 June 2020: Left-wing political prisoner in Australia, Chan Han Choi continues to languish in prison. He has been jailed since December 2017 on charges of trying to help the people of North Korea to evade UN economic sanctions. Even if the claims against him turn out to be true, he is no criminal from the working class standpoint. Quite the opposite! It would simply prove that he is a great humanitarian aiding people who are being ground down by the most severe sanctions ever imposed on any country.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic struck, life for all prisoners has become even tougher. For the last nearly three months all visits to NSW prisoners have been blocked. This has been especially tough on Choi as the prison system has specifically banned him from making telephone calls to his friends. This is supposedly on “national security” grounds. The only person Choi is permitted to call is his wife. However, the authorities have stipulated that all conversations must be in English. But since his wife speaks little English and Choi’s English is also limited, in practice he cannot speak to his wife either. He long ago stopped calling her after authorities threatened that if they broke into Korean in conversation on the phone he would be transferred to Goulburn Supermax prison! Thus, for over two months, Choi was effectively prevented from having any contact with any family or friends. Finally, two weeks ago, Choi’s friends have started being able to speak to him again in a limited way. Authorities have now allowed prisoners to receive AVL (Audio Visual Link) “visits” as a substitute for physical, contact visits. However, these weekly AVL “visits” are only for 25 minutes, whereas the usual physical visits were for two hours per weekly visit.
Today, at the Long Bay Prison Hospital where Choi is imprisoned, we saw both the stress that prisoners are under since their visits have been blocked and the brutality that they face from guards. Aerial media footage from helicopter shows guards unleashing tear gas and attack dogs against prisoners in a yard. The footage then shows the guards moving into another yard where all the inmates were lying face down on the ground at the command of guards and totally compliant. However, apparently for sadistic pleasure, guards begin throwing tear gas at the motionless prisoners lying on the ground and then start ferociously clubbing some of the inmates with batons. One prisoner is meanwhile bitten by a dog. We do not know if Choi was one of the prisoners assaulted. Prison authorities claim that the guards were reacting to a fight between prisoners over drugs but the footage does not show any skirmish. Instead, the media footage taken from helicopter shows six prisoners using materials to spell out “BLM”, which stands for Black Lives Matter. It is thus possible that the authorities attacked the prisoners because they expressed their political support for the struggle against racist oppression. On its Facebook page, the Abolitionist and Transformative Justice Centre (an alliance of lawyers, social workers and activists in support of Indigenous Australians) called it an “ongoing Black Lives Matter uprising”. “There is massive resistance,” their post said.
Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic means that the health of all prisoners are at great risk. In the conditions of a prison, where many people are indoors together, a virus outbreak could spread like wildfire. Inmates like Choi are especially vulnerable as he is over 60 years of age and has a major pre-existing medical condition that has become more serious while imprisoned.
Chan Han Choi had been set to go on trial on March 9. Supporters of Choi organised a protest rally outside court to mark this trial commencement. However, at the last moment, the trial was postponed. As rally organisers were unable to contact everyone who was planning to attend, some of Choi’s core supporters went ahead with the rally anyway and were joined by some of the other supporters who were not able to be notified of the trial postponement. We print below, in lightly edited and condensed form, the speeches of two of the speakers at the demonstration: rally mc Sarah Fitzenmeyer, who is also the Chairwoman of Trotskyist Platform and Samuel Kim a leading Trotskyist Platform activist. Comrade Kim is of Korean background.
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Sarah Fitzenmeyer (rally introduction): Thank you to everyone who has come here to support today’s action which is calling for freedom for left-wing political prisoner right here in Australia, Chan Han Choi. Choi has been imprisoned for two years and three months for his sympathy for socialistic North Korea. Today was to be a huge day for Choi because it was supposed to be the start of his trial but at the last minute it has been postponed…. This, however, certainly isn’t any reason for us not to be here today protesting loudly against an injustice that really needs to be condemned each and every day. Indeed, we won’t stop protesting until our brave socialist comrade, Chan Han Choi, a heroic political prisoner right here in racist, capitalist Australia is finally set free!
Firstly, let us acknowledge that we are on stolen Aboriginal land. This is the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. Aboriginal people continue to suffer in this country. And in standing by a victim of persecution today, Chan Han Choi, it is our duty to also commit to stand by the Aboriginal people’s struggle for liberation. In the very same wing of the prison that Chan Han Choi is incarcerated in, the Prison Hospital wing of Long Bay Jail, a 26 year-old Aboriginal man, David Dungay, was crushed to death by six racist prison officers four years ago. David Dungay’s family still have not received justice. Neither have any of the other families of Aboriginal people who have been killed in state custody by racist state personnel. The same racist, rich people’s regime that unleashes brutal terror against Aboriginal people is today persecuting socialist political prisoner Chan Han Choi.
Chan Han Choi was arrested for allegedly trying to organise deals to help the people of North Korea evade crippling United Nations economic sanctions. But the reason that he is still in jail is because of his political views and the fact that he proudly continues to maintain his opposition to the sanctions against North Korea. The Australian Federal Police in their submission to the courts openly gave as one of their reasons for opposing bail the fact that Choi has made defiant statements from prison identifying the economic sanctions on North Korea as being unjust and unfair. So for expressing his opposition to these cruel sanctions, Choi is stripped of his human rights and kept languishing, locked up in jail.
Choi’s entire experience being locked up over the last two years has been one of discrimination because of his political stance. Choi has been denied many of the rights that should be accorded to all prisoners. Most concerning has been the obstructing of legal access to him. When Choi had a government-appointed lawyer who was pressuring Choi to plead “Guilty,” that lawyer had ready access to Choi. But after Choi sacked this lawyer and found alternate representation, the new lawyers’ access to Choi became obstructed once it became clear to authorities that they were not going to pressure him into pleading “guilty.” Even after Choi’s legal team could finally see him, suitably qualified Korean-English interpreters were still blocked from accompanying legal visits. This lack of access to interpreters was the main grounds for Choi’s second bail application that was heard on December 20. The judge again denied bail but said that if an interpreter was not found by December 31, bail would become highly likely. Suddenly, however, after a few days, Corrective Services NSW granted access to an interpreter. So after qualified interpreters were completely blocked for over 16 months, suddenly one was cleared to come and translate for him within days! This was organised with such speed simply to ensure that Choi would not get bail! That shows how corrupt and biased the Australian regime agencies are. This is the same Corrective Services NSW that took over four months to approve visits to Choi from his friends.
All the eight charges against Choi relate to alleged brokering of the export of produce from North Korea to entities in third countries, except for one of the charges, which alleges that Choi attempted to broker the import of petroleum products from Iran to the DPRK. Choi has pleaded not guilty to all the eight charges. Yet even if the claims against him turn out to be true, he is no criminal from the working class standpoint. Quite the opposite! It would simply prove that he was aiding people who are being ground down by the most severe sanctions ever imposed. Similar sanctions imposed on Iraq caused the deaths of over 500,000 babies in just the first eight years of their implementation from 1990 onwards. Although the DPRK’s socialistic system has enabled her to avert such catastrophic consequences, the sanctions still cause terrible hardship to her people.
Choi is a humanitarian who has seen the suffering that the sanctions have caused. He is also a socialist who sympathises with North Korea because he likes the society’s egalitarianism. Whatever one thinks of North Korea’s leaders, the fact is that her people have built a system based upon public ownership of the key banks, industries, agricultural land and mines. It is a state that was won by the masses in brave struggle to defeat the former capitalists and landlords. In supporting such a socialistic system, Choi is also standing by the interests of those in Australia hurt by the capitalist system – that is, those suffering from the effects of privatisation, casualisation of employment, job slashing by bosses, bullying by banks, sell-offs of public housing and rising rents. Choi can be considered an anti-privatisation warrior and a champion of public ownership – a champion of a system that would favour the working class majority of this country and the world. Working class people must in turn now stand by him!
Our next speaker is Samuel Kim representing Trotskyist Platform, the group that has initiated today’s united front action. Samuel has worked as hard as anyone over the last couple of years in the campaign to free Chan Han Choi.
Samuel Kim: So far Choi has been jailed in Sydney’s notorious maximum security prison for the last 27 months. But what is our friend Chan Han Choi accused of? He is a peaceful man who never assaulted anyone, he did not steal from anyone, he is softly spoken, and he was a humble working class hospital cleaner at the time of his arrest. All Choi is accused of doing is arranging trade deals to help the people of North Korea to evade cruel UN economic sanctions. These sanctions ban nearly all of North Korea’s exports and many imported items too. It means that the people of North Korea do not have the hard currency needed to buy food, medicines and medical equipment. The sanctions on North Korea are so extreme that even the Red Cross said that the outbreak of the coronavirus would hurt North Korea without temporary sanctions relief. Today sanctions are preventing North Korea from getting urgently needed testing kits and protective gear.
If Choi turns out to be “guilty” as charged that means that he sacrificed his freedom to help the people of North Korea bypass these killer sanctions. That would make him a great humanitarian. A humanitarian who should be freed from prison immediately. And if he is found not guilty, he should never have been imprisoned in the first place.
Despite not being accused of a single crime against a victim, Chan Han Choi has been refused bail. In contrast many people charged with even murder get bail. So why has Choi been refused bail? The prosecution opposed bail claiming that Choi’s supposed offending is objectively serious because of his loyalty to the DPRK. In other words because of Choi’s political views the Australian regime say his alleged offences should be considered more serious. This is blatant political persecution!
Choi has had many of his rights as a prisoner and defendant stripped. To this day Choi is still not allowed to make telephone calls to his friends. He has even been refused the right to call his daughter-in-law and therefore to speak to his infant grandchildren. The Australian capitalist class say that they run a “democratic” system. They say that everyone has the same rights here regardless of their political views. But Choi had his bail opposed because of his sympathies for a socialistic state and because he has spoken out from prison against the cruel sanctions on North Korea. The Australian regime and their media say that they respect “human rights” but human rights are routinely violated and ignored by the government and corporate media.
Many Aboriginal people know all too well what the Australian regime’s talk of “human rights” actually means: in the last three decades 450 indigenous people have died in state custody, many simply killed by racist police or prison guards.
The U.S. and Australian imperialist rulers and their South Korean allies say that the sanctions are needed to stop the supposed nuclear threat from North Korea. But we ask what threat? It is not North Korea that criminally nuked the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And it is not North Korea that killed hundreds of thousands of people in invading Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. Nor is it North Korea that is today threatening a bloody assault against the people of Iran. No that is the work of the very people who have imposed sanctions upon her.
The real reason that the capitalist powers have imposed sanctions upon North Korea is that they want to starve her people into abandoning their socialistic system. Although socialistic rule in North Korea is deformed by bureaucratic privileges and a lack of real workers democracy, North Korea has a system of public ownership that was won in the struggle against landlords and capitalist exploiters. Capitalist powers hate the DPRK workers state because its mere existence could inspire the masses of other former colonies to engage in rebellious struggles against exploitation and neo-colonial subjugation. That would mean a huge loss in profits for the American, Australian, British and Japanese corporations that loot wealth from the Philippines, Indonesia, East Timor, Thailand, PNG and Fiji.
By targeting North Korea, the capitalist powers are also squeezing her neighbour and ally, the Peoples Republic of China. Washington and Canberra want to smash socialistic rule in these countries so that they can turn them into huge sweatshops where the corporate bosses that they serve can make fabulous profits from exploiting workers.
But while attacking North Korea and China is good for the big end of town, it is harmful to the interests of 90% of this country’s population. The existence of socialistic states strengthens the struggle here for workers rights, and helps create a movement for a future society based on public ownership. By standing by a society based on public ownership, Choi is in effect standing by working class people and by most middle class people as well. Working class people in Australia, opponents of imperialism, fighters against privatisation and supporters of public ownership have a strong interest in standing by Chan Han Choi. We must demand the immediate dropping of all charges against him. It is also in our interests to defend socialistic rule in North Korea and China – however far from the ideal it may be – as well as to defend socialistic rule in Cuba, Vietnam and Laos. We must demand an end to all sanctions on North Korea as well as an end to the U.S. blockade on Cuba. We need to oppose the U.S. and Australian regimes’ military build up against North Korea and China. We must also oppose their propaganda campaign of lies against these socialistic countries.
The struggle to free Choi is especially crucial because he is not the only person being persecuted for their sympathy for a socialistic state. Today, the Australian regime is waging a McCarthyist type witch-hunt which especially targets supporters of the most powerful socialistic country, the People’s Republic of China. International students from China who express their support for Red China are being demonised. Last Spring, the Australian government announced the creation of a new taskforce to attack pro-Red China students under the guise of looking into supposed “foreign interference” on campuses.
The democracy in this country is only a democracy for the ultra-rich, big end of town. The prisons, the courts, the police and the state bureaucracy in a capitalist country exist to enforce the interests of the capitalist business owners against those of the working class masses and their supporters. This is the case whether it is the Liberals, the ALP or the Greens who are in office. That is why construction bosses get away with industrial murder of workers. Every year, over 30 construction industry workers are killed on the job. Yet construction unions are the ones getting hit with criminal convictions just for protesting and inspecting unsafe work sites.
There is no way that this capitalist legal system is going to give a hospital cleaner who was charged with illegally standing up for a workers state a fair hearing. The only force that can bring justice for Choi is good people taking action. We need mass actions consisting of politically aware working class people and our allies. We cannot trust these racist, rich people’s courts that do not represent the labouring and ordinary people. The legal system is filled with bias, the system is rigged for the ruling class. Free Chan Han Choi! Down with the cruel sanctions on the people of North Korea! Resist the Cold War witch-hunt against supporters of socialistic states!
Sarah Fitzenmeyer (interim remarks): I want to tell you a bit about political prisoner Chan Han Choi. He was born in capitalist South Korea and migrated here 32 years ago. He is an Australian citizen who is 61 years old. When he was arrested he was a hospital cleaner living in a modest rented apartment. He is a husband, a proud father of a son in his mid 30s and a proud grandfather to two infant grand-daughters. He likes Western classical music and Japanese food.
One of the very worrying things about Choi’s persecution is that it is part of a pattern of growing political repression in Australia. In the first place this repression targets supporters of socialistic states, that is supporters of the DPRK like Choi but mostly supporters of the world’s biggest socialistic state, the Peoples Republic of China. Increasingly over the last period, supporters of socialistic China living or studying in Australia have been demonised and targeted.
However, the repression in Australia is going even beyond that. The same AFP [Australian Federal Police] and Commonwealth DPP [Director of Public Prosecutions] who are prosecuting Choi are also prosecuting Witness K, the former Australian intelligence agent who revealed to journalists how the ASIS spy agency had bugged East Timorese government buildings in order to give the Australian government and corporations the advantage in oil resource negotiations with East Timor. Witness K and his lawyer, Bernard Collaery, today face imprisonment for their decent act of revealing to the world this bullying, colonialist outrage. The same forces persecuting Choi, Witness K and Collaery are also prosecuting David McBride, the military lawyer who blew the whistle on war crimes by Australian troops in Afghanistan. We should fight for the dropping of all charges against Chan Han Choi, David McBride and Witness K!
Yet, it is not only the AFP that is engaged in repressing whistleblowers and dissidents. The whole Australian capitalist regime is being unleashed. A key victim of growing repression in Australia are trade unionists. Anti-union laws have curtailed the right to strike and have led to repeated fines and prosecutions of scores of representatives of construction workers’ unions. Last year, the ABCC so-called “independent” construction industry watchdog slapped 99.2% of its huge $4.25 million in fines on workers and their union and just 0.08% on the filthy rich and notoriously criminal-infested construction industry bosses! Now, the government is trying to push through the Ensuring Integrity Bill, extreme legislation that will make it easier for the government to deregister militant trade unions and drive out staunch unionists from leadership positions.
The workers movement, supporters of workers states, anti-racist activists, whistle-blowers and those concerned about the environment all have an interest in resisting growing repression in this country. And that means we must all stand with Chan Han Choi against the political persecution that he is facing.
Sarah Fitzenmeyer (rally conclusion): All working class people, whistle-blowers and opponents of imperialism have an interest in standing by Chan Han Choi. But given the Australian regime’s manifestly political persecution of him, there is no way that Choi can get a fair trial. The courts are themselves biased and are a core part of the brutal racist state that is designed to enforce the interests of the capitalist big end of town at the expense of working class people. That is why we are here today. To send a message that there are many people supporting Choi and watching what the court does. And we and many more will not tolerate the continued Cold War, McCarthyist political persecution of Chan Han Choi.
Let’s intensify our struggle to free Chan Han Choi and to abolish the murderously cruel sanctions on the people of North Korea.