Above: Chan Han Choi at his residence of house arrest shortly after his release from prison on bail on the evening of 12 November 2020. Choi is here reading a copy of the main Korean language community newspaper in Sydney, Hanho Daily. The then current issue of Hanho Daily contained an article on the campaign to free this socialist political prisoner.
Photo Credit: Trotskyist Platform
Free Chan Han Choi – Drop All Charges Now!
Australian Regime Releases Socialist Political Prisoner into House Arrest
13 November 2020 – After nearly three years in prison without being convicted of any charge, Chan Han Choi was yesterday finally released on bail. However, the bail conditions imposed on him are so strict that they amount to house arrest. Choi is not allowed to leave his bail residence except for his twice daily reporting to a nearby police station or for essential medical care. Apart from being subjected to a strict curfew, his use of the internet is greatly restricted. Moreover, Choi “must, on request, disclose to the officer in charge any caller or phone number appearing on his accounts.” This is a blatant attempt to assist the police to carry out intimidation and surveillance of Choi’s many friends and supporters.
Despite the harsh bail conditions imposed on him, Choi is certainly happy to be out of prison. He spent most of his nearly three years in prison in one of the Australian regime’s most notorious prison camps. Moreover, the capitalist regime imposed extra severe conditions on this socialist political prisoner. They obstructed visits to Choi by lawyers, translators and friends. They banned him from making any telephone calls to his friends whatsoever – a right accorded to other prisoners. More recently, they failed to monitor his diabetes and repeatedly knocked back his requests to see a prison doctor over an eight and a half month period as his diabetes significantly worsened. Choi was finally allowed medical care again only after sending off a strong August 15 letter to prison health authorities stating “that they are trying indirectly to murder me” by rebuffing his repeated written requests to be seen by a prison doctor. By the time that Choi was seen by prison medical staff on August 27, his blood sugar levels had reached alarmingly dangerous levels. He required emergency doses of insulin. Later he was put on a program of daily insulin injections and thrice daily sugar level monitoring. It turned out that, unbeknownst to Choi at the time, most of the symptoms that he was desperately seeking medical attention for – severe unintended weight loss, rashes all over his body, very itchy fungal infections etc – were the result of his diabetes going out of control. The fact is that Choi should have been receiving daily insulin up to eight months before he was finally treated in this way. The regime’s delay in treating his diabetes not only caused the symptoms that he suffered from but put Choi at greatly increased risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke. Apart from being potentially deadly, the Australian regime’s refusal of medical care to this left-wing political prisoner caused him extreme stress that for a period affected his mental health.
Even on his very last day in jail prior to being released on bail, the callous neglect of Choi’s health needs continued. Yesterday, Choi asked to see the nurse on duty so that he could get a certificate about the medication that he is taking in order to give it to a doctor once he is released. However, senior guards blocked him from accessing a nurse. Thus prevented from having any official record of the medication that he has been prescribed, today Choi and his supporters spent the afternoon in a panic as they feverishly attempted to deduce – with the help of his new GP and pharmacist – what daily insulin dose he was being prescribed and what other diabetes and high cholesterol medication he requires.
Photo Credit: Trotskyist Platform
Chan Han Choi is accused of trying to help North Korea’s people conduct trade with entities abroad in violation of UN economic sanctions. He is scheduled to face trial next February. 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. That latter charge 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. However, as asserted by the chair of a united front rally held in Choi’s defence on the Saturday prior to his November 10 bail hearing:
“We say that whether the charges are true or not, Choi should be freed and all the charges dropped. Because even if they are true, he has committed no crime from the standpoint of working class people. On the contrary he would have carried out a great act of humanitarianism. Because these sanctions are cruel and brutal. Similar sanctions imposed on the people of Iraq, in just their first eight years of implementation, from 1990 to 1998, killed half a million Iraqi babies. They caused a half a million babies to die prematurely through a lack of food and medicine – this is according to the United Nations, the body that imposed the sanctions. In the end about 1.7 million people in Iraq died as a result of those sanctions. Now, North Korea has a socialistic system so they’re better able to protect their people from these sanctions. But still it causes enormous suffering. Choi has been to rural areas of North Korea and he has seen that suffering caused by the sanctions. And that is why he is opposed to these sanctions and wants to help the people of North Korea.
“But Chan Han Choi is also a socialist. He likes North Korea’s egalitarianism. He likes the society’s community spirit. Now people can have different ideas about North Korea’s leadership. But the fact is that the people of North Korea have built a socialistic system based on public ownership of the banks, the mines, the factories and the agricultural land. Now that system is a system that favours working class people. So by standing by such a system, Chan Han Choi has stood by all the people in Australia and around the world hurt by the capitalist system. He has stood by the millions of workers, many young and women workers, who’ve been forced into insecure casual labour. He has stood by the hundreds of thousands of workers who have been thrown out of their jobs over the last few months after their toil made their bosses huge profits… He has stood by the people who are struggling with rent or mortgage repayments because there is so little public housing. He has stood by the people hurt by privatisation. So by standing by a system of public ownership, he has stood by 90% of Australia’s population. We must now stand by him!”
Resist the Rise of Cold War McCarthysim!
Although Choi was initially charged for allegedly trying to break the sanctions on the people of North Korea, the reason he was imprisoned and denied bail until now was largely because of his sympathy for socialistic North Korea. In their submissions opposing each of Choi’s bail applications, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP) insisted on each occasion that Choi’s stated sympathy for the DPRK was a strong reason to reject bail. Meanwhile, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) claimed that Choi’s statements from prison that he is a political prisoner and attacking the economic sanctions on the DPRK as unfair and unjust are also reasons to deny bail. In other words, because of Choi’s sympathy for a socialistic country and his avowed opposition to the cruel sanctions on the people of that country, the Australian regime is insisting that Choi should have less rights than others. This is blatant political discrimination! It is what Cold War McCarthyism is all about – where people’s sympathy for a socialistic country or advocacy of communism is equated with criminal acts. It makes a mockery of the Australian regime’s claims to run a “democratic system” where “everyone has the same rights regardless of their political stance.” Such discrimination against sympathisers of socialistic states is all the more disgusting because those standing by such systems based on public ownership and working class rule – in however a bureaucratically deformed manner that it may currently exist in North Korea and the Peoples Republic China – are standing by the interests of the entire working class of Australia and the world; and most of the middle class as well.
Meanwhile, the CDPP and AFP also opposed Choi’s bail on the grounds that his supporters providing bail surety and bail residence to him are associated with groups like Trotskyist Platform, “that make statements undermining the Australian legal system and showing a lack of respect for the processes associated with adjudicating criminal guilt.” Thus, people expressing distrust in Australia’s capitalist legal system – a system that is both racist and biased towards the rich business owning class – are branded as being necessarily more likely to commit criminal acts than others. Indeed, the regime went even further. They made a big deal about the people offering bail surety having, on certain days, worn t-shirts containing the flag of the DPRK! Shock horror! Their Cold War anti-communism is so intense that they even deem people wearing t-shirts with the flag of a socialistic country as would-be criminals.
Alongside such fanatical anti-communist arguments, the CDPP and AFP also resorted to other spurious “grounds” for opposing bail. For one they constructed a completely bonkers conspiracy theory that Chinese, North Korean or even Russian agents would assist Choi to flee Australia – despite the COVID ban on travel out of this country – should Choi be granted bail. Then, they made a huge song and dance about Choi’s family’s supposed minimal contact with him since his arrest. However, as Choi’s legal team noted, his family members were themselves raided at the time that Choi was arrested and there “is an irresistible inference that the lack of contact between the Applicant [Choi] and his family, and vice versa, may be prompted out of fear for the safety” of family members “as opposed to a permanent state of degradation in their familial relationship, and hence the diminishment of the Applicant’s community ties.” Moreover, until well into 2019, Choi had regularly been speaking to his wife on the phone. This communication only ceased after two members of the Corrections Intelligence Group visited Choi in prison and made the chilling threat that should he ever speak on the phone in Korean again, he would be sent to Goulburn Supermax prison. Soon, Choi found that he could not adequately communicate with his wife since both are far from fluent in English. Moreover, there was a danger that either one of them could unthinkingly break into Korean during a phone conversation which could cause Choi to be sent to Goulburn Supermax and out of easy reach of the friends who have been visiting him in custody. As a result he stopped calling his wife. However, making a mockery of the prosecution’s emphasis on his supposed “minimal contact with family members,” the first thing that Choi did this morning – after having been given an approved phone late last night – was to make phone contact with his family… and a lengthy conversation followed!
Upon his release from prison into house arrest, Choi expressed his deepest appreciation to all the people who have supported him. He said that without their support and actions there is no way that he would have been released on bail. When Choi was arrested in December 2017, then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, Australian Federal Police leaders and the mainstream media launched vicious verbal attacks on him. They sought to use the case to create a hysterical fear of North Korea. Choi was a bogeyman for the Australian capitalist regime to justify increased McCarthyist repression at home and a greatly intensified military build up against the DPRK and her socialistic PRC neighbour and ally. However, soon, the regime and the capitalist class that it serves found that many people did not buy their propaganda. Many sympathized with Choi and a vibrant movement mobilising street protests in defence of this socialist political prisoner emerged. The regime realised that the Choi case, rather than being a propaganda bonanza, has turned into a headache for them. In particular, the efforts of Choi’s supporters to expose the regime’s cruel treatment of this political prisoner and the resulting sympathy for Choi emerging from within a sizeable section of Australia’s Korean community (see: http://www.hanhodaily.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=64867) – and part of the Chinese community too – was threatening to lay bare to many the fraudulent nature of the ruling class’ claims to stand for “rule of law” and “human rights.” Thus, the exposure of the Australian regime’s profoundly unjust persecution of Choi is also undermining its attempts to attack the PRC, DPRK and other socialistic countries over supposed “human rights abuses.” It seems that decisive sections of the Australian ruling class have hence calculated that its interests would be better served by releasing Choi into house arrest until his trial.
Congratulations to all those who have joined the street protests in defense of Chan Han Choi and supported him in other ways. You made a real difference! Alongside Trotskyist Platform, many other groups joined this united front campaign. Among the organisations that have either participated in or supported the various rallies supporting Choi are Trotskyist Platform, Anti-War West Sydney, Social Justice Network, Australia-DPRK Friendship Society, Communist Party of Australia – Wollongong branch, Communist Party of Australia –Western Sydney branch, Aust-DPRK Solidarity, Lebanese Communist Party and the Irish Republican socialist group James Connolly Association.
However, we supporters of Choi cannot rest on our laurels. His trial is approaching fast. Moreover, there is a lot at stake. For, although Choi is the biggest victim of Cold War McCarthyism in this country he is far from the only target. Just a week before Choi was released from prison, a Chinese Australian man, Sunny Duong, became the first person charged under Australia’s draconian so-called “foreign interference” laws – laws that are aimed at quashing the voice of those sympathetic to socialistic China and the other workers states. Sunny is a highly respected member of Melbourne’s South-East Asian Chinese community. The Australian regime have given scant details about the charges. But you can bet that this is another beat up! They say that he was conspiring to interfere in Australia’s political affairs. What do they mean by that: was he was planning to merely issue some social media posts sympathetic to China?
Five months ago, a NSW Labor MP Shaoquett Moselmane was forced out of his elected senate seat for several months after the Australian Federal Police made a heavy-handed and intimidating raid on his home. It turns out that he never had any case to answer. Their excuse for the raid was that he belonged to a social media chat group where other people made pro-China comments. Can you believe that? And the regime here calls itself a democracy! Two months before being raided, Moselmane was witch-hunted out of his position as deputy president of the NSW upper house just because he told the truth and said that China responded very well to the pandemic. So much for free speech!
Meanwhile, last year, Chinese international students were subjected to an intimidating interrogation by Australia’s ASIO secret police. The students were targeted because they organised a large march in Sydney opposing the pro-colonial, anti-China rioters in Hong Kong. Then this year, ASIO and the Federal police staged a Gestapo-style raid on Chinese journalists working in Australia, seizing their computers and phones and terrifying their children.
Like all bullies, those leading the Cold War McCarthyist drive in Australia depend on their potential victims being intimidated. That is after all how witch-hunts work. First the witch-hunters target one person and hope that others who would support that target are intimidated and stay silent to avoid being targeted themselves. Then the persecutors move on to the next victim who often could be one of the people who decided to stay silent. That is why we must not stay silent when anyone is being persecuted for their sympathy for socialistic states; or in Moselmane’s case for having merely said a few words in praise of China. Now is the time to put our heads up – not duck for cover! The way to defeat witch-hunts is through courage! We must say an injury to one is an injury to all! By working harder to defend the biggest victim of McCarthyist persecution in Australia, Chan Han Choi, we are pushing back against this Cold War witch-hunt on all fronts.
The struggle to win freedom for Choi and to oppose the broader McCarthyist witch-hunt will need to be waged through mass street actions and political exposure. We can have no illusions in justice originating from the Australian regime’s legal system. As Trotskyist Platform spokesman, Samuel Kim, concluded in a speech made at the 7 November “Free Chan Han Choi” protest:
“The prisons, the courts, the police and the state bureaucracy in this capitalist country exist to enforce the interests of the corporate 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 as the capitalists also heavily influence these political parties. That is why greedy construction industry bosses get away with industrial manslaughter and murder – where on average 30 construction industry workers are killed on the job every year. Yet representatives from the construction workers unions get hit with criminal convictions for inspecting unsafe work sites.
“This system is geared towards the rich and powerful – and Choi, a hospital cleaner and someone charged with standing up for a workers state will receive discrimination from this system. So that is why we have mobilised on the streets with our physical bodies and we are loudly voicing these injustices. The only way we can bring true justice for Choi or any working class struggle – like for higher wages, struggles against police brutality or for affordable housing – is through street actions and protest actions of the good people. We need future mass actions of politically aware working class people and our allies. This, comrades and friends, is the most powerful way to oppose the decaying capitalist system of increasing inequality. We demand:
“Freedom for Chan Han Choi!
“Down with the barbaric sanctions, military threats, and trade war on the people of North Korea!
“Down with the Cold War witch-hunt against supporters of socialistic states!