The case hinges on comments he made on behalf of a group of Burmese migrant workers in the country, who alleged they had been promised much better pay and conditions by the company than they eventually received. When they complained, they were threatened with termination and deportation.

Worryingly, the trial looks to be stacked against Hector, with the court issuing a statement in advance that the blog posting under discussion was factually incorrect, and refusing to allow the migrant workers affected to join the suit.

Hector is being threatened in what seems to be an attempt to chill discussion of Asahi Kosei’s business and human rights issues in Malaysia. The company works as an outsourced supplier of many major electronics and motor brands, such as Hitachi, Sony, Seagate, Toshiba and JVC – none of whom would be too happy to be dragged into an Apple/Foxconn style labour abuses story.

Calling for such punitive damages is a clear deterrant to other human rights group and individuals from investigating how the company treat their migrant workforce, or representing people in cases where they’ve been abused by employers.

The many migrant workers in Malaysia are in a precarious position, facing deportation and whipping if they lose their jobs, so it takes a lot of courage to become a whistleblower as this group have done. Lets’ hope the court case gets thrown out, so in future it won’t require just as much courage for others to show solidarity with them.

There are a number of things you can do right now:

• Sign Good Electronics’ campaign action to Asahi Kosei’s key customers Hitachi.
• Sign Change.org’s petition on Asahi Kosei’s customers.
• Take Frontline’s online action calling for a fair trial.
• Sign the Asian Human Rights Commission’s petition for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of the action.

Photos of the four detainees (via Iraqi Communist Party site)

Worrying news from Iraq that four young leaders of the country’s recent waves of protests were arrested today and are being held in an undisclosed location. As students Ahmed Alaa al Baghdaddi, Moyaid Fasil al Taib and Ali Abdul-Khaliq, and worker activist Jihad Jalil – members of the 25 February protest movement – walked to join a peaceful mass protest in Tahrir Square in Baghdad this morning, plain clothes police in an ambulance seized them, beating them and threatening them with machine guns before taking them away.

The protests in Iraq have not been around regime change as in other countries in the region, but peaceful actions around the pace of reforms under the current elected government, the scale of unemployment in the country and charges of corruption at many levels of public life.

When tied in with the recent crack down on free trade unions operating in the country, this escalation in repression of peaceful protest bodes ill for civil society in Iraq. Non Arabic speakers like me are rather limited in government websites to email, but you can complain about this to the Iraqi Cabinet here.

In 1980, Anna was coming up for retirement in the shipyards of Gdansk, where she’d worked for 30 years as a welder and crane operator. She’d become disillusioned with Polish communism, after seing how it restricted workers’ rights to organise, and she took up editorship of the propaganda flyer, “The Coastal Worker”, campaigning against sexism in work,corruption in management and the government licensed trade unions, and in favour of the country’s free trade union movement.

Handing out the magazine in person – and indeed giving copies of it to her bosses – was a risky step, and was considered provocation enough for her to be fired – 5 months ahead of her planned retirement. This was the catalyst that seven days later caused the shipyard workers to walk out on strike in protest – the action that was to lead to her reinstatement, along with Lech Walesa, but also to the signing of the Gdansk Agreement which gave the right to workers to form free unions, and hence the formation of Solidarnosc.

From a flyer issued on her dismissal, now nearly thirty years ago:

“This matter demonstrates that the administration of the shipyard does not care about public opinion or legal procedure, which it violates forcing people to bend with its whims. Anna Walentynowicz has been a thorn in their side, because she is a model activist devoted to others. She is a thorn in their side because she defends others and is capable of organizing her colleagues… We appeal to you, defend the crane operator Walentynowicz.”

I was only dimly aware of the world shaking events that would follow in Poland – being more concerned at the time with my growing collection of Matchbox cars – but it gave me pause today to think about the contribution of Anna Walentnowicz and so many like her. Profoundly brave free trade unionists, whose legacy is moving now from yellowing newsprint into the stone tablets of history.

PS – this is good