Fall Trip Concludes With SPC Delegation
Executive Director John Kamm circled the globe on a six-week trip in September and October. He met with diplomats, officials, academics, NGO representatives, and others involved in human rights and criminal justice work in Asia and Europe. In Beijing, Washington, DC, and Chicago, he prepared for the juvenile justice delegation from the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) covered in the lead story.
Kamm began his trip in Hong Kong, where he and Joshua Rosenzweig, Senior Manager of Research and Hong Kong Operations, were hosted to lunch by the new US Consul General. They held meetings with representatives of the Hong Kong business, diplomatic, and NGO communities. On to Beijing, Kamm discussed recent human rights trends with US Ambassador Clark Randt and European ambassadors. He was hosted to lunch by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and discussed death penalty reform with the SPC.
From Beijing, Kamm flew to Europe. In Norway, he met with representatives of the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights and other NGOs, parliamentarians, and government officials preparing for the upcoming human rights dialogue with China. In Denmark, Kamm was briefed on the China programs of the Danish Centre for Human Rights and met with officials at the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In Switzerland, Kamm spent time in Geneva and Berne, holding talks with senior UN officials, China’s UN ambassador, representatives of the ICRC and other NGOs, and Swiss government officials. The European leg wrapped up in Rome, where Kamm attended a Papal Mass and was hosted for meetings and a luncheon by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Kamm went on to Washington, DC, where he spoke to students of the Cornell and China program and met with David Kramer, Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, and his colleagues about the US-Sino human rights dialogue and the possibility of holding another session in 2008.
New Staff Members Join Dui Hua
As Dui Hua expands its work into new areas such as juvenile justice, it has hired three staff for positions in administration, programs, and research.
In San Francisco, Lillian Sie joins Dui Hua as Administrative Assistant. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College, she holds a B.A. in International Relations with a concentration in East Asian Studies. Lillian has studied Chinese in Beijing and spent a summer teaching schoolchildren in rural China. Just before coming to Dui Hua, Lillian interned at the Asia Society, a non-profit that promotes exchange between Asia and the United States.
Tobias Smith, also in the San Francisco office, has come on board as Associate of Justice Programs, coordinating activities related to juvenile justice and prisoner issues. He formerly worked for a non-profit that defends prisoners’ rights in California. Tobias has spent more than five years living, studying, and working in East Asia, and received a Fulbright Fellowship to research Modern Buddhism in China. He holds a B.A. in Philosophy and East Asian Studies from Oberlin College.
Luke Wong, the new Research Assistant focused on updating Dui Hua’s prisoner database, is a graduate of the University of Hong Kong, where he majored in History and European Studies. Luke also holds a master’s degree in History with a concentration in racial and class relations in colonial Hong Kong. ■