Baasan Geleg - Mongolia
Change Through Courts
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There is no fairness in Mongolian society. Those who say fair things are put under pressure and despised. When we report information about wrong things, it is used against us as a weapon to repress us. The main obstacle to this is, in my opinion, the Mongolian courts. Why is a court system an obstacle to this? Because everything is regulated by law, the illegal things are determined by courts. But our court process is dominated and controlled by one party, the personnel are the same, have not been changed and still have a large revolutionary party following. The big example of this was July 1, 2008, when Mongolian election promises were all about big numbers, excessive, and the people’s election relied on these promises, which were manipulated by the Election Commission. As a result, election results came out falsely, which led to the people’s demonstration at Sukhbaatar Square. This demonstration was dispersed with weapons and five innocent people died; 800 people were rounded up and arrested. There were tortures and 300 youngsters were sent to jail and received lengthy prison sentences. I was personally involved in this process and sat in on the court proceedings. The prosecutor and judge were there and were acting as one person. In these court proceedings, they did not allow the advocate to speak and collected information from people without their lawyers and forced them to sign by beating them. They were sent to jail without any proof and there were even mentally ill people who were sent to prison.
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