Thailand: Break Silence on Rights Ahead of Elections
Political Parties Continue to Ignore Abuses
By Human Rights Watch
(New York, December 12, 2007)
In the run-up to Thailand’s general elections, political parties and candidates have failed to make human rights a campaign issue despite the country’s many pressing rights concerns, Human Rights Watch said today. The elections are scheduled for December 23.
"This pivotal election makes it more critical than ever for Thai political parties to put forward an agenda for ending abuses and impunity."
Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch
“It’s not a matter of human rights taking a backseat in the Thai elections, they are simply not even present,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “This pivotal election makes it more critical than ever for Thai political parties to put forward an agenda for ending abuses and impunity.”
Human rights in Thailand have eroded steadily as a result of repressive policies by the government of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra (2001-2006) and the military junta in place since the September 2006 coup. Thousands of extrajudicial killings connected to the government’s anti-drugs and counterinsurgency operations remain unresolved. Human rights defenders have been murdered and “disappeared” without a single successful prosecution of the perpetrators.
In the restive southern border provinces, the government’s continuing failure to uphold justice – despite clear evidence of official involvement in abuses in the Krue Se and Tak Bai incidents – now is the main justification given by separatist militants for violent attacks, which have claimed nearly 3,000 lives over the past four years. Government interference in media has led to censorship in many newsrooms, both enforced and self-imposed, which helps keep reports of abuses by the security forces from public discussion and scrutiny.
“While speaking about the need for political reform, parties have failed miserably to present any plan on how to reverse the continuing attacks on basic rights, especially the proposed new internal security law that would make elections meaningless,” said Adams.
The military junta in place since the coup, now called the Council for National Security (CNS), has sought to establish itself as the foremost governing body in Thailand at the expense of civilian administration. One example of this is a new bill on national security, the Draft Act on the Maintenance of National Security in the Kingdom, which passed its first parliamentary reading with 101 to 20 votes on November 11, and now is being reviewed for the second and third readings.
If enacted, this law would give the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC) – under the control of the prime minister – extensive emergency-style powers to restrict fundamental rights and override civilian administration and due process of law in parts of Thailand or the whole country at any time. No declaration of a state of emergency, or accountability to the parliament and the courts, would be required. In practice, this law would enable the military to dictate government policy easily and silently, and would also shield from prosecution those who violate human rights under its provisions.
During the lead-up to a constitutional referendum in August, Thai authorities used martial law to justify the repression of Thaksin’s political allies and others opposed to the coup. Their houses were raided, political campaign material confiscated, and some were detained in military facilities.
This crackdown has continued in the run-up to general elections. Martial law is still in effect in 31 provinces. Most of those areas are Thaksin strongholds in the north and northeast, where people voted against the junta-sponsored constitution. Under martial law, the military can ban political gatherings, censor the media, and detain people without charge. The military junta’s most blatant attempt to prevent Thaksin and Thai Rak Thai Party from resurfacing can be seen in the CNS memo dated September 14, authorized by then-CNS chair General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, detailing various operations to discredit Thai Rak Thai’s reincarnation called People Power Party.
“The military’s efforts to restrict the campaign activities of Thaksin’s allies should be of concern to all of Thailand’s political parties,” said Adams. “Unfortunately, they aren’t speaking out.”
Many key governmental institutions – such as the National Legislative Assembly, the Constitutional Tribunal, and the Election Commission – have also become tools of military rule to remove Thaksin’s influence. Not only was Thaksin’s powerful Thai Rak Thai Party dissolved by the Constitutional Tribunal in May, but also all 111 party executives (including Thaksin) had their election rights revoked and have been banned from politics for five years. The Election Commission further interpreted that banned politicians cannot actively help any candidate or political party in the upcoming elections. The commission is now investigating the distribution and showing of video compact discs of Thaksin urging voters to support the People Power Party, which could possibly lead to its dissolution.
“Not only are human rights missing from the parties’ domestic agendas, they are absent from their foreign policy platforms as well,” said Adams.
Political parties did not react when General Sonthi as acting deputy prime minister made Thailand the first country to publicly defend the brutal crackdown on monks and peaceful protesters by Burma’s State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) in September. Despite international condemnation of the events in Burma, General Sonthi went to meet Burmese leader General Than Shwe, who expressed the SPDC’s satisfaction with Thailand’s Burma policy.
Thailand is Burma’s biggest trading partner, particularly in the petroleum sector, providing US$2.16 billion in revenue directly to the Burmese government in 2006. It is also Burma’s key diplomatic protector in ASEAN and other international forums.
“If Thailand’s political parties really see the December elections as a transit point toward democracy, they should present concrete foreign policy proposals to end Thailand’s embarrassing ties with Burma’s generals,” said Adams. “Thailand will need to look beyond its own trade and investment in developing its relationship with Burma.”
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch _____________________________________________________
Egypt: Torture and Coerced Confessions Used in High-Profile Terrorism Investigation
Counterterrorism Case Hinged on Abusive Methods
By Human Rights Watch
(New York, December 11, 2007)
A high-profile terrorism case announced by the Egyptian authorities in 2006 was likely based on torture and false confessions, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
"The Victorious Sect arrests demonstrate how the State Security Investigations uses torture and arbitrary detention to make people confess to crimes real or imagined."
Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counterterrorism director at Human Rights Watch
The 74-page report “Anatomy of a State Security Case: The ‘Victorious Sect’ Arrests,” examines the case of the so-called Victorious Sect, a group of 22 young Egyptians charged with plotting to carry out violent attacks on tourists and other civilian targets in Cairo.
Human Rights Watch found that the Egyptian authorities had little or no evidence for their striking allegations. Instead, the evidence indicates that Egypt’s State Security Investigations (SSI), the country’s domestic intelligence agency, subjected the detainees to torture and other serious abuses. And, although government prosecutors in mid-2006 dismissed all charges against the 22 detainees, many remain in custody nearly two years after their arrest.
“The Victorious Sect arrests demonstrate how the State Security Investigations uses torture and arbitrary detention to make people confess to crimes real or imagined,” said Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counterterrorism director at Human Rights Watch. “Despite the SSI’s long record of abusive conduct, SSI officers responsible for abuses are rarely held to account.”
Human Rights Watch’s findings sharply undercut the Egyptian government’s official view of the high-profile case.
Human Rights Watch determined that authorities arrested the 22 men in February and March 2006, well before their detention was announced in April. For those first weeks, the men were held in incommunicado detention in various SSI facilities around Cairo, including Lazoghli, the former SSI headquarters. It was during this initial period of detention that the worst mistreatment occurred.
As one of the 22 detainees said: “[SSI] transferred us to Lazoghli for a taste of systematic torture . . . we were beaten up with fists and sticks, and kicked around. [SSI] used electricity on different parts of the body, including sensitive areas.”
A former detainee of the SSI told Human Rights Watch he heard a number of the men being interrogated at an SSI facility in Giza: “What I heard was not just torture; it was beyond imagination,” he said. “You cannot imagine how harsh it was to hear that, the screaming, how harshly they were tortured . . . I heard some of them screaming when they were being electrocuted. I could hear the electricity too, the ‘zizzzt, zizzzt.’”
Another former detainee held with members of the alleged group in prison described how the detainees told him of being “stripped naked . . . held out in the hallway, completely naked . . . electricity, of course, that’s a must, it almost goes without saying. But not just electricity: they said that the officers targeted their most sensitive areas, the genitals.” This detainee also said: “Some of those guys told me later that they could smell their own skin burning [during the electroshock torture]; they said it was disgusting.”
Former detainees of the SSI, who spoke credibly and in compelling detail about the abuses they witnessed against alleged members of the group, suggested that the purpose of the torture was to coerce the men to confess to the plots later announced to the public by the Egyptian authorities. As one told Human Rights Watch: “The guys would say they’d be tortured so bad, they’d be screaming, ‘Tell me what you want me to say! Tell us what to say and we’ll say it!’ They’d agree to confirm anything State Security wanted.”
Human Rights Watch said that 10 of the 22 men arrested in the Victorious Sect case are still in custody, and that the former detainees who were released are afraid to speak openly, for fear of exposing themselves or their co-defendants to further harassment by the SSI.
“Most SSI detainees and their families are understandably terrified of speaking openly about the abuses they’ve suffered,” Mariner said.
Human Rights Watch interviewed former prisoners who had been held for considerable periods with the 22 detainees. It also obtained an account of the detainees’ experiences from one of the released detainees and from attorneys and family members who saw the detainees during legal proceedings or during visits to prison.
The Egyptian government never responded to Human Rights Watch’s repeated requests for information about the case.
Human Rights Watch called on the Egyptian authorities to implement the release orders for the remaining 10 Victorious Sect detainees and carry out a transparent and impartial investigation into the allegations of the detainees’ torture and arbitrary detention.
The Victorious Sect case illustrates a larger pattern of SSI abuses and raises concerns that abuses are made possible by special powers accorded the SSI under Egypt’s 1958 Emergency Law. Pursuant to that law, a state of emergency has been in effect continuously since 1981. The state of emergency allows the Interior Ministry to detain and interrogate persons without arrest warrants and to issue detention orders repeatedly for up to six months of detention at a time without a hearing.
Human Rights Watch called on President Hosni Mubarak not to renew Egypt’s emergency law when it expires in April 2008.
The Egyptian government is currently drafting a new counterterrorism law to replace the emergency law, but many observers are concerned that provisions in the new law will essentially replicate the problematic provisions of the emergency law.
Human Rights Watch further urged Egypt to facilitate real legal reform by allowing a more transparent and deliberative process for considering the proposed counterterrorism legislation.
“Repackaging and renaming abusive laws is a cheap trick, not reform,” Mariner said. “The legitimate need to fight terrorism cannot be used to shield abusive methods from public scrutiny.”
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
DR Congo: Warring Sides Must Protect Civilians
UN Peacekeepers Must Also Help Civilians at Risk in North Kivu
By Human Rights Watch
(Brussels, December 11, 2007)
All sides to the renewed fighting in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo must protect civilians at risk, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch also called on United Nationsekeepers in the area to strengthen their civilian protection efforts.
"Under the laws of war, government and rebel forces alike must protect civilians during military operations. But almost every time these belligerents have fought each other, they have killed, raped and looted civilians. These abuses must stop."
Anneke Van Woudenberg, senior Congo researcher at Human Rights Watch
In the eastern province of North Kivu, the Congolese army last week launched a major military offensive against dissident soldiers loyal to renegade general Laurent Nkunda. Government troops advanced close to the town of Kirolirwe, one of Nkunda’s strongholds in Masisi territory, some 35 kilometers northwest of the provincial capital of Goma. According to UN figures, Kirolirwe harbors an estimated 45,000 civilians, the majority of whom are ethnic Tutsi.
Nkunda, himself a Tutsi, says he is fighting to protect the Tutsi population against ethnically motivated attacks from other Congolese groups and from a Rwandan opposition force called the Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (Forces démocratiques de la libération du Rwanda, FDLR), some of whose leaders participated in the anti-Tutsi genocide in Rwanda in 1994.
In recent days Nkunda’s troops put up stiff resistance and, at latest report, had driven government troops back from earlier gains to positions near the town of Sake, location of many previous battles.
“Under the laws of war, government and rebel forces alike must protect civilians during military operations,” said Anneke Van Woudenberg, senior Congo researcher at Human Rights Watch. “But almost every time these belligerents have fought each other, they have killed, raped and looted civilians. These abuses must stop.”
On December 7, provincial authorities and military officials urged Kirolirwe residents to flee to zones under government control, but they failed to provide information on evacuation arrangements or ensure that the humanitarian needs of the displaced civilians would be met. On Sunday, a UN humanitarian mission visited Kirolirwe to examine possible alternatives, but to date no solution has been found.
The laws of war call on all parties to a conflict to give effective advance warning of attacks that affect the civilian population. Warring parties must take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians, and they must protect civilians under their control against the effects of attacks. They must allow and facilitate humanitarian aid for civilians in need.
Civilians, many of whom have already fled hostilities in their home areas to the south, fear that if they flee Kirolirwe protected by Nkunda’s forces, they and their livestock will be attacked by a militia called the Coalition of Congolese Patriotic Resistance (Patriotes résistants du Congo, PARECO) or by the FDLR. Both PARECO and FDLR combatants are said to have joined recent operations by Congolese government troops against Nkunda’s forces.
Away from the frontlines, armed groups continue to prey on the local population with impunity. A hospital in Masisi reported daily arrivals of civilians who have been the victims of violent attacks, including women and girls who have been raped. Near Chamarambo, for example, a 13-year-old girl was gang raped at gun point by three combatants she identified as part of PARECO. In the same area, three women were raped and then shot, one fatally. Near Mianja, a man was shot in both legs by unidentified armed men for refusing to hand over a goat.
All parties to the conflict in North Kivu – including the Congolese army, troops under the command of Nkunda, and combatants from the FDLR and PARECO – have committed serious crimes against civilians, including killings, rape, forced displacement, looting and the use of child soldiers. In a detailed report published in October, Human Rights Watch documented abuses against civilians during 18 months of armed conflict.
The recent combat has increased local hostility against the Congolese Tutsi population, seen by other groups as the main supporters of Nkunda. But Tutsi civilians have also suffered displacement and abuse, including from those who claim to be protecting them.
Since late 2006, the conflict in North Kivu has displaced some 400,000 persons, adding to the burden on humanitarian agencies already trying to assist hundreds of thousands of others displaced by earlier stages of the fighting. In recent weeks, the growing insecurity and heavy rains have made it more difficult for humanitarian agencies to deliver assistance and have slowed commercial traffic between population centers in Masisi and Rutshuru territories, driving up prices and further increasing vulnerability.
UN peacekeepers have a mobile base in Kirolirwe in addition to bases in other locations in North Kivu and say they will remain as long as civilians are at risk. There are currently more than 17,000 UN peacekeeping troops in Congo, with some 4,500 based in North Kivu. Their mandate includes protecting civilians, including by the use of armed force if necessary. In the recent past, UN troops have pulled out of combat areas in North Kivu when they believed their own lives were at risk.
This week, UN Security Council members in New York will begin discussing the renewal of the mandate of the UN mission in Congo, known as MONUC (Mission de l’ONU en RD Congo). The mandate is due to expire on December 31.
“Security Council members must ensure the blue helmets in Congo have a strong mandate to protect vulnerable civilians and the means to carry it through,” said Van Woudenberg. “Those who have suffered so much in these years of war must not be abandoned when the fighting draws near.”
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
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Burma: Crackdown Bloodier Than Government Admits
Arrests Continue Amidst International Inaction
By Human Rights Watch
(New York, December 7, 2007)
Many more people were killed and detained in the violent government crackdown on monks and other peaceful protesters in September 2007 than the Burmese government has admitted, Human Rights Watch said today in a new report. Since the crackdown, the military regime has brought to bear the full force of its authoritarian apparatus to intimidate all opposition, hunting down protest leaders in night raids and defrocking monks.
"The generals unleashed their civilian thugs, soldiers and police against monks and other peaceful protesters."
Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch
The 140-page report, “Crackdown: Repression of the 2007 Popular Protests in Burma,” is based on more than 100 interviews with eyewitnesses in Burma and Thailand. It is the most complete account of the August and September events to date.
Human Rights Watch research determined that that the security forces shot into crowds using live ammunition and rubber bullets, beat marchers and monks before dragging them onto trucks, and arbitrarily detained thousands of people in official and unofficial places of detention. In addition to monks, many students and other civilians were killed, although without full and independent access to the country it is impossible to determine exact casualty figures.
“The crackdown in Burma is far from over,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Harsh repression continues, and the government is still lying about the extent of the deaths and detentions.”
Human Rights Watch found that the crackdown was carried out in part by the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA), a “mass-based social welfare” organization with more than 23 million members that the Burmese military is grooming to lead a future civilian government. It operated alongside the Swan Arr Shin (Masters of Force) militia, soldiers and riot police in beating and detaining protesters.
The report documented the killing of 20 people in Rangoon, but Human Rights Watch believes that the death toll there was much higher, and that hundreds remain in detention. Human Rights Watch was unable to gather information on killings and detentions from other cities and towns where demonstrations took place.
At a news conference in the new capital at Naypidaw on December 3, National Police chief Major General Khin Ye stated that, “Ten people died and 14 were injured during the monk protests from 26 to 30 September. The security members handled the situation in accord with the procedures.” Human Rights Watch has information that Khin Ye personally supervised the brutal arrests, beatings and killings of monks at the Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon on September 26.
The ruling State and Peace Development Council (SPDC) claims that overall 2,927 people, including 596 monks, were “interrogated,”and almost all have been released. It says that nine people have been sentenced to prison terms, while 59 lay people and 21 monks remain in detention.
Human Rights Watch said that hundreds of protesters, including monks and members of the ’88 Generation students, who led protests until being arrested in late August, remain unaccounted for. Human Rights Watch noted that before the protests there were more than 1,200 political prisoners languishing in Burma’s prisons and labor camps.
“The generals unleashed their civilian thugs, soldiers and police against monks and other peaceful protesters,” said Adams. “Now they should account for those killed and shed light on the fate of the missing.”
Human Rights Watch called for greater international action, including by the United Nations Security Council, to press the Burmese government to undertake major reforms. On December 11, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights, Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, will present his findings on the crackdown to the Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Human Rights Watch criticized the lack of action by countries with good relations and influence on Burma, such as China, India, Russia, Thailand, and other Association of Southeast Asian Nations members. China has made it clear that it will not allow the UN Security Council to take up Burma in any meaningful way. Despite the killing of a Japanese journalist by Burmese security forces, Japan has reacted timidly.
“It’s time for the world to impose a UN arms embargo and financial sanctions, to hurt Burma’s leaders until they make real changes,” said Adams. “Countries like China, India and Thailand have the responsibility to take action to help hold the generals accountable and to end this long nightmare of military repression.”
Selected Eyewitness Accounts from “Crackdown”
“The raid at the monastery was around 1 a.m. The soldiers shouted to open the monastery gates, and then broke the gate open by hitting it with their truck when no one came to open. Shouting loudly, they were throwing teargas and firing their automatic guns into the buildings of the monastery, and used their batons to beat the monks whenever they saw them. Many monks ran away, climbing into the trees nearby and escaping by hiding in the houses of the neighborhood. I was injured in the head when I was hit by baton charges. I saw pools of blood, shattered windows, and spent bullet casings on the floor when I came back to the monastery in the morning. We found about 100 monks missing out of 230 monks. They took our money and jewelry, and other valuable things they found at the monastery.”
– U Khanda, a monk describing a raid on his monastery, September 27
“We were so frightened. My two friends were crying loudly, and I was so frightened that the soldiers would find us. Then the informers pointed to the grass. Seven young people were hiding there. They got up and ran, but the soldiers started firing into their backs. They were only able to run six or seven steps before they fell. Three or four of the young boys aged around 20 to 22, were gunned down straight away. The others tried to run but were caught and taken away in the military cars.”
– Thazin Aye, describing killings at Tamwe No.3 High School on September 27
“After the warnings, the soldiers in the first row shot teargas into the crowd. Five soldiers shot the teargas. They began shooting immediately after the announcement. People ran in all directions. Twenty soldiers came over the barricade, climbed over, and started beating the people. Two people died. … It was not like in the movies. When the soldiers beat those people, they were trying to kill them. They beat them on the head and the abdomen. The soldiers pulled them by their legs over the barricade … they put the two bodies next to their trucks.”
– Zaw Zan Htike, describing an incident on September 27 in downtown Rangoon
“At the time, a girl wasn’t sure whether to lie down or stand up. A riot police [officer] hit the girl on the side of her face with his baton. The girl collapsed. She was in her 20s – there was blood running down her face, and her skull might have been broken. I’m not sure if she died. No one was able to help her. If we put our heads up, they would hit us and kick us with their boots.”
– Htun Kyaw Kyaw, describing arrests on September 27
If you would like to comment on this report, or provide us with additional information, please email us at burma@hrw.org.
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
US: Immigration Detention Practices Endanger Health, Life
Government Neglecting Healthcare Needs of Ill Detainees
By Human Rights Watch
(New York, December 7, 2007)
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) should upgrade its care and treatment of immigrant detainees with HIV, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The organization charged that the agency has failed to meet its obligations to and respect the rights of its detainees with HIV. It fails to monitor the appropriate treatment of detainees with HIV, or even how many have HIV, and has substandard policies and procedures for providing life-saving care.
"The Department of Homeland Security needs to upgrade their policies and more closely monitor and ensure effective treatment for immigrants living with HIV or AIDS. Otherwise these individuals will continue to suffer, and even die, in the care of the US government."
Megan McLemore, HIV/AIDS Program, Human Rights Watch
There are nearly 30,000 immigrants detained in hundreds of prisons, jails, and immigration detention centers throughout the United States.
"The US government has no idea how many of these immigrants have HIV or AIDS, how many need treatment, and how many are receiving the care that is necessary," said Megan McLemore of Human Rights Watch’s HIV/AIDS program.
The 71-page report, “Chronic Indifference: HIV/AIDS Services for Immigrants Detained by the United States", documents the experiences of HIV-positive detainees in immigration custody whose HIV treatment was denied, delayed, or interrupted, resulting in serious risk and often damage to their health. The investigation included interviews with current and former detainees, DHS and detention facility officials, and an independent medical review of treatment provided. Detention facilities which housed immigrants with HIV infection failed to consistently deliver anti-retroviral medications, conduct necessary laboratory tests, ensure continuity of care, and ensure confidentiality or protection from discrimination.
Contrary to international human rights obligations, constitutional protections, and best practice advisories, the Department of Homeland Security’s detention guidelines for HIV/AIDS care fail to meet both national and international standards for appropriate care, and the agency does little to enforce their own minimal standards.
“Although the US government ‘outsources’ much of its immigration detention to local jails and facilities across the country, it cannot evade its responsibility to protect the well-being, health and lives of HIV-positive immigrants,” said McLemore.
The report highlights the death of Victoria Arellano, a 23-year-old HIV-positive transgendered detainee who died in July 2007 after eight weeks in an immigration detention facility in San Pedro, California. Arellano was reportedly denied treatment and became gravely ill. Detainees in her housing unit repeatedly called to guards that she needed medical care, but she was left suffering in her bunk as her condition worsened. Finally taken to the facility clinic, she was taunted and ridiculed by staff. She told her cellmates before she died, “It was a nightmare.”
“The Department of Homeland Security needs to upgrade their policies and more closely monitor and ensure effective treatment for immigrants living with HIV or AIDS,” said McLemore. “Otherwise these individuals will continue to suffer, and even die, in the care of the US government.”
Additional examples highlighted in the report:
Charles B., a Lawful Permanent Resident from Jamaica, became resistant to 13 leading AIDS drugs during more than four years in immigration custody;
Anna F., a 61-year-old woman born in Germany, failed to receive medically indicated treatment to prevent pneumonia;
Peter R., a pharmacist by profession, received a complete dosage of AIDS medication in immigration custody only 65 percent of the time, leaving him at risk of developing resistance to the drugs he depends on for survival.
Jean P., fleeing violent persecution in Haiti, has an AIDS-related condition that left him blind in one eye, yet this condition is inadequately monitored in immigration detention;
Gloria M., an AIDS counselor in Chicago, was told by jail officials that “the state won’t pay” for her HIV medications.
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
India: Gujarat Chief Minister Endorses Unlawful Killings
Government Should Investigate Narendra Modi for Seeming Incitement to Violence
By Human Rights Watch
(New York, December 7, 2007)
The Indian government should immediately order an investigation of Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat, for statements apparently endorsing the extrajudicial execution of a terrorism suspect by the police, Human Rights Watch said today.
"Modi’s remarks send a green light to the police that executing terrorism suspects is fine with his administration."
Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
Gujarat’s antiterrorism squad in November 2005 gunned down Sohrabuddin Sheikh, whom police claimed was a militant conspiring to kill Modi. The Gujarat government has since admitted that there is no evidence Sheikh was a terrorist and that he had been executed in a fake “encounter,” one in which police falsely claimed that he had been killed in an exchange of fire. In July, the government filed charges against several police officials. In a speech on December 5, however, Modi suggested that people like Sheikh deserved to be killed.
“Modi’s remarks send a green light to the police that executing terrorism suspects is fine with his administration,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government in Delhi should immediately investigate this seeming incitement to violence.”
At a rally in his campaign for re-election as chief minister, Modi said that Sheikh “got what he deserved.” Modi asked the crowd, “What should have been done to a man from whom a large number of AK-47 rifles were recovered, who was on the search list of police from four states, who attacked the police, who had relations with Pakistan and was eyeing to enter Gujarat?”
The crowd replied “mari nakho-mari nakho” (kill him, kill him), to which Modi said, “Does my government need to take permission of Soniaben [Congress Party leader Sonia Gandhi] for this? Maut na Saudagar [merchants of deaths] will be dealt in the same fashion on the land of Gujarat.”
After widespread criticism of his remarks, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) politician explained that he had been provoked and was responding to the allegation by Congress Party leader Sonia Gandhi that his government was a “merchant of death.”
“Modi cannot hide behind accusations of provocation to justify remarks endorsing a murder,” said Adams. “He used similar excuses after the police participated in a killing spree of Muslims in 2002, but his pretexts were as hollow then as they are today.”
After Sheikh’s killing, his family filed a petition with the Supreme Court requesting an independent investigation. In its response to a Supreme Court notice, the state government admitted that Sheikh had been murdered in a false armed “encounter.” The Supreme Court ordered the Gujarat government to create a special police team to investigate the case and submit status reports. In July, the Gujarat police filed charges against 13 police officials, including D G Vanzara, who headed the anti-terror squad.
In its charge sheet, the police said that Sheikh and his wife Kausar Bi were pulled out of a bus by members of the Gujarat antiterrorm squad on November 22, 2005. They were secretly detained for four days. (They were not carrying any weapons as alleged by Modi in his speech). According to an eyewitness, early in the morning of November 26, Sheikh was taken to the outskirts of Ahmedabad, where he was shot by police officers. His body was then taken to the hospital and a police report filed which claimed that he had been killed in an exchange of fire.
The whereabouts of Kausar Bi remains unknown. Police investigations suggest that she was killed and her body burnt.
In response to Modi’s comments, India’s Election Commission has served notice to Modi saying that it is of the view that the speech “amounts to indulging in activity which may aggravate existing differences, creating mutual hatred and causing tension between different communities.” Modi has until December 8 to respond.
Local activists and Muslim organizations have long accused Modi of responsibility for the anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat in February and March 2002, which left at least 1,000 dead. After 59 Hindu pilgrims died during a mob attack by Muslims on their train in Gujarat in 2002, Hindu militant groups carried out widespread and coordinated attacks on Muslims in which thousands were killed, hundreds of women were raped and Muslim properties destroyed.
Human Rights Watch found that the attacks on Muslims were planned and organized with extensive police participation and in close cooperation with supporters of Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the state government. Modi had justified those attacks at the time, saying that, “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction,” referring to the Godhra incident.
“Modi’s defenders say that his speech is being misrepresented, and that politicians make exaggerated remarks during election campaigns,” said Adams. “But endorsing a police killing sends the wrong message at all times, and especially during an election.”
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
China: Mayor Should Spotlight Press Restrictions in Beijing
By Human Rights Watch
(New York, December 7, 2007)
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg should raise human rights abuses during his trip to China next week, Human Rights Watch said in a letter today. Human Rights Watch said he should highlight continuing restrictions on freedom of the media despite China’s pledges on press freedom ahead of the Olympic Games.
"China jails more journalists than any country in the world. Mayor Bloomberg’s career in media, business and politics would not have been possible without a free media. He should explain to the Chinese government how important media freedom is to China’s social, economic, and political development."
Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch.
“China jails more journalists than any country in the world,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “Mayor Bloomberg’s career in media, business and politics would not have been possible without a free media. He should explain to the Chinese government how important media freedom is to China’s social, economic, and political development.”
Human Rights Watch said that the Chinese government made specific pledges on media freedom when bidding to hold the 2008 Olympic Games, and in 2007 introduced temporary regulations to give expanded freedoms to accredited foreign journalists in the run-up to, and during, the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Despite this, Human Rights Watch has documented continuing harassment, intimidation and detention of foreign journalists in China.
Other human rights issues in China include concerns about the rule of law and legal reform, freedom of religion, labor rights, internet censorship, and forced evictions of people from their homes.
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
Sri Lanka: UN Monitoring Needed as Situation Worsens
By Human Rights Watch
(New York, December 7, 2007)
The United Nations Human Rights Council should press the Sri Lankan government to agree to the immediate establishment of a UN human rights field operation with a strong monitoring mandate, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said in an open letter today.
As the top UN human rights body prepares to meet in Geneva from December 10 to 14, the human rights situation in Sri Lanka is rapidly deteriorating. In the last two weeks of November alone, more than 50 civilians have been killed in Sri Lanka.
On November 28, two bombings in Colombo killed more than 20 civilians. Other civilians were killed by aerial bombardment, shelling and claymore mine attacks in northern Sri Lanka.
Since September, more than 20,000 people have been newly displaced by the escalation in fighting between government forces and the insurgent Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). In Jaffna, the number of enforced disappearances and unlawful killings continues at very high levels. Both the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE have failed to abide by their obligations under international humanitarian law to protect civilians from harm.
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
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Iran: Prevent Execution of Juvenile Offender
Prisoner Convicted on Recanted Testimony Now Faces Death
By Human Rights Watch
Update: On December 4, 2007, Iranian authorities hanged Makwan Mouladzadeh in Kermanshah prison in Iran in defiance of Ayatollah Shahrudi's order to stay the execution pending review of the case.
(New York, December 5, 2007)
The Iranian government should prevent the execution of Makwan Mouloudzadeh, who was sentenced to death for crimes allegedly committed when he was aged 13, Human Rights Watch said today. Court authorities in the city of Kermanshah should follow the recent order by the head of the Judiciary to allow judicial review of the case.
"The court authorities in Kermanshah are legally obligated to follow the Judiciary’s order and halt the execution. They are rushing to execute a young man for crimes that even his accusers now admit never took place."
Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch
On June 5, 2007, Branch Seven of the Penal Court of the city of Kermanshah sentenced Mouloudzadeh, to death for raping three boys in 2000, even though all of his accusers had recanted their statements and he had repudiated his confession as being coerced by the police. Mouloudzadeh, now aged 20, was convicted as a juvenile offender since the crimes were allegedly committed when he was under age 18.
After the Supreme Court in July upheld the conviction, the head of Iran’s judiciary, Ayatollah Shahrudi, exercised his authority to declare the conviction to be contrary to shari’a (Islamic law). An order by Shahrudi on November 3 requires that a branch of the Review and Follow-up Unit of the Judiciary investigate the case and then refer it back to the Penal Court of Kermanshah.
On December 3, Mouloudzadeh’s lawyer told Human Rights Watch that the Kermanshah court had informed him that the sentence could now be carried out even though the required judicial review had not been completed.
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Makwan Mouladzadeh © Private
The court authorities in Kermanshah are legally obligated to follow the Judiciary’s order and halt the execution,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “They are rushing to execute a young man for crimes that even his accusers now admit never took place.”
Mouloudzadeh’s conviction followed a trial filled with irregularities. Iranian laws concerning “crimes of chastity” such as rape divest the prosecutor of some of his traditional prerogatives. These laws transfer authority to the penal court to question the accusers and arrange for examination by a physician, and to decide whether to bring the case to trial. Acting in defiance of these laws, the office of the public prosecutor in Kermanshah conducted these investigations and decided to take the case to trial.
During the trial, all of Mouloudzadeh’s accusers recanted their accusations against him and Mouloudzadeh himself testified that any confessions that he had made to the police about the alleged crimes were coerced and false. The judge did not accept their testimonies and sentenced Mouloudzadeh to death.
Under Iranian law, “crimes of chastity” such as rape are not subject to the regular appellate process, and are instead sent directly to the country’s Supreme Court for review. On July 19, Iran’s Supreme Court approved the death sentence for Mouloudzadeh, allowing the authorities to carry out the sentence at any time.
Background
Iran leads the world in executing juvenile offenders – persons under 18 at the time of the crime – and is known to have already executed two juvenile offenders this year. Syed Mohammad Reza Mousavi Shirazi, 20, was executed in Adel Abd prison in the city of Shiraz on April 22, for a murder he was found to have committed when he was 16. Sa`id Qanbar Zahi was executed in Zahedan on May 27 for a crime he was found to have committed when he was 17.
Human Rights Watch opposes capital punishment in all circumstances because of its cruel and inhumane nature. In particular, in imposing death sentences on people for crimes committed before the age of 18, Iran flouts clear and specific human rights obligations. Two key human rights treaties that Iran has ratified, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, bar the imposition of the death penalty for such offenses. These provisions reflect the reality that children are different from adults. They lack the experience, judgment, maturity and restraint of an adult.
Iranian officials claim that legislation pending in parliament since July 2006 would end executions of juvenile offenders. In fact, the legislation would only offer the possibility of reduced sentences in a small minority of cases.
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
UN: Impose Burma Arms Embargo to End Child Soldier Use
Burmese Government’s Steps to Address Problem Are Wholly Insufficient
By Human Rights Watch
(New York, December 5, 2007)
The United Nations Security Council should impose an arms embargo on Burma in response to the Burmese military government’s continuing recruitment of children for its national army, Human Rights Watch said today.
"Burma’s army has recruited thousands of children to fill its ranks. The Security Council needs to show Burma’s generals that they cannot get away with such horrendous practices."
Jo Becker, children’s rights advocate for Human Rights Watch
Tomorrow, the Security Council’s working group on children and armed conflict will meet to consider a report by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that has found “grave violations” against children in Burma, including patterns of underage military recruitment.
The UN secretary-general has issued five reports since 2002 citing Burma’s national army, the Tatmadaw, for violating international law prohibiting the use of child soldiers. The reports have also cited several non-state armed groups in Burma for recruiting children, including armed opposition groups.
“Burma’s army has recruited thousands of children to fill its ranks,” said Jo Becker, children’s rights advocate for Human Rights Watch. “The Security Council needs to show Burma’s generals that they cannot get away with such horrendous practices.”
The Security Council’s working group on children and armed conflict must now consider what action the Security Council should take in response to the secretary-general’s new report on violations in Burma. In past resolutions on children and armed conflict, the Security Council has stated that it will consider targeted measures – including embargoes on arms and other military assistance – in cases where governments and armed groups fail to end their use of child soldiers.
In a report released in October, Human Rights Watch documented how children as young as 10 are recruited by force into Burma’s army. At recruitment centers, officers falsify documents to register new recruits as age 18, even if they are clearly underage. Former soldiers reported that in many training camps, children made up more than 30 percent of new recruits.
After putting children through military training, the Burmese army uses them in combat against ethnic armed opposition groups, and sometimes to participate in human rights abuses against civilians. Children who try to escape are typically beaten, re-recruited, or imprisoned.
The army’s forced recruitment is designed to fill personnel shortages as a result of both increased desertion rates and army expansion. This expansion includes new units established to utilize arms purchased from China, India, Russia, and Ukraine.
Under Burma’s national law, the recruitment of anyone below age 18 is prohibited. The recruitment and use of child soldiers below the age of 15 is considered a war crime under international law.
In 2004, the military government, known as the State Peace and Development Council, established a high-level committee to prevent the recruitment of underage soldiers. Human Rights Watch’s investigation found that the committee had taken little action to end child recruitment, and instead repeatedly denied outside reports of child soldier use by government forces. There is no independent oversight of this committee, nor is there monitoring of recruitment centers or access to military bases throughout Burma’s hinterland, where many child soldiers are deployed.
“The Security Council should not be fooled by Burma’s repeated promises to address the army’s use of child soldiers,” said Becker. “Nothing short of an arms embargo is likely to make Burma’s military government end all recruitment and use of children.”
Non-state armed groups in Burma also use child soldiers, though practices vary widely. Some groups actively recruit and use children in armed conflict, while others, including the Karenni Army and Karen National Liberation Army, have taken steps to end the recruitment of children into their forces. In its report, Human Rights Watch noted that cooperation by the Karenni Army and its efforts since 2002 to end the use of child soldiers had eradicated the practice, and recommended the armed group be removed from the UN secretary-general’s list of parties using child soldiers.
“Burma’s diplomatic supporters in the Security Council, China and Russia, are also its main arms suppliers,” Becker said. “These countries sell weapons to Burma with scant regard for the impact on the civilian population.”
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
US: Record Numbers for World’s Leading Jailer
By Human Rights Watch
(Washington, DC, December 5, 2007)
New US government figures showing that the United States incarcerates more people per capita than any other country highlight the need to consider alternative criminal justice policies, Human Rights Watch said today.
"Americans should ask why the US locks up so many more of its citizens than do Canada, Britain, and other democratic countries. The US is even ahead of governments like China that use prisons as a political tool."
David Fathi, director, US Program of Human Rights Watch
Statistics released today by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), a branch of the US Department of Justice, show that at the end of 2006, more than 2.25 million persons were incarcerated in US prisons and jails, an all-time high. This number represents an incarceration rate of 751 per 100,000 US residents, the highest such rate in the world. By contrast, the United Kingdom’s incarceration rate is 148 per 100,000 residents; the rate in Canada is 107; and in France it is 85. The US rate is also substantially higher than that of Libya (217 per 100,000), Iran (212), and China (119).
“These figures confirm an unenviable record: the United States is the world’s leading prison nation,” said David Fathi, director of the US program at Human Rights Watch. “Americans should ask why the US locks up so many more of its citizens than do Canada, Britain, and other democratic countries. The US is even ahead of governments like China that use prisons as a political tool.”
The US prison population has increased approximately 500 percent in the last 30 years, and continues to grow. The 2006 increase was the largest one-year jump in the last six years. The per capita incarceration rate has also increased steadily, from 684 per 100,000 residents in 2000 to 751 per 100,000 in 2006.
The new BJS figures also show sharp racial disparities in US incarceration rates, with black men incarcerated at a rate 6.2 times higher than white men. Nearly 8 percent of all black men ages 30 to 34 in the United States were incarcerated as sentenced prisoners at the end of 2006.
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch _______________________________________________________
Lebanon: Refugees Coerced to Return to Iraq
By Human Rights Watch
(Beirut, December 4, 2007)
Lebanese authorities arrest Iraqi refugees without valid visas and detain them indefinitely to coerce them to return to Iraq, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
"Iraqi refugees in Lebanon live in constant fear of arrest. Refugees who are arrested face the prospect of rotting in jail indefinitely unless they agree to return to Iraq and face the dangers there."
Bill Frelick, refugee policy director for Human Rights Watch.
“Iraqi refugees in Lebanon live in constant fear of arrest,” said Bill Frelick, refugee policy director for Human Rights Watch. “Refugees who are arrested face the prospect of rotting in jail indefinitely unless they agree to return to Iraq and face the dangers there.”
The 66-page report, “Rot Here or Die There: Bleak Choices for Iraqi Refugees in Lebanon,” documents the Lebanese government’s failure to provide a legal status for Iraqi refugees in Lebanon and details the impact of this policy on the refugees’ lives.
Lebanon’s refusal to legalize the stay of Iraqi refugees affects not just the relatively small proportion of Iraqi refugees who are arrested and detained. As a result of this policy, most Iraqi refugees in Lebanon live in fear of arrest. Without legal status in Lebanon, Iraqi refugees are vulnerable to exploitation and abuse by employers and landlords.
Human Rights Watch called on the Lebanese government to grant Iraqi refugees a temporary legal status that would provide, at a bare minimum, renewable residence and work permits. Apart from the small number of Iraqis who have been able to regularize their status, most Iraqi refugees are prohibited from working, and many have run out of their savings. Although entitled to attend public schools, very few Iraqi children enroll because their parents cannot afford to pay for transportation, clothes and books, and because the children are needed to work to contribute to the family income.
All Iraqis who have fled south and central Iraq to seek refuge in Lebanon or elsewhere in the Middle East are generally recognized as refugees by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). But Lebanon is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and does not give legal effect to UNHCR’s recognition of Iraqis as refugees. Instead, the Lebanese authorities treat as illegal immigrants Iraqis who enter Lebanon illegally or enter legally but then overstay their visas, regardless of their intent to seek asylum. Iraqi refugees are then subject to arrest, fines and detention by the Lebanese authorities.
Forcing refugees to return to a country where their lives and freedom are at risk violates the principle of nonrefoulement, the absolute prohibition to send a person to a place where he or she would be threatened with persecution or torture.
“By giving Iraqi refugees no option but to stay in jail indefinitely or return to Iraq, Lebanon is violating the bedrock principle of international refugee law,” Frelick said.
There are an estimated 50,000 Iraqi refugees in Lebanon, a relatively small portion of the 2.2 million Iraqi refugees in the Middle East. Currently there are about 580 detained Iraqis in Lebanon. Lebanon, a country of only 4 million including 250,000 to 300,000 Palestinian refugees, has borne the burden with little outside support.
“Lebanon is not the cause of the Iraqi refugee crisis, and Lebanese are understandably wary of hosting yet another refugee influx,” said Nadim Houry, the Beirut-based Lebanon researcher for Human Rights Watch. “The United States and other countries that participated in the US-led invasion of Iraq must share the burden of caring for Iraqi refugees in Lebanon and provide durable solutions on their behalf.”
The report urges donor governments and resettlement countries, particularly countries involved in the invasion of Iraq, to respond quickly and generously to UNHCR’s financial appeals and to admit refugees UNHCR refers to them for resettlement. Resettlement countries should be especially open to accepting Iraqi refugees in detention for whom resettlement might be their only protection against coerced return to Iraq.
Select testimonies from Iraqi refugees living in Lebanon featured in the report:
“No one tells me how long I am going to be in prison. I see people who have been here for eight months. If I can’t regularize my status, I will go back to Iraq. If I go back to Iraq, I will be killed. I don’t want to go back, but it is better for me to go back than to spend one more day being locked up with criminals.”
– An Iraqi refugee detained indefinitely in Roumieh Prison in Greater Beirut
“When we go out, we don’t know whether we will return. When I see a police man or a member of the authorities, I am very afraid, despite the fact that I am old and sick. Any time there is a checkpoint, we can get caught.”
– An Iraqi refugee living with his family illegally in Greater Beirut.
“I don’t want to go back to Iraq. I want to stay in Lebanon, even if they break every bone in my body, even if we don’t feel safe here, because we are illegal.”
– An Iraqi father recounted what happened when Lebanese authorities arrested and detained him and his son for illegal entry in 2005. After several months in Roumieh prison, they agreed to return to Iraq in exchange for release from detention. Once back in Iraq, the son was kidnapped. After paying a ransom, they fled again to Lebanon where they are currently living illegally.
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
UN: Demand Arrests of Darfur Suspects
Security Council Should Urge Cooperation With the International Criminal Court
By Human Rights Watch
(New York, December 4, 2007) – The United Nations Security Council should follow up on the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor’s report tomorrow and call on Sudan to surrender two suspects to the court, Human Rights Watch said today.
"With two arrest warrants, the rubber has hit the road and the council must now insist on arrests. Failing to do so would betray the people of Darfur and make a mockery of the council’s own actions."
Richard Dicker, International Justice Program director at Human Rights Watch
“The Security Council made a commitment to justice for the victims of Darfur when it referred the situation there to the International Criminal Court prosecutor,” said Richard Dicker, International Justice Program director at Human Rights Watch. “With two arrest warrants, the rubber has hit the road and the council must now insist on arrests. Failing to do so would betray the people of Darfur and make a mockery of the council’s own actions.”
On March 31, 2005, the Security Council referred the situation in Darfur to the ICC prosecutor and imposed an obligation on Sudan to cooperate fully with the court’s investigations under UN Resolution 1593.
On April 27, 2007, the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber issued arrest warrants for Ahmed Haroun and “Ali Kosheib” (the nom de guerre of Ali Mohammed Ali), charging 51 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for their leading roles in a series of attacks against civilians in West Darfur in 2003 and 2004. The charges include acts of murder, persecution, rape, and forcible displacement.
Haroun is currently Sudanese state minister of humanitarian affairs. When the UN secretary-general was in Sudan, Khartoum appointed Haroun to co-chair a committee mandated to hear complaints of human rights abuses in Darfur. Ali Kosheib, a top “Janjaweed” leader, was in Sudanese custody on other charges at the time the warrants were issued, but has recently been released.
“Khartoum has had seven months to take steps to turn over the suspects,” said Dicker. “Instead of arresting the accused war criminals, it has promoted one and freed the other. As Sudan’s government repeatedly flouts its obligation to cooperate with the court, the Security Council’s silence will be heard clearly in Khartoum.”
In a November 29, 2007 letter to the Security Council, Human Rights Watch urged the council to take strong steps in calling on Sudan to fulfill its duties under resolution 1593 and to further demonstrate its commitment to justice by sending a mission to Sudan for the express purpose of assessing Sudan’s cooperation with the court.
More than 2 million of Darfur’s estimated population of 6 million people have been forcibly displaced from their homes, and tens of thousands have been killed as a result of a government campaign of “ethnic cleansing” against populations considered supportive of Darfur rebel groups. Since early 2004, Human Rights Watch has comprehensively documented the Sudanese government’s responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.
“Our research indicates that official responsibility for widespread atrocities in Darfur goes to the highest levels of the Sudanese government,” said Dicker. “These first two accused are just the tip of the iceberg. That’s why it is important to hear from the prosecutor on his ongoing investigations into the horrific crimes since 2003.”
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
US: Give Guantanamo Detainees Fair Process
Reinstate Habeas Corpus and Try Detainees in Federal Courts
By Human Rights Watch
(Washington, DC, December 4, 2007)
The US Supreme Court should uphold the right of non-citizen detainees to challenge the lawfulness of their detention through habeas corpus, and military commission prosecutions should be transferred to federal court, Human Rights Watch said today.
"In the almost six years since Guantanamo opened, only one person has been convicted of any crime and that was by plea agreement. It’s time to shut the door on this system of lawless detention and restore the place of the federal courts in reviewing executive detentions and bringing suspected terrorists to justice."
Jennifer Daskal, senior counsel on counterterrorism
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court and the Guantanamo military commissions will each hear arguments on crucial issues concerning Guantanamo detainees.
“In the almost six years since Guantanamo opened, only one person has been convicted of any crime and that was by plea agreement,” said Jennifer Daskal, senior counsel on counterterrorism for Human Rights Watch. “It’s time to shut the door on this system of lawless detention and restore the place of the federal courts in reviewing executive detentions and bringing suspected terrorists to justice.”
In the twin cases of Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. United States, the Supreme Court will hear challenges from Guantanamo Bay detainees to laws that prohibit them – and all other non-citizens the president declares to be “enemy combatants” – from seeking judicial review of their detention via the age-old writ of habeas corpus.
On the same day, a military commission judge will hear arguments as to whether Salim Hamdan, the 36-year-old Yemeni who successfully challenged – via habeas – the legitimacy of the initial military commissions authorized by President Bush in 2001, can be tried by the military commissions approved by Congress in 2006.
The Supreme Court Case
Boumediene v. Bush and Al Odah v. the United States will mark the second time that the Supreme Court considers whether Guantanamo detainees have a right to bring habeas challenges to the legality of their detention. On June 28, 2004, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Rasul v. Bush that the federal courts had habeas jurisdiction over Guantanamo.
The impact of that case was undermined, however, by Congress’s December 2005 passage of the Detainee Treatment Act, which barred Guantanamo detainees from bringing new statutory habeas claims. The following year, Congress expanded these restrictions in the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which prevents any non-citizen that the president determines to be an “enemy combatant,” including any of the 11.6 million legal permanent residents in the United States, from challenging his or her detention via habeas corpus.
Congress also made the stripping of habeas retroactive, resulting in the dismissal of already pending cases.
As an ostensible substitute for habeas, Congress provided extremely limited federal court review of the Pentagon-created and Pentagon-run administrative review process – called Combatant Status Review Tribunals, or CSRTs – initiated days after the Rasul decision to ascertain detainees’ “enemy combatant” status. Under the law, federal court review is limited to the question of whether the CSRT process is lawful and whether the Pentagon followed the rules and regulations that it wrote in creating the CSRTs.
The question now before the Supreme Court is two-fold: Are these habeas-stripping provisions constitutional? And is federal court review of CSRTs an adequate and effective substitute for habeas? Human Rights Watch said that the court should uphold habeas, the most fundamental of rights protecting individuals from the overreach of governmental power.
“Over 300 men who have never been charged with any crime remain locked up in Guantanamo,” said Daskal. “It’s high time for the Supreme Court to step in and provide an independent and meaningful review of the decision to detain.”
The administration claims that these are wartime detentions that should not be subject to habeas oversight. But despite being labeled “enemy combatants,” many of the detainees were picked up far from any battlefield. Hundreds were sold to the United States by bounty hunters, often for thousands of dollars. Several US military and counterterrorism experts have now acknowledged that errors were made about those taken into custody.
The administration also claims that even if the Supreme Court concludes that the Constitution requires habeas, the alternative congressionally-created CSRT review is a sufficient substitute. The Supreme Court should reject this argument, Human Rights Watch said.
The CSRTs are under the chain of command of the president, who has already publicly announced that all Guantanamo detainees are enemy combatants. Detainees are not told anything but the most cursory summaries of the evidence against them – making it near impossible to refute. Moreover, detainees are not provided legal counsel, but rather a “personal representative” who also works under the command of the executive. Detainees have been prevented from bringing in any outside (non-Guantanamo-based) witnesses to contest the claims against them, and the CSRTs allow reliance on evidence even if obtained through torture.
Stephen Abraham, an Army lieutenant colonel who worked for six months at the Pentagon that ran the CSRTs, filed a sworn statement with the Supreme Court exposing the defects of the CSRT process. He stated that the evidence relied on by the CSRTs was often outdated, generic, and cursory, that requests for additional information were often denied, and that agencies supplying the information refused to certify that all exculpatory information had been provided. Abraham said that after one of his panels concluded that a detainee should be cleared of the “enemy combatant” designation, his superiors questioned the finding’s validity and ordered the panel to “reopen” the hearing. His panel stuck with its original conclusion, and Abraham was never assigned to a CSRT panel again.
“Past practice demonstrates that there is no way that review by the deeply flawed Combatant Status Review Tribunals can serve as an adequate substitute for habeas,” Daskal said.
Dozens of former diplomats, military officers, and federal judges have weighed in with the Supreme Court, urging the justices to restore meaningful court review of the basis of detention decisions. Human Rights Watch, along with a bipartisan coalition of human rights and civil liberties groups, has filed a brief with the court warning of the dangers of unchecked executive power and urging the same.
The Supreme Court originally declined to hear the Boumediene and Al Odah cases, but reversed course in June 2007 in a highly unusual move. Whereas only four of the nine Supreme Court justices need to agree to take the case in the normal course of business, reversal requires a five-justice majority.
The Military Commission Hearing
Salim Hamdan will appear before a military commission on Wednesday, December 5, in what will be the government’s third attempt to bring a case against him.
“The United States should give up its failed attempts at an alternative form of Guantanamo justice and simply try these men in federal courts. The courts are perfectly capable of hearing terrorism cases,” said Daskal.
Hamdan’s first prosecution was halted in November 2004, when a federal district court judge ruled that the commission proceedings were unlawful – a conclusion that was ultimately confirmed by the Supreme Court in a June 2006 ruling, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.
Congress responded by authorizing a new set of commissions (part of the same Military Commissions Act that stripped away habeas rights), with jurisdiction over any non-citizen found to be an “unlawful enemy combatant.” But in June 2007 a military commission judge determined that no competent body had ever made this determination, and dismissed the case. Although a Combatant Status Review Tribunal had determined that Hamdan was an enemy combatant, it had never labeled him an “unlawful” enemy combatant.
In September 2007, a military commissions appellate court reversed an analogous ruling in another case, and Hamdan’s judge is now reconsidering his dismissal. He has ordered the parties to present evidence as to Hamdan’s “unlawful enemy combatant” status.
The commission is expected to decide Hamdan’s status at the hearing that begins on Wednesday – marking the first time that a military commission will determine whether a Guantanamo detainee can be qualified as an “unlawful enemy combatant.”
Hamdan, who has admitted to working as a driver for Osama bin Laden prior to October 2001, is accused of providing material support to terrorism, and of conspiracy to commit terrorism. He has argued that he must be considered a prisoner of war unless and until the government proves otherwise beyond a reasonable doubt.
Background
Of the 305 detainees still being held at Guantanamo, only three are currently subject to military commission charges. In addition to the case against Hamdan, the government has charged Omar Khadr, a 21-year-old Canadian who has been in US detention since he was 15, and Mohammad Jawad, a 22-year-old Afghan who has been in US custody since he was 17.
Khadr’s trial is scheduled for May 2008. When Khadr was arraigned in November, the military commission judge presumed Khadr qualified as an “unlawful enemy combatant” without hearing evidence to support that status. The case against Jawad has not yet been formally referred for trial and therefore he has not yet appeared before a commission.
The only person to be convicted by the military commissions – David Hicks – pleaded guilty in April 2007 to providing material support to terrorism and is now finishing the last weeks of his nine-month sentence in his native Australia.
The sentencing of Jose Padilla – who was labeled an “enemy combatant” and held without charge in military custody for more than three years before being transferred to federal court, charged, and convicted – is also scheduled for December 5.
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
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China: End Child Labor in State Schools
‘Work and Study’ Programs Put Hundreds of Thousands of Children at Risk
By Human Rights Watch
(New York, December 3, 2007)
The Chinese government should abolish the use of income-generating child labor schemes in middle and junior high schools because of their chronic abuses, Human Rights Watch said today. Many programs interfere with children’s education, lack basic health and safety guarantees, and involve long hours and dangerous work.
“China claims that it is fighting child labor, and repeatedly cites its legal prohibition against the practice as proof, but the government actively violates its own prohibitions by running large programs through the school system that use child labor, lack sufficient health and safety guarantees, and exploit loopholes in domestic labor laws.”
Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch
“China claims that it is fighting child labor, and repeatedly cites its legal prohibition against the practice as proof,” said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “But the government actively violates its own prohibitions by running large programs through the school system that use child labor, lack sufficient health and safety guarantees, and exploit loopholes in domestic labor laws.”
Under “Work and Study” programs regulated by the Ministry of Education, schools in impoverished areas are encouraged to set up income-generating activities to make up for budgetary shortfalls. According to official statistical material from the Ministry of Education seen by Human Rights Watch, more than 400,000 middle and junior high schools, which are for children ages 12 to 16, nationwide are running agricultural and manufacturing schemes. In 2004, proceeds from Work and Study programs generated over 10 billion yuan (US$1.25 billion), the statistics show.
Chinese law prohibits the use of child of labor under age 16 but stipulates that children may be employed under special circumstances, such as in sports or in the arts, or if their “occupational training” and “educational labor” does not adversely affect their personal health and safety. Regulations that govern Work and Study programs in middle and junior high schools prohibit hazardous work and stress that “education must come first,” but fail to provide a clear definition of the acceptable kind, intensity, and overall time duration of this special category of work.
The majority of schools limit these schemes to seasonal agricultural work (such as growing and harvesting crops), improving school facilities, or producing small handicrafts over summer breaks, either independently or through contract with outside employers.
But overly vague Work and Study regulations and poor supervision have led to widespread abuse of the system by schools and employers alike. Children as young as 12 have been employed in heavy agricultural and hazardous construction work. Others have been dispatched to local factories for weeks or months of “summer employment.” Some schools have turned into full-fledged workshops to produce local handiwork or foodstuff while relegating teaching to a few hours a week.
In recent years, numerous cases of children working in abusive conditions under the guise of Work and Study programs have been documented, with problems ranging from long working hours, dangerous working conditions, low salaries, and a range of health and safety hazards.
In July 2007, more than 100 middle and junior high school children were found in a factory making cardboard boxes in Panyu district, near Guangzhou. They worked eight-hour days in different shifts, the first starting at 8 a.m. and the last finishing at 11 p.m. The children were housed in the factory’s dormitory and paid 2.4 yuan per hour (US$0.30).
In June 2007, 500 children from a middle school in the western province of Sichuan were discovered working 14-hour shifts in a factory in Dongguan, Guangdong Province. Their school had contracted them to the company for summer employment. The children complained of poor living conditions, including crowded dormitories and insufficient food, and an array of work-induced health problems. Children were fined for production mistakes.
And in August 2006, local media reported that local school authorities in Maoming Municipality, Guangdong province, had arranged for 200 schoolchildren from poor families to work over the summer in factories in the neighboring manufacturing centers of Dongguan and Shenzhen. The children were working 11-hour days, with no rest on the weekend. Many complained of health problems, such as flu-like syndromes, persistent headaches, and fevers. A 16-year-old girl reportedly died as a result of untreated encephalitis. She had been complaining of high fever for three days but was not allowed to rest.
Budgetary pressures at the local level may account for worsening practices, with local government often slashing education and health budgets when revenues decline. Chinese law mandates that the state provide all children with nine years of free and compulsory education, but in practice most schools, especially in poor areas, cannot function without collecting tuition fees. The Ministry of Education says the Work and Study system is designed to generate revenue that enables schools from poverty-stricken areas to operate, and to subsidize children from poor families who cannot afford school-related fees. Local education departments at the prefectural or district level routinely fix revenue targets that must be met by individual schools, even though doing so is banned by the central government. In recent years, increasing budgetary pressures on schools have contributed to their “out-contracting” of students to employers looking for a cheap and easily manipulated workforce.
Hard labor, low pay, and hazardous work conditions are more prevalent in poor and remote rural areas. Schools, often with the encouragement of local education authorities, have sent children from poor areas in Sichuan, Hunan, Anhui Guangxi, Guizhou, and Shaanxi to factories in the coastal regions for “summer employment.” In remote areas such as Yunnan, Gansu, and Xinjiang, local employers have hired children for heavy agricultural work during the harvests. In December 2006, the Chinese media reported “severe violations” of Work and Study regulations in Minqin county, near Wuwei municipality (Gansu Province), including hazardous work conditions, unsafe transportation, and long working hours. In one incident, a middle school pupil died after falling from the truck used by the school to bring the children to the work fields. In April 2006, primary schoolchildren from Luoshan, Henan Province, were dispatched to a local tea farm to pick tea. A local teacher explained that it was the only way for the school to meet operating costs.
“Inequalities in China’s education system are out of control,” Richardson said. “Children from poor areas not only face vastly inferior resources, now they must also engage in heavy work to finance the schools they attend. The responsibility for adequately funding compulsory education should not fall on the shoulders of the children themselves.”
The State Council, China’s cabinet, has acknowledged the existence of severe defects in the Work and Study system in primary and middle schools. In 2006, prompted by an accident in which 131 children were poisoned after ingesting oil made from castor-oil seeds their school was making under contract from a local company, the central government issued a set of detailed instructions urging greater compliance with educational, health, and safety standards in Work and Study programs. “Labor that exceeds the bodily strength of children, involves toxic or dangerous material, or harms the development of the child are strictly prohibited,” the instructions said. Other unauthorized practices detailed by the document include: the imposition of revenue targets by education departments on schools, and by schools on individual classes and schoolchildren; fining children who fall short of work quotas; children working overlong hours; and companies’ manipulation of the Work and Study label to employ underage workers.
Yet these new instructions have so-far failed to remove the potential for abuse. In 2006, authorities in the northwestern province of Xinjiang banned the employment of elementary and middle school children to pick cotton because it is excessively physically demanding. However, children were then redirected to other types of work that press reports describe as only marginally less taxing, such as picking beetroots, tomatoes, and other vegetables in state-run farms, and collecting recycling material. In summer 2007, factories in Guangdong, Jiangxi, and Fujian provinces were found using child labor under bogus Work and Study schemes, prompting domestic experts to urge the government to close this loophole in the legal prohibition of child labor.
Human Rights Watch said that little information about Work and Study schemes was publicly available, making it difficult to precisely assess the extent of unsafe forms of child labor in the education system. Most statistical information published by the government aggregates data for middle and junior high schools with figures for high school vocational training and student employment schemes for university students, which all fall under the same qingong jianxue (Work and Study) appellation. The results of a nationwide survey about middle and junior high school Work and Study programs conducted by the Ministry of Education from October 2006 to February 2007 have not been made public.
State censorship of the media has also contributed to the problem. The Ministry of Labor continues to classify statistics and details about child labor cases as “state secrets.” In September 2006, reporters from CCTV, China’s national TV network, documented the employment of children as young as 8 to harvest corn for a local employer. Children were shown carrying heavy loads and working in fields for the entire day. The broadcast sparked public outcry, but, rather than encouraging public debate of the problem, the story was instead removed from the CCTV’s website.
Human Rights Watch said the government should immediately stop programs that put children at risk, release all the information and data about these programs in view of reforming the labor laws, and publicly announce how it will phase out the system.
China is a party to the United Nation Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 182, which prohibit work that is hazardous or interferes with a child’s education.
“China’s own laws and international obligations recognize that children shouldn’t be working,” said Richardson. “But the government allows dangerous work by underage children if their schools organize it. This really raises doubts about China’s commitment to eliminating child labor.”
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
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UN: ICC Needs Backing to Bring Justice for War Crimes
Secretary-General to Address ICC Meeting at UN Headquarters
By Human Rights Watch
(New York, November 30, 2007)
The United Nations secretariat and the 105 states that have joined the International Criminal Court should step up support for the court so that it can bring justice for war crimes, Human Rights Watch said today as the ICC opens its annual meeting in New York.
"The ICC has no police force of its own, so it needs robust political backing to bring accused war criminals to trial."
Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch’s International Justice Program
For the first time since 2003, the court’s annual Assembly of States Parties is taking place at UN headquarters. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will address the session on December 3. The meeting, which lasts two weeks, will conclude on December 14. The 105 states parties to the ICC’s Rome Treaty and numerous observer states will participate.
“The ICC has no police force of its own, so it needs robust political backing to bring accused war criminals to trial,” said Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch’s International Justice Program. “At this year’s session, we are looking to the secretary-general and the states that created the court to convey their strong support for its work.”
This year the Sudanese government has starkly shown the level of resistance the International Criminal Court faces in its work. Although the UN Security Council referred the situation in Darfur to the ICC in 2005, Khartoum has refused to hand over two individuals subject to ICC arrest warrants. The government has kept one suspect, Ahmed Haroun, in his post as state minister for humanitarian affairs, and even appointed him to a committee whose mandate includes hearing human rights complaints. The government released the other suspect, “Ali Kosheib” (the nom de guerre of Ali Mohammed Ali), who had been in domestic custody.
“The UN and its many members that have joined the court have been far too quiet about Khartoum’s frontal assault on the ICC and its blatant disregard for the Security Council resolution that referred Darfur to the court,” said Dicker. “The secretary-general should clearly call on Sudan to surrender suspected war criminals to the ICC.”
At the annual assembly, states will make decisions on a range of issues including the court’s budget and election of new judges.
With active conflicts in every situation where the ICC is involved – Darfur, eastern Congo, northern Uganda, and the Central African Republic – the relationship between peace and justice is also likely to feature prominently at the session. As peace talks to end the conflict in northern Uganda continued this year, some states parties at times seemed keen to support measures that could lead to impunity. The ICC issued arrest warrants in 2005 for leaders of the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army for crimes committed in northern Uganda.
“It is hardly surprising that bringing peace and holding perpetrators to account will generate tension, especially in the short-term,” said Dicker. “It is precisely at these moments that the UN secretariat and states must work to advance both objectives.”
Experience belies claims that justice thwarts peace, Human Rights Watch said. The unsealing of the indictment of former Liberian president Charles Taylor for crimes committed in Sierra Leone – issued while he attended peace talks to end the conflict in Liberia – was strongly criticized at the time for potentially jeopardizing the negotiations. Yet, only a couple of months later a peace agreement on Liberia was concluded as Taylor stepped down from power.
“Justice is not something that can be traded away in peace talks like a poker chip,” said Dicker. “That approach threatens a durable peace.”
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
Kazakhstan: OSCE Chairmanship Undeserved
Kazakhstan’s Chairmanship for 2010 Places OSCE Human Rights Principles at Risk
By Human Rights Watch
(New York, November 30, 2007)
Kazakhstan should not have been named chair-in-office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch said that Kazakhstan’s chairmanship risks undermining the integrity of the OSCE’s human rights principles.
"Kazakhstan doesn’t observe OSCE commitments at home. Entrusting in Kazakhstan the leadership to uphold the organization’s human rights commitments is a singularly bad idea."
Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch
The OSCE’s Ministerial Council, which met in Madrid, agreed today for Kazakhstan to assume the body’s chairmanship in 2010. Kazakhstan made bids for the chairmanship in 2005 and 2006, but was rebuffed due to its poor human rights record.
“Kazakhstan doesn’t observe OSCE commitments at home,” said Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Entrusting in Kazakhstan the leadership to uphold the organization’s human rights commitments is a singularly bad idea.”
Kazakhstan has yet to hold an election that meets OSCE standards for free and fair elections. Due in part to government manipulation, opposition candidates did not win a single seat in the August parliamentary elections. Constitutional amendments adopted in mid-2007 now make it possible for President Nursultan Nazarbaev, who has led Kazakhstan since before independence from the Soviet Union, to run for an unlimited number of terms.
The broadcast media are dominated by government loyalists, and independent journalists are threatened and harassed for criticizing the president or government. Libel continues to be a criminal offense. Alikbek Zhumbaev, an opposition activist, is currently serving a five-year prison term for insulting President Nazarbaev.
In advance of its OSCE chairmanship, the Kazakh government promised to reform media and electoral legislation, and pledged to preserve the mandate of the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), whose election monitoring Russia has sought to undermine. Human Rights Watch expressed concern that Kazakhstan’s pledges lack credibility because it has supported all prior efforts to weaken the ODIHR’s monitoring mandate.
“The Kazakh government has had two years to show that it’s genuinely committed to OSCE human rights principles,” said Cartner. “While it adopted a few positive measures, it has shown no signs of fundamental change. Now the leverage is gone.”
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
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Venezuela: Proposed Amendments Threaten Basic Rights
Government Seeks Overbroad Emergency Powers for President
By Human Rights Watch
(Washington, DC, November 29, 2007)
Amendments proposed to Venezuela’s constitution increasing presidential emergency powers would jeopardize the protection of fundamental rights at times when they are most needed, Human Rights Watch said today.
"These amendments would enable President Chávez to suspend basic rights indefinitely by maintaining a perpetual state of emergency."
José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch
The proposed changes would eliminate the constitutional prohibition on suspending due process guarantees during states of emergency. They would also eliminate specific time limits on states of emergency, giving the president de facto power to suspend due process and other basic rights indefinitely.
Human Rights Watch is particularly concerned that these provisions could lead to suspension of fundamental rights in violation of international law, as the proposed amendments would also eliminate the requirement that such restrictions “meet the requirements, principles, and guarantees established in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the American Convention on Human Rights.”
In a positive step, one of the amendments proposed would expand the existing constitutional prohibition against discrimination to cover several other bases for discrimination, including sexual orientation and political orientation. Yet even this protection would also be subject to indefinite suspension, should the president declare a state of emergency.
“These amendments would enable President Chávez to suspend basic rights indefinitely by maintaining a perpetual state of emergency,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch.
Suspension of Due Process Guarantees
President Hugo Chávez's supporters in the National Assembly originally proposed completely eliminating the constitutional prohibition on suspending due process rights during states of emergency. In response to widespread criticism of this proposal, the legislators modified it, adding language guaranteeing that the right to a defense lawyer and the right to a trial with ordinary judges could not be suspended.
However, this proposal would still allow the president to suspend other fundamental due process guarantees, including the presumption of innocence, the right to be tried by an independent and impartial tribunal, the right against self-incrimination, the right not to be convicted for a non-existent crime, and the right against double jeopardy. In addition, the proposal appears to allow for the suspension of the rights of a defendant to know the charges and have access to the evidence against him.
The suspension of the presumption of innocence, the right against self-incrimination, and other guarantees of a fair trial would be in violation of international law, which prohibits their suspension even in times of emergency or armed conflict.
“The final proposal on due process is as dangerous as the original,” said Vivanco. “The right to a trial means nothing if it’s not a fair trial, and the right to lawyer is small comfort if a court can presume you’re guilty.”
Other Fundamental Rights at Risk
Under the proposed amendment, the constitution would explicitly protect a number of rights from suspension during states of emergency. These include the right to life, the right to personal integrity, the right not to be sentenced to prison terms exceeding 30 years, and the prohibitions against torture, incommunicado detention and enforced disappearance. The right to habeas corpus would also remain unaffected.
Yet the proposed changes would leave open the possibility that a wide range of other fundamental rights could be suspended indefinitely. Both the United Nations Human Rights Committee and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights have made clear that under international law many of these rights are considered so fundamental that countries are not permitted to derogate from their obligations to respect them – even in a state of emergency. These include the guarantee of equality and non-discrimination, the freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and the guarantee against retroactive laws.
The proposed emergency powers would also allow the president to suspend indefinitely the right of citizens to information, a right that is integral to the protection of human rights and accountability.
“Proponents of these amendments insist that this government would never violate these basic rights,” said Vivanco. “But why, then, have they gone to such lengths to empower the president to do so?”
Expansion of the President’s Emergency Decree Power
The proposed changes would greatly enhance the president’s power to impose and maintain the states of emergency in which these basic rights could be suspended.
It would broaden the circumstances in which the president could impose states of emergency, to include not only “catastrophes,” “calamities” and “other similar situations,” but also cases where “a certain and imminent possibility exists for the occurrence of situations capable of originating catastrophes, public calamities and other similar situations.” This is of concern, because, as the UN Human Rights Committee has made clear, “not every disturbance or catastrophe qualifies as a public emergency which threatens the life of the nation” and would justify restrictions or suspension of protected rights.
The proposal would eliminate the existing time limits on states of emergency, leaving it entirely to the discretion of the president to determine when an “emergency” has ended. Under the proposed amendments, the president would still be required to seek congressional approval for an emergency decree (within an eight-day period), but would not need authorization to extend it. The proposal would also eliminate the power of the National Assembly to revoke the state of emergency.
The reform would also eliminate the requirement that the Supreme Court review the constitutionality of the decree regulating the suspension of rights during times of emergency. Although the proposed amendment indicates that rights should only be suspended “temporarily,” it provides no mechanism for ending the suspension so long as the state of emergency remains in place.
Expanded Anti-Discrimination Protections
One very positive measure in the reform package is an amendment that would expand the constitutional prohibition on discrimination to explicitly cover discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, age, health, sexual orientation and political orientation. The anti-discrimination provision of the current constitution makes specific reference only to race, sex, creed, and “social condition” as protected categories.
The prohibition on political discrimination is particularly welcome given the Chávez administration’s past public endorsements of political discrimination against those who do not share the government’s views. (Last year, for example, Chávez applauded his energy minister’s call for state oil company employees who disagree with the government to give up their jobs. He himself has called for military personnel to do the same.)
However, like other basic rights, the new anti-discrimination guarantees would also be subject to indefinite suspension during states of emergency.
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights
Saudi Arabia: Ministry of Justice should Stop Targeting Rape Victim
Appeals Court Judge Should be Barred from Case
By Human Rights
(New York, November 29, 2007)
The Saudi Ministry of Justice should immediately stop publishing statements aimed at damaging the reputation of a young Saudi rape victim who spoke out publicly about her ordeal and her efforts to find justice, Human Rights Watch said today
"The Ministry of Justice’s response to criticism of its unjust verdict has been appalling."
Farida Deif, researcher in the women’s rights division of Human Rights Watch
In response to international outcry over the case, the Ministry of Justice published two statements on its website on November 20 and 24, 2007, alleging that the rape victim confessed to engaging in illicit acts and was undressed in a car prior to the rape. The second statement said that “the main reason the crime took place was because the woman and her companion, who exposed her to this heinous crime, did not follow the law [of prohibited privacy].” The ministry voiced regret that the media provided an “unjustified defense” of the woman. A representative of the ministry also appeared on television blaming her for the attack and strongly hinting that she had engaged in adultery.
“The Ministry of Justice’s response to criticism of its unjust verdict has been appalling,” said Farida Deif, researcher in the women’s rights division of Human Rights Watch. “First, they attempted to silence this young woman, and now they’re trying to demonize her in the eyes of the Saudi public.”
On November 14, the General Court of Qatif sentenced the young woman to six months in prison and doubled her lashes as punishment for “illegal mingling” because she met an unrelated man in his car before a gang of seven men attacked and raped them. An official at the court said that her sentence was increased because of “her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media.” Judge Sa’d al-Muhanna also banned the woman’s lawyer, Abdul Rahman al-Lahim, from the courtroom and from any future representations of her, for allegedly raising his voice in court. Among the points in the ministry’s charge sheet delivered to al-Lahim on November 19 is that he presented a complaint about the case to the governmental Human Rights Commission.
On November 27, Okaz newspaper published an interview with Judge Dr. Ibrahim bin Salih al-Khudairi of the Riyadh Appeals Court, in which he said that he would have sentenced her to death. The Riyadh Appeals Court, and possibly Judge al-Khudairi, is the court that will consider an appeal that the Saudi woman said she intends to file. Human Rights Watch said that, in light of his statement to the newspaper, Judge al-Khudairi must not be allowed to preside over any deliberations in the case. Such extrajudicial pronouncements by members of the judiciary undermine both their impartiality and the ability of the victim to have a fair hearing.
On November 24, a participant in a Saudi internet site (www.alsaha.com) published what appear to be parts of the initial verdict rendered in October 2006 in language strongly resembling the brief statement of the Ministry of Justice of November 24, 2007. The woman and her lawyer never received the initial verdict or the November 14 verdict, despite repeated attempts to obtain it. The internet participant wrote that one of the judges in the Qatif General Court is his source. Lawyer al-Lahim has said that the Ministry of Justice statement and, apparently, the verdict, relied on statements provided by the rapists in order to diminish their crime.
Human Rights Watch has repeatedly called on King Abdullah to immediately void the verdict and drop all charges against the rape victim and to order the court to end its harassment of her lawyer.
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights
Thailand: Denial of HIV Treatment Erodes Success on AIDS
Drug Users Driven Away From Effective HIV Programs
By Human Rights Watch
(Bangkok, November 29, 2007)
Thailand’s failure to address the HIV epidemic in the hardest-hit population, drug users, is jeopardizing its record as a leader in the global fight against AIDS, Human Rights Watch and the Thai AIDS Treatment Action Group said today in a report released in advance of World AIDS Day.
"Thailand wants to be seen as a success story in the fight against AIDS, yet it is failing to address the epidemic among the population hit hardest by HIV."
Rebecca Schleifer, Advocate, HIV/AIDS Program, Human Rights Watch
In violation of its constitutional and international human rights obligations, the Thai government has systematically failed to prevent and treat HIV infection among drug users. The Thai government estimates that 40 to 50 percent of injection drug users are living with HIV in Thailand – virtually unchanged over the past two decades.
The 57-page report, "Deadly Denial: Barriers to HIV/AIDS Treatment for People Who Use Drugs in Thailand", found that routine police harassment and arrest – as well as the lasting effects of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s 2003 drug war – keeps drug users from receiving lifesaving HIV information and services that Thailand has pledged to provide. The report also documents how drug users face discrimination from health care workers, who continue to deny antiretroviral treatment to people who need it based on their status as drug users.
"Thailand wants to be seen as a success story in the fight against AIDS, yet it is failing to address the epidemic among the population hit hardest by HIV," said Rebecca Schleifer, advocate advocate with the HIV/AIDS and Human Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. "The Thai government has recognized that the HIV infection rate is 'unacceptably high,' and it has the expertise to address this public health emergency."
Thailand has been lauded as a global leader among developing countries for its aggressive HIV prevention programs and its efforts to provide universal access to HIV treatment. Yet Thailand never reached out with prevention programs to injection drug users.
In 2003 the government of former Prime Minister Thaksin launched a repressive "war on drugs" that resulted in the extrajudicial killings of at least 2,275 drug users or dealers. A lasting consequence of this campaign has been to drive many drug users away from effective HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, out of fear of arrest and police violence.
In response to drug users’ advocacy, the Thai government has taken some steps to reduce some of the barriers for drug users to HIV services. In 2004, Thailand rescinded a national policy that explicitly permitted the exclusion of injection drug users from antiretroviral treatment programs.
But drug users still face serious obstacles in accessing needed health care. Many health care providers do not know or do not follow HIV/AIDS treatment guidelines, and continue to deny antiretroviral treatment to drug users, even those in methadone treatment programs.
"An HIV diagnosis is still a death sentence for most drug users in Thailand," said Paisan Suwannawong, director of the Thai AIDS Treatment Action Group. "Thailand must stop discrimination against drug users seeking health care services, or it will never meet its promise to ensure access to AIDS treatment to all who need it."
Out of fear of reprisal, drug users who do receive antiretroviral treatment are unlikely to tell their physicians about their drug use, or to seek information about drug dependence treatment from their antiretroviral treatment provider. This fear is not unfounded: the report confirms that many public hospitals and clinics share information about drug use with law enforcement, both as a matter of policy and practice. Some clinicians operated a "don’t ask, don’t tell" policy toward drug users, refusing to inquire about patients’ drug use or drug treatment history, in some cases despite knowledge or suspicion of current drug use or methadone treatment.
The government’s failure to ensure conditions in which safe exchange of information is possible compromises drug users’ access to adequate HIV and other health care services. As a result, drug users face harmful drug interactions without health care workers to consult about the dangerous potential consequences for their health and, ultimately, their lives.
The Thai authorities have provided minimal support for harm-reduction services for drug users, notwithstanding their proven effectiveness. These limited harm-reduction programs are seriously undermined by the government’s ongoing, repressive anti-drug campaigns. Police regularly interfere with drug users’ efforts to seek health care by harassing clients outside of drug treatment centers. Police also use possession of sterile syringes, or presence at a methadone clinic, as a basis for drug-related criminal charges.
"The Thai government pays lip service to its official policy, which is to treat drug users as patients rather than criminals," said Suwannawong. "In reality, police collect information about drug users from health clinics, and arrest peer outreach workers outside drug treatment clinics. Drug users risk criminal charges if they seek health care services which are theirs by right."
The report also found that incarcerated drug users have an even harder time obtaining needed HIV prevention, care and treatment services. Antiretroviral therapy is available only on an extremely limited basis to prisoners. Many Thai drug users spend time in pre-trial detention or prison, often cycling in and out of government detention facilities. The government has also failed to take measures to ensure that fundamental services (antiretroviral treatment and other HIV-related medical care, harm reduction, drug-dependence treatment, and psychosocial services) are coordinated in the general community, or with services provided on entry to or exit from prison.
Thailand’s new National AIDS Plan – launched in 2007 under the current military government of Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont – recognizes the authorities’ failures in combating HIV and AIDS among drug users and prisoners, and proposes to scale up efforts to ensure their access to HIV and AIDS prevention, care, and treatment services. This commitment follows a number of other similar public undertakings that have remained unfulfilled, however.
"Thailand needs to translate its written commitments on HIV/AIDS into action," said Schleifer. "If the authorities don’t immediately address the systematic human rights violations committed against drug users by police and health care providers, the government will be contributing directly to the continued spread of HIV."
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
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Vietnam: Democracy Activists Should Be Released
Authorities Assault Free Speech by Keeping Two Rights Activists in Prison
By By Human Rights Watch
(New York, November 28, 2007)
The Vietnamese government should immediately and unconditionally release two human rights lawyers, Nguyen Van Dai and Le Thi Cong Nhan, whose prison sentences were reduced after an appeals court hearing in Hanoi today, Human Rights Watch said.
"No one should be imprisoned for peaceful political expression of their views. Vietnam’s crackdown on dissent shows no sign of letting up. Instead, the authorities continue to arrest and imprison people for simply exercising their freedom of speech and advocating for democratic reforms."
Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch.
Nguyen Van Dai, 38, founder of the Vietnam Committee for Human Rights, and Le Thi Cong Nhan, 28, an advocate for multiparty democracy, were arrested in March. In a trial in May, Dai and Nhan were sentenced to five and four years imprisonment, respectively, on charges of disseminating propaganda against the government under article 88 of Vietnam’s penal code.
“No one should be imprisoned for peaceful political expression of their views,” said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “Vietnam’s crackdown on dissent shows no sign of letting up. Instead, the authorities continue to arrest and imprison people for simply exercising their freedom of speech and advocating for democratic reforms.”
Dai, a recipient this year of the Hellman/Hammett prize for writers facing political persecution, had conducted human rights training seminars in Hanoi, documented land rights grievances by rural petitioners, defended persecuted Christians, and helped launch a democracy newsletter. Nhan was spokeswoman for Dang Thang Tien Vietnam (Vietnam Progression Party), one of several opposition parties that surfaced during a brief period in 2006 when the Vietnamese government temporarily eased restrictions on freedom of expression.
Nguyen Van Dai © 2006 Private
Among the crimes listed in Dai and Nhan’s indictment, dated April 24, are: conducting workshops to “defame and spread disinformation” against the government; “misinterpreting” the state’s policies regarding labor unions in Vietnam; communicating through the internet with Vietnamese human rights organizations abroad; and “collecting and hoarding” books by Vietnamese dissidents and human rights activists, along with banned newsletters such as “Freedom and Democracy” and “Free Speech.”
In today’s hearing, the appeals court reduced each of their prison sentences by one year. However, upon release, Dai and Nhan will be placed under administrative probation, or house arrest, for another four years and three years, respectively.
“As a newly elected member of the UN Security Council, Vietnam should uphold its international obligations on human rights,” Richardson said. “Instead, the Vietnamese government is violating the basic rights of its own citizens.”
Le Thi Cong Nhan © 2006 Private
Lawyers for Dai and Nhan forcefully advocated for the right of citizens to peacefully express their opinions and argued against the constitutionality of article 88 of the penal code. Lawyer Bui Quang Nghiem told the court: “Criticism against the party and the leaders and about human rights cannot be considered propaganda against the socialist state. If a law runs counter to reality and international conventions, courage is needed to change or modify it. Dai and Nhan are innocent, and I ask for their freedom.”
In a particularly courageous step, Dai’s wife, Vu Minh Khanh, released a public statement today defending her husband’s human rights work. She systematically detailed numerous procedural errors that took place during Dai’s detention, police investigation, and first instance trial. She also described violations of his civil rights as guaranteed by Vietnam’s Constitution and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Vietnam is a state party, and she called for suspension of article 88 and the immediate release of her husband.
Dai and Nhan are among more than 40 democracy activists, opposition party members, underground publishers, and labor union leaders who have been arrested in Vietnam during the last 15 months.
The Vietnamese government launched its crackdown on peaceful dissent in late 2006 after it secured membership in the World Trade Organization and was removed from the US government’s list of countries with the worst track records of violating the right to freedom of religion.
The most recent arrests took place earlier this month when 20 police officers raided a private home in Ho Chi Minh City, where a group of activists from the Viet Tan (Reform) Party were meeting. Police confiscated Viet Tan leaflets advocating peaceful democratic change and arrested six activists – including two Vietnamese citizens, a Vietnamese-French journalist, two Vietnamese-Americans, and a Thai national.
The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, international rights groups, and US and European diplomats in Hanoi have criticized Vietnam’s criminalization of peaceful dissent. The Vietnamese government has tried to justify this repression through vaguely worded national security provisions in Vietnam’s penal code such as article 88 (conducting anti-government propaganda), article 87 (undermining the policy of national unity), and article 258 (abusing democratic rights such as freedom of speech, press, religion, assembly, association, and other democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the State).
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
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Commonwealth Summit: Leaders Should Join Forces Against Rights Abuses
Pakistan Should Be Suspended Unless Emergency Rule Is Lifted
By Human Rights Watch
(Kampala, November 21, 2007)
When Commonwealth heads of government convene in Kampala this week for their biennial retreat, they should address human rights abuses within their ranks, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch endorsed the suspension of Pakistan from the Commonwealth unless emergency rule there is lifted.
"Any serious discussion at the Commonwealth summit should recognize that human rights violations are inimical to sustainable development. Commonwealth members need to hold leaders accountable if their abusive human rights policies thwart the development of their own countries."
Reed Brody, counsel with Human Rights Watch
Leaders from 53 countries will gather at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) from November 23-25 to discuss “transforming Commonwealth Societies to achieve political, economic and human development.”
“Any serious discussion at the Commonwealth summit should recognize that human rights violations are inimical to sustainable development,” said Reed Brody, counsel with Human Rights Watch. “Commonwealth members need to hold leaders accountable if their abusive human rights policies thwart the development of their own countries.”
In Pakistan, the imposition of emergency rule, the arrest of human rights defenders, opposition activists and lawyers, and the dismissal of judges are a frontal assault on human rights protections in that country, Human Rights Watch said.
Human Rights Watch welcomed the November 12 ultimatum given to Pakistan by the body charged with monitoring serious violations of the Commonwealth’s political values. The Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) has threatened Pakistan with suspension unless emergency rule is lifted by November 22, the eve of the Commonwealth summit. The Commonwealth suspended Pakistan in 1999 after General Pervez Musharraf took power in a military coup. It lifted the suspension in 2004 when President Musharraf promised to step down from the army leadership – a promise that he has failed to keep.
“Musharraf’s assault on the rule of law goes against everything the Commonwealth stands for,” said Brody. “Leaders meeting in Kampala should stand firm and say that emergency rule has no place in the Commonwealth. They should tell Musharraf that he needs to restore the constitution and the judiciary without delay.”
Human Rights Watch called on both the founder of the Commonwealth, the United Kingdom, and the host of this year’s summit, Uganda, to exercise leadership on Commonwealth commitments to human rights and the rule of law.
Abusive counterterrorism measures in the United Kingdom set the wrong example for the Commonwealth and, indeed, the rest of the world, Human Rights Watch said. The government’s efforts to deport foreign terrorism suspects on the basis of unreliable “diplomatic assurances” against inhumane treatment undermine the global ban on torture.
Britain’s 28-day limit on detention without charge in terrorism cases is already the longest in the European Union. A proposed extension to 56 days would violate the basic right to liberty and also undermine counterterrorism efforts by alienating communities whose cooperation is vital to combating terrorism.
Respect for the rule of law in Uganda must include stopping intimidation of the civilian courts. In March, armed security forces stormed the High Court building in Kampala to thwart the release of co-defendants of Dr. Kizza Besigye, leader of the opposition party the Forum for Democratic Change. These co-defendants had been bailed after 15 months of detention. This was the second time in as many years that security forces were used to derail judicial process in the case.
The Ugandan government must also ensure prosecution of the most serious crimes committed during the conflict in northern Uganda, and hold its soldiers to account for human rights violations committed during the past year in operations in the Karamoja region.
“No Commonwealth country should be immune to scrutiny when it comes to human rights,” said Brody. “Without human rights protections, sustainable development is a dead letter.”
Human Rights Watch said that the human rights records of other member countries were also at odds with the summit’s theme of “political, economic and human development.”
Renewed conflict in Sri Lanka has led to thousands of enforced disappearances and abductions, and has displaced some 315,000 people since August 2006 alone. The Sri Lankan government’s announcement in March that it would create a “high-security zone” that includes “special economic areas” on lands from which thousands of people have been displaced poses a serious threat to any foreseeable resolution to the conflict, Human Rights Watch said. Bangladesh’s military-backed caretaker government has promised to end corruption and hold free elections. Human Rights Watch expressed doubt that the elections could be free in the context of ongoing emergency rule, embargoed political activity and suspended civil liberties.
In Nigeria, which hosted CHOGM in 2003, President Umaru Yar’Adua has failed so far to address entrenched corruption and the lack of government accountability, which has fueled the misuse of booming oil revenues. These state revenues would be more than adequate to improve the lives of ordinary Nigerians. Despite inflated government budgets, most Nigerian families remain mired in crushing poverty, and each year an estimated 1 million Nigerian children die before the age of five. Although the Niger Delta is the source of the nation’s vast oil wealth, many of its state and local government institutions have been hijacked by corrupt and violent politicians whose activities have turned the region’s relative wealth into a source of increased human rights abuse rather than development.
Human Rights Watch said the government of King Mswati III of Swaziland continued to permit the national police force to commit brutal acts with impunity, including detention, torture and extra-judicial killing of anti-monarchists and opposition members.
The poor human rights records of many member countries undermine the Commonwealth’s proud role of promoting human rights, democracy and the rule of law, Human Rights Watch said. Commonwealth leaders meeting in Kampala should help to narrow the gap between Commonwealth values and Commonwealth realities by taking joint action on human rights protection. On the global level, this includes raising country situations at the United Nations Human Rights Council and rigorously engaging in the council’s new Universal Periodic Review process.
“The 13 Commonwealth countries on the UN Human Rights Council have the power to shake it from its lethargy and turn it into a real force for human rights protection,” said Brody.
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
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Pakistan: Dubai Should End Shutdown of Pakistani Channels
UAE Should Resist Pakistani Pressure; US Should Tell Ally It Opposes Closures
By Human Rights Watch
(New York, November 20, 2007)
The Dubai government should allow Geo Television and ARY Digital, which broadcast from Dubai and function as Pakistan’s most independent and respected television stations, to resume operations immediately, Human Rights Watch said today.
"Musharraf isn’t content with muzzling critical media coverage of his repression within Pakistan – now he is pressuring Dubai to abet his crackdown on independent reporting."
Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch
On November 17, the Dubai authorities summarily gave Geo Television and ARY Digital two hours to halt broadcasting after persistent pressure from the Pakistani government. Both channels, which are registered in Dubai, have been off the air in Pakistan since November 3, when cable operators were instructed to end transmissions. But the channels had continued to broadcast on satellite and the internet until they were shut down on Saturday by the Dubai government.
Human Rights Watch welcomed the show of support for media freedom by the US ambassador to Pakistan, Anne Patterson, when she visited the Geo offices in Karachi on Monday. The organization urged the Bush administration to also press the authorities in Dubai to reverse their decision to close Geo and ARY Digital.
“Musharraf isn’t content with muzzling critical media coverage of his repression within Pakistan – now he is pressuring Dubai to abet his crackdown on independent reporting,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The US should publicly call on its close ally in Dubai to lift the bans. Dubai’s government should refuse to be an accomplice to Musharraf’s assault on free speech.”
After Pakistan’s leader, General Pervez Musharraf, announced a state of emergency on November 3 and issued a draconian censorship decree on the media, private Pakistani television networks were instructed to sign a new 14-page code of conduct by the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA). While many channels have signed and agreed to discontinue specific programming deemed objectionable by the government, Geo TV and ARY Digital have refused to accept the new rules.
Human Rights Watch urged the Dubai authorities to recognize the damage that the ban is causing to the emirate’s reputation as a neutral commercial and media center in the region. The authorities should unconditionally and immediately reverse the decision to ban transmission by Geo and ARY Digital, Human Rights Watch said.
“By making itself a party to Musharraf’s repression of the Pakistani media, Dubai is damaging its own international reputation,” said Adams. “This move sets an appalling precedent and raises serious questions about Dubai’s viability as a regional hub for the international media.”
Musharraf introduced curbs on the media through two decrees barring the media from printing or broadcasting “anything which defames or brings into ridicule the head of state, or members of the armed forces, or executive, legislative or judicial organ of the state.” The print and electronic media have also been restrained from publishing any material that is likely to “jeopardize or be prejudicial to the ideology of Pakistan or the sovereignty, integrity or security of Pakistan, or any material that is likely to incite violence or hatred or create inter-faith disorder or be prejudicial to maintenance of law and order.” Television discussions on anything which is deemed to be “false or baseless” by the regulatory authorities have also been banned.
Journalists have been repeatedly threatened and prevented from covering events following suspension of the constitution, had their equipment confiscated, and been warned that if they record footage of arrests or police raids, they themselves will face arrest and incarceration.
On November 15, Mir Shakilur Rehman, the owner of Geo TV, emailed his senior staff informing them that he had received a “threatening telephone call last night” from the Pakistani military’s feared Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), and adding that he had been “taken” to an ISI safe house in Islamabad where he was given a warning by an ISI operative who told him, “I would like to advise you to please follow the laws especially the newly promulgated law.”
Rehman also forwarded to staff an email from a person identifying himself as Sabir saying, “Pakistan Army is the backbone of Pakistan, don't try to damage it, if u do, u and your family who have looted billions would be hunted down like rats. It will just take a few hundred people to smash ur studios, offices, vans.”
Geo, part of Pakistan’s largest news group, has sustained severe financial losses as a result of the ban on its transmission. The government has withdrawn advertising from both the Urdu-language print affiliate, Daily Jang, Pakistan’s largest-circulation newspaper, and its sister publication in English, The News, as punishment. The government is the largest advertiser in the country and, under well-established procedures agreed between journalist bodies and Pakistan’s Ministry of Information, advertising is supposed to be equitably distributed amongst publications on the basis of such criteria as newspaper circulation, language, geographic reach and target audience.
The crackdown is not limited to Pakistani journalists. On November 10, Pakistan expelled three journalists working for the UK’s Telegraph group. Isambard Wilkinson, Colin Freeman and Damien McElroy were ordered out because Pakistani authorities found a November 9 editorial in The Daily Telegraph offensive.
Human Rights Watch called upon the international community to take concrete steps to prevent Pakistan’s descent into a police state.
“The world should not stand by as Musharraf engages in the systematic destruction of free speech, first inside Pakistan and now outside the country as well,” said Adams.
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
India: Repeal the Armed Forces Special Powers Act
Law Provides Impunity for Human Rights Abuses, Fuels Cycles of Violence
By Human Rights Watch
(New York, November 20, 2007)
The Indian government should repeal the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which has prevented the military from being held accountable for human rights violations, Human Rights Watch said today as civil society groups from across India gathered in New Delhi to protest the law.
"The Armed Forces Special Powers Act effectively allows Indian troops to get away with murder."
Meenakshi Ganguly, senior South Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch
The Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) grants the military wide powers of arrest, the right to shoot to kill, and to occupy or destroy property in counterinsurgency operations. Indian officials claim that troops need such powers because the army is only deployed when national security is at serious risk from armed combatants. Such circumstances, they say, call for extraordinary measures.
The AFSPA, which has been in force for decades in Jammu and Kashmir state and the seven northeastern states, has provided immunity for killings and other serious human rights violations committed by the army. Human Rights Watch has documented many cases in Jammu and Kashmir, such as the killing of human rights lawyer Jalil Andrabi in 1996 and the student Javed Ahmed Magray in 2003. In both cases, when police inquiries identified the perpetrators as members of the armed forces, they were shielded by the impunity offered by the AFSPA.
“The Armed Forces Special Powers Act effectively allows Indian troops to get away with murder,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, senior South Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The Indian government may claim that it has zero tolerance of human rights abuses, but this law shields troops from prosecution and punishment.”
Clauses in the AFSPA state that no prosecutions can be initiated without permission from the central government. Such permission is rarely granted, providing troops with de facto immunity from prosecutions for human rights abuses.
“Generations of Indians have suffered abuse at the hands of troops empowered by this act, and it has fuelled the cycle of violence in Kashmir and the northeast,” said Ganguly. “Ending this impunity by repealing AFSPA would be the best way to address the public discontent that only fuels further militancy.”
For more than seven years, Irom Sharmila, an activist in Manipur, has been on hunger strike demanding that the government repeal the act following a massacre of civilians by troops in that northeastern state. The government has responded by keeping her in judicial custody to prevent her from attempting suicide, and has ordered her to be force-fed through a nasal tube.
Following widespread protests after the 2004 rape and murder of Manorama Devi in Manipur, the Indian government set up a five-member committee to review the AFSPA. The review committee submitted its report on June 6, 2005, recommending the repeal of the act. In April 2007, a working group on Jammu and Kashmir appointed by the prime minister also recommended that the act be revoked. However, the cabinet has not acted on these recommendations because of opposition from the army.
"The fact that the government has chosen to ignore recommendations from its own experts suggests that it is not interested in providing accountability and justice,” said Ganguly. “The government must realize that its failure to repeal this law would only lead to further popular distrust and cynicism.”
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
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Burma: Targeted Sanctions Needed on Petroleum Industry
Foreign-State-Owned Companies Are Major Investors in Burma’s Oil and Gas Fields
By Human Rights Watch
Details on foreign investment in Burma’s oil and gas fields.
(New York, November 19, 2007)
The United Nations Security Council should act to prohibit any new investment in Burma’s oil and gas fields and block company payments that help sustain Burma’s brutal military rule, Human Rights Watch said today.
"Burma’s generals act as if they are immune from worldwide condemnation because they’re still getting cash from foreign-financed oil and gas projects. It’s time to cut them off."
Arvind Ganesan, director of the Business and Human Rights Program at Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch said that until the Security Council imposes sanctions, members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), China, India, the European Union, the United States and other countries that have economic ties to Burma should act to suspend any further development of Burma’s oil and gas sector. To encourage an end to ongoing repression, Human Rights Watch also called for targeted financial sanctions on companies owned and controlled by the Burmese military or whose revenues substantially benefit the military.
“Burma’s generals act as if they are immune from worldwide condemnation because they’re still getting cash from foreign-financed oil and gas projects,” said Arvind Ganesan, director of the Business and Human Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. “It’s time to cut them off.”
In a detailed new compilation of information on foreign investment in oil and gas released today, Human Rights Watch identified 27 companies based in 13 countries as having investment interests in Burma’s oil and gas fields. Thirteen of those companies are wholly or partially owned by foreign governments, and these state-controlled companies are invested in 20 of the 30 projects currently underway.
Human Rights Watch also made available detailed maps showing the location of the oil and gas fields.
The Burmese military government relies heavily on the oil and gas sector to sustain itself in power. Lucrative revenues from gas sales allow it to ignore demands to return to civilian rule and improve the country’s human rights record. The oil and gas sector is one of the few sectors in the badly managed economy to experience growth in recent years. Funds from this sector help underwrite the military without bringing benefits to ordinary people.
Human Rights Watch urged the UN Security Council to pass a resolution to ban all new investment in Burma’s oil and gas sector and prohibit financial transactions with entities owned or controlled by the Burmese military, or whose revenues are largely used to finance military activities. These entities include the Burmese government’s Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE), a state company under the Ministry of Energy whose earnings benefit the military.
In the absence of Security Council-imposed sanctions, Human Rights Watch called on governments to take unilateral and multilateral action to freeze bank accounts belonging to military-controlled companies and to block their financial transactions. In addition, it urged governments to require companies headquartered in their jurisdictions that have business ties to Burma to publicly and fully disclose all payments made to the Burmese military, directly or through the entities it controls, and where those payments are made.
Human Rights Watch pushed for robust banking sanctions as the centerpiece of an effort to cut off funds that are used to finance repression by Burma’s military. Banking sanctions complement targeted sanctions on investment and trade because they have the potential to severely constrain the junta’s ability to access income, no matter the origin of the payments. If applied effectively by key financial powers – notably the United States and the European Union – strict financial sanctions could block the junta from using much of the international financial system.
Gas revenues in Burma in 2006 were up US$1 billion from the prior year, in part due to higher prices globally. Revenues are likely to have further increased in 2007 as world prices have surged. Future gas revenues are anticipated to increase further once gas production from a massive offshore gas project known as the Shwe project goes online, projected for 2010. A South Korean-led consortium discovered the gas in the Shwe fields and is preparing to produce it for export. Several buyers vied for the rights to buy the Shwe gas, with India and China among the most serious bidders.
In mid-2007, a Burmese official confirmed that China was slated to import the Shwe gas, though details of a deal have not been finalized. Human Rights Watch has called for a suspension of plans to build an overland pipeline to transport that gas to China, given serious human rights concerns. Indian officials expressed disappointment that India’s bid, which also would have included paying for an overland pipeline, had been passed over.
“Burma’s generals have used the promise of oil and gas supplies to buy the silence of energy-hungry countries, including China and India,” said Ganesan. “Those governments should be told their international standing will suffer if they do business as usual with Burma.”
Burma’s military government, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) earned approximately $2.16 billion in 2006 from gas sales to Thailand, which accounted for half of all exports that year, and constituted the single largest source of revenue to the SPDC.
According to Human Rights Watch’s research, outside investors in Burma’s oil and gas industry include companies from:
Australia
British Virgin Islands
China
France
India
Japan
Malaysia
Netherlands
Russian Federation
Singapore
South Korea
Thailand
United States
According to Human Rights Watch’s findings, a majority of the contracts for the 30 ongoing oil and gas projects were signed after mid-2004 and 10 of the deals were penned between September 2006 and September 2007. This trend signals the government’s move to expand foreign investment in this sector despite ongoing and high-profile human rights abuses. The investment also has come in a period when economic mismanagement and profligate spending on unproductive projects such as the relocation of the capital have drained government finances. Many of the new concessions have been assigned to companies from China, which has long been the most important backer of the Burmese military government.
In some cases, the timing of oil and gas deals coincided closely with political support by the governments whose state-owned companies benefited. For example, a Chinese state-controlled company signed a contract for three offshore gas fields within days of China’s vote at the UN Security Council to veto a resolution on Burma.
Human Rights Watch also issued a selection of company statements about events in Burma. The companies typically said their investments would remain unaffected, irrespective of events in Burma. In several cases, they claimed it would be inappropriate to raise human-rights concerns or claimed that their projects brought benefits to the people of Burma.
Such comments fail to reflect the reality of conditions in Burma, where the vast majority of the population lives under great hardship and does not see any tangible benefit from outside investment in the oil and gas industry. Most Burmese homes lack electricity altogether, and urban residents face frequent power outages, even as Burma’s natural gas is used to power Thailand’s cities. Though some community development programs are under way in areas in the immediate vicinity of certain oil or gas projects, communities in these same areas often have suffered from forced relocation and forced labor by the Burmese military in order to make way for the massive infrastructure projects.
“The companies have made it clear they won’t stand up for human rights on their own,” said Ganesan. “That's why their home governments need to step in and halt the flow of petrodollars that help prop up Burma’s military.”
The companies’ comments do not address the serious concerns that, so long as investments in this sector directly benefit Burma’s military leadership, they provide crucial financing that helps underwrite its abusive governance, or that revenues from oil and gas payments are currently used directly by the military and do not support social spending to meet Burma’s critical human needs. For example:
Daewoo International of South Korea is the lead company in a consortium exploring and developing the lucrative offshore Shwe gas fields that are expected to greatly boost revenue to the SPDC. On September 28, 2007, Daewoo International said: “[These] are all long-time investments. They can’t be easily changed because of domestic issues. Politics is politics. Economics is economics.” On November 15, a Seoul court convicted the former CEO of Daewoo International and one of his colleagues, along with 12 executives from other companies, on charges that from 2002 to 2006 they illegally exported arms-manufacturing equipment and technology used to build a munitions factory in Burma.
PTT Public Company Ltd. of Thailand, which in addition to its ownership and operating interests in several fields is also the purchaser of the bulk of Burma’s gas, for export to Thailand, said on October 8, 2007: “We have invested in Burma over the past decade. Despite the political conflict, the benefits from the projects will go to people of both countries.”
Total of France, which is the lead company in a consortium for the Yadana project that generates significant revenues for the SPDC, said on September 26, 2007: “We are convinced that through our presence we are helping to improve the daily lives of tens of thousands of people who benefit from our social and economic initiatives.”
Chevron of the United States, which holds a minority interest in the Yadana project, said on October 2, 2007: “Our community development programs also help improve the lives of the people they touch and thereby communicate our values, including respect for human rights.”
Nippon Oil of Japan, a partner in the Yetagun project, which brings in major revenues, said on September 29, 2007: “We see the political situation and energy business as separate matters.”
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
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Nigeria: Investigate Widespread Killings by Police
Police Chief Boasts of 785 Killings in 90 Days
By Human Rights Watch
(New York, November 18, 2007)
Nigeria’s government should launch an independent public inquiry in light of official statistics indicating that police have shot and killed more than 8,000 Nigerians since 2000, Human Rights Watch said today. The figures show 785 killed in just three months this year, while the true number of people killed by the police since 2000 may exceed 10,000.
"t’s stunning that the police killed half as many ‘armed robbery suspects’ as they managed to arrest during Okiro’s first 90 days. And it’s scandalous that leading police officials seem to regard the routine killing of Nigerian citizens – criminal suspects or not – as a point of pride."
Peter Takirambudde, Africa director at Human Rights Watch
On November 14, 2007, Inspector General of Police Mike Okiro announced that 785 suspected “armed robbers” were shot and killed in gunfire exchanges with the police between June and the beginning of September 2007. According to the same set of statistics, 1,628 armed robbers were arrested during the same period. Police personnel also killed one person for every two firearms they managed to recover.
“It’s stunning that the police killed half as many ‘armed robbery suspects’ as they managed to arrest during Okiro’s first 90 days,” said Peter Takirambudde, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “And it’s scandalous that leading police officials seem to regard the routine killing of Nigerian citizens – criminal suspects or not – as a point of pride.”
The figures suggest that police have routinely resorted to disproportionate and illegal use of lethal force and may have committed multiple extrajudicial killings in the course of police operations. Such indications are especially worrying in light of numerous well-documented cases of deaths of detainees in police custody. Almost as disturbing as the numbers themselves is that leading police officials appear to regard these grim statistics as an indication of effective police work rather than as a scandal. Okiro announced the statistics to the House of Representatives’ Police Affairs Committee in a speech chronicling the “achievements” of his first three months in office.
Nigeria’s police force remains mired in deeply entrenched patterns of torture, corruption, murder, and other forms of human rights abuse. Torture remains a routine part of police interrogation and police officers have carried out numerous extrajudicial killings of suspects in their custody. A 2005 report by Human Rights Watch documented systemic patterns of torture and extrajudicial killings in the police force, and in March 2007 the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture found that torture remained “an intrinsic part of how law enforcement services operate” in Nigeria.
Many parts of Nigeria experience extremely high levels of violent crime, owing partly to rising poverty, high unemployment and the proliferation of small arms throughout the country. Dozens of Nigerian police officers die in the line of duty every year.
Nigeria’s police generally lack capacity to deal with the challenges they face. Police officers are poorly trained, ill-equipped, and poorly remunerated. Some human rights abuses carried out by the police are partly a response to public pressure to reduce the high levels of violent crime. Nigerian civil society groups and Human Rights Watch’s own investigations have revealed that, lacking the means to carry out effective criminal investigations, some police officers extract confessions through torture, or murder suspects in their custody who police believe to be guilty. Other cases represent a simple abuse of power targeting ordinary civilians.
Police officers routinely label individuals they kill as “armed robbers” who fired on police; according to police statistics, all of the thousands of individuals shot and killed by police officers were “armed robbers.” Credible government investigations into allegations of disproportionate use of force or murder have been extremely rare and the facts on the ground often belie the claims of police officials. In June 2005, the murder of six young people at a police checkpoint in Abuja generated a nationwide scandal that led to an investigation and criminal charges against the officers involved, but that case was an exception to prevailing norms. Reported cases of investigations into police killings have been extremely rare and accountability even less common.
In August 2006, police arrested and publicly “paraded” 12 armed robbery suspects in the Abia State town of Umuahia; the 12 were later found among a pile of 16 corpses deposited near a local mortuary. Police officials claimed that all 16 were armed robbers who had somehow been involved in an exchange of gunfire with the police. No investigation was carried out.
According to the police’s own statistics, police personnel have shot and killed more than 8,000 people since January 2000 in circumstances that remain largely unexplained. In 2005, police officials told Human Rights Watch that from January 2000 to March 2004 police personnel killed 7,198 “armed robbers” in “combat.” Remarkably, during the first three months of 2004, the police claimed to have killed 422 armed robbers in shootouts, while recovering only 300 firearms.
The figures available to Human Rights Watch do not include any data for police killings during most of 2004, 2005, 2006, or the first half of 2007. If police killings were carried out at even half the average rate during that period, Nigeria’s police have killed in excess of 10,000 people.
Nigeria is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and as such has an obligation to carry out an effective official investigation when individuals have been killed as a result of the use of force by any law enforcement official. International standards also require that, when resort to firearms and use of force is unavoidable, the police exercise restraint and act in proportion to the seriousness of the offense, so as to respect and preserve human life. Governments are required to ensure that arbitrary or abusive use of force and firearms by police is appropriately punished.
Nigerian president Umaru Yar’Adua came into office in May 2007 after being named the victor in elections, the credibility of which was destroyed by rampant fraud and violence. Nonetheless, President Yar’Adua has pledged to uphold the rule of law and press for key reforms. Yar’Adua named Mike Okiro as Acting Inspector General of Police in June 2007 and has not yet commented on the hundreds of killings the police claim to have since carried out.
“Yar’Adua’s pledge to respect the rule of law means little if the concept does not even require the police to account for the hundreds of Nigerians they kill in a routine month’s work,” Takirambudde said. “The federal government should immediately launch a public and comprehensive inquiry into every killing carried out by the police since Okiro came into office as Inspector General.”
Human Rights Watch called upon the federal government to end the rampant impunity that makes police abuses possible and commonplace. In addition to an immediate public investigation of police activity since Okiro came to office, resources must be devoted to improved police training, including training on human rights issues as well as legal and appropriate interrogation techniques.
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
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Saudi Arabia: Rape Victim Punished for Speaking Out
Court Doubles Sentence for Victim, Bans Her Lawyer From the Case
By Human Rights Watch
(New York, November 17, 2007)
A court in Saudi Arabia doubled its sentence of lashings for a rape victim who had spoken out in public about her case and her efforts to seek justice, Human Rights Watch said today. The court also harassed her lawyer, banning him from the case and confiscating his professional license.
"This verdict not only sends victims of sexual violence the message that they should not press charges, but in effect offers protection and impunity to the perpetrators."
Farida Deif, researcher in the women’s rights division of Human Rights Watch
An official at the General Court of Qatif, which handed down the sentence on November 14, said the court had increased the woman’s sentence because of “her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media.” The court sentenced the rape victim to six months in prison and 200 lashes, more than double its October 2006 sentence after its earlier verdict was reviewed by Saudi Arabia’s highest court, the Supreme Council of the Judiciary.
Human Rights Watch called on King Abdullah to immediately void the verdict and drop all charges against the rape victim and to order the court to end its harassment of her lawyer.
“A courageous young woman faces lashing and prison for speaking out about her efforts to find justice,” said Farida Deif, researcher in the women’s rights division of Human Rights Watch. “This verdict not only sends victims of sexual violence the message that they should not press charges, but in effect offers protection and impunity to the perpetrators.”
The young woman, who is married, said she had met with a male acquaintance who had promised to give her back an old photograph of herself. After she met her acquaintance in his car in Qatif, a gang of seven men then attacked and raped both of them, multiple times. Despite the prosecution’s requests for the maximum penalty for the rapists, the Qatif court sentenced four of them to between one and five years in prison and between 80 and 1,000 lashes. They were convicted of kidnapping, apparently because prosecutors could not prove rape. The judges reportedly ignored evidence from a mobile phone video in which the attackers recorded the assault.
Moreover, the court in October 2006 also sentenced both the woman and man who had been raped to 90 lashes each for what it termed “illegal mingling.” Human Rights Watch is particularly concerned that the criminalization of any contact between unmarried individuals of the opposite sex in Saudi Arabia severely impedes the ability of rape victims to seek justice. A court may view a woman’s charge of rape as an admission of extramarital sexual relations (or “illegal mingling”) unless she can prove, by strict evidentiary standards, that this contact was legal and the intercourse was nonconsensual.
In an interview in December, the rape victim described to Human Rights Watch her treatment in court:
“At the first session, [the judges] said to me, ‘what kind of relationship did you have with this individual? Why did you leave the house? Do you know these men?’ They asked me to describe the situation. They used to yell at me. They were insulting. The judge refused to allow my husband in the room with me. One judge told me I was a liar because I didn’t remember the dates well. They kept saying, ‘Why did you leave the house? Why didn’t you tell your husband [where you were going]?’”
“Victims of sexual violence in Saudi Arabia face enormous obstacles in the criminal justice system,” said Deif. “Their interrogations and court hearings are more likely to compound the trauma of the original assault than provide justice.”
During the recent hearings, Judge al-Muhanna of the Qatif court also banned the woman’s lawyer, Abd al-Rahman al-Lahim, from the courtroom and from any future representations of her, without apparent reason. He also confiscated his lawyer’s identification card, which the Ministry of Justice issues. Al-Lahim faces a disciplinary hearing at the Ministry of Justice on December 5, where sanctions can include suspension for three years and disbarment.
Al-Lahim, who is Saudi Arabia’s best-known human rights lawyer, earlier this year had planned to take legal action against the Ministry of Justice for failing to provide him with a copy of the verdict against his client so that he could prepare an appeal. Despite numerous representations to the court and the ministry, he was not given a copy of the case file or the verdict.
“The decision to ban the rape victim’s lawyer from the case shows what little respect Saudi authorities have for the legal profession or the law in general,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.
On October 3, King Abdullah announced a judicial reform, promising new specialized courts and training for judges and lawyers. There is currently no rule of law in Saudi Arabia, which does not have a written penal code. Judges do not follow procedural rules and issue arbitrary sentences that vary widely. Often, judges do not provide written verdicts, even in death penalty cases. Judges sometimes deny individuals their right to legal representation. In May 2006, a judge in Jeddah had thrown a lawyer out of his courtroom in a civil suit on the sole basis that he is of the Isma’ili faith, a branch of Shiism. Trials remain closed to the public.
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
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Pakistan: Musharraf Uses Anti-Terror Laws to Jail Critics
Government Expands Crackdown by Detaining Hundreds of Opposition Activists
By Human Rights Watch
(New York, November 16, 2007)
Pakistan’s government under General Pervez Musharraf’s emergency rule has expanded its crackdown on its critics by detaining hundreds of opposition activists from the country’s largest opposition party, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Human Rights Watch said today. When US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte arrives in Pakistan on Friday, he should publicly demand the immediate release of all protestors and Pakistan’s judiciary held in detention or house arrest since the crackdown began on November 3, including Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and PPP leader Benazir Bhutto.
"Musharraf is trying to cling on to power by beating and jailing an ever-growing number even of opposition activists. But as Musharraf fills the jails with his critics, Pakistanis are expressing their disgust at his repressive rule through continued protests."
Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
After Bhutto on November 13 called off power-sharing negotiations with Musharraf, activists from the PPP have faced police violence and mass arrests, particularly in the provinces of Sindh and Punjab. On November 13, the government announced that it would not allow Bhutto to mount a protest march planned by her party for the same day. Bhutto and many PPP leaders have been under house arrest in the central city of Lahore since November 13. There are multiple reports of the police tear-gassing and beating protestors with batons.
“Musharraf is trying to cling on to power by beating and jailing an ever-growing number even of opposition activists,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “But as Musharraf fills the jails with his critics, Pakistanis are expressing their disgust at his repressive rule through continued protests.”
November 14 saw arrests all over the country. In the city of Jhang, a former Pakistani ambassador to the United States and a PPP member, Abida Hussain, was arrested and placed under house arrest after she attempted to lead an anti-Musharraf rally. The Punjab province president of the PPP, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, along with several others, was arrested in Rajewala in Punjab province while attempting to lead a protest march from Lahore to the capital Islamabad.
Human Rights Watch has received reports that hundreds of PPP supporters along the route of the party’s proposed protest march have been detained without charge to prevent mobilization for and turnout at the march. Similarly, in the southern province of Sindh, the political base of the PPP, hundreds of party activists have been arrested in the cities of Karachi, Hyderababad, Jacobabad, Khairpur, Thatta and Larkana. Human Rights Watch has been able to confirm the detention of at least 600 PPP activists across Sindh who were protesting Bhutto’s house arrest. Unconfirmed but credible reports indicate the numbers are likely to be much higher.
Human Rights Watch expressed concern at the use of anti-terrorism laws to detain peaceful opponents of the Musharraf government. While most of the detained activists are being held without charge, many have been charged under Pakistan’s Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), while others are being held under provisions of the colonial-era Maintenance of Public Order Act (MPO).
PPP Senior Vice Chairman Yousaf Raza Gillani and 150 PPP activists were charged and produced in an Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) in Lahore, then sent to jail on judicial remand. The 150 detainees include at least 40 women, some of them PPP members of the national and provincial legislatures.
Imran Khan, a former captain of Pakistan’s national cricket team and leader of a small but vocal opposition party, Movement for Justice (PTI), was arrested on November 14 after he attempted to lead a student rally at Punnjab University in Lahore. Aftab Cheema, a senior Punjab police officer, confirmed to the Associated Press news agency that Khan was being held at an undisclosed location and had been charged under the Anti-Terrorism Act.
“Musharraf is trying to portray opponents of his power grab as terrorists,” said Adams. “His abuse of Pakistan’s anti-terrorism laws in a desperate bid to hold onto power must end.”
Human Rights Watch reiterated its call for Musharraf to end the state of emergency, rescind the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) and return to constitutional rule. Musharraf must reinstate the judiciary headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, restore fundamental rights, remove restrictions on the media, and release thousands of political detainees held since November 3.
Human Rights Watch also urged Musharraf’s principal patron, the United States, to impose comprehensive sanctions on all military and economic aid, with the exception of humanitarian assistance. The US should also impose travel restrictions on members of the Musharraf government. US Deputy Secretary of State Negroponte should make it clear to Musharraf that continued US support depends on his reversing the measures he has instituted since November 3. Negroponte is due to arrive in Islamabad on November 16.
“US failure to back up its words of criticism with concrete sanctions has only fueled further political repression in Pakistan and deepened resentment of the US among Pakistanis,” said Adams. “Negroponte’s message to Musharraf needs to simple and straightforward: if he doesn’t end repression, respect human rights and restore the rule of law, Pakistan will lose billions of dollars in US support.”
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
UK: Investigate Sri Lankan Rebel Leader for Atrocities
Karuna Case Important for Bringing Justice for International Crimes
By Human Rights Watch
(London, November 16, 2007)
The British government should open a criminal investigation into a former Tamil Tiger leader in immigration detention, Human Rights Watch said today. Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan, known as Colonel Karuna Amman, was a leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) until he split to form his own group.
"Karuna has a long and horrific record of abuse that demands justice."
Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch said the case provides an important opportunity for justice for victims of human rights abuses in Sri Lanka.
“Karuna has a long and horrific record of abuse that demands justice,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “His arrest in the UK is a golden opportunity to bring justice for the victims of his many atrocities.”
On November 2, 2007, UK immigration authorities arrested Karuna, a rebel military commander who has long been linked to the summary execution and torture of civilians and the use of children as soldiers. Until leaving the LTTE in March 2004, Karuna was the Tigers’ top commander in eastern Sri Lanka, and the reputed number two in the LTTE hierarchy. Because he had been given a de facto amnesty by the Sri Lankan government and his armed group fought against the LTTE in recent years, it is unlikely the Sri Lankan government would prosecute him.
Tamil Tiger forces under Karuna’s command were directly involved in some of the worst crimes of Sri Lanka’s ongoing civil war. In June 1990, some 400 to 600 police officers in the east who surrendered to the LTTE were bound, gagged and beaten. The Tamil Tigers, including forces under Karuna’s control, then executed the Sinhalese and Muslims among them. In July 1990, Karuna’s forces stopped a convoy of Muslims traveling in Batticaloa district and executed about 75 people, including women and children. In August 1990 Karuna’s forces killed more than 200 civilians in two incidents in Batticaloa district.
In 2004, Human Rights Watch investigated the Tamil Tigers’ recruitment and use of children as soldiers (http://hrw.org/reports/2004/srilanka1104/). Karuna’s forces played a prominent role, routinely visiting Tamil homes to tell parents to provide a child for the “movement.” The LTTE harassed and threatened families that resisted, and children were abducted from their homes at night or while walking to school.
After Karuna broke away from the Tamil Tigers his armed group operated with the complicity of the Sri Lankan security forces. The Karuna group, as it was known, engaged in abduction of children for use as soldiers in Sri Lanka’s eastern districts, taking boys from their homes, work places, temples, playground, public roads, camps for the internally displaced, and even a wedding. These abuses are documented in the Human Rights Watch report “Complicit in Crime: State Collusion in Abductions and Child Recruitment by the Karuna Group,” published in January 2007 (http://hrw.org/reports/2007/srilanka0107/).
British law permits the prosecution of individuals for serious violations of international law, including torture and war crimes, committed abroad. For example, in 2005 UK courts convicted a former Afghan warlord, Faryadi Sarwar Zardad, for acts of torture and hostage-taking in Afghanistan.
“The British government has shown that it can successfully prosecute those who have committed serious abuses abroad,” said Adams. “Karuna is one of the worst human rights abusers ever to end up in custody in the UK. We expect the government to fully explore all legal possibilities for prosecuting Karuna.”
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
Gaza: Shootings Inquiry Should Lead to Prosecutions
Seven Killed, Over 90 Wounded by Excessive, Indiscriminate Force
By Human Rights Watch
(New York, November 16, 2007)
The Hamas-run government in Gaza must establish an independent and nonpartisan commission of inquiry to hold security forces accountable for their use of excessive and indiscriminate force against pro-Fatah demonstrators in Gaza City on Monday, Human Rights Watch said today. More than 90 demonstrators were wounded and seven lost their lives when Hamas security forces opened fire.
"We welcome a commission of inquiry, but it must be truly independent with respected, nonpartisan members. The investigation must lead to the prosecution of any members of the security forces or Fatah members who broke the law."
Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch
In a speech on Thursday, Hamas leader Ismail Haniya announced the creation of an “honest, fair and transparent” commission to investigate Monday’s violence. He also ordered the release of Fatah members and supporters arrested after the demonstration, except for those “involved in riots and disturbances.”
“We welcome a commission of inquiry, but it must be truly independent with respected, nonpartisan members,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The investigation must lead to the prosecution of any members of the security forces or Fatah members who broke the law.”
Human Rights Watch interviewed three shooting victims from the demonstration and five eyewitnesses, as well as hospital, health ministry and interior ministry officials in Gaza. The testimony reveals that Hamas security forces, which at times came under attack from stone-throwing demonstrators, opened fire in an indiscriminate manner on parts of the crowd, killing seven and wounding many more.
Only one of the witnesses, a shooting victim, said that he saw any Fatah members or supporters with weapons in or around the demonstration. These men were bodyguards who had pistols, he said, as well as one man with an automatic weapon. However, this witness also said these men left early in the demonstration without using their weapons.
A spokesman for the Hamas-run Interior Ministry, Ihab al-Ghusain, told Human Rights Watch that Fatah gunmen had fired at the crowd and the police from roof tops as part of a premeditated plan. Six policemen were wounded that day, he said, but in other parts of Gaza not connected with the demonstration.
Human Rights Watch said that its findings, which were consistent with those of local human rights groups, did not support al-Ghusain’s claims.
“It may not be possible to know exactly how the lethal violence began, but Hamas forces clearly used excessive and indiscriminate force once it did erupt,” Whitson said.
International legal standards on use of force, including the United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, provide that officers shall, as far as possible, use nonviolent means before resorting to the use of force and firearms. Whenever the lawful use of force and firearms is unavoidable, forces must exercise restraint in such use and act in proportion to the seriousness of the offense and the legitimate objective to be achieved, and also minimize damage and injury.
“Gunmen as well as their commanders in the security forces must be held accountable for any use of excessive force,” said Whitson.
In the days after the demonstration, Hamas security forces arrested scores of Fatah members and supporters – 450 people according to Fatah, but that number remains unconfirmed. The Interior Ministry spokesman told Human Rights Watch that those detained “are not more than 100.” They are being held at the facility called Al-Mashtal, he said, which is run by Hamas’s Internal Security Service.
In October, Human Rights Watch investigated the treatment of persons detained by Hamas forces in Gaza, in particular Fatah members or supporters, and documented a pattern of serious abuse, especially in Al-Mashtal.
“Al-Mashtal is notorious for violence and abuse of detainees, including torture,” Whitson said. “Any Fatah detainees being held there now are at great risk.”
Gaza City Violence on November 12
On November 12, Fatah held a demonstration in Gaza City to commemorate the third anniversary of the death of Fatah founder Yasir Arafat. An estimated 250,000 came from all over Gaza, in the largest show of support for Fatah since Hamas seized control of the territory in June. Hamas had granted permission for the demonstration, which was scheduled to start at 1 p.m. at the Al-Qatiba grounds near Al-Azhar University.
By late morning, large crowds had assembled around the university. Witnesses said the atmosphere was peaceful but tense, and that Hamas security forces had established checkpoints and posted gunmen on roofs of tall buildings. Hamas members in civilian clothes mingled with the crowd, they said. Demonstrators taunted the security forces with chants of “Shi`a! Shi`a!” – a common provocation in Gaza that refers to Hamas’s support from Iran, a predominately Shi`a country. Most Palestinians, including Hamas members and supporters, are Sunni.
According to the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights, the first clash began around 11:30 a.m. Hamas security forces opened fire and killed Tariq Mahmud al-Najjar, 29, with bullets to the chest and right hand. The Interior Ministry spokesman said he was killed by Fatah gunmen on nearby rooftops on al-Sina’ Street, about 300 meters from the rally site.
The violence worsened around 1 p.m., after large crowds had listened to speeches from Fatah leaders and were heading home. A group of stone-throwing Fatah supporters confronted Hamas security forces, who reportedly fired automatic weapons into the air and then, according to witnesses, indiscriminately at the crowd. According to one man who was wounded, the violence started when security forces tried to arrest three Fatah supporters who were taking photographs with their mobile phones, although he did not witness this himself.
According to figures from Al-Shifa Hospital (the largest in Gaza City) and the Hamas-run Ministry of Health, in addition to Tariq Mahmud al-Najjar, the following people lost their lives:
1. Ibrahim Mahmud Ahmad, 13, Beit Hanoun
2. Hosam Badr al-Oadi, 26, Gaza City
3. Kamil Ziyara, 19, Beach refugee camp
4. Muhammad Ahmad al-Masri, 67, Khan Younis
5. Ayub Abu Samra, age unknown, Deir al-Balah
A seventh person, Marwan al-Nunu, 21, died two days after from bullet wounds.
An official at Al-Shifa Hospital told Human Rights Watch that all of the victims died from gunfire, and most of them were shot in the head. According to PCHR, the bullet wounds of the five people mentioned above were in the neck, head, chest, chest, and head, respectively. The seventh casualty, al-Nunu, who died on Wednesday, was shot in the head.
Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that after the shooting they saw Hamas members in civilian clothes beating people with sticks and batons.
According to hospital records, 94 people received medical treatment for injuries sustained during or after the demonstration. Of these people, 50 were treated at Al-Shifa Hospital and the rest at Al-Quds hospital in southern Gaza City.
On Tuesday, Human Rights Watch interviewed three of the wounded demonstrators at Al-Shifa Hospital. Y.G., a 16-year-old boy, said he heard gunfire as he was going home at the end of the demonstration:
“At the intersection [by Al-Azhar University] I saw a man who fell on the ground after being injured. I ran to help him but as soon as I arrived a bullet hit my arm. I don’t know where the bullet came from. There was a seven-story building overlooking the crossroads, and Hamas gunmen were firing from the roof and the other policemen were also firing, some in the air and some at the demonstrators. With my own eyes, I saw three policemen at the crossroads taking up positions like snipers and they fired at the people.
“The people started to shout ‘Shi`a! Shi`a!’ at them and they threw stones at Hamas policemen. There were no armed men among Fatah, only bodyguards of Abu Mahir Hillis, a senior Fatah leader in Gaza, were armed with pistols and one of them was armed with a Kalashnikov but they left before the violence started.
“I was running like a crazy boy because of the pain in my arm. There were no cars. People carried me from time to time to get me out of the square. I learned later that the problems started when the policemen tried to arrest three Fatah supporters who were using their mobile phone cameras and filming near the crossroad where many policemen and gunmen, dressed in civilian clothes, were deployed. The people tried to prevent Hamas from arresting the three guys and the shouting started from here.”
A 22-year-old Fatah supporter from Deir al-Balah explained how he got wounded:
“I came from Deir al-Balah to the rally. When it ended around 12:30, I suddenly heard some gunshots that came from behind. I went there, at [the Al-Azhar University] intersection – about 50 meters from the main police compound in Gaza – and found dozens of Executive Force [Hamas] members, who were on full alert and pointing their guns at the people.
“The people shouted ‘Shi`a! Shi`a!’ at Hamas. I came closer but suddenly one of the Executive Force men opened fire randomly at the people. A young guy next to me was killed immediately and I was wounded by a gunshot in my right leg. I arrived at the hospital after almost two hours because the ambulances were unable to come to the place and there were no cars because of the number of people.”
A.H., age 17, explained how he was shot in his abdomen:
“I ran for cover as most of the people did when the shooting suddenly started at the end of the demonstration. While I was running, a gunshot hit me in my abdomen. I don’t know where the bullets came from but I can confirm that I did not see any weapons with anyone from Fatah. When the Executive Force attacked the rally, the people threw stones at them.”
According to PCHR, Hamas police temporarily detained at least three journalists covering the demonstration. At least one foreign reporter, Paul Martin from The Times of London, was temporarily held.
According to Ihab al-Ghusain, the Ministry of Interior spokesman, the blame for Monday’s violence rests with Fatah. He said four policemen were fired upon and lightly wounded in northern Gaza before the demonstration and two others were wounded in a drive-by shooting in the area of Nusseirat, south of Gaza City. During the demonstration, he said, Fatah gunmen were positioned on rooftops overlooking the demonstration and on the buildings of Al-Azhar University.
“There was a Fatah plan in advance to cause trouble and riots after taking advantage of the large crowd,” the Interior Ministry spokesman said. “And, yes, of course, after the speakers finished their speeches, gunmen on Al-Azhar University [rooftops] fired at the people and the police. The policemen got close to the scene to see who was firing but the gunmen continued to fire and these unfortunate incidents have continued and ended with the death and injuries of a number of Palestinian people.”
The police arrested two of the Fatah gunmen, he said, in addition to a number of “trouble-makers” who were arrested at the demonstration. The police also confiscated pipe bombs and pistols, he said.
On Tuesday, Human Rights Watch visited the intensive care unit at Al-Shifa Hospital, where the following people were receiving care:
1. Mahmud Muhammad al-Rifa`i, 23, gunshot to the neck
2. Yusif al-Dairi, 18, gunshot to the head
3. Marwan al-Nunu, 21, gunshot to the head (died on Wednesday)
4. Ahmad al-Wadi`a, 20, gunshot in the abdomen
The Ministry of Health also provided some details of those wounded:
• Four people, including a 5-year-old boy, `Atif al-Ghar, were wounded in the head.
• Six wounded people received treatment for broken bones.
• Eight people received treatment for shock.
• Five people received treatment for severe beatings: Muhammad Madi, 20, from Khan Younis; Naji Sulaiman, 24, from the Beach refugee camp; `Ola `Adnan Sha`th, 20, from Khan Younis; Yihya Ahmad al-Najjar, 23, from Jabaliyya; and Basim Abu `Obaid, 22, from Rafah.
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
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Sierra Leone: New Leader Must Combat Injustice, Corruption
President Koroma Should Adopt and Implement a Concrete Human Rights Agenda
By Human Rights Watch
(Dakar, November 14, 2007)
Sierra Leone’s new president, Ernest Bai Koroma, should urgently address pressing human rights concerns in Sierra Leone, particularly striking deficiencies in the judicial system and ongoing corruption, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to the president on the eve of his inauguration.
"The people of Sierra Leone have long suffered from a vicious cycle of corruption, economic decline, violence and impunity. President Koroma must articulate and implement a bold vision for improving Sierra Leone’s chronic human rights problems. There is no time to waste."
Peter Takirambudde, Africa director at Human Rights Watch
Since the end of its 11-year civil war in 2002, Sierra Leone has made limited progress in addressing the issues that gave rise to the conflict: endemic corruption, weak rule of law, crushing poverty, and the inequitable distribution of the country’s vast natural resources.
“The people of Sierra Leone have long suffered from a vicious cycle of corruption, economic decline, violence and impunity,” said Peter Takirambudde, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “President Koroma must articulate and implement a bold vision for improving Sierra Leone’s chronic human rights problems. There is no time to waste.”
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
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Egypt: Allow Citizens to List Actual Religion on ID Cards
End Discrimination, Harassment of Baha’is, Converts From Islam
By Human Rights Watch
(Cairo, November 12, 2007)
Egypt should allow all citizens to use their actual religious identity when required to list religion on government documents, Human Rights Watch and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) said today. The government’s discriminatory practice of restricting identity to three religions, directed at Baha’is and preventing converts from Islam from listing their true belief, violate many rights and cause immense hardship.
"Interior Ministry officials apparently believe they have the right to choose someone’s religion when they don’t like the religion that person chooses. The government should end its arbitrary refusal to recognize some people’s religious beliefs. This policy strikes at the core of a person’s identity, and its practical consequences seriously harm their daily lives."
Joe Stork, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division
In their 98-page report, “Prohibited Identities: State Interference with Religious Freedom,” Human Rights Watch and the EIPR document how Ministry of Interior officials systematically prevent Baha’is and converts from Islam from registering their actual religious belief in national identity documents, birth certificates, and other essential papers. They do this based not on any Egyptian law, but on their interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia. This denial can have far-reaching consequences for the daily lives of those affected, including choosing a spouse, educating one’s children, or conducting the most basic financial and other transactions.
“Interior Ministry officials apparently believe they have the right to choose someone’s religion when they don’t like the religion that person chooses,” said Joe Stork, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division. “The government should end its arbitrary refusal to recognize some people’s religious beliefs. This policy strikes at the core of a person’s identity, and its practical consequences seriously harm their daily lives.”
All Egyptians, on reaching the age of 16, must obtain a national identification card. This document is essential to conducting transactions as basic as opening a bank account, getting a driver’s license, entering a university, getting a job, or collecting a pension. The Civil Status Department of the Interior Ministry administers these national ID cards as well as other vital records such as birth certificates, all of which require a person to state his or her religious identity. But ministry officials limit the choice to one of the three “revealed” religions – Islam, Christianity, or Judaism. No Egyptian law requires this, but the officials say they are acting on what they understand to be the requirements of Sharia, thus excluding members of Egypt’s Baha’i community.
On similar grounds, these officials refuse to recognize the religious conversion of any Muslim to another religion on identity documents, although Egypt’s Civil Status Law permits persons to change or correct information in their identification documents, including religion, simply by registering the new information. Interior Ministry officials cite the Islamic law prohibition against any “repudiation” of the faith as apostasy to refuse such requests, even from Egyptians who were born Christian, converted to Islam, and want to convert back to Christianity.
“Prohibited Identities” documents how the Egyptian government selectively uses Sharia to deny some citizens their right under Egyptian and international human rights law to exercise religious freedom without discrimination or penalty.
Human Rights Watch and the EIPR interviewed more than 40 victims, lawyers, and religious and community leaders in preparing the report. In addition, the EIPR examined the files of 304 court cases filed by victims and their relatives, as well as higher court decisions and relevant laws. Human Rights Watch’s requests for a meeting with the head of the Interior Ministry’s Civil Status Department were turned down. Human Rights Watch then submitted questions to Interior Minister Habib al-Adli (reproduced as an appendix to the report) but both letters received no reply.
“Our research clearly shows that there is no fixed Islamic law position on the administrative requirements for religious identification in the public records of a modern bureaucracy,” said Hossam Bahgat, director of the EIPR. “Officials should pursue an approach that upholds basic principles of justice and equality, instead of one that directly violates the rights of its citizens.”
The problem has become particularly acute in recent years, after the Interior Ministry began issuing computer-generated documents carrying a unique “national number” (raqam qawmi). Officials say that in the near future, perhaps as soon as early 2008, even persons with valid paper IDs will have to acquire the new computer-generated documents, and that the only options for the religion line will be Islam, Christianity or Judaism.
Many Egyptians interviewed for the report recounted how Interior Ministry officials tried to intimidate or bribe them into identifying themselves as Muslims against their express wishes.
Human Rights Watch and the EIPR urged authorities to exonerate persons convicted for obtaining forged identity documents solely because the government refused to list their actual religion.
“The Interior Ministry’s policy essentially says: ‘If you lie we’ll give you the documents you need, but if you tell the truth about your religion we’ll make your life miserable by withholding them’,” Stork said. “It is punishing people solely on the basis of their religious beliefs.”
Some Egyptians have battled these abusive policies by filing complaints against officials before Egypt’s Court of Administrative Justice. Egypt’s Supreme Administrative Court is scheduled to issue a final ruling on November 17 regarding the right of Christian converts to Islam to re-convert back to Christianity. The court decision is expected to have a major impact on the legal treatment of other forms of religious conversion and on the overall situation of freedom of religion and belief in Egypt.
The quasi-official National Council for Human Rights submitted a memorandum to the government in December 2006 recommending that the government remove religious affiliation from ID cards or reinstate the policy of entering “other” in the line reserved for religion.
“Eliminating the religion line in IDs would send a positive signal of the state’s neutrality regarding the religious affiliation, if any, of citizens,” Bahgat said. “But the root of the problem is the government’s insistence on misidentifying these citizens in the central records. This is what the government needs to address urgently.”
Testimonies from ‘Prohibited Identities:’
“I tried to obtain the national ID card. In the application, I wrote that my religion was Baha’i. The officer refused to accept the application and asked me to present my birth certificate. I showed it to him. It stated that I was Baha’i and so were my parents. He still refused to accept the application and asked me to apply in Cairo. When I went to Cairo, I met an officer called Wa’il who opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a big pile of documents and said, ‘You see, all these applications are from Baha’i who want IDs. You will never ever get them.’ ”
—Nayer Nabil, Cairo
“My ID card says I am Muslim. One option is to get a forged ID, but it’s not an option for me. The children are the key. We moved to Alexandria because it’s a lot bigger; we can disappear. But this can’t continue, for psychological as well as legal reasons. The children’s birth certificates will say Muslim, but they are raised Christian. When they start school, then the problems really start. Religion class starts in the first grade.”
—Name withheld on request, Cairo
“My husband died in 2003. He worked for Al-‘Ameriyya Oil Company. To pick up my pension from the bank or the post office, I need an ID card. I’m supposed to get 70 percent of my husband’s salary, but I’ve gotten nothing since he died. I have to rely on my kids to help me because I have no other income. Everyone should be free. The state should not be responsible for anyone’s religion.”
—Qudsiyya Hussein Ruhi, Alexandria
“State Security tried to persuade us both to be Muslims. We were exhausted, more than 24 hours with no food. When they failed to convince us to become Muslims, they referred us to criminal investigation. From five in the morning until five at night, the State Security grilled us. They said that they would bring forgery charges against both of us.”
—Names withheld on request, Heliopolis
“Without national ID cards issued to Baha’is, suddenly, voila, there are no Baha’is in Egypt.”
—Labib Hanna Iskandar, Cairo
“He said I’d committed a sin against God. He asked why I wanted to go back to Christianity. ‘If you had bad luck with your first husband, you should have found another Muslim man.’ He offered me assistance and favors. ‘I can find you a good Muslim man,’ he said. ‘If it’s financial, we can help you find a job. If you went back to your family for lack of any alternative, we’ll help you find an apartment.’ When I insisted on staying a Christian, he said, ‘Well, we have to start an investigation into the forgery.’”
—Golsen Sobhi Kamel, Cairo
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
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Saudi Arabia: Release Peaceful Reformers
Verdict Asserts Illegality of Public Criticism
By Human Rights Watch
(New York, November 9, 2007)
King Abdullah should immediately pardon two leading reformers sentenced by a Saudi court on Wednesday for encouraging a peaceful demonstration, Human Rights Watch said today.
"This verdict against the al-Hamid brothers shows that the Saudi government’s talk of human rights reform is just that – talk."
Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch
Judge Ibrahim Husni of the Partial Court in Buraida, north of Riyadh, sentenced Professor Abdullah al-Hamid and his brother ‘Isa al-Hamid to four and six months in prison, respectively. The Investigation and Public Prosecution Department had charged the brothers with violating a security cordon and instigating a public demonstration. Judge Husni’s verdict cited the necessity to punish the two brothers because their actions may lead to acts forbidden in Islam.
“This verdict against the al-Hamid brothers shows that the Saudi government’s talk of human rights reform is just that – talk,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.
The incident, which led to the two men’s prosecution, occurred on July 16, when several women whose husbands and relatives had remained in Saudi intelligence prisons for over two years without charge, trial or access to legal counsel staged a peaceful demonstration in front of intelligence offices in Buraida to demand the release or trial of their relatives.
One of the women, Rima al-Juraish, had been in telephone contact with Abdullah al-Hamid, a former Islamic law professor, who represents her detained husband, Muhammad al-Hamili. According to observers at the al-Hamids’ trial, the prosecution submitted transcripts of their telephone records and text messages in court, in which Abdullah al-Hamid urged the women to continue in their protest, saying it was lawful. The authorities had not obtained any warrant allowing the surveillance of al-Hamid’s or al-Juraish’s communications.
Al-Juraish called Abdullah al-Hamid two days later when intelligence forces were about to arrest her at home. The al-Hamid brothers arrived on the scene and demanded to see an arrest warrant, but found themselves under arrest instead. Trial observers reported that, contrary to assertions by the prosecution, security officers testified that the al-Hamid brothers did not violate the security cordon around al-Juraish’s house.
The judge only briefly opened the trial to supporters on October 21, and to the media on November 7. Intelligence officers noted names of those wishing to attend. The trial was unprecedented in Saudi Arabia for allowing a measure of due process and for not barring defense lawyers or arresting them, as had happened in Abdullah al-Hamid’s trial in 2004 and 2005 for publicly advocating constitutional reform. The defendants also submitted a memorandum in court on the unhygienic conditions and widespread torture in the prison where they spent several days before being granted bail. The women protesters had also raised concerns about reports that their husbands suffered repeated abuse at the hands of their jailers.
“This judgment reinforces the Saudi reality that the courts are complicit in denying citizens the right to peacefully assemble and legitimately criticize the authorities,” said Whitson.
Article 35 of the Saudi Law on Criminal Procedure obliges law enforcement officials to carry out arrests only with a warrant. Article 155 stipulates that trials can only exceptionally be closed to the public. Article 55 requires surveillance of communications be carried out only with a warrant.
Saudi Arabia does not have a penal code. Violating a security cordon and instigating a demonstration are not recognizable criminal offenses.
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
Just Another Day in a Guantanamo Courtroom
Published in The Huffington Post
by Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel
(Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Nov. 9)
When Omar Khadr, the 21-year-old Canadian walked into the Guantanamo courtroom escorted by three military police on Thursday he seemed calm. His boyish but bearded face was free of obvious emotion. This, after all, was the third time that the Pentagon has tried to bring charges against him in the Guantanamo-based military commissions.
The first round of charges were dismissed in 2006, when the Supreme Court ruled the former military commission system illegal. The second set of charges was dismissed in June by the same military judge presiding yesterday, Colonel Peter E. Brownback. Back then, Brownback ruled he did not have jurisdiction to proceed because Khadr had never been determined to be an "unlawful enemy combatant," which is a prerequisite for military commission jurisdiction. But his ruling had been overturned by a hastily constituted Court of Military Commissions Review, so Khadr was back in the courtroom yet again.
The first order of business was one of representation. Brownback asked Khadr whether he was satisfied with his military defense counsel. Khadr said that he was. Next came what's known as the "voir dire" of the judge – during which the parties get to cross-examine the judge to ascertain whether he is sufficiently impartial and fit to serve.
Khadr's military defense counsel, Lt. Commander William Kuebler, fired off a series of questions. How well did Brownback know the "convening authority"? Did he fraternize with the prosecution? How was he selected to be a military commission judge?
Then came the bombshell.
What did he think of the Supreme Court's ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld – the 2006 Supreme Court case that had struck down the former military commissions? "Do you agree that Hamdan held the prior system illegal?" asked Kuebler.
"No, I don't," answered the judge.
Never mind that the Supreme Court ruling stated that "the rules specified for Hamdan's trial are illegal" (emphasis added). Never mind that the court concluded that the previous military commissions violated statutory requirements of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, as well as the basic fair trial requirements of the Geneva Conventions. And never mind that the Supreme Court case was about the very system in which Brownback was a presiding judge. It almost seemed as if Judge Brownback had never read it.
Brownback was then asked what law he would rely on as judge in the military commissions. The Military Commissions Act and related Department of Defense rules and orders, the judge answered. Notably, Brownback made no mention of the US constitution or international law. But this answer was not much of a surprise. Prior to the hearing, he had issued an order explicitly prohibiting the defense and prosecution from raising constitutional, criminal, or international law in arguing whether the military commissions had jurisdiction to proceed.
Kuebler then challenged Brownback's impartiality, arguing that the judge's blatant misinterpretation of the Hamdan ruling, coupled with his apparent disregard for both the constitution and international law would make it impossible to challenge the commission's legitimacy. As Kuebler accurately noted, the question of the commission's legitimacy is both key and undecided.
The prosecutor, Major Jeffrey Groharing, called these arguments "irrelevant." Not surprisingly the judge agreed.
Next the judge ruled that, given the appeals court's reversal of his June dismissal, he would presume jurisdiction to proceed, but left open the possibility for the defense to formally challenge this assumption at a later date. The defense acquiesced, while making clear that they would formally challenge this issue.
The prosecutor – ignoring the fact that he just won – insisted that he should still be allowed to play a video allegedly showing Khadr making and planting explosive devices in Afghanistan. The judge rejected the request, saying it was unnecessary given that the prosecution had nothing he had to prove.
And then the hearing was over. Once again the proceedings met my expectations in only one way: They were as unpredictable as expected.
We – myself and a few other representatives of non-governmental organizations – paraded out to the blazing hot sun, where we were allowed a few minutes interaction with the press. (Our military handler told us the day before that it was his job to "keep us away from the media." He seemed to be taking a temporary respite from this particular responsibility.)
We were escorted to outskirts of the media center where the journalists were housed, but were not allowed in. Mosquitoes buzzing and biting, the sun blazing, we held court in a small grassy area near the press center until neither we nor the press could stand the stifling heat. Once we were escorted away, the real press conference began. We learned the details later.
The defense counsel told the press that on Tuesday, just two days before the hearing, the prosecution informed the defense about a "potentially exculpatory witness." The details are either classified or sufficiently sensitive, and could not be disclosed.
The prosecution claimed that they had just learned of his existence – and informed the defense within hours. But according to defense counsel, at least some part of the government has known about this evidence since the day of Khadr's arrest, in July 2002.
Why hadn't it been disclosed?
And why was the prosecution pushing for an evidentiary hearing on Khadr's status – knowing that the defense had not yet had a chance to review the potentially exculpatory evidence?
Once again, it seems that the government is more interested in securing a conviction than anything else. The questions of whether or not Khadr can lawfully be tried by the commissions or is actually guilty of the crimes for which he has been accused seem secondary.
Too bad for them that their track record has been so poor. After nearly six years, the government has been able to secure just one conviction, and that was for Australian David Hicks, a former kangaroo skinner who pleaded guilty and is now serving the last weeks of his nine-month sentence in Australia.
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
Somalia: Mogadishu Clashes Devastating Civilians
Protect Medical Facilities and Aid Workers
By Human Rights Watch
(New York, November 9, 2007)
Ethiopian troops and insurgents have violated the laws of war in killing and wounding dozens of civilians in new clashes in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, Human Rights Watch said today.
"All the warring parties are responsible for ensuring that civilians are not targeted and that they do not impede access to medical treatment and other relief."
Peter Takirambudde, Africa director at Human Rights Watch
Tens of thousands of civilians remain trapped in the city, many of them wounded and unable to access medical care and other services due to continuing fighting.
“All the warring parties are responsible for ensuring that civilians are not targeted and that they do not impede access to medical treatment and other relief,” said Peter Takirambudde, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The international community should condemn these attacks and hold combatants accountable for violations of humanitarian law – including mutilating captured combatants and executing detainees.”
In the early hours of November 8, Ethiopian troops and convoys were ambushed by insurgents near the Livestock Market in the Huriwa district of northern Mogadishu. At least one soldier was killed. Crowds dragged his body through the streets to the Hodan neighborhood, southwest of the city.
At 4 p.m., large contingents of Ethiopian troops left their base at the former Ministry of Defense to recover the body, according to Human Rights Watch. The Ethiopian troops then clashed with insurgent groups, and at least 20 civilians were killed as fighting broke out in various parts of the city.
In the evening, an artillery shell reportedly fired by an Ethiopian tank hit Mogadishu’s largest market, Bakara, killing six people.
The next morning, residents of the Livestock Market found the bodies of a dozen civilians. According to Somali journalists, some of the victims had been rounded up by Ethiopian troops the previous day.
Within 24 hours, 30 wounded people turned up at a single Mogadishu hospital, including a 3-year-old boy and a 90-year-old man, both with shrapnel injuries. Doctors claim most of the wounded were non-combatants, and half were children and women. Because of the ongoing clashes and the closure of many roads, the doctors predicted that some victims would not reach the hospital until November 10.
“Fighters on all sides must also respect that hospitals, medical staff, and humanitarian convoys enjoy special protection under humanitarian law,” said Takirambudde.
Tens of thousands of civilians continue to flee Mogadishu, especially the Huriwa, Hamar Jadid, and Gubta neighborhoods, which have been pounded with heavy weaponry.
International humanitarian aid agencies trying to reach people in need have encountered obstacles, some reportedly created by officials of Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG), who have even been accused of threatening aid workers. The World Food Program, which distributes food to 75,000 people in Mogadishu, temporarily suspended operations following the detention of its director by TFG officials on October 17.
“The TFG also has a responsibility to ensure that aid agencies are able to carry out operations without threats or obstruction, particularly at this critical time,” said Takirambudde.
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
UN: Push Burma for Real Reform
Pinheiro Visit Chance to Spur Change
By Human Rights Watch
(New York, November 9, 2007
The United Nations Security Council should redouble efforts to prod Burma’s generals into starting a genuine political dialogue and ending human rights abuses, Human Rights Watch said today.
"The military government has engaged in public relations stunts like allowing Gambari to be photographed with Aung San Suu Kyi, but it has failed to make a single meaningful move on national reconciliation or human rights protections."
Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch
Burma’s military leaders have stonewalled visiting UN Special Envoy Ibrahim Gambari, making Security Council support for the upcoming visit of UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Burma, Paulo Pinhiero, all the more urgent. The ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) has yet to release political prisoners and protestors, end military rule, or even hold serious discussions with the political opposition.
“The military government has engaged in public relations stunts like allowing Gambari to be photographed with Aung San Suu Kyi, but it has failed to make a single meaningful move on national reconciliation or human rights protections,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government is clearly just trying to buy time in hopes that the world will turn its attention elsewhere. The UN must not accept this.”
Gambari, who concluded his visit yesterday, held meetings with government officials, but President Than Shwe refused to meet with him. According to Human Rights Watch sources, Gambari was not given any new information on the fate of hundreds of political detainees or detailed plans for the convening of a system of political dialogue.
Burma’s military government has shown contempt for the efforts of the United Nations to begin a process of serious political dialogue. On November 2, the day before Gambari’s visit, the SPDC expelled Charles Petrie, the UN Resident Coordinator in Burma, who had criticized the SPDC’s economic policies.
During his visit, Gambari met with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and helped to arrange a rare meeting today between Suu Kyi and four members of her political party, the National League for Democracy (NLD). However, this meeting was conducted in a government controlled guesthouse, which in all likelihood was bugged by Burmese intelligence services, inhibiting open discussion.
Human Rights Watch applauded the decision of Gambari to publicly release a letter written by Suu Kyi, in which she stated:
“I am committed to pursue the path of dialogue constructively and invite the Government and all relevant parties to join me in this spirit. I believe that stability, prosperity and democracy for my country, living at peace with itself and with full respect for human rights, offers the best prospect for my country to fully contribute to the development and stability of the region in close partnership with its neighbors and fellow ASEAN members, and to play a positive role as a respected member of the international community.”
Human Rights Watch called for the international community – in particular China, India, Russia, and Thailand – to offer its full political support for the impending visit of Paulo Pinheiro, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Burma. Pinheiro, who plans to visit on November 11, has been refused entry to the country since late 2003. Pinheiro left the country in March 2003 after discovering a listening device under the table he was using to interview a political prisoner in Rangoon’s notorious Insein Prison. He had been promised private and confidential access to his interviewees.
“The government must accord Pinheiro full and unfettered access to detention facilities and account for all those detained and missing since the protests,” said Adams. “Anything less should lead to Security Council censure.”
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
_____________________________________________________
Georgia: Riot Police Violently Disperse Peaceful Protesters
Government Shuts TV Stations, Then Declares Emergency Rule
By Human Rights Watch
(New York, November 8, 2007)
Riot police in the Georgian capital Tbilisi beat demonstrators and shot fleeing protestors with rubber bullets while trying to disperse anti-government demonstrations, Human Rights Watch said today. Riot police later raided the private television station, Imedi TV and forced it and the Kavkasia television station to stop broadcasting. The Georgian government then declared a state of emergency, claiming there had been a coup attempt, and banned news broadcasts for 15 days, except by the state-funded Georgian Public Television.
"Even in a time of crisis, Georgians have a right to protest peacefully without being beaten by the police. Firing rubber bullets at peaceful demonstrators is a complete abuse of the use of force. The government does not have a carte blanche to restrict fundamental freedoms just because it is in crisis."
Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch
“Even in a time of crisis, Georgians have a right to protest peacefully without being beaten by the police,” said Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Firing rubber bullets at peaceful demonstrators is a complete abuse of the use of force. The government does not have a carte blanche to restrict fundamental freedoms just because it is in crisis.”
The protest rally started on November 2, 2007, when tens of thousands of protestors, led by the 10-party opposition coalition, gathered outside the parliament on Tbilisi’s main street. The protest organizers had informed the government of their intention to gather at the parliament building, as required under Georgian law. Several thousand protestors continued to demonstrate peacefully for five days outside the parliament.
But in three separate incidents on November 7, riot police in Tbilisi violently dispersed peaceful protestors. At approximately 8 a.m., police evicted a small group that had camped on the steps of parliament, including more than a dozen people on a hunger strike, and arrested several opposition leaders. According to media reports, the police prevented journalists from filming the incident, and confiscated and destroyed several television cameras.
Police remained all morning and prevented demonstrators from blocking Rustaveli Avenue, the main thoroughfare in downtown Tbilisi. By midday, the crowd had grown to several thousand, and demonstrators managed to push the police into Rustaveli Avenue. Riot police attempted to push them back. At 1 p.m., the police warned they would disperse the crowd in order to open the street. They used water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets to do so.
Uniformed riot police and men in black uniforms and masks chased and beat protestors with rubber truncheons. They also used rubber bullets against the demonstrators. A Human Rights Watch representative witnessed how riot police chased and beat fleeing protestors as they ran into the yard of a nearby church and into nearby streets. The protestors offered no resistance and called on each other not to resist in order not to provoke harsher retaliation from the police.
Around 5 p.m., riot police again attacked opposition demonstrators who had gathered some kilometers away from the parliament. Several thousand protestors outraged by the day’s events had gathered in an area known as Rike, outside the city center. Riot police, without warning, attacked using tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons. The police chased protestors and shot some in the back with rubber bullets as they tried to flee. Television reports also showed some protestors throwing stones at riot police as they fled. Police beat the leader of the People’s Party, Koba Davitashvili, who was hospitalized and is in critical condition.
The police also appear to have deliberately targeted journalists and independent observers. Two cameramen from Imedi TV were hospitalized, one with severe injuries, because of a beating by the police. Georgia’s ombudsman, Sozar Subari, was also beaten. Riot police attacked him with rubber truncheons as he was documenting the police actions. Subari said in a public statement that he believes he was deliberately targeted because as ombudsman he regularly criticizes the Georgian government for human rights abuses.
Two television stations, Imedi TV and Kavkasia, which were broadcasting extensive coverage of the demonstrations and the police response, were taken off air around 9 p.m. Imedi TV ceased broadcasting shortly after its anchor announced on live television that the riot police had entered the station. Imedi radio station also stopped broadcasting and Imedi’s website became inaccessible. A few minutes later, Kavkasia, which broadcasts only in the capital Tbilisi, also went off the air. Riot police then used tear gas to disperse a small crowd gathered in front of Imedi TV’s offices to protest its closure. Television reports showed dozens of police officers using truncheons to beat one of the protestors. Imedi TV belongs to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, but was founded and co-owned by Badri Patarkatsishvili, a wealthy financier and critic of the government who openly financed the opposition in Georgia.
Later in the evening, the government declared the state of emergency and suspended a number of legal rights.
“Beating journalists or shutting down television stations for reporting on the events can’t be justified by subsequently declaring a state of emergency,” said Cartner.
The exact number of injured is unknown, but the Health Ministry reported that 508 people had sought emergency assistance and some 118 of them remained hospitalized.
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
Russia: Drug Addiction Treatment Requires Reform
Injection Drug Users, Deprived of Best Remedies, Left to Own Devices
By Human Rights Watch
(Moscow, November 8, 2007) – Russian health policies are failing to adequately treat drug addiction, compounding the country’s serious illicit drug use and drug dependence problem and further putting drug users at increased risk for other serious diseases, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Russia’s healthcare system restricts access to evidence-based drug dependence treatment for injection drug users, in violation of the government’s international obligations.
"Russia urgently needs to incorporate international best practices for drug treatment into its treatment system. Drug users, their families, and Russian society pay a hefty price for the failure to do so."
Diederik Lohman, Senior Researcher, HIV/AIDS Program, Human Rights Watch
In the 110-page study, titled "Rehabilitation Required: Russia’s Human Rights Obligation to Provide Evidence-based Drug Dependence Treatment," Human Rights Watch found that the treatment offered at state drug treatment clinics in Russia was so poor as to constitute a violation of the right to health. The report concluded that drug dependent people in Russia who want to overcome their dependence are left virtually to their own devices in their battle with this serious and chronic disease.
"The lack of effective drug addiction treatment in Russia means that drug users who want to break their addiction cannot, and are condemned to a life of continued drug use," said Diederik Lohman, senior researcher in Human Rights Watch’s HIV/AIDS and Human Rights Program. "This leaves them vulnerable to HIV infection, other drug-related health conditions, and death by overdose."
Russia faces a serious illicit drug use and drug dependence problem. Several million people in Russia are believed to be drug users, and hundreds of thousands of them are dependent on drugs. HIV has spread rapidly among injection drug users in Russia since the early 1990s; more than 10 percent of injection drug users are believed to be living with HIV.
Human Rights Watch’s report analyzes Russia’s dependence drug treatment system from the point of view of international best practices in addiction treatment and the international right to health. The report identifies, among others, the following problems:
• Russian law explicitly prohibits the use of the most effective and best researched drug dependence treatment approach for opiate dependence, methadone or buprenorphine maintenance treatment. Although UN agencies strongly endorse the use of these medications, which are successfully used in treating drug dependent people in dozens of countries, top Russian health and law enforcement officials oppose them.
• While detoxification treatment, which is aimed at safely withdrawing the patient from physical dependence on drugs, is available throughout Russia, rehabilitation treatment, which helps patients prevent relapses by helping them develop control over urges to use drugs, is available at state clinics in only about one-third of Russia’s regions. Research has clearly established that detoxification treatment on its own is not effective treatment. Russian law clearly stipulates that rehabilitation treatment should be available to drug users but the Russian government has failed to adopt a clear plan to set up rehabilitation centers throughout the country.
• Various barriers discourage drug users from seeking drug treatment in Russia. The most important barrier examined in the report is a state policy under which drug-dependent persons who voluntarily seek treatment are put on a drug-user registry. This registry is used to restrict drug users in their rights and is perceived as stigmatizing by most drug users. Research on drug-dependence treatment has found that treatment services should be easily accessible to ensure that the largest possible number of people seeks help.
• Russia has made little effort to incorporate lessons learned into its drug-dependence treatment services. The report examines how Russian treatment practices ignore much of the evidence yielded from decades of international research into drug-dependence treatment. The report found, for example, that Russia has failed to offer appropriate psychosocial counseling during detoxification treatment, even though research has found a direct link between the availability of such counseling and treatment success. Instead, patients in detoxification treatment are heavily sedated, making counseling efforts difficult or even pointless.
Due to these and other problems, the effectiveness of drug-treatment services offered at state clinics in Russia today is so low as to be negligible. Most patients remain in treatment for just a few weeks – despite the fact that research on drug-dependence treatment shows that, for most patients, treatment benefits start only after three months – and more than 90 percent return to using illicit drugs within a year of entering into treatment.
"Russia urgently needs to incorporate international best practices for drug treatment into its treatment system," said Lohman. "Drug users, their families, and Russian society pay a hefty price for the failure to do so."
Research in other countries has shown that evidence-based treatment of drug users leads to considerable savings on drug-use-related law enforcement efforts, incarcerations of drug users, and healthcare costs due to HIV, hepatitis C, and other drug-related health conditions.
Russian policymakers and the public often blame drug users for their failure to overcome their drug dependence. Some are currently advocating laws and policies that would allow the Russian state to force drug users into treatment.
"The vast majority of people who are dependent on drugs in Russia want to overcome their addiction," said Lohman. "The Russian government must develop treatment programs that help them become free of addiction, not simply cast them aside."
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
Italy: Expulsion Decree Targets Romanians
Parliament Should Improve Safeguards and Allow for In-Country Appeals
By Human Rights Watch
(Milan, November 8, 2007)
The Italian government’s targeting of Romanians, and particularly those of Roma origin, for expulsion violates Italy’s international human rights obligations, Human Rights Watch said today.
"The Italian authorities should not punish a community for the alleged crimes of one member. Parliament should move quickly to ensure in-country appeals against these rapid expulsions"
Judith Sunderland
EU researcher at Human Rights Watch
On October 31, the Italian government adopted an emergency decree for the immediate expulsion of citizens of other European Union countries. The decree followed a brutal crime allegedly committed by a Roma man from Romania (an EU member since January). The temporary decree, which came into force on November 2, needs parliamentary confirmation within 60 days.
“Romanians are the real target of this expulsion decree, not EU nationals in general,”said Judith Sunderland, EU researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The Italian authorities should not punish a community for the alleged crimes of one member. Parliament should move quickly to ensure in-country appeals against these rapid expulsions.”
The move comes amid a wave of police action and public violence in Italy targeting Romanians, particularly those of Roma origin. In the days following the October 30 robbery and murder of an Italian woman, Giovanna Reggiani, in Rome, authorities forcibly evacuated and bulldozed the Roma camp where the alleged murderer, a Romanian Roma man, was living. Police have conducted similar raids on Roma camps in Bologna, Florence and Genoa.
On November 2, a group of hooded men armed with metal bars and knives attacked a crowd of Romanians in the parking lot of a supermarket in Rome. Three men remain in hospital as a result of their injuries. On the night of November 4, a bomb exploded outside a Romanian-owned store in a town just outside Rome, causing property damage. Last weekend, a Romanian football player was subjected to racist taunts during a match.
Interior Minister Giuliano Amato has justified the emergency decree as an attempt to “prevent the terrible tiger of xenophobia, the racist beast, from breaking out of the cage.” Four Roma men were expelled to Romania on November 2, the day the decree entered into effect. Since then, prefects in Rome, Turin, Genoa and Milan have issued expulsion orders for at least 24 other Romanians.
“If the government is serious about curbing xenophobia, it needs to lead by example,” said Sunderland. “Police raids and expulsions send the message that discriminating against Roma and Romanians is OK.”
The Italian government’s temporary decree gives local prefects the authority to expel EU citizens considered a threat to public order, even in the absence of a criminal investigation. The order must be approved by a local justice of the peace within 48 hours.
Although the decree covers citizens of any EU member state, the political debate and official action has focused exclusively on Romanians, and in particular Roma from that country. Romanians are now largest immigrant group in Italy, estimated at around 560,000 people, or 1 percent of the general population. An estimated 50,000 of these are Roma.
The decree allows for expulsions for “imperative reasons of public safety,” which are vaguely defined as “behavior that compromises the protection of human dignity or fundamental human rights or of public safety.” These expulsions can be enforced virtually immediately, and there is no right to an in-country appeal. Those expelled can be denied the right to return to Italy for up to three years, and prohibited re-entry is punishable by up to three years in prison.
Romanian Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu has said he plans to introduce legislation to deny Romanians expelled from other countries the right to travel outside the country for a period of time.
Discrimination against Roma is not a new phenomenon in Italy. A group of Roma families from Bosnia sued Italy in the European Court of Human Rights after they were evacuated from their camp outside Rome and expelled to Sarajevo in March 2000. The Italian government agreed to a friendly settlement in 2004, allowing the families to return to Italy and paying financial compensation. Collective expulsion is prohibited under the European Convention on Human Rights, and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.
Italy has also been criticized for the lack of safeguards in national security expulsion cases. The previous government adopted an emergency decree in July 2005 creating a fast-track expulsion procedure for terrorism suspects that explicitly denies a national security suspect the right to remain in Italy while an appeal is pending. Last May, the UN Committee Against Torture expressed concern about “the immediate enforcement of these expulsion orders, without any judicial review,” and stated that the procedure “lacks effective protection” against returns to risk of torture.
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
Pakistan: Release Judges, Lawyers and Activists From Arbitrary Detention
Opposition Activists at Risk of Torture
By Human Rights Watch
(New York, November 8, 2007)
The Pakistan government should immediately release thousands of lawyers and opposition activists detained across the country in a crackdown after military ruler General Pervez Musharraf suspended the constitution and imposed a state of emergency on November 3, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch has received credible reports from government officials requesting anonymity that bar association officials and lawyers have been mistreated in detention.
"While Musharraf is charging lawyers fighting for the rule of law as ‘terrorists,’ armed militants are increasing their stranglehold over northwestern Pakistan."
Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch
Since November 3, the police have violently suppressed peaceful protests by lawyers across Pakistan. Protests have taken place in the federal capital, Islamabad, the four provincial capital cities of Lahore, Peshawar, Karachi and Quetta, and in the city of Multan in southern Punjab. In each city, police have beaten protestors with batons and used tear gas to disperse them.
Most of those detained are being held without charge. Hundreds of lawyers are being held under terrorism charges without any factual basis. Treason charges also have been instituted against some. Almost two-thirds of Pakistan’s senior judges remain under house arrest.
“While Musharraf is charging lawyers fighting for the rule of law as ‘terrorists,’ armed militants are increasing their stranglehold over northwestern Pakistan,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “By destabilizing the country with his naked power grab, Musharraf has alienated moderates and played into the hands of extremists. There can be no meaningful counterterrorism efforts until Musharraf restores constitutional rule and restores the judiciary.”
Human Rights Watch expressed particular concern about the fate of the lawyers leading the movement for judicial independence that began on March 9, 2007, when Musharraf first tried to oust Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry. This group includes: Aitzaz Ahsan, president of the Supreme Court Bar Association; Ahsan’s predecessor Munir Malik; retired Justice Tariq Mehmood; and, Ali Ahmed Kurd, a lawyer from Balochistan who has “disappeared” since he was allegedly picked up by security forces on November 3. While Ahsan is being held in solitary confinement in Rawalpindi Jail, the families and lawyers of the other three have not heard from nor been given access to them since they were detained.
Human Rights Watch has received credible reports that the Pakistani military’s feared Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) agency and Military Intelligence (MI) agency are jointly detaining and interrogating them. Both agencies have a well-documented history of “disappearances” and using torture against political opponents. Families throughout the country have not had access to the detained lawyers except in exceptional cases.
“Musharraf has defied domestic opinion and the international community by rounding up many of Pakistan’s finest lawyers and subjecting them to solitary confinement and, very possibly, torture because they protested his ugly power grab,” said Adams. “The past conduct of the security services leaves the world with no choice but to assume the worst about the fate of those being held incommunicado.”
Asma Jahangir, a prominent lawyer, chairperson of the nongovernmental Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) and a United Nations Special Rapporteur, remains under house arrest in Lahore. Police raided and sealed HRCP offices in the southwestern city of Quetta on November 7.
Deposed Supreme Court Chief Justice Chaudhry has been held incommunicado since he addressed a gathering of lawyers via telephone on November 6. Chaudhry told the gathering that “the Constitution has been ripped to shreds” and urged lawyers to struggle “for the supremacy of the Constitution.” The government jammed mobile telephone signals midway through the address. His family members have also been restricted to his residence. All members of the Supreme Court who refused to accept the legality of the state of emergency remain under house arrest.
Human Rights Watch called for the judges to be released immediately and restored to their posts.
“The past year has seen a revolution in Pakistan as the judiciary fought successfully for its independence and held the government to account,” said Adams. “Musharraf used Orwellian language when he said the state of emergency was to preserve the ‘democratic transition.’ What he really did was to end reform in a stroke of the pen.”
Human Rights Watch also called for the release of hundreds of detained activists from the opposition Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) and the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami parties rounded up in a bid to prevent protests and anti-government political mobilization. Scores of lawyers affiliated with the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) have also been arrested because of their association with the lawyers’ movement to restore the constitution. Outside parliament in Islamabad on November 7, police tear-gassed and baton-charged dozens of PPP supporters at the PPP’s first protest demonstration since the declaration of emergency rule.
Journalists attempting to cover the crackdown on the political opposition continue to be threatened, and all private and international television channels remain off the air.
Human Rights Watch reiterated its call for Pakistan to immediately return to constitutional rule, restore fundamental rights and remove restrictions on the media. Human Rights Watch called for the United States and the United Kingdom, Musharraf’s principal patrons, to impose comprehensive sanctions on all military and economic aid, with the exception of humanitarian aid.
“The world is waiting to hear a clear statement from President Bush that, as in Burma recently, he will use all means at his disposal to reverse repression,” said Adams. “The Bush administration must understand that the more Musharraf represses those peacefully opposed to him, the more he isolates himself and increases the unpopularity of the United States among Pakistanis.”
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
Georgia: Police Beat Peaceful Protesters for Second Day
Domestic and Foreign Broadcasting Silenced by State of Emergency
By Human Rights Watch
(New York, November 8, 2007)
For the second day, riot police used violence to disperse peaceful protests, this time using force against a small group of students in the Black Sea town of Batumi in western Georgia, Human Rights Watch said today. Riot police again filled the streets of the capital, Tbilisi, during the first day of a 15-day state of emergency declared on November 7, 2007 by President Mikhail Saakashvili in response to earlier anti-government demonstrations and an alleged coup attempt.
"This government came to power on a wave of nonviolent protest, so it should understand the importance of letting people express their opinions. Beating protestors and imposing a virtual media blackout goes against the principles Saakashvili’s government was founded on."
Holly Cartner, Executive Director
Europe and Central Asia Division Human Rights Watch
At approximately 9:30 a.m. on November 8, a few hundred students gathered at Batumi State University to protest the police violence against peaceful demonstrators in Tbilisi the previous day. Eyewitnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that police attacked the group without warning, chasing and beating protesters trying to flee.
“This government came to power on a wave of nonviolent protest, so it should understand the importance of letting people express their opinions,” said Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Beating protestors and imposing a virtual media blackout goes against the principles Saakashvili’s government was founded on.”
Georgia’s residents, who rely on television as their main news source, have little information about what is happening in the country. The government shut down two private Georgian television stations prior to the state of emergency declaration yesterday. The local cable company suspended BBC, CNN and other international news broadcasts today. The presidential decree on the state of emergency prohibits television and radio stations from broadcasting, with the exception of the state-funded Georgian Public Broadcaster. Although the restrictions on media do not apply to newspapers or the internet, most newspapers have a small circulation and only 7 percent of the country has access to the internet. In Tbilisi, all newspapers were sold out by midday today.
A Human Rights Watch representative interviewed several students, a professor and a journalist who witnessed the police dispersal of the demonstration in Batumi on November 8. About 30 to 50 masked riot police descended on the group of students and then chased and beat students who tried to flee. The police issued no warning prior to attacking the crowd. One witness described how five police beat one student, who accidentally fell on the stairs after running into the university building. Riot police chased other students into classrooms. Some students broke ground-floor windows in attempts to flee. The police also used tear gas to disperse the students. Georgia’s Public Broadcaster reported that seven students were injured and hospitalized, but were soon treated and released.
Under the president’s state of emergency decree, public assembly has been banned throughout the country. However, contradictory statements by senior government officials late last night appear to have left the students unaware that the ban applied to all of Georgia, rather than just Tbilisi. At 10 p.m. on November 7, Prime Minister Zurab Nogaideli announced that the state of emergency would be restricted only to Tbilisi. But at 1 a.m. on November 8 the economy minister, Giorgi Arveladze, announced that the state of emergency was imposed throughout the country. Participants in the Batumi protest told Human Rights Watch that, had they known the ban on protests was country-wide, they would not have participated in the demonstration.
“In an emergency, the Georgian government can restrict some rights, but it can’t send the police in to beat up peaceful protesters,” said Cartner. “The government should investigate all reports of police beatings and prosecute those found to have used excessive force on demonstrators.”
At 7 p.m. today, President Saakashvili announced snap presidential elections for January 5, 2008 and a referendum on the timing of parliamentary elections, apparently in an attempt to diffuse the crisis. The 15-day state of emergency remains in force and will be presented to parliament tomorrow for approval.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Georgia is a party, states that governments have the right to declare a state of emergency during “a public emergency which threatens the life of the nation.” Not every disturbance or catastrophe qualifies as a public emergency which threatens the life of the nation, and governments must clearly justify the decision to proclaim a state of emergency. Under a state of emergency, governments may only limit rights and freedoms to the extent strictly required by the situation. Governments must at all times guarantee the right to life, the prohibition against torture and ill-treatment, the right to liberty and security of person, the right to a fair trial, and freedom of thought, conscience and religion, among other rights. The European Convention on Human Rights also provides similar protections.
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
US: Guantanamo Judge Allows Military Commissions to Proceed in Khadr Case
By Human Rights Watch
(Guantanamo Bay, November 8, 2007)
A military judge today allowed the controversial military commissions at Guantanamo Bay to go forward without hearing evidence as to whether or not Omar Khadr, a 21-year-old Canadian who has been in US custody for more than five years, met the definition of an “unlawful enemy combatant” as required by the Military Commissions Act of 2006, Human Rights Watch said today.
"The military commission’s obvious misreading of the Hamdan decision calls into question its understanding of the fundamental legal principles at stake. It’s shocking that the judge has misconstrued the most important Supreme Court decision about the very system he’s presiding over."
Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch
The judge, Colonel Peter Brownback, said he was moving forward on the presumption that Khadr met the definition, but left open the possibility that the defense could challenge the commission’s jurisdiction at a later date.
During the hearing, Khadr’s defense counsel challenged Brownback’s impartiality and questioned whether or not he was fit to preside over the case.
Responding to questioning from the defense, Brownback said that he did not think that the Supreme Court had declared the military commissions system illegal in its June 2006 decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. In Hamdan, the Supreme Court held that because the Uniform Code of Military Justice provision on military commissions had not been complied with, “the rules specified for Hamdan’s trial are illegal.”
“The military commission’s obvious misreading of the Hamdan decision calls into question its understanding of the fundamental legal principles at stake,” said Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch. “It’s shocking that the judge has misconstrued the most important Supreme Court decision about the very system he’s presiding over.”
Judge Brownback also indicated both in today’s answers and in prior orders that he will not consider challenges to the military commissions based on constitutional or international law.
When asked what law he would rely on in presiding over the commission he said he would only consider the Military Commissions Act and associated Department of Defense rules and orders.
“The key question going forward is the legitimacy of the system,” Daskal said. “Yet the judge’s comments suggest that he will prevent the defense from raising essential constitutional and international law issues.”
The court set dates for the defense to file motions, but has not decided when the next military commission hearing will be.
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
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Colombia: New Killings of Labor Leaders
Anti-Union Violence Prevents Free Exercise of Labor Rights
By Human Rights Watch
(Washington, DC, November 7, 2007)
The killings last week of two labor leaders in Colombia underscore the need for the government to prosecute anti-union violence, Human Rights Watch said today.
'Colombia has a long and ugly history of killing trade unionists, and a dismal record when it comes to bringing their killers to justice. To make the country safe for unions, the authorities must ensure these cases are vigorously investigated and prosecuted. '
José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch
Jairo Giraldo, of the national fruit-workers union, and Leonidas Silva Castro, of a teachers union, were murdered in separate incidents. The killers have not been caught and their motives are unknown.
“Colombia has a long and ugly history of killing trade unionists, and a dismal record when it comes to bringing their killers to justice,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “To make the country safe for unions, the authorities must ensure these cases are vigorously investigated and prosecuted.”
Twenty-six trade unionists, including five union leaders, have been killed in Colombia this year, according to Colombia’s largest labor federation, the Unitary Headquarters for Workers (Central Unitaria de Trabajadores). The National Labor School (Escuela Nacional Sindical), a prominent labor rights group in Colombia, has recorded more than 2,500 killings of trade unionists since 1986. Approximately 98 percent of these killings have never been solved.
Human Rights Watch noted that the killings are often attributed to paramilitary death squads, whose leaders have acknowledged targeting trade unionists. Left-wing guerrillas and the military have also been known to kill trade unionists. Some killings are probably due to common crime.
Giraldo, one of the two killed last week, was a leader of Sinaltraifrut, a union of fruit workers who work on farms that are reported to have been seized from their owners pursuant to drug-trafficking investigations. He broke with a broader union federation to support a free trade agreement between Colombia and the United States. Colombian Vice-President Francisco Santos has attributed his killing to extreme left-wing groups who disliked his views.
Castro, the other recent victim, was the president of the Villacaro Municipality branch of the Teachers Union of Norte de Santander. He was killed at home on November 2, 2007 after attending a union-related event.
“Murders like these have a chilling effect on union members in Colombia,” said Vivanco. “Workers in Colombia should be able to push for their rights and assert their views without fearing for their lives.”
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
Egypt: Police Officers Get Three Years for Beating, Raping Detainee
Convictions Are Positive Step, but Widespread Abuse Requires Systemic Reforms
(Cairo, November 07, 2007)
By Human Rights Watch
A Cairo court’s November 5 conviction of two police officers for beating and raping a bus driver is a welcome step toward addressing the frequent abuse of detainees in Egyptian custody, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch called on the Egyptian government to follow up the verdict by taking steps to eradicate torture in all its detention facilities.
"The conviction of two police officers for committing torture is a major achievement. But given the widespread problem of torture in Egypt, more systematic steps are needed."
Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch
The Giza Criminal Court sentenced police captain Islam Nabih and non-commissioned officer Reda Fathi to three years in prison – the most lenient possible sentences for the alleged crimes – on charges that they illegally detained, beat, and raped `Imad al-Kabir while he was in police custody.
“The conviction of two police officers for committing torture is a major achievement,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “But given the widespread problem of torture in Egypt, more systematic steps are needed.”
Al-Kabir told Human Rights Watch that Nabih and Fathi detained him on January 18, 2006, after he intervened in an altercation between them and his cousin. He said that the officers took him to Bulaq al-Dakrur police station, where they beat him, tied him by his wrists and ankles, and raped him with a stick. One officer made a video of the torture with his mobile phone. The video shows al-Kabir screaming and begging for mercy while being raped. The verdict marks the conclusion of a 10-month trial, which Human Rights Watch attended. Nabih and Fathi are in custody, but may appeal the verdict.
Human Rights Watch urged President Hosni Mubarak to call publicly upon the prosecutor-general’s office to investigate all complaints of torture and abuse of detainees with the same vigor and honesty as the prosecutors did in the `Imad al-Kabir case.
Human Rights Watch further called on the Egyptian government to amend laws that currently permit prolonged, incommunicado detention, and to respond positively to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture’s repeated requests for an invitation to visit Egypt.
On September 4, a Cairo court acquitted State Security Investigations (SSI) officer Ashraf Mustafa Hussain Safwat on charges that he tortured to death Muhammad `Abd al-Qadir, who died in SSI custody in 2003. An autopsy performed soon after `Abd al-Qadir’s death showed bruises as well as burns on his mouth, nipples, and penis. A forensic doctor said he had sustained these injuries shortly before his death. Safwat was the first SSI officer to be investigated for alleged torture since 1986, despite numerous credible complaints of torture at the hands of the SSI; no SSI officer has ever been convicted of torture.
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
Syria: Leftist Leader Faces Life in Prison for Phone Call
Authorities Should Release Faeq al-Mir at Once
By Human Rights Watch
(New York, November 7, 2007) – The Syrian government should immediately free Faeq al-Mir, a leader of the leftist People’s Democratic Party, and dismiss the politically motivated charges against him, Human Rights Watch said today.
"Syria’s arrest and prosecution of Faeq al-Mir reveals the government’s intolerance for even the slightest hint of opposition. Al-Mir faces the possibility of life in prison or even execution for phoning a Lebanese opponent of Syria’s policies there."
Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch
On Thursday, the First Damascus Criminal Court is expected to issue its verdict in the criminal case against al-Mir. Al-Mir is on trial for contacting Elias Atallah, the head of the Democratic Left party in Lebanon and a leader of Lebanon’s March 14 Coalition, which is known for its opposition to Syrian policies in Lebanon.
“Syria’s arrest and prosecution of Faeq al-Mir reveals the government’s intolerance for even the slightest hint of opposition,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Al-Mir faces the possibility of life in prison or even execution for phoning a Lebanese opponent of Syria’s policies there.”
Al-Mir has been in detention since December 13, 2006, when state security officers arrested him at his home in the coastal city of Latakia. Al-Mir’s arrest followed his phone call to Atallah to express condolences for the November 21, 2006 assassination of Pierre Gemayel, who was Lebanon’s minister of industry at the time. Syrian security services taped the phone call.
Last March, judicial authorities charged al-Mir with “undertaking acts that weaken national sentiment” during times of conflict and “communicating with a foreign country to incite it to initiate aggression against Syria or to provide it with the means to do so.” The last charge carries a potential life sentence with hard labor, and could lead to the death penalty if the foreign country initiated aggression.
Al-Mir’s indictment states that he “contacted enemies of the state in Lebanon including members of the March 14 group, and he knows that the ideas and direction of this group are in accordance with the American and Zionist direction which are against the national approach of the Syrian government.” The indictment accused al-Mir of expressing “support for the approach and direction of March 14” during the phone call.
Syria has a long record of prosecuting political activists for peacefully expressing their opinions. Al-Mir spent 10 years in jail for his political activism until his release in 1999.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a core human rights treaty to which Syria is a state party, guarantees that everyone shall have “the right to hold opinions without interference” and “the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers.”
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
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Turkmenistan: Welfare Improvements but Denial of Civic Freedoms
EU Should focus on Rights during president’s visit to Brussels
By Human Rights Watch
(Brussels, November 2, 2007) – The EU should urge Turkmenistan’s president, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, to reinstate fundamental civil and political rights, Human Rights Watch said in a briefing paper released today. Berdymukhamedov will meet with EU leaders in Brussels on November 5-7. Their agenda is expected to include improving natural gas supplies from Turkmenistan to the EU.
"The EU should look at the new Turkmen government’s record not only by comparing it to Niazov’s tyrannical rule but by setting a higher bar for progress. To do otherwise is to lose a crucial opportunity for change at a time when the government of Turkmenistan is defining its future path."
Holly Cartner, Executive Director, Europe and Central Asia Division Human Rights Watch.
Since last year’s death of Saparmurat Niazov, who ruled Turkmenistan for 21 years and created one of the world’s worst tyrannies, the EU and other international actors have sought to reengage with Turkmenistan.
In the new briefing paper, Human Rights Watch said that while Berdymukhamedov has begun to reverse some of the most ruinous social policies of Niazov’s rule and to end the country’s international isolation, the government remains one of the most repressive and authoritarian in the world.
“The EU should look at the new Turkmen government’s record not only by comparing it to Niazov’s tyrannical rule but by setting a higher bar for progress,” said Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “To do otherwise is to lose a crucial opportunity for change at a time when the government of Turkmenistan is defining its future path.”
Since coming to power, President Berdymukhamedov has reinstated pensions and social allowances, reinstated the 10th year of secondary education, restored the five-year course of university-level education, and held discussions with foreign governments on extensive and important educational exchanges, particularly in higher education.
“The Turkmen government’s social reforms cannot but be an improvement over the disastrous polices of the Niazov era,” said Cartner. “But Turkmenistan’s continued repression of civil society allows no independent institutions to scrutinize developments in these areas. Moreover, we don’t see any commitment to reform in civil and political rights.”
The Human Rights Watch briefing paper calls for the immediate release of Mukhametkuli Aymuradov, Annakurban Amanklychev, and Sapardurdy Khajiev, who were convicted on politically motivated charges during the Niazov era. Human Rights Watch said that hundreds of people, perhaps more, languish in Turkmen prisons after unfair trials on possibly politically motivated charges, and called for the government to establish a nationwide process to ensure a remedy for victims of injustice during the Niazov era and through the present.
The paper also describes the draconian restrictions on freedom of expression and association that remain in place in Turkmenistan. Independent nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that deal with human rights cannot function properly due to government threats and harassment. While some individuals have been permitted to travel abroad, the system of foreign travel restrictions inherited from the Niazov era remains in place.
“Denial of freedom of expression, association, religion, and movement were egregious and longstanding aspects of Niazov’s tyranny, and we’re just not seeing improvements in most of these areas,” said Cartner. “The EU should stick to its own criteria for engagement and insist on progress before it deepens its relationship with Turkmenistan on specific reforms.”
Background
The European Union has not ratified a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) with Turkmenistan. The ratification process was stalled in the late 1990s due to Niazov’s disastrous human rights record.
In October 2006, two months before Niazov’s death, the International Trade Committee of the European Parliament voted to stop further consideration of an interim trade agreement with Turkmenistan until its government significantly improved its human rights record.
The committee resolution stated that the European Union will approve an interim trade agreement with Turkmenistan only if “clear, tangible, and sustained progress on the human rights situation is achieved.” It called on the Turkmen government to release all political prisoners, allow the registration and free functioning of nongovernmental organizations, permit the International Committee of the Red Cross to work freely in the country, and to grant United Nations human rights monitors “timely” access to Turkmenistan to monitor the situation.
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
Burma: Fully Cooperate with UN Envoy
China, Russia and India Should Support Efforts of Gambari
By Human Rights Watch
(New York, November 2, 2007) – The United Nations special envoy on Burma should demand that the military government commit to the creation of a structured mechanism for negotiations with opposition parties and civil society on a quick transition to civilian rule, Human Rights Watch said today. On Saturday, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Burma, Ibrahim Gambari, begins his second visit to Burma since the violent crackdown on peaceful demonstrations in September and October.
Superficial dialogue without a clear purpose or structure will simply lead to more empty photo opportunities of opposition leaders like Aung San Suu Kyi with powerless government officials.
Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch
“Superficial dialogue without a clear purpose or structure will simply lead to more empty photo opportunities of opposition leaders like Aung San Suu Kyi with powerless government officials,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “It’s important that this visit gets to the heart of the matter – the need to end continued draconian military rule and systematic human rights abuses.”
When he briefed the UN Security Council on October 5, Gambari stated that he had encouraged the Burmese government to pursue “the promotion of an all-inclusive national reconciliation process.” The government’s long-running National Convention to write a new constitution ended in early September with an engineered outcome after 14 years of tightly controlled meetings with no public participation. The deteriorating socio-economic conditions and the lack of genuine dialogue in Burma were the main factors that led monks and others to take to the streets.
Human Rights Watch also urged Gambari to obtain public guarantees from the government of complete cooperation with the November visit of the UN Special Rapporteur on Burma. This should include full and unfettered access to political prisoners and detainees, and to all official and unofficial places of detention, as well as protection for individuals who meet the Special Rapporteur.
“Full cooperation with the United Nations on investigations into the recent crackdown should be a litmus test for the usefulness of continued engagement with the Burmese government,” said Adams.
Since Gambari’s last visit to Burma four weeks ago, the ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) has continued to arrest individuals accused of being involved in the protests – or even just standing in public watching the demonstrations. Information from throughout the country indicates widespread fear among the populace. While UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Gambari have called for the release of all political prisoners, to date, few prominent political activists have been released.
The SPDC appointed deputy labor minister Aung Kyi to serve as the government’s liaison with democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, although there has been no high-level meeting since that appointment. Far from demonstrating an interest in national reconciliation, Burmese state propaganda and mass rallies of supposed civilian supporters have accused the demonstrators of being supported by outside agitators and the international media of distorting the real situation in Burma.
The government’s brutality is well-documented. A Human Rights Watch report released this week showed how the SPDC continues to forcibly recruit children as young as 10 years old into its ranks as adults desert. (http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/10/31/burma17178.htm)
Human Rights Watch called for the government to make commitments to Special Envoy Gambari to:
Immediately release all persons detained for exercising their rights to free expression, association and assembly, including during the recent unrest;
Promptly begin a genuine process of dialogue with all political parties, representatives of Burma’s many ethnic groups, social and political activists, the Buddhist clergy, and other civil society groups, on political, social and economic conditions in Burma;
Cease military attacks targeting ethnic minority populations throughout the country; and,
End unnecessary or excessive restrictions on the operations of international humanitarian aid agencies, including UN agencies and international relief organizations.
The Security Council, with the consent of China and Russia, has already called on Burma to take similar steps.
“The Burmese government has done nothing to reverse the crackdown of the past two months,” said Adams. “The Chinese, Indian and Russian governments, which are key supporters of the military, should publicly back Gambari in efforts to make real progress on human rights.”
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
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UK: Put Genocide Suspects on Trial in Britain
UK Prosecution Preferable to Extradition
By Human Rights Watch
(London, November 1, 2007) – The United Kingdom should prosecute four Rwandans accused of participating in genocide instead of sending them to Rwanda for trial, said Human Rights Watch today. An extradition hearing for the four, who are being sought by the Rwandan government, begins on November 5.
"Since the Rwandan government is ready to agree to suspects being prosecuted in Belgium, it would presumably have no objection to having others tried in the UK. Prosecution in the UK would be a first step in assuring that these serious crimes do not meet with impunity."
Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch’s International Justice Program
“The Rwandan judicial system has implemented important reforms such as abolishing the death penalty last July,” said Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch’s International Justice Program. “But there is still not sufficient assurance that courts are independent. In several sensitive trials we’ve seen political interference resulting in verdicts that don’t fit the evidence.”
Human Rights Watch was one of the first organizations to denounce the genocide and call for international action to stop it. Since the end of the genocide, Human Rights Watch has provided expert testimony in trials of 37 persons accused of genocide and war crimes at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and in courts in Belgium, Switzerland and Canada.
Human Rights Watch is concerned that the transferred persons may not be able to present witnesses in their defense, one of the basic pillars of a fair trial. “We have documented cases where officials have intimidated and even detained witnesses in order to influence their testimony,” said Dicker.
Under UK law, extradition requests must be refused if it would breach the rights of the accused as accorded by the European Convention on Human Rights. The right to a fair trial is guaranteed under Article 6 of the convention.
“Rwandan laws generally guarantee the right to fair trials,” said Dicker. “But our observations of several trials and our discussions with Rwandan judges, prosecutors and lawyers lead us to conclude that there is often a serious gap between the law and the reality.”
Rwandan officials regularly denounce the continued existence of “genocidal ideology,” a vaguely defined crime for which hundreds of persons have been tried, and some convicted and sentenced to prison terms. Fear of being labeled a supporter of “genocidal ideology” discourages potential witnesses from agreeing to testify for persons accused of genocide.
Human Rights Watch is also concerned by the increasingly prevalent practice of trying a person twice for the same crime. Rwandan judicial authorities admit that dozens of persons who have been tried for crimes in conventional courts are once again facing charges for the same crime in courts specializing in genocide prosecutions, known as gacaca jurisdictions. The International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, to which Rwanda is a party, forbids this practice, commonly known as double jeopardy.
The UK could prosecute the Rwandans for war crimes since its domestic courts have universal jurisdiction for grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions. Where appropriate, the accused could also be prosecuted in the UK for torture, since courts exercise universal jurisdiction for breaches of the UN Convention Against Torture. Prosecution for genocide would not be possible under UK law because the law applies only to genocide committed after the law came into force, in June 2001, and is limited to people resident in the UK at the time when the crime was committed.
These limits weaken UK capacity to deliver justice for genocide. “The law should be amended to reflect the importance of prosecuting this most heinous of crimes no matter where or when it was perpetrated,” said Dicker.
In the meantime, the UK should support extending the mandate of the ICTR, which is due to finish trials at the end of 2008. Cases of genocide should then be referred to the ICTR.
Belgium is currently considering a Rwandan request to extradite Emmanuel Bagambiki, who was acquitted of genocide charges by the ICTR. After his acquittal, Bagambiki was tried and convicted in absentia in Rwanda on charges of rape as a form of genocide. Bagambiki was not indicted for rape at the tribunal. Rwanda has asked Belgium to extradite the man or to prosecute him in Belgium.
“Since the Rwandan government is ready to agree to suspects being prosecuted in Belgium, it would presumably have no objection to having others tried in the UK,” said Dicker. “Prosecution in the UK would be a first step in assuring that these serious crimes do not meet with impunity.”
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
UK: Law Lords Curb Use of Secret Evidence
Ruling Limits Government Power to Make “Control Orders”
By Human Rights Watch
(London, November 1, 2007) – A decision by Britain’s highest court on the use of secret evidence against terrorism suspects sets an important precedent, Human Rights Watch said today.
"The Law Lords have affirmed the basic principle that everyone has the right to know the case against him"
Benjamin Ward associate director for Europe and Central Asia
“The message is clear: secret evidence isn’t enough,” said Benjamin Ward, associate director for Europe and Central Asia at Human Rights Watch. “The Law Lords have affirmed the basic principle that everyone has the right to know the case against him.”
In four judgments on October 31, the House of Lords Judicial Committee (commonly known as the “Law Lords”) ruled that control orders based solely on secret evidence violate the right to a fair hearing, even when national security is at stake. Lord Brown wrote, “a suspect’s entitlement to an essentially fair hearing ... [is] one of altogether too great importance to be sacrificed on the altar of terrorism control.”
The court affirmed that orders confining suspects to their homes for 18 hours a day breached the right to liberty. But they upheld the lawfulness of the power to make such orders ruling that shorter time periods can be acceptable, and rejected arguments that the restrictions under by the orders amount to a criminal punishment.
“The judgments allow serious restrictions on rights to continue,” said Ward. “But they also make clear that procedural safeguards cannot be set aside in the name of national security.”
The power to restrict the liberty of people suspected of involvement in terrorism without preparing for criminal prosecution was introduced in March 2005 after a December 2004 Law Lords ruling that the indefinite detention of foreign terrorism suspects breached human rights law. Under the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005, the home secretary can impose control orders on individuals based on secret evidence that person is suspected of involvement in terrorism, where there is no reasonable prospect for successful criminal prosecution. The orders can be appealed, but the suspects and their lawyers are excluded from court when secret evidence is considered. Their interests are instead represented by security-cleared lawyers (“special advocates”) appointed on their behalf.
In the linked cases of MB and AF, the Law Lords determined that the use of secret evidence deprived the two men of a fair hearing, reversing an August 2006 Court of Appeal ruling, and ordered their cases to be reviewed by a high court judge. In JJ and others, the judges upheld a separate August 2006 Court of Appeal ruling that control orders imposing 18-hour curfews constituted unlawful deprivation of liberty in violation of article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In E and another, the Law Lords upheld a May 2007 Court of Appeal ruling that a 12-hour curfew and other restrictions on movements did not amount to deprivation of liberty, and affirmed that the duty of the secretary of state to consider and keep under review the prospects for prosecution were not pre-conditions for making a control order.
Human Rights Watch first expressed concerns about the inadequate procedural safeguards in the Control Order system during the passage of the Prevention of Terrorism Act in 2005.
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
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Sudan: Cease Darfur Camp Evictions
Forced Relocations by Khartoum Violate International Law
By Human Rights Watch
(New York, October 31, 2007) – The government of Sudan’s recent forced relocation of civilians in South Darfur is a serious violation of international law and could be the prelude to new attempts to dismantle certain civilian camps, Human Rights Watch warned today. Sudan’s government should cease the relocation operation, immediately confirm the whereabouts and well-being of those who have been moved, and allow the African Union Mission in Sudan, the United Nations Mission in Sudan, and humanitarian agencies access to all displaced persons, whether they reside in camps or other locations in Darfur.
"The Sudanese government has repeatedly tried to dismantle Kalma camp and relocate its residents by force to unsafe areas, without any security guarantees or humanitarian aid."
Peter Takirambudde, Africa director at Human Rights Watch
Between October 25 and 30, Sudanese police and military forces entered at least two locations near Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, and forced hundreds of civilians, mainly women and children, into trucks at gunpoint. At least 400 families were moved from the two sites, all of them new arrivals who had fled Kalma camp following violence the previous week.
“The Sudanese government has repeatedly tried to dismantle Kalma camp and relocate its residents by force to unsafe areas, without any security guarantees or humanitarian aid,” said Peter Takirambudde, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “International policymakers should vigorously condemn this incident and make clear to Khartoum that any relocation must be underpinned by international law and fundamental human rights guarantees.”
On October 25, Sudanese armed forces and armed police moved at least 300 families from the village of Mayok, between Kalma camp and Nyala town. On the evening of October 27, they entered Otash camp, on the outskirts of Nyala town, and forced 400 people from the camp into trucks. At least 36 people reportedly were arrested and an unknown number of others were injured during the operation. On October 28, the UN and humanitarian staff tried to visit Otash, but were refused access by Sudanese security forces. The police were reported to be clearing the shelters and possessions that the displaced people had left behind.
In June 2007, Sudanese officials proposed six resettlement locations for displaced persons from Kalma, but they were rejected by the population as not secure due to the presence of militia or military. In recent weeks, authorities again pressed people to move, before the latest round of violence in Kalma on October 18-20 left at least three civilians dead, and forced these families to flee. A number of families had reconfirmed in recent days that they did not wish to move to the proposed sites.
“While there are clearly problems with security in Kalma camp, many people feel safer there than in rural areas where they are extremely vulnerable to ongoing attacks and have no access to humanitarian assistance,” said Takirambudde. “Rather than trying to dismantle the camps and forcibly relocate people, the government should cooperate with the African Union and UN to improve security in the camps.”
The recent events are the latest in a long history of Sudanese government attempts to close Kalma camp, home to at least 90,000 people and one of the largest camps for displaced persons in Darfur. Most of the displaced people in the camps were victims of government and “Janjaweed” militia attacks, and have no confidence in Sudanese government efforts to provide security. Many of the displaced people see the relocation efforts as an attempt to exert further control over their movements and cut off their access to Nyala town and to international aid workers.
In November 2004, there was international outcry when the government made its first attempt to forcibly relocate residents of Kalma to camps in Nyala town. Throughout 2005 the authorities maintained pressure on both the displaced people and on the humanitarian community to relocate people to an alternative site, Al-Salam. When the population refused in May 2005, the government imposed a ban on commercial activity in Kalma (including prohibiting the market and supplies of goods from Nyala town) to be lifted only if the humanitarian community began relocating people to Al-Salam. For much of 2007, the government has been again pressing displaced people to relocate from Kalma.
International humanitarian law prohibits the displacement of the civilian population, unless it is strictly for the purpose of civilian security or for reasons of military imperative. Despite government claims, it is not clear that either reason was applicable to the displacement of the population in Kalma. Governments may also seek to relocate a displaced population for the protection of public health, but again, despite government claims, there were no apparent compelling public health reasons for the relocation.
The manner in which the government carried out the forced relocations also breached their obligations to the civilian population under international law. Under international standards, any relocation of displaced persons should be voluntary, and carried out in full consultation with the displaced. Displacement must not be carried out in a manner that violates the rights to life, dignity, liberty and security of those affected, and they must not be forcibly resettled in any place where their life, safety, liberty, and/or health would be at risk. International humanitarian organizations should be given rapid and unimpeded access to internally displaced persons to assist in their resettlement.
Despite the fact that UN Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes made a public statement confirming events, Sudan’s UN envoy, Abdelmahmood Abdelhaleem Mohamed, told reporters that the UN’s accounts of the events in Otash were “irrelevant, unfortunate and unconfirmed.”
“Sudanese officials must end their policy of denying the reality on the ground in Darfur and start trying to rebuild the confidence of their citizens,” said Takirambudde. “The first step would be to acknowledge their own responsibility for serious crimes and take serious steps to end abuses, including by cooperating with, not obstructing, the African Union and UN.”
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
US: Senate Should Reject Mukasey Nomination
Refusal to Denounce Waterboarding Shows Him Unfit for Attorney General
By Human Rights Watch
(Washington, DC, October 31, 2007) – The United States Senate should reject Michael Mukasey’s appointment as attorney general because of his unwillingness to state that “waterboarding” and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment is illegal, Human Rights Watch said today.
"Mukasey seems to think he was nominated to be an ethics professor rather than the nation’s chief law enforcement officer. If he is still unsure whether the horrific practice of waterboarding is illegal, then he shouldn’t be confirmed."
Kenneth Roth, executive director at Human Rights Watch
In response to written questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mukasey said on Tuesday that waterboarding – mock drowning prosecuted by the United States as torture since 1902 – was “repugnant,” but refused to call it illegal.
“Mukasey seems to think he was nominated to be an ethics professor rather than the nation’s chief law enforcement officer,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director at Human Rights Watch. “If he is still unsure whether the horrific practice of waterboarding is illegal, then he shouldn’t be confirmed.”
In his 172-page response to Senate Judiciary committee questions, Mukasey refused to comment on the legality of any specific interrogation techniques, claiming that it would be inappropriate to comment on them until he had been briefed by the Justice Department on “the actual facts and circumstances” of how they may have been used. But waterboarding is clearly unlawful regardless of the circumstances, Human Rights Watch said.
“If Mukasey had been asked about the rack and thumbscrew, would he have said that it depends on the circumstances?” Roth asked. “The only reason to equivocate on waterboarding is to protect administration officials who authorized it from possible prosecution," Roth added.
Human Rights Watch pointed out that waterboarding has been prosecuted by US military courts as torture for more than 100 years, since the Spanish-American War. After World War II, US military commissions prosecuted and severely punished enemy soldiers for having subjected American prisoners to waterboarding. In its annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, the State Department has consistently condemned other countries for using the practice.
The Judge Advocates General (JAGs) of the US Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines agreed in August 2006 that waterboarding, which creates the perception of drowning, violates US law and the law of war. Several JAGs specifically stated that use of this technique would violate the US anti-torture statute, making it a felony offense.
In addition, rather than rejecting certain interrogation techniques regardless of the circumstances, Mukasey adopted the administration’s subjective “shocks the conscience” test to interpret the prohibition on cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. Under that legal test, the cruelty of an interrogation technique must be balanced against its purpose, and in the administration’s view, little shocks the conscience if done in the name of fighting terrorism. That thinking led to the adoption of abusive interrogation techniques – including waterboarding – in the first place.
Of particular concern, Mukasey suggested that the rules of interrogation adopted in 2006 by the US Army Field Manual are primarily designed for the interrogation of prisoners of war, not terrorist suspects. But the Army Field Manual, which applies to all persons in military custody regardless of status, was adopted at a time when most of those in US military custody were terrorist suspects who had been denied prisoner of war status. The Army Field Manual explicitly prohibits a range of abusive interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, exposure to hot and cold, and use of dogs.
Mukasey’s answers were vague or unresponsive on a number of other important questions. He failed to state clearly what – if any – interrogation techniques would violate a minimum standard of humane treatment regardless of the interest at stake. He refused to say whether evidence obtained through coercion could legitimately be used in a prosecution against a terrorist suspect, and whether an American citizen detained on US soil could be indefinitely detained as an “enemy combatant.” Mukasey also failed to answer what, if anything, he would do to oversee the actions of private contractors operating in Iraq and Afghanistan and whether he thought it legal to send terrorist suspects to countries that regularly engage in torture if the US were provided “diplomatic assurances” – unenforceable promises of humane treatment.
“How can the government be expected to abide by the rule of law if its chief law enforcement officer won’t even say what the law is?” said Roth. “Mukasey provided evasions, not answers, to the most pressing issues facing the Justice Department. He should not be confirmed as attorney general.”
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
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Azerbaijan: Outspoken Editor Sentenced to Eight Years and Six Months
Unrelenting Crackdown on Media in Azerbaijan Intensifies
By Human Rights Watch
(New York, October 30, 2007) – The eight-and-a-half-year prison sentence handed down to Eynulla Fatullayev, editor of Azerbaijan’s two largest independent newspapers, for terrorism and other charges, reflects the growing government hostility toward freedom of expression and the press, Human Rights Watch said today.
"Fatullayev’s prosecution was politically motivated, and his conviction should be quashed immediately and he should be released. The steady rise of politically motivated criminal charges, as well as violent attacks against journalists, is obviously aimed at silencing critical voices in Azerbaijan."
Holly Cartner, Executive Director, Europe and Central Asia Division Human Rights Watch
On October 30, Azerbaijan’s Grave Crimes Court convicted Fatullayev, the outspoken editor-in-chief of the independent Realni Azerbaijan and Gundelik Azerbaijan newspapers, for terrorism, inciting ethnic hatred, and tax evasion. The conviction is a culmination of a concerted effort by the Azerbaijani authorities to silence Fatuallyev and his newspapers.
“Fatullayev’s prosecution was politically motivated, and his conviction should be quashed immediately and he should be released,” said Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The steady rise of politically motivated criminal charges, as well as violent attacks against journalists, is obviously aimed at silencing critical voices in Azerbaijan.”
The terrorism and inciting ethnic hatred charges derive from an article Fatullayev wrote in Realni Azerbaijan, in which he argued that the government’s support of the United States’ position on Iran makes Azerbaijan vulnerable to attack from Iran, and he speculated on likely targets of such an attack.
“Fatullayev’s conviction on terrorism charges is absurd,” said Cartner. “Similar articles routinely appear in US and British papers, saying that the pursuit of the war in Iraq is increasing the likelihood of terrorist attacks on Britain or the United States. That is legitimate political commentary, not the fomenting of terrorism.”
Fatullayev’s conviction comes six months after the Yasamal District Court in Baku sentenced him to two-and-a-half years for having committed “criminal libel” and “insult” with an internet posting, which he denied writing. Shortly after this conviction Realni Azerbaijan and Gundelik Azerbaijan, the two largest circulation print outlets in the country, were effectively shut down after Emergency Ministry and National Security Ministry personnel evicted the staff from the papers’ premises, confiscated their computer hard drives, and sealed the office shut. Such actions flout Azerbaijan’s obligations as a party to the European Convention on Human Rights, and its commitments to respect fundamental freedoms and the rule of law.
Fatullayev is the eighth journalist in Azerbaijan imprisoned for defamation and other criminal charges. Human Rights Watch has also documented numerous cases of violence and threats of violence against opposition and independent journalists in the country.
Background
Eynulla Fatullayev is known for his frequent criticism of Azeri officials and for exposing instances of government corruption. Pressure on Fatullayev to stop his journalism had been building for over a year. Fatullayev was forced to suspend publication of his newspapers on October 1, after his father was kidnapped. The kidnappers threatened to kill both Fatullayev and his father if he continued publishing the newspapers. The editor had to stop publication of the paper in exchange for his father’s release. Fatullayev renewed publishing only two months later, but acknowledged that he did so at his own peril, since the kidnappers remained at large.
In March 2007, after publishing an article accusing the Azeri authorities of obstructing the investigation into the murder of Monitor editor Elmar Huseinov, Fatullayev reported death threats against him and his family. The Azeri authorities refused to investigate these claims or offer to protect Fatullayev.
In February, soon after a statement attributed to Fatullayev about the Khojali massacre began to circulate on the internet, protestors organized several rallies in front of the Realni Azerbaijan office and threw eggs and stones at the office windows. Police did nothing to stop the protestors.
In recent months, high-ranking state officials have initiated criminal defamation charges against Fatullayev. In September 2006, Fatullayev was handed a two-year suspended sentence and forced to pay damages in a criminal libel case brought by Interior Minister Ramil Usubov. Usubov has brought similar charges against numerous other independent journalists and newspapers.
The conviction of Fatullayev comes amid the Azerbaijani government’s growing hostility toward independent and opposition media, which raises serious concerns about the future of independent media and the security of journalists in the country. Violence and the threat of violence against journalists have become frequent in Azerbaijan, and often such crimes are committed with impunity. A dramatic increase in defamation charges brought against journalists by state officials has further contributed to the deteriorating environment for freedom of expression.
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
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Darfur peace talks likely to adjourn By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU, Associated Press Writer
By The Associated Press
October 28, 2007
SIRTE, Libya - Crippled by the absence of Darfur rebel leaders, U.N.-brokered peace talks ground to a halt on Sunday, with officials saying there could be no key steps until the fighters decided how to negotiate with the Sudanese government.
The U.N. and African Union joint mediation team refused to say the conference was being adjourned, insisting instead that preliminary low-level talks were part of meeting's first phase before full-fledged negotiations could begin.
"Only after that period ... of approximately three weeks, will we go into substantial negotiations," Jan Eliasson, the United Nations' chief mediator for the peace conference, told The Associated Press.
No major Darfur rebel chiefs were present in the Libyan coastal town of Sirte for the opening of the talks on Saturday, dashing hopes that a quick peace agreement could be reached to end more than four years of fighting with the Sudanese government.
Though mediators cautioned that the Libyan talks were not ending because rebel leaders were absent, Liu Guijin, the special envoy from China _which has considerable leverage on Sudan's government_ said the peace conference would likely be suspended within a few days to allow for more constructive peace talks later.
"The adjournment is not a sign of failure. It's a preparation of other steps," Liu told the AP.
Eliasson said more chiefs were expected to arrive in Sirte to prepare for the negotiations. He said preparations could last as long as three weeks. Other rebel leaders want to hold their own preparatory meetings in Darfur.
"I don't think we should dramatize whether these preparations take place here or somewhere else," Eliasson said in Sirte, stating the U.N. and AU would however "prefer to have them here."
U.N. mediation spokesman, Ahmed Fawzi, insisted that despite the talks' slow start, officials were prepared for a three-phrase conference.
Only during the conference's third phase will the Sudanese government and rebels hold "negotiations on substantive issues," Fawzi said. The U.N. and AU, along with the rebels who attended, hope the boycotting rebel leaders will reconsider and join the key talks in the intervening time.
Sudan's government negotiator warned that Khartoum would have no patience for absent rebel leaders. Nafie Ali Nafie insisted the handful of low-level rebels attending "really represent the movements on the ground in Darfur." He agreed that the conference should be adjourned but only to give "those who came here" more time to agree.
"To adjourn negotiations for those who didn't come is a wrong signal," Nafie told reporters.
The rebels' main leaders who have boycotted the talks say the groups now present in Sirte are government stooges with no fighters in Darfur and geared at weakening their position.
As the first working session of talks opened Sunday, a rebel delegate read a message from the few rebel groups present. "We need additional time, we need more time ... to prepare the negotiations," said Tajadine Bechir Niam, a delegate from a splinter faction of the Justice and Equality Movement rebels. He called on the boycotting rebel leaders to join so that a lasting peace could be achieved.
Ahmed Diraige, another rebel delegate, said "it would be normal and logical to postpone until everybody is here." He, too, said key rebel chiefs could still be coming to the talks.
Sudan's government delegation announced a unilateral cease-fire on Saturday, and Niam said Sunday the rebels present were "willing to look into a cessation of hostilities in consultation with our missing brethren." But Diraige said the government has breached numerous cease-fires in the past and asked for U.N. and AU guarantees it would stick to its word this time.
More than 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been chased from their homes in Darfur since ethnic African rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated central government in 2003, accusing it of decades of discrimination.'
Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press
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Sudan govt declares truce at Darfur talks By Lamine Ghanmi
Posted: October 27, 2007
By Reuters
SIRTE, Libya (Reuters) - Sudan's government declared an immediate unilateral ceasefire as Darfur peace talks opened on Saturday, but one rebel leader voiced doubts about Khartoum's move, saying it had failed to honor past such undertakings.
"We announce a ceasefire from this moment, and we will respect it unilaterally," Sudanese presidential adviser Nafie Ali Nafie told the gathering in the Libyan town of Sirte aimed at ending 4-1/2 years of violence in the western region.
Rebel leader Ahmed Ibrahim Diraige of the Sudan Federal Democratic Alliance told Reuters: "The government has already said several times since 2004 that they observed a ceasefire. They again spoke like this today. We have our doubts."
Mediators acknowledged the meeting was weakened by the absence of key rebel leaders, a reality that cast doubt on whether anything decided at the gathering could produce meaningful results.
On the eve of the African Union-United Nations-mediated talks, two main rebel groups -- the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Army Unity faction -- said they would not attend.
That decision emerged after another rebel chief, Abdel Wahed Mohamed el-Nur, founder of a third group, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), said he would not attend the talks. JEM-SLA Unity represent the biggest military threat to the Sudanese government and Nur has the most popular support among Darfuris.
In a message from New York, U.N. Secretary General Ban ki-Moon called on those rebels who were absent to attend, saying they stood to lose much if they continued to stay away.
"As a demonstration of your genuine commitment to ending the suffering of the people of Darfur and to finding a lasting peace, I urge all parties to commit to an immediate cessation of hostilities here and now," he said.
African Union (AU) envoy Salim Ahmed Salim told the gathering: "Enough is enough. Let us not forget that what happened in Darfur will sooner or later impact the rest of Sudan, the rest of the region and the rest of Africa. Sudan is a microcosm of Africa."
"SERIOUS SETBACK"
The talks are the first attempt to gather Darfur rebels and the government around a negotiating table since 2006 when the African Union mediated Darfur peace talks in Abuja, Nigeria.
Signed by only one rebel faction, the resulting deal had little support among the 2 million Darfuris trapped in displacement camps.
Rather than bring peace, it triggered fresh violence, as rebels split into more than a dozen factions, some preying on civilians, aid workers and AU troops sent to the region to quell the violence but unable to protect themselves.
International experts say 200,000 people have died since rebels rose up against the government in 2003, charging it with neglect. The Sudanese government says the Western media exaggerates the crisis and only 9,000 people have died.
Analysts have warned that without full rebel representation the Libya talks would go the way of the Abuja deal.
Rebel leaders in Libya said those who stayed away were the founders of groups that had split and were now angry at seeing their former deputies taking part in the talks as their equals.
Talks host Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said the conflict in Darfur was a war between tribes and there were limits to the usefulness of foreigners. "Intervention by outsiders will only fan the flames of conflict," he said.
Khartoum agreed in July to allow a hybrid force of 26,000 U.N.-AU troops to deploy in Sudan to replace and absorb some 7,000 AU peacekeepers in western Sudan.
That deployment is expected to begin by year-end but, without a deal, some nations might be loath to commit troops.
(Additional reporting by Opheera McDoom in el-Fasher)
Copyright © 2007 Reuters Limited.
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Sex Trafficking: New parliamentary report welcomed
By Amnesty international
Posted: 18 October 2007
Protecting victims must be 'put at the heart' of stamping out sex trade, says Amnesty
Amnesty International has today called for the protection of the victims of sex trafficking to be 'put at the heart' of measures to clamp down on the crime.
The call came in a response to a new report on trafficking published this morning by the parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights. The report, published to coincide with the European Union's action day against human trafficking, has called on the government to set a timetable for the ratification of the Council of Europe convention against trafficking and to ensure that all victims of sex trafficking are properly protected.
Trafficking is acknowledged as a serious problem in the UK. In 2003 the Home Office estimated that at least 4,000 women and girls are trafficked into the UK each year and then forced into prostitution.
Amnesty International's Gender Policy Adviser Kerry Smith said:
'We strongly support the committee's view that the rights of the victims of this appalling trade in human beings should put at the heart of measures to stamp it out.
'While Amnesty has supported recent policing and awareness-raising measures, we remain concerned that the welfare of the men, women and children who are the victims is still not being made the priority it needs to be.
'Appropriate safe houses, counselling and after-care services are simply not there. We urgently need to turn this around'.
In particular, Amnesty International is concerned at a severe lack of funding for adequate care for trafficking victims. There are currently only 35 permanent beds available for victims of trafficking, and then only for adult women who have been victims of sexual exploitation. Though extra funds were released as part of the recent launch of police operation 'Pentameter 2', this is still insufficient.
Earlier this year the government signed the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, which provides a series of minimum standards on the protection and support of people trafficked into the country. However, it has yet to ratify this treaty, meaning that adequate identification and referral mechanisms, and the provision of appropriate support and accommodation for victims, are currently not in place.
Copyright © Amnesty international, UK 2005.
Burma: New video and audio accounts of brutal repression
By Amnesty international
Posted: 18 October 2007
Amnesty International has today released new first-hand accounts of the recent crackdown on peaceful protestors in Burma
We have seen police asking money from families of detainees if they want their family members to be released. Young people who are on their way to offices and schools are not only stopped and checked but also robbed.'
- Testimony from prominent activist Mie Mie recorded shortly before her arrest on 13 October.
Amnesty International today released new video and audio testimony of ongoing night raids, arbitrary arrests and appalling detention conditions in Burma as well as audio statements from two prominent activists shortly before their arrest last weekend.
The release of audio statements from inside Burma and filmed interviews with a number of Burmese people forced to flee to Thailand in the last few days comes after last weekend's detention of six people including prominent activists Htay Kywe, Mie Mie and Aung Thu, all members of the 1988 Generation Students group.
"These accounts of homes being raided at night, family members seized as hostages and people herded into overcrowded and unsanitary detention centres flies in the face of the authorities' persistent claims that normality has returned to Burma. Last weekend's arrests also contradict the authorities' assertions that no political prisoners are being held," said Catherine Baber, Head of Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific Programme.
The latest testimonies, gathered on film and by phone by a team of Amnesty International researchers on the Thai-Burma border, also includes eye-witness accounts of the indiscriminate beating of demonstrators and on-lookers, including children and monks during last month's protests.
"Some of the injured were so bloody that you couldn't tell where blood was coming from. Some of the monks lost the top part of their robes. I saw civilians trying to help an injured monk. Most of their injuries were head injuries. The riot police were aiming for the head," said a 31 year-old monk who witnessed a violent confrontation between protesters and police at Shwedagon pagoda on 26 September.
The video footage, shot in the Thai border town of Mae Sod, also features first-hand testimony from a former detainee of the torture he previously suffered at the hands of the Burma security forces including beatings, prolonged suspension by the hands and use of electro-shock.
"They put a hood over my head and kept me in a kneeling position. If I fell down then one of the five guards would kick me. They interrogated me as a group. They kicked me in the back and in the chest and they hit me on my head. And they used an electric wire to whip me," said Nay Tin Myint, who fled from Burma after 15 years of detention and torture.
Since the crackdown there have been an increasing number of reports of deaths in custody as well as beatings, ill-treatment, lack of food, water or medical treatment in overcrowded unsanitary detention facilities across the country.
"The world needs to know now what is happening in Burma's detention centres. If the authorities have nothing to hide, why are they still refusing to grant even the International Committee of the Red Cross full and unfettered access to all those detained?" said Catherine Baber.
Visits by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have been suspended since January 2006 after the ICRC refused to accede to conditions that they be accompanied by members of government affiliated agencies.
"The current arbitrary arrests, secret detention and widespread reports of ill-treatment and torture make a mockery of promises made by the Burma authorities to cooperate with the United Nations, when the Security Council last week called for early release of all political prisoners. The international community must act with greater urgency to increase the pressure on Burma's authorities to immediately halt arrests of peaceful protesters, open up detention centres to independent observers and release all prisoners of conscience," said Catherine Baber.
"On behalf of the Burmese citizens, we need the sympathy of the international people and the international community and we are still doing as much as we can in here to fight for the freedom and justice in Burma. So I call for the international community to help as much as you can to stop the atrocities in Burma," said Htay Kywe, speaking shortly before his arrest on 13 October.
Copyright © Amnesty international, UK 2005.
China: Reform of abusive detention law vital to Beijing Olympics human rights commitments
By Amnesty international
Posted: 18 October 2007
'Re-education Through Labour' - detention without charge, trial or judicial review for up to four years - should be abolished, said Amnesty International today in an open letter to the Chinese National People's Congress.
Beijing police have used China's hosting of the Olympic Games as a pretext to extend abusive detention practices such as 'Re-education Through Labour' (RTL) and 'Enforced Drug Rehabilitation', in the name of 'cleaning up' the city in the lead-up to the 2008 Olympic Games.
Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen said:
'Locking people up without charge or trial in the name of 're-education' may 'clean up' Beijing's streets ahead of the Olympics, but it will also dirty China's reputation.
'Chinese officials have publicly committed to improving human rights in the run-up to Beijing 2008. If they are serious about this promise, they have a real opportunity to improve human rights by abolishing 're-education through labour'.
'We all want a positive Olympics, with a positive legacy for China and its people. There is still time to make this a reality.'
Hundreds of thousands of people are believed to be held in RTL facilities, many in harsh conditions. RTL is used against people considered by the Chinese police to have committed offences not serious enough to be punished under the Criminal Law. These include petty criminals, critics of the government and followers of banned beliefs.
According to official Chinese media, the Standing Committee of China's legislature, the National People's Congress is due to discuss a new law, the 'Illegal Behaviour Correction Law', to replace RTL this month. The reform of RTL, and the discussion on the new law, has been stalled for more than two years.
The proposed reform of RTL has been on China's legislative agenda for more than two years. Amnesty International has long raised concerns about the use of RTL, and urges the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress in the lead-up to the Olympics to ensure that any legislation adopted to replace RTL complies fully with international human rights standards, including the right to fair trial.
Copyright © Amnesty international, UK 2005.
Iran: Urgent appeal for a young man facing execution for playground death when aged 16
By Amnesty international
Posted: 18 October 2007
Amnesty International today launched an urgent appeal for Ali Mahin Torabi, convicted of a murder committed when he was 16 years old and now at risk of imminent execution. Now aged 21, he is being held in Reja'i Shahr prison in Karaj, near Tehran and his death sentence could be carried out at any time.
Amnesty is asking people to go to www.amnesty.org.uk/deathpenalty to send an urgent message to the Iranian authorities, urging them to stop the execution.
Iran is the only country in the world that still executes child offenders - people convicted of crimes committed before they were 18. Over 70 child offenders are currently facing execution in Iran. Amnesty International is urging the Iranian authorities to implement a moratorium on all executions of child offenders as a first step towards a complete ban on such executions.
Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen said:
'These appeals can work - pressure from within Iran and from people around the world has stopped executions in the past. If enough people join us and contact the Iranian authorities, we may be able to save Ali's life.
'Executing someone is cruel and inhumane, whatever the circumstances. But the execution of child offenders is particularly sickening.
"The Iranian authorities must step into line with the rest of the world and end this shameful practice.'
On 3 February 2003, Ali Mahin Torabi was detained in connection with a playground fight at the Bani Hashemi High School. He was 16 years old at the time. Ali reportedly stabbed a schoolmate named Mazdak Khodadian, who died from loss of blood. Ali Mahin Torabi has repeatedly stated that he only realised his schoolmate had been stabbed after he heard shouting from the crowds that had gathered during the schoolyard disturbance and that his blow was not intentional.
The lawyer for Ali Mahin Torabi has repeatedly drawn attention to the lack of clarity and doubts surrounding the events leading to the death of Mazdak Khodadian, noting for example that the coroner reported that the blow did not enter the victim in a direct manner and that it was not consistent with an intentional blow.
According to reports, Mazdak Khodadian's mother demanded payment of 'diyeh' (blood money) in order to pardon Ali Mahin Torabi. However her husband is refusing this and is demanding that the execution be carried out. Without agreement between all the blood relatives of the victim, Ali Mahin Torabi remains at risk of execution.
Copyright © Amnesty international, UK 2005.
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Iran: Amnesty demands immediate medical treatment for detained union leader facing loss of sight
By Amnesty international
Posted: 17 October 2007
Amnesty International today urged the Iranian authorities to provide immediate medical treatment for jailed trade union leader Mansour Ossanlu, who has been told he will go blind unless action is taken immediately.
Ossanlu sustained the injuries to his eyes after a confrontation with government security forces in May 2005. His condition has deteriorated in recent months, and this week he was told by doctors at Evin Prison in Tehran, where he is being held, that if he does not receive appropriate treatment within the next two few weeks he risks losing his sight.
The news was relayed to Amnesty International from Ossanlu's wife, Parvaneh, who met her husband on a visit to the prison on Monday.
The authorities have a history of delaying or denying medical treatment to prisoners of conscience. A high-level delegation from the International Trade Union Federation (ITF) had been due to meet Ossanlu last week. They were denied access to him, but were given assurances that it was because he had been transferred to a medical centre to receive treatment for his eyes - treatment the ITF later learnt he did not receive.
Shane Enright, Amnesty UK's Trade Union Campaigns manager, said: 'The Iranian authorities' assurances to Mansour Ossanly's wife and colleagues have been shown to be untrue such callous behaviour disregards the most basic level of humanity and respect for human dignity.
'It is deplorable that Iranian judicial and prison authorities have repeatedly used the delay or outright denial of medial care as a means to weaken political prisoners.
'Amnesty International, together with the global trade union movement, calls on the Iranian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release Ossanlu, and in the interim to meet their responsibilities for prisoners' well-being by providing appropriate medical treatment.'
Other Trade Union concerns in Iran
· According to the Iranian Teachers' Association, dozens of the hundreds of teachers arrested during peaceful demonstrations earlier in 2007 have been sentenced to dismissal or exile. At least two have received suspended prison sentences: Mohammad Reza Rezai-Gorkani and Rasul Badaqi received two-year and three-year suspended sentences respectively. Their lawyer, Hushang Purbabai, told ISNA on 9 October that both were convicted of acting against national security.
· A strike by workers at the Haft Tapeh Sugar Plant in Khuzestan Province, who had reportedly received no wages or benefits for over three months, was forcibly broken up by security forces on 3 October. The workers had staged a series of around 15 strikes over more than a year. In August, they had written an open letter to the International Labour Organisation, announcing their determination to continue strike action if their demands, which include the right to participate in the election of their own representatives, were not met. There are unconfirmed reports that at least two workers, Ramazan Alipour and Fereydoun Nikofar, were arrested after being summoned to an Intelligence Ministry facility.
· According to the Kurdistan Human Rights Organisation, five Kurdish workers' activists have reportedly been sentenced to three months imprisonment and 40 lashes for 'disturbing public security'. The sentences were suspended for 3 years, during which time they have reportedly been banned from meeting 'prominent' political and social figures. They had reportedly been detained for several days earlier in the year during a demonstration protesting at the arrest of another workers' rights activist, Mahmoud Salehi in April 2007, who also suffers ill health in prison in Sanandaj, Kurdistan, and is considered a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.
Copyright © Amnesty international, UK 2005.
Lebanon: New report demands end to discrimination against country's Palestininan refugees
By Amnesty international
Posted: 17 October 2007
150,000 in refugee camps, families of 10 share a single room, punishments for building a wall
Amnesty International is calling for an end to discrimination against Lebanon's 300,000 refugees today, as it releases a new report showing that Palestinian refugees in the country continue to suffer widespread discrimination over jobs, health, housing and education.
The 24-page report, 'Exiled and Suffering: Palestinian refugees in Lebanon', launched this morning at a press conference in Beirut, examines the wide range of restrictions that continue to affect hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees, 60 years after they or their parents or grandparents fled to Lebanon after the creation of the state of Israel and the Arab-Israeli war.
Amnesty International said:
"We urge the Lebanese government to take immediate measures to eliminate all forms of discrimination against Palestinian refugees in order to enable them to exercise their economic, social and cultural rights on the same basis as the rest of the population of Lebanon.
"Continuing restrictions which deny Palestinian refugees access to their rights to work, education and adequate housing and health are wholly unjustified and should be lifted without further procrastination or delay."
More than half of the 300,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon live in 12 official Palestinian refugee camps, even though land allocated for these camps has remained largely unchanged since 1948 despite significant population growth. In some households, families of 10 have to share a single room.
As the reports shows, thousands of Palestinians are denied the right to adequate housing: with unacceptable levels of habitability, restrictions on property ownership and, in camps in the south of Lebanon, unreasonable restrictions on the right to repair or improve their homes. Amnesty International has documented cases of Palestinian refugees being intimidated, fined and detained simply for seeking to build a brick wall to protect their home from the elements.
Palestinians continue to suffer discrimination and marginalisation in the labour market, contributing to high levels of unemployment, low wages and poor working conditions. While the Lebanese authorities recently lifted a ban on 50 of the 70 jobs restricted to them, Palestinians still face obstacles in actually finding employment. A lack of adequate employment prospects has led to a high drop-out rate for Palestinian schoolchildren, who also have limited access to public secondary education. Resultant poverty has been exacerbated by restrictions placed on Palestinians' access to social services.
Amnesty International said:
"We recognise that the Lebanese authorities and people have accommodated hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees for almost six decades and the significant cost - economically and in other ways - this has imposed on Lebanon.
'We recognise also that the responsibility for the suffering of Palestinian refugees extends beyond Lebanon and lies also with Israel and the international community, which has, for nearly 60 years, failed to find a durable solution for the plight of Palestinian refugees or to adequately protect their rights as refugees. However, the Lebanese government has the obligation to immediately end all forms of discrimination against Palestinian refugees and fully respect their human rights.'
Amnesty International is calling on the international community to make all necessary efforts to find a durable solution for Palestinian refugees that fully respects and protects their human rights, including their right of return, including providing financial and technical assistance to Lebanon to enable it to extend the highest possible level of human rights protection to its Palestinian refugee population.
Copyright © Amnesty international, UK 2005.
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Prisoners still missing, says Amnesty, as "Rendition" film to open in UK
By Amnesty international
Posted: 15 October 2007
'See the film, then take action' call
Ahead of the UK release of the new Hollywood film 'Rendition', Amnesty International has said that prisoners in the 'war on terror' are still missing and still being held in secret.
Meanwhile, far from ending the practice of 'rendition', the US government - which has authorised abduction and secret prisoner movement in hundreds of cases in the last six years - continues to defend the policy, even though it breaches human rights.
Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen said:
'Jake Gyllenhaal and Reese Witherspoon's film is extremely timely as prisoners are still missing after being subject to 'rendition' - basically another word for kidnapping and secret detention.
'Anyone who goes to see this powerful film and comes out of a cinema believing that kidnap and secret detention are wrong can do something about it - they can support our new 'Unsubscribe' campaign to stop human rights abuses in the 'war on terror'.'
Last week (9 October) Amnesty International launched the 'Unsubscribe' campaign, a new initiative to unite people in opposition to terrorism and opposition to human rights abuses committed in the 'war on terror'.
The Amnesty campaign is encouraging people to defend human rights, and within days of its launch more than 16,000 people had visited www.unsubscribe-me.org and 'unsubscribed'.
Further information: www.renditionmovie.com and www.unsubscribe-me.org
Copyright © Amnesty international, UK 2005.
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Sudan: New Clashes Jeopardize Civilians
By Human Rights Watch
Escalating Violence Highlights Need for Civilian Protection
(New York, October 10, 2007) – Civilians in Darfur are bearing the brunt of escalating fighting between the Government of Sudan and rebel factions, Human Rights Watch said today. The organization called on both the Government of Sudan and rebel factions to cease attacks on civilians and ensure they are protected.
This is not the first time we’ve seen the warring parties talking about peace while launching new attacks on civilians.
Peter Takirambudde, Africa director at Human Rights Watch
Thousands of civilians were displaced following recent attacks between October 4-8 on the towns of Haskanita and Muhajaria, weeks before the warring parties are scheduled to meet in Tripoli for a new round of peace talks.
"This is not the first time we’ve seen the warring parties talking about peace while launching new attacks on civilians,” said Peter Takirambudde, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The lack of concern for the civilian population is appalling.”
On September 29, 2007, rebel forces killed 10 African Union peacekeepers in Haskanita, in North Darfur. Government forces quickly took control of the area, and on October 4, the entire town was burned to the ground and at least 10 civilians were killed.
Four days later, the town of Muhajariya, 120 kilometers to the west of Haskanita, was attacked, reportedly by pro-government militia backed by heavy weaponry. According to press reports, more than 20 civilians were wounded in the attack, but unconfirmed estimates put the number significantly higher. Thousands of others have been forced to flee the area.
There are credible reports that Sudanese aircraft were seen in the area. The Sudanese government, which has denied deploying aircraft to support the attack, has repeatedly violated its own commitment to cease “offensive overflights” in Darfur.
Muhajariya is a stronghold of the former rebel faction leader Minni Minawi, the main rebel signatory to the May 2006 Darfur Peace Agreement, who is now nominally part of the Government of Sudan. The government, Minni Minnawi’s SLA faction, and many other rebel factions have publicly committed to attending peace talks in Libya on October 27.
These latest clashes seem to be part of an ongoing trend. In a September 2007 report, “Darfur 2007: Chaos by Design,” Human Rights Watch describes how the situation in Darfur has evolved in the last year from a relatively straightforward conflict between rebels and the government into a violent scramble for power and resources involving government forces, Janjaweed militia, rebels and former rebels, and bandits, with civilians, peacekeepers, and humanitarian aid workers caught in the crossfire.
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch 350 Fifth Avenue, 34th Floor New York, NY 10118-3299 USA
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Rice pledges support to Russian activists By Arshad Mohammed and Gleb Bryanski
Sat Oct 13, 9:47 AM ET
Reuters
MOSCOW (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Russian human rights activists on Saturday she wanted to help them build institutions to protect people from the 'arbitrary power of the state'.
"I think that there is too much concentration of power in the Kremlin," she later told reporters.
Her remarks and the meeting with eight human rights leaders could irk the Kremlin, which is sensitive to Western accusations it is rolling back democratic freedoms and suspects foreign governments of trying to influence next year's presidential election.
Rice told the rights activists she wanted to hear about their efforts to protect freedoms in Russia.
"I am quite confident that your goal is to build institutions that are indigenous to Russia -- that are Russian institutions -- but that are also respectful of what we all know to be universal values," said Rice.
She said these were: "The rights of individuals to liberty and freedom, the right to worship as you please, and the right to assembly, the right to not have to deal with the arbitrary power of the state."
"How is it going and what can we do to help Russia to build strong institutions that have these universal values?"
The United States and other Western governments are concerned about democracy, human rights and civil society in Russia under President Vladimir Putin.
He has centralized power and mounted a huge security operation in Chechnya. Television, main source of news for most Russians, has been brought under tight Kremlin control with Putin's opponents rarely given access to the airwaves.
Opinion polls though show most Russians back Putin's tough style of rule.
ABU-GHRAIB JAIL
Tatyana Lokshina, head of the Demos civil rights group, said she and her colleagues had discussed with Rice rights abuses in Chechnya, and fears the Russian political system discriminates against the opposition.
But Lokshina said the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay and allegations of abuse at the U.S.-run Abu-Ghraib prison in Iraq had dented Washington's authority on human rights.
"When the United States criticizes, the Russian authorities say: 'Look what is happening on your patch'," she said.
Lyudmila Alexeyeva, chair of the Moscow Helsinki Group, said she told Rice the West should be more vocal. "An authoritarian regime is intentionally being built (in Russia)," she said.
"I told Rice that human rights activists would like Western leaders visiting Russia ... to raise human rights issues not only in private conversations but also publicly."
Rice and U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Friday met Putin and their Russian counterparts for so-called "2+2" talks that focused on a U.S. plan for a missile defense shield in Europe, which Moscow opposes.
Rice said she had not raised human rights in her talks with Putin or in the "2+2" discussions, saying these had concentrated on missile defense and other strategic issues.
However, she told reporters on Saturday she had discussed human rights and Russia's political evolution with the Russian foreign minister, prime minister and other senior officials at subsequent meetings.
Rice said there was too much concentration of power in the Kremlin and spoke of the need for independent institutions to counter-balance the Russian presidency.
"There are questions about the independence of the judiciary. There are clearly questions about the independence of electronic media and there are, I think, questions about the strength of the Duma (lower house of parliament)."
Copyright © 2007 Reuters Limited
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Burma: Security Council Should Impose Arms Embargo
By Human Rights Watch
Weapons Sales by India, China and Russia Fuel Abuses, Strengthen Military Rule
(New York, October 10, 2007) – The United Nations Security Council should impose and enforce a mandatory arms embargo on Burma because of continuing massive violations of human rights, Human Rights Watch said today. India, China, Russia, and other nations are supplying Burma with weapons that the military uses to commit human rights abuses and to bolster its ability to maintain power.
It’s time for the Security Council to end all sales and transfers of arms to a government that uses repression and fear to hang onto power. Instead of continuing to protect Burma’s abusive generals, China and Russia should join other Security Council members to cut off the instruments of repression.
Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
“It’s time for the Security Council to end all sales and transfers of arms to a government that uses repression and fear to hang onto power,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Instead of continuing to protect Burma’s abusive generals, China and Russia should join other Security Council members to cut off the instruments of repression.”
India appears to be one of the two main suppliers of advanced modern arms to the Burmese military. Earlier this year, India sold Burma two BN-2 Defender maritime surveillance aircraft that India had bought from the United Kingdom in the 1980s. The aircraft were delivered in August despite the British government’s objections that they were being supplied to a country under a European Union arms embargo. Later this year, India sold T-55 tanks and 105mm artillery pieces to the Burmese military. As it wages war against ethnic insurgents, the military routinely uses weapons such as artillery and mortars in conflict areas to destroy villages and exact retributions against civilian settlements.
India is currently preparing to send Burma aircraft, artillery, armored personnel carriers, tanks, ships, and a host of small arms in the next year. Perhaps most alarming, India has offered to sell newly developed Advanced Light Helicopters (ALH) to Burma, manufactured by Hindustan Aeronautical Limited (HAL). These helicopters, if delivered, would give the Burmese military a sophisticated weapon platform to fire rockets and guns, which could be used with devastating effect against political demonstrations in urban areas or rural villagers.
According to a recent report from Saferworld and Amnesty International, the Advanced Light Helicopters use superior European rockets and guns, as well as powerful French engines. Human Rights Watch urged the manufacturers and countries where these products are made to call on the Indian government to end sales to Burma and to ensure proper monitoring and implementation of end-use agreements.
“India’s close relationship with the Burmese military is a discredit to the ‘world’s largest democracy,’” said Adams. “The Indian authorities should be leading the efforts to end the supply of arms being used against the democracy movement in Burma.”
China is the other main arms supplier. It has supplied Burma with advanced helicopter gunships, arms production technology, and support equipment such as trucks and vehicles. Chinese-manufactured Mi-8 helicopter gunships have been photographed supporting Burmese military actions in eastern Burma where Burmese troops have committed numerous war crimes against civilians and massive displacement in its attacks on ethnic minority separatist groups. Beijing has also supplied small arms, including mortars, landmines, and assault rifles, as well as assistance in setting up an indigenous small-arms production capability. China has supplied a vast array of advanced military hardware to Burma, including fighter planes, naval vessels and tanks, and other infantry support weapons.
“China says it wants stability and a peaceful solution to the crisis in Burma,” said Adams. “But as long as Beijing continues to arm the Burmese military and give it political cover, the situation in Burma will remain violently unstable.”
Russia is also a noted supplier of arms to Burma, which includes a deal for MiG-29 fighter planes in 2002.
South Korean companies including Daewoo International Corporation and several others have been accused of illegally boosting the capacity of the Burmese army to produce weaponry. Daewoo reportedly supplied technology and equipment to build a factory to produce mortar rounds near the town of Prome, leading to South Korean investigations and indictments against company officials.
North Korea has supplied truck-borne multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) and artillery pieces to Burma. North Korean engineers have also been contracted to build an underground tunnel complex at the new national capital at Nay Pyi Daw in central Burma, where the military leadership is based.
Burma has also reportedly received weapons from Israel. In 2005, Israel was reported to have sold 150 Brazilian EE-9 Cascavels light tanks to Burma.
Human Rights Watch said that an arms embargo should also include a ban against training the Burmese military, paramilitary, and police forces, all of which have been used to crush the pro-democracy movement in Burma. According to information received by Human Rights Watch, there are hundreds of Burmese defense forces officers being trained in military academies in Russia on nuclear physics, artillery techniques, and computer technology. Exiled Burmese media groups report that cyber-warfare activities that hacked their sites in the past week originated in Moscow. Russia and the Ukraine also have a number of technical staff based in Burma to train Burmese air force and army personnel. Australia has included Burmese police and military officers in its counterterrorism training workshops at centers in Indonesia.
Other nations involved in training the Burmese military include China, which continues to train fighter pilots following the sale of F-7 Airguard fighter planes in the 1990s. The recent sales of advance weaponry from India will also require training assistance. India has also offered Special Forces training to Burmese military units to aid joint operations along the shared border along northeast India and western Burma.
“The nations of the world are arming and training the Burmese military at the same time that they condemn Burma’s human rights violations,” Adams said. “These countries should back up their rhetoric with actions to avoid complicity in attacks on the Burmese people.”
The Burmese spend an estimated 40 percent of the government budget on the military, while combined health and education expenditure is among the lowest in Asia. Military-run hospitals and schools are the best in the country, while civilian hospitals are poorly funded and cannot respond to the widespread health crisis in HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. While Burma’s people are among the poorest in the region, senior military officials live lavish lifestyles. Instead of working to improve the lives of its people, the military also routinely seizes land from civilians for defense establishments and frontline bases, using forced labor in construction.
“The world should insist that the Burmese government address the country’s massive poverty and build up its health and education infrastructure,” said Adams. “Instead, many countries are draining Burma of its limited resources through military sales, profiting handsomely while many Burmese struggle to put food on the table.”
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch 350 Fifth Avenue, 34th Floor New York, NY 10118-3299 USA
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China: Pre-Congress Clampdown Intensifies
By Human Rights Watch
Repression Campaign Escalates With Abduction and Violence
(New York, October 10, 2007) – The Chinese government is intensifying repression ahead of the 17th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, which opens in Beijing next week, as the climax of a months-long campaign to silence dissent and impose a veneer of social harmony on the capital, Human Rights Watch said today.
This week we’re seeing the culmination of months of targeted tightening of controls on media, the internet, and freedom of movement for dissidents designed to impose ‘stability’ during the Party Congress. But real stability is a product of responding to criticism, not quashing it, and until the party and the government accept that, their goal of a ‘harmonious society’ is simply unattainable.
Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director for Human Rights Watch.
The latest moves in the crackdown, which began in August, have included the abduction, arrest, or violent intimidation of dozens of perceived dissidents who the government fears may protest on the streets of Beijing. In an internal March speech, Yu Hongyuan, the deputy bureau chief of the Beijing Public Security Bureau and the Beijing Olympics Security Protection Center’s commander-in-chief, advocated “harshly penalizing one person in order to ... frighten many more into submission” in order to ensure the success of the Party Congress, the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, and the 60th anniversary celebrations of the People’s Republic of China in 2009.
“This week we’re seeing the culmination of months of targeted tightening of controls on media, the internet, and freedom of movement for dissidents designed to impose ‘stability’ during the Party Congress,” said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. “But real stability is a product of responding to criticism, not quashing it, and until the party and the government accept that, their goal of a ‘harmonious society’ is simply unattainable.”
The period leading up to and during the Party Congress, which occurs only every five years, is an extremely sensitive time for the government because it is the forum in which the future leadership of the Chinese Communist Party will be announced. This congress entails secretive meetings to determine who will succeed President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao in 2012. The Party Congress is also a magnet for Chinese citizens hoping to petition government leaders for redress of grievances unresolved by grassroots officials.
Recent comments by officials confirm the ongoing crackdown, which is more systematic than the seasonal lockdowns on dissidents ahead of the annual meetings of China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress.
Yu’s speech also instructed police to “swiftly uncover, control and take away” any individuals behaving “abnormally” in order to smother possible public protests ahead of and during the Party Congress. His comments were followed in September by China’s Public Security Minister Zhou Yongkang’s call for vigilance against possible public unrest.
To counter those perceived threats ahead of the Party Congress, the police have used house arrest, abduction and extrajudicial detention to clear the streets of any possible sources of public dissent. Human Rights Watch said that, since August, the government has particularly targeted petitioners, a floating population of thousands of impoverished and marginalized rural residents who come to the capital to seek redress for injustices ranging from official corruption to illegal land seizures.
Rural residents preparing to go to Beijing to petition for redress during the Party Congress were placed under heightened surveillance by police and in many cases illegally barred from leaving their homes or villages. In September, municipal and provincial police units arrested dozens of petitioners in Beijing and other provinces and either returned them to their home provinces or detained them incommunicado in facilities including requisitioned state-owned hotels. A group of 12 petitioners from Chengdu in Sichuan province who were detained by Beijing police in mid-September remain in custody, while a separate group of 60 petitioners from Shanghai detained and forcibly returned on September 18 by police have likewise not yet been released.
In September, Beijing municipal officials began demolishing a settlement in Beijing where 4,000 petitioners lived on the pretext of road construction. Dozens of petitioners evicted from the Fengtai settlement have ended up in extrajudicial detention at a defacto private jail in Beijing where they are held incommunicado and denied access to legal counsel.
“This abuse of petitioners’ rights clearly demonstrates the Chinese Communist Party’s intolerance of criticism, particularly during the Party Congress,” Richardson said. “The party says it abides by the rule of law, yet it deliberately abuses those who try to raise their grievances against local officials peacefully and legally.”
Already strict controls on the domestic media and internet were further tightened on August 15 with the announcement of a two-month crackdown on “false news.” Liu Binjie, director of China’s official General Administration of Press and Publications, justified the campaign as essential to “a healthy and harmonious environment for a successful 17th Party Congress,” but the crackdown appears designed to quash coverage of events embarrassing to the Chinese Communist Party, including disasters, corruption, and official malfeasance.
One of the victims of that campaign is freelance writer Lu Gengsong, detained in August and subsequently formally charged with “inciting subversion of state power.” Lu had published reports on foreign websites detailing human rights abuses and corruption, which his police interrogators claimed “attacked the Communist Party.”
The government has shut down an official estimate of more than 18,000 individual blogs and websites since April and closed entire internet data centers, which host thousands of websites. In August, Cai Mingzhao, deputy director of the Information Office at the State Council, defended the closures, noting that “good publicity” was the “primary task” of the country’s internet media ahead of the congress.
The crackdown has also targeted specific individuals. On September 29, Li Heping, a Beijing-based lawyer best known for representing human-rights-related cases, was abducted by plainclothes assailants who beat and tortured him with electric prods before releasing him. Li, who has been under intense police surveillance for the past year, said his assailants repeated an earlier verbal warning issued by Beijing police that he should leave Beijing ahead of the Party Congress.
In a separate incident, the brother and son of Ye Guozhu, jailed in 2004 for four years after leading protests against evictions related to the 2008 Olympic Games, were apparently detained by state security officers on September 29 and September 30, respectively, but there has been no formal notification of what charges they might be facing or even if they are in police custody.
The actions against Li and Ye’s relatives follow the apparent incommunicado detention last month of Gao Zhisheng, a prominent human rights defender who wrote a letter last month to the US Congress opposing the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing due to China’s human rights conditions. Gao was last seen in the presence of municipal Public Security Officers at his Beijing home on September 22 and has not been seen or heard of since.
“If the Chinese government continues abusing lawyers, jailing dissidents, and harassing petitioners – rather than dealing with their concerns – it will probably still be dealing with similar if not more unrest at the next Party Congress five years from now,” Richardson said. “Sweeping these problems under the rug for every high-profile party event will do nothing to solve them.”
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch
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EU/Serbia: Transfer Mladic to The Hague
By Human Rights Watch
EU Foreign Ministers Should Insist on Serbia’s Full Cooperation
(Brussels, October 12, 2007) – The European Union (EU) should emphasize that Serbia’s full cooperation with the Yugoslav tribunal includes arresting fugitive Ratko Mladic, charged with genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, and transferring him to The Hague, Human Rights Watch said in a letter sent this week to the EU’s foreign ministers.
The EU must stand firm in insisting that Serbia’s full cooperation includes bringing Mladic to The Hague to face justice. At this crucial stage of the negotiation process, there should be no discussion of making things easier for Serbia to enter the EU while key indictees remain at large.
Lotte Leicht, EU advocacy director at Human Rights Watch
The ministers will be meeting as part of the General Affairs and External Relations Council (GAERC) in Luxembourg on Monday and have invited Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte to brief them on Serbia’s cooperation in the margins of Monday’s meeting.
“The EU must stand firm in insisting that Serbia’s full cooperation includes bringing Mladic to The Hague to face justice,” said Lotte Leicht, EU advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “At this crucial stage of the negotiation process, there should be no discussion of making things easier for Serbia to enter the EU while key indictees remain at large.”
Recent statements by EU officials suggest an attempt to lower the threshold to assess Serbia’s “full cooperation” with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to facilitate the initialing of the Stabilization and Association Agreement with Serbia. For example, last week EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn characterized full cooperation as “leading to” the arrest of the remaining war criminals, including Mladic and Karadzic, as opposed to actual arrest and surrender.
In May 2006, the European Union broke off talks with Serbia over the agreement, citing Serbia’s failure to ensure Mladic is arrested and handed over to the tribunal. In November, the European Commission emphasized that full cooperation is a precondition for resuming the talks. In February 2007, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Serbia’s failure to transfer Mladic to the tribunal was a violation of the Genocide Convention, and it ordered Serbia to cooperate fully with it.
Brussels resumed talks last June after Belgrade cooperated in the arrest of Bosnian Serb general Zdravko Tolimir. Serbia also played a role in the arrest of its former police general, Vlastimir Djordjevic, later the same month. However, according to the tribunal’s prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, Serbia’s cooperation has slowed in recent weeks.
© Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch 350 Fifth Avenue, 34th Floor New York, NY 10118-3299 USA
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4 Myanmar dissidents held in crackdown Sat Oct 13, 10:40 AM ET
The Associated Press
YANGON, Myanmar - Four prominent political activists were arrested in Myanmar on Saturday as the ruling junta kept up its crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, Amnesty International said.
Activists Htay Kywe, Aung Htoo and Thin Thin Aye, also known as Mie Mie — were members of the 88 Generation Students' Group of student leaders active in a 1988 pro-democracy uprising, Amnesty said. It said a fourth activist, Ko Ko, was also arrested.
The London-based rights group said that it did not have details of the arrests, which could not be independently confirmed, but that it feared for the activists' safety.
"Amnesty International believes that these high-profile opposition figures are at grave risk of torture and mistreatment," the rights group said in a statement.
Meanwhile, thousands at a government-staged mass rally in Yangon shouted slogans against Western powers and the foreign media, whom the military regime accuses of fomenting recent pro-democracy protests.
"Down with BBC! Down with VOA! Down with Radio Free Asia!" the crowds chanted at the rally, held amid growing international pressure on the junta to negotiate with the opposition. Many in the crowd were offered cash to attend, local officials said.
People bused in from other parts of the city gathered at a sports ground for the rally, which officials said 120,000 attended.
Local officials said on condition of anonymity that they had been ordered by the government to round up delegations from various parts of the city to attend, offering some of them payments of about 80 cents a person.
The United Nations has been spearheading an international effort to push the military, which has ruled Myanmar since 1962, to enter negotiations with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and move toward democratic reforms.
The Security Council issued its first statement on Myanmar on Thursday, condemning the violence against protesters. The U.N. was dispatching a special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, back to Asia to coordinate efforts among regional capitals before holding his second meeting with the junta.
Myanmar has rebuffed the criticism, declaring Friday that it would stick to its own plan to draft a new constitution and eventually hold elections — a plan critics say has no clear timetable and is simply a ruse to allow the military to hold onto power.
Gambari's first stop was set to be in Thailand on Sunday. Gambari met with the junta's leaders earlier this month during a four-day trip to Myanmar after troops opened fire on the peaceful pro-democracy protests in Yangon.
Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
Torture is not a game, says Amnesty
Amnesty International Posted: 12 October 2007
Amnesty International today (12 October) reacted to the launch of a new computer viral promoting the film Saw IV where players torture celebrities using electric drills, knives and spiked clubs (www.chamberoftorture.com).
Sara MacNeice, Amnesty International UK Campaigner on terrorism, security and human rights, said:
"Torture isn't something funny that happens to celebrities. It's horrific and it is happening right now to real people.
"If people want to see what's really going on - and do something to stop it - they should join the thousands who've Unsubscribed from torture and terror at www.unsubscribe-me.org"
Amnesty International this week launched Unsubscribe, a major new campaign to combat human rights abuses in the 'war on terror'.
The new campaign asks people who are opposed to terrorism and human rights abuses in the 'war on terror' - such as torture and illegal detention - to unite behind a defence of human rights online, bringing them together using social media like Facebook, Bebo and MySpace linked to a central hub at www.unsubscribe-me.org.
As part of its online campaigning, Amnesty has produced a powerful new online film called 'Waiting For The Guards'. Directed by Marc Hawker and Ishbel Whitaker, and featuring an acclaimed performance artist Jiva Parthipan, the two-minute film shows the intense suffering of a hooded prisoner during a horrifyingly realistic recreation of 'stress and duress' torture.
Burma: Amnesty calls for security council to demand immediate release of Aung San Suu Kyi
Amnesty International Posted: 12 October 2007
United Nations falls short in its efforts to resolve crisis in Burma
Amnesty International yesterday called for the United Nations Security Council to demand the immediate release of the Burmese opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.
Last night in New York the Council announced that it 'strongly deplored' the use of violence against peaceful demonstrations in Burma, but failed to call for an immediate release of all prisoners of conscience.
"Obviously, we wish the Council had spoken out much stronger and had called for the immediate unconditional release of Aung San Suu Kyi and other prisoners of conscience. Clearly such releases are essential if there is to be any progress on the 'genuine dialogue' and 'national reconciliation' the Security Council seeks. The Council should also have stressed accountability for the grave human rights violations committed," said Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International.
"But it is the first formal statement from the Security Council on Burma, it addresses crucial human rights issues, and for the first time ever, welcomes a resolution recently adopted by the Human Rights Council.'
Irene Khan added: "We have new reports from Burma that the military government is continuing a 'witch-hunt' against those suspected of involvement in demonstrations. This clearly flies in the face of the commitment the government has made to work with the United Nations."
Death Penalty: '22-candle' vigils put spotlight on China
Amnesty International Posted: 10 October 2007
Amnesty groups across the UK mark World Day against the Death Penalty
Amnesty International will be marking World Day against the Death Penalty (10 October) with candlelit vigils across the UK to highlight the number of people executed in China.
Amnesty groups will be holding the vigils, each with 22 candles to symbolise the number of people that Amnesty estimates is executed every day in China.
The death penalty is used for some 68 crimes in China, including such offences as taking a bribe or re-selling a VAT receipt. Reliable estimates suggest that up to 8,000 people will be executed in China over the next year - nearly 22 every day.
Kate Allen, Director of Amnesty International UK, said: 'When China was bidding for the Olympics the Chinese authorities stated that the Beijing Olympics would help the development of human rights in China.
'The continuing use of the death penalty violates the fundamental human right to life. China needs to put an end to this barbaric practice.
'In the short-term we are calling for increasing transparency. By the end of 2008, the Chinese government must start to publish official statistics on the total number of people sentenced to death and executed. In addition, the number of crimes punishable by death must be dramatically reduced.'
Amnesty members are also sending letters to the Chinese authorities demanding an end to all executions.
US: Sex Offender Laws May Do More Harm Than Good
End Registration of Juveniles, Residency Restrictions and Online Registries
(New York, September 12, 2007) – Human Rights Watch- Laws aimed at people convicted of sex offenses may not protect children from sex crimes but do lead to harassment, ostracism and even violence against former offenders, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Human Rights Watch urges the reform of state and federal registration and community notification laws, and the elimination of residency restrictions, because they violate basic rights of former offenders.
Politicians didn't do their homework before enacting these sex offender laws. Instead they have perpetuated myths about sex offenders and failed to deal with the complex realities of sexual violence against children.
Sarah Tofte, researcher for the US Program of Human Rights Watch and author, "No Easy Answers."
The 146-page report, “No Easy Answers: Sex Offender Laws in the United States,” is the first comprehensive study of US sex offender policies, their public safety impact, and the effect they have on former offenders and their families. During two years of investigation for this report, Human Rights Watch researchers conducted over 200 interviews with victims of sexual violence and their relatives, former offenders, law enforcement and government officials, treatment providers, researchers, and child safety advocates.
“Human Rights Watch shares the public’s goal of protecting children from sex abuse,” said Jamie Fellner, director of the US program at Human Rights Watch. “But current laws are ill-conceived and poorly crafted. Protecting children requires a more thoughtful and comprehensive approach than politicians have been willing to support.”
In many states, registration covers everyone convicted of a sexual crime, which can range from child rape to consensual teenage sex, and regardless of their potential future threat to children. Unfettered public access to online sex-offender registries with no “need-to-know” restrictions exposes former offenders to the risk that individuals will act on this information in irresponsible and even unlawful ways. There is little evidence that this form of community notification prevents sexual violence. Residency restrictions banish former offenders from entire towns and cities, forcing them to live far from homes, families, jobs and treatment, and hindering law-enforcement supervision. Residency restrictions are counterproductive to public safety and harmful to former offenders.
Sex offender laws reflect public concern that children are at grave risk of sexual abuse by strangers who are repeat offenders. As the report documents, however, the real risks children face are quite different: government statistics indicate that most sexual abuse of children is committed by family members or trusted authority figures, and by someone who has not previously been convicted of a sex offense.
In addition, the laws reflect the widely shared but erroneous belief that “once a sex offender, always a sex offender.” Authoritative studies indicate that three out of four adult offenders do not reoffend. Moreover, treatment can be effective even for people who have committed serious sex crimes.
“Politicians didn’t do their homework before enacting these sex offender laws,” said Sarah Tofte, US program researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Instead they have perpetuated myths about sex offenders and failed to deal with the complex realities of sexual violence against children.”
Registration Policies
Federal law and the laws of all 50 states now require adults and some juveniles convicted of a vast array of crimes that involve sexual conduct to register their addresses and other information with law enforcement agencies. Because registration requirements are overbroad in scope and overlong in duration, there are more than 600,000 registered sex offenders in the US, including individuals convicted of non-violent crimes such as consensual sex between teenagers, prostitution, and public urination, as well as those who committed their only offenses decades ago.
“The public believes everyone on a sex offender registry is dangerous,” said Fellner. “But what’s the point of requiring registration by a teenager who exposed himself as a high-school prank or even by someone who molested a child 30 years ago?”
Most states do not make individualized risk assessments before requiring registration. Nor do they offer former offenders a way to get off the registry upon a showing of rehabilitation or years of lawful behavior.
Human Rights Watch found there is scant justification for ever registering juvenile offenders, even those who have committed serious offenses. Most are likely to outgrow such behavior, particularly if given treatment. Recidivism rates for juvenile offenders are extremely low, and few adult offenders ever committed sex crimes as youth.
In “No Easy Answers,” Human Rights Watch recommends that registration requirements be limited to people assessed to pose a real risk of committing another serious sex offense.
Online Registries
Because of community notification laws, all states now have publicly accessible online sex offender registries that provide a former offender’s criminal history, photograph, current address, and often other information such as license plate numbers.
The laws do not limit access to online registries: anyone with internet access can find out who is registered anywhere in the country. The consequences to registrants are devastating. Their privacy is shattered. Many cannot get or keep jobs or find affordable housing. Registrants’ children have been harassed at school; registrants’ spouses have also been forced to leave their jobs. Former offenders included on online registries have been hounded from their homes, had rocks thrown through windows, and feces left on their doorsteps. They have been beaten, burned, stabbed, and had their homes set on fire. At least four registrants have been targeted and killed by strangers who found their names and addresses through online registries. Other registrants have been driven to suicide.
Human Rights Watch acknowledges the desire of parents to know if dangerous offenders live next-door. But carefully tailored community notification, provided directly by law enforcement agents, would supply them with the information they want while minimizing the harm to former offenders.
Residency Restrictions
A growing number of states and municipalities have also prohibited registered offenders from living within a designated distance (typically 500 to 2,500 feet) of places where children gather, for example, schools, playgrounds and daycare centers. Many of these restrictions apply even to offenders who were not convicted of abusing children. With regard to offenders who did victimize children, available data suggest that prohibiting them from living near any place where children gather does not reduce the likelihood that they will reoffend. Many law enforcement officials and sex offender treatment providers emphasize the importance of stability and support in reducing recidivism. They decry residency restrictions as counterproductive because they isolate and push underground people who may need family contact, treatment and supervision. Existing parole and probation laws permit individualized restrictions and conditions to be placed on former offenders when appropriate.
Human Rights Watch concludes residency restriction laws should be eliminated.
“Residency restrictions solve nothing,” said Tofte. “They simply make it nearly impossible for former offenders to put their lives back together.”
The Human Rights Watch report includes several cases of people whose lives were significantly harmed by the restrictions. One woman, who as a high-school student had oral sex with another teenager, had to leave her home because it is near a daycare center. A softball coach, who six years ago grabbed the buttocks of a 12-year-old team member, cannot live with his wife and family because their home falls within a restricted zone.
The Adam Walsh Act
The federal Adam Walsh Act, passed in 2006, will exacerbate the problems with state sex offender laws. It forces states to either dramatically increase the scope and duration of registration and community notification restrictions – including requiring states to register youths as young as 14 – or lose some federal law enforcement grant money. Compliance with the Adam Walsh Act will preclude states from adopting more carefully calibrated and cost-effective registration and community notification policies. At least some states are debating whether the costs of complying with the law outweigh the benefits. Human Rights Watch urges reform of the Adam Walsh Act.
Recommendations
In “No Easy Answers,” Human Rights Watch makes a number of recommendations to state governments:
· Refuse to change registration and community notification laws to meet Adam Walsh requirements;
· Eliminate residency restriction laws;
· Limit registration requirements to people who have been convicted of serious crimes and who have been individually assessed to pose a significant risk of reoffending; and,
· Prevent unlimited dissemination of registry information by eliminating publicly accessible online registries. Community notification should be undertaken only by law enforcement officers and only about those registrants who pose a significant risk of reoffending.
“Everyone has the right to live free of sexual violence.” said Tofte. “States should craft laws that will protect this right in a fair and sensible way.”
Burma: Foreign Investment Finances Regime
Companies Should Condemn Crackdown
(New York, October 2, 2007) – Human Rights Watch- hinese, Indian, Thai, and other companies doing business in Burma should ensure their operations do not contribute to or benefit from human rights abuses, Human Rights Watch said today. The military government in Burma has launched a violent crackdown on peaceful demonstrators that so far has led to many deaths, enforced disappearances, and mass arbitrary arrests.
Companies doing business in Burma argue their presence is constructive and will benefit the Burmese people, but they have yet to condemn the government’s abuses against its own citizens. Keeping quiet while monks and other peaceful protesters are murdered and jailed is not evidence of constructive engagement.
Arvind Ganesan, director of the Business and Human Rights Program at Human Rights Watch.
“Companies doing business in Burma argue their presence is constructive and will benefit the Burmese people, but they have yet to condemn the government’s abuses against its own citizens,” said Arvind Ganesan, director of the Business and Human Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. “Keeping quiet while monks and other peaceful protesters are murdered and jailed is not evidence of constructive engagement.”
Human Rights Watch said that companies operating in Burma should use their influence with the ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) to put an end to ongoing human rights abuses. In the current environment, companies should urge the SPDC to halt the crackdown, release all political prisoners, and open a real dialogue with opposition and ethnic groups. If the situation does not improve, companies should be prepared to reconsider their operations in the country.
Human Rights Watch said that there is no transparency in Burma about how much the government receives in oil and gas payments, nor clarity about how the funds are spent. The military receives the largest share of the official budget and the SPDC allocates only a pittance to social programs including health and education.
Foreign investment in Burma’s oil and natural gas sector is especially significant. Sales of natural gas account for the single largest source of revenue to the military government. Gas exports accounted for fully half of the country’s exports in 2006. Burma’s gas business brought in revenue of US$2.16 billion in 2006 from sales to its main buyer, Thailand. These funds flow directly to the government and provide the junta with a major source of financing that is completely independent of its citizens.
Current investors in Burma’s oil and gas industry include companies from Australia, the British Virgin Islands, China, France, India, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Russia, and the United States.
The SPDC has greatly expanded investment in Burma’s oil and natural gas industry in recent years. Allowing foreign investment in oil and gas is apparently aimed at bringing in more revenue to keep the government afloat at a time when economic mismanagement and profligate spending on the military and the building of a new capital at Nay Pyi Taw have drained government finances. Natural gas exploration, development and production projects are under way in approximately 30 different gas fields. These projects are organized as joint ventures with the Burmese government’s Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE).
“Outside investment in Burma’s oil and gas industry has thrown a lifeline to the country’s brutal rulers,” added Ganesan. “The businesses that help finance the military shouldn’t argue that the government’s crackdown is not their problem.”
Details of the Deals
At present the SPDC receives the bulk of its gas money from the onshore “Yadana” and “Yetagun” gas fields. The Yadana consortium is led by Total of France and includes UNOCAL (now Chevron) of the United States and Thailand’s state-controlled PTT Exploration and Production Co Ltd (PTTEP). The Yetagun consortium, led by Malaysia’s state-owned Petronas, includes Japan’s Nippon Oil as well as PTTEP. PTTEP, a subsidiary of the largely state-owned PTT Public Co Ltd (PTT) of Thailand, buys the gas for export to Thailand.
Major offshore natural gas projects are under development. A consortium of South Korean and Indian firms, in partnership with the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise, has made a large gas find off the coast of Arakan State in western Burma. Known as the “Shwe” gas project, it is expected to produce massive revenues once it is in production. Estimates of the gas yield of the Shwe deposits range between US$37 to US$52 billion, and could lead to a total gain in revenues to the junta or future Burmese governments of US$12 to US$17 billion over 20 years.
The Shwe gas consortium is composed of the South Korean company Daewoo International, state-owned companies from India and South Korea, and the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise. Some of the foreign partners also have separate deals with the Burmese government entity for other concessions.
On September 24, for example, India’s state-controlled Oil and Natural Gas Co (ONGC), whose subsidiary ONGC Videsh is a partner in the Shwe consortium, signed a deal with Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise to explore for gas in three more offshore blocks. Under the deal, Oil and Natural Gas Co pledged to invest US$150 million through ONGC Videsh.
India’s Office of the President holds nearly 75 percent of the shares in Oil and Natural Gas Co. India’s minister for oil, Murli Deora, traveled to the Burmese capital last week to sign the agreement as thousands of protesters in Burma took to the streets to call for political freedom, an end to the SPDC’s abuses, and economic improvements.
India, like China and Russia – which are also major investors in Burma’s natural gas sector – has provided political and military support to the SPDC. India and China are in competition to buy the Shwe gas. In August, a top Burmese energy official publicly confirmed that China was strongly favored to buy the gas, but indicated that a sales agreement was not yet final.
Chinese firms are also actively seeking to build oil and gas pipelines in Burma. One proposed pipeline would transport gas from the offshore Shwe project to China. A second pipeline would carry Middle Eastern oil across Burma into China, bypassing the busy shipping lanes of the Straits of Malacca. These proposals to build overland pipelines across Burma have raised serious human rights concerns, in light of past experience. Major controversies arose in the 1990s over construction of pipelines and associated infrastructure to transport Yadana-Yetagun gas. UNOCAL and Total were sued in the US and France, respectively, by Burmese villagers who accused them of complicity in atrocities by the Burmese army during operations to remove villagers from areas slated for development and to facilitate pipeline construction. The companies ultimately settled the lawsuits.
Two Chinese companies that have shown strong interest in the proposed new Burma-China pipeline projects are Sinopec and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). Both are Chinese state-owned oil companies and are involved in gas exploration in Burma as well. They also are official “partners” (major sponsors) of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and are under increased scrutiny for the human-rights impact of their investments in Sudan and Burma.
India and China have been reluctant to criticize the recent crackdown. Russia joined China in blocking UN Security Council action on Burma.
In addition to foreign investors (both state-owned and private), the companies doing business with Burma include banks that arrange financial transactions and companies that import products from Burma. For example, timber exports to China have been substantial. The SPDC also draws significant revenue from sales of gems, notably rubies and jade. These gems are polished in third countries and then find their way to retail stores in Europe and the US, where sanctions permit imports of Burmese-origin goods that are processed in third countries.
The US has imposed new financial sanctions, intended to target overseas accounts of Burmese generals, and some European leaders have called for additional, targeted sanctions if the SPDC fails to halt its violent repression of dissent.
“The junta’s largest trading partners should insist that Burma’s rulers stop stuffing their own pockets and instead use these immense revenues to improve the lives of ordinary Burmese,” said Ganesan.
Burmese Comedian's Arrest Sparks Protests, Concern of Torture
By Jeremy Gerard
Oct. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Human rights organizations called for the release of Myanmar's best-known political satirist, film star and poet, fearing he has been tortured since his arrest last week in the middle of the night.
Maung Thura, 45, known by the stage and pen name Zargana, was arrested in Yangon, formerly Rangoon, site of the biggest anti-government demonstrations. Zargana was heading a committee that provided food to Buddhist monks protesting the ruling State Peace and Development Council, news services reported.
Zargana is the best-known figure among thousands imprisoned or detained in temporary centers since the crackdown began last week. The Al Jazeera news service reported that Zargana was taken from his home by riot police shortly after midnight on Sept. 25, following the imposition of a dusk-to-dawn curfew.
``There are mounting concerns for his well-being and safety,'' International PEN said in a statement released yesterday. The organization monitors threats and abuses against writers around the world. Similar concerns also were expressed by Amnesty International, the worldwide human rights organization.
Amnesty reported on Sept. 29 that in addition to the monks and other protesters, those arrested included ``famous comedian and former prisoner of conscience Zargana,'' along with another political satirist, Par Par Lay.
``PEN seeks immediate assurances of Zargana's well-being and calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Zargana and all those currently detained in Myanmar in violation of Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights,'' the PEN statement continued.
Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontieres said on Sept. 30 detainees risked being tortured and called on the international media to use all possible means to find out about the fate of those arrested.
Longtime Protester
Zargana -- whose name means ``tweezers,'' a reference to his training as a dentist -- has a long history of conflict with authorities in Myanmar, formerly Burma. He was first imprisoned after addressing protesters in 1988 and later spent four years in jail in the 1990s before being allowed to return to his film career, though under intense government scrutiny. After continuing to speak out against censorship, he was banned from performing altogether in 1996.
Since the beginning of the most recent protests, Zargana had given radio interviews supporting the monks. Then he joined with another local celebrity, film star Kyaw Thu, and poet Aung Way, to provide food and aid to the protesters.
The whereabouts of Thu and Way are not known, Al Jazeera said.
(Jeremy Gerard is an editor for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)
To contact the writer on this story: Jeremy Gerard in New York at jgerard2@bloomberg.net .
US: Close Legal Loopholes Allowing Contractors to Act with Impunity
US Contractors in Iraq, Afghanistan Must Be Held Liable for Criminal Activity
(Washington, DC, October 2, 2007) – Congress should quickly pass legislation that would ensure US government contractors who commit felonies in Iraq and Afghanistan can be prosecuted in US federal courts, Human Rights Watch said today. A vote on such legislation is expected in the House of Representatives on Wednesday.
It’s time to close the legal loopholes that allow contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan to commit crimes with impunity. Illegal and abusive conduct should not go unpunished.
Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch
“It’s time to close the legal loopholes that allow contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan to commit crimes with impunity,” said Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch. “Illegal and abusive conduct should not go unpunished.”
An estimated 180,000 private contractors working in Iraq are immune from local criminal prosecution for criminal conduct because of regulations originally imposed by the US government. Thousands more in Afghanistan have immunity because of a US-Afghanistan agreement. In addition, a patchwork of US federal laws leaves many contractors effectively immune from prosecution in the United States as well.
Legislation sponsored by Rep. David Price (D-NC) would partially address this situation by extending the reach of a federal law, called the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act (MEJA), to cover all US contractors overseas. Currently, only Department of Defense (DOD) contractors and other contractors supporting US forces are explicitly covered by the law. Thousands of contractors employed by other US agencies may be immune from prosecution in US courts when they commit felonies outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.
The issue of criminal offenses by US contractors garnered national attention last month when employees of the American security firm Blackwater allegedly shot and killed 11 Iraqi civilians. Under Iraqi law, initially imposed by US occupation authorities in 2004, all non-Iraqi contractors are immune from prosecution in Iraqi courts. Because the Blackwater employees were contracted by the State Department – not DOD – prosecutors must first establish that they are acting in support of DOD in order to bring a case under MEJA. Alternatively, if it were determined that their acts were grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, they could be prosecuted under the US War Crimes Act, but to date no one has been prosecuted under this act.
Price’s legislation (HR 2740) would clarify that any US contractor who commits a felony while operating in Iraq or Afghanistan is liable to federal criminal prosecution under MEJA, regardless of what agency issued the contract. The bill would also require the Federal Bureau of Investigation to establish on-the-scene teams in those countries to investigate alleged criminal misconduct and fatalities linked to US contractors, which would greatly enhance the ability of the Department of Justice to hold accountable those who violate the law.
“The legislation would be an important first step by Congress to address the legal vacuum in which US contractors operate,” said Daskal. “But it will need to be accompanied by increased enforcement by the Department of Justice.”
To date, there has been only one successful prosecution of a contractor under MEJA – the conviction of a Department of Defense contractor in Baghdad who pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography in 2007. And despite widespread allegations of contractor involvement in abuse of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, only one – David Passaro, a CIA contractor – has yet been convicted for detainee abuse. He received eight years of imprisonment for beating a detainee to death in Afghanistan. The government’s case against Passaro could go forward because the abuse occurred on an Army base, which is considered part of the territorial jurisdiction of the United States and thus covered by other US laws, not just MEJA.
At least 17 other cases of alleged detainee abuse carried out by civilian contractors have been under review by the Department of Justice for at least two years without action. In several of these cases the Army had already found probable cause that a crime had been committed before referring the cases to the Department of Justice.
“The Bush administration’s willingness to turn a blind eye to criminal activity and abuse by US government contractors undermines its stated goal of winning hearts and minds,” said Daskal.
Human Rights Watch said it remained concerned by the broad immunities provided to private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. By shielding these contractors from local prosecution, Washington has effectively accepted responsibility for ensuring that those who commit criminal offenses are prosecuted under US law. To date, it has failed to do so. In order to ensure that the rights of Iraqi and Afghan nationals are fully protected by the law, the United States should work with the Iraqi and Afghan governments to lift these immunities to allow prosecutions by local authorities at least when the US does not do so.
The US government should also set up a system for civilians to seek compensation when contractors destroy their property or cause death or injury. A similar system already exists for damage done by US armed forces.
Nicaragua: New Abortion Ban Puts Women’s Lives at Risk
President Ortega Should Show Leadership by Protecting Women s Lives
(Managua, October 2, 2007) – Nicaragua’s blanket ban on abortion, which criminalizes life-saving medical treatment, has had a devastating impact on women’s health and lives, Human Rights Watch said today in the first-ever report on the human rights consequences of the ban, which was enacted in November 2006.
Doctors in Nicaragua are now afraid to provide even legal health services to pregnant women.
Angela Heimburger, Americas researcher at Human Rights Watch’s Women’s Rights Division
The new report, “Over Their Dead Bodies,” documents how this ban on abortion has made women afraid to seek even legal health services. Fearing prosecution under the new law, doctors are unwilling to provide necessary care. The report is based on interviews with officials, doctors from the public and private health systems, women in need of health services, and family members of women who died as a result of the ban.
“Doctors in Nicaragua are now afraid to provide even legal health services to pregnant women,” said Angela Heimburger, Americas researcher at Human Rights Watch’s Women’s Rights Division. “Some testified that personnel at public hospitals refused women and girls adequate care after devastating miscarriages, with direct reference to the ban.”
In December, one month after Congress enacted the ban during a hotly contested presidential election, the Ministry of Health responded by issuing detailed mandatory protocols on emergency obstetric care, including guidelines for medical treatment after illegal abortions. Ministry officials admit that they have received complaints of delay or denial of health services since the ban was implemented.
However, the report reveals that the President Daniel Ortega’s government so far has not studied the health effects of the ban on abortion. The government also does not appear to have investigated or sanctioned health professionals who do not implement the mandatory protocols.
“President Ortega should immediately help mitigate the disastrous effects of this ban by prioritizing pregnant women’s access to emergency medical care,” said Heimburger. “Nicaragua’s president needs to reassure women they will not be punished for trying to stay alive. At the same time, he should aggressively promote public awareness and access to services.”
Before this ban, Nicaragua’s penal code allowed abortions when a woman’s life was at risk. This new law intentionally denies women access to health services essential to saving their lives, and is thus inconsistent with Nicaragua’s obligations under international human rights law to ensure women’s right to life.
October 2, 2007
Burmese Comedian's Arrest Sparks Protests, Concern of Torture
By Jeremy Gerard
Oct. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Human rights organizations called for the release of Myanmar's best-known political satirist, film star and poet, fearing he has been tortured since his arrest last week in the middle of the night.
Maung Thura, 45, known by the stage and pen name Zargana, was arrested in Yangon, formerly Rangoon, site of the biggest anti-government demonstrations. Zargana was heading a committee that provided food to Buddhist monks protesting the ruling State Peace and Development Council, news services reported.
Zargana is the best-known figure among thousands imprisoned or detained in temporary centers since the crackdown began last week. The Al Jazeera news service reported that Zargana was taken from his home by riot police shortly after midnight on Sept. 25, following the imposition of a dusk-to-dawn curfew.
``There are mounting concerns for his well-being and safety,'' International PEN said in a statement released yesterday. The organization monitors threats and abuses against writers around the world. Similar concerns also were expressed by Amnesty International, the worldwide human rights organization.
Amnesty reported on Sept. 29 that in addition to the monks and other protesters, those arrested included ``famous comedian and former prisoner of conscience Zargana,'' along with another political satirist, Par Par Lay.
``PEN seeks immediate assurances of Zargana's well-being and calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Zargana and all those currently detained in Myanmar in violation of Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights,'' the PEN statement continued.
Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontieres said on Sept. 30 detainees risked being tortured and called on the international media to use all possible means to find out about the fate of those arrested.
Longtime Protester
Zargana -- whose name means ``tweezers,'' a reference to his training as a dentist -- has a long history of conflict with authorities in Myanmar, formerly Burma. He was first imprisoned after addressing protesters in 1988 and later spent four years in jail in the 1990s before being allowed to return to his film career, though under intense government scrutiny. After continuing to speak out against censorship, he was banned from performing altogether in 1996.
Since the beginning of the most recent protests, Zargana had given radio interviews supporting the monks. Then he joined with another local celebrity, film star Kyaw Thu, and poet Aung Way, to provide food and aid to the protesters.
The whereabouts of Thu and Way are not known, Al Jazeera said.
(Jeremy Gerard is an editor for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)
To contact the writer on this story: Jeremy Gerard in New York at jgerard2@bloomberg.net .
The hardship that sparked Burma's unrest
By Jonathan Head
BBC News, Bangkok
On 22nd February, a small group of around 25 people attracted little attention at first in the crowded Rangoon market. Then they brought out home-made posters, and began shouting.
Many Burmese simply concentrate on survival
Their complaints seemed innocuous enough. "Down with consumer prices," read one poster. "We want 24-hour electricity," read another. They pointedly avoided saying anything critical about Burma's military government.
That did not spare them. Nine were rounded up and jailed, accused of acting "totally against the law". They were later released, but they had touched a very raw nerve.
Though small, these were the first street protests seen in Rangoon for at least a decade.
And they highlighted the growing economic distress that was beginning to push huge numbers of Burmese families to the brink of destitution - distress caused by the government's incompetence.
Chronic mismanagement
When the military took power in 1962, then-military strongman Ne Win decided to take the country down an isolationist path, the "Burmese Way to Socialism" as it was called, which stressed self-sufficiency, and called for the nationalisation of almost all private companies.
Military officers took over these companies, as well as many civil service positions. It was their mismanagement that led to chronic inflation and near economic collapse by 1988, and the mass protests that came close to overthrowing the government at that time.
After that, the military tried opening up the economy to market forces and foreign investment, but it has never been willing to release its grip on crucial areas of the economy:
Imports and exports all require licenses, confronting entrepreneurs with mountains of red tape, and opening opportunities for corruption.
The trade in rice is entirely controlled by military-connected companies.
Internal transport is hobbled by poor infrastructure and frequent military bans on access to troubled areas.
Many commodities are subsidised, but available in very limited quantities.
There is an official exchange rate for the local currency, the kyat, which is 200 times lower than the black market rate.
Add to that the fact that more than half the annual budget goes to the armed forces, and that Burma is subject to strict sanctions by the United States and the European Union, and it has proved impossible for Burma to lift itself out of poverty.
The construction of a secretive new capital city since 2005, hacked out of the bush 400km (249 miles) north of Rangoon, must have added considerably to the government's financial difficulties, although it has given no figures for how much this mega-project is costing.
A decision to raise admittedly paltry civil service salaries by up to 1,200% last year did not help either, although civil servants could scarcely survive on salaries that sometimes fell below $3 a month.
Grinding poverty
The result is what the United Nations describes as a largely unreported humanitarian crisis.
UN figures show that one in three children is chronically malnourished, government spending on health and education is among the lowest anywhere in the world, and average income is below $300 a year. LIFE IN BURMA
Population - 50m
Children in primary education - 85%
Life expectancy at birth - 61 years
Infant mortality - 76 per 1,000 births
Health spend - 2.8% (World avge - 10.2%)
Under 5s undernourished - 31.8%
Source: World Bank 2004
Diseases like tuberculosis and HIV/Aids are increasing at frightening rates.
"The World Food Programme [WFP] provides food aid to 500,000 people across Myanmar [Burma] but that really only represents the poorest of the poor," said Paul Risley at the WFP in Bangkok.
"What we've found is that over the last decade, opposite to virtually every other country in Asia where slowly poverty is being gnawed away at and food security is becoming more commonplace, in Myanmar there are more people living below the poverty line and more people facing food insecurity," he said.
Towards the end of last year, prices of basic commodities began rising sharply in Burma. Rice, eggs, and cooking oil all went up by around 30-40%.
For a population that on average spends 70% of its income on food, this was very difficult to absorb. It is not clear why this happened, but the inherent distortions and rigidities in the military's economic management can easily lead to sudden bottlenecks in the supply and prices of basic necessities.
Dramatic decision
Then came the rise in fuel prices on 15 August. There was no warning. Gas prices rose by 500%, and diesel - which more or less powers everything in Burma, from transport to the essential generators - doubled in price.
The impact was immediate. People could not afford to go to work, and the increased cost of transport started pushing food prices even higher.
Within days activists were out on the streets in protest. When they were arrested, the monks - who can accurately measure economic distress by the food put into their begging bowls every morning - took their place.
Like so many decisions made by the reclusive generals, the sudden hike in fuel prices is hard to fathom.
The IMF had advised weaning the population off subsidised fuel, because with rising world oil prices it was becoming an unsustainable burden for Burma, which although rich in natural gas, relies on imports for almost all of its refined petrol and diesel.
But it is unlikely the IMF would have supported such a dramatic, and unannounced price rise.
'Parallel world'
At the time some speculated that perhaps the generals were trying to provoke an uprising, to see who their enemies were.
But their ubiquitous intelligence networks would surely already have that information. More likely it implies they did not understand the shocking economic impact the move would have.
Living in a privileged, parallel world, Burma's armed forces are virtually a state within a state, subject to none of the chronic economic insecurity that afflicts the rest of the country.
Many of the generals have become immensely rich - the video of the wedding of senior general Than Shwe's daughter, dripping in diamonds worth many millions of dollars, is testimony to that.
Secluded in their luxury villas in Naypyidaw, cut off from the squalor of Rangoon and other towns, Burma's military rulers probably had no idea that their clumsy decision would cause such immediate economic pain - that thousands would override their fear of the soldiers, and come out to join the monks on the streets.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Sudan: Peacekeeper Killings are War Crimes
Government and Rebels Should Aid Investigation
(New York, October 1, 2007) – The killing of 10 African Union peacekeepers in Darfur is a war crime and should be promptly investigated by the United Nations and the African Union, Human Rights Watch said today.
Deliberately attacking peacekeepers is a war crime.
Peter Takirambudde, Africa director at Human Rights Watch
Crisis in Darfur
Country Page
Photo Essay: Crisis in Darfur-Civilians Under Attack
Graphic, September 20, 2007
On September 30, unidentified forces attacked an African Union base in Haskanita, North Darfur, killing 10 AU peacekeepers and civilian police. At least 8 other personnel from the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) were seriously injured and approximately 40 remain missing, according to AU statements. Unconfirmed reports say the attack was carried out by unidentified rebel forces. The loss of life was the worst suffered to date by the under-resourced AU force.
A wounded AMIS peacekeeper is carried to a helicopter
at Haskanita military group site. © 2007 Reuters
“Deliberately attacking peacekeepers is a war crime,” said Peter Takirambudde, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The Sudanese government and the rebel groups should cooperate fully with an independent investigation into the dreadful attack in Haskanita.”
Customary laws of war and the statute of the International Criminal Court prohibit directing attacks against personnel and objects involved in international peacekeeping missions, so long as they are not directly involved in hostilities.
The AMIS force in Darfur comprises approximately 7,000 troops and civilian police. For now, it is virtually the only force on the ground in Darfur providing civilian protection. A 26,000-member AU-UN hybrid operation, UNAMID, was authorized in July 2007 and is to be deployed in early January 2008.
AMIS’s mission has been to monitor the Darfur Peace Agreement and several other ceasefire agreements. Its peacekeepers patrol a harsh, desert region the size of France, much of it barely accessible by road.
Attacks on AMIS personnel have increased in the past year. Since the force was deployed in 2004, more than 25 soldiers and staff have been killed and dozens injured. On April 17, 2007, unknown armed assailants killed five AMIS soldiers guarding a water point in Um Baru, North Darfur. A Nigerian commander who was kidnapped outside the AMIS compound in Al Fashir has been missing since December 2006.
The attack on Sunday took place as preparations are underway for the deployment of UNAMID and a new round of peace talks in Tripoli, Libya, on October 27.
Guatemala: Reject Bill Threatening Families
Discriminatory Bill Strips Rights of 40 Percent of Families
(New York, October 1, 2007) – Guatemalan legislators should protect all families by voting against the “Integral Protection for Marriage and Family Act,” Human Rights Watch urged today in a letter to the Guatemalan Congress.
Targeting children and their caregivers in the name of a political agenda is not only unjustifiable, it is morally reprehensible
Letter to the Guatemalan Congress regarding Marriage and Family Law
Letter, October 1, 2007
Human Rights Watch called on lawmakers to reject a bill that would bar single parents as well as same-sex couples from the definition of “family,” and threatens the legal status of children conceived through reproductive technologies. The bill would punish any Guatemalan officials who advocates, “in any national or international meeting,” for a different definition.
“No family will ever benefit from leaving others unprotected,” said Juliana Cano Nieto, researcher in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights program at Human Rights Watch. “The aim of this bill is to strip certain partners, parents, and children of rights and recognition all families deserve.”
The “Integral Protection for Marriage and Family Act” is currently scheduled for a final vote the week of October 1. The bill was initially proposed over two years ago, but Congress debated it for the first time in July 2007. On September 26, the debate over the bill was hastily reopened. Vice-president of the Congress Oliverio García Rodas, has stated that it was brought forward amid concern about the “celebration of same-sex marriages.”
The bill, however, would declare that the nearly 40 percent of Guatemalan families that are not nuclear – consisting of father, mother, and children – are not families at all. Crucial health services now provided for single parents, their children, and indigenous families under a 2001 law could be taken away.
“This bill takes aim at lesbian and gay couples, but it has almost half of Guatemalan children and parents in its sights,” said Cano Nieto. “Targeting children and their caregivers in the name of a political agenda is not only unjustifiable, it is morally reprehensible.”
International bodies such as the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees have recognized the need to respect different forms of the family. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Guatemala is a party, protects children from discrimination on the basis of their parents’ or caregivers’ status. Guatemala has also ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the UN Human Rights Committee has held to ban discrimination on the basis of sex and sexual orientation.
Growing international pressure condemns laws that discriminate against certain families. The “Yogyakarta Principles on the application of international human rights law in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity,” developed by a group of experts in international law and released in 2007, call upon states to recognize and protect the existence of diverse forms of families, regardless of the sexual orientation or gender identity of family members.
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Sudan: Civilians Under Attack in Scramble for Darfur
UN Should Impose Sanctions If Khartoum Continues Attacks, Obstruction
(New York, September 20, 2007) – As the United Nations and African Union prepare to deploy the world’s largest-ever peacekeeping mission to Darfur, Sudanese government forces, allied “Janjaweed” militia, rebels and former rebels have free rein to attack civilians and humanitarian workers in Darfur, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
The new peacekeeping mission in Darfur will need the resources and political support to protect civilians.
Peter Takirambudde, Africa director at Human Rights Watch
The situation in Darfur has evolved from an armed conflict between rebels and the government into a violent scramble for power and resources involving government forces, Janjaweed militia, rebels and former rebels, and bandits. But these complexities should not deflect attention from Khartoum’s responsibility for indiscriminate aerial and ground attacks, complicity in Janjaweed attacks against civilians, failure to hold rights abusers accountable, and its unwillingness to establish a policing force that can protect civilians.
“The new peacekeeping mission in Darfur will need the resources and political support to protect civilians,” said Peter Takirambudde, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Targeted sanctions should be imposed on Sudan if it obstructs peacekeepers and allows attacks on civilians.”
The 76-page report, “Darfur 2007: Chaos by Design – Peacekeeping Challenges for AMIS and UNAMID,” describes the current human rights situation in Darfur. Recent case studies from across Darfur illustrate how the proliferation of armed actors and the government’s failure to strengthen the rule of law – particularly the police – are contributing to the abuses.
After civilians are displaced from their homes, they find themselves trapped in camps for the internally displaced. If they venture outside to farm, collect firewood, or return home, they risk being beaten, raped, robbed, or murdered – usually by Janjaweed and former rebels. Outsiders who are now occupying their land block prospects for sustainable peace and their return. Inter-tribal Arab fighting has left hundreds of more people dead and thousands displaced.
The report describes the critical ways in which the new peacekeeping mission, the UN-AU Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), and the international community must provide better civilian protection and address the shortcomings that have hampered the African Union’s current mission, the AU Mission in Sudan (AMIS).
Human Rights Watch called on the United Nations and African Union to deploy UNAMID widely and strategically, and to give it strong rapid-response capabilities. UNAMID will need to carry out regular day and night patrols (including firewood and market day patrols), employ well-trained and well-resourced policing units, and contain human rights officers who can publicly report on their findings (including experts in sexual and gender-based violence as well as children’s rights).
The full deployment of UNAMID may take many months. In the interim, support that the international community promised to AMIS must be delivered. Peacekeepers in Darfur must immediately resume protection activities, such as firewood patrols. Such patrols can help deter abuses, but in many places have been suspended for over a year.
Human Rights Watch called on the UN Security Council, the African Union, and the international community at large to impose targeted sanctions against the Sudanese government and other parties to the conflict if they fail to meet key benchmarks for improving the human rights situation in Darfur.
Specifically, all parties to the conflict should end attacks on civilians. The Sudanese government should end its unlawful use of UN and AMIS colors or markings on aircraft. The government should also end support to abusive Janjaweed militias and initiate programs to disarm them.
Khartoum should facilitate the expeditious deployment of AMIS and UNAMID, and all parties to the conflict should ensure that peacekeepers can carry out their mandate unhindered. The government, militia, rebels, and former rebels should increase humanitarian access, and the government should end the consolidation of ethnic cleansing in land use and occupation.
Finally, the Sudanese authorities should end impunity through full cooperation with the International Criminal Court (ICC), including the carrying out of arrest warrants. It should promote accountability by undertaking legal and other reforms to strengthen Sudan’s justice system.
In early September, however, the Sudanese government audaciously nominated an international war crimes suspect to co-chair a committee to hear human rights complaints in Darfur. Ahmed Haroun, who also serves as the state minister for humanitarian affairs, is one of two men facing arrest warrants for war crimes and crimes against humanity by the ICC.
“People in camps across Darfur have told us that they don’t feel safe to return home,” said Takirambudde.
China: Tibetan Schoolboys Detained as Crackdown Worsens
Teenage Students Held Incommunicado for Graffiti
(New York, September 20, 2007) – The Chinese government should immediately release seven Tibetan high school students detained on suspicion of writing pro-Tibetan independence slogans on buildings, Human Rights Watch said today. One of the detainees, aged 14, is reported to have been badly beaten during or after the arrest and was bleeding profusely when last seen by relatives.
Arresting teenagers for a political crime shows just how little has changed in Tibet. Beating up a child for a political crime shows just how far China has to go before it creates the ‘harmonious society’ China’s leaders talk so much about.
Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
“No One Has the Liberty to Refuse: Tibetan Herders Forcibly Relocated in Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan, and the Tibet Autonomous Region"
Report, June 10, 2007
The seven male students, all from nomad families, are studying at the Amchok Bora village secondary school, in Xiahe (Labrang) county, Gannan prefecture in Gansu province. Four of the boys are 15 years old and three are14. Gannan is designated as one of China’s official “Tibetan autonomous” areas.
Human Rights Watch said that police detained some 40 students on or around September 7. The students were alleged to have written slogans calling for the return of the Dalai Lama and a free Tibet the previous day on the walls of the village police station and on other walls in the village. Within 48 hours, all but seven of the students were released from police custody. Police reportedly also questioned school staff about the slogan-writing graffiti incident.
“Arresting teenagers for a political crime shows just how little has changed in Tibet,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Beating up a child for a political crime shows just how far China has to go before it creates the ‘harmonious society’ China’s leaders talk so much about.”
The students were initially held in a police station in Amchok Bora, and allowed to see their families. However, on September 10, plainclothes officials believed to be state security moved them to the nearby county town of Xiahe (Labrang), east of the village. Shortly before the children were moved from the village, police had reportedly refused permission for the relatives to take the injured boy for medical treatment. Officials in Xiahe have since refused to reveal the students’ location or even to confirm that they are in custody.
The given names of five of the missing boys are Lhamo Tseten, age 15; Chopa Kyab, age 15; Drolma Kyab, age 14; Tsekhu, age 14; and a second Lhamo Tseten, age 15. The names of two others are unknown, and the identity of the wounded detainee is not known. Tibetans rarely use family names.
The students’ arrests are the latest example of an increasingly harsh response from Chinese authorities to the slightest hints of dissent over issues as diverse as cultural and religious policies, forced resettlement of Tibetan herders, environmental degradation, replacement of Tibetan cadres with ethnic Chinese ones, and increased migration of ethnic Chinese settlers to traditionally Tibetan regions. Several incidents in recent months have involved clashes between Tibetan residents and police forces.
In late September 2006, Chinese border police opened fire on a group of 73 Tibetans as they walked toward the border with Nepal. Two people, including a teenage nun, were shot and killed, and police subsequently detained about a dozen children. Their whereabouts were not known for four months, and no public investigation has been undertaken into that event.
According to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which China is a State Party, children have the right to freedom of expression. No child should be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, or detained unlawfully or arbitrarily. Children who are legally detained should be held only as a matter of last resort and for the shortest possible period of time. Children in detention have the right to contact with their families and to prompt access to legal assistance.
Human Rights Watch urged UNICEF to urgently raise these cases with the government and seek guarantees of protection for these vulnerable children.
“To end this embarrassing and abhorrent episode, the Chinese government should immediately release the boys, protect them and their parents from further abuse, and explain why they were treated so harshly,” said Adams.
Burma: End Attacks on Protestors, Account for Monks
UN Envoy to Burma Should Press for Concrete Action During His Visit
In its meetings with visiting United Nations envoy Ibrahim Gambari, Burma’s military government should pledge to end violence against peaceful protestors, account for hundreds of monks arrested this week, and allow access by independent observers to places of detention, Human Rights Watch said.
Burma’s military government has shown contempt for the aspirations of the tens of thousands of people who have bravely taken to the streets demanding change.
Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
“Burma’s military government has shown contempt for the aspirations of the tens of thousands of people who have bravely taken to the streets demanding change,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “But if the government does not cooperate with an envoy sent by the UN Security Council, it risks unprecedented international isolation.”
Human Rights Watch urged the government to provide information to Gambari, on the many reported human rights abuses committed during the course of the protests, including:
An accurate accounting of the number of individuals killed by the security forces. The government has admitted to 10 deaths, but credible reports suggest there have been many more;
The number of individuals arrested and their whereabouts, including members of the 88 Generation of Students arrested at the beginning of protests in August, members of the opposition National League of Democracy, and other activists; and
The whereabouts and conditions of the hundreds of monks apparently detained in the morning hours of Thursday, September 27.
Human Rights Watch also called on the government to end its newly imposed restrictions on mobile phones and the internet, which are critical to the dissemination of accurate information about events in Rangoon and elsewhere.
Gambari and diplomats should be given access to Aung San Suu Kyi, the detained opposition leader and Nobel laureate. It remains unclear whether she remains under house arrest or has been imprisoned.
The government should also allow an independent investigation into the killing of Japanese journalist Kenji Nagai. Photos suggest that Nagai was shot at close range by Burmese security forces on Thursday.
“Gambari should publicly demand the immediate release of all detained monks and activists,” said Adams. “He should also insist that independent organizations and diplomats be given access to all places of detention to ensure there is no mistreatment in custody. And he should be allowed to meet Aung San Suu Kyi.”
Human Rights Watch noted that Gambari’s previous visits and public statements have focused too heavily on dialogue between the government and the United Nations, and not enough on actions the government needs to take. In June, Gambari stated in a visit to India that it was important to “recognize positive steps taken by” the government. But as recent events confirm, it is difficult to identify any meaningful steps toward reform taken by the Burmese government, Human Rights Watch said.
“This time Gambari needs to speak in unambiguous terms, make clear demands, and express the world’s horror and anger at the actions of the Burmese government,” said Adams. “He should tell the generals that the age of impunity is over and that they will be held accountable one day if they continue with their abusive behavior.”
Human Rights Watch commended a strong statement made on September 27 by the Association of Southeast Nations (ASEAN). As chair of ASEAN, Singapore’s Foreign Affairs Minister George Yeo said ASEAN foreign ministers “expressed their revulsion to [Burmese] Foreign Minister Nyan Win over reports that the demonstrations in Myanmar are being suppressed by violent force and that there has been a number of fatalities.” He also called on Burma’s government to “immediately desist from the use of violence against demonstrators.”
Human Rights Watch urged China, Russia, India and Japan to speak out clearly against human rights abuses in Burma and to use their influence to press the government to enter into genuine dialogue with the political opposition, ethnic groups and civil society. China, Russia and India failed to support an emergency special session of the UN Human Rights Council. The special session was approved Friday with the support of 17 council members, including Japan. While welcoming Japan’s support, Human Rights Watch expressed disappointment that Tokyo has continued to issue only mild statements of concern about the situation in Burma.
“While ASEAN has called a spade a spade, China, Russia, India and Japan do little more than issue bland statements calling for restraint,” said Adams. “Their calls for restraint have been deafened by gunfire, beatings and arrests in Burma.”
China, Russia and India have been major trading partners and arms suppliers of the Burmese government for several years. In January, China and Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution aimed at addressing the human rights situation in Burma. Japan is Burma’s leading aid donor.
Chilean President Visits Human Rights Watch
(New York, September 25, 2007) – Chilean President Michelle Bachelet made the case for Chile’s membership in the United Nations Human Rights Council during a visit to Human Rights Watch’s New York headquarters today.
We believe that Chile has something to say and something to contribute to the consolidation of the work of the United Nations in this field.
Dr. Michelle Bachelet, President of Chile
“We believe that Chile has something to say and something to contribute to the consolidation of the work of the United Nations in this field,” Bachelet said in a speech to 60 guests and Human Rights Watch staff.
The president referred to her own experience as a victim of torture, one of thousands during Chile’s military dictatorship in the 1970s and 1980s, and said that Chile had learned the importance of human rights from the “darkest chapter” in its history.
“Nunca más, never again, as we said in Chile after our experience in the 1970s and 80s,” Bachelet said. “And that is what we must also say in the United Nations, and act accordingly.”
Chile is one of three Latin American countries currently vying for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council.
“The timing of President Bachelet’s visit could not have been better,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch, referring to the Chilean Supreme Court’s decision on September 21, 2007 to extradite former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori to stand trial for human rights and corruption charges in Peru. “The ruling was a judicial decision, but it reflects the considerable progress Chile has made on human rights, thanks to the efforts of abuse victims, civil society groups, and leaders like President Bachelet.”
Chilean president Michelle Bachelet visits Human Rights Watch,
September 25, 2007. (c) 2007 Saul Robbins/Human Rights Watch
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