21 May 2013

The Afghan government should take urgent steps to halt an alarming increase in women and girls imprisoned for “moral crimes,” Human Rights Watch said today.  Commitments by senior government officials to end such abuses have had little practical impact.

Statistics from Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry indicate that the number of women and girls imprisoned for “moral crimes” in Afghanistan had risen to about 600 in May 2013 from 400 in October 2011 – a 50 percent increase in a year and a half. Since October 2011, there has been an almost 30 percent increase overall in the number of women and girls imprisoned in Afghanistan’s prisons and juvenile detention facilities.

“Four years after the adoption of a law on violence against women and twelve years after Taliban rule, women are still imprisoned for being victims of forced marriage, domestic violence, and rape,” saidBrad Adams, Asia director. “The Afghan government needs to get tough on abusers of women, and stop blaming women who are crime victims.”

In a March 2012 report, “‘I Had to Run Away’: The Imprisonment of Women and Girls for ‘Moral Crimes’ in Afghanistan,” Human Rights Watch documented that some 95 percent of girls and 50 percent of women imprisoned in Afghanistan were accused of the “moral crimes” of “running away” from home or zina (sex outside of marriage).

These “moral crimes” usually involve flight from unlawful forced marriages or domestic violence. Women and girls imprisoned on “moral crimes” charges who were interviewed by Human Rights Watch described abuses including forced and underage marriage below age 16, beatings, stabbings, burnings, rapes, forced prostitution, kidnapping, and threats of “honor killing.” Virtually none of the cases had led even to an investigation of the abuse, let alone prosecution or punishment.

“Running away,” or fleeing home without permission, is not a crime under the Afghan criminal code, but the Afghan Supreme Court has instructed its judges to treat women and girls who flee as criminals.Zina is a crime under Afghan law, punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Some women and girls have been convicted of zina after being raped or forced into prostitution. Prosecution of women who are survivors of gender-based violence has continued, and many abusers of women have continued to go free in spite of Afghanistan’s 2009 Law on the Elimination of Violence Against Women (EVAW Law), which created new criminal penalties for abuse of women.

While several high-level Afghan government officials, including from the police and Justice Ministry, have in the past year publicly confirmed that “running away” is not a crime under Afghan law, such statements have yet to translate into policy, Human Rights Watch said. Some legal experts have suggested that a growing view that women and girls should not be charged with “running away” has merely resulted in a shift toward charging them with attempted zina. A charge of attempted zinaunjustifiably assumes that women outside of the supervision of their male relatives must have attempted to have sex.

Women and girls accused of “moral crimes” are routinely subjected to “virginity tests” that courts rely on for the purpose of determining virginity and whether a woman or girl engaged in recent sexual intercourse. These exams can be ordered by any police official, and some women are subjected to multiple vaginal exams without informed consent for no justifiable reason. Use of such examinations is not limited to rape cases, and examinations do not focus on documenting medical injuries or collecting physical evidence to support an allegation of sexual assault. Although medical examinations can be a legitimate form of investigation in cases of alleged sexual assault, gynecological exams that purport to determine “virginity” have no medical accuracy. Use of such tests constitutes cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment under international law.

“Coerced ‘virginity’ examinations are a form of sexual assault,” Adams said. “Afghan police, without any scientific basis, are routinely forcing these unspeakable examinations on women and girls.”

Some women and girls who flee violence at home are able to access help – rather than being arrested – through shelters. The number of women’s shelters in Afghanistan has increased from 14 in 2011 to 18 in 2013. However, the capacity of the shelters is far too limited for the number of women who require assistance, and fewer than half of the country’s 34 provinces have even a single shelter. There are no shelters in the more conservative southern half of the country.

These shelters may not be sustainable as they are entirely funded by international donors, and donor assistance is dropping rapidly as the 2014 deadline for the withdrawal of international combat forces from Afghanistan approaches. The Afghan government has shown no interest in funding shelters through the government budget and has at times taken actions detrimental to the shelters, including a 2011 effort to take over the shelters and 2012 statements by the justice minister accusing shelters of “moral corruption.”

“Afghanistan’s donors have a crucial role to play in supporting shelters that are literally life-saving for many women,” Adams said. “They should not only help ensure the survival of the shelters that exist, but support expansion of the shelter system including in southern Afghanistan.”
Human Rights Watch called on the Afghan government and its international partners to take the following urgent steps:

• President Hamid Karzai should issue an administrative decree that “running away” should not be treated as a crime under Afghan law and that charges of attempted zina should not be brought. He should exonerate or pardon everyone convicted for “running away;”

• The Ministry of Interior should instruct all police of their obligation to convey immediately information pertaining to all incidents of violence against women or possible crimes under the EVAW Law to the prosecutor;

• The Attorney General should issue instructions requiring prosecutors to formally investigate all allegations of crimes against women under the EVAW Law and other laws, bring charges as the evidence warrants, and fully investigate whether women accused of crimes were acting in response to abuse; and

• International donors should make implementation of the EVAW Law, abolition of the crime of “running away,” revisions to the zina and family laws, and reforms to other laws that discriminate against women key issues in political engagement with the Afghan government.

“Moral Crimes” and Women’s Rights in Afghanistan: Recent Developments

The number of women and girls imprisoned for “moral crimes” in Afghanistan has increased by 50 percent in the period from October 2011 to May 2013. This troubling increase has occurred during a period in which there have been some new efforts by the Afghan government to protect women. In spite of these efforts, however, there has been a failure to take successful action to end wrongful imprisonment of women.

The Afghan government and its international partners have made some progress in addressing wrongful imprisonment of women and girls for “moral crimes” since 2012. Key officials have spoken out, at least on the illegality of “running away” prosecutions. Specialized units within the Attorney General’s Office have made some progress in increasing enforcement of the Law on Elimination of Violence Against Women (EVAW Law). There has been a small increase in the number of shelters for women fleeing violence, and there seems to be a growing awareness by police that many cases should be referred to family court for resolution through marriage or divorce rather than being sent to prosecutors. Some women’s rights activists report that the government, from President Hamid Karzai to the level of individual police and prosecutors, has shown increased openness to hearing concerns about violence against women and working with activists, including in individual cases.

Less encouraging, however, is the continued abusive use of coerced gynecological examinations, and a lack of progress in the recruitment of female police officers. Family court, where women can seek a divorce and custody of their children, exists only in Kabul. Even the slightly expanded number of shelters is nowhere near adequate to meet the need and women in the majority of provinces and the entire southern half of the country have no access to shelters. As long as the number of women and girls imprisoned for “moral crimes” continues to increase – as it has done by 50 percent in the last year and a half – it is clear that the Afghan government needs to do much more to end abusive prosecutions of women and girls.

Below is a timeline of major “moral crimes”– related developments since March 2012:

• April 11, 2012: The Attorney Generals’ Office issued a directive stating that “running away” is not a crime under Afghan law and should not be prosecuted:

A circulation must be prepared and shared with all relevant prosecution offices in the center and provinces and the prosecutors should be instructed not to prepare unjustifiable case files regarding running away cases that have not been criminalized under Afghanistan laws and cannot be heard by courts and refrain from conducting baseless investigations. Other circumstances where people run away to commit any other crime are not covered by this instruction. The issue is being communicated to you so that you can take action in accordance with instruction of the High Council of Attorney General Office of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

• September 16, 2012: Justice Minister Habibullah Ghalib, Women’s Affairs Minister Husn Banu Ghazanfar, and Deputy Interior Minister Mirza Mohammad Yarmand each strongly condemned wrongful imprisonment of women and girls on charges of “running away.” Ghalib said that police and prosecutors should never send cases of “running away” to the courts. Yarmand pledged his commitment to ending abuses by the police, saying that all police had been instructed that running away is not a crime. Ghazanfar said that women and girls accused of running away are not criminals, but generally crime victims who flee to escape violence committed against them.

• September 16, 2012: Fawzia Koofi, director of the lower house parliamentary committee on women’s affairs, and her counterpart, Siddiqa Balkhi, the director of the upper house parliamentary committee on women’s affairs, called for the government to immediately free women and girls charged with running away under Afghanistan’s ambiguous and arbitrary “moral crimes” law.

• October 2012: Criminal charges of “disrespect of police” are brought against Batool Muradi, after she becomes the first Afghan woman to challenge accusations by her husband of “infidelity” through DNA testing of their children.

• Late 2012: The Attorney General announced plans to establish specialized units responsible for bringing prosecutions under the EVAW Law in all of the country’s 34 provinces from the current 8. While the number of cases brought under the EVAW law remains very low even in provinces with these specialized units, activists consider the specialized units, funded by international donors, to be a step in the right direction.

• February 2013: Gulnaz, a young woman released by presidential pardon in December 2011 after serving two and a half years of a 12-year sentence for zina after she was raped, married her rapist. Her case, which received wide coverage in the international and Afghan media, highlighted not only the frequency with which rape victims are imprisoned for “moral crimes” in Afghanistan, but also the lack of options for such women following release. Gulnaz spent over a year in a women’s shelter before social and family pressures led her to marry the man who raped her as the best available option for her and the daughter she gave birth to in prison as a result of the rape.

• May 2013: A parliamentary proposal to amend the EVAW Law risks limiting further the ability of women to flee violence or seek prosecution of their abusers.

Insufficient recruitment of female police officers

Female police officers have a crucial role to play in enforcing Afghanistan’s EVAW Law. In Afghanistan’s deeply gender segregated society, many women have difficulty even leaving their homes, and would find it impossible to report a crime, especially one involving sensitive issues of sexual assault or domestic violence, to a male police officer. In the absence of female officers, reporting crimes may even be unsafe: one woman told Human Rights Watch that when she went to a police station to report being raped, she was raped again by an officer in the station.

The percentage of women in the Afghan police has remained at about 1 percent over the last few years. A Human Rights Watch statement highlighted some of the challenges that make it difficult to recruit and retain women in the police force, including abuse and sometimes assault by male colleague in the police and a lack of the most basic toilet and changing room facilities. In spite of multiple reports of incidents of sexual harassment and rape of female police officers by male police officers, there have been no cases of successful prosecution of male police officers for these abuses and the Ministry of Interior has denied that abuses against women officers are a problem.

Continued abusive use of vaginal examinations

Afghan women accused of “moral crimes” are routinely ordered to undergo gynecological examinations that purport to provide information about whether the woman or girl is a “virgin” and whether she has engaged in recent sexual intercourse. This practice continues despite the fact that gynecological examinations that purport to determine virginity have no medical validity, and constitute cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment under international human rights law. A modified gynecological examination that is rid of so-called virginity tests can be legitimately used for therapeutic purposes and evidence collection in rape cases, but should not be used otherwise, and should never be used without the informed consent of the woman or girl.

A senior police official told Human Rights Watch in May 2013 that these examinations can be ordered by any local police officer –“whoever sees the case first.” Another senior government official said that women are often without any justification subjected to multiple examinations. Human Rights Watch found that senior Afghan government officials seem unprepared to accept that there is no scientific validity to these examinations.

Desperate need for more shelters

In 2001, Afghanistan had no shelters for women and girls fleeing violence. The 18 shelters that exist today have demonstrated that they provide an option for women that not only can keep them from being wrongfully imprisoned, but can also literally save their lives in the many cases where “honor killing” is threatened. The success of existing shelters should lead to creation of new shelters sufficient to ensure that women in every province have access to a shelter. Unfortunately, the total dependency of these shelters on international donors, combined with the often unsupportive attitude of the Afghan government toward shelters, creates real uncertainty about the long–term sustainability of shelters. The overall decline in donor support to Afghanistan reduces the likelihood that there will be any major expansion of urgently needed shelter services.

20 May 2013

Zambian authorities should dismiss all charges and release two men arrested for engaging in homosexual acts, Human Rights Watch said. The police should immediately cease forensic anal examinations, which are intrusive, invasive and constitute cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment in violation of international law.

On May 6, 2013, police in the Kapiri Mposhi district in central Zambia arrested James Mwansa and Phillip Mubiana in response to reports from neighbors that the two were engaging in homosexual acts. Both men were subjected to anal examinations without their consent by forensic doctors at the Kapiri Mposhi District Hospital, as part of the police investigation. On May 8, the district magistrate formally charged Mwansa and Mubiana, and denied their request for a postponement even though they had no legal representation.

“It’s bad enough that Zambia wants to prosecute these two men for homosexual acts, but to subject them to invasive examinations is just outrageous,” said Monica Tabengwa, researcher in the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. “The authorities should immediately drop the charges and free them, and stop bringing such cases.”

The arrest, detention, and prosecution of men suspected of homosexual acts is only one aspect of a looming human rights crisis for LGBT people in Zambia. Since April, politicians, religious, and community leaders have been carrying out vicious campaigns to vilify LGBT people, Human Rights Watch said.

Juliet Mphande, director of Lusaka-based LGBT organization Friends of Rainka, told Human Rights Watch that Mwansa and Mubiana, both 21, were coerced to confess to the allegations and have been deprived of adequate food and water in detention.

This is the second time the men have been arrested on similar charges, Human Rights Watch said. In April,the two men were arrested and detained for a week before being released on bail on a charge of engaging in “carnal knowledge against the order of nature,” as set out in the Zambian Penal Code.

The Zambian government is obligated under international law and its own constitution to respect the private lives and personal liberties of everyone in the country, and to cease prosecuting people for consensual adult sex, Human Rights Watch said.

Forensic anal examinations are used on suspected homosexuals in various countries to prove “habitual” anal penetration, Human Rights Watch said. The tests are intrusive, invasive, and abusive, and they violate the individual’s rights to integrity, dignity, and privacy. They are a cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment that may amount to torture, violating the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the Convention Against Torture, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, all of which Zambia has ratified.

The examinations have no forensic or evidentiary value for consensual homosexual acts. They are contrary to medical ethics as laid out by the World Medical Association and the United Nations Principles of Medical Ethics Relevant to the Role of Health Personnel, Particularly Physicians, in the Protection of Prisoners and Detainees Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

Principle 4 of the UN principles states:

It is a contravention of medical ethics for health personnel, particularly physicians… to apply their knowledge and skills in order to assist in the interrogation of prisoners and detainees in a manner that may adversely affect the physical or mental health or condition of such prisoners or detainees and which is not in accordance with the relevant international instruments.

“Medical professionals participate in a miscarriage of justice when they subject people arrested for homosexuality to anal examinations,” Tabengwa said. “These invasive procedures are painful and humiliating and can be a form of torture. They should be banned immediately and evidence obtained should be declared inadmissible.”

The Zambian government should respect its own constitutional provisions guaranteeing non-discrimination and equality before the law by ordering an immediate halt to arrests and prosecutions based on suspicion of homosexual conduct. As part of its obligation to protect and promote human rights for all, the government should also repeal all laws criminalizing consensual sexual sex between adults, including Penal Code sections 155 (“Unnatural Offences”), 156 (“attempt to commit unnatural offences”), and 158(“indecent practices between persons of the same sex”), Human Rights Watch said. These provisions provide maximum penalties from 5 years to life in prison.

The recent efforts in Zambia to vilify LGBT people have publicly portrayed homosexuality as immoral and un-African. The government’s unwillingness to assert constitutional protections and ensure redress for discrimination and abuse of minorities, as well as the arbitrary arrest and prosecution of individuals suspected of homosexual acts, show the vulnerability of the country’s LGBT community.

On April 10, on Radio Phoenix, on a live radio panel discussion among religious leaders led by the former Orthodox Bishop Edward Chomba, another religious leader suggested that the most appropriate way to deal with gay people was death. The minister of youth and sports, Chishimba Kambwili, called in during the program and said defenders of the rights of LGBT people were “agents of the devil.” He also said that the Zambian government will be “introducing stiffer penalties against homosexuality,” instead of repealing the existing laws.

A police spokeswoman, Elizabeth Kanjela, told the media that homosexuality was a serious offense and appealed to the public to report anyone involved to the police. This statement followed a news report involving the attempt of four gay couples to register marriages during the Easter holidays. Same-sex marriage is an offense under Zambian law. The attempt to register same-sex-marriages provoked an outcry from several traditional and religious leaders who wrote a letter to the Daily Mail newspaper calling for “gays to be caged.” The LGBT community has never raised same-sex marriage as a priority in Zambia.

When the human rights defender Paul Kasokomona appeared on Muvi TV on April 6 to discuss LGBT and HIV issues, he was arrested as he left the television station. He was denied bail for five days, then finally released on April 11. He was charged with “soliciting in a public place for immoral purposes” and faces a court appearance on May 22. If convicted, Kasokomona may be imprisoned for one month or fined.

“The Zambian government should take immediate action against government officials who make discriminatory statements against LGBT people, or arrest or detain them,” Tabengwa said. “The attacks on LGBT people need to stop.”

20 May 2013

Respect for basic rights and liberties has declined in Sri Lanka in the four years since the government defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). This week marks the fourth anniversary of the brutal civil war’s end.

Since the end of the 26-year-long civil war, the Sri Lankan government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa has resisted taking meaningful steps to investigate and prosecute alleged war crimes by government forces and the LTTE, end the crackdown against the independent media and human rights activists, and stop ongoing abuses against suspected LTTE supporters. Government pledges to address the concerns of the ethnic Tamil population have gone unfulfilled.

“Four years after Sri Lanka’s horrific civil war ended, many Sri Lankans await justice for the victims of abuses, news of the ‘disappeared,’ and respect for their basic rights,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Instead, the Rajapaksa government has rejected investigations, clamped down harder on the media, and persisted in wartime abuses such as torture.”

Rajapaksa’s assurances to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to investigate allegations of war crimes by all sides remain unmet, Human Rights Watch said. The government simply disregarded the Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts report, which found that up to 40,000 civilians had died in the final months of the fighting, many from indiscriminate government shelling. The government has similarly not implemented most of the accountability-related recommendations of its own Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission, which was called for by the UN Human Rights Council at its March 2012 and March 2013 sessions.

Since 2009 the government has increasingly restricted fundamental liberties, imperiling Sri Lanka’s democratic system, Human Rights Watch said. Government officials have threatened, and unknown assailants have attacked, members of the media, civil society, and the political opposition. Activists who advocated for the 2012 Human Rights Council resolution were publicly denounced and threatened by officials. The Rajapaksa government orchestrated parliament’s impeachment of Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake in December 2012 after she had ruled against the government in a major case.

Publications including electronic media that are critical of the government have been subject to government censorship, and some have been forced to close down. The leading Tamil opposition newspaper, Uthayan, has faced repeated physical attacks against its journalists and property.

Tamils with alleged links to the LTTE remain targets of arbitrary arrest and detention, and are at risk of torture and other ill-treatment. Sri Lankan security forces have used rape and other forms of sexual violence against alleged LTTE supporters, as documented by Human Rights Watch in a February report. On the strength of the evidence presented by Human Rights Watch and other organizations, since 2012 several courts in the United Kingdom suspended the deportation of Tamils considered to fall within this risk category.

The Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) continues to be used to detain individuals for long periods without charge or trial. In May, the authorities detained Muslim opposition politician Azad Salley under the PTA for warning about the dangers of fanning ethnic hatred. Following his release after a couple of days, the powerful secretary of defense, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, said publicly that Salley “could never be another Prabhakaran.”

“The Rajapaksa government seems to be hoping that broad-based repression will dampen the exercise of fundamental freedoms,” Adams said. “But Sri Lankan activists and journalists who showed incredible resilience during wartime to bring forth the truth, will undoubtedly find a way to do so when the country is at peace.”

While there has been considerable economic development in Sri Lanka’s war-torn north, much hardship remains for the predominantly Tamil population. Many families seek to learn the fate of loved ones, some of whom are still detained as LTTE suspects without charge or trial. Government security restrictions and an intrusive military presence in the north have hindered freedom of movement among the local population. Long-awaited provincial elections in the north have yet to take place; the government has announced that they will take place in September while at the same time talking publicly about the need to get rid of the 13th amendment to the constitution which devolves power from the center to the provincial governments.

Human Rights Watch urged governments to demonstrate their concerns for Sri Lanka’s deteriorating human rights situation at the United Nations and other international venues. This includes continuing to press for an independent international investigation into wartime abuses, speaking out against ongoing abuses, and providing support for Sri Lankan civil society.

“History has shown time and again, most recently with the conviction of Guatemala’s former president, that hiding the truth is an impossible exercise,” Adams said. “Concerned governments should not let the poor human rights environment in Sri Lanka deter them from promoting accountability and greater rights protections.”

20 May 2013

The Ugandan government should immediately end politically motivated police intimidation of newspapers and radio stations and ensure that the media can operate freely, Human Rights Watch said today.

Recent raids on two newspapers and two radio stations are linked to a legal dispute in which the police have sought to obtain the source for an article by the Daily Monitor about the “Muhoozi Project,” an alleged plot to usher into power the son of President Yoweri Museveni.

“Police should resolve legal disputes before the courts without resorting to abusive tactics to scare journalists away from politically sensitive stories,” said Maria Burnett, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Muzzling the media is a bad way to address Uganda’s political debates.”

On May 7, 2013, the Daily Monitor published an article detailing an alleged conspiracy to frame or eliminate high-ranking members of the government who do not support a plan for Museveni’s son Brig. Muhoozi Kainerugaba to take over when his father steps down. The article was based on a leaked April 29 letter written by Uganda’s coordinator of intelligence service, Gen. David Sejjusa (also known as Tinyefuza), to the director of the Internal Security Organization calling for investigations into the plot. Sejjusa is currently outside of Uganda but has publicly confirmed that he wrote the letter.

In response to the article, the police media crimes unit questioned the article’s authors, Risdel Kasasira and Richard Wanambwa, as well as the Monitor’s managing editor, Don Wanyama. When the journalists refused to reveal the source of the letter, police sought and received a court order on May 15 ordering the Monitor to produce the original copy of the Sejjusa letter and disclose its source. In a statement on May 20, the Monitor said that it was contesting the demand by the police to disclose the source of the story and that “the matter is yet to be decided.”

Monitor staff told Human Rights Watch that at midday on May 20 about 50 police in uniform traveling in two pickup trucks arrived at Monitor headquarters in Namuwongo, Kampala, and closed off the building. The compound is also the headquarters of KFM radio and Dembe FM radio, all owned by the Nation Media Group. The police entered the premises with a search warrant and thenordered staff to stop working. Plainclothes police then entered.

The Monitor’s statement said that, “Instead of carrying out the search, armed men disabled the printing press, computer servers and radio transmission equipment.” Police also tried to disconnect the newspaper’s website and informed the staff that the area was the “scene of a crime,” witnesses said. Newspaper staff told Human Rights Watch that the police informed them that the crime was failing to turn over a document to police. The police held hundreds of staff members inside the compound for hours as they disabled equipment and ultimately conducted the search. At about 5 p.m., staff were ordered to leave but police maintained control of the newsroom and sealed off the premises. Police also raided the tabloid newspaper, the Red Pepper, in Namanve, a suburb of Kampala,allegedly looking for a source of the leaked letter.

“This Daily Monitor raid is a classic case of shooting the messenger,” Burnett said. “The authorities’ heavy handed actions and shutting down of the newspapers and radio stations show blatant show disregard for freedom of the press.”

Radio stations KFM and Dembe FM remain off the air. The Monitor’s printing press remains down and will not publish for at least another day. Police spokeswoman Judith Nabakooba told the media that the police will continue the search until they find the original letter and the source of the leak, which might take many more days.

Godfrey Mutabazi, the chairman of the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), the government broadcasting regulatory body, said that he had no case against the two radio stations but that they were operating from the scene of a crime and therefore needed to stay off the air. On May 14 the commission issued a warning to the broadcast media stating that the commission had “established that broadcast by some media houses on the recent events [the Sejjusa letter] … have not been professional and impartial,” and that some media were “turning the coverage of what should be news and factual broadcasts into political campaigns which are capable of derailing the socio-economic stability of our country.”

Radio stations have previously been taken off the air without due process, Human Rights Watch said. In 2009 the government forced four Luganda-language stations off the air during demonstrations supporting the Buganda traditional leader, the Kabaka. CBS radio, one of the four stations, remained off the air for over a year. In each case the radio stations were closed without any judicial process.

“The police and government regulatory bodies in Uganda have a history of shutting down broadcasts without due process in times of political controversy,” Burnett said. “The government needs to tolerate debate of divergent and critical opinions and leave concerns of professionalism and impartiality to the listeners.”

Human Rights Watch has documented how government officials and ruling party members intimidate and harass journalists who have reported critically about the government, presented opposing political views, or exposed state wrongdoing, such as corruption or failure to investigate crimes, particularly in rural areas.

17 May 2013

The Cameroonian authorities should drop the charges against two transgender youth rather than appealing their case to the Supreme Court, five human rights organizations said today. Jonas K. and Franky D. are being prosecuted on what the appeals court has already ruled were trumped-up charges of homosexual conduct, the groups said in a letter to the Yaoundé prosecutor today.

The five organizations – Alternatives-Cameroun, Association for the Defense of Homosexuals (ADEFHO), Cameroonian Foundation for AIDS (CAMFAIDS), Human Rights Watch, and the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) – asked the prosecutor to withdraw a motion challenging an Appeals Court decision that overruled Jonas’s and Franky’s conviction.

“An appeals court has already determined there is no evidence against Jonas and Franky,” said Stéphane Koche, vice president at ADEFHO. “Why is the Cameroonian government wasting its time persecuting two innocent young people?”

The organizations sent their letter on the occasion of the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHoT), celebrated around the world by human rights activists calling for an end to discrimination, hatred, and violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) people.

The two transgender youth, who identify as women, were arrested in July 2011 by police who stopped their vehicle and saw that they were dressed in women’s clothing. Police claimed that Jonas, Franky, and a third person were “groping each other’s genitals” in the car, which the accused denied. The prosecutor did not present any eyewitnesses and relied on confessions that Jonas and Franky made in police custody and later said were coerced.

A trial court convicted them of homosexual conduct in November 2011 in what defense lawyers described as a legal charade. The judge suggested that because they testified that they were drinking Bailey’s liqueur the night of the arrest – which the judge considered a “women’s drink” – they must be homosexual.

On January 7 the Central Region Appeals Court, acknowledging the lack of evidence, overturned the conviction. The appeals court reasoned that the lower court had improperly relied upon confessions that Jonas and Franky made under duress in police custody and that the prosecution failed to present any witnesses who had actually seen the alleged offense take place. It also found that even if there were truth to the police report that the vehicle’s occupants were “groping” one another, this might legally be regarded as “attempted homosexuality,” but not “homosexuality,” which is understood by Cameroonian law as requiring penetration.

“When the prosecution can’t even be bothered to present eyewitnesses, it’s clear that the case is lacking in substance,” said Neela Ghoshal, LGBT rights researcher at Human Rights Watch.

“This case looks like an ideologically motivated attack on sexual and gender minorities, based on a discriminatory law, and should never have been in the courts to begin with.”

Following the appeals court decision, Jonas and Franky were released in January from Yaoundé’s Kondengui prison, where they had been imprisoned for a year and a half. On January 30, President Paul Biya, at a news conference in Paris, referred to their release as evidence of “progress.” Biya told journalists, “We have recently learned that people convicted of homosexuality have been released, so there is a change of mind, do not despair.”

However, the public prosecutor’s office had already filed a motion, on January 10, to challenge the Appeals Court’s decision at the Supreme Court. The transgender women’s defense lawyers only learned of the challenge in March.

“Biya is trying to convince the international community that things are improving for LGBTI people in Cameroon, while at the same time, the state is aggressively attacking LGBTI rights,” said Dominique Menoga, founder at the Cameroonian Foundation for AIDS (CAMFAIDS), an advocacy organization that seeks to promote LGBTI rights. “This is hypocrisy at the highest levels.”

At the May 2013 Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Cameroon at the United Nations Human Rights Council, 15 UN member states made recommendations to Cameroon related to its obligations to uphold basic human rights for LGBTI people. States recommended that Cameroon decriminalize same-sex conduct, protect LGBTI people from violence, and adopt measures to eliminate social prejudices and stigmatization on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

“The numerous recommendations made to Cameroon regarding its obligation to protect the rights of LGBTI people shows the extent to which Cameroon is perceived as an extremely repressive country in terms of gender identity and sexual orientation,” said Patricia Curzi , Liaison Officer at the UN International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA).

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Cameroon told states parties to the UN Human Rights Council that Cameroon needs “more time” to make progress on LGBTI rights – a response that offers little comfort to Jonas and Franky as well as other Cameroonians who are currently in prison because of their perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.

“As transgender people, Jonas and Franky are guilty of nothing more than having a gender identity that most Cameroonians don’t understand,” said Yves Yomb, executive director at Alternatives-Cameroun. “On the occasion of the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia, we call on our government to accept UPR recommendations to end homophobic and transphobic discrimination, and simply to let people like Jonas and Franky live their lives in peace.”

16 May 2013

Five Bahraini men, including a lawyer, were sentenced to one year’s imprisonment by the Manama Lower Criminal Court on 15 May for allegedly insulting the King of Bahrain in messages posted on Twitter. They may be prisoners of conscience.

According to information received by Amnesty International, lawyer Mahdi al-Basri (25), was arrested on 11 March following a police raid on his home in Karrana, northern Bahrain. Four other men,Mahmood ‘Abdul-Majeed ‘Abdullah Al-Jamri (34), Hassan ‘Abdali ‘Issa (33), Mohsen ‘Abdali ‘Issa(26) and ‘Ammar Makki Mohammad Al-Aali (36) were arrested at dawn on 12 March. The trial of the five in separate cases began on 24 March before Branch 3 of the Lower Criminal Court on charge of insulting the King in messages posted on Twitter. Mahdi al-Basri was accused of posting twitter messages in June 2012 that were traced to his IP address. He has denied the charges, stating that his personal Twitter account was not the account used to post these messages and that he had no connection to the account that used his IP address. All five were sentenced to one year imprisonment on 15 May, under Article 214 of Bahrain’s Penal Code which criminalizes “offending the emir of the country [the King], the national flag or emblem”. Mahdi al-Basri’s lawyer will lodge an appeal. The five men will be transferred to Jaw prison shortly. A sixth man was acquitted.

On 14 April 2013, Bahrain’s cabinet endorsed an amendment to Article 214 of the Penal Code, increasing the penalty for offending King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifah or the country’s flag and other national symbols. The amendment, which has been referred to the National Assembly, would make such offences punishable by up to five years in prison in addition to steep fines.

Article 214 of Bahrain’s Penal Code states: “A prison sentence shall be the penalty for any person who offends the emir of the country [the King], the national flag or emblem”; this violates the right to freedom of expression.

Two years after the uprising in Bahrain, and beneath the fanfare of reform, prisoners of conscience, including some arrested during the protests, remain behind bars and the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly continue to be suppressed. In recent months, not only have prisoners of conscience not been released, but more people have been jailed simply for daring to express their views, whether via Twitter or on peaceful marches. Bahraini courts have appeared more concerned with toeing the government’s line than offering effective remedy to Bahrainis and upholding the rule of law.

The Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI), appointed by Royal Order on 29 June 2011, was charged with investigating and reporting on human rights violations committed in connection with the 2011 protests. At the launch of the BICI report in November 2011, the government publicly committed itself to implementing the recommendations set out in the report. The report recounted the government’s response to the mass protests and documented wide-ranging human rights abuses. Among its key recommendations, the report called on the government to bring to account those responsible for human rights violations, including torture and excessive use of force, and carry out independent investigations into allegations of torture.

However, many of the government’s pledges remain unfulfilled. The establishment of BICI and its report was considered to be a groundbreaking initiative, but, 18 months on, the promise of meaningful reform has been betrayed by the government’s unwillingness to implement key recommendations around accountability. For further information see the report Reform shelved, repression unleashed(Index: MDE 11/062/2012), November 2012, http://amnesty.org/en/library/info/MDE11/062/2012/en.

In September 2012, Bahraini authorities expressed its views on the conclusions and recommendations of the report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) during the 21st session of the UN Human Rights Council. It stated: “Freedom of speech and expression are guaranteed by Bahrain’s Constitution, national laws and international covenants ratified by Bahrain. Additionally, all charges related to freedom of expression have been dropped. All cases are being reviewed in civilian courts. Furthermore, legislative amendments concerning free expression are being reviewed”. The UN Human Rights Committee which oversees the implementation of the ICCPR, observed that the mere fact that statements are considered insulting to a public figure is not sufficient to justify imposition of penalties. Moreover, public figures, including heads of states, are legitimately subject to criticism and political opposition. UN human rights experts say alleged defamation of public figures, such as politicians, should not be criminalized, as those in the public eye “should be expected to tolerate more criticism than private citizens”. They have also said that freedom of opinion and expression involves the right to freely criticize politicians and other public personalities.

16 May 2013

Government security branches in Raqqa city hold documents and potential physical evidence indicating that detainees were arbitrarily detained and tortured there while the city was under government control. Human Rights Watch researchers visited the State Security and Military Intelligence facilities in Raqqa, now under the de facto control of local armed opposition groups, in late April 2013.

Local opposition leaders with the support of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces and neutral international experts should safeguard potential evidence of torture and arbitrary detention in security forces centers in opposition-controlled areas, Human Rights Watch said.

“The documents, prison cells, interrogation rooms, and torture devices we saw in the government’s security facilities are consistent with the torture former detainees have described to us since the beginning of the uprising in Syria,” said Nadim Houry, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Those in control of Raqqa need to safeguard the materials in these facilities so the truth can be told and those responsible held accountable.”

In the State Security facility, Human Rights Watch researchers observed on the ground floor and in the basement, rooms that appeared to be detention cells. Among the documents were what appeared to be lists of security force members who had worked there. Human Rights Watch researchers also saw a “bsat al-reeh” torture device in the facility, which former detainees have said has been used to immobilize and severely stretch or bend limbs.

Several former detainees held at other intelligence facilities in Syria have described to Human Rights Watch how security guards used “bsat al-reeh” torture devices in detention facilities across the country. They tie a detainee down to a flat board, sometimes in the shape of a cross, so that he is helpless to defend himself. In some cases, former detainees said guards stretched or pulled their limbs or folded the board in half so that their face touched their legs, causing pain and further immobilizing them.

Among the reams of documents and case files Human Rights Watch researchers saw in the Military Intelligence facility in Raqqa were some that appeared to list all of Raqqa’s college graduates, suggesting that they were of interest to the security branch by virtue of their college education. Researchers also observed three solitary confinement cells and one group detention cell in the right half of the first floor of the facility.

Human Rights Watch researchers interviewed five people formerly held by Military Intelligence in Raqqa, who said that security forces detained and interrogated them there. They said that the security services questioned them about lawful activities, such as participating in peaceful demonstrations, providing relief assistance to displaced families, defending detainees, and providing emergency assistance to injured demonstrators. They believed that they were detained for these lawful activities, making their detention arbitrary.

Four said that officers and guards in the facility tortured them. They identified Mohammed al-Ahmed, also known as Abu Jassem, as the person responsible for their interrogations, and in some cases, abuse. Raqqa residents interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that opposition fighters killed Abu Jassem during the battle for control of Raqqa, which came under opposition control during the first week of March.

In addition to the State Security and Military Intelligence branches, three other facilities in the city of Raqqa – formerly managed by Criminal Security, Political Security, and Air Force Intelligence – are now also controlled by armed opposition groups.

Human Rights Watch has repeatedly documented widespread violations by Syrian government security forces and officials, including enforced disappearances, torture, and arbitrary and incommunicado detentions of peaceful protesters, activists, humanitarian assistance providers, and doctors.

Based on information from former detainees and defectors, Human Rights Watch previously identified the locations, agencies responsible, torture methods, and, in many cases, the commanders who were in charge of 27 detention facilities run by Syrian intelligence agencies across the country where torture has been documented. The systematic patterns of ill-treatment and torture that Human Rights Watch has documented point to a state policy of torture and ill-treatment and therefore constitute a crime against humanity.

The de facto authorities in opposition held areas still face many challenges and competing priorities. Some are still subject to attack by Syrian government forces and are struggling to provide basic services to local populations. Nevertheless, there is an urgent need to safeguard potential evidence in these and other former security force facilities that could be vital to future domestic and international accountability processes, Human Rights Watch said. This evidence could also help to clarify the role intelligence forces played in abuses in Syria.

Documents and material in these facilities could vanish or be destroyed if not promptly secured. Destruction or mishandling of these documents and material will weaken the possibility of bringing to justice those responsible for serious crimes. In addition, their loss could encumber future truth seeking processes and prevent the comprehensive documentation of crimes committed by the Syrian government. Truth commissions can be valuable complementary tools to criminal justice for preserving historical memory, clarifying events, and attributing political and institutional responsibilities.

The de facto authorities in Raqqa and local opposition leaders should coordinate the collection and storage of this potential evidence from security force branches now under their control, Human Rights Watch said. They should seek the support of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces and neutral international experts, including those with expertise in collecting forensic evidence and in working before criminal tribunals.

The armed opposition groups that have taken control of these facilities should secure them while allowing civilian opposition leaders, with outside support, to organize the removal of materials and photographing of physical evidence that is not movable.

Authorities should also create a central repository in a secure and undisclosed location to receive and store this potential evidence until proper criminal investigations can be undertaken. If possible, copies of relevant materials should be made and stored in a separate location in case originals are destroyed or lost.

Human Rights Watch has repeatedly urged the UN Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Other countries should join the mounting calls for accountability by supporting a referral to the ICC as the forum most capable of effectively prosecuting those bearing the greatest responsibility for abuses in Syria. On January 14, a letter was sent to the Security Council on behalf of 58 countries calling for an ICC referral. The Security Council has taken no action in response.

“Learning the truth about the role intelligence services have played in spying on and terrorizing Syrians will enable them to guard against these abuses in the future,” Houry said. “But for Syrians to learn the truth once the conflict ends, it is vital even under the tough conditions of war to preserve the potential evidence of the security forces’ role.”

Former Detainees Describe Torture in Raqqa

Human Rights Watch researchers interviewed five former detainees in person in Raqqa city. The interviews were conducted by Arabic-speaking researchers and wherever possible, were conducted in private. To protect witnesses, in four cases, the names of witnesses have been withheld. In the fifth case, the interviewee, a prominent attorney and the current head of the local civilian council asked to be identified by name.

“Ahmed,” a 24-year-old former college student from Raqqa, told Human Rights Watch that on April 7, 2012, Military Intelligence officers detained him and his brother at the Raqqa Military Intelligence Branch for their involvement in peaceful demonstrations. After his release, he joined an armed opposition group, and now is a fighter with an opposition battalion, Jabhat al-Wahda wal-Tahrir al-Islami (the Islamic Front for Unity and Liberation), in Raqqa city.

He told Human Rights Watch that the intelligence officers held him there for five days before transferring him to the Military Intelligence facility in Deir al-Zor, directed by Jame` Jame`. Ahmed said that Military Intelligence officers and guards tortured him and his brother at the Raqqa Military Intelligence Branch and that the sound of his brother screaming under torture tormented him. He said that Abu Jassem, the officer in charge of interrogations, beat him so that he would confess to participating in demonstrations and inform on other protesters:

The torture started in turns between my brother and me. They started torturing him with electricity for three, four hours, and then they threw him in a solitary cell…. They wanted me to tell them who used to go out to demonstrate with me … and they would make me hear my brother’s screams. This was more [pressure] than the beating; they would force me to listen to him [being tortured].

Ahmed said that the guards tortured his brother with electricity in the room adjacent to the prison guard’s room. He said he also saw torture devices in Abu Jassem’s office on the second floor, where he was interrogated. Ahmed said that Military Intelligence held his brother in one of three solitary cells on the ground floor of the facility while they held him in a nearby group cell.

Ahmed told Human Rights Watch that he confessed to attending demonstrations after Abu Jassem threatened to bring his mother to the detention facility:

 He told me to confess to the demonstrations I participated in or he would bring my mother [to the branch]. I said, “Whatever it is you want, I am with you. That’s it …” I said, “I will fingerprint a white piece of paper, and you write what you want.”

On the fifth day, he said, prison guards transferred Ahmed and his brother to Deir al-Zor, where they held them for 15 days in the Military Intelligence facility, before taking them to a military police facility, then to a transit facility in Balooneh, Homs, and finally to the Military Intelligence Palestine Branch in Damascus. Security forces held them in the Palestine Branch for 20 days and from there took them to Qaboun, back to Balooneh, and eventually to Aleppo to try them before a military court. His final stop was the civilian prison in Raqqa, from which the authorities finally released him on June 8, 2012, following a court decision to sentence him to time served.

“Ziad,” born in 1964, said that security forces also detained him in the Military Intelligence Branch in Raqqa on April 12, 2012, where Abu Jassem interrogated him before they transferred him to Deir el Zour two days later. He told Human Rights Watch that Abu Jassem detained and beat him because he was providing relief assistance to displaced families from Homs in Raqqa and for his participation in demonstrations:

I work in relief assistance, so they detained me. I used to help families from Homs that were here [in Raqqa] displaced from Homs. I also went to demonstrations. There were lots of accusations against me, like that I was working with foreigners. They had the accusations ready to use against me, but without any evidence. Muhammad al-Ahmad, known as Abu Jassem, began interrogating me. He started by insulting me. Another official started beating me with his hands. “You’re an agent, a traitor,” and insults like that. Then two more officials came in, one with an electric device and they beat me with it several times, with electricity.

… He wanted me to confess to things that had nothing to do with me: that I got money for weapons, etc., which didn’t happen … All I did was give relief to displaced families from Homs after the destruction there…. [During the interrogation] they used the electric baton, slaps, and a stick; I think it was silicone [to beat me]. My body was marked for a long time.

Ziad told Human Rights Watch that after his first interrogation, Military Intelligence moved him between the group and solitary cells on the first floor of the branch, where he could hear the screams of other prisoners, including prisoners whom he believed were children.From the branch in Raqqa, Military Intelligence took Ziad to the Military Intelligence facility in Deir el Zour, he said, where they held him for 14 days, then sent him to the Military Intelligence Palestine branch in Damascus. Altogether, he said government forces detained him for approximately three months before eventually releasing him on bail after he went before a military court in Aleppo.

Abdullah Khalil, a long time human rights defender and the current head of the opposition local civilian council in Raqqa governorate, also spoke to Human Rights Watch researchers about his time as a detainee in the Military Intelligence detention facility in Raqqa. He told Human Rights Watch that security officials detained him on May 1, 2011, and held him in the facility for one day before transporting him to Deir al-Zor. Abu Jassem was also in charge of him at Raqqa, he said, but because Khalil is a lawyer, his interrogators treated him better than the other detainees in the facility:

In the evening, two hours after I was detained, they started to interrogate me … During the interrogation, they would ask me, or would try and ask me, about my relationships with fighters, but this is not true, [I didn’t have these relationships]. I worked on the civilian side, and would work from a human rights perspective, but these are the questions they would ask because I used to defend detainees…. [During the interrogation], they didn’t beat me but they threatened me by saying they would transfer me to Damascus or detain me for a very long time unless I confessed. They tortured and beat other detainees. They also took off my clothes completely. It was a humiliation tactic.

Khalil said that Syrian security force officers transferred him to 17 different security branches across the country throughout the course of his detention. He believes that while government forces did not beat him because of his position as a lawyer and connection to international organizations, they tried to torture him mentally by moving him repeatedly.

The government’s charges against him included an accusation that he communicated with international human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, shared information with reporters, supported the revolution, defended prisoners, received financial support from outside of the country to do so, and encouraged people to kill security force and army members. The government released Khalil under a general amnesty.

“Samih” said that a Military Intelligence patrol in Raqqa city detained him on March 16, 2012, on his way to work. He told Human Rights Watch that Abu Jassem interrogated, beat, and held him in a solitary cell for one day before transferring him to the Criminal Security facility in Raqqa:

 [When I got to the Military Intelligence Branch] … they put me in a solitary cell … The solitary cell is 1.4 by 2.20 meters. You can see blood on the walls of the cell. The prison guard would come and open the window to the cell just to insult me … At 12 a.m. they took me up for interrogation. I went up to Abu Jassem, who asked me, “Why do you assist the wounded [demonstrators] … these are terrorists.”

The treatment [in the interrogation was bad] … I was cuffed, blindfolded … I was sitting on the floor … [During this] first time there was one interrogator … After the interrogation, they brought me down to the torture room; they were torturing two guys and said, “Do you want to confess or do you want us to torture you like these two?” [I could see] blood from bodies and legs. They were on the “bsat el reeh”… I said, “I have nothing to say”… [Then] I went up to Abu Jassem [again], and said, “I used to help the wounded; these aren’t terrorists; these are oppressed people.”…. I was there for 24 hours and then they took me to Criminal Security.

Samih said that government forces detained him for 32 days before he paid them 10,000 Syrian pounds (US$ 143) to get out of detention on bail. He never saw a judge.

“Bilal,” a 22-year-old college student from Raqqa city, told Human Rights Watch that Military Intelligence officers in Raqqa detained him in December 2011 because of his involvement in peaceful demonstrations and humanitarian relief work. He said they held him in the Raqqa branch for two days during which time they detained him in a solitary cell. Abu Jassem interrogated him, accused him of terrorism related charges, and beat him:

I went to Military Intelligence. My dad followed me there of course [after he learned I was detained from work]. The first person we sat with was Abu Jassem … When we first sat with him, he said … “Tell your dad about the explosive devices that you have hidden.” I couldn’t believe that I was facing these accusations: explosives and weapons! He started with accusations that were bigger than me, that I had never heard of before.

I laughed at what he was saying; it was an innocent laugh. This was my last laugh in Military Intelligence … [After this], they took me to the solitary cell. It was raining outside, cold, and I went in terrified … I stayed about two hours in the solitary cell. Then I knocked on the door. I was cold. A guard opened, and I told him I want blankets to cover … He brought water and threw it on me, and took off his belt and started beating me. After 30 minutes [of this beating], I wasn’t cold anymore.

[After that] I stayed in the cell about five hours, and after five hours went up to see Abu Jassem … [He] wanted me to confess to explosions and other accusations … [But] the biggest thing I did from the beginning of the revolution until now was demonstrate and help people … Eventually he got to the subject of my brother … and I understood that these accusations were to scare me to confess quickly [and provide information about my brother] … [Abu Jassem] didn’t use electricity; here it was just slaps and beating, pushing around.

After two days, Bilal said, Military Intelligence transferred him to the Criminal Security branch in Raqqa where they held him for 10 days and tortured him. He said that Musa`b abu Rakbe was the director of this facility. He said they detained him for 28 days in total before releasing him.

15 May 2013

The Iraqi government has hurled the country to the brink of a new civil war. In under a month, Baghdad launched a vicious assault on a Sunni protest camp, resulting in 44 deaths; executed 21 alleged Sunni terrorists in one day, and suspended the licenses of 10 satellite channels, 9 of them deemed pro-Sunni.

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s message to his country’s extremely disaffected Sunni minority, which resists with an increasing sense of futility joining the battles between Maliki’s forces and extremists? “Bring It On!”

The country remains in shambles after years of gruesome civil war pitting the minority Sunnis against the newly dominant Shias. Ten years after the U.S.-led invasion, most people still experience electricity and water shortages. Iraq’s education and health services, once Middle East jewels, are skeletons of their past. And unemployment and poverty have spiraled to record peace-time levels.

A promise of power-sharing helped wind the war down, but sheer exhaustion probably had more to do with the relative calm of recent years than any wise political leadership.

The government has failed to address any of the major grievances of the Sunni — and even some Shia — communities. Those include ongoing exclusion from the political process, with regular delays in elections; no real reforms in the punitive, wildly overbroad “De-Baathification” and antiterrorism laws; increasingly centralized power in the hands of the prime minister; and brutal policing, with mass arrests, unfair trials and endemic torture in Iraqi prisons. But since early 2012, Sunnis have challenged the status quo with persistent, overwhelmingly peaceful protests, despite violent incursions by the state authorities.

It is in this environment that Maliki’s SWAT security forces, along with army and federal police, carried out an armed attack on one of the longest-running protest camps, in the Sunni village of Hawija. A parliamentary committee’s preliminary findings were that 44 people were killed and 104 injured, with the government saying 3 police officers were killed. Remarkably, the attack came after several days of negotiations with the protesters, whom the government accused of harboring militants who had killed a soldier, and taking weapons from a nearby checkpoint.

The government has not made public any finding of weapons or killers. In an apparent acknowledgement that the attack had gone too far, Maliki announced the appointment of a ministerial committee, headed by the Sunni deputy prime minister, Saleh al-Mutlaq, to investigate. But the committee seems designed to placate the Sunni community with compensation for the victims, with no intent to identify what really happened or who ordered the attack, much less punish those responsible. The committee has no actual investigators or resources to gather evidence, relying only on the ministers themselves to conduct the inquiry.

When I asked Mutlaq whether they would interview the security forces about who ordered the attack, he shook his head, almost amused at the question. Hussain al-Shahristani, the Shia deputy prime minister who is also on the committee, told me in a meeting in Baghdad last week: “Don’t expect too much from us. We really don’t have much time for this.” The government’s efforts to brush the shocking incident under the rug will only enrage its aggrieved minority even more.

The mass Hawija killings may have been a bloodier message to Sunni protesters than even Maliki may have intended, but there was no room for accident in his decision to execute 21 alleged terrorists whose identities and crimes remain unknown to the public.

Following an outcry against revelations of abuse of women detainees and the arrest of several bodyguards of the popular Sunni finance minister, the government promised in January to reform the judicial system, including reviewing the cases of 6,000 people who have been detained but not tried or even ordered released, in some cases for years, under the country’s antiterrorism law, and initiating an inquiry into widespread allegations of forced confessions and reliance on secret informants.

High-level officials even promised a moratorium on the death penalty until they reviewed all death sentences. But the government apparently decided to flex its law-and-order muscle in the face of escalating terrorist attacks, most frequently in Shia neighborhoods, which killed 712 people in April, the deadliest month since 2008. It resumed executions, generating a new cycle of protests and condemnations.

Although its roads are in ruins and bombed-out buildings litter Baghdad’s streets, the government has found the resources to equip the Communication and Media Commission with state-of-the-art surveillance equipment. Mujahid Abu al-Hail, the director of its Audiovisual Media Regulation Department, proudly displayed the center where a sizable staff continuously monitors the programming of over 15 satellite stations in the country, and an office filled with binders of records on their compliance.

On April 29, the commission suspended the licenses of 10 stations because they promoted sectarian views that contributed to violence, he said, but so far he has failed to share a report documenting evidence of this. The inclusion of a small Shia station among the nine banned “pro-Sunni” stations, including Al Jazeera, did nothing to mask this blatant effort to silence Sunni news outlets that have been critical of the government. It follows numerous attacks on media covering the protests, and last year’s announcement that it would close 44 stations operating “illegally.”

There’s no doubt that Iraqi media are extremely partisan, and that Sunni and Shia stations often indulge in gross misinformation to stoke sectarian tensions. But a government concerned with tamping down these tensions might spend more time carrying out real efforts to address community grievances, not silencing the aggrieved voices themselves.

The predictable outcome of these moves has been further radicalization of the Sunni community, with newly established militias vowing to defend them. Maliki needs a new playbook — one with lessons on leadership and reform that will bring the country together on the basis of protecting every citizen’s freedom, not tear it further apart.

15 May 2013

Forcibly returning people to a volatile security situation in Somalia would violate international law, Amnesty International said as the Danish Refugee Board is due to consider returning five Somali asylum seekers.

The Danish hearings on Thursday and Friday come after at least two other European states – Norway and the Netherlands – have already ended suspensions on forcibly returning people to the Somali capital Mogadishu.

The Dutch and Norwegian decisions – in December 2012 and February 2013, respectively – cited improved security in the capital as the reason for the change. But the European Court of Human Rights and Dutch courts have suspended the deportation of four Somali nationals from the Netherlands since then, while the security situation remains poor in Mogadishu, and extremely dire in other parts of Somalia.

“Though there have been improvements in the security situation in Mogadishu, it remains fragile and volatile,” said Sarah Jackson, Deputy Africa Programme Director at Amnesty International.

“Somali government control and influence remain weak, and outside the capital in large parts of central and southern Somalia, the armed group al-Shabab maintains de facto control amid what is still an extremely volatile security situation. This is simply not a safe or sustainable situation to forcibly return people to and doing so would violate international law.”

Ongoing violence

In August 2012, a new Somali administration was appointed, marking the end of an eight-year “transitional” period towards the end of two decades of conflict and state collapse after the Siad Barre regime fell in 1991. Since the new administration has been in place, there have been some improvements in security, but Amnesty International said these changes are not enough to be considered fundamental, durable or stable enough for foreign governments to consider returning Somali individuals.

Although the capital Mogadishu is largely under government control, an armed conflict still rages between the Somali National Armed Forces (SNAF) and the al-Shabab armed group. Civilians persistently face insecurity and risk falling victim to grave human rights abuses, including indiscriminate and targeted violence, rape, killings, as well as extortion.

It is widely believed that all parties to the conflict are responsible for such abuses.

Both indiscriminate and targeted attacks still take place in Mogadishu itself – including the use of suicide bombs, improvised explosive devices (IED) and grenade attacks.

As recently as 5 May, an IED attack killed at least eight civilians and wounded many others in the capital. On 14 April, al-Shabab carried out two large-scale attacks in the city, killing at least 30 people. These were just the latest in a string of violent attacks in recent months.

Journalists, businessmen, clan elders and politicians are at special risk of targeted killings. Twenty-four journalists have been killed in Mogadishu since December 2011, including four so far this year. One of them was Mohamed Ibrahim Rageh, shot outside his home in the capital shortly after returning from exile in Uganda.

In southern and central areas of Somalia – where al-Shabab still exerts broad control – the security situation is extremely volatile, with the armed group and government forces vying for influence.

Government forces often lack the authority, discipline and control needed to protect civilians, and their reliance on Ethiopian and African Union forces mean that any security gains are extremely fragile.

In one recent example on 17 March 2013, Ethiopian troops aiding government forces withdrew from Xudur, the provincial capital of Badool, causing the SNAF to withdraw as well. Within hours of their departure, al-Shabab regained control of the town, prompting thousands of people to flee towards the border with Ethiopia. A surge of abuses followed, with reports that al-Shabab carried out a series of beheadings, including of children and an elderly religious leader.

Amnesty International said in March that the UN’s partial lifting of a longstanding arms embargo on Somalia runs the risk of fuelling an escalation in violations of international humanitarian and human rights law as foreign arms may continue to flow to al-Shabab.

Poor humanitarian conditions

According to UN agencies, more than half of Somalis rely on aid for their survival, and a sixth of the population is still in crisis – the majority of whom live in camps for internally displaced persons.

A drought in 2011 contributed to this situation, but the ongoing humanitarian crisis is largely man-made. Of the 19,000 people recorded as newly displaced between 1 November 2012 and 1 February 2013, 89 per cent cited insecurity as one of the three key reasons for their displacement.

Those living in IDP camps are extremely vulnerable to violence and suffer ongoing human rights abuses. Gender-based violence against women and girls in particular is reported to be endemic, and is often seems to be carried out by the very people mandated with protecting the population: government forces.

“With the ongoing armed conflict and dire humanitarian situation contributing to serious human rights abuses in central and southern Somalia, foreign countries including Denmark should under no circumstances attempt to return individuals there,” said Jackson.

Read the full statement here.

9 May 2013

Twenty years after its independence, Eritrea’s prisons are filled with thousands of political prisoners, locked up without ever being charged with a crime, many of whom are never heard from again, Amnesty International said in a report released today.

Twenty years of independence but still no freedom details how throughout the past two decades government critics, journalists and people practising an unregistered religion, as well as people trying to leave the country or avoid indefinite conscription into national service have been detained without charge in unimaginably atrocious conditions.

“The government has systematically used arbitrary arrest and detention without charge to crush all opposition, to silence all dissent, and to punish anyone who refuses to comply with the repressive restrictions it places on people’s lives,” said Claire Beston, Amnesty International’s Eritrea researcher.

“Twenty years on from the euphoric celebrations of independence, Eritrea is one of the most repressive, secretive and inaccessible countries in the world.”

Amnesty International believes that at least 10,000 political prisoners have been imprisoned by the government of President Isaias Afewerki, who has ruled since the country’s independence in 1993. With no known exception, not a single political prisoner has ever been charged with a crime or tried, had access to a lawyer or been brought before a judge or a judicial officer to assess the legality and necessity of the detention.

In the vast majority of cases, the prisoners’ families are not informed of their whereabouts, and often never hear from their relative again after they are arrested. Torture – for punishment, interrogation and coercion – is widespread. Practitioners of unregistered religions are tortured to force them to recant their faith.

Amnesty International has received many reports of deaths in detention, as a result of torture, appalling conditions or suicide. These include accounts of prisoners dying of treatable diseases such as malaria and illnesses caused by excessive heat.

There is an extensive network of detention facilities in Eritrea – some are well known, others are secret. But the extreme opaqueness around detention procedures in the country means the exact number is unknown.

Numerous detention centres use underground cells and metal shipping containers to house prisoners. Many of these prisons are in desert and other locations and experience extremes of high and low temperatures that are magnified by underground conditions and metal container walls. All are overcrowded and unclean; food and drinking water are scarce.

One former detainee held in an underground cell in Wi’a military camp told Amnesty International: “We couldn’t lie down [in the underground cell]. It’s best to be standing because if you lie down, your skin remains stuck to the floor. The floor is terribly hot.”

Another who was held in a detention centre in Barentu said:“The room was about 2.5 metres by 3 metres and we were 33 people. It is very, very hot. The door is closed, the ceiling is low, about 2 metres. The temperature was about 50 degrees. A boy, about 17 years old, was about to die. We were not permitted to speak, but we banged the door. They [the guards] told us they would kill all of us if we did not stop shouting. We couldn’t do anything to help him.”

On the 20th anniversary of its independence Eritrea is a country in which human rights are systematically violated. There is no independent media, no opposition political parties, no civil society. Only four religions are recognized by the government.

Amnesty International is calling on President Isaias Afewerki to immediately release all prisoners of conscience arrested for the peaceful exercise of their rights to freedom of expression, opinion, association, religion or belief, or their identity as family members of people who have fled the country.

The Eritrean authorities must also charge anyone suspected of a recognizable crime and promptly give them a fair trial or else immediately release them. Family members must be informed of their relatives’ whereabouts.

“These arbitrary arrests and detentions are illustrative of the absolute intolerance the Eritrean authorities have for dissent of any kind as a result of which thousands of political prisoners are languishing in terrible conditions. This has to end,” said Claire Beston.

Read the full report here.