Sudanese President Omar al Bashir is expected in Istanbul, Turkey, this Sunday and Monday for a summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). Back in March, the International Criminal Court indicted al Bashir on counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, which means al Bashir is a fugitive from international justice and that no countries should willingly host al Bashir without taking steps to arrest him and surrender him to the ICC in The Hague.
President Omar al Bashir is a fugitive from international justice, charged with responsibility for crimes against humanity and war crimes against men, women and children, including murder, rape, torture and forced displacement. It would be a disgrace for Turkey to offer him safe haven – Christopher Keith Hall, Senior Legal Advisor, Amnesty International.
According to the BBC, Turkish President Abdullah Gul has no intention of arresting al Bashir, even though the European Union has asked him to reconsider his invitation to al Bashir. Turkey may not have signed or ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, but it still has a duty under international law to arrest al Bashir and surrender him to the court in The Hague.
Since his indictment in March, al Bashir has visited seven countries: Eritrea, Egypt, Libya, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe. Due to pressure from the international community and civil society groups however, he was forced to cancel 2 recent trips to Uganda and Nigeria.
Take action now to urge the US government to support the ICC’s investigations in Darfur!
Justice Richard Goldstone, who gained respect internationally for his work in the UN International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda and his human rights work in Argentina, South Africa and Kosovo led an investigation into violations of international law committed by all parties involved in the fighting last winter in Gaza and southern Israel. The UN mandated investigation found that both Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups committed grave violations of international law, including war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity, during the conflict. The report supports Amnesty International’s own findings of war crimes committed by both sides.
US made Hellfire missile manufactured in Orlando, FL used in incident where two Palestinian medics and a child were killed.
Remarks from the State Department and specifically Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan E. Rice do not bode well for the report’s reception in the Human Rights Council and the recommendation that the HR Council take concrete steps to move the process of accountability forward. Ambassador Rice has said she has ’serious concerns’ about the mission’s mandate and that it is imperative to not get distracted and look forward to resolve the conflict.
Amnesty International believes that justice and accountability can never be an impediment to peace, but are the foundation to an enduring peace in the region. And that the recommendations contained in the Goldstone report are the best hope for achieving justice for the victims and to end the atmosphere of impunity enjoyed by the perpetrators from both sides and help end the cycle of violence.
Justice Richard Goldstone is scheduled to present the findings of his team’s investigation Tuesday, September 29th to the Human Rights Council. The HR Council will then discuss the findings and has the ability to refer the report and its recommendations for consideration by the UN Security Council. The United States recently joined the HR Council and has the ability to sway the council one way or the other.
After witnessing the deaths of her father Fathi, her sister Ismat, and her brother Ala on January 14, Amira Alqerem has turned to the (ICC) seven months later in hopes of justice for her family. Her family was attacked in Gaza during which lasted 22 days this past January and resulted in the deaths of more than 1,300 Palestinians and three Israelis.
“The three children were awoken by an explosion to find their father’s body, covered in blood, next to a crater near their house, the document claims. Ismat and Ala went off to seek help, but were killed in another explosion. Amira, who had stayed behind with her dead father, was hit in the right leg.”
Gilles Devers, an international lawyer from Lyon, is currently representing Alqerem. He believes the Israeli attacks were aimed at citizens and recently said, “This was a crime against humanity, that is why we brought it to the ICC.” He also reaffirmed the need for accountability, adding that “Israeli politicians and military leaders must be held responsible.”
Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the ICC Prosecutor, began a preliminary analysis in February of the alleged crimes committed by Israel during Operation Cast Lead. He has received many claims similar to that of Amira Alqerem and to date, has received complaints from over 360 individuals in addition to evidence of wrong-doing from other non-governmental bodies, the Palestinian Justice Minister Ali Kashan, and the Palestinian National Authority all pertaining to this most recent Israeli offensive.
Through her interpreter, Alqerem noted that she was doing this “for all the children of Gaza” and that “I want to do something to change the situation.”
Sarnata Reynolds, AIUSA’s policy and campaign director for refugee and migrant rights, spoke at a press teleconference on Thursday July 30th, 2009, set to discuss the bills presented by Senators Menendez and Gillibrand: “Protect Citizens and Residents from Unlawful Detention Act” and “Strong STANDARDS Act.” These new bills stand to drastically improve plight of detained US citizens and immigrants. The bills also require immigration authorities to ensure that U.S. citizens and other vulnerable populations such as children are informed of their rights when arrested, are considered for release and are treated humanely while detained.
Over the last twelve months, I have met with dozens of people detained in local jails, privately contracted centers, and ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) facilities across the United States. Their arbitrary, prolonged and in some cases, indefinite, detention is shameful. Just a few weeks ago in Minnesota, I met two immigrants who had gone an entire year without ever being outside. Twelve months. The county jails they are held in are not designed for long-term detainees, and they have no outdoor facilities. One of the men stated, “deportation is supposed to be a civil procedure, but there’s nothing civil about it.”
In June, I went to Texas and met a man from Maryland who had been granted a $5000 bond by an immigration judge. An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) attorney appealed the decision and invoked what is called the “automatic stay” – a procedure that gives ICE the authority to ignore an immigration judge’s decision while it pursues an appeal. For eight months the man languished in jail. Finally, in early July the administrative appellate body agreed with the immigration judge and ordered his release on a $5000 bond. During the eight months this breadwinner was detained, his family became destitute and now they don’t have the necessary $5000 to bond him out.
These stories are not anomalies. They represent the experiences of thousands of immigrants who are locked up right now across the U.S. They are mothers and fathers, breadwinners and caretakers, community leaders, human rights defenders and scholars. They build houses and raise other people’s children, only to be ripped away from their own.
ICE will say that the average detention stay is 37 days, but this statistic is skewed. It includes the people who agree to be deported almost immediately after being arrested, and this accounts for tens of thousands of people every year. The reality is that if an individual chooses to fight deportation: because he/she is a US citizen, fears persecution, or is not in fact deportable, the person faces months and years of detention.
In our report, Jailed Without Justice, Amnesty International documented over 100 cases in which individuals were detained for years, until they were ultimately found not deportable. These individuals don’t get those years back, and the US taxpayer will not recoup the massive cost of these needless detentions.
While Congress has funded alternatives to detention because they have been shown to be effective and significantly less expensive than detaining people, there is concern that ICE is using these funds for programs such as electronic monitoring to supervise individuals who are eligible for release rather than for individuals who would otherwise be detained.
Secure alternatives to detention should be considered in all cases, and if some form of custody is deemed necessary, they should be the norm for pregnant women, sick seniors, and nursing mothers. This is not the currently the case. In fact, in the summer of 2008, a nine months pregnant woman was detained and forced to undergo labor while shackled to a hospital bed.An officer remained in the room during the entire labor. There was no reason to believe that this heavily pregnant woman posed a flight risk or a danger. At most, she should have been placed in a secure alternative program. She was locked up.
Although the Department of Homeland Security has enacted standards for the treatment of people subject to immigration detention, these standards are not legally enforceable – and as was reported by Amnesty International, and reinforced this week in two more reports, transgressions of the standards occur frequently and with impunity. Despite this reality, just a few days ago the Obama administration declined to independently enact enforceable standards, stating that the current system is functioning well. As anyone who has been detained will tell you, the standards are not working.
Legislation that provides a framework for safe, humane and thoughtful detention policy is desperately needed, and the two bills introduced by Senator Menendez and his colleagues today meet these requirements. Amnesty International USA applauds Senators Menendez, Kennedy and Gillibrand for sponsoring these vital pieces of legislation, and Rep. Roybal Allard for her bill, introduced earlier this year. As the U.S. Supreme Court stated in an immigration detention case it decided in 2001, “Freedom from imprisonment— from government custody, detention, or other forms of physical restraint – lies at the heart of the liberty [the due process] clause protects.” This truth is not reflected in current U.S. law and policy. It is time to reform them.
I’ve had the privilege of viewing and commenting on various stages of the film as it was being developed. It’s a great piece of work. With each viewing, something new strikes me. I wanted to share with you some of the themes in the film that resonate with me today.
First, The Reckoning builds to what feels like a “Law and Order: War Crimes”- style finale, with the Prosecutor and his team closing in on a target – a sitting head of state — considered by many to be out of reach. The crime thriller analogy is actually very appropriate, because some of the footage we see in the film is, when you think about it, crime scene footage. It’s easy to forget that. Mass rapes, murders, mutilations and starvation are often treated as the tragic and inevitable consequences of war, instead of as crimes which are planned — which actually require planning to implement on a mass scale — and for which specific individuals are responsible and can be held accountable.
Secondly, The Reckoning is very much a ”David and Goliath” story. Critics of the ICC’s work try to portray the Court as a big, Western-dominated bully out to get Africa. I think you will come away from The Reckoning struck by how small the Prosecutor’s team really is in comparison with the massive crimes they are confronting. I think you will also be struck by how relentless they are in pursuing justice for the victims, who they stress are the millions of Africans subjected to human rights abuses, instead of the few who try to obscure their culpability by hiding behind the mantle of nationalism.
Finally, The Reckoning tells the story of what is essentially an unfinished revolution. The film explores both the breakthroughs in the advancement of human rights and the rule of law that made the ICC possible, as well as the lack of political to make enforcement a reality. Former Nuremberg prosecutor (and one of my heroes) Benjamin Ferencz recalls how the entire body of human rights law that we take for granted today came to be in his lifetime, demonstrating how much is possible in what is essentially a blink of the eye in historical time. Yet most of the world’s governments – some of whose representatives we see celebrating the ICC treaty at the start of the film — continue to fail to give any meaningful support the ICC in apprehending indicted war criminals. We may still have a long way to go, but it’s possible to get there.
A new Amnesty International report about the recent conflict in Gaza concludes that Israel wantonly destroyed civilian infrastructure in Gaza, which could not be justified on grounds of “military necessity”. More than 3,000 homes were destroyed and some 20,000 damaged in Israeli attacks which reduced entire neighbourhoods of Gaza to rubble and left an already dire economic situation in ruins.
Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups fired hundreds of rockets into southern Israel, killing three Israeli civilians, injuring scores and driving thousands from their homes. These kind of attacks are indiscriminate and are thus clearly in violation of international law.
Another key finding of the report is that there is no evidence that Palestinian armed groups used civilians as “human shields”.
The EU ministers made this decision despite the fact that, once inmates are resettled in the EU, they will able to move from country to country relatively freely.
27 European states, all with good reason to be concerned about the terrorist threat posed Al Qaeda, are prepared to take this step to help America out of a jam of entirely its own making.
Yet, not one U.S. State is prepared to do the same. Not one U.S. state has shown the strength of character of tiny Luxemburg, Ireland or Portugal. I wonder if you feel as ashamed of our elected officials as I do.
And what kind of message does this send to Al Qaeda? It tells Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al Zawahiri that Americans are so frightened that they have abandoned the most fundamental principle of American justice: that an individual is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
And we are even more scared of those inmates that might actually have done something. So scared, that we are apparently unwilling even to risk holding Al Qaeda members in our maximum security jails – no strangers, surely, to violent men.
Indeed, we seem to forget that our prisons already hold such Al Qaeda affiliated terrorists as the World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef (who also happens to be Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s nephew), the failed millennium bomber Ahmed Ressam and the aspirant 9/11 hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui. All men, we should also note, successfully convicted in the federal courts.
Talk about giving succor to the enemy. This timidity must surely come as a welcome boost to Al Qaeda’s flagging morale and it stands in stark contrast to the courage shown by our men and women in uniform.
The Harvard terrorism expert and former Deputy Attorney General Philip Heymann has written that a little terrorism goes a long way. Terror is a psychological weapon that relies on the victim to magnify its power.
Embracing the politics of fear plays into Osama bin Laden’s hands. It spreads a message Al Qaeda wants spread. This message is best countered by demonstrating to Al Qaeda and its supporters that they cannot subvert our values or our way of life.
Right now, we can do that best by finally doing the right thing on Guantanamo and making sure that those inmates cleared of posing any threat are found new homes, either in Europe or on American soil. We cannot expect our allies to take this step alone.
President Barack Obama is slated to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas today, to discuss what Press Secretary Robert Gibbs calls “ways the United States can strengthen and deepen our partnerships.”
Abbas has already stated that he plans to focus his discussion with Obama on continuous settlement expansion in the West Bank, but has also noted he believes there is a real chance at comprehensive peace in the region.
Amnesty International USA has sent a letter to President Obama asking that he raise some concerns of his own—namely human rights violations by members of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in areas under PA control. Arbitrary detentions, disregard for due process and ill-treatment and torture of detainees in PA detention centers continue to be reported. Additionally, the Al Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade in Gaza, the armed wing of the Fatah party led by President Abbas, have also been linked to indiscriminate rocket fire into southern Israel which violates the rules of war.
President Obama should raise these concerns as the atmosphere of impunity and continued human rights violations by the PA reflects badly on U.S. personnel and resources assigned to train PA security forces, undermines confidence in rule of law and hinders any progress in peace negotiations.
Do you remember when Pinochet was arrested in London? The news flew around the world. The Chilean dictator is now dead, but the victims of torture and their families and friends are still asking the government and the judiciary for the truth about what happened after the military coup in 1973.
At least 110 people were tortured on the training ship Esmeralda that arrived in Boston yesterday. One of them was my brother, Michael Woodward, a catholic priest who had dual nationality (Chilean and British), and who lived and worked with the poor in Valparaiso.
He was driven from his home by a naval patrol to a University which had been taken by the Navy and used as a detention and torture center. He was then fiercely tortured at the Naval War Academy. In a very critical state of health, Michael Woodward was taken to the Esmeralda, anchored in the port. He may well have died on the ship, or on the way to hospital or they might have shot him before leaving the Esmeralda. Information has recently come to light due to the efforts of judge Eliana Quezada who is investigating the law suit presented in 2002. To date 19 retired members of the Navy have been indicted.
The Esmeralda is the Chilean Navy’s four-masted training ship. It goes on a cruise every year to teach the young cadets the law of the sea. At every port it is greeted by the Chilean ambassador and naval and local authorities, before embarking on social, cultural, and sightseeing activities. The Chilean government openly considers it an “ambassador of all Chileans”. President Bachelet emphasized this when she said
farewell to the ship in Valparaiso on 15 March.
Those of us who are still struggling to see justice applied do not feel that the Esmeralda is our ambassador. The attitude of the Chilean Navy clashes with our ideals of human rights. The Navy, as an Institution, needs to take responsibility for the violations of human rights perpetrated.
- By Patricia Woodward, sister to Michael Woodward and Human Rights Activist
It’s a bad time to be defender of human rights in Zimbabwe.
Late last year, Zimbabwe authorities abducted eighteen human rights defenders and political activists. Their families feared them dead. Those seized were eventually dropped off at police stations and processed for crimes against the state, including sabotage, terrorism and treason. During their four months in captivity, the activists claim they were tortured and ill-treated by state agents.
Jestina Mukoko, director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project, was one of those abducted last year.
Thankfully bail conditions were settled in March and April for most. However, three of those originally detained – Kisimusi Dhlamini, Gandhi Mudzingwa and Andrison Manyere – were released only to be re-arrested in their hospital beds three days later.
Earlier this week, the eighteen activists reappeared in court where new indictments were filed by the Zimbabwe Attorney General. Based on the new indictments, bail was revoked and they were all returned to prison. Following immediate international condemnation, most of the prisoners were granted bail again on Wednesday when President Mugabe and Prime Minister Tsvangirai intervened and ordered the Attorney General to allow bail.
Not to make light of an awful situation, but the Zimbabwe government might want to consider putting revolving doors on the courthouse and prisons because apparently, being a human rights defender or political activist in Zimbabwe grants you a “go straight to jail, do not pass go” card on a regular basis.
The humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe escalated drastically following elections in March of 2008. State sponsored violence led to large numbers of torture, disappearances and sexual assaults. Regional authorities negotiated a power sharing agreement in October; however activists and human rights defenders continued to be targeted for their efforts to provide a better quality of life, such as equitable food aid distribution for Zimbabweans.
Listen to a 30 second audio clip of activist Jestina Mukoko after her release in March, discussing the support her and her family received during her ordeal from Amnesty International members.
Written by Sarah Hager, Southern Africa Country Specialist for Amnesty International USA
Amnesty International works to protect human rights worldwide. We have more than 2.2 million supporters, activists and volunteers in over 150 countries, and are completely independent from government, corporate or national interests.
Learn more about us at AmnestyUSA.org »
Gay Gardner is a member of AIUSA's Counter Terror With Justice (CTWJ) Working Group. She has been an active volunteer member of Amnesty International for more than 25 years. See all »
Over the last twelve months, I have met with dozens of people detained in local jails, privately contracted centers, and ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) facilities across the United States. Their arbitrary, prolonged and in some cases, indefinite, detention is shameful. Just a few weeks ago in Minnesota, I met two immigrants who had gone an entire year without ever being outside. Twelve months. The county jails they are held in are not designed for long-term detainees, and they have no outdoor facilities. One of the men stated, “deportation is supposed to be a civil procedure, but there’s nothing civil about it.”
An officer remained in the room during the entire labor. There was no reason to believe that this heavily pregnant woman posed a flight risk or a danger. At most, she should have been placed in a secure alternative program. She was locked up.
