Human Rights in the Middle East

Israel - Mordechai Vanunu - Released from Prison

Jim Joyce — 2010-09-03T16:20:27+01:00

Mordechai Vanunu was released from Ayalon Prison [08 Aug] about two weeks prior to the expiry of his sentence. After his release, he said that he wanted to thank Amnesty International for the support we have given him and that he hopes we will continue to campaign for the restrictions placed on him by the authorities to be lifted.

According to a friend of his who drove him home from the prison, Mordechai was in a reasonably good state of mind considering he has just spent 11 weeks in solitary confinement in a special unit for
dangerous prisoners which was extremely unpleasant.

His early release (by two weeks) is apparently normal practise for people serving short sentences and was a decision made by the prison authorities.

Mordechai circulated the following email on his release:

   This is Vanunu. Today August 8.2010., I am free from Israel
   3 months prison, I survived one more hard life in israel prison,
   in Isolation,in Humiliations.

Amnesty International has long been concerned for the health and well-being of 56-year-old Israeli nuclear industry whistleblower, Mordechai Vanunu, a prisoner of conscience, during imprisonment, where he was held in solitary confinement for more than five weeks. [more]

Mordechai Vanunu previously spent 11 years in solitary confinement after he was sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment in 1986 for revealing details of the country’s nuclear arsenal to a UK newspaper, The Sunday Times. Amnesty International believes that individuals exposed to prolonged or repeated periods in solitary confinement may experience depression, anxiety, and other significant mental health problems.

[more]

According to Vanunu’s lawyer, the Israeli authorities claim they had held in isolation in order to protect him from attacks from other prisoners. He was held in a special unit for dangerous prisoners in Ayalon Prison, which was an inappropriate measure for a prisoner who does not pose any credible threat to others.

The harsh conditions under which he was held meant that he was able to leave his cell for only one hour a day to walk in the prison courtyard. He was unable to be in touch with friends or family since the beginning of his current incarceration as a result of a dispute between him and the prison authorities over the conditions under which he could make phone calls. While he was imprisoned, Amnesty International believed that he should be transferred to an alternative wing or a prison where he would not be under threat from fellow prisoners and would not need to be held in solitary confinement.

Mordechai Vanunu’s brother, Meir Vanunu, told Amnesty International on 17 June 2010: “It is very traumatic for Mordechai to be put again in solitary confinement and subjected to harassment. These are the same conditions he was kept under previously for 18 years and there is no justification for it after 24 years of suffering. We fear for the impact this will have on his health. Now is the time for Mordechai’s true freedom – he should be allowed to travel and leave Israel. He should never have been put in this situation in the first place.”

His lawyer, Michael Sfard, was able to visit him and told Amnesty International: “Mordechai Vanunu is suffering from isolation. He should not be made to pay a price because of the enmity of others towards him.”

Amnesty International called for the immediate and unconditional release of Mordechai Vanunu because he is a prisoner of conscience who has been imprisoned solely for exercising his rights to freedom of expression and association. Amnesty International remains concerned that his isolation and other measures against him are not conducive to good mental health and consequently there is a danger that Mordechai Vanunu’s health could be affected adversely.

BACKGROUND

A former technician at Israeli’s nuclear plant near the southern town of Dimona, Mordechai Vanunu spent 18 years of his life in an Israeli prison for revealing details of the country’s nuclear arsenal to the UK newspaper The Sunday Times. This followed his abduction by Mossad agents in Italy on 30 September 1986, his secret transfer to Israel and his trial, at which he was convicted on charges of treason and aggravated espionage. He spent the first 11 years of his 18-year sentence in solitary confinement.

He was finally released in April 2004 but draconian conditions were imposed on him at the time of his release by a military order issued by the Israeli authorities. These severely restricted his freedom of movement, expression and association. His passport was confiscated and he was banned from leaving the country. This means that he has been unable to fulfill his wish to travel to the United States of America in order to be with his adoptive parents and to recover from the physical and psychological strain of 18 years in prison. He is also required to live at an assigned residence and is forbidden from communicating with foreigners, including journalists; he cannot go near foreign embassies and must inform the police if he wishes to change his habitual place of residence. Such restrictions are arbitrary and contrary to international law, particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Israel has ratified.

On 30 April 2007, Mordechai Vanunu was convicted of breaching these restrictions by speaking to foreigners and sentenced to six months in prison, reduced on appeal to three. He was released on bail while the court process was ongoing but, on 11 May 2010, the Israeli Supreme Court decided he should be imprisoned for three months. Mordechai Vanunu was arrested and re-imprisoned on 23 May 2010.

During previous court hearings, Mordechai Vanunu was given the option of doing community service in West Jerusalem instead of serving the three-month sentence. He refused this option because of fears for his own security. He has said that when he travels to West Jerusalem to attend court hearings, he is often threatened and insulted by Israelis, some of whom consider him a national traitor. He says he has received death threats. He had agreed to perform community service in East Jerusalem, but this was not permitted by the court.

Egypt authorities must ensure witness protection in police brutality trial

Hilary Homes — 2010-08-31T18:53:00+01:00

originally published 26 July 2010

The Egyptian authorities must ensure witnesses called in the trial of two police officers accused over the beating to death of a man outside an Alexandria internet café are protected against possible reprisals, Amnesty International said today.

The trial of the officers over the death of 28-year-old Khaled Mohammed Said is to begin on Tuesday amid fears that those who give evidence against the police could be at risk.

“The Egyptian authorities must ensure that the witnesses to the assault on Khaled Mohammed Said are provided with all possible protection both to ensure their own safety and as a means of encouraging other witnesses to come forward,” said Malcolm Smart, Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.

Two officers from Sidi Gaber Police Station in Alexandria face charges of harsh treatment, beating and torture of Khaled Mohammed Said, and unlawful arrest. They have not been charged with direct responsibility for his death.

If convicted, they could face between three and 15 years’ imprisonment.

An official autopsy is said to have concluded that Khaled Mohammed Said died of asphyxiation as a result of swallowing a plastic roll full of drugs and that the injuries sustained during his arrest did not cause his death.

However, these findings have been widely questioned amid accusations that they are part of an attempted cover up by the Ministry of the Interior.

Read the full Amnesty news release

Egypt must drop charges against three activists

Hilary Homes — 2010-08-31T18:50:14+01:00

originally published 30 July 2010

Amnesty International has urged the Egyptian authorities to drop all charges against two leading human rights activists and a well-known blogger whose trial is expected to conclude in Cairo on Saturday.

Gamal Eid, Ahmed Seif El-Islam Hamad and blogger Amr Gharbeia, a staff member at Amnesty International, are accused of "defamation", "the use of threats" and "misuse of communication tools".

The charges are connected to allegations made by a judge in 2007 that the two activists tried to extort money from him. Amr Gharbeia is charged with defaming the same judge on his blog.

Amnesty International will be sending an observer to Saturday's trial, where all three men may face imprisonment and a fine if convicted.

"A guilty verdict would be a further nail in the coffin of freedom of expression in Egypt, where questionable criminal defamation charges are frequently used to harass those critical of the authorities and public officials," said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa director.

"We fear this is the latest attempt to intimidate independent human rights organizations as part of a wider crackdown against dissent."

Read the full Amnesty news release

Egypt must not try factory workers before a military court

Hilary Homes — 2010-08-31T18:46:49+01:00

originally published 27 August 2010

Amnesty international has condemned the trial before an Egyptian military court of eight factory workers, all civilians, detained after taking part in a protest against poor safety conditions at the factory, following an explosion which killed one of their fellow workers.

The trial of the eight workers from Helwan Factory for Engineering Industries (Military Factory No. 99) resumes at the military court in Nasr City, in the east of Cairo on Saturday.

It is the first such trial since the authorities amended the Military Justice Code in June to allow workers in a military factory to be tried before a military court for “stopping work in utilities of public interest" and "assault on freedom to work”, preventing others from working.

"Trials of civilians before military courts, whose judges are serving members of the military, flout international standards of fair trial and are inherently unjust," said Amnesty International.

“Thousands of protests, strikes and sit-ins have been staged by Egyptian workers in both the public and private sectors, protesting the rising cost of living and demanding better wages and working conditions. This latest referral before military courts of workers is therefore a disturbing step.”

“These men should be tried by a civilian court for recognizable criminal offences, in line with international standards for fair trial or else they should be released.”

Read the full Amnesty statement

Egypt urged to drop charges of defamation against activist as repression intensifies

Hilary Homes — 2010-07-06T18:51:02+01:00

originally published 25 June 2010

Amnesty International has urged the Egyptian authorities to drop the charges of defamation brought against leading human rights activists on account of their peaceful exercise of freedom of expression.

Amnesty International made this call ahead of a trial session involving three human rights activists tomorrow and the separate trial of a fourth on Sunday. These prosecutions are part of stepped up efforts by the Egyptian authorities to silence their critics and those who expose human rights abuses.

On Saturday the Khalifa court in Cairo will continue hearing the case against three men charged with "defamation", "the use of threats" and "misuse of communication tools", after allegations of extortion were made by a judge in 2007.

Amnesty International is sending a delegate to observe the proceedings of this trial.

Gamal Eid, Director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) and Ahmed Seif El-Islam Hamad, founder of the Hisham Mubarak Law Center (HMLC) both are due to appear before the Khalifa Court of Misdemeanour on Saturday.

Egyptian blogger Amr Gharbeia, now an Amnesty International staff member, will not be in court but will be represented by his lawyers.

Read the full Public Statement

Israel/OPT: The Jahalin - Forced to Stay Nowhere

Jim Joyce — 2010-06-20T18:16:36+01:00

Israel enforces a planning and building policy in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) that violates international human rights law and international humanitarian law. The demolitions of Palestinian homes, water cisterns, and other private and communal buildings are the most extreme manifestations of this policy,

According to the UN, the Israeli authorities demolished more than 270 Palestinian structures in the West Bank in 2009 alone, and an estimated 4,800 demolition orders are pending. Some 600 Palestinians were displaced in 2009, more than half of them children. The families are not re-housed or compensated, so they must rely on friends, family and charities for help. Often those at risk are the most vulnerable in society, such as shepherds and farmers in Area C of the West Bank, living near Israeli settlements or military zones, and the urban poor in Palestinian East Jerusalem.

Among the buildings threatened with demolition is a school built by the members of al-Jahalin community. This is a violation of the right to education.

It is also a violation of international humanitarian law. Article 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the destruction of property that is not justified by military necessity. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the transfer of an occupying power’s civilian population into the territory it is occupying. Israel’s arguments that human rights treaties and the Geneva Conventions do apply to the OPT have been rejected by the international community.

[more]

The official reason for these demolitions is that the buildings do not have permits from the Israeli authorities. However, building permits are almost impossible for Palestinians to obtain, because of obstructions related to the Israeli planning and building policy. Meanwhile, Israeli settlements, illegal under international law, continue to be built in the West Bank including East Jerusalem.

The Bedouin Jahalin tribe was forcibly transferred from the Tel Arad area in the Negev to the West Bank in the 1950s by the Israeli authorities. Following Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, the Israeli military restricted the tribe’s seasonal movement, rendering their traditional way of life impossible. As a result, the Jahalin established permanent homes in small encampments, prompting persistent harassment by Israeli settlers and the military authorities, who claim their tents and basic buildings are “illegal”.

The Abu Dahouk clan, made up of some 30 families, live near the community of Arab al-Jahalin by the side of the Jerusalem
to Jericho road, about 10km from the Palestinian village of Anata and just south of the Israeli settlement of Kfar Adumin.

Until 2009, the children had to make the dangerous road journey to Anata, or even further to the refugee camp of Iqbet Jaber near Jericho, to go to school. At around 200 shekels (US$53) a month for each child, these travelling costs were prohibitive for many.

In mid-2009, the Abu Dahouk clan, with the help of the Italian non-governmental organization Vento di Terra, began to build a local school. The basic buildings, on a 300-square-metre plot of land, were made of used tyres filled with soil, joined together with mud and made waterproof with old cooking oil. Roofs of wooden beams and corrugated iron allow air to circulate in stifling temperatures. Anxious to complete the buildings in time for the new school year, residents worked for up to 12 hours a day and employed 15 local workers.

Then, on 24 June, the Israeli military authorities ordered the work to stop. The community, however, ignored the order and 75 local Jahalin children began classes at the primary school in late August 2009. In February 2010, the Jahalin tribe petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court to grant legal authorization for the school to continue to function. On 3 March, the Supreme Court ruled that the school could remain open until the end of the school year on 1 June 2010, but rejected the residents’ appeal to “legalize” its presence through a permit. With the school facing demolition, a further court session will be held after 1 June to determine the school’s future. Children in the Jahalin school told Amnesty International that the school was “a hundred times, a thousand times better” than the distant school in Iqbet Jaber, and feared that they would be unable to continue with their education if it were destroyed.

BACKGROUND

In 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip – areas subsequently known as the OPT –
at the end of the so-called Six Day War. Immediately after the occupation, Israel illegally annexed over 70 square kilometres
of the West Bank and classified it as part of the Jerusalem municipality. Palestinians living in the expanded “East Jerusalem”
did not become Israeli citizens although they were placed under the jurisdiction of the Israeli Jerusalem Municipality and required to pay municipal taxes.

The remainder of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were governed by the Israeli military authorities from 1967 until the mid-1990s, when the conditions of the Israeli occupation were altered as part of the Oslo Accords. These agreements established the Palestinian Authority (PA); divided the West Bank into Areas A, B and C; and
transferred partial jurisdiction of some areas in the OPT to the PA while overall security remained under Israeli control. In line with the Oslo Accords, 17.7 per cent of the West Bank was designated as Area A in which the PA had civilian and security responsibility. Area B, in which the PA had civilian and public order responsibility and Israeli had overriding security responsibility, made up 18.3 per cent of the West Bank.

The remainder of the West Bank, more than 60 per cent of the total West Bank area excluding Jerusalem, was classified as Area C in which Israel had both civil and security authority.

If you wish to take action, follow this link.

For information Amnesty International about many other concerns about other house demolitions cases, read the report As Safe as Houses? Israel’s Demolition of Palestinian Homes. It was accompanied by a press release.

If you wish to take action on these cases, please contact
Jim Joyce for additional letter-writing detiails and suggestions about additional activities.

Israeli nuclear whistleblower returned to solitary confinement

Hilary Homes — 2010-06-18T21:12:17+01:00

Amnesty International has accused the Israeli authorities of subjecting jailed nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment by holding him in solitary confinement.

The 56-year-old, who spent 18 years in prison for revealing details of the country's nuclear arsenal to a UK newspaper in 1986, was sent back to jail for three months on 23 May on charges of contact with a foreign national, and almost immediately placed in solitary confinement. Amnesty International is calling for his immediate and unconditional release.

“Mordechai Vanunu should not be in prison at all, let alone be held in solitary confinement in a unit intended for violent criminals,” said Malcolm Smart, Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East Programme.

“He suffered immensely when he was held in solitary confinement for 11 years after his imprisonment in 1986 and to return him to such conditions now is nothing less than cruel, inhuman or degrading.”

Vanunu is held in Ayalon Prison in central Israel. His lawyer revealed to Amnesty International that he has been placed in an isolated cell, ostensibly to protect him from other prisoners.

For years, Vanunu has been portrayed by some Israeli media and politicians as a traitor and an enemy of the state for disclosing Israeli efforts to develop nuclear weapons, and he says he has received death threats.

Read the full news release

Israel Gaza blockade must be completely lifted

Hilary Homes — 2010-06-17T16:43:00+01:00

Amnesty International today urged Israel to completely lift without delay its blockade on Gaza, which imposes a collective punishment on 1.4 million Palestinians in clear violation of international law.

On Thursday, the Israel cabinet announced that the blockade would be eased, allowing more of what it terms “civilian goods” into the impoverished territory where 4 out of 5 people are dependent on international aid.

“This announcement makes it clear that Israel is not intending to end its collective punishment of Gaza’s civilian population, but only ease it. This is not enough,” said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s director for the Middle East and North Africa.

“Any step that will help reduce the dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza is to be welcomed, but Israel must now comply with its obligations as the occupying power under international law and immediately lift the blockade.”

“Just as important as allowing goods into Gaza is allowing exports to leave Gaza, yet there is no mention of this in today’s announcement. Banning the vast majority of exports, raw materials and the movement of people has destroyed the economy of Gaza, and pushed its population into unemployment, poverty and dependency on aid agencies for survival.These problems will not be solved while the blockade continues.”

According to media reports, Israel is to move from allowing only listed products into Gaza, to using a list of products that will be specifically prohibited.

Read the full news release

Israeli authorities must stop demolitions of Palestinian homes

Hilary Homes — 2010-06-17T14:59:01+01:00

Originally released 16 June 2010

Amnesty International is calling on the Israeli authorities to end house demolitions which leave thousands of Palestinians living in daily fear of eviction from their homes.

A new briefing, As safe as houses? Israel's demolition of Palestinian homes, reveals the extent to which Israeli forces are destroying homes and other structures in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, claiming they have been built illegally.

According to the UN, in 2009 more than 600 Palestinians - over half of them children - lost their homes after they were demolished on order from the Israeli authorities.

"Palestinians living under Israeli occupation face such tight restrictions on what they can build and where that their right to adequate housing is being violated," said Philip Luther, Amnesty International's Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

"The Israeli authorities are putting Palestinians in an impossible situation. Whatever choice they make, they face homelessness.

"The majority of people are denied building permits by Israel, even after lengthy and expensive bureaucratic and legal processes, so they have little choice but to go ahead without official permission. But as they do so, they know that these buildings may soon be flattened by Israeli bulldozers."

Full text of the news release | Report: As safe as houses? Israel's demolition of Palestinian homes

Israel Gaza commission criticized over transparency and accountability

Hilary Homes — 2010-06-15T19:43:15+01:00

Amnesty International today criticized Israel’s proposed investigation into its military action against a Gaza aid flotilla on May 31 as lacking in transparency and unlikely to ensure accountability over the nine deaths of activists during the operation.

The Israeli cabinet approved a three-man Israeli commission, with two international observers, to examine Israel’s military action off the Gaza coast in which nine international activists were killed by Israeli forces.

“The format of this government-appointed Commission represents a disappointment and a missed opportunity,” said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s director for the Middle East and North Africa.

“The Commission looks to be neither independent nor sufficiently transparent, the two international observers may be denied access to crucial information, and the Commission’s findings may not be used in future prosecutions.”

The Commission will not have access to members of the Israeli military who were involved in the planning and implementation of the military action, except for the Chief of Staff, and there is nothing to indicate that its findings or recommendations will be binding.

The Commission will be chaired by former Israeli high court judge Jacob Turkel, a specialist in civil law who has also served as a judge on military court appeals panels.

Read the full news release

Palestinian activist Adeeb Abu Rahma faces prison sentence

Hilary Homes — 2010-06-11T18:44:55+01:00

Amnesty International has urged an Israeli military court not to convict a Palestinian non-violent activist who has been detained since last July, after he took part in a protest against the Israeli built fence/wall on Palestinian land.

Adeeb Abu Rahma has been charged with "being present in a declared military zone", "incitement" and "activity against public order". There is a real concern that the Ofer Military Court in the Israeli-occupied West Bank will convict him on Sunday.

"A guilty verdict would set a worrying precedent for other activists charged and awaiting trial, as Adeeb Abu Rahma would be the first activist against the fence/wall to be brought to a full evidential trial in a case of this kind," said Amnesty International.

Many Palestinians who protest non-violently against the fence/wall are detained without charge or trial, others who are charged with offences such as stone-throwing will frequently enter plea bargains.

Adeeb Abu Rahma has denied all charges, other than stating that he was present on a number of different occasions in non-violent demonstrations against the fence/wall.

An initial charge made against him for inciting others to throw stones was withdrawn following arguments and evidence put forward by his legal defence.

The activist has repeatedly expressed his commitment to the principle of non-violence. Amnesty International said it is unaware of any credible evidence that he may have used or advocated violence.

Read the full news update | Further background

Egypt: Brutal Police Killing of Young Man Must Be Investigated

Hilary Homes — 2010-06-11T18:44:04+01:00

Amnesty International is calling for an immediate, full and independent investigation into the brutal killing of a 28-year-old Egyptian man, Khaled Mohammed Said, while in the hands of Egyptian security forces in the city of Alexandria on Sunday 6 June.

Shocking pictures of Khaled Mohammed Said's body, whose face is almost unrecognizable from the beating he received, at the hands of the Egyptian police and in public according to reports, have been posted on the internet.

“The horrific photographs are shocking evidence of the abuses taking place in Egypt which are in stark contrast to the image of the country depicted today by Egyptian officials to members of the UN Human Rights Council and their reluctant recognition of some minor wrongdoings,” said Amnesty International.

“These pictures are a rare, first-hand glimpse of the routine use of brutal force by the Egyptian security forces, who expect to operate in a climate of impunity, with no questions asked.”

Although, the exact circumstances surrounding the killing are still being pieced together, what is known is that Khaled Mohammed Said was severely beaten by two plain-clothes police officers in an internet cafe. He was reportedly dragged out of the café and the beating continued until he died.

Read the full news release

Gaza: International investigation of flotilla deaths needed to ensure accountability

Hilary Homes — 2010-06-07T15:30:02+01:00

Orginally published 3 June 2010

Amnesty International has said that a prompt and credible international inquiry into the deaths caused by Israel’s military action against the aid flotilla in international waters outside Gaza on 31 May is necessary to ensure accountability. Those individuals selected to conduct this should be recognized for their impartiality, competence and expertise, and Israel should cooperate fully with this international inquiry. The organization is urging the immediate lifting of the Israeli military blockade on the Gaza Strip.

On 2 June 2010, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution that provides for the dispatch of an independent international fact-finding mission to investigate violations of international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law, arising from the Israeli actions against the flotilla of ships on 31 May. The resolution authorizes the President of the Human Rights Council to appoint members of this international fact-finding mission, adding that they should report their findings to the Council at its fifteenth session in September 2010.

Amnesty International is urging the President of the Council to ensure that those appointed to the mission are appropriately qualified to carry out the task, in order to ensure that the investigation is comprehensive, thorough, credible and independent and thus provides a basis for establishing full accountability.

In addition to its call for an international investigation, Amnesty International reiterates that the blockade of Gaza is a form of collective punishment in contravention of international law and called on the Israeli government to lift it without delay.

Read the full Public Statement | Take Action

Israeli killings of Gaza ship activists must be investigated

Hilary Homes — 2010-05-31T16:14:02+01:00

Amnesty International has called for Israel to launch an immediate credible and independent investigation into the killing by its armed forces of at least 10 activists on boats protesting the Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip.

“Israeli forces appear clearly to have used excessive force,” said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s director for the Middle East and North Africa. “Israel says its forces acted in self-defence, alleging that they were attacked by protestors, but it begs credibility that the level of lethal force used by Israeli troops could have been justified. It appears to have been out of all proportion to any threat posed.”

As a first step, Amnesty International has called on the Israeli authorities to make public immediately the rules of engagement issued to the troops who carried out this lethal attack.

“The activists on the ships made it clear that their primary purpose was to protest against the continuing Israeli blockade, which constitutes a form of collective punishment and so a breach of international law,” said Malcolm Smart.

For nearly three years Israel, which is the occupying power in the Gaza Strip, has implemented a policy of banning all movement of goods and people, except for the most basic humanitarian necessities which are imported by international aid agencies. Only a fraction of patients in need of treatment outside Gaza are allowed out, and dozens have died waiting for Israeli permission to travel.

“The blockade does not target armed groups but rather punishes Gaza’s entire population by restricting the entry of food, medical supplies, educational equipment and building materials,” said Malcolm Smart. “Unsurprisingly, its impact falls most heavily on those most vulnerable among Gaza’s 1.5 million people: children, the elderly and the sick.”

“The blockade constitutes collective punishment under international law and must be lifted immediately.”

Israel has a duty under international law to ensure the welfare of Gaza’s inhabitants, including their rights to health, education, food and adequate housing.

City officials convicted over deadly Cairo rockslide

Hilary Homes — 2010-05-31T16:12:27+01:00

originally published 28 May 2010

Amnesty International has welcomed the holding to account of eight Cairo city officials convicted of negligence over the deaths of at least 119 people in a rockslide that hit a Cairo slum in September 2008.

All eight defendants, including a vice-governor of the Egyptian capital, were sentenced to jail terms on Wednesday for involuntarily causing deaths and injuries through negligence in connection with the fatal rockslide in Al-Duwayqa, east Cairo. All eight remain free on bail, until an appeal court rules in the case.

The court found that Cairo’s local authorities knew of the risks in the area, meaning the deaths could have been prevented. If the sentences are upheld by the appeal court, the victims of the rockslide and their families will be able to claim compensation.

Some of them received the verdict with joy, proclaiming “Long live justice”. Others expressed frustration that the officials found culpable remain free.

Amnesty International had been campaigning for justice for the victims of the Al-Duwayqa rockslide, and for the evacuation of thousands of poor residents who are forced to live in inadequate and unsafe housing in unstable hillside locations.

Read the full news update

Egypt using defamation laws to prosecute dissenting voices

Hilary Homes — 2010-05-31T16:10:27+01:00

originally published 26 May 2010

mnesty International has criticized the Egyptian authorities' use of criminal defamation charges to silence and harass activists, after the trial of two leading human rights defenders and a prominent blogger started on Saturday.

A court in Cairo heard the case of the three men on charges of "defamation", "the use of threats" and "misuse of communication tools", after allegations of extortion were made by a judge in 2007.

Gamal Eid, Director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) and Ahmed Seif El-Islam Hamad, founder of the Hisham Mubarak Law Center (HMLC) both appeared before the Khalifa Court of Misdemeanour on Saturday.

Egyptian blogger Amr Gharbeia, now an Amnesty International staff member, was not in court but was represented by his lawyers.

"Questionable criminal defamation charges are used to harass human rights defenders and those critical of the authorities in Egypt," said Amnesty International.

"We fear that these latest charges are a further attempt to intimidate independent human rights organizations, which are already subject to severe restrictions, including state-security vetted registration and tight government rules on foreign funding."

Read the full news update

Israeli government urged not to jail nuclear whistleblower again

Hilary Homes — 2010-05-31T16:06:42+01:00

originally published 12 May 2010

Amnesty International today urged the Israeli government not to imprison nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu, who is facing a return to jail within days.

The Israeli Supreme Court ruled on 11 May that Vanunu, who served 18 years in prison for revealing information about Israel’s nuclear programme, must serve a further three months for meeting a foreign national, a violation of the restrictions imposed on him by the military since his release.

“If Mordechai Vanunu is imprisoned again, Amnesty International will declare him to be a prisoner of conscience and call for his immediate and unconditional release,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

Vanunu, 56, who is banned from leaving the country, told Amnesty International on 12 May: “Whether I go to prison or not, it doesn’t matter to me. I feel like I’m in prison already, trapped in Israel.”

A former technician at Israel's nuclear plant near the southern town of Dimona, Vanunu revealed details of the country's nuclear arsenal to UK newspaper The Sunday Times in 1986.

He was abducted by Mossad agents in Italy on 30 September 1986 and secretly taken to Israel where he was tried and sentenced to a prison term of 18 years, the first 11 years of which he spent in solitary confinement.

When he was released in April 2004, the Israeli authorities considered placing him under administrative detention, but the option was rejected as illegal by Israel’s Attorney General.

Read the full media release

Israel must stop harassment of human rights defender Ameer Makhoul

Hilary Homes — 2010-05-31T16:04:21+01:00

originally published 12 May 2010

Amnesty International has called on the Israeli authorities to end their harassment of a human rights activist whose week-long detention by the Israeli authorities was extended today.

Ameer Makhoul, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, was arrested in a dawn raid at his home in Haifa, northern Israel, by the Israeli security services and police on 6 May. He has been charged with “contact with a foreign agent” on the basis of “secret evidence”.

"Ameer Makhoul is a key human rights defender, well-known for his civil society activism on behalf of the Palestinian citizens of Israel," said Philip Luther, Deputy Director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Program.

"His arrest and continued detention smacks of pure harassment, designed to hinder his human rights work. If this is the case, we would regard him as a prisoner of conscience call for his immediate and unconditional release.”

Read the full news update

Egypt urged to lift state of emergency

Hilary Homes — 2010-05-31T16:02:25+01:00

originally published 11 May 2010

Amnesty International deplores Tuesday’s renewal of the state of emergency by the Egyptian authorities, who rushed through parliament a two-year extension to emergency laws that have been used to crackdown on peaceful opposition protests.

Egyptian authorities claim emergency powers, which have been in place for 29 years, are necessary to combat terrorism and drug trafficking but in practice they have been used to crack down on peaceful dissent and to detain people without charge or trial for prolonged periods.

"By renewing the state of emergency, the Egyptian authorities have given their security forces, especially the State Security Investigations (SSI) officers, carte blanche to continue to use repressive emergency powers that have clearly led to numerous abuses,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa deputy director.

“The authorities have routinely used so-called security concerns to infringe upon human rights.”

Read the full news update

Killing of civilians in Iraq attacks condemned as 'war crimes'

Hilary Homes — 2010-05-31T15:59:25+01:00

originally published 11 May 2010

Amnesty International has condemned the killing of civilians in a series of suicide bombings and shootings by armed groups in Iraq on Monday, which left over 100 people dead and 350 wounded.

The attacks on a textile factory, markets and police and army checkpoints were carried out in the town of Hilla, the southern city of Basra, the capital Baghdad and other cities.

"Yesterday, was the deadliest day so far this year in Iraq, said Malcolm Smart, director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme. "Some of the attacks appear to have deliberately targeted civilians and to have been intended to cause maximum loss of life. If so, such attacks constitute war crimes. We condemn them utterly. Those responsible must cease these murderous attacks.”

"Civilians are continuing to pay a very heavy price for the ongoing divisions in Iraq."

"The political vacuum resulting from the failure of Iraqi political leaders to agree on a new government, two months after the 7 March election, is fuelling instability and being exploited by armed groups, in particular al-Qa'ida and its supporters, to cause further mayhem and suffering."

Read the full news update

Egyptian families at risk of forced evictions over road project

Hilary Homes — 2010-05-31T15:56:45+01:00

originally published 10 May 2010

Amnesty International has called on the Egyptian authorities to halt the forced eviction of 200 families in the north-east of the country as part of a road widening project.

Without prior notice, bulldozers arrived to demolish the homes in Zerzara slums in Port Said on Tuesday, 4 May 2010, leaving fifteen families homeless and another 200 at risk.

"Residents must be consulted about these demolition plans and new homes found if necessary," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International.

"Even if the authorities are genuinely building a road for the benefit of the community, nothing can justify the fact that families were thrown out of their houses without being given anywhere to go. Those families already evicted must be given adequate alternative housing and adequate compensation for the loss of their property."

The eviction was accompanied by a heavy security presence and evictees were reportedly beaten.

The eviction orders were apparently issued by the Governor of Port Said who has the power to order the removal of “infringements” on land owned by the state,

Read the full news update

Iraq: Kurdistan authorities must investigate abduction and murder of journalist

Hilary Homes — 2010-05-07T18:32:58+01:00

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) must take immediate steps to investigate the abduction and murder earlier this week of Sardasht Osman, aged 23, a university student who worked as a journalist for the Ashtiname newspaper in Erbil, capital of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. His abduction and murder follows a spate of other attacks on journalists and other critics of the KRG’s two main political parties in recent years for which no-one has yet been brought to justice.

Sardasht Osman, a final year student at the University of Salaheddin in Erbil, was abducted from outside the university on 4 May 2010 by a group of unidentified armed men. They forced him into a car and drove away. He was not seen alive again. His body was found in Mosul on the morning of 6 May 2010. He had been murdered.

Prior to his death, Sardasht Osman wrote articles for Ashtiname newspaper, which is published in Erbil and other publications. According to Kurdish media websites, he had recently published an article in Ashtiname which criticized a senior Kurdish political figure following which, according to his brother, Bashdar, he received anonymous threats to his mobile phone. [more]

It appears that the abduction and murder of Sardasht Osman may be the latest in a series of attacks that have been carried out against independent journalists and other critics of the KRG authorities in recent years. There has been an emerging pattern of attacks on those who have criticized leading members and officials of the two main political parties in the Kurdistan Region - the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), headed by Mas’oud Barzani, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), headed by Jalal Talabani – which jointly form the KRG. The attacks, mostly physical assaults but including some killings, have generally been carried out by unidentified men in plain clothes who are widely suspected of being agents of or connected to the Parastin and Zanyari, the party security and intelligence organs of, respectively, the KDP and the PUK.

Amnesty International is calling on the KRG authorities to institute immediately a thorough, independent investigation into the abduction and murder of Sardasht Osman and other attacks on journalists and others in the Kurdistan Region and areas under the effective control of the KRG, and for those responsible to be brought to justice in full conformity with international law.

Israel/OPT Goldstone Updates No. 3 - Concerning Gilad Shalit

Jim Joyce — 2010-05-07T16:14:10+01:00

Within the Hamas de facto administration’s response to the Goldstone Report was their specific response to the Fact-Finding Mission’s recommendations concerning captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. This response goes further that what they originally told the members of the mission. It does not go far enough.

Amnesty International members have campaigned for the end of administrative detention of Palestinians from the Occupied Territories by Israel, and for family visits for all prisoners. AI has condemned the use of prisoners as political bargaining chips as a violation of international law, noting Israel's detention of Palestinian parliamentarians, as well as the detention of Gilad Shalit.

The Goldstone Mission reported that following “the continued detention of Gilad Shalit, a member of the Israeli armed forces, captured in 2006 by Palestinian armed groups during a cross-border operation. .. the Israeli Government ordered a number of incursions to attack important infrastructure in the Gaza Strip as well as Palestinian Authority offices. This was followed by the arrest of eight Palestinian Government ministers and 26 members of the Palestinian
Legislative Council by the Israeli security forces.”

[more]

At various points during the years that followed, Israeli Government officials have repeatedly stated that the easing of the blockade on the Gaza Strip was linked to his release. The situation was complicated with various on-again off-again negotiations about an exchange of Palestinian prisoners for Gilad Shalit. At times they seemed to be connected to easing of the blockade.

In late 2009, the Israeli government’s position hardened. Among the stated aims of Operation Cast Lead was the release of the soldier. The Goldstone Mission reported that Palestinians during the operation were questioned about the whereabouts of Gilad Shalit.

The Hamas de facto administration denied its involvement with the capture and detention of the soldier when asked about this by the Goldstone mission. It also told them that they were not in possession of any information about his current status.

The Goldstone Report stated as one of its legal findings that “Gilad Shalit meets the requirements for prisoner-of-war status under the Third Geneva Convention. As such, he should be protected, treated humanely and be allowed external communication as appropriate according to that Convention. A delegation from the International Committee of the Red Cross [ICRC] should be allowed to visit him without delay. Information about his condition should also be provided promptly to his family.”

In its following paragraph, the Report also stated the following legal finding. Noting their concerns about the declarations made by various Israeli officials, who have indicated the intention of maintaining the blockade of the Gaza Strip until the release of Gilad Shalit, “the Mission is of the opinion that this would constitute collective punishment of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip.”

In its February response, the Hamas de facto administration reported that the resistance groups detaining the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit have publicly taken responsibility for capturing him and that they are committed to the principles of international law in this regard, and they have publicly said that he is still alive and in good health. However, the resistance groups expressed fears that arranging a visit with the ICRC at his place of detention would put his life at risk. According to them, the Israeli army was acting on such information, when it fired at several locations before and during Operation Cast Lead. The resistance groups therefore assert they are in compliance with the Third Geneva Convention by providing audio and video tapes for his family instead of visits of the ICRC. They remain committed to releasing him if Israel would release a group of prisoners detained in its prisons, particularly the detained parliamentarians.

Amnesty International wishes to reiterate that treating Gilad Shalit as a hostage, preventing regular communications with his family, and denying access to the ICRC, is acting contrary to its obligations under international law.

AI does not think that the Hamas de facto administration’s justification is credible. The ICRC, which continues to press for access to Gilad Shalit, is universally respected for the role it plays in protecting people deprived of their liberty, and in the past decades it has acted impeccably while visiting Israeli and Palestinian detainees. There is no reason to believe that the ICRC would act in a manner that would compromise its neutrality or endanger the detainees it visits.

Amnesty International continues to calls upon the Hamas de facto administration to immediately let the ICRC visit Gilad Shalit and to exchange news with his family.

For previous information on the reaction of the government of Israel and the Hamas de facto administration to the Goldstone Report see the previous posting.

If have questions about this posting,
if you wish to take action on behalf of Gilad Shalit,
please contact Jim Joyce, AICS(ES) Coordinator for Israel/Occupied Territories/Palestinian Authority.

Egypt: �Hizbullah cell� convictions marred by torture allegations

Hilary Homes — 2010-04-29T21:54:28+01:00

Amnesty International calls for a retrial by a regular court of 26 men jailed by an Egyptian emergency court for their alleged links to the Lebanese group, Hizbullah amid allegations of torture.

The special court sentenced the men – who included Lebanese, Palestinians, Egyptians and one Sudanese – to jail terms ranging from six months to life.

Their conviction was based on “confessions” which the defendants say were obtained under torture.

“These men should be retried by an ordinary court which gives them a chance of getting a fair trial,” said Amnesty International. “Bypassing justice by referring sensitive cases to emergency courts undermines the criminal justice system and encourages human rights abuses.”

Emergency Supreme State Security Courts (ESSSCs), which were established under emergency legislation introduced in 1958, flout basic guarantees for fair trial and deny defendants the right to appeal. They are also known to rely on “confessions” extracted under torture to secure convictions.

Twenty two of the men have been held in incommunicado detention for months after their arrests in late 2008 and early 2009, and detained in an undisclosed location by order of the Minister of Interior.

The other four, who remain at large, were convicted in absentia.

All were charged with a variety of offences, including planning to attack tourist sites, possessing explosives and passing information to Hizbullah in Lebanon.

Read the AI news release

New Israeli military order could increase expulsions of West Bank Palestinians

Hilary Homes — 2010-04-29T16:10:08+01:00

Amnesty International said it is concerned that a new Israeli military order could facilitate the expulsion of Palestinians from the occupied West Bank.

Military Order No. 1650, which came into force in the West Bank on 13 April, broadens the definition of the term "infiltrator" to include anyone present in the West Bank without a permit issued by the Israeli authorities.

Those considered "infiltrators" can be deported to other states or forcibly transferred to the Gaza Strip, and face criminal charges.

In a letter to Israel's Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Barak on Tuesday, Amnesty International said that it feared this broad definition could facilitate the expansion of the Israeli authorities' current practice of expelling individuals from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip

"This new military order is scandalous in the light of the Israeli authorities' long-standing practice of expelling individuals from the West Bank," said Philip Luther, Amnesty International's Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa programme.

"Since 2003 Israel has forcibly relocated Palestinians living in the West Bank to the Gaza Strip on the basis that their addresses were registered in Gaza."

On 28 October 2009, Israeli forces in the West Bank detained Berlanty Azzam, a 21-year-old Palestinian student, who was weeks away from graduating from Bethlehem University. She was handcuffed, blindfolded and forcibly transferred to Gaza.

Read the full AI News Update

Iraq�s Civilians Under Fire: Better protection urgently needed

Hilary Homes — 2010-04-28T15:50:56+01:00

Originally published 27 April 2010

Amnesty International today called on the Iraqi authorities to urgently step up the protection of civilians amid the recent surge of deadly violence in the country.

A new Amnesty International report, Iraq: Civilians Under Fire, documents how hundreds of civilians are being killed or injured each month. Many are specifically targeted by armed groups because of their religious, ethnic or sexual identity or because they speak out against human rights abuses.

Ongoing uncertainty over when a new Iraqi government will be formed has led to a recent spike in attacks, with more than 100 civilian deaths in the first week of April alone.

“Iraqis are still living in a climate of fear, seven years after the US-led invasion. The Iraqi authorities could do much more to keep them safe, but over and over they are failing to help the most vulnerable in society,” said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Director.

Amnesty International is urging the authorities to do more to protect those who are particularly at risk and bring those responsible for violent crimes to justice, without recourse to the death penalty.

While Iraqi security forces, foreign troops or family members are responsible for some human rights abuses, most killings of civilians are carried out by armed groups, including al-Qa’ida in Iraq. The organization remains a significant presence in the country despite the recent reported deaths of three senior leaders.

Read the full news release | Read the AI report Iraq: Civilians Under Fire

Iran: Emadeddin Baghi 180 days in prison

Gloria Nafziger — 2010-04-27T15:20:46+01:00

My dearest father, salaam,

“Greetings to your sublime spirit, greetings to your dignified and love-filled existence, greetings to your strong morale, and greetings to your ailing body. My heart beats strongly for your health of which you became deprived in a difficult and unsuitable cell in your last period of incarceration. The Iranian year 1388 ended while you were not with us and today is the 4th day of the second month of spring, 118 days after your arrest. Until the turning of the year we were so hopeful the doorbell would ring and you would enter. But we heard later that you were a guest at the hospital”…

Thus begins Maryam Baghi’s letter to her father Emadeddin Baghi on the occasion of his 180th day of incarceration. The letter expresses the pain of a daughter’s separation from her father, and the hope of a better future,

…”Why is the path to freedom, serenity and peace so rocky, dark and narrow? Father, if in the past the sound of only few seekers of freedom and rights was heard, now the voices have increased. With the imprisonment of one voice, thousands voices of freedom rise from everywhere. One of your ward mates was recently freed. He was separated from you by a couple of cells and said that he could hear your voice occasionally. A guard told you not to raise your voice and you said: “We are imprisoned; our voices are not.” Your voice from inside the high cement walls of Evin Prison traverses all of Tehran’s streets and now many other voices accompany yours. Your voice is the beacon of freedom and Justice. Then why do they consider you an enemy?!”

“Every second I do not forget that behind the tall walls of a prison in the most northwest part of the city and in other prisons there are people whose only sin is criticism for the sake of reform; the same approach taught to us by prophets and Imams. I say to you dear Father, who with tied wings but a heart full of faith and steadfast thoughts is sitting in the cage of those who cannot accept criticism, that you are the one truly free of fetters.”

Sunday, April 25 was Emadeddin Baghi’s birthday. Celebrate his birthday and take action. Send a letter to the Iranian authorities, calling for his release.

Iraq urged to investigate secret prison allegations

Hilary Homes — 2010-04-19T18:46:03+01:00

Amnesty International has called on the Iraqi authorities to investigate allegations that security forces tortured hundreds of Sunni detainees at a secret prison in Baghdad.

Iraqi Human Rights Ministry inspectors said on Sunday that more than 100 of the facility's 431 prisoners were tortured using electric shocks, suffocation with plastic bags and beatings. Prisoners reportedly revealed that one man had died in January as a result of torture.

Amnesty International expressed concerns at Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's claim that he was unaware of abuses at the prison, which he has vowed to shut down.

"The existence of secret jails indicates that military units in Iraq are allowed to commit human rights abuses unchecked," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa deputy director.

"Prime Minister al-Maliki's claim that he was unaware of abuses cannot exonerate the authorities from their responsibilities and their duty to ensure the safety of detainees."

Read the full story

Executions by Hamas in Gaza 'deplorable'

Hilary Homes — 2010-04-15T17:56:16+01:00

Amnesty International on Thursday condemned the executions by the Hamas de facto authority of two Palestinian men in Gaza in the early hours of this morning. Both men had been convicted in 2009 by military courts in Gaza of charges of "collaboration" with the Israeli military and involvement in murder.

"Today's executions are an extremely retrograde step by Hamas. As the first executions since 2005, we are gravely concerned for the other Palestinian prisoners in Gaza who have been given death sentences by the military courts," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Director of Amnesty International's Middle East Programme. "We deplore that these men were convicted in unfair military proceedings."

While a number of people accused of "collaboration" have been killed in Gaza by Hamas militias and other armed groups since its takeover of power in June 2007, Thursday's executions represent the first formal executions carried out by the Hamas de facto authority in Gaza.

Read the full AI news story

Egypt urged to protect peaceful demonstrators

Hilary Homes — 2010-04-15T17:53:54+01:00

Amnesty International has urged the Egyptian authorities to allow peaceful protests and to protect demonstrators, after police violently repressed another anti-government demonstration in Cairo on Tuesday, beating and injuring demonstrators with batons and detaining and abusing at least one.

The incident followed the violent repression of a similar demonstration in the city on 6 April, during which 90 people were arrested.

The protestors have been calling for political reform and for an end to the 29-year government-imposed state of emergency which has been used to curb protests and freedom of expression.

"The ongoing crackdown on peaceful protestors shows the authorities are determined to suppress voices calling for reform or criticising their policies," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director at Amnesty International. "The Egyptian authorities must ensure that peaceful demonstrators can protest safely, rather than unleashing the security forces, with their well-known record of brutality."

An estimated 200 to 1,000 people took part in Tuesday's protest, staged outside the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the High Court (Dar al-Qada al-Ali) in Cairo by the Egyptian Movement for Change (Kefaya).

Read the full AI news story

Lebanon: Give women their right to pass on nationality to their children

Hilary Homes — 2010-04-15T17:50:33+01:00

Originally published 13 April 2010

Amnesty International urges the Lebanese authorities to withdraw immediately an appeal they have filed against a landmark court ruling in June of last year allowing a Lebanese woman to pass on her nationality to her children.

The organization is deeply concerned that the Lebanese authorities are seeking to overturn such a landmark decision instead of implementing the court ruling and ensuring that Lebanon complies with its international obligations not to discriminate against women. If the Civil Chamber of the Court of Appeal overturns the decision, it will shatter hopes of thousands of children born to Lebanese mothers and foreign national fathers, who are treated as foreigners in their own country and denied access to public education and other services.

The Civil Chamber of the Court of Appeal that handles personal status cases is scheduled to hear on Tuesday 13 April 2010 the case of Samira Soueidan, a Lebanese citizen who was granted the right to pass on her nationality to three of her Lebanon-born children by the Fifth Chamber of the Court of First Instance in Mount Lebanon’s Jdeidit al-Metn on June 16, 2009.

Samira Soueidan had initiated proceedings after her husband, an Egyptian national, passed away in 1994. In 2005, she filed a new lawsuit against the Lebanese state to challenge Law no. 15 of 1925 which grants the nationality and citizenship of children through the father only.

Under Lebanese law, women, unlike men, cannot pass on their nationality to their spouses or children. The children of Lebanese women married to a foreign national can not obtain Lebanese nationality. Non-Lebanese men married to Lebanese women also cannot get Lebanese citizenship, whereas non-Lebanese women married to Lebanese men can acquire the Lebanese nationality after one year of marriage. Such provisions in Lebanese law are in clear violation of Lebanon’s obligations under international law, including the principle of non discrimination (Article 2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)), the principle on equality between men and women (article 3 of the ICCPR) and equality before the law (Article 26 of the ICCRP).

Read the full AI news release

US helicopter killings in Iraq must be independently investigated

Hilary Homes — 2010-04-15T17:46:58+01:00

Originally published 7 April 2010

Amnesty International has called for an independent, thorough and impartial investigation into the 12 July 2007 helicopter attacks portrayed in a leaked classified US military video in which up to a dozen people, including a journalist and his driver, were killed.

The 39 minute video released on Monday by Wikileaks appears to show a helicopter gunsight video with an audio track of conversation among the crew opening fire on a group of men, a couple of whom appear to be armed, moving about a square in eastern Baghdad. It also shows further firing on a van which arrives, apparently to evacuate the wounded and the dead. Two children were wounded in the incident.

“This highly disturbing video appears to show that after the initial attack, US troops opened fire on people seeking to assist a wounded man, injuring two children, and killing several more people” said Malcolm Smart, director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa program.

Read the full AI news release

Israel/Occupied Territories: Jayyus - Accessing Water

Jim Joyce — 2010-03-25T14:29:34+01:00

A tractor used to pull a water tanker

Beyond the issues concerning access to their land, the villagers of Jayyus, home to some 3,000 Palestinians whose livelihoods depend on farming, are cut off from their access to water. When the fence/wall was constructed in the area in 2003 it cut off the villagers from two thirds of their land, amounting to some 900 hectares, and all six of the wells that had provided most of the water for the villagers’ domestic needs and to irrigate their crops. The loss of access to the wells has had a drastic impact on the lives of the Jayyus villagers. Water consumption in the village dropped to a mere 23 litres per person per day, far below the minimum level recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) and less than a tenth of the average daily consumption of Israelis.

In the summer, water has had to be rationed to two hours a day and often villagers have had no water supply at all for days at a time. Prior to the construction of the fence/wall Jayyus was known as the food basket of the region. Its land was among the most fertile in the West Bank due to the ready availability of water, and the village produced some 9 million kilograms of fruit and 7 million kilograms of vegetables annually. Today, the level of production has fallen to a fraction of that and most families are now dependent on international humanitarian aid. When building the fence/wall around Jayyus, the Israeli army uprooted some 4,000 of the Palestinian villagers’ trees and bulldozed some 50 hectares (500 dunams) of cultivated land.

[more]

See video We, the Women of Jayyous by Palestinian NGOs Lifesource and Arab Water Channel (for background information):

Abdellatif Khaled, a hydrologist with PHG and Jayyus resident, told Amnesty International: "Before the wall, villagers could easily carry the water from the wells to the village whenever necessary, but since Israel built the wall this is no longer possible as the water tankers cannot pass since the wells are on the other side of the wall. Many farmers don't have permits to go to cultivate their land there, where the water is, and on this side of the wall we suffer for lack of water. I have land on the other side of the wall and I also need to cross the wall to carry out my work as a hydrologist, but I have been waiting for a permit for two months now. This is not exceptional. Refusals of permits are so frequent that we have got to the point that getting a permit is the exception. We are here and our water is there. "

The construction of the fence/wall and their loss of access to their wells caused the Jayyus villagers to turn to a well belonging to the nearby village of Azzun for their water, but this is located next to a rubbish dump which is thought to have contaminated its water a number of times. In 2008, however, the Jayyus villagers began to obtain some water also from another well at Azzun. This has helped alleviate, but not solve, their acute water shortage.

Lost Livelihood

Prior to the construction of the fence/wall Jayyus was known as the food basket of the region. Its land was among the most fertile in the West Bank due to the ready availability of water, and the village produced some 9 million kilograms of fruit and 7 million kilograms of vegetables annually. Today, the level of production has fallen to a fraction of that and most families are now dependent on international humanitarian aid. When building the fence/wall around Jayyus, the Israeli army uprooted some 4,000 of the Palestinian villagers'trees and bulldozed some 500 dunums [50 hectares] of cultivated land.

Much of the cultivation at Jayyus requires irrigation, so farmers need regular access to their land to water their crops, but due to the fence/wall such access was removed except for those farmers fortunate enough to obtain permits from the Israeli army allowing them to pass through the fence/wall to reach their fields. Yet, even these farmers frequently have had to wait months to obtain such permits or have them renewed, during which time they cannot cultivate their land. Many have lost their harvest, the outcome of months of hard work, because they were not permitted to access their land or water their crops. The number of permits granted by the Israeli army to Jayyus Municipality decreased from 630 in October 2003 to approximately 100 in May 2009.

According to the UN, by August 2004, one year after the completion of the fence/wall around Jayyus, local agricultural production had fallen by more than a third due to the Palestinians being denied fair access to water by the 50 obstacles put in the way of local farmers, and since then the situation has continued to worsen.

Sharif Omar, a Jayyus farmer who has a large area of land to the west of the fence/wall, has been battling with the permit system ever since the fence/wall was built. In 2007 he was unable to obtain a permit for six months. When his permit expired on 23 June 2007 he sought for months to renew it, but in vain. He had no permit and was unable to reach his fields throughout the hottest months, when his crops needed watering, but was eventually issued with a new permit on 30January 2008, but only for three months. When it expired at the end of April, he had again to wait several weeks to have it renewed at a time when again, irrigation was crucial if he was to be able to cultivate successfully.

Abdelkarim Baaji, a shepherd told Amnesty International,"Me and my brothers have 150 sheep. Before the wall we could keep the sheep on the land or take them there during the day to graze and drink and bring them back to the village for the night. Since the wall, it has become very difficult. We need access to the land on the other side of the wall for the sheep, especially for the water; even if we could find land to graze on this side of the wall, it would be impossible because the water is on the other side of the wall. So, now we keep the sheep on the land on the other side of the wall all the time. But we have been having great difficulties with the permits. We are five brothers and before we could share the work. Now only two of my brothers have permits and it is very difficult for them to manage and we cannot help because we have not permits to cross the wall.

Operating the wells since the construction of the fence/wall has also become increasingly challenging with operators also facing permit problems and restrictions on the passage of fuel and spare parts to maintain the wells’ pumps and generators. One well operator told Amnesty International that he had a permit but that the permit of his wife, who works with him and drives him, had expired, and that they had no way of knowing whether or when it would be renewed.

Another well operator has told Amnesty International "To pump 70 to 75m per hour requires some US$35 worth of diesel per hour. It would be more economical to use electricity. We have asked the Israeli authorities but they don’t allow it. The engine for this well is very old, about 35 years. We have a new engine but no permit for the engineer to come to install it and the new turbine has been sitting in the port of Ashdod in Israel for months and we have no permit to bring it. With a new engine the well could produce 120m per hour, instead of the current 85-90m, and instead of 23 litres of fuel per hour it would only use some 15 litres. It would be much more efficient. Any repair is more expensive here because the engineers have to waste time getting the permit and can only come at the specific times, when the gate is open and often the soldiers make them wait.

The residents of Jayyus petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court in 2004, challenging the route of the fence/wall. The Court asked the army to present an alternative route that would not encompass an excessive amount of land around the Israeli settlement of Tzufim. The army took no action to comply for several years, until early 2009 when it moved a small section of the fence/wall. This brought little relief to the villagers, however, as half of the village land and all the village’s wells remain on the far side of the fence/wall and most villagers are unable to obtain permits to access them.

Bearing the Cost and Solving Problems Created by the Fence/Wall

On 6 June 2004 the Palestinian Water Authority [PWA] submitted an application to the JWC for a permit to build pipelines under the fence/wall in order to bring water from the six wells on its far side to Jayyus and its surroundings. The Israeli authorities on the Joint Water Committee [JWC] granted approval on 11 September 2005, more than 15 months later, but the approval was conditional on "submitting the information requested by the sub-committee on projects". In the meantime, in 2006 the Israeli Supreme Court asked the Israeli army to move a section of the fence/wall, which the army only did in early 2009. During the intervening three years the planned project was set aside due to the uncertainty about the possible location of the new route of the fence/wall.

After the army eventually moved a section of the fence/wall in early 2009, the PWA applied to the Israeli army in May for a permit to lay the pipeline beneath it to connect the wells to Jayyus. As this was happening, a new problem arose when the army refused to issue a permit to allow the booster pump to be installed in its planned location because the Israeli authorities have earmarked that area for the expansion of the Tzufim settlement. The army’s demand that the booster pump be located elsewhere means that the PWA must identify a new site, convince its owner to sell the land and obtain funding from international donors to buy the new site, and also obtain a permit from the Israeli army to carry out the work. In practice, however, the PWA may be unable to obtain funding from international donors until it has obtained an Israeli army permit indicating that the work can proceed, yet such permit is unlikely to be granted until the new site for the booster pump has been located and the land purchased. Five years on since the original application from the Palestinian Water Authority to the Joint Water Committee, the project remains in limbo, snared in a veritable catch-22.

Amnesty International's Recommendations

In its report Troubled Waters- Palestinians Denied Fair Access to Water, Amnesty International made a series of recommendations based on international law.

Israel's actions and policies have greatly diminished existing water sources and restricted the availability of water for the Palestinian population in the OPT in breach of Israel's obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law. These actions and policies include diversion of the Jordan River and its tributaries, leading to the denial of access to water from this source for the Palestinians, the imposition of quotas and restrictive allocations of water from the aquifers as well as restrictions on construction of new water installations. Through these actions and policies, Israel breaches its obligation under the ICESCR (International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights) to respect the right to water, which requires that state parties refrain from interfering directly or indirectly with the enjoyment of the right to water. The obligation which Israel has breached includes its obligation to refrain from engaging in any practice or activity that denies or limits equal access to adequate water, arbitrarily interfering with customary or traditional arrangements for water allocation and unlawfully diminishing water.

The military orders imposed and maintained by Israel create substantial barriers to the availability and accessibility of water for the Palestinian population and are applied in a discriminatory manner between Israeli settlers and the Palestinians living in particular areas. They amount, therefore, to a violation of the right to water as they are "policies which are manifestly incompatible with pre-existing domestic or international legal obligations in relation to the right to water." They also breach the Hague Regulations' prohibition on the occupying power changing the character and nature of property and natural resources in the occupied property, and the obligation to safeguard and administer these resources in accordance with the rule of usufruct and not to utilize the resources of the occupied territory for the benefit of its own civilian population.

Israel must uphold its obligations as the occupying power by putting an immediate end to current policies and practices which arbitrarily restrict the Palestinians' access to and availability of water in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

You can read more about how the right to access to water is based on international law and about other specific concerns about water issues in the West Bank and Gaza in the report Troubled Waters.

If you have questions, please contact Jim Joyce, Coordinator for Israel/OPT/ Palestinian Authority.

If you wish to take action on this concern, also contact Jim Joyce

Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories: Israel Urged To Stop Settlement Expansion in East Jerusalem

Jim Joyce — 2010-03-15T14:48:05+01:00

Palestinian workers on construction site of Israeli homes in Ramat Sholmo settlement © AP GraphicsBank

Amnesty International is reiterating its call on the Israeli government to cease constructing or expanding illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) after a plan to build 1,600 new Israeli settler homes in East Jerusalem was officially approved.

The plan which, if implemented, will expand the Ramat Shlomo settlement, currently home to around 18,000 settlers, was announced on 10 March.

"Israel's policy on settlements is not only unlawful, it also impacts
severely on the human rights of Palestinians in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, whose lives and livelihoods have been devastated by the constructions taking place occupied Palestinian land," said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa director.

[more]

"The Israeli government must immediately end plans to expand existing settlements or build new ones, as a first step towards completely removing unlawful Israeli settlements from the occupied territories."

The construction of Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territory violates international humanitarian law, which prohibits population transfers by an occupying power into lands that it occupies.

Palestinians in the West Bank, who are subject to military law rather than Israeli civilian law which governs Israeli settlers, are not allowed to enter Israeli settlements or to use settlers’ roads, and face severe restrictions on their freedom of movement.

Settlers also receive substantial financial and other benefits from the
Israeli government, and are allowed to exploit land and natural resources that belong to the Palestinian population.

The unlawful appropriation of Palestinian land for Israeli settlements and "bypass" roads connecting the settlements, and of crucial resources such as water, has had a devastating impact on the local Palestinian population.

Some 135 officially recognized Israeli settlements and 99 settlement
"outposts" – officially unauthorized settlements that are nevertheless state-sponsored and funded by government ministries – have been
established in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in violation of international law and in defiance of UN resolutions, since Israeli forces began their occupation of the Palestinian territories in 1967.

Today there are more than 450,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank, of whom almost 200,000 live in settlements in and around East Jerusalem.

As Israeli settlements and "bypass" roads have continued to multiply and spread throughout the West Bank, so have the roads and areas prohibited to Palestinians, making it difficult for Palestinians to travel between their own communities.

Palestinians living under Israeli control in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are subject to tight restrictions on their housing and
infrastructure.

Homes, public buildings and other structures belonging to Palestinians are frequently said by the Israeli authorities to be “illegal” and as such are liable to be demolished at any time. In 2009 alone, the Israeli authorities demolished more than 270 Palestinian structures in the West Bank, resulting in the displacement of over 600 people, more than half of whom were children.

Egypt releases blogger facing trial by military court

Hilary Homes — 2010-03-09T16:46:12+01:00

Amnesty International has welcomed the release of an Egyptian blogger, who was facing jail after he published a post alleging nepotism within the armed forces.

The organization said it remains concerned that the release of Ahmed Mostafa was conditional on him agreeing to apologise and on removing the March 2009 posting from his Matha Assabaka ya Watan (What happened to you, oh nation?) blog.

He was due to appear before a military tribunal for a second time on Sunday 7 March and could have faced up to nine and a half years in prison.

The first Egyptian blogger to face a military trial for his alleged activities, Mostafa published, following his release, a post on his blog, advising other bloggers to check information before posting it.

Read the full story

Egypt: Release blogger prosecuted by military court

Hilary Homes — 2010-03-08T21:50:07+01:00

originally published 5 March 2010

Amnesty International today called for the Egyptian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release a blogger and prisoner of conscience facing up to nine and a half years in prison after he published a post alleging nepotism with in the armed forces.

Ahmad Mostafa, 20, is set to face a military trial in Cairo on 7 March over a post published on his Matha Assabaka ya Watan (What happened to you, oh nation?) blog in March 2009 . He is the first Egyptian blogger to face a military trial for his alleged activities.

“Ahmed Mostafa has been prosecuted solely for exercising peacefully his right to freedom of expression on his blog,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa programme.

“He is now facing bogus charges that reveal the determination of the authorities to control the Egyptian blogosphere, which has become a pocket of free expression in the country.” added Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui.

The post recounted the story of a student who had allegedly been forced to resign from a military academy in order to leave room for another applicant amid accusations of nepotism.

Ahmed Mostafa, an engineering student at the university of Kafr El Sheikh, has been accused of publishing military secrets online, publishing false information about the army and of insulting officers involved in the recruitment process at the military academy.

According to lawyers from the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, he was first arrested by military intelligence officers on February 17 and was questioned about his blog.

Read the full news release

Israel/Palestinian Authority - Goldstone Updates No. 2

Jim Joyce — 2010-03-08T16:16:13+01:00

An ambulance crushed near Al-Quds hospital, located in the Tal al-Hawa neighbour-hood in the centre of Gaza City, which was repeatedly struck from morning to night on 15 January by white phosphorus lumps, white phosphorus artillery shells and tank shells, eventually forcing medical staff and patients to evacuate the facility. [AI Gaza Mssion 2009]

Amnesty International in a public statement welcomed the General Assembly’s decision on 26 February 2010 to reiterate its call on the Government of Israel and the Palestinians to conduct “independent, credible” investigations into allegations of serious violations of international law during the conflict in Gaza and southern Israel in 2008-2009.

The resolution adopted with 98 in favour, seven against and 31 abstentions shows an important shift in favour of measures to ensure accountability for the serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law documented in the report of the UN Fact-Finding Mission led by Justice Goldstone. Three months ago the General Assembly adopted a comparable resolution but with considerably less support from key EU member states. Canada continued to vote against the resolution.

Amnesty International views this as an important step in the process of pressing Israel and the Palestinian side to confront the serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law committed during the 22-day conflict in Gaza and southern Israel. Domestic investigations carried out so far have failed to meet the necessary standards of being independent, credible and in conformity with international standards. With this resolution, the parties have been given a further five months to tackle impunity effectively and must now do so in accordance with the international standards required by the General Assembly.

[more]

Significantly two members of the Security Council, France and the United Kingdom, were among EU member states that shifted to vote in favour of the resolution, and the number of states voting against the resolution was reduced from 18 to seven. Countries abandoning their opposition by shifting their vote from no to abstention include Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Poland.

Amnesty International also renews its urgent call on the UN Secretary-General to immediately establish a body of independent experts to make a substantive assessment of the efforts by the parties concerned to carry out investigations, measured against the standards required by the adopted resolution.

Amnesty International has dismissed the investigations that have been carried out by Israel, particularly as they lacked the necessary independence and failed to credibly address grave concerns about the army's use of white phosphorous and other alleged violations of international humanitarian law. The recent measures taken by the Hamas de facto administration in Gaza do not begin to constitute credible investigations into serious violations alleged to have been committed by Palestinian armed groups during the conflict.

It is significant that the resolution includes a reference to potential action by the Security Council. Amnesty International underlines that, should the parties fail to conduct investigations that meet international standards, it falls on the Security Council to refer the situation in Gaza to the International Criminal Court.

BACKGROUND

The resolution adopted on 26 February 2010 by the General Assembly (A/64/L/48), Follow-up to the report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict (II), was adopted with 98 in favour, seven against and 31 abstentions. Twenty-two countries moved their votes from abstention to yes; and nine moved from voting no to abstention. The resolution is a modified version of General Assembly resolution 64/10 adopted on 5 November 2009 which for the first time called on the parties to the Gaza conflict to conduct, within three months, "investigations that are independent, credible and in conformity with international standards into the serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law reported by the Fact-Finding Mission, towards ensuring accountability and justice".

Those countries continuing to vote against the resolution are: Canada, Israel, Micronesia, Nauru, Panama, FYR Macedonia, and the United States of America.

Countries shifting their vote from abstention to a vote in favour are: Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Costa Rica, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Iceland, Japan, Kenya, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Uganda, the United Kingdom and Uruguay.

Countries shifting their vote from no to abstentions are: Australia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, and Ukraine.

In reporting to the General Assembly (A/64/651) about the implementation of resolution 64/10, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had merely observed that "no determination can be made on the implementation of the resolution by the parties concerned" as processes were "ongoing".

Amnesty International had repeatedly called on the Secretary-General to substantively assess the credibility of the investigations by both sides and stated that there was already sufficient information available to the Secretary-General for him to make such an assessment.

Support the call for gender equality in Iran

Gloria Nafziger — 2010-03-05T21:53:48+01:00

Iranian authorities are entrenching discrimination against women and girls in law and practice. Not only are the authorities failing to amend existing discriminatory legislation, but they have implemented regulations and are considering introducing legislation which would worsen women’s unequal treatment under the law.

For example, since September 2009, female students have been required to study at universities in their home towns or cities, thereby restricting their free access to higher education. No such requirement exists for male students.

In addition, the Majles, Iran’s parliament, has continued its discussion of a controversial piece of legislation, known as the Family Protection Bill, which has been dubbed the Anti-Family Bill by women’s right campaigners.

Against this backdrop of entrenched discrimination against women and girls in Iran, women have also suffered state repression during the post-presidential election violence. According to IranGenderEquality.com, at least 138 women, – among them students, civil society campaigners, political activists and journalists –have been arrested since June 2009. While some have been released on bail, others have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms or are still held months after their arrest without charge or trial. Some – such as members of the “Mourning Mothers” – a group of women whose children were killed during the post election repression and their supporters, have been arrested for peacefully protesting about human rights violations and demanding accountability. Others appear to be held solely on account of their family relations.

Support a call for freedom and gender equality made by Iranian women’s rights activists ahead of International Women’s Day on 8 March 2010.

Israel/Palestinian Authority - Saed Yassin Released

Jim Joyce — 2010-03-02T19:05:23+01:00

Saed Yassin was released from Palestinian Authority detention on Sunday 28 February. He attended his trial in a military court on that day. His lawyer protested that the court had no jurisdiction over a civilian case, and that the case should be dismissed and the detainee released, as ruled by the Palestinian High Court of Justice. The judge dismissed this objection and proceeded with the trial. The judge found Saed Yassin innocent on all charges, which were read out as: 1) Supporting militias; and 2) Opposing the policies of the authority.

AI groups in Canada (Group 18-Toronto, Group 125 –Kingston, Amnesty Action Circle 101-Maidstone, Group133 –Yellowknife, Group 10 –Orillia, Group 1- Hamilton) have been working on the case, starting when he was imprisoned by the Israelis and continued after his release, and his subsequent detention by the Palestinian Authority. During this later stage of his imprisonment, his health continued to be compromised, and an Urgent Action was issued to raise specifically the denial of medical care. While Amnesty International does not publically claim it was only our members’ actions which led to the release of a prisoner – in this case a “double” release, we know that it is the persistence of membership action has been a contributing factor. All those Canadians who wrote on behalf of Saed Yassin, both to Israeli and subsequently to Palestinian authorities, can share in the joy of his release.

His case has been an interesting one. He was first detained by the Israelis in 2006 and issued with an administrative detention. It was at this point that Amnesty International took up his case.

[more]

Saed Yassin is a human rights defender from the Occupied West Bank. He was working for the West Bank branch of Ansar al-Sajeen, “Prisoners Friends Association. when he was imprisoned by Israeli authorities on 6 March 2006. Following interrogation he was charged with channeling funds in an illegal manner. At the time of his detention, the Israelis closed down Ansar al-Sajeen, an organization first set up by Israeli Arabs to support prisoner families within Israel. They also confiscated all the organization’s assets, funds intended for prisoner families, hundreds of legal files and documents, phones, photocopying machines and computers in both Israel and the West Bank. The reason for this is open to speculation, but the main one is that Ansar al-Sajeen, along with more thirty others NGOs in Israel, supported the Palestinian call for sanctions and boycotts against Israel.

Three days before his scheduled release on the first set of charges on 15. Oct. 2006, Saed Yassin was issued with an administrative detention order by the Israelis, and these administrative detention orders were renewed at six months intervals continuing until 2009. During his imprisonment, he was moved between prisons making it increasingly difficult for him to receive visits from his wife and children. During his imprisonment, he developed a painful gastric condition, and Amnesty members added to their calls for his release, requests that he receive medical attention.

The Israeli practice of administrative detention seems to be often reserved for non-violent Palestinian activists, people who in other countries a respected members of civil society. Through his series of administrative detentions, Israel authorities never charged him with a crime or brought him to trial. In 2009, AI members in Canada received letters from Ministry of Justice alleging that Saed Yassin was imprisoned “due to his activity in the Hamas terrorist organization”, a claim that was back dated to March 2006, and replaced the original rationale, namely the closing down of Ansar al-Sajeen.

Saed Yassin was released finally be the Israelis in October 2009. It is perhaps interesting that the last allegation of the Israelis was in turn taken up the Palestinian authorities. He was barely home for a couple of weeks, when he was arrested in turn by them and taken to Jneid Prison in Nablus. Amnesty International members barely had time to celebrate his first release, before they had to start writing to another set of authorities who had imprisoned a human rights defender without charge. He was subjected to a brief 15 minute interview by authorities. AI continued to worry about his health, and issued an Urgent Action called for him to receive medical attention while in Jneid. [He never did.]

On 14 Jan. 2010, the High Court of Justice in Palestine ruled that he should be released, but his imprisonment continued. The Palestinian military prosecutors had advanced at this point the charge of “supporting a coup against the legitimate regime.” This suggests that Fatah authorities in the West Bank took seriously the charge of Hamas involvement which the Israelis themselves could not make stick before their military tribunals. None of this is exactly clear at this moment, but it seems that Saed Yassin perhaps had become one more name being added and then subtracted from both Israeli and then Palestinian lists of possible prisoners to be exchanged in the yet unresolved on-again-off-for-now negotiations for the release of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier taken hostage by Palestinian factions in Gaza in 2006.

No matter why or how, Saed Yassin was released at last when authorities within Palestine heeded a judge who ruled on the allegations and dismissed them utterly.

Saed Yassin told Amnesty International on 1 March 2010:

"My priority is to go and have a complete medical check-up. I'll see the doctor tomorrow and hopefully the diagnosis will be good. I missed life, I missed my children, and my wife who was so worried, and just living a normal life. My children suffered so much. When they visited me, they were so frightened they couldn't speak, not even a word. Now I'd like to spend more time with them and try to help them get over their fear, make them happy and protect them from this trauma. I'd like to thank Amnesty International members and employees who have done so much for me and for my family. Yours is a generous organization that doesn't forget any lost prisoner. I was lucky that I got to go home, but others have been convicted in unfair trials and are detained for much longer periods."

This story of Saed Yassin suggests how parties to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on both sides make common cause to imprison a person who has been innocent along.

Israe/Occupied Palestinian Territories - Using the Term Apartheid

Jim Joyce — 2010-03-01T07:01:30+01:00

Fence/wall under construction by Israel, Al Ras, West Bank

Amnesty International has chosen not to use the term “apartheid” to describe the policies of the government of Israel.

There are important differences as well as some similarities between certain practices/violations that occurred in South Africa during apartheid and the situation prevailing in the Occupied Palestinian Territories today.

Amnesty International as a worldwide human rights organizations works on behalf of those individuals whose human rights have been violated. It addresses the governments of the nations of the world on behalf of those individuals. It chooses not to get involved in invidious comparisons and heated debates that often result.

Amnesty International, of course, is aware that partisans of the causes of justice and peace recognize parallels between various patterns of human rights abuses. AI in its reports and its calls for action on the part of its membership does so on the basis of international law. During the 1980s and 1990s, Amnesty International reported on the situation in South Africa, and referred to the regime of discriminatory laws of that country at the time, with the South African term “apartheid” the broad title for those laws. AI’s reports at the time were based on how the apartheid laws of South Africa with their resulting policies and practices violated international law.

[more]Since 2005 in Canada, Palestinian solidarity groups as well as supporters from larger peace and justice community have been organizing events on behalf of Palestinian rights at a growing number of university campuses under the title of Apartheid Week. While Amnesty International Canada has not taken an overt organizational role in these events, it is not that organization is unsupportive of the many concerns which have been raised. Because the organization does not take a direct role, this does not preclude any Canadian AI members from being involved, if they so choose. Amnesty International expects its members to adhere to expressing the organization’s views on behalf of the victims of human rights abuses by specific governments which have violated them, when they are acting as AI members. Most Canadian AI members are also supporters of other Canadian NGOs as well, where they can be involved in a more partisan way on the very same issues.

Amnesty International’s reports and actions have been directed at the government of Israel not only on behalf of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, but also on behalf of Israel’s own citizens. AI has also reported on and taken action on behalf of Palestinians whose rights have been violated by the Palestinian Authority and the de facto Hamas administration in Gaza. AI has also consistently reported on and taken actions on behalf of Israelis whose rights have been violated by Palestinian armed factions.

This is the basis of Amnesty International’s principled choice not to use the term apartheid.

If you have been following any of the debates and controversies about Apartheid Week at specific university campuses, you may have noted how the partisans of Israel have been quick to argue that the comparison of Israel and South Africa is not exact from their point of view. Perhaps it is unfortunate for all, that the rights of Palestinians and Israelis and how they have been abused, often get lost in the resulting back and forth about the accuracy of the comparison. This is the practical reason why AI does not use terms drawn from other human rights contexts. Amnesty International is not on the side of the Israelis or on that of the Palestinians. Amnesty International is on the side of international law which ought to protect the rights of all human beings from violation usually by the governments of the world.

Amnesty International has consistently pointed out the Israel’s policies of building settlements in West Bank [and in Gaza before 2005] is a violation of international law. Around 450,000 Israeli citizens now live in the West Bank. Israel’s road-building practices aimed to ensure easy access of these Israelis to Israel’s own territory violates the rights of movement of Palestinians within West Bank itself Israeli’s military at hundred of checkpoints enforce the ever-more restrictive policies requiring identity documents and permits for travel within the West Bank and for access to East Jerusalem.

AI has opposed the construction of wall/fence where it is not along the green lines and how it has impacted directly over 250,000 Palestinians in the “seam zones” (west of the fence/wall and east of the green lines) whose lives are constrained on a daily basis. See an earlier post Jayyus – Enduring Occupation - for an concrete illustration of this.

AI has been campaigning against the collective punishment of the Palestinians of Gaza, all 1.5 million of whom have had their lives impacted by the complete control of that territory by the Israeli military. They have suffered through all of the past year under an even more restrictive siege since Operation Cast Lead [Dec. 2008-Jan. 2009]. Around 1,400 Palestinians were killed in the 22-day conflict.

Whether the comparison is apt or not to South Africa’s past apartheid policies setting up bantustans and discriminating against that country’s black citizens, I leave it to you personally to decide. Others have found it apt as well to compare Israel’s policies to the past and current policies of North American governments which have affected the lives of American and Canadian indigenous populations – a reserve or reservation is also a kind of bantustan? This and other comparisons – Israel’s policies are forms of colonization, Israel’s policies are a kind of “ethnic cleansing” and which are culminating in “genocide” perhaps could be topics of other posts. In those posts, I would repeat much of what I have said above, no matter which analogy one might wish to apply, AI will report and take action on behalf the abused victims and on current violations of international law.

If you have further questions or seek further information on AI’s specific positions discussed in this post, please contact Jim Joyce directly.

Israel/Palestinian Authority - Goldstone Updates

Jim Joyce — 2010-02-25T15:19:58+01:00

An example of the cubic holes caused by shrapnel from missiles fired from unmanned drones (UAVs). [AI Gaza Mission 2009]

Amnesty International has issued a number of statements this month commenting upon actions taken in follow-up to the impact of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead [27 Dec. 2008-18 Jan 2009] upon the people of Gaza.

The United Nations has conducted two investigations.

During Operation Cast Lead, a number of UN buildings were destroyed or damaged by Israeli aircraft and ground forces. On 12 February 2009, Ban Ki-moon set up a Board of Inquiry with limited terms of reference to investigate attacks on UN personnel and buildings in Gaza. The Board’s full report, which has not been made public, was submitted to Ban Ki-moon on 21 April, who subsequently released a summary of the findings.

Around 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed in the 22-day
conflict in Gaza and southern Israel which ended on 18 January 2009. After the conflict, the UN Human Rights Council mandated the renowned jurist Judge Richard Goldstone to head a fact-finding mission to investigate allegations of war crimes and other violations of international humanitarian and human rights law. In a report published in September 2009, Judge Goldstone and his team concluded that both the Israeli military forces and Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.

Amnesty International wrote to Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon [23 Feb. 2010] expressing concern about the inadequacy of the Israel compensation payment given the recommendations of the Board of Inquiry.

Amnesty International wrote to Isma’il Haniyeh, head of the Hamas de facto, [19 Feb. 2010] commenting about Hamas’s response to the recommendations to the Goldstone Report.

Amnesty International issued a public statement [05 Feb. 2010] concerning the government of Israel’s response to Goldstone Mission’s call for investigations.

[more]

Public Statement and Letter [23 Feb. 2010]

Amnesty International said, in its letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, it is concerned that the United Nations accepted US$10.5 million compensation from Israel for UN buildings damaged during last year's Gaza conflict without securing compensation for any of the actual victims of the attacks.

The UN announced on 22 January that it had received the compensation from the government of Israel after an investigation into Israeli attacks on UN personnel and buildings, set up by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last February.

The UN said that, with this payment, the financial issues relating to the attacks examined by the investigation were "concluded".

However, the investigation's report had specifically recommended that the UN seek compensation not only for UN personnel and civilians killed or injured in attacks on UN premises, but also for civilian victims of other attacks during the fighting.

"Surely, the acceptance of this sum for damage to UN buildings can only be the first step in repairing the damage caused by the conflict," said Amnesty International in its letter to Ban Ki-moon sent by the organization's interim Secretary General, Claudio Cordone.

"The UN cannot ignore the lack of reparations to the hundreds of women, men and children who were killed, injured or the thousands who lost property during the Gaza conflict in attacks that violated international humanitarian law."

During the conflict, a number of UN premises and operations were hit in military strikes and damaged, including schools, a health centre, a field office and a UN convoy. In several of these attacks, UN staff and Palestinian civilians who were inside or near buildings at the time were killed or injured.

In all, nine incidents were examined by the Board of Inquiry, including the case of UNRWA Jabalia Preparatory Boys School, which was repeatedly hit by Israeli mortar strikes on 6 January 2009, killing more than 30 civilians, and the shelling of UNRWA Beit Lahia Elementary School on 17 January 2009 when two children sheltering in the school were killed.

The Board found that the Israeli military had repeatedly breached the inviolability of the UN, did not make sufficient efforts to protect UN staff or civilians and, in a number of the cases examined, was responsible for damage done to UN buildings and injuries and fatalities caused by Israeli attacks.

In one incident examined by the Board, it was found that Hamas or another Palestinian actor was responsible for damage to a World Food Programme warehouse near the Karni crossing point between Israel and the Gaza Strip.

Amnesty International emphasized in its letter that the rights of victims of violations of international human rights and humanitarian law to a remedy, including full and effective reparations "cannot be waived by the UN".

Amnesty International urged Ban Ki-moon to make clear to the government of Israel that it has an obligation to ensure that victims of violations by Israeli forces that occurred during the conflict have immediate access to an effective remedy, including full and effective reparations.

The organization said that Ban Ki-moon should call on Hamas to "provide reparations to the victims of violations by the armed wing of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups" during the conflict.

Public Statement about Hamas de facto administration’s response to Goldstone Report (19 Feb. 2010).

Amnesty International in a public statement said that Hamas de facto administration has failed to mount credible investigations into serious violations alleged to have been committed by Palestinian armed groups during last year’s conflict in Gaza and southern Israel.

In a letter sent the same day to Isma’il Haniyeh, head of the Hamas de facto administration in Gaza, Amnesty International expressed its concern that the administration’s response this month to UN calls for it to carry out such investigations have, in particular, failed to address adequately the firing of indiscriminate rockets into southern Israel by Palestinian armed groups during the 22-day conflict.

Hamas claimed in its response that Palestinian armed groups did not target civilians. However, this is contradicted by earlier statements made by armed groups, including Hamas’ military wing, in which they claimed responsibility for rocket attacks which they stated were directed at civilian towns and which killed or injured civilians and damaged civilian homes.

Armed groups have an obligation to respect applicable international humanitarian law. The firing of indiscriminate rockets by Palestinian armed groups into Israel during Operation “Cast Lead” killed three Israeli civilians, and caused injuries to other civilians and damage to civilian property. Whether these attacks were intended to hit military or civilian objects, the use of unguided projectiles which could not be directed at specific targets, so placing the civilian population at risk, violates international humanitarian law and constitutes a war crime.

Other parts of the Hamas response focus on making general justifications for the rockets fired by armed groups and express no intention to investigate any of these incidents, much less to prosecute the individuals responsible.

As well as continuing concerns regarding the firing of indiscriminate rockets, the response fails to seriously address other concerns raised by Amnesty International. These include concerns that Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups violated international law by launching rockets and locating military equipment and positions near civilian homes, actions which endangered the lives of the inhabitants by exposing them to the risk of Israeli attacks.

The Hamas response also provides no indication that Hamas is conducting credible investigations into the wave of abductions, deliberate and unlawful killings, torture and death threats by Hamas forces and militias during and immediately after Operation “Cast Lead” against those they accused of “collaborating” with Israel, as well as opponents and critics.

The measures which the Hamas administration says it has carried out include the establishment of a governmental committee to monitor the implementation of the recommendations of the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict (Goldstone Report) and of an independent international committee of experts in international law to assess the adequacy of the steps taken by the Hamas administration.

In its letter, Amnesty International requested clarification of the terms of reference, authority and powers of these bodies, as well as the timeline for their work and whether their full findings will be made public. The Hamas administration has also said that the public prosecutor has been commissioned to investigate all violations of international law reported to him. Amnesty International has asked for details about how many such allegations have been received by the prosecutor to date and how many have been investigated.

BACKGROUND

A resolution passed in November 2009 by the UN General Assembly called on both the government of Israel and the Palestinian side to conduct investigations that are “independent, credible and in conformity with international standards into the serious violations of international humanitarian and international human rights law reported by the Fact-Finding Mission, towards ensuring accountability and justice”.

On 2 February 2010, in response to this call, the Ministry of Justice of the Hamas de facto administration in Gaza submitted three documents to a UN official of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Gaza. The Palestinian Authority made a separate submission to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon via the Palestinian mission in New York, as did the Israeli government. Ban Ki-moon issued a report on 4 February in which he indicated that “no determination can be made” on whether either the Israelis or Palestinians had implemented the UN General Assembly resolution. The report referred to the responses of the Palestinian Authority and Israel, but not that of Hamas.

The response of the Palestinian Authority has been to form an investigative commission to follow up the Goldstone Report. The commission submitted an initial report but have not detailed specific incidents that they will investigate. Given that the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank was not party to the conflict in Gaza and southern Israel, that it was not then, and is not now, in a position of effective control over Gaza, and the poor relationship between the Palestinian Authority and the Hamas de facto administration in Gaza, it is unclear to what extent the commission will be able to effectively investigate allegations of serious violations by Palestinians, such as the firing of indiscriminate rockets from Gaza into southern Israel, which was identified as a key concern in the Goldstone Report.

Amnesty International has called the Israeli response on investigating violations “totally inadequate”. See that press release.

Amnesty International has urged UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to immediately prepare an independent assessment of the steps being taken by Israel and the Palestinian side to address accountability, with a view to the UN taking further action as necessary to ensure justice for the victims of the conflict.

Note on further background

You can find Secretary General’s Ban Ki-moon’s Follow-up to the report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission here.
This report includes in its appendices the responses of the government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority received by the deadline set by the Goldstone Mission and endorsed by the General Assembly.

The activities described above are part of Amnesty International’s continuing calls on the international community to consider carefully the Goldstone Mission’s report and to take concrete actions to ensure that its recommendations are implemented.

If you have questions and wish further information, please contact Jim Joyce.

Iran �shows contempt� for human rights by rejecting UN recommendations

Gloria Nafziger — 2010-02-22T17:52:15+01:00

Iran rejected important recommendations by the United Nations to improve human rights in the country. This included recommendations directed at ending the execution of juvenile offenders; upholding fair trial guarantees, investigating torture allegations, including rape and releasing people detained for peacefully exercising their human rights. Iran also rejected recommendations to allow the UN Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteur on torture to visit the country.

The UN’s Human Rights Council in Geneva has been reviewing Iran’s human rights record where the Iran delegation responded to a series of recommendations put to them by other UN member states.

Iran has said it is carrying out investigations into cases of torture and killing that occurred following the unrest that occurred following the presidential election in June 2009. However, despite reports of parliamentary investigations, no one appears to have been brought to justice over the killing of Neda Agha Soltan, a peaceful demonstrator who was shot in a street in June 2009 or Mohsen Ruholamini who died in custody in July 2009.

For more information see:
Amnesty International’s Comments on the National Report presented by the Islamic Republic of Iran for the Universal Periodic Review

Amnesty International’s Submission of the Universal Periodic Review of Iran

Egypt: 200 families at risk from falling rocks

Hilary Homes — 2010-02-17T16:44:44+01:00

Some 200 families in Manshiyet Nasser, an informal settlement east of Cairo, Egypt, are in imminent danger of serious injury or death because of a high risk of rock fall. The authorities have so far failed to relocate them.

Zamzam Mohamed Abdel Nabi, aged 35, her husband Mohamed Hassan, a 40-year old baker, and their two children, Alaa and Husssein, are among around 200 families in Manshiyet Nasser who are at risk. They are renting flats in buildings of three to five storeys located at the end of Al-Me'adessa Street right next to the rocky hill of Al-Muqattam. Their homes are built under the cliffs, from which rocks are very likely to fall.

Several times in 2009, geology experts hired by the Cairo Governorate identified this zone of Al-Me'adessa Street as being in imminent danger. The families have however not been evacuated to a safe place and live in constant fear of danger to their health and lives. They have been neither offered temporary shelter nor alternative housing. The residents say they cannot afford to move to another place themselves because of their low incomes and their dependence on the informal economy in the neighbourhood or in nearby old Cairo.

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Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories: Jayyus - Chasing Permits

Jim Joyce — 2010-02-11T05:16:44+01:00

In the northern West Bank village of Jayyus, a growing number of farmers are being denied access to their agricultural land from which they have been cut off by the fence/wall that Israel is building through the occupied West Bank. Over a hundred landowners from Jayyus, including human rights defender Sharif Omar (whose story is recounted in Jayyus Facing the Wall ) are among the latest victims of these increasing and arbitrary restrictions being imposed by the Israeli army.

Among those without permits besides Sharif Omar and Tawfiq Salem (whose fruits were uprooted to build the wall – see his story in Jayyus Enduring Occupation) are Imad Khaled and Nour Baida. These cases exemplify the variety of hurdles faced by farmers in pursuit of their work. The farmers and their families rely on their crops for their income, and denying them access to their farmland, on the other side of the fence/wall, has severe economic consequences for these villagers.

This wave of permit denials represents the latest stage in a step-by-step process undertaken by the Israeli army to cut off the Jayyus villagers from their land, which now lies on the other side of the fence/wall which the Israeli army has been building through the West Bank – in violation of international law.

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Already over half of Jayyus residents are prohibited from accessing their land, which is amongst the most fertile agricultural land in the West Bank, and a large and increasing number are now forced to rely on humanitarian assistance to survive. The reason given by the Israeli army for refusing to renew these permits is “security” considerations - a vague formula routinely used to arbitrarily deny access to Palestinians to their own land, and to deny them passage though the more than 500 checkpoints and blockades which surround towns and villages in the West Bank. It is possible that Sharif Omar’s permit has been denied as a result of his tireless campaigning against the fence/wall, often in cooperation with Israeli and international peace activists, which has raised awareness of the impact of the fence/wall on Jayyus at the international level.

Amnesty International fears, however, that these 30 permits have been denied simply as part of Israel’s ongoing efforts to appropriate as much as possible of the Palestinian land which has been cut off from the rest of the West Bank by the fence/wall.

Imad Khaled was detained for more than three years, from 1991 to 1994, during the First Intifada, and again when he demonstrated against the fence/wall in 2002. These arrests have been noted in his security file, but did not prevent him from entering Israel to work until 2000. Now, neither he nor his brothers are allowed to access the land on the other side of the fence/wall: the permits are refused on the basis of Imad Khaled’s security file. Only their elderly father was given a permit but even that was not renewed after April 2006. "No other brother was in prison, but if one does something the whole family is punished. We have sold the greenhouses; we could not harvest the guavas in October. Now I work as a guard in a cement factory for $300 a month, just enough to feed the family."

While in the first years of the permits regime the standard reason for denying farmers a permit was "security," it has now changed to "insufficient proof of relationship to the land." This especially concerns younger farm workers, sons and grandsons of the owners in whose name the land is registered. Often the family name might not be the same (due to Arabic use of four names but the use of only three on Israeli permits), or, as students and workers who help out on the family land on weekends and holidays, they are deemed not professional farmers and their attachment to the land is contested by the Israeli army.

This is the case with former university student Nour Baida. Nour, who studied Business Management in the nearby town of Qalqiliya, had to interrupt his studies after one year due to his family's financial difficulties. Though he was granted a permit, together with two of his brothers and his father, when the fence/wall was first built in October 2003, he can now no longer prove his relationship to the land, because the land is registered in his grandfather’s surname, Al-Dik. In his ID card his surname is listed as Baida. His last permit to work on the land expired in November 2007. Because the land, planted with citrus tress and olives, is left untended, his family has lost its income and can no longer support Nour’s studies: he is now unemployed. His father managed to resolve the problem of divergent names with the help of a lawyer, but he is faced with a new problem: He has been refused a permit since June 2008 because the Israeli army now requires a new type of magnetic card that no-one else in the village has heard of. Nour has helped international efforts to stop the construction of the fence/wall and the suffering it brings by guiding visitors to Jayyus from abroad and translating for them.

This judgment regarding whether or not a farm labourer is sufficiently attached to the land disregards the work practice whereby the regular upkeep of the land is done by the professional farmer or landowner, who eventually passes the land on to the sons, while seasonal hard work involves extended family and additional farm hands. Were there no fence/wall, farmers would not have to bring extraordinary proof and justification to a military permit officer for what is, after all, their regular farming practice on their own land.

Amnesty International fears that the army’s increasing tendency to deny access to the land is part of Israel’s ongoing efforts to appropriate as much as possible of the Palestinian land which has been cut off from the rest of the West Bank by the fence/wall. The increasingly arcane permit regime forces once productive Palestinian farmers to spend their days chasing after permits rather than farming some of the most productive land in the West Bank.

Link for the Story of Tawfiq Salem.

Link for the Story of Sharif Omar.

If you wish further information about in this entry or have questions, contact Jim Joyce, Coordinator for Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories/ Palestinian Authority.

Better yet, if you wish take action on these reports contact him.

Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories: Jayyus - Facing the Wall

Jim Joyce — 2010-02-09T05:38:40+01:00

Jayyus is one of many West Bank villages that suffer the effects of the fence/wall cutting deep into Palestinian land. Some two-thirds of Jayyus’s agricultural land (approximately 1,270 hectares), including scores of greenhouses and the village’s six main agricultural wells, is now cut off from the village by the fence/wall and thus inaccessible to its Palestinian owners unless they obtain a permit from the Israeli army.

The residents of Jayyus, together with other Palestinian farmers affected by the "seam zone" permit regime, went to the Israeli Supreme Court in 2005 to challenge the army’s construction of the fence/wall. The Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the fence/wall must not impede the farmers’ access to their lands. As in many other places, the army did not heed the ruling in Jayyus. In June 2008, the Israeli Ministry of Defence informed the Israeli Supreme Court of its plans to move the wall in the Jayyus region. Instead of cutting in close to the village as it does now, it is slated to be rebuilt closer to the settlement of Tsufim which lies to the west of Jayyus.

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This new route would return a mere sixth of Jayyus’s land to the eastern side of the wall, still leaving one half of the village’s lands out of bounds. (A map of the proposed rerouting given to the inhabitants in Jayyus in July 2008 can be found here.)

Combined with the stricter permits regime, this does not signify an improvement of the farmers' situation. Jayyus residents are therefore appealing the Ministry's decision, demanding that the wall be removed from the villages’ lands altogether in order to ensure that the farmers have access.

Even with a permit, Jayyus farmers' access to the land is restricted. While farmers could once go to their farms whenever they wanted, preferring to work in the early morning and evening when the sun is not so hot, they are now only permitted to go to and from the farms according to gate opening hours set by the Israeli military. The gate is supposed to be open at 7.30am, 12.30pm and 5.30pm, but most of the time this schedule is disregarded. Farmers often end up travelling for hours and waiting for hours for the Israeli army to let them through.

According to UN OCHA figures, by August 2004, one year after the barrier was completed around Jayyus, local production had fallen from seven to four million kilograms of fruit and vegetables, because many farmers were no longer able to access and work their land effectively, or at all. It is likely that productivity rates have decreased even more dramatically since 2004, as access to farmland has become even more difficult. Refusing to allow a substantial proportion of the farmers in the area to earn a livelihood is especially grave in the light of the harsh economic situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) since the beginning of the intifada, in September 2000. Latest United Nations figures indicate that 56% of West Bank residents live below the poverty line while 26% live in extreme poverty.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION: The Fence/Wall

According to the Israeli authorities, the fence/wall is a defensive measure, designed to block the passage of terrorists, weapons and explosives into the State of Israel." However, most of the fence/wall does not lie along the Green Line (the 1949 armistice line which separates the State of Israel from the occupied West Bank). Instead, some 80 per cent of it is on Palestinian land inside the occupied West Bank, appropriating large swathes of farmland in order to effectively annex and incorporate unlawful Israeli settlements, and land for their expansion, to Israel. In July 2004 the International Court of Justice gave its advisory opinion that the route of the wall was unlawful.

As much of the fence/wall runs so far inside the West Bank, large areas of fertile farmland and whole Palestinian villages have become caged between the fence/wall and the Green Line, in enclaves usually referred to as "seam zones." Once the fence/wall route is complete, approximately 50,000 Palestinians and 10.2% of the area of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) will be locked between the Green Line and the fence/wall. Tens of thousands of other Palestinians who live east of the fence/wall, including the farmers of Jayyus, are or will be separated from their agricultural land in the "seam zones".

All Palestinians living in the seam zones or wanting to enter these areas are required to obtain a permit from the Israeli authorities. Even afterwards, if they are able to obtain such permits, farmers east of the fence/wall with land in the "seam zone" can only have access to their land through a gate which opens only a few times a day, and is often far from their village, providing a further obstacle. The bureaucratic procedures that Palestinians must follow to obtain a permit to cross a gate are difficult, expensive and time-consuming and lack transparency: the army provides no reason or proof of any kind for denying permits.

According to the UN, only about 18% of those who used to work land in the seam zones before completion of the fence/wall receive permits today.

Meanwhile Israeli citizens are allowed free access to occupied land in the seam zones. Though the Israeli Supreme Court called on the Israeli Army to ensure the farmers' access to their land in 2005, Amnesty International's position is that as long as the routing of the fence/wall does not conform to international law (as set out in the International Court of Justice's Advisory Opinion of July 2004), access is not guaranteed. The agricultural gates and the permit regime were provided by the Israeli army as a response to the Supreme Court's ruling so the Palestinian farmers would have access. As has been documented since 2003, the permit regime and the agricultural gates system do not function in a way that ensures access. This suggests that the Israeli authorities' long-term aim is appropriating Palestinian land for Israeli use. It is therefore doubly important that Israel does not build the fence/wall through the West Bank, as it does near Jayyus: only removing it from Palestinian land altogether will ensure the Palestinian inhabitants have access to their land, and prevent Israeli land appropriation.

Amnesty International is calling on Israel to conform to international law by:

1) Halting the construction of the fence/wall inside the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, which results in unlawful restrictions on Palestinians' right to free movement, and the arbitrary destruction or seizure of their homes and property; it undermines other rights, including the rights to adequate housing, to work, to an adequate standard of living and to respect for family life;

and 2) Removing the sections of the fence/wall already constructed that violate these rights (i.e. 80% of the fence/wall as it currently stands). Israel only has the right to build a barrier along the border between Israel and the West Bank, as defined by the Green Line of 1949.

Among those without permits is Sharif Omar who case exemplifies some of the hurdles faced by farmers in pursuit of their work. The farmers and their families rely on their crops for their income, and denying them access to their farmland, on the other side of the fence/wall, has severe economic consequences for these villagers. Sharif Omar’s three sons have been consistently denied permits to access the family’s land since the completion of the fence/wall in Jayyus in July 2003. This has left only the elderly Sharif Omar and his wife to work all day to tend their 3,600 olive, citrus, apricot and guava trees. Since November 2007 the Israeli army has refused to renew Sharif Omar’s permit, making his wife is the only family member allowed regular access to the land on which the family relies and so has sole responsibility for sustaining the family’s livelihood. AI video clip December 2006 High Level Mission that visited Jayyus and features Sharif Omar. You can see it, link below.

Many Palestinian workers who would also periodically help cultivate the land have likewise been denied permits. This left Sharif Omar and his 60-year-old wife with no choice but to work all the day to tend their 3,6000 olive, citrus, apricot and guava trees. Now, since the Israeli army has refused to renew Sharif Omar’s permit, his wife is the sole member of the family allowed to access the land on which the family relied. She is burdened with the full responsibility of sustaining the family’s livelihood.

Since 2003 Sharif Omar has travelled all over the world to campaign and raise awareness of the disastrous impact of the fence/wall on the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians.

Now, he no longer has access his land and can only look at it from a distance from one of the nearby hilltops. This wave of permit denials represents the latest stage in a step-by-step process undertaken by the Israeli army to cut off the Jayyus villagers from their land, which now lies on the other side of the fence/wall which the Israeli army has been building through the West Bank in violation of international law.

See video

See Part I – Jayyus – Enduring Occupation

If you wish further information about the blog entry or have questions, Please contact Jim Joyce, AICS(ES) Coordinator.

Egypt: Stop the killings at the border

Hilary Homes — 2010-02-08T17:59:08+01:00

originally published 5 February 2010

The Egyptian authorities are failing to ensure that their security forces are up to the job of policing the border with Israel in line with international standards, Amnesty International warned today. The organization is calling for immediate action by the Egyptian authorities to check their border forces’ excessive use of force against unarmed migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers, following a series of shootings which have made this the bloodiest week at the border since September 2009.

This week four foreign nationals – all believed to be unarmed migrants – were reportedly shot dead by Egyptian border forces when they attempted to cross the border into Israel. Five have now been killed this year while trying to make the crossing, the first on 8 January; a further two others were reported to have been seriously injured by gunfire.

Reported killings are at now their highest since September 2009, when eight foreign nationals were killed trying to cross the border into Israel, including four on a single day on 8 September 2009. In 2009 at least 19 foreign nationals were reportedly shot dead while trying to cross the border. Scores of others were seriously wounded by gunfire.

Read the full AI Statement

Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories: Jayyus - Enduring Occupation

Jim Joyce — 2010-02-07T04:02:04+01:00

The wall through the valley west of Jayyus

In the northern West Bank village of Jayyus, a growing number of farmers are being denied access to their agricultural land, from which they have been cut off by the fence/wall that Israel has built through the occupied West Bank. While the fence/wall was being developed in the area the Israeli army promised to allow the villagers free access to their land. Immediately after the fence/wall was constructed, permits were granted to most farmers. However, the army soon began refusing to renew the permits of a growing number of farmers, depriving them and their families of their livelihood.

Jayyus is an agricultural community of 3500 inhabitants, all of whom rely directly or indirectly on farming for their livelihoods. Over 100 landowners have been denied permits. According to the estimates of the municipality of Jayyus and the UN Office of the Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), only some 18-20% of Jayyus farmers now have permits to access their land.

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Jayyus is but one village in the West Bank where Israel’s policy of settlement building and now of constructing the wall/fence have direct impacts on the daily life of Palestinians.

The West Bank iself is a relatively small territory – 130 kilometres from north to south and 65 kilometres from east to west at its widest point; 5,600 square kilometres in total. It is criss-crossed by a web of Israeli military checkpoints and blockades – some 550 – and a winding 700-kilometre fence/wall which runs from north to south, encircling Palestinian villages as well as whole neighbourhoods in and around East Jerusalem.

Some 135 officially recognized Israeli settlements and 100 settlement “outposts” (unauthorized but state-sponsored and funded by government ministries) have been established in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in violation of international law and in defiance of UN resolutions, since the beginning of Israel’s occupation in 1967. Israeli settlers number more than 450,000, of whom some 200,000 live in settlements in and around East Jerusalem. Some settlements have fewer than 100 residents. Others, such as Ariel, Maale’ Adumim and Pisgat Ze’ev, with 15,000 to 30,000 residents, have become well-established and well-resourced towns.

The establishment of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories violates international humanitarian law and fundamental human rights provisions, including the prohibition of discrimination, enshrined in international treaties which Israel has ratified and is obliged to uphold.

Israel’s settlement policy in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is characterized by discrimination on grounds of nationality, ethnicity and religion. Settlements are for Jews only, who are entitled to Israeli nationality and to the protection of Israeli law even if they are migrants from other countries who go to live in settlements in the OPT without ever having resided in the State of Israel. Palestinians, who are subject to military law rather than Israeli civilian law, are not allowed to enter or approach Israeli settlements or to use settlers’ roads, and are thus restricted in their movement. Settlers also receive substantial financial and other benefits, and are allowed to exploit land and natural resources that belong to the Palestinian population.

The unlawful appropriation of Palestinian land for Israeli settlements and “bypass” roads, and of crucial resources such as water, has had a devastating impact on the local Palestinian population, including their rights to an adequate standard of living, to adequate food, water and housing, to the highest attainable standard of health, to education and to work. The village of Jayyus is one of the many villages in the OPT so affected.

That is the big picture. For the people of Jayyus there have been day-by-day impacts from these policies. The Israeli authorities contend that this regime of closures and restrictions is necessary to prevent Palestinians from entering Israel to carry out suicide bombings and other attacks. However, virtually all the checkpoints, gates, blocked roads and most of the fence/wall are located inside the West Bank – not between Israel and the West Bank. They curtail or prevent movement between Palestinian towns and villages, splitting and isolating Palestinian communities, separating Palestinians from their agricultural land, hampering access to work, schools, health facilities and relatives, and destroying the Palestinian economy. The fence/wall itself, located as it is inside occupied territory, is unlawful, according to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

The village of Jayyus lost land to the building of settlements around it. It access to these lands was further impacted by the building of the wall/fence through more of its agricultural lands.

One of the farmers Tawfiq Salem who lives in Jayyus described what happened to his land when the fence was constructed:

"I had 50 acres. Israeli bulldozers came and uprooted all my olive trees, 500 of them, and 200 belonging sleeping in the house when someone banged at the door, shouting, 'The Israelis are uprooting your trees,' so I came to the balcony where I could see the bulldozers, and I collapsed on to the ground. So I went to the Israeli army administration office in the Israeli settlement of Qedumim with my ID card and tabu (deeds of property) papers and I told the chief there, 'They are uprooting my trees.' He said, 'It is not your land.' I said ‘It is, I have documents and tabu, it is 100% my land.” He took me by army jeep with Chaim, the officer in charge of land issues in the army administration office in the district, and we went to the site. They had already uprooted 117 trees. Chaim stopped them and they left the area. I put two handfuls of soil in my pocket in case I can’t come back to my land, so that I won’t forget it, me and my children. On 10 December the Israeli army bulldozers came again. Me and my relatives went and smashed the glass of the bulldozer. They called in an army unit to remove us by force. I said to the army officer, 'If this is your car, can I take it from you?' He said, 'No.' So I said, 'How do you take my land, just because you have the weapons?' Chaim came back and asked them to leave, but they had already uprooted all the trees. Before, we had olives, oranges, vegetables and we were happy; now we have nothing."

Tawfiq Salem is married, and has seven children and two grandchildren.

If you wish to read more about the various impacts of Israel’s policies on the Palestinians in the West Bank, please see AI’s Report Enduring Occupation: Palestinian under siege in the West Bank.

Read the Report

If you wish further information on Jayyus Enduring Occupation, please contact Jim Joyce, AICS(ES) Coordinator for Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories/Palestinian Authority at aijoyce@web.net.

Show solidarity with Iran on February 11

Gloria Nafziger — 2010-02-05T21:29:33+01:00

February 11th is Victory of the Revolution Day in Iran. It recognizes the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and commemorates liberty, independence and freedom for Iran.

But the Iranian government has long violated these rights and is responsible for numerous abuses including torture, arbitrary arrests, censorship and the most recent execution of two activists accused of inciting the post-election protests on June 12th – even though these men had been held in detention long before the violence erupted.

Since blogs and websites like Twitter and YouTube were virtually the only way the Iranian people could expose the horrific treatment being inflicted on them in the days following the contested Presidential election, we expect that Iranians will turn to the Internet once again to carry their messages.

AI Canada joins AI USA in asking everyone to show their solidarity online on February 11th – whether it’s on your blog, website, or social networking profile.

Stand with us to ensure that Victory of the Revolution Day signifies an end to these abuses!

OTHER WAYS YOU CAN SHOW SOLIDARITY ON FEBRUARY 11TH

• Bloggers Unite: Join our network of blogger's covering Iran and the events on February 11th.

• Twitter Followers: The hashtag #iranelection was one of the most widely-used in the post-election aftermath. Since the violence is still unresolved, we’ll continue to tweet using this hashtag. Make sure your related tweets include: #iranelection

• Will you be in New York on Feb. 11th? If you know someone or if you, yourself, expect to be in New York on February 11th, then be sure to wear black and join our coalition of activists as they stand in a silent vigil for the people of Iran.

• Watch our video playlist on Iran

Israel/OPT: Two Released, One To Go

Keith Rimstad — 2010-01-22T17:14:16+01:00

Posted by Jim Joyce, AICS(ES) Coordinator for Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories

Good news first. Palestinian human rights activist Mohammed Othman was released [15 Jan.], although Amnesty International remains concerned about the conditions Israeli authorities have imposed. These will prevent him from exercising his human rights. And Jamal Juma’ was released two days before [13 Jan.]. The bad news is that Abdallah Abu Rahma remains imprisoned, the last of the three human rights activists whose cases are highlighted below remain in detention.

Amnesty International in a press release [08 Jan.] called upon Israeli authorities to release immediately, or bring before a fair trial, three Palestinian human rights activists detained in Israel following their protests against the construction of the West Bank fence/wall. In a letter sent to Ehud Barak, Israeli Defence and Deputy Prime Minister on Thursday [07 Jan.], Amnesty International expressed concern that Jamal Juma’, Abdallah Abu Rahma and Mohammed Othman were prisoners of conscience, held for legitimately voicing their opposition to the fence/wall.

Amnesty International also initiated a membership action in support of these three human rights activists.

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Three prominent campaigners for the dismantlement of the fence/wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) -- Jamal Juma’, Abdallah Abu Rahma and Mohammed Othman – have been held by the Israeli military.

Their arrest last year and continuing detention indicate a growing crackdown on the legitimate expression of opposition to the construction of the fence/wall through the occupied West Bank.

Jamal Juma’, Abdallah Abu Rahma and Mohammed Othman are human rights activists who have been campaigning for years against the fence/wall by raising awareness about its negative impact on Palestinians, organizing grassroots opposition to it and peacefully demonstrating against it.

Amnesty International is concerned that they have been detained solely while legitimately exercising their right to freedom of expression in opposing the Israeli fence/wall.

“These men have all been involved in campaigning against the building of this construction, much of it on the land of the occupied West Bank, and we fear that this is the real reason for their imprisonment,” said Malcolm Smart, Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme. “If this is the case they must be released immediately and unconditionally.”

Jamal Juma’ is the co-ordinator of the “Stop the Wall” campaign and a prominent human rights activist. He was arrested by the Israeli authorities on 16 December 2009. He has not been formally charged with any offence since his detention and information relating to his arrest has not been shared with his lawyer. A military court in Israel [07 Jan.] extended Jamal Juma’s detention for another six days.

Jamal Juma’ was held under military law, which allowed him to be tried without charge or held not for trial, but for interrogation for up to 90 days. As someone who holds a Jerusalem ID card, according to Israeli law his case should have been handled under the country’s civil, not its military, legal system. Since his arrest he had only been permitted limited access to his lawyer.

Abdallah Abu Rahma, head of the “Popular Committee Against the Wall” in the village of Bil’in, was arrested on 10 December 2009. He has been charged with three offences: incitement, stone-throwing, and possession of arms. Amnesty International understands the possession of arms charge relates to Abdallah Abu Rahma collecting used M16 bullets, and empty sound and gas grenades, employed by Israeli forces to disperse demonstrators against the wall, and exhibiting them in Bil’in museum to raise awareness of Israeli practices against protestors.

Mohammed Othman, a volunteer with the “Stop the Wall” campaign, had been detained continuously since 22 September 2009. He was arrested on his return from Norway, after meeting activist groups there campaigning against the fence/wall and was held without charge or trial in Israeli administrative detention.

The detainees have repeatedly expressed their commitment to the principle of non-violence and Amnesty International is unaware of any credible evidence that they have used or advocated violence.

If this is the case, Amnesty International considers the detainees to be prisoners of conscience and calls for their immediate and unconditional release. Otherwise they should be brought to trial on recognizable criminal charges and in full conformity with international fair trial standards.

The large context for this concern about the fate of three activists arises from the construction of the wall/fence. The International Court of Justice ruled in an advisory opinion in 2004 that the construction of the fence/wall on the territory of the occupied West Bank is contrary to international law. Israel has ignored the ruling.

The Court also ruled that Israel was obliged to dismantle sections already built there and provide reparation to Palestinians affected by the construction. The Israeli government rejected these recommendations.

Furthermore, when Palestinians, together with Israeli and international supporters, have demonstrated against the fence/wall, Israeli forces have often used excessive force against them. Some demonstrations are conducted peacefully; in others, some protestors throw stones at the Israeli military or attempt to damage the fence/wall.

In the last 18 months, Israeli forces have killed six people, including a ten-year old boy, at the sites of such demonstrations and injured scores more, some very seriously. In no case have the Israeli authorities subsequently produced credible evidence that those killed posed a threat to the lives of the soldiers involved.

Many Palestinian participants in demonstrations are arrested and held briefly before being released, but a few are convicted or held in
administrative detention and therefore without charge.

In September 2009, an Israeli activist, Kobi Snitz, was convicted of being present in a “closed military zone”, which the army had declared around the site of a demonstration, and, in a rare occurrence for a Jewish Israeli citizen, served a prison sentence, in this case of 20 days.

News Release

If you wish to take action on this concern, please contact Jim Joyce
AICS(ES) Coordinator for Israel/Occuplied Territories/Palestinian Authority at aijoyce@web.net

Israel�s Gaza blockade continues to suffocate daily life

Keith Rimstad — 2010-01-20T18:36:35+01:00

Issued 18 January 2010

Israel must end its suffocating blockade of the Gaza Strip, which leaves more than 1.4 million Palestinians cut off from the outside world and struggling with desperate poverty, Amnesty International said one year on from the end of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.

Amnesty International’s briefing paper Suffocating: The Gaza Strip under Israeli blockade gathers testimony from people still struggling to rebuild their lives following Operation “Cast Lead”, which killed around 1,400 Palestinians and injured thousands more.

Read the Report

View the video

Reply To Judo Nimh's second comment

Keith Rimstad — 2010-01-20T18:20:48+01:00

Please note that the comments that Judo nimh made where on AI's Water Report issued in November. The comments can be found with AI's Report on Water.

As AI's report points out the issue of concern is the discriminatory way Israel controls water resources in the West Bank and Gaza. Mr. Nimh's provides figures in his second comment but does not provide a reference source.

In AI's report we provide detailed information on how Palestinians are denied equal access to water as compared to Israeli settlers in the West Bank. We also provide details on the measures the Israeli Government has put into place to make it nearly impossible for individual Palestinians and the Palistinian Authority to address this water crisis.

Follow this link to the report

Reply to Judo Nimh's Comment

Keith Rimstad — 2010-01-19T21:18:56+01:00

Firstly, I have to apologise for the delay in posting Judo's comment. I have been away for a lengthy holiday and I am still not used to being a blogger. I promise to do better in the future.

In response to the specific comments Judo makes:

The reference to "racist" is his. We don't make such a reference in our reporting on Israel/Palestine or Canada. We also don't compare human rights situations as to which is better or worse. We speak to specific human rights concerns and make concrete suggestions as to how they can be positively addressed.
AI Canada has an active program of work on Indigenous Rights and has issued reports and statements concerning the discriminatory treatment of Aboriginal Peoples in Canada including access to safe drinking water. Our work on Indigenous Rights is one of the top priorities of AI in Canada. Check this out on the Website for more information and if you want to get involved.
Judo's statement that we say 90% of the population of the West Bank has safe drinking water is not an AI quote. Our water report shows in detail how Israeli government policy is discriminatory to Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. It also points out the failures of the Palestinian Authority to properly address water issues that they control. Read the report for more.

Arrests, Sentencing and Isolation

Gloria Nafziger — 2010-01-08T17:28:33+01:00

In the midst of ongoing arrests and sentencing of journalists and human rights defenders, Amnesty International fears the Iranian authorities are implementing a programme that will isolate Iranians from the outside world. Authorities have recently banned contact with more than 60 foreign institutions, including human rights organizations.

Following the ‘Ashoura commemoration on 27 December, which also coincided with the seventh-day of mourning for Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, a senior dissident cleric who had died the week before, well over a thousand people are reported to have been arrested, including 500 in Tehran, 200 in Najafabad and 600 in Esfahan. They include at least fifteen journalists.

At least six leading journalists were arrested on 28 and 29 December, as was human rights defender and founder of the Association for the Defence of Prisoners' Rights (ADPR), Emadeddin Baghi. Other human rights defenders have also been arrested in recent weeks, including seven members of the Committee of Human Rights Reporters. Journalists Bahman Ahmadi Amou'i and Saeed Laylaz have been sentenced to prison terms, of seven to nine years. Bahman Ahmadi Amou'i has also been sentenced to flogging. The sentences includes offences for "colluding with intent to harm national security; propaganda against the system; disrupting public security; insulting the president, attending illegal gatherings and possessing classified documents."

Scores of people associated with opposition parties, human rights defenders and students are among many others detained since the demonstrations. The unrest on ‘Ashoura was one of the worst since the days following the June 2009 presidential election.

Over 80 people have been sentenced to prison terms or flogging in connection with the June demonstrations, including those sentenced after mass “show trials” which began in August. At least seven have been sentenced to death – most recently Ahmad Karimi and Ali Zahed were sentenced to death at the end of December 2009.

‘Ashoura, the 10th day of the Islamic month of Moharram, is a Shi’a Muslim religious occasion marking the killing, or martyrdom, of Emam Hossein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammad.

For more information see:

Three Iranian journalists sentenced

Iranians further isolated by contacts ban

Iranian human rights defender rearrested

Iran must end slide into bloodshed

Iranian Journalist sentenced to six years

Gloria Nafziger — 2009-12-11T17:49:13+01:00

Hengameh Shahidi, an Iranian female journalist, has been sentenced to six years, three months and one day’s imprisonment for charges related to her peaceful exercise of her rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly. Her lawyer was informed that she has been sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for “gathering and colluding with intent to harm state security”, to one year imprisonment for “propaganda against the system” and to 91 days for “insulting the president”.She remains free on bail, pending an appeal against her conviction and sentence, but if imprisoned, Amnesty International would consider her to be a prisoner of conscience and would call for her immediate and unconditional release.

[more] Hengameh Shahidi, was an advisor on women’s issues to defeated presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi during his election campaign. At her trial she was accused of taking part in demonstrations against the disputed election result between 13 and 17 June, giving an interview to the media, collecting signatures for the “One Million Signature Campaign (also known as the Campaign for Equality - which aims to end discrimination against women in Iranian law), supporting a campaign to end executions by stoning in Iran, signing numerous statements addressed to United Nations human rights bodies about human rights violations in Iran, and publishing articles on her blog.

She was arrested on 30 June and was held in solitary confinement in Evin Prison in the capital Tehran for 50 days before being transferred to a cell holding another woman. Her interrogators threatened to arrest other family members, and on several occasions she was threatened with execution. On one occasion she was subjected to a mock execution. She was eventually released on bail of 900 million rials (over US$90,000) on 1 November 2009, after she went on hunger strike in protest of her continued detention. Her trial took place on 4 November, after her release on bail.

Iraq Camp Ashraf residents must not be forced to relocate

Gloria Nafziger — 2009-12-11T17:28:51+01:00

The Iraqi authorities must not forcibly relocate about 3,400 members of an Iranian opposition group from a settlement north of Baghdad where they have lived since the mid-1980’s.

Sources have told Amnesty International that residents of Camp Ashraf, which is 60km north of Baghdad, have been given a deadline of 15 December 2009 to leave or they will be forcibly removed and relocated elsewhere in Iraq. Some may also be at risk of being forcibly returned to Iran.

Camp Ashraf is home to over three thousand members and supporters of the Iranian opposition group, the People's Mojaheddin Organization of Iran (PMOI). The group has been living there for more than 20 years and it is now a small town with shops, medical and other facilities.

Government officials in Iraq have been quoted as saying plans are in place to forcibly remove people from the camp to other sites within Iraq in the coming days.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has reportedly announced that Camp Ashraf’s residents will be moved to the southern province of Muthanna.

Amnesty International fears that forced removals of the residents of Camp Ashraf would put them at risk of arbitrary arrest, torture or other forms of ill-treatment, and unlawful killing.

Since mid-2008 the Iraqi government has repeatedly indicated that it wanted to close Camp Ashraf, and that its residents should leave Iraq or face being forcibly expelled from the country.

On 28-29 July 2009 Iraqi security forces stormed the camp and at least nine residents were killed and many more injured. Another 36 who had been detained were reported to have been tortured and beaten. They were released on 7 October in poor health after maintaining a hunger strike throughout their period of detention.

No investigations are known to have been carried out by the Iraqi authorities into their alleged torture and other ill-treatment or into allegations that Iraqi security forces used excessive, lethal force when taking control of Camp Ashraf last July.

Iran: Election contested, repression compounded

Gloria Nafziger — 2009-12-10T15:39:17+01:00

Human rights violations in Iran are now as bad as at any time in the past 20 years, Amnesty International has said in a new report on the aftermath of last June’s presidential election.

"The Iranian leadership must ensure that the many allegations of torture, including rape, unlawful killings and other abuses are fully and independently investigated," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.

"Members of militias and officials who have committed violations must also be promptly held to account and on no account should any one be executed".

Amnesty International has called on Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to allow two key UN human rights experts to visit Iran to help conduct an investigation.

"The Supreme Leader should order the government to invite in UN Special Rapporteurs on torture and on summary and arbitrary executions to help ensure that investigations are both rigorous and independent," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui.

"To date, the investigations announced by various Iranian authorities seem to have been more concerned with covering up abuses than getting at the truth."

The report, Iran: Election contested, repression compounded describes patterns of abuse before, during and, particularly, after the June election, when the authorities deployed the Basij militia and Revolutionary Guards to suppress mass protests against its disputed outcome.

It includes testimonies from individuals who were detained during the protests, some of whom have since been forced to flee the country.

Manfred Nowak, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Philip Alston, UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions have requested entry into Iran and are waiting to hear back from authorities.

"The onus is on the authorities to address the widespread human rights violations that occurred during the unrest in an open, transparent and accountable manner," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui.

Official figures say 36 people were killed in post-election violence. The opposition puts the figure at over 70.

At least 4,000 people were arrested across Iran after the elections. At the time of writing of the report, up to 200 remain in jail, some arrested after the initial unrest died down.

read the full report here

Iranian Security forces condemned after clampdown on protesters

Gloria Nafziger — 2009-11-05T17:44:20+01:00

Amnesty International has condemned the excessive use of force by Iranian security forces that saw scores of peaceful protesters beaten and detained on Wednesday.

Security forces - including the paramilitary Basij militia - used batons and tear gas to disperse opposition supporters, some of whom threw stones.

Thousands had gathered in cities across the country, using official rallies marking the 30th anniversary of the storming of the US embassy in Tehran as a platform to protest against the disputed outcome of the presidential election in June.

"Based on the experience of the summer unrest and our long-standing concerns about torture in Iran, those detained are now at risk of torture or other ill-treatment," said Malcolm Smart, Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.

"Their families should be informed immediately of their whereabouts and the detainees should have all necessary medical treatment and access to lawyers of their choice."

Among those beaten was 74-year-old protester Habibollah Peyman, a member of the National Peace Committee, a group which has called for an end to the use of violence in Iran.

AFP journalist Farhad Pouladi was arrested while trying to report on the demonstrations and is detained in an unknown location.

Defeated presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi, who has been vocal in his criticism of the authorities, also participated in the protests and had tear gas fired at him, leaving one of his bodyguards hospitalised.

He had received death threats before the demonstrations, warning him against participating.

An eye-witness told Amnesty International that she saw no violence by demonstrators, yet they were subjected to baton charges by Basij and other security personnel.

The witness saw one female protester flee into an office in Ayatollah Taleghani Street, near the former US embassy in Tehran, where anti-riot police struck other passers-by and smashed windows.

Amnesty International has also received information that women's rights activist and journalist Vahideh Molavi was among those detained on Wednesday. Also arrested were Nafiseh Zareh-Kohan, Hojjat Sharifi and Ali Mashmouli. All four are being held in an undisclosed place of detention, prompting fears for their safety.

Hassan Asadi Zeidabadi, head of the Human Rights Committee of the Graduates’ Association of Iran, was arrested on Tuesday evening in what his spokesperson described as a "pre-emptive strike" by the authorities the day before the planned protests.

Two other members of the Association, Mohammad Sadeghi and Ali Malihi, were also arrested on the same night.

"The Iranian authorities must allow peaceful protest – including against the outcome of the election - and remove the paramilitary Basij from the streets," said Malcolm Smart.

“Demonstrations should be policed by law enforcement personnel who are properly trained and required to respect human rights, not strong-arm irregulars, and all reports of beatings, torture and other violations must be independently investigated and the perpetrators brought to justice."

Iran: Some journailsts freed some still detained

Gloria Nafziger — 2009-10-30T20:24:18+01:00

Maziar Bahari and Mohammad Ghouchani were released on bail on 17 and 29 October respectively. At least three other journalists are still detained in Evin prison, Tehran, where they are at risk of ill-treatment. They are prisoners of conscience.

Mohammad Ghouchani, the editor of the newspaper Etemad-e Melli, was released on the night of 29 October, two months after payment of one billion rials (approx. US$100,000) bail. Maziar Bahari, a Canadian-Iranian reporter for the magazine Newsweek, was released on bail of three billion rials. He was allowed to leave Iran and arrived in the UK three days later, in time for the birth of his first child.

Bahman Ahmadi Amou'i, husband of journalist Zhila Bani Ya'qoub (who was released on 19 August) has been held without charge since his arrest on 20 June. Saeed Laylaz, a writer for the magazine Sarmayeh, appeared before Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran on 23 September to appeal against a two-month extension of his detention order, despite an earlier order setting bail at two billion rials. He is still in solitary confinement, despite a court order for him to be moved to an open section of the prison. He was allowed to phone home on his birthday, 1 October, and his wife visited him briefly in prison on 5 October. Keyvan Samimi Behbehani, editor of the banned magazine Nameh, is in solitary confinement in Section 209 of Evin Prison. In August, during a family visit, he said he had been severely beaten, requiring treatment in the prison's medical facility. Rouhollah Shahsavar is now known to have been released on 25 June.

Iran: Criminalising Freedom of Expression

Gloria Nafziger — 2009-10-29T18:34:54+01:00

On Wednesday October 28, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stated on state television that that criticising the outcome of June’s presidential election is a crime.

The official result of the 12 June election was widely disputed and was followed by mass demonstrations throughout the country. Dozens were killed by the notorious Basij militia and other government forces; thousands were detained, many of whom are alleged to have been tortured and ill-treated; and scores – if not hundreds - have been put on trial. Amnesty International has condemned such “show trials” as a “mockery of justice”.

Amnesty International believes that the Ayatollah’s statement seeks to criminalise legitimate peaceful dissent and dissatisfaction with the political process. In dealing with the aftermath of the elections, the Iranian authorities are continuing to commit violation after violation after violation of fundamental human rights. They are trying to muzzle their own people and cow them into silence. Anyone held solely for the peaceful expression of their views concerning the election should be released immediately and unconditionally and all detainees should be protected from torture or other ill-treatment.

click here for more information

Israel rations Palestinians to trickle of water

Keith Rimstad — 2009-10-27T18:50:22+01:00

Amnesty International accused Israel today of denying Palestinians the right to access adequate water by maintaining total control over the shared water resources and pursuing discriminatory policies.
These unreasonably restrict the availability of water in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and prevent the Palestinians developing an effective water infrastructure there.

“Israel allows the Palestinians access to only a fraction of the shared water resources, which lie mostly in the occupied West Bank, while the unlawful Israeli settlements there receive virtually unlimited supplies. In Gaza the Israeli blockade has made an already dire situation worse,” said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International’s researcher on Israel and the OPT.

In a new extensive report, Amnesty International revealed the extent to which Israel’s discriminatory water policies and practices are denying Palestinians their right to access to water.

Read the report

Read the campaign digest

Iran must overturn sentences issued by post-election 'show trial' – News Update

Keith Rimstad — 2009-10-21T17:52:40+01:00

Amnesty International has urged the Iranian authorities to overturn a 15-year prison sentence imposed on an Iranian-American academic for his alleged part in the protests following the June presidential election.

Kian Tajbakhsh, a social scientist and urban planner, was sentenced by the Revolutionary Court in Tehran on Tuesday following a mass trial of more than 100 people accused of organizing the protests.

Threat of Charges Against Iranian Presidential Candidate Part of Cover-Up - News Update

Keith Rimstad — 2009-10-21T17:50:34+01:00

Released 19 October 2009

Amnesty International has called on the Iranian authorities to dismiss legal action against former presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi over allegations that protesters were raped and tortured by security forces following the disputed June elections.

The Tehran Prosecutor said last week that a case had been lodged at a clerical court against Mehdi Karroubi following a recommendation by an official investigation.

Human Rights Council divisions must not obstruct Gaza accountability

Keith Rimstad — 2009-10-21T17:47:56+01:00

Released October 16, 2009

The political divisions surrounding the adoption of today’s Human Rights Council resolution on the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories must not become an obstacle to investigations into serious violations of international law reported during the conflict in Gaza and southern Israel, Amnesty International said.

The resolution addresses human rights violations by the Israelis but, while condemning “all targeting of civilians”, fails to mention explicitly violations by Hamas and other Palestinian groups. It was passed with a divisive vote that saw countries from all regions abstain, oppose or refuse to vote on the resolution.

UN Must Urge Israel and Palestinians to Carry Out Gaza Investigations – Update

Keith Rimstad — 2009-10-21T17:43:59+01:00

Released 15 October 2009

Amnesty International urges the Human Rights Council to call on Israel and the authorities in Gaza to immediately open investigations into alleged war crimes, possible crimes against humanity and other serious violations of international law reported during the conflict in Gaza and southern Israel.

The Human Rights Council, which is holding a special session on the issue today, should also call on Israel and the Palestinian authorities in Gaza to report on their investigations and related prosecutions to the Council at its thirteenth regular session in March 2010.

Iran: Protester death sentence must be reviewed- Update

Keith Rimstad — 2009-10-21T17:33:23+01:00

Released 13 October 2009

Amnesty International is urging the Iranian authorities to rescind the death sentence imposed on Mohammad-Reza Ali-Zamani, the first person to be sentenced to death in connection with protests following disputed presidential elections.

Zamani, 37, was sentenced to death by a Tehran Revolutionary Court on Thursday after he was convicted of “enmity against God for membership of and activities to further the aims of the terrorist grouplet Anjoman-e Padeshahi-e Iran (API)”.

Iran: Protester death sentence must be reviewed

Keith Rimstad — 2009-10-21T17:15:24+01:00

Released October 9, 2009

The API is an exiled opposition group which advocates the ending of the Islamic Republic and the establishment of an Iranian monarchy.

IRAQ: ALL 36 DETAINEES RELEASED

Gloria Nafziger — 2009-10-08T19:16:50+01:00

The 36 Iranians detained by the Iraqi security forces were released on 7 October, and have been taken back to Camp Ashraf.

The 36 men, who had been arrested in Camp Ashraf in July, had been held at a police station, some 25km from the camp, and then moved to a military airbase in Baghdad, despite a judicial order for them to be released. They maintained a hunger strike while they were in custody, and most were in poor health when they returned to Camp Ashraf.

Iraqi authorities must release the Camp Ashraf residents

Gloria Nafziger — 2009-10-02T15:25:45+01:00

A group of 36 Camp Ashraf residents continue to be held at a police station in the town of al-Khalis, in Diyala province, north of Baghdad, since they were arrested by Iraqi security forces on 28-29 July 2009. The 36 men are in poor health and continue to maintain a hunger strike.

According to latest information and after referral to a criminal court in Diyala province, north of Baghdad, on 16 September the investigative judge in the town of al-Khalis confirmed his previous ruling of 24 August 2009 ordering the release of the 36 men on the grounds that they had no charges to answer. A second charge of illegal residency in Iraq was said to have been dismissed by the investigative judge. The public prosecutor, who had appealed the investigative judge’s first ruling, is said to have had no objection to their release without charge. However, despite the judge’s ruling and the men lawyers’ pleas, the local police at al-Khalis continue to refuse to release the detainees yet have provided noreasons or legal justificationfor their continuing detention.

Amnesty International now urges the Iraqi authorities to immediately and unconditionally release the 36 Camp Ashraf residents. The organization calls on the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nuri al-Maliki, to personally intervene and order an investigation into the failure of the police at al-Khalis to release the 36 men. Amnesty International reiterates its opposition to any forcible return of Iranians, including the 36 detainees or other Camp Ashraf residents, to Iran in circumstances where they would be at risk of serious human rights violations, including torture and execution.

click here for more information

Egypt: Government must urgently reign in border guards

Hilary Homes — 2009-09-18T19:15:11+01:00

Public Statement 18 September 2009

The Egyptian authorities must urgently rein in their border security forces and end the spate of killings of migrants trying to cross into Israel, Amnesty International said today, after two more migrants were shot dead on Wednesday. Their killings brought the number of those shot dead this year to 14, while at least 15 others have been wounded. At least 28 were killed in 2008 and at least 25 others were shot and injured.

Seven foreign nationals, all believed to be refugees, asylum seekers or migrants, have been killed by Egyptian border guards since the beginning of the month, apparently while they were trying to cross into Israel. Scores more have been seriously injured. Most of those killed and injured are reported to have been nationals of Sudan, Eritrea and countries in sub-Saharan Africa. [more]

On 14 September, in response to Amnesty International’s protests, the spokesperson for Egypt’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs defended the use of lethal force by border guards and said “protection of the Egyptian borders stems from Egypt's respect to international law and international commitments”. The spokesperson said reports that “Egyptian borderline troops had shot those who are infiltrating the Egyptian borders to Israel” were “inaccurate”, adding “shooting the infiltrates [the term used to describe irregular border crossers] comes after they ignore the warnings of the border guards”. The spokesperson further argued that policing the border is problematic because of the “smuggling of weapons, drugs and goods”.

However, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson gave no details of the steps taken by border guards to use measures short of lethal force in order to apprehend potential border crossers, suggesting that guards are permitted to open fire and shoot to kill even when their targets are not threatening their lives or the lives of others. None of those killed or injured are reported to have used, or been in the possession of, firearms before they were shot. International human rights standards demand that the use of force by law enforcement officials must be proportionate to the actual threat faced.

To date, the Egyptian authorities have taken no steps to investigate the killings by border guards and other incidents in which they used live fire, and no guards are known to have been disciplined or prosecuted for using excessive force. International standards, such as the UN Principles on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions, insist that all cases of suspicious deaths in custody or at the hands of state agents should be promptly investigated.

Amnesty International is calling on the Egyptian government to ensure that its border guards and all other law enforcement officials are instructed that they may use lethal force only in accordance with the strict limitations imposed by international standards, and are not deployed into situations in which they may be required to use force until they have been adequately trained in such standards – in particular, the UN Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials (the Code of Conduct) and the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials (the Basic Principles).

Two years ago, the UN Committee on the Protection of the Rights of all Migrant Workers and Members of their Families urged the Egyptian authorities to initiate training for “border personnel” but it is not known what steps, if any, the Egyptian authorities have taken to comply with this recommendation, and they have not disclosed the rules of engagement issued to those charged with enforcing border security.

Amnesty International fully recognizes the Egyptian authorities’ responsibility to maintain border security and to combat smuggling and other crime, but when doing so they must comply fully with international human rights law, including the right to life, and international refugee law, notably the requirement of the 1951 Refugee Convention that states must not sanction refugees on account of their illegal entry or presence.

Background

The use of lethal force, which began in mid-2007, may result partly from pressure from the Israeli authorities on the Egyptian government to reduce the flow of people crossing the border into its territory without authorization.

While states have the right to exercise authority over their border and to regulate entry into their territory, any measures taken in this regard must not come in conflict with or violate internationally recognized human rights law and standards.

Rape and Torture victims in Iran at renewed risk

Gloria Nafziger — 2009-09-16T20:56:12+01:00

On September 7 judiciary officials raided and closed down the offices of the Committee for the Follow-up of the Injured and Detained in Recent Events. The Committee was set up by Mehdi Karroubi and supported by Mir Hossein Mousavi. Both men were candidates in the 12 June 2009 presidential election. The committee collected and collated information about torture and other abuses committed against detainees held for protesting the official outcome of the 12 June presidential election.

On Tuesday 8 September, Alireza Beheshti and Morteza Alviri, advisors to Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, were detained. Judiciary officials also raided the Association for the Defence of Prisoners Rights, seized records and ordered its closure. The authorities further forcibly closed down the offices of Mehdi Karroubi and his Etemad-e Melli party. Mohammad Davari, editor of Saham News, the website which serves as the party's online publication, has also been detained.

Amnesty International is concerned that, following these raids, victims of rape and torture, whose personal information was contained in the seized records are facing renewed risk. Amnesty International is continuing to urge Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to invite international experts such as the UN Special Rapporteurs on torture and extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions to go to Iran to carry out an independent inquiry.

Cycling for Human Rights in Iran

Gloria Nafziger — 2009-09-16T18:15:32+01:00

CHRI (Cycling for Human Rights in Iran) will leave Toronto for New York City on September 19, 2009. They plan to deliver an appeal letter to the UN General Assembly. The letter urges UN members to investigate abuses of human rights in Iran and calls on the UN to express their concern regarding the widespread and systematic use of fear, violence, and iniquity that are taking place.

Amnesty International continues to urge Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to invite international experts such as the UN Special Rapporteurs on torture and extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions to go to Iran to carry out an independent inquiry.

Implementation of UN Fact finding mission recommendations crucial for justice

Keith Rimstad — 2009-09-15T19:32:48+01:00

All relevant UN bodies must act promptly and in coordination to implement the recommendations of the UN-mandated Goldstone report on violations of international law committed in Gaza and southern Israel in late December and January, Amnesty International said today.

“The UN Human Rights Council should endorse the report and its recommendations and request the UN Secretary-General to refer it to the UN Security Council,” said Donatella Rovera, who headed Amnesty International’s investigation into the conflict in Israel and Gaza.

“The UN Security Council and other UN bodies must now take the steps necessary to ensure that the victims receive the justice and reparation that is their due and that perpetrators don’t get away with murder.”

Goldstone Report released in advance of Human Rights Council Meeting

Keith Rimstad — 2009-09-15T19:29:39+01:00

The UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict headed by Justice Richard Goldstone of South Africa issued its report on the conflict concluding that there were violations of international humanitarian and human rights law by both sides in the conflict which amount to war crimes and potentially crimes against humanity.

The report and details of the work of the Mission can be found at the following link:

Read the report and mission logs

Amnesty Int'l urges Iraqi Prime Minister to address killings and detentions of Camp Ashraf residents

Hilary Homes — 2009-09-10T21:21:39+01:00

Amnesty International has expressed its deep concern to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki about killings and other abuses committed by Iraqi security forces when seizing control of Camp Ashraf in Diyala province, home to some 3,400 Iranian exiles, on 28-29 July 2009, and the continuing detention without charge or trial of 36 camp residents who have been held since then. At least nine camp residents were shot dead and others sustained serious injuries when Iraqi security forces stormed into the camp, driving vehicles into crowds of protesting residents and using live ammunition apparently without adequate justification.

In its letter to Prime Minister al-Maliki, Amnesty International urged him to establish immediately a full and independent investigation into the methods used by Iraqi security forces when taking control of Camp Ashraf, and to make its findings public as soon as possible, The organization urged him also to ensure that members of the security forces and other officials found responsible for using excessive force and committing serious human rights violations are immediately suspended from duty and are promptly brought to justice.

Read the full Public Statement

Four migrants shot dead by Egyptian forces close to Israel border

Hilary Homes — 2009-09-10T16:11:59+01:00

Four men were shot dead by Egyptian security forces as they attempted to cross the border into Israel on Tuesday. Two others were also injured in the deadliest such incident on the Sinai desert border area this year.

Amnesty International has urged the Egyptian authorities to bring their forces guarding the border with Israel under proper control and prevent them from shooting and killing migrants attempting to cross it.

"Enough is enough. This incident is further proof, if any should be needed, that the Egyptian authorities have yet to direct their forces on how to avoid killing migrants trying to cross the border," said Malcolm Smart, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International. "They must assert greater control over their forces at the border and take away their license to kill."

So far this year, Egyptian security forces have killed at least 11 people trying to cross the border into Israel. At least 11 others have been wounded – some critically. Those include the victims of Tuesday’s incident.

Read the full news release

Witness in Hariri case held for four years without charge

Keith Rimstad — 2009-07-30T04:25:22+01:00

posted by Jim Joyce, AICS(ES) Coordinator for Lebanon

Amnesty International is urging Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to order the release of Ziad Ramadan unless he is to be given a prompt, fair trial. Ziad Ramadan has been detained without charge or trial since his arrest precisely four years ago – on 20 July 2005. It is thought that he may be currently held at the Palestine Branch of Syrian Military Intelligence, where torture and other ill-treatment of detainees is common. He has not been permitted to see his family since September 2007, raising serious concern for his safety.[more]

According to the Syrian authorities, Ziad Ramadan, a Syrian national, was detained in connection with the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri on 14 February 2005 in Beirut. However, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, the court established to try those accused of responsibility for the killing, told Amnesty International in May 2009 that it does not consider Ziad Ramadan a suspect, but simply as a witness because of his association with someone of interest to the Tribunal’s investigation, and has not requested his detention.

Amnesty International considers it to be high time that Ziad Ramadan is released unless he is to be brought to trial promptly and fairly on recognizable criminal charges.

The concern about Ziad Ramadan is but one case of Amnesty International’s concerns about Lebanon.
On 14 February 2005, AI in a press release condemned the killing of former Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri and many others when their motorcade was wrecked by a bomb explosion.

In that press release Amnesty International condemned such deliberate attacks against civilians. Such
acts are absolutely prohibited under international law. The organization called on the Lebanese authorities to immediately investigate the killings and ensure that those suspected of having carried out or ordered the attack are brought to justice in accordance with international standards for fair trial.

Since then much has taken place in Lebanon, including two elections, in May 2005 and again four years later in this May. Syria has withdrawn in forces from Lebanon. An armed conflict between Israel and Hezbollah took place in Lebanese territory and northern Israel in the summer of 2006.

Throughout all this the investigation of the Hariri Assassination has been conducted through various bodies.

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon was established by the UN Security Council in 2007 to investigate and prosecute those allegedly responsible for the killing of former Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri and 22 others on 14 February 2005, as well as a series of other assassinations and attempted killings since October 2004, if they are found to be linked to the case of Rafiq al-Hariri.. It is a national court with some international components, comprising both international and Lebanese judges, while applying national law for the definition of crimes. It is based in The Hague, in the Netherlands, mainly for security reasons.

The Tribunal’s creation followed the establishment in 2005 of the UN International Independent Investigation Commission, which the Security Council entrusted with the task of investigating the killing of Rafiq al-Hariri and 22 others, as well as assisting the Lebanese authorities in their investigation of some 20 other attacks that have taken place since 1 October 2004.

Commenting on Tribunal in its current report, Amnesty International reports that the mandate of the Special Tribunal, which is set to start operation on 1 March 2009, is by far the narrowest of any tribunal of an international nature. This means that it will do nothing to address the enormous number of other grave human rights abuses committed in Lebanon in recent decades, raising concern that the justice being promoted is politically selective.

The case of Ziad Ramadan is one such human rights abuse which has arisen from the unresolved case of the killings of Prime Minister Hariri in 2005.

If you have any questions about this entry,
please contact middleeastcoordinator@amnesty.ca

To read AI’s report on the Hariri Tribunal, The Special Tribunal for Lebanon: Selective Justice? {Feb. 2009)
See http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/MDE18/001/2009/en

Saudi Arabia: stop abuses in the name of security and fighting terrorism

Hilary Homes — 2009-07-22T19:33:59+01:00

Many governments used the 9-11 attacks in the USA as an opportunity to step up repression. Saudi Arabia was no exception. Thousands of people have been arrested and detained in virtual secrecy; others have been killed under questionable circumstances in what the authorities claim were clashes with the security forces. Hundreds more face secret and summary trials and possible execution.

Arbitrary arrest and prolonged detention of political and security suspects without trial or access to lawyers are long-standing human rights concerns in Saudi Arabia. However, the number of detentions – including both Saudi citizens and foreign nationals – rose from hundreds to thousands after 2001. The Interior Minister reported that 9,000 security suspects were detained between 2003 and 2007. 3,106 remain in detention. Others have been moved to an official "re-education" program, though it is unclear how they are selected and under what conditions they can obtain release.

Some detainees are prisoners of conscience, targeted for their peaceful criticism of government policies. The majority are suspected supporters of Islamist groups or factions opposed to the Saudi Arabian government’s close links to the USA and other Western countries, which have carried out a number of attacks targeting Westerners and others, and are officially dubbed as "misguided". They also include people forcibly returned from Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen and other countries.

Take action

Egypt: Government should immediately release Musaad Abu Fagr and Karim Amer

Hilary Homes — 2009-07-22T19:30:54+01:00

AI Public Statement MDE 12/029/2009

Amnesty International is calling on President Hosni Mubarak to order the immediate and unconditional release of Musaad Abu Fagr and Karim Amer, prisoners of conscience who have both been held for more than 18 months. Musaad Abu Fagr continues to be detained without charge or trial despite repeated court orders for his release, while a leading UN human rights body has declared Karim Amer’s imprisonment “arbitrary” and called for his release.

Musaad Abu Fagr, whose real name is Musaad Suliman Hassan Hussein, is a novelist, human rights activist and founder of the Sinai-based movement Wedna Na’ish (We Want to Live). He was arrested in December 2007 following demonstrations in al-Arish, North Sinai involving Wedna Na’ish supporters and others who were demanding the permits to build houses, title to the farmland they work, and the release of Bedouin who had been detained without charge or trial after bomb attacks in Taba, Sharm al-Sheikh and Dahab between 2004 and 2006. [more] Two courts in al-Arish acquitted him of “inciting protests” and “resisting the authorities” in February 2008 but he was then served with an administrative detention order issued by the Minister of the Interior using powers provided under Egypt’s long-running state of emergency legislation. Lawyers from the Hisham Mubarak Law Center have since obtained several court orders for his release, most recently in June 2009, but these have been effectively ignored by State Security Investigations (SSI) officials who have continued to detain him in breach of the law. He is now being held on his thirteenth successive administrative detention order. This was imposed after a court ordered his release in June; SSI officials in al-Arish failed to comply with the court order, detaining him illegally for several days until a new administrative detention order was issued by the Interior Minister. On 18 July, he was transferred to Borg al-Arab Prison, near Alexandria.

Karim Amer, a blogger who was sentenced to four years in prison in 2007, is also held at Borg al-Arab Prison. He too is a prisoner of conscience. He was tried and imprisoned for criticizing President Mubarak and Egypt’s al-Azhar religious authorities in his blog. He was convicted of “inciting strife and defaming Muslims on the internet by describing the Prophet of Islam and his comrades as murderers, which disturbs national peace”; and “insulting the President of the Republic by writing on the internet”.

In November 2008, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) declared Karim Amer’s detention “arbitrary” on the grounds that is violates freedoms guaranteed under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and that he should be released. Following this, SSI officers at the prison have prevented Karim Amer’s lawyers from the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information from visiting him – they were last able to see him in March 2009, when they were able to inform him of the WGAD decision in his case. In May, when denying Karim Amer’s lawyers access to him, one SSI officer is reported to have told them, “Let the United Nations help you!” Last week, the lawyers were again denied access to him. This has promoted increased concern for his safety. He was previously assaulted by prison guards in October 2007 and placed in solitary confinement for allegedly assaulting another inmate.

Amnesty International is calling on President Mubarak to order the immediate release of Musaad Abu Fagr, Karim Amer and all other prisoners of conscience in Egypt, and to curb the powers of the SSI and ensure that SSI officials who breach the law or are responsible for abusing prisoners are brought to justice.

Iran: tear gas used against demonstrators marking 18 Tir (9 July) anniversary

Gloria Nafziger — 2009-07-09T20:00:50+01:00

Amnesty International condemned the excessive use of force by Iranian security forces today, following baton charges and use of teargas against demonstrators in Tehran commemorating today's tenth anniversary of 18 Tir, the brutal suppression of student-lead protests in 1999.

At least 200 demonstrators are reported to have gathered along Enghlab Avenue, around the gates of Tehran University, only to be confronted by a large presence of anti-riot police and plain-clothed security officials, possibly including members of the notorious Basij militia, who used baton charges and tear gas to disperse them.

Activists Cycle 450km in Support for Human Rights in Iran

Gloria Nafziger — 2009-07-07T15:19:59+01:00

July 2, 2009, Toronto—A group of Iranians and Canadians will cycle over 450km from Toronto to deliver a petition initiated by Amnesty International Canada to the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Ottawa. The petition, signed by over 3,500 supporters, calls on the authorities to respect the human rights of all Iranian citizens and for the immediate release of those arrested for expressing their critical opinions of the elections since June 12, 2009.

The signed petitioned will be delivered from Toronto to the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Ottawa by a group of activists by bicycle.

Departure date: Saturday, July 25, 2009, 10am
Location: Queen’s Park (Outside the Ontario Legislative Building)
Arrival date: Wednesday, July 29, 2009, 2pm
Location: Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Ottawa, 245 Metcalfe St, Ottawa

see: Cycling for Human Rights in Iran for more information

Israel/Gaza: Operation �Cast Lead�: 22 days of death and destruction

Keith Rimstad — 2009-07-06T21:35:45+01:00

At 11.30am on 27 December 2008, without warning, Israeli forces began a devastating bombing campaign on the Gaza Strip codenamed Operation “Cast Lead”. Its stated aim was
to end rocket attacks into Israel by armed groups affiliated with Hamas and other Palestinian factions. By 18 January 2009, when unilateral ceasefires were announced by both Israel and Hamas, some 1,400 Palestinians had been killed, including some 300 children and hundreds of other unarmed civilians, and large areas of Gaza had been razed to the ground, leaving many thousands homeless and the already dire economy in ruins.

During the conflict Palestinian armed groups fired hundreds of rockets into Southern Israel killing three civilians and injuring dozens of others.

In both cases, the Israeli armed forces and the Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes.

Read the full report

Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories: Impunity for war crimes in Gaza and southern Israel recipe

Keith Rimstad — 2009-07-06T21:12:16+01:00

Issued July 2, 2009

Israeli forces killed hundreds of unarmed Palestinian civilians and destroyed thousands of homes in Gaza in attacks which breached the laws of war, Amnesty International concluded in a new 117-page report published today - the first comprehensive report to be published on the 22-day conflict earlier this year.

“Israel’s failure to properly investigate its forces’conduct in Gaza, including war crimes, and its continuing refusal to cooperate with the UN international independent fact-finding mission headed by Richard Goldstone, is evidence of its intention to avoid public scrutiny and accountability,”said Donatella Rovera, who headed a field research mission to Gaza and southern Israel during and after the conflict.

Annual Global Solidarity Action Day Justice for workers and people of Iran

Gloria Nafziger — 2009-06-24T16:20:32+01:00

Friday, June 26, 2009
Time: 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.
Where: The Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran - 245 Metcalfe St., Ottawa

On Friday June 26 Amnesty International will join workers, unions and human rights activists to protest the gross violation of workers’ and human rights in Iran.

For 30 years, the Islamic Republic of Iran has imposed appalling political, economic and social conditions on workers and impoverished people. Iranian workers have consistently witnessed the imposition of anti-labour policies and practices, such as privatizations and mass lay-offs while having no rights to organize or strike in addition to facing ongoing persecution and imprisonment. The current wave of massive protests in Iran following the election is a clear indication of people’s dissatisfaction.

Amnesty International will join activists of Canadian unions, including CUPE, CUPW, CTF, NUPGE, PSAC and Iranian-Canadian workers outside the Iranian embassy in Ottawa on June 26th, the Global Solidarity Action Day.

click here for more information abour workers in Iran

Demontrations, violence and death in Iran

Gloria Nafziger — 2009-06-15T20:33:38+01:00

Thousands of people, mainly supporters of presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has challenged the announcement that current President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had won the 12 June presidential election have been demonstrating, sometimes violently, in the streets in Tehran and other cities. They are at risk of injury or death at the hands of the security forces. Dozens have been arrested, and up to five students are reported to have been killed on Sunday and one person in a demonstration on Monday. Amnesty International believes the security forces are likely to use excessive force if, as expected, there are further demonstrations, and that those arrested are at risk of torture or other ill-treatment. The organization also believes the authorities are unlawfully restricting freedom of expression and information by blocking access to phone services, including SMS messages, foreign media and various internet sites.

[more]

In Tehran there have been demonstrations since the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was announced by the Interior Ministry on 13 June. The demonstrators have at times thrown stones and set fire to buildings, motorbikes, cars, and have threatened members of the security forces, who have responded with violence, beating demonstrators, and arresting at least 170. On 14 June the Deputy Police Chief of Tehran said 10 of these were people who had been arrested for “masterminding” the riots, including some politicians, and 50 for “orchestrating” them.

Up to five students, named to Amnesty International as Fatemeh Barati, Kasra Sharafi, Mobina Ehterami, Kambiz Sho'a'i and Mohsen Imani - were reportedly shot dead on 14 June when security forces attacked a dormitory area in Tehran; others – possibly dozens – were arrested and many reportedly injured. Amnesty International has received the names of 13 students said to have been arrested. There are also reports of people arrested at demonstrations in provincial cities such as Zahedan, Tabriz, Mashhad, Babol, and Shiraz.

A demonstration against the result, scheduled for 15 June, was called off that day after an Interior Ministry statement that demonstrations against the election result were not permitted and that those breaching public order would be dealt with "in line with the law." However, the demonstration took place anyway, and Mir Hossein Mousavi and another presidential candidate, Mehdi Karrubi, said they would attend in order to "calm the crowd." Clashes are reported to have taken place between supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi and President Ahmadinejad and one protestor is reported to have been shot dead. A 14 June victory rally in Tehran for President Ahmadinejad, attended by thousands of his supporters was allowed to take place.

The authorities appear to be attempting to limit reporting of the disturbances and to prevent Mir Hossein Mousavi’s supporters from organizing protests, by closing down the SMS network, blocking access to various internet sites including Facebook and websites supportive of Mir Hossein Mousavi, and jamming satellite broadcasts by foreign media such as the BBC. Telephone lines to Tehran have been intermittently disrupted.

The blockade of Gaza

Keith Rimstad — 2009-05-19T17:25:32+01:00

The situation in Gaza following the Israeli military's attack at the beginning of this year remains grim for most Gazans. One of the things that makes this situation so bad is the continued Israel blockade on Gaza. The Israeli Government says this blockade is necessary to stop Hamas and the other armed groups in Gaza from rearming and continuing their rocket attacks on Israel. The following news article from the Israeli paper Haaretz shows how the blockade is really aimed at the civilian population of Gaza and its purpose is really to make daily life in Gaza intolerable. It is worth the read.

Israel bans books, music and clothes from entering Gaza

By Amira Hass

Israel allows only food, medicine and detergent into the Gaza Strip. Thousands of items, including vital products for everyday activity, are forbidden.

Altogether only 30 to 40 select commercial items are now allowed into the Gaza Strip, compared to 4,000 that had been approved before the closure Israel imposed on Gaza following the abduction of Gilad Shalit, according to merchants and human rights activists.

Read the full article

Update on Neta Mishli

Keith Rimstad — 2009-05-11T20:28:27+01:00

We have just heard today (May 11) that Neta Mishli was released. She is now waiting for the army to decide on how to continue with her case. Therefore, she could face another prison sentence and we will keep you informed.

But for now, no further action is required on her case.

Thanks to all those who campaigned on behalf of Neta.

Keith Rimstad

Free expression still outlawed in Egypt

Hilary Homes — 2009-05-01T17:58:52+01:00

Amnesty International has challenged the Egyptian government to mark this World Press Freedom Day, 3 May, by decriminalizing freedom of expression in Egypt.

In a letter to Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak, the organization notes that Egyptian journalists and bloggers continue to face imprisonment and heavy fines, as well as harassment on the basis of criminal defamation charges, preventing the reporting of matters of public interest. This comes despite the president’s own promise, in 2004, to end prison terms for publishing offences. Amendments of the Penal Code in 2006 failed to live up to that promise and many controversial provisions of the Penal Code and the Press Law remain in force.

In its letter, Amnesty International also noted the continued imprisonment of the blogger Karim Amer, who was sentenced in 2007 to four years in prison. He was charged with “spreading information disruptive of public order and damaging to the country’s interest”, “incitement to hate Islam” and “defaming the President of the Republic” under articles 102bis, 176 and 179 of the Penal Code.

Real the full Amnesty Public Statement

Amnesty expresses outrage at execution of Delara Darabi

Gloria Nafziger — 2009-05-01T17:21:26+01:00

Iranian authorities executed Delara Darabi in Rasht Central Prison on Friday May 1, 2009 . She is the second person to be executed this year after being convicted of a crime she was alleged to have commited while still under 18.

"Amnesty International is outraged at the execution of Delara Darabi, and particularly at the news that her lawyer was not informed about the execution, despite the legal requirement that he should receive 48 hours' notice."

Find out more

Request for action on behalf of Neta Mishli (Stop Action May 11/09)

Keith Rimstad — 2009-04-29T20:08:41+01:00

Conscientious Objector, Neta Mishli, 18 years old and from Tel-Aviv, was sentenced to seven days confinement to base on 23 April 2009, for refusing to enlist in the Israeli army. The next day she was again tried and sentenced, this time to 20 days in military prison. She was told that the Military Attorney's Office has authorised trying her again for her refusal to serve in the Israeli army. She is due to be released on 10 May.

Neta, one of signatories of the 2008 high school seniors’ refusal letter prepared the following declaration upon entering prison:

“I am not willing to be part of an organization committing war crimes, taking the lives of thousands of innocent civilians, an organization that, in the name of humanism and democracy, forces me and my peers to sacrifice a period of our lives, and our lives themselves, for false calm, for no calm shall come to pass until Israel decides to give up the policy of war and turn towards peace. Therefore, as a small step towards stopping the cycle of bloodshed, I hereby refuse to enlist in the military.

[more]Please call for Neta Mishli’s immediate and unconditional release and she is prisoner of conscience.

Please send letters of protest by fax or email to the Minister of Defence, Ehud Barak and the head of the army’s “Conscience Committee”, Colonel Gadi Agmon.

Mr. Ehud Barak,
Minister of Defence,
Ministry of Defence,
Hakirya,
Tel-Aviv 64743,
Israel.
E-mail: sar@mod.gov.il or pniot@mod.gov.il
Tel.: +972-3-6975540 or +972-3-6975423
Fax: +972-3-6976711

It would be especially useful to send your appeals to the Commander of the Induction Base in Tel-HaShomer. It is this officer that ultimately decides whether an objector is to be exempted from military service or sent to another round in prison, and it is the same officer who is ultimately in charge of the military Conscience Committee:

Gadi Agmon,
Commander of Induction Base,
Meitav, Tel-HaShomer
Military Postal Code 02718, IDF
Israel.
Fax: +972-3-737-60-52

And for solidarity:

Neta Mishli
Military ID 6044321
Military Prison No. 400
Military Postal Code 02447, IDF
Israel
Fax: +972-3-9579389

Please also send copies of your solidarity messages to shministim@gmail.com which the COs will be able to read once they are released. To join the Shministim Facebook group, Click here

Iraq: concerns regarding the future of Camp Ashraf residents

Keith Rimstad — 2009-04-22T17:54:55+01:00

Published 20 April 2009

Amnesty International has written directly to the Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki about recent developments relating to the more than 3,000 Iranian exiles currently living in Camp Ashraf, northeast of Baghdad, who Iraqi officials have said should leave the country. The Iranians are members or supporters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI).

In particular, Amnesty International expressed concern at a recent statement reportedly made in an interview with al-Forat, an Iraqi TV channel, by National Security Advisor Dr Muwaffaq al-Rubaie, in which he said that the authorities intend gradually to make the continued presence of the Camp Ashraf residents “intolerable”. Shortly after this, possibly in a related development, a team of medical doctors were denied access to the Camp for several days. One purpose of their visit was reportedly to provide treatment to a woman in the Camp in need of surgery for an internal cancerous tumour. The doctors were later allowed into the camp.

Iran: Roxana Saberi hostage to strained political US-Iranian relations

Keith Rimstad — 2009-04-22T17:52:27+01:00

Published 20 April 2009

US-Iranian journalist Roxana Saberi is a pawn to the ongoing political developments between Iran and the USA and should be considered a prisoner of conscience, Amnesty International said today as it called for Saberi’s immediate and unconditional release.

“The fact that Roxana Saberi faced a shifting tide of accusations from the time of her arrest until her trial is an indication that the Iranian authorities were looking for any excuse to detain her,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme. “There is no reason for holding Roxana Saberi, unless the Iranian authorities can provide convincing evidence that she committed a recognizable criminal offence.”

Thirty-one-year-old Roxana Saberi, who was born in the USA and has lived in Iran for the past six years where she had been working as a journalist, was sentenced on 18 April to eight years in prison for “espionage” in a closed trial.

Iraq Kurdistan Region: Security forces above law

Keith Rimstad — 2009-04-22T17:49:47+01:00

Published 14 April 2009

Security forces in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan Region operate outside the rule of law and regularly abuse their authority, Amnesty International said in a new report today, as it called on the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to hold those responsible for human rights violations to account.

“The Kurdistan Region has been spared the bloodletting and violence that continues to wrack the rest of Iraq and the KRG has made some important human rights advances," said Malcolm Smart, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Program. "Yet real problems - arbitrary detention and torture, attacks on journalists and freedom of expression, and violence against women - remain and need urgently to be addressed by the government."

The report Hope and Fear, Human rights in Kurdistan Region of Iraqis based on extensive research, including interviews conducted by Amnesty International researchers during a fact-finding mission to the Kurdistan Region in 2008. It cites many cases of people arrested and arbitrarily detained by Asayish (security) officials, including some who were tortured or forcibly disappeared and whose fate and whereabouts remain unknown.

Iraq: Grave concern at recent killings of men because of their sexual orientation

Keith Rimstad — 2009-04-22T17:47:31+01:00

Published: 9 April 2009

Amnesty international has written to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki expressing grave concern about a reported spate of killings of young men solely because of their sexual orientation and calling for urgent and concerted action by the government to bring those responsible to justice and to afford effective protection to the gay community in Iraq.

Over the last few weeks at least 25 boys and men are reported to have been killed in Baghdad because they were, or were perceived to be, gay. The killings are said to have been carried out by armed Shi’a militiamen as well as by members of the tribes and families of the victims. Certain religious leaders, especially in al-Sadr City neighbourhood, are also reported in recent weeks to have urged their followers to take action to eradicate homosexuality in Iraqi society, in terms which appear effectively to constitute at least an implicit, if not explicit, incitement to violence against members of the gay community. Three corpses of gay men are reported to have been found in al-Sadr City on 2 and 3 April 2009; two of the bodies are said to have had pieces of paper bearing the word “pervert” attached to them, suggesting that the victims had been murdered on account of their sexual identity.

Media Release: New inquiry offers hope for war crimes victims

Keith Rimstad — 2009-04-22T17:44:35+01:00

Published 7 April 2009

Both the Israeli and Palestinian sides must fully cooperate with the UN’s fact-finding mission looking into possible war crimes and international law violations committed during the recent conflict in Gaza and southern Israel, Amnesty International said today.

"The victims of this brutal conflict have a right to justice and reparation. The perpetrators on both sides must be held accountable if there is to be an end to the cycles of violence and impunity that have persisted for so long,” said Malcolm Smart, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Program. “There must be no excuse for either Israel or the Palestinians not to fully cooperate with the inquiry.”

The newly appointed Chair, Justice Richard J. Goldstone, and the President of the Human Rights Council recently acknowledged that the mission can only credibly fulfil its mandate by also examining the violations of international law committed by Palestinian armed groups.

Media Release: As US arms shipment reaches Israel, President Obama urged to halt further exports

Keith Rimstad — 2009-04-22T17:41:06+01:00

Published 2 April 2009

The new delivery to Israel of a massive consignment of US munitions, revealed by Amnesty International today, throws into question whether President Obama will act to prevent the US fuelling further Israeli attacks against civilians that may amount to war crimes, as was perpetrated in Gaza.

According to new information received by Amnesty International, the Wehr Elbe a German cargo ship, which had been chartered and controlled by US Military Sealift Command, docked and unloaded its cargo of reportedly over 300 containers at the Israeli port of Ashdod, just 40 km north of Gaza by road. The German ship left the USA for Israel on 20 December, one week before the start of Israeli attacks on Gaza, carrying 989 containers of munitions, each of them 20 feet long with a total estimated net weight of 14,000 tons.

“Legally and morally, this US arms shipment should have been halted by the Obama administration given the extent of the evidence showing how military equipment and munitions of this kind were recently used by the Israeli forces for war crimes,” said Brian Wood. "Arms supplies in these circumstances are contrary to provisions in US law."

Egyptian authorities urged to release peaceful protestors

Hilary Homes — 2009-04-08T22:29:33+01:00

At least 20 people are still held in detention in Egypt after peaceful protests on Monday. The protesters, who took part in nationwide strikes and demonstrations, were calling for a range of political and economic reforms in the country. Others who were arrested during the weekend or on Monday were released the same evening.

Many detainees were reported to have been beaten by the police. Amnesty International is calling on the Egyptian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release of all those arrested and detained because of their involvement in the national strike demonstrations. The organization is also calling on the authorities to end the mass arrests and harassment of peaceful protestors.

Egyptian emergency laws, which have been in force continuously since 1981, prohibit most demonstrations. The laws also facilitate other serious human rights violations such as arbitrary arrests, torture and other ill-treatment, secret detention and unfair trials before emergency and military courts.

Read the full story

UN experts condemn detention of Egyptian blogger

Hilary Homes — 2009-03-23T19:49:00+01:00

Experts of the Human Rights Council have concluded that the Egyptian authorities have detained blogger Karim Amer arbitrarily for his online criticisms and for exercising his right to freedom of expression. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) communicated its decision to Amnesty International.

Amnesty International, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) and the Hisham Mubarak Law Center (HMLC) welcomed the decision. They described it as ground-breaking and a landmark in the fight against arbitrary detention and restrictions to freedom of expression in Egypt.

Amnesty International and the two Egyptian human rights organizations, whose lawyers worked extensively on the case of Karim Amer, are urging the Egyptian authorities to urgently comply with the WGAD’s decision and release Karim Amer immediately and unconditionally. The three organizations have considered Karim Amer a prisoner of conscience and campaigned for his release.

Read the full story

Canada/Gaza: End the use of weapons against civilians

Hilary Homes — 2009-03-13T21:53:30+01:00

Amnesty International researchers visiting Gaza and southern Israel during and after the fighting found evidence of war crimes and other serious violations of international law by all parties to the conflict. Governments who supply Israel and the Palestinian armed groups with arms and munitions should stop such transfers until there are firm mechanisms in place to insure that these weapons are not used against civilians.

Take action

Iraq: 128 face execution in batches of 20

Hilary Homes — 2009-03-13T21:46:53+01:00

Amnesty International today called for the immediate intervention of Iraq’s Justice Minister to stop the execution of 128 prisoners on death row, amid reports that the authorities are planning to start executing them in batches of up to 20 starting next week.

“The Iraqi government said in 2004 that reinstating capital punishment would curb widespread violence in the country. The reality, however, is that violence has continued at extremely high levels and the death penalty has yet again been shown to be no deterrent,” said Malcolm Smart, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme. "In fact, many attacks are perpetrated by suicide bombers who, clearly, are unlikely to be deterred by the threat of execution."

Read the full press release

Middle East and North Africa: protection and guarantees needed for human rights defenders

Hilary Homes — 2009-03-13T21:43:29+01:00

Human rights activists in the Middle East and North Africa still face imprisonment, torture, persecution and repression for seeking to uphold the rights of others, more than ten years after the UN called on all states to support the work of people defending human rights, Amnesty International said today.

“Across the region, those who stand up for human rights and expose violations by state authorities often incur great risks by doing so," said Malcolm Smart, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Program. "Governments should be heralding the crucial role of human rights defenders in promoting and defending universal rights. Instead, too often, they brand them as subversives or trouble-makers and use oppressive means to impede their activities. People are languishing in jails across the region simply for peacefully exercising their right to expression, association or assembly.”

11 March 2009 AI Press Release | AI Report: Challenging Repression: Human Rights Defenders in the Middle East and North Africa

Student blogger arrested at peaceful march in Egypt

Hilary Homes — 2009-02-27T17:25:36+01:00

originally published 11 February 2009

A 26-year-old student and prominent blogger was arrested in Cairo on Friday while taking part in a peaceful march. Philip Rizk was taking part in a march to express solidarity with civilians affected by the conflict in the Gaza Strip.

He was taken first to Abu Zaabal police station, but was then separated from lawyers who had been called to assist him. He was taken away in an unmarked police car to an undisclosed destination.

His whereabouts have still not been disclosed by the Egyptian authorities, despite his family’s request, prompting growing anxiety. [more] Some three days after his arrest, five plain clothed security officials, apparently members of State Security Investigations (SSI), visited his family home in Maadi at around 2am, further increasing his family’s anxiety.

The officials did not produce a search warrant, but sought to take away documents belonging to Philip Rizk and only departed at around 5am. The same night, other SSI agents are reported to have visited another apartment in Maadi where Philip Rizk and his sister reside, using his keys to gain entry, and to have removed a number of items, including a camera.

Amnesty International has written to the Egyptian authorities urging them to ensure the prompt release of Philip Rizk unless he is to face recognizable criminal charges and to stand trial in accordance with international fair trial standards.

"The Egyptians authorities should make clear without delay the reasons and legal basis for Philip Rizk's arrest and continuing detention, as well as his legal status and current place of detention," said Malcolm Smart, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme.

"We urge the authorities to ensure that he is afforded full protection against possible torture or other ill-treatment and that he is permitted immediate access to legal counsel of his choice, contact with his family and any medical treatment that he may require."

Egyptian family threatened by police for complaining of torture

Hilary Homes — 2009-02-27T17:21:59+01:00

An Egyptian woman, who went to file a complaint at a police station on 19 January, has since been subjected to torture, ill-treatment and death threats against her and her family by members of the local police force.

Mona Said Thabet went to a police station north of Cairo after she was assaulted by two men at her sister's home. The men were reported to have been police informers.

Since then Mona Said Thabet, her husband Yasser Naguib Mahran and their three children have been the targets of a campaign of harassment and intimidation to force her to withdraw torture complaints she made.

Read the full story

Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories: Israel must disclose weapons it used in Gaza attacks

Keith Rimstad — 2009-01-28T22:10:43+01:00

Amnesty International today called on the Israeli authorities to disclose the weapons and munitions their forces used during the three week military campaign in Gaza which began on 27 December.

“We now know that white phosphorous munitions were used in built-up civilian areas, although the Israeli authorities previously denied this," said Donatella Rovera, who is heading an Amnesty International investigation team in Gaza. "Now we have irrefutable evidence of the use of this weapon, but the doctors who treated the first casualties did not know what had caused their injuries."

Israel's use of white phosphorus against Gaza civilians "clear and undeniable"

Keith Rimstad — 2009-01-28T22:08:48+01:00

Amnesty International delegates visiting the Gaza Strip found indisputable evidence of widespread use of white phosphorus in densely populated residential areas in Gaza City and in the north.

"Yesterday, we saw streets and alleyways littered with evidence of the use of white phosphorus, including still burning wedges and the remnants of the shells and canisters fired by the Israeli army," said Christopher Cobb-Smith, a weapons expert who is in Gaza as part of a four-person Amnesty International fact-finding team.

"White phosphorus is a weapon intended to provide a smokescreen for troop movements on the battlefield," said Cobb-Smith. "It is highly incendiary, air burst and its spread effect is such that it that should never be used on civilian areas”.

Immediate investigation needed into Israeli shelling of UN compound in Gaza

Keith Rimstad — 2009-01-28T22:06:53+01:00

Amnesty International is calling for an immediate and independent investigation into the Israeli army's shelling this morning of a United Nations compound in Gaza City, disrupting the distribution of humanitarian aid to Gaza's beleaguered civilians and injuring three UN workers.

The United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) has reported that shells - apparently containing white phosphorous - struck their compound in Gaza City, injuring three people and setting on fire one building which contained emergency humanitarian assistance. UNRWA said that it had repeatedly asked the Israeli army not to fire in the vicinity of the compound.

Gaza conflict - full arms embargo vital as US munitions reported on way to Israel

Keith Rimstad — 2009-01-28T22:04:58+01:00

A full arms embargo on all parties involved in the Gaza conflict is urgently needed to prevent further unlawful attacks and other violations of international law, as the civilian death toll continues to mount in Gaza. At least 900 Palestinians have so far been killed, more than a third of them civilians, including some 200 Palestinian children – as more US munitions are en route to the region.

“The last thing that is needed now is more weapons and munitions in the region, which is awash with arms that are being used in a manner which contravenes international law and is having a devastating effect on the civilian population in Gaza,” said Malcolm Smart, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Program.

UN Security Council must investigate all crimes committed in Gaza conflict

Keith Rimstad — 2009-01-28T22:02:22+01:00

January 9 2009

As fighting continues in violation of the UN Security Council’s near unanimous adoption last night (8 January) of resolution 1860 calling for an immediate and durable ceasefire in Gaza, Amnesty International calls on the Security Council to take firm action to ensure full accountability for war crimes and other serious abuses of international human rights and humanitarian law.

In an open letter sent today to the Security Council, Amnesty International also urged the Council to ensure that international human rights monitors are immediately despatched to Gaza and southern Israel to investigate and report on continuing abuses by all parties to the conflict.

Read the media release

Media Release:UN Human Rights Council must assist civilians caught in Gaza conflict

Keith Rimstad — 2009-01-14T22:40:25+01:00

Released on 8 January 2009

Amnesty International calls on the UN Human Rights Council to speak with the united voice of all members in demanding an immediate end to attacks against civilians in the Gaza conflict and other serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law when it meets in special session on 9 January to discuss the crisis.

The Council must call for concrete measures to end and relieve the humanitarian catastrophe now unfolding in Gaza, where some 1.5 million civilians are trapped and exposed to unacceptable danger. It must also demand an end to the indiscriminate rocket attacks that endanger civilians in southern Israel.

Read the full media release

Gaza: Military tactics of both sides endangering civilians

Keith Rimstad — 2009-01-07T20:59:36+01:00

Amnesty International said today that both Israeli soldiers and Palestinian fighters are endangering the lives of Palestinian civilians – including by using them as human shields.

“Our sources in Gaza report that Israeli soldiers have entered and taken up positions in a number of Palestinian homes, forcing families to stay in a ground floor room while they use the rest of their house as a military base and sniper position,” said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Program. “This clearly increases the risk to the Palestinian families concerned and means they are effectively being used as human shields.”

Both Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen are continuing to fire at each other from areas close to civilian homes, endangering their inhabitants

Read the full media release

Human Rights Crisis in Gaza � Canada must act now!

Keith Rimstad — 2009-01-06T20:53:04+01:00

Amnesty International is gravely concerned about the mounting number of civilian casualties in Gaza since Israeli forces began their ground attacks on January 3. The situation worsens with each passing day. Amnesty is urging that the Canadian government immediately, forcefully and unequivocally press Israeli authorities, the Hamas de-facto administration and all other Palestinian armed groups to stop all unlawful attacks and to comply fully with their obligations under international humanitarian law

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Amnesty International calls for an immediate humanitarian truce in Gaza

Keith Rimstad — 2009-01-06T20:46:47+01:00

Amnesty International today urged the UN Security Council to demand that Israel, Hamas and Palestinian armed groups observe an immediate truce in Gaza to allow desperately needed humanitarian assistance to the beleaguered civilian population, evacuation of the wounded and safe refuge for civilians wishing to flee the conflict zone.

“Civilians in Gaza are trapped in an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe, and need immediate respite,” said Malcolm Smart, Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Program.

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Open Letter Open Letter to Minister of Foreign Affairs regarding protecting civilians in Gaza

Keith Rimstad — 2009-01-06T20:43:29+01:00

January 5, 2009

Dear Minister Cannon,

Amnesty International is gravely concerned about the mounting number of civilian casualties in Gaza as attacks by Israeli forces continue, including extensive ground attacks launched over the weekend. The situation worsens with each passing day. We are writing this open letter to you to urge that the Canadian government immediately, forcefully and unequivocally press Israeli authorities, the Hamas de-facto administration and all other Palestinian armed groups to stop all unlawful attacks and to comply fully with their obligations under international humanitarian law.

Read the full letter

UN Security Council must not fail civilians caught in Gaza conflict

Keith Rimstad — 2009-01-06T20:39:59+01:00

5 January 2009

Amnesty International today urged the UN Security Council to take firm and decisive action to address the increasingly grave situation in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel.

“Civilian casualties and destruction in Gaza are on an unprecedented scale. The UN Security Council must not remain silent. The Council can and must act and it should do so without further delay,” said Malcolm Smart, Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Program.

There are growing concerns about the safety of the civilian populations in the area, particularly the 1.5 million Palestinians who are trapped in the Gaza Strip and facing a spiralling humanitarian crisis amid continuing Israeli attacks and after many months of blockade.

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Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories: Immediate access to humanitarian workers and observers

Keith Rimstad — 2009-01-06T20:34:04+01:00

31 December 2008

As the number of casualties continues to mount, civilians in Gaza are in increasingly dire need of food, medical and other emergency assistance, Amnesty International said today.

International humanitarian and human rights workers, as well as journalists, have not been allowed into Gaza by the Israeli army since the beginning of November, with the exception of a few journalists who were allowed in for a couple of days earlier in December.

“Humanitarian workers, journalists and human rights monitors are urgently needed to assess needs, report violations and publicise the reality of the situation on the ground,” said Amnesty International.

Read the full news release

Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories: End unlawful attack and meet Gaza' emergency needs

Keith Rimstad — 2009-01-06T20:28:57+01:00

12/29/2008

Palestinian civilians remain at risk of being killed or injured in the Israeli air strikes and are increasingly lacking adequate medical care food, medicines, electricity, water and other necessities, Amnesty International said today after three days of the Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip in which more than 300 Palestinians have been killed.

“The horrific death toll risks growing due to the unavailability of adequate medical care for the hundreds of injured. The health sector in Gaza lacks equipment, medicine and expertise at the best of times and has been further depleted due to the prolonged Israeli blockade. It is now completely overwhelmed and unable to cope with the large number of casualties,” said Amnesty International

Read the full statement

Emergency court jails 22 in Egypt

Hilary Homes — 2008-12-16T18:15:33+01:00

Twenty-two people were sentenced on Monday by an emergency court in Egypt for their involvement in the violent protests of Mahalla, north of Cairo, in April 2008. The Emergency Supreme State Security Court (ESSSC), which was established under emergency law, flouts basic guarantees for a fair trial and denies defendants the right to appeal.

Monday’s prison sentences, which ranged from three to five years, are the first to be pronounced by the ESSSC since Egypt renewed the state of emergency in May 2008, invoking the threats of terrorism and instability in the region.

Read AI's Statement

Egypt: Interview with Egyptian Human Rights Defender Ahmad Seif el-Islam

Hilary Homes — 2008-12-16T17:44:22+01:00

In a recent interview with Amnesty International, Ahmad Seif el-Islam celebrates the 60th anniversary of the universal Declaration on Human Rights. He considers the role played by human rights defenders and compares attitudes now with those of the 1980s. His motivation and proudest accomplishments are also described.

Read the transcript

Saudi Arabia: young domestic worker sentenced to death

Hilary Homes — 2008-11-09T15:42:46+01:00

Rizana Nafeek, a migrant domestic worker from Sri Lanka, was arrested in May 2005 by the Saudi Arabian authorities and charged with murdering an infant in her care. She was convicted and sentenced to death in June 2007. An appeal is now underway.

Rizana Nafeek had no access to lawyers either during interrogation or at the trial. It is believed that she confessed to the murder during police questioning, but later retracted the confession. She may have been under the age of 18 at the time of her arrest.

If the sentence is upheld, she could be at imminent risk of execution.

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Israel/Palestine: Youth Held in Administrative Detention

Hilary Homes — 2008-10-06T21:28:05+01:00

Obeida ‘Assida, a seventeen year old Palestinian, was arrested by the Israeli army on May 23, 2007 at his home in Tell village, near the West Bank city of Nablus. He has been held under a series of "administrative detention” orders, without charge or trial ever since. He has been allowed only one visit from his parents, and has been prevented from completing his last two years of high school. Amnesty International is calling for Obeida 'Assida to be released from prison, unless he is to be charged with a recognizable criminal offence.

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Egypt: Deadly journeys through the desert

Hilary Homes — 2008-08-21T18:11:16+01:00

"Here it is like war for us and back home it is war also, there is no difference....We fled from death but death is after us; we don't know what is happening to our relatives back home in camps for the displaced. Staying there would have been better than what happened to us”

A Sudanese refugee from the Darfur region who attempted to cross the border of Egypt with Israel and served a one year prison sentence in Egypt

Since mid-2007, hundreds of refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants most of them from countries in sub-Saharan Africa have risked their lives trying to cross the Egyptian border into Israel. The Egyptian border guards usually fire warning shots into the air and order them to stop. Those who do not comply often end up paying with their lives.

At least 25 people have been shot and killed – 19 men, five women and a seven-year-old girl – trying to cross the Egyptian border into Israel since mid-2007. Other refugees, asylum seekers and migrants have been forcibly returned to possible torture. In June 2008, up to 1,200 Eritrean nationals were forcibly returned from Egypt to their country in disregard of international standards, where they face the risk of torture and other serious human rights violations.

Read AI's Public Statement | Read AI's briefing Egypt: Deadly journeys through the desert Take Action

Egypt: No justice for 49 facing trial before emergency court

Hilary Homes — 2008-08-20T14:55:55+01:00

On the eve of the trial of 49 people for alleged involvement in violent protest, Amnesty International called on the Egyptian authorities to stop trying individuals before special emergency courts that flout basic guarantees for fair trial. The organization also urges the authorities to open immediately a thorough, independent and impartial investigation into the defendants' allegations of torture.

Forty-nine individuals accused of taking part in violent protests, including nine workers and other craftsmen, were scheduled to stand trial before the (Emergency) Supreme State Security Court in Nile delta city of Tanta, north of Cairo, on 9 August 2008. They are being tried on account of a range of charges, including assembly of more than five people with the aim of disturbing public order and security, deliberate destruction of public and private property, ransacking and theft, violent resistance and assault on police officers during their duties and illegal possession of firearms. Five of them believed to be on the run will be tried in their absence. They face up to 15 years’ imprisonment, if convicted.

Read AI's Public Statement on the Trial

Trapped � collective punishment in Gaza

Keith Rimstad — 2008-08-19T19:38:41+01:00

Published 12 August 2008

"The Israeli siege has turned Gaza into a big prison. We cannot leave, not even for medical care or to study abroad, and most of what we need is not available in Gaza. We are not living really; we are barely surviving and the outlook for the future is bleak." – Fathi, a Gaza resident

The blockade imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip over a year ago has left the entire population of 1.5 million Palestinians trapped with dwindling resources and an economy in ruins. Some 80 per cent of the population now depend on the trickle of international aid that the Israeli army allows in. This humanitarian crisis is man-made and entirely avoidable.

Iran: Announcement of suspension of stoning a welcome step if carried out

Keith Rimstad — 2008-08-19T19:25:05+01:00

News Release published August 6, 2008

Amnesty International welcomed the announcement by the spokesperson for Iran’s judiciary that execution by stoning has been suspended, as a result of which several women have had their sentences commuted.

“Stoning is a horrific practice, designed to increase the suffering of those facing execution, and it has no place in the modern world,” Amnesty International said. “We look to the Iranian authorities to ensure that this dreadful punishment is never again used.”

News Release

Egypt: Arrested for suspected HIV status

Hilary Homes — 2008-08-14T19:00:57+01:00

Since October 2007, Egyptian police have launched a series of arrests in Cairo of people they suspect are HIV-positive. The police crackdown began when one man, stopped in the street during an altercation, told officers he was HIV-positive. Police arrested him and the man he was with, beat and abused them, and began picking up others whose names or contact information they obtained through interrogating the two men. Twelve men were eventually arrested.

In January 2008, four of the men were sentenced to one year in prison. In April 2008, five more men received three year sentences plus a fine of 300 Egyptian pounds (CND $55). All of the sentences were upheld on appeal. The remaining three men were released in March 2008 after the charges against them were dropped.

Amnesty International considers the men to be prisoners of conscience detained solely because of their presumed identity.

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Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories: Mandate of OPT Special Rapporteur

Susanne Ure — 2008-08-07T16:52:54+01:00

News Release published 11 July 2008

Amnesty International has written to the President and Members of the UN Human Rights Council urging them to schedule a discussion to review of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. UN General Assembly resolution 60/251 and Human Rights Council resolution 5/1 both call for the review, and where necessary, improvement and rationalization, of all Special Procedure mandates inherited from the Commission on Human Rights.

Amnesty International believes that the review, rationalisation and improvement is necessary to improve protection for victims of violations of human rights and humanitarian law and accountability for all perpetrators, in accordance with international human rights and humanitarian law.

News Release

Iran: One Year On - Mansour Ossanlu Still Jailed, Workers Still Oppressed

Susanne Ure — 2008-08-07T16:49:40+01:00

News Release published 11 July 2008

Exactly a year ago today, Mansour Ossanlu (also Osanloo), president of the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) affiliated Vahed Syndicate - the Tehran Bus Workers’ Union – was brutally removed from a bus near his home in Tehran by unidentified security personnel. This happened only three weeks after his attendance at international union meetings organised by the ITF and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) in London and Brussels.

Worldwide condemnation led by trade unions and human rights activists, together with Iranian community groups, against the Iranian government for their blatant abuse of workers' rights was strong and immediate. This international protest grew substantially over the months to culminate in a global action day on 6 March 2008. More protests continue to this day.

News Release

Iran: First public executions since January 2008 ban are a retrograde step

Susanne Ure — 2008-08-07T16:47:27+01:00

News Release published 11 July 2008

Amnesty International today deplored the first public executions to be reported in Iran since the Head of the Judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi-Shahroudi banned such executions on 30 January 2008. It also expressed great concerns about the new draft Penal Code and other measures which seek to expand the number of crimes which carry the death penalty. It called on the Iranian authorities to uphold the ban on public executions and to take concrete steps to work towards the abolition of the death penalty, instead of increasing the number of crimes punishable by death.

The ban on public executions seemed to mark the recognition on the part of Ayatollah Shahroudi that carrying out executions in public adds to the already cruel, inhuman and degrading nature of the penalty and can only have a dehumanizing effect on the victim and a brutalizing effect on those who witness the execution. It is therefore extremely disappointing that permission was granted for these executions to take place in public, and for pictures to be circulated by news agencies despite the express instruction by Ayatollah Shahroudi that images depicting execution victims should not be published in the media.

News Release

Iraq: World Governments misleading and failing Iraqi Refugees

Susanne Ure — 2008-08-07T16:45:01+01:00

News Release published 18 June 2008

The international community is evading its responsibility towards refugees from Iraq by promoting a false picture of the security situation in Iraq when the country is neither safe nor suitable for return, Amnesty International said today.

In its new report, Rhetoric and reality: the Iraqi refugee crisis, which is based on recent research and interviews with Iraqi refugees, the organization said that the world's richest states are failing to provide the necessary assistance to Iraqi refugees, most of whom are plunged in despair and hurtling towards destitution.

"Governments have done little or nothing to help Iraqi refugees, failing in their moral, political and legal duty to share responsibility for them," said Amnesty International. "Instead, apathy and rhetoric have been the overwhelming response to one of the worst refugee crises in the world."

News Release

Iran: Reprieve should be first step in ending juvenile executions

Susanne Ure — 2008-08-07T16:42:14+01:00

News Release published 11 June 2008

The one-month reprieve of two juvenile offenders who were due to be executed today should be the first step towards putting an end to the obscene practice of juvenile executions, Amnesty International said on Wednesday.

“We call on Iran to end, once and for all, such executions, including those of at least 85 other juvenile offenders on death row,” said Amnesty International. “These juveniles should not have been sentenced to death in the first place, when Iran has given its word by signing international treaties banning executions of children.”

News Release

Lebanon: Leaders must prevent human rights abuses

Susanne Ure — 2008-08-07T14:52:17+01:00

News Release published 13 May 2008

All political leaders in Lebanon must clearly instruct their supporters to fully respect human rights and to refrain from recklessly carrying out attacks in heavily-populated areas that endanger civilians uninvolved in the clashes, Amnesty International said today.

"They must also ensure that any person within their custody is treated humanely and is not subjected to torture or other ill-treatment."

Amnesty International called on the Lebanese authorities to ensure proper investigations into the killing and any other abuses of those not involved in the armed clashes that broke out last week between members of pro- and anti-government armed groups.

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Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories: Amnesty International calls for independent investigation

Susanne Ure — 2008-08-07T14:48:28+01:00

News Release issued 29 April 2008

Amnesty International is again calling on the Israeli government to end reckless attacks by its forces on populated areas and to order an immediate, independent investigation into yesterday's strikes in Gaza which killed six Palestinians, including four children under five and their mother. An investigation by the Israeli army, as offered by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, will not meet international standards as a thorough, independent and impartial investigation.

The attack on 28 April appears to have been carried out with reckless disregard for the lives of local residents, including children, uninvolved in hostilities between Palestinian militants and Israeli forces. It was the latest in a pattern of such attacks, which are unacceptable. So far this year, some 335 Palestinians have been killed in attacks by Israeli forces. Most were killed in Gaza and more than half of them were unarmed civilians taking no part in hostilities and offering no threat to Israelis. In the same period, 23 Israelis, including 14 civilians, were killed in attacks by Palestinian armed groups.

Amnesty International is also calling on Palestinian armed groups to cease launching attacks from populated areas and against Israeli civilians.

News Release

Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories: Full investigation needed into Israeli army killing

Susanne Ure — 2008-08-07T14:45:33+01:00

News Release published 17 April 2008

The Israeli government should immediately order a full and independent investigation into yesterday’s killings of Palestinian civilians by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip, Amnesty International said today.

“Yesterday’s strikes, which the Israeli army launched after the killing of its soldiers in combat, appear to have been carried out with disregard for civilian life,” said Amnesty International. “There seems to be a culture of impunity within the Israeli forces which is contributing to routine use of reckless and disproportionate force.”

At least 18 Palestinians, including children and other unarmed civilians,were killed. More than 30 others were injured in attacks by Israeli planes and by ground forces using tanks in the Gaza Strip yesterday. Three Israeli soldiers were killed in confrontation with Palestinian militants during an Israeli army attack within the Gaza Strip.

News Release

Death sentences and executions in 2007

Susanne Ure — 2008-08-07T14:39:34+01:00

Report published 15 April 2008

These documents detail the countries and territories that carried out executions, and the countries and territories that imposed death sentences, in 2007. During 2007, at least 1,252 people were executed in 24 countries. At least 3,347 people were sentenced to death in 51 countries. These were only minimum figures; the true figures were certainly higher. In 2007, 88 per cent of all known executions took place in five countries: China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the USA.

Report | Facts and Statistics

Egypt: Sentences against Muslim Brothers a perversion of justice

Susanne Ure — 2008-08-07T14:33:51+01:00

News Release published 15 April 2008

“The prison sentences handed down by an Egyptian military court against 25 members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood are a perversion of justice,” Amnesty International said today.

“This trial appeared to be politically motivated from the start, when President Mubarak sent the defendants for trial before a military court despite an earlier civilian court ruling that some of them should be released,” said Amnesty International. “Today’s sentences leave little doubt that the Egyptian authorities are determined to undermine what has become the main opposition group in the country.”

The military court in Haikstip, northern Cairo, handed down prison sentences of up to 10 years against 25 defendants, including seven who are not in custody and who were tried in absentia. Fifteen other defendants were acquitted and are yet to be released. Khairat al-Shatir, the third highest ranking Muslim Brotherhood leader, and Hassan Malek, received seven years’ imprisonment. Sixteen others received prison sentences ranging from three to five years. Five of those who were tried in absentia received 10 year prison terms, while the other two received a sentence of five years each.

News Release

Egypt: 117 NGOs slam HIV-based arrested and trials

Susanne Ure — 2008-08-07T14:30:53+01:00

News Release published 7 April 2008

As five more men face trial in Cairo on April 9 in a widening and dangerous police crackdown on people living with HIV/AIDS, 117 organizations worldwide working in the fields of health and human rights condemned the crackdown and the participation of medical personnel.

In a letter to the Health Ministry and the Egyptian Doctors’ Syndicate, the groups, led by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, said that doctors who helped interrogate men jailed on suspicion of being HIV-positive violated their own medical ethics, and their conduct led to a breach of trust in a privileged relationship.

“Doctors must put patients first, not join a witch-hunt driven by
prejudice,” said Joe Amon, director of the HIV/AIDS program at Human Rights Watch. “Now more than 100 human rights groups are reminding Egyptian doctors of the oath they took to respect patients’ privacy, autonomy, and consent. This is one of the oldest traditions of medical responsibility, as well as an obligation under human rights law.”

News Release

Egypt: Newspaper editor�s prosecution part of a �pattern of harassment� of Egyptian media

Susanne Ure — 2008-08-07T14:22:29+01:00

News Release published 27 March 2008

Ibrahim Eissa was charged under Articles 171 and 188 of the Penal Code for publishing in 2007 information considered by the authorities to be damaging to the public interest and Egypt’s national stability. This was a report suggesting that the health of 79-year-old President Mubarak was deteriorating. The authorities contended that the article caused foreign investors to withdraw investments worth some 350 million US dollars damaging the economy. Eissa can appeal yesterday's court decision.

"This prosecution forms part of a wider pattern of the Egyptian authorities using criminal defamation and other charges to chill media expression and reporting on issues considered by the authorities as red lines, but which are, in reality, issues of clear public interest," said Amnesty International. "It underlines the need for the government to amend the controversial press law and all other provisions in the Penal Code that criminalise legitimate reporting.”

News Release

Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories: Israeli army denying cancer patient vital treatment

Susanne Ure — 2008-08-07T14:20:16+01:00

News Release published 26 March 2008

The Israeli army must allow chronically ill cancer patient Karima Abu Dalal to leave the Gaza Strip and obtain desperately needed medical care in Israel, Amnesty International said today.

“Karima Abu Dalal's life now hangs in the balance because of the Israeli army's failure to allow her a permit to leave Gaza to obtain specialist cancer treatment not available there," said Amnesty International. "The Israeli authorities should immediately allow her to access the treatment she needs."

More than 40 people are reported to have died in the Gaza Strip in recent months because they were refused passage out of the area in order to obtain urgent medical treatment that could not be provided to them there.

News Release

Iraq: Protection of civilians is paramount

Susanne Ure — 2008-08-07T14:15:15+01:00

News Release published 25 March 2008

Heavy fighting between Iraqi government forces and armed militia in Basra and other Iraqi cities is creating a grave risk to civilians, Amnesty International said today, as it urged all parties to refrain from indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks and to respect civilian life.

"Civilians have borne the heaviest brunt during the past five years of conflict in Iraq," said Amnesty International. “This new upsurge of fighting is certain to add to that terrible toll."

[more]Fighting erupted on Tuesday 25 March in Basra between Iraqi forces and members of the Mahdi Army, followers of Shi'a Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. According to press reports, at least 12 people were killed in the city. It is not known at this stage if civilians were among them. As fighting spread, curfews were imposed by the Iraqi authorities in Basra and other southern cities, including al-Nassirya, Kut, al-Hilla and Samawa.

The Mahdi Army declared a cease fire at the end of August 2007 and announced at the end of February 2008 that it was being renewed for a further six months. It has been vying with other Shi’a militia groups for political control of Basra and there have been frequent armed clashes between the Mahdi Army and the Badr Organization, armed wing of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council. The latest fighting appears to have broken out in response to an attempt by Iraqi security forces to clamp down on the armed militias.

Amnesty International is calling on the Iraqi government to ensure that its security forces comply with Iraq’s obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law, and in particular to ensure that the civilian population and civilian objects are protected at all time.

Amnesty International is also calling on armed groups in Basra and other cities to comply with the rules of international law and to respect civilian life.

Carnage and Despair: Iraq Five Years On

Susanne Ure — 2008-08-07T14:08:12+01:00

Report published 17 March 2008

Five years after the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussain, Iraq is one of the most dangerous countries in the world. Hundreds of people are being killed every month in the pervasive violence, while countless lives are threatened every day by poverty, cuts to power and water supplies, food and medical shortages, and rising violence against women and girls. Sectarian hatred has torn apart families and neighbourhoods that once lived together in harmony.

Despite the heavy US and Iraqi military and police presence, law and order remain a distant prospect. The US-led Multinational Force (MNF) and the Iraqi government formed from political parties that gained from or emerged out of the 2003 invasion have failed to institute the rule of law, uphold human rights, bring peace and security, or end impunity.

Report

Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories : Amnesty condemns killings of Israeli civilians

Susanne Ure — 2008-08-06T21:49:00+01:00

News Release published 7 March 2008

Amnesty International today condemned the killing of eight Israeli civilians, four of them children, in a shooting attack by a Palestinian on a Yeshiva school in Jerusalem.

“We absolutely condemn this deliberate attack on Israeli civilians as a gross abuse of international humanitarian law,” said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International's Director for the Middle East and North Africa. “We demand that all armed groups immediately cease the targeting of civilians.”

News Release

Iran: Authorities must support, not suppress women human rights defenders

Susanne Ure — 2008-08-06T21:45:33+01:00

Report published 28 February 2008

The Iranian authorities should cease their harassment of women human rights defenders and take urgent steps to dismantle the discriminatory legislation they are seeking to change, Amnesty International said in a report published today.

“Instead of using its powers to repress and intimidate those who protest and demand their rights, Iran's government should address longstanding legal and other discrimination against women, who make up half of the country’s population,” said Malcolm Smart, director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International. “They must release imprisoned women’s rights defenders and stop detaining and harassing those peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly.”

Amnesty International’s new report comes as Ronak Safarzadeh and Hana Abdi - two Kurdish Iranian activists - continue to be detained without charge or trial, or even access to a lawyer. They were arrested in October and November 2007 for peacefully exercising their rights.

News Release | Report

Iran: Death by stoning, a grotesque and unacceptable penalty

Susanne Ure — 2008-08-06T21:42:56+01:00

Report published 15 January 2008

Execution by stoning, a punishment prescribed in Iran’s Penal Code, is a particularly grotesque and horrific practice. Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all circumstances and believes that stoning is specifically designed to increase the suffering of victims. Iranian law prescribes that the stones are deliberately chosen to be large enough to cause pain, but not so large as to kill the victim immediately. It is a punishment meted out specifically for adultery by married men and women, an act that is not even a crime in most countries of the world, and the majority of those sentenced to death by stoning are women.

News Release | Report

Occupied Palestinian Territories: Torn apart by factional strife

Susanne Ure — 2008-08-06T21:29:31+01:00

Report published 24 October 2007

The 57-page report, Occupied Palestinian Territories: Torn apart by factional strife, accuses Hamas of resorting increasingly to arbitrary detentions and torture since it took power in June 2007 in the Gaza Strip, and of allowing its forces to attack and assault peaceful demonstrators as well as journalists reporting on their protests. In the West Bank, the report blames security forces loyal to Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas of arbitrarily detaining hundreds of Hamas supporters but of failing to take action against Fatah militants responsible for abductions, arson and other attacks.

Report

Lebanon: End discrimination against Palestinian refugees

Susanne Ure — 2008-08-06T21:25:55+01:00

Report published 17 October 2007

Exiled and Suffering: Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, examines the wide range of restrictions that continue to impact on the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees, 60 years after they or their parents or grandparents fled to Lebanon during the events surrounding the creation of the state of Israel and the Arab-Israeli war of 1948.

"We urge the Lebanese government to take immediate measures to eliminate all forms of discrimination against Palestinian refugees in order to enable them to exercise their economic, social and cultural rights on the same basis as the rest of the population of Lebanon," said Amnesty International. "The continuing restrictions which deny Palestinian refugees access to their rights to work, education and adequate housing and health are wholly unjustified and should be lifted without further procrastination or delay.""

More than half of the 300,000 Palestinian refugees who reside in Lebanon live in 12 official Palestinian refugee camps. The area of land allocated for these camps has remained largely unchanged since 1948 despite significant population growth. In some households, families of 10 share a single room. They continue to be denied the right to adequate housing, due to unacceptable levels of habitability, restrictions on property ownership and, in camps in the south of Lebanon, unreasonable restrictions which have been imposed on their right to repair or improve their homes. Amnesty International has documented cases of Palestinian refugees being intimidated, fined and detained simply for seeking to build a brick wall to protect their home from the elements.

Report

Iraq: human rights abuses against Palestinian refugees

Susanne Ure — 2008-08-06T21:23:43+01:00

Report published 1 October 2007

This report examines the precarious situation of Palestinian refugees in Iraq. It includes a historical background of this refugee community, descriptions of the serious human rights abuses being committed against them, the appalling conditions in the camps near the Iraq/Syria border, particularly al-Waleed and al-Tanf camps, and Amnesty International’s recommendations for protecting Palestinian refugees.

Report

Iran: The last executioner of children

Susanne Ure — 2008-08-06T21:20:38+01:00

Report published 27 June 2007

Iran has the shameful status of being the world’s last official executioner of child offenders – people convicted of crimes committed when they were under the age of 18. It also holds the macabre distinction of having executed more child offenders than any other country in the world since 1990.

Although executions of child offenders are few compared to the total number of executions in Iran, they highlight the government’s disregard for its commitments and obligations under international law, which prohibits in all circumstances the use of the death penalty for child offenders. The executions also gravely undermine the particular obligation that all states have relating to the protection of children – one of the most vulnerable groups in society.

Amnesty International is calling on Iran's judicial and political authorities to order an immediate moratorium to prevent further executions of child offenders and to amend the laws so no children who commit crimes can be sentenced to death.

Report

Egypt � Systematic abuses in the name of security

Susanne Ure — 2008-08-06T21:16:34+01:00

Report published 11 April 2007

This report is based on research conducted in Egypt and elsewhere, interviews with victims of human rights violations and their relatives, and communications with government officials. It is published at a time of increased repression of the opposition and free speech in Egypt, and when the authorities are considering new anti-terrorism legislation that threatens to entrench patterns of abuse witnessed in the past 40 years.

Torture and other ill-treatment, arbitrary arrests and detention, and grossly unfair trials before emergency and military courts have all been key features of Egypt’s 40-year state of emergency and counter-terrorism campaign. In March 2007 members of parliament were asked to approve amendments to 34 articles of the Constitution proposed by President Mubarak in December 2006 and thereby to write into permanent law emergency-style powers that had led to serious human rights violations for decades. The amendments were approved.

Amnesty International fears that the constitutional amendments and the planned anti-terrorism law will be used to further stifle peaceful political dissent, as well as cement patterns of serious abuses by security forces. This report ends with a list of detailed recommendations.

Report