Homophobic law to enter into force in Lithuania
A new law restricting the distribution of public information relating to the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people enters into force next week.
Amnesty International has called on the authorities of Lithuania to remove all restrictions on the distribution of public information relating to the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people decreed in a new law.
The controversial “Law on the Protection of Minors against the Detrimental Effect of Public Information” enters into force next Monday, 1 March.
“This law will violate the freedom of expression and will directly discriminate against people on account of their sexual orientation or gender identity,” said John Dalhuisen, expert on discrimination at Amnesty International.
“It will stigmatize gay and lesbian people and exposes advocates for their rights to the risk of censorship and financial penalties.”
“This law is an anachronism in the European Union.”
The law, as originally adopted on 14 July 2009, was criticized by Amnesty International and other international organizations, including the European Parliament, for containing homophobic and discriminatory provisions.
In its original version the law prohibited the publication of “information which agitates for homosexual, bisexual and polygamous relations” in places, including schools, public spaces and media which are accessible to persons under 18 years of age.
In the light of international criticism and the misgivings of the Lithuanian President, the law was amended on 28 December 2010. All direct references to the promotion of homosexuality have been removed.
However, the amended law now classifies any information which “denigrates family values” or which “encourages a concept of marriage and family other than stipulated in the Constitution … and the Civil Code of the Republic of Lithuania” as detrimental to children and consequently bans it from places accessible to them.
As marriage is defined in Lithuanian law as the union of a man and a woman, any public promotion of same-sex partnerships, or advocacy for equality in marriage, would be prohibited under the new law.
“The Lithuanian authorities must not implement the law which discriminates against gay and lesbian people and restricts their freedom of expression,” John Dalhuisen said.
Cuban human rights activist in maximum security prison must be released
Amnesty International has adopted its 55th prisoner of conscience in Cuba and urged President Raúl Castro to release him immediately and unconditionally.
Amnesty International has adopted its 55th prisoner of conscience in Cuba and urged President Raúl Castro to release him immediately and unconditionally.
Darsi Ferrer, Director of the ‘Juan Bruno Zayas’ Health and Human Rights Centre in Havana, has been detained since July 2009 on spurious charges of receiving illegally obtained goods, an offence usually immediately bailed.
He has not been brought to trial and he’s being held in a maximum security prison in Havana intended for inmates who have been convicted of violent crimes.
“The accusation against Darsi Ferrer is clearly a pretext. We believe he was detained as a punishment for his work to promote freedom of expression in Cuba,” said Gerardo Ducos, Cuba researcher at Amnesty International.
Although the offence with which Darsi Ferrer is charged would normally be reviewed by a local magistrate, his case is being handled by the General Prosecutors Office, fuelling the argument that this case is politically motivated. The activist has been detained many times before in connection with his protest activities.
“Anyone charged with this crime would normally be awaiting trial on bail, not held in a maximum security prison. This is yet another attempt by the Cuban authorities to hinder the work of human rights activist in Cuba,” said Gerardo Ducos.
On Monday, Amnesty International’s prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo died after reportedly being on hunger strike for several weeks in protest at prison conditions. He was arrested in March 2003 and was serving a total sentence of 36 years.
Darsi Ferrer and his wife Yusnaimy were arrested without a valid warrant in Havana on 9 July 2009, hours before they were due to participate in a demonstration to promote freedom of expression.
They were interrogated for several hours and Darsi Ferrer was handcuffed and beaten by eight police officers. They were released without charge several hours later.
On 21 July 2009 Darsi Ferrer was arrested again and told he was being taken to a police station to answer questions about building materials the police had confiscated during their previous detention. However, he was falsely detained, driven to a maximum security prison on the outskirts of Havana and charged with receiving illegally obtained goods.
Darsi Ferrer claims the building materials, two sacks of cement and some iron girders, were given to him by a colleague who had left the country and had not finished refurbishing his own house. The materials had been on the porch of the house in full view from the street months before the authorities came to confiscate them.
Death of Cuban prisoner of conscience on hunger strike must herald change (News, 24 February 2010)
UK: ‘Fast Track’ Asylum System Fails Women
Lebanon: Free Foreign Prisoners When Sentences End
(Beirut) – Lebanon should release migrants and refugees who remain in detention despite having finished their sentences, a group of 14 Lebanese and international human rights organizations said yesterday in a letter to top officials.
Violence and xenophobia on the rise in Côte d’Ivoire election campaign
Unrest across the country is linked to calls from supporters of President Gbagbo, for tens of thousands of “foreigners” to be excluded from the electoral roll.
Amnesty International said it is concerned at the resurgence of electoral violence and xenophobia in Côte d’Ivoire, as supporters of the country’s president call for tens of thousands of “foreigners” to be excluded from the electoral roll.
Opposition parties have denounced calls by supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo to exclude people suspected of being foreign nationals because they bear Muslim family names.
President Gbagbo’s supporters meanwhile have condemned what they say are fraudulent attempts to add to the electoral roll over 400,000 people whose nationality has not been verified.
“It is essential to put an end to this xenophobic discourse,” said Véronique Aubert, deputy director of Amnesty International’s Africa programme. “It is incumbent on the Head of State to clearly indicate that this incitement to hatred, denounced time and time again by the United Nations, will not be tolerated.”
The presidential election is to take place this year after being postponed five times since 2005. It is hoped this will put an end to the crisis that began with the September 2002 armed uprising which split the country in two.
The current wave of violence across the country is linked to the disputes over the electoral roll, with thousands of demonstrators taking to the streets.
The security forces have repressed several demonstrations, particularly in the town of Gagnoa (in the centre-west of the country), where at least five demonstrators were shot dead on 19 February.
On 3 February, several thousand protesters took part in marches in the town of Divo, 200km from the economic capital city Abidjan, in an attempt to prevent judges removing them from the electoral roll.
The security forces opened fire on the demonstrators to disperse them, leaving eight wounded, including several with bullet wounds.
Suspicions of fraudulent attempts to add names to the electoral roll, led President Gbagbo to dissolve the Independent Electoral Commission and the government on 12 February.
Some opposition parties then called on their supporters to “oppose the Laurent Gbagbo dictatorship by every means possible”. This led to violence and vandalism against premises and goods belonging to the Front Populaire Ivoirien (FPI), Ivorian Popular Front, the Head of State’s political party.
“All the ingredients that led to serious human rights violations in the past are present once again,” said Véronique Aubert.
“With none of the main Ivorian political actors showing any sign of wanting to avoid a deterioration in the situation, it is incumbent on the international community, especially the United Nations and the mediator in the Ivorian crisis, Blaise Compaoré, president of Burkina Faso, to put pressure on all Ivorian politicians to prioritize respect for human rights.”
The crisis that began with the September 2002 armed uprising, resulted in the de facto partition of the country between the south, controlled by supporters of President Gbagbo and the north, in the hands of the Forces Nouvelles (New Forces) the movement that came out of the armed uprising.
Under pressure from the international community, especially the United Nations and its mediator in the Ivorian crisis, Blaise Compaoré, president of Burkina Faso, an Independent Electoral Commission was created and began to prepare the electoral roll.
After he dissolved the Independent Electoral Commission and the government on 12 February, President Gbagbo reappointed his prime minister, Guillaume Soro, general secretary of the Forces Nouvelles, and asked him to form a government.
Prime Minister Soro announced a new government on Tuesday including main opposition parties and said that a new electoral commission would be installed but so far no consensus has been reached on these two issues.
Iran: End Persecution of Baha’is
(New York) – The Iranian government should immediately stop harassing and arbitrarily detaining members of the Baha’i community, Human Rights Watch said today.
Egypt: Open All Judicial Positions to Women
(Beirut) – The Egyptian government should act to end discrimination against women in judicial positions in all courts, Human Rights Watch said today. The Supreme Judicial Council on February 22, 2010, overruled a vote taken on February 15 by an administrative court, known as the Council of State, to bar women from its judicial positions.
South Korea death penalty abolition set back by Constitutional Court ruling
In a five to four ruling, the Court stated that capital punishment did not violate “human dignity and worth” protected in the Constitution.
Amnesty International said it was deeply disappointed by the South Korean Constitutional Court’s decision to uphold the death penalty on Thursday.
In a five to four ruling, the Constitutional Court stated that capital punishment did not violate “human dignity and worth” protected in the Constitution.
“This is a major setback for South Korea and runs counter to the current abolitionist trend in the country, which has not executed in over a decade,” said Roseann Rife, Asia-Pacific Deputy Programme Director at Amnesty International.
Amnesty International considers South Korea to be abolitionist in practice, as it has not carried out any executions since President Kim Dae-jung took office in February 1998. President Kim himself had previously been sentenced to death in 1980. However, death sentences are still handed down with currently 57 people remaining on death row.
Increasingly countries are moving away from using the death penalty as the ultimate punishment. More than 70 per cent of countries have a moratorium on executions or have abolished capital punishment.
“Despite this ruling, we call on the South Korean government to retain the country’s abolitionist position and urge them to fully abolish this practice in the law. Any move backwards on this issue is extremely damaging to South Korea’s international reputation. An economic leader, the country also should lead by example by fully respecting every individual’s right to life,” said Roseann Rife.
Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases, as a violation of the right to life and the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. The death penalty is irrevocable, and there is always the risk that an innocent person will be executed.
Furthermore, the death penalty is inherently arbitrary and discriminates against those who are poor, marginalized or belong to minority communities.
The Constitutional Court of Korea was established in September 1988 and its functions include deciding on the constitutionality of laws, ruling on competence disputes between governmental entities, adjudicating constitutional complaints filed by individuals, giving final decisions on impeachments, and making judgments on dissolution of political parties.
World is ‘winning’ battle against death penalty despite setbacks (News, 25 February 2010)
World is ‘winning’ battle against death penalty despite setbacks
Speaking at an anti-death penalty summit in Geneva, Amnesty International’s interim Secretary General Claudio Cordone hailed global efforts but said more needs to be done.
Amnesty International’s interim Secretary General has hailed recent global efforts to end the death penalty but warned that more needs to be done to achieve the goal of full abolition.
Claudio Cordone told delegates at an anti-death penalty summit in Geneva that campaigners were “winning” the fight against capital punishment.
“The day is coming when we can see an end to the death penalty worldwide. We must push on to consign the death penalty to join apartheid, slavery and torture as embarrassments to human history,” Cordone told members of the 4th World Coalition Against the Death Penalty on Wednesday.
In 2009, for the first time in modern history, the whole of Europe was execution-free. Burundi and Togo became the 94th and 95th countries worldwide to entirely remove state killings from their law, while several other nations reduced – or stopped – executions.
Among them was Pakistan, which carried out no executions in 2009 compared to at least 36 killings the year before.
Other countries who did not execute in 2009 include Indonesia, India, Mongolia, Algeria, Bahrain, Morocco, Tunisia, Lebanon and Jordan.
However, the progress was tempered by the use of executions for political purposes in Iran. China and Saudi Arabia also continued to carry out frequent executions, while Saudi Arabia and Iran continued to execute child offenders.
“We don’t know exactly how many thousands of people are being executed in China, it’s still a shameful state secret,” said Cordone. “while in the USA we still see grotesque incidents such as the botched execution of a man who after two hours of failed attempts to kill him obtained a reprieve, now awaits a new date for his death.
“Those countries which persist in pursuing such an obscene punishment are steadily isolating themselves from the international community, becoming a hard core that we need to challenge with increased assertiveness,” said Cordone, welcoming the cooperation between civil society, governments and intern-governmental organizations in the fight to rid the world of the death penalty.
More than 1900 activists from over 100 countries were expected to gather at the World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Geneva on 24, 25, 26 February.
Zimbabwean union leader in hiding after police raid
Gertrude Hambira fled after five men and one women who identified themselves as officers from the Criminal Investigation Department raided her office.
Amnesty International has called on the government of Zimbabwe to end harassment and intimidation of a union activist who is in hiding after police raided a union office in Harare on Wednesday.
Gertrude Hambira, Secretary General of the General Agricultural and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ), fled after five men and one women who identified themselves as officers from the CID (Criminal Investigation Department) raided the union’s head office at about 12:30pm, looking for her.
At the time of the raid Ms Hambira was out of the office. She is now in hiding and in fear for her safety.
Staff at the GAPWUZ head office have since received several phone calls asking for details of Ms Hambira’s whereabouts.
“The Zimbabwean police must immediately stop the harassment of human rights defenders including Gertrude Hambira,” said Veronique Aubert deputy director of Amnesty International’s Africa programme.
“There actions are the latest in a series of persistent human rights violations that have continued despite formation of the Government of National Unity (GNU) in February 2009.”
On Friday 19 February, Gertrude Hambira was called to a meeting at Police Headquarters in Harare with a panel of seventeen high ranking security officials from the Zimbabwe Republic Police, Army, Air force and the Central Intelligence Organisation.
Ms Hambira attended with two colleagues and a lawyer. She was subject to an interrogation about a recent documentary and report published by GAPWUZ which highlight the plight of farm workers in Zimbabwe.
During the interrogation the panel stated that the report and documentary contained very serious allegations for which Ms Hambira should be “behind bars”. Ms Hambira and her colleagues were eventually dismissed but the panel warned that they would call on her again.
Gertrude Hambira has previously been the victim of harassment and intimidation as a result of her work to defend human rights, most recently in November 2009 when armed men forced their way into her home. At the time of the attack Ms Hambira was not at home but members of her immediate family were left terrified.
Amnesty International on Wednesday again called on the GNU to halt on-going harassment of human rights defenders. Persecution of human rights defenders for their legitimate activities is a contravention of Article nine of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
Amnesty International has documented consistent politicised and partisan policing by members of the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP), in particular the Law and Order section, aimed at silencing the voices of human rights defenders.
GAPWUZ support the rights of farm workers in Zimbabwe, raising their plight at national and international levels. Since 2000 tens of thousands of farm workers have suffered violent attacks and have been displaced from commercial farms.
