Zimbabwe urged to allow debate on past human rights violations after police block art exhibitions
Artist Owen Maseko was arrested after participating in a show which depicted atrocities that took place in the Matabeleland region in the 1980s.
Amnesty International on Tuesday called on Zimbabwe’s Government to end repression of public debate on past and ongoing human rights violations, following the detention of a well known artist for work depicting atrocities committed in the 1980’s.
Owen Maseko was arrested on 26 March after participating in a show at the Bulawayo National Art Gallery, which depicted atrocities that took place in the Matabeleland region, known as Gukuruhundi, in western Zimbabwe during the 1980s where thousands of people were killed, mainly by state security agents.
The artist who faces charges of “undermining the authority of the President”, “inciting public violence” and “causing offence to people of a particular tribe, race, religion”, under the Public Order And Security Act (POSA), was released on bail on Tuesday and ordered to report to a police station every Friday.
“President Mugabe and Prime Minister Tsvangirai should demonstrate their commitment to end human rights violations in Zimbabwe by publicly condemning attempts by police to silence activists and all charges against Owen Maseko should be immediately and unconditionally withdrawn,” said Erwin van der Borght, Amnesty International’s Africa programme director.
“Arbitrary arrests, unlawful detentions and ongoing harassment and intimidation restrict the work of activists who are exercising their right to freedom of expression and contributing to the process of national healing as provided under the Global Political Agreement,” said Erwin van der Borght.
The Global Political Agreement signed by Zimbabwe’s three main political parties in September 2008, acknowledges the need for “national healing, cohesion and unity in respect of victims of pre and post independence political conflicts” as well as the need for creation of “an environment of tolerance and respect among Zimbabweans.”
Incessant harassment of human rights workers by Zimbabwean police has also forced two prominent human rights defenders, including a trade unionist, to leave Zimbabwe.
Okay Machisa, National Director of the Zimbabwe Human Rights Association (ZimRights), fled the country after being detained by police on 23 March for his role in coordinating an exhibition at The Delta Gallery in Harare that was cancelled due to repeated harassment by police.
Police confiscated at least 65 photographs from the show, some of which featured victims of political violence in Zimbabwe in 2008, but were forced to return them following a High Court ruling.
Amnesty International delegates witnessed police reappear at the gallery after the launch, leaving only when they failed to locate Okay Machisa who had by then gone in hiding.
Three truck loads of police reportedly later returned and some remained throughout the night, while another group of police attempted to break into the ZimRights office.
Another high-profile human rights worker, Gertrude Hambira, Secretary General of the General Agriculture and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ), was forced to go into hiding for the second time in six months, after police raided her office on 24 February.
Continuing harassment by police of GAPWUZ staff has forced the union activist to remain outside of the country.
“We are extremely concerned that in the space of months two prominent human rights defenders have been forced to leave the country after attempting to discuss past and on-going human rights violations,” said Erwin van der Borght.
“The recent police action against human rights defenders undermines the credibility of the unity government internationally and perpetuates the fear that past human rights violations may be repeated.”
ICC: Judges Approve Kenyan Investigation
(The Hague) – A majority of a pre-trial chamber of International Criminal Court (ICC) judges today approved the ICC prosecutor’s request to open an investigation into Kenya’s 2007 post-election violence, Human Rights Watch said. The Kenyan inquiry is the first investigation begun by the prosecutor acting on his own initiative.
Russia: Nothing Can Justify Moscow Metro Bombings
(Moscow) – The attacks on the Moscow metro this morning represent an assault on the fundamental principle of respect for civilian life, and those responsible for this crime need to be found and held accountable, Human Rights Watch said today.
Iran executions send a chilling message
Recent developments suggest that the authorities are once more using executions to quell political unrest, intimidate the population and send a signal that dissent will not be tolerated.
Recent developments in Iran have prompted fears that the Iranian authorities are once more using executions as a tool to try and quell political unrest, intimidate the population and send a signal that dissent will not be tolerated.
There was a noticeable surge in the rate of executions at the time of mass protests over last year’s disputed Presidential elections. Although many of the executions were for criminal offences committed before the unrest, they sent a chilling message to those involved in protests.
One hundred and twelve people were put to death in the eight weeks between the June election and the re-inauguration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in early August- almost a third of the total for the entire year.
In 2009 as a whole at least 388 people were put to death in Iran – the largest number recorded by Amnesty International in recent years. Figures collated by various human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, suggest the annual number of executions has almost quadrupled since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was first elected five years ago. Many of those executed did not receive fair trials.
“The continuing surge in executions at a time when Iran has experienced the most widespread popular unrest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, combined with numerous statements by officials threatening protestors with execution, indicates that the Iranian authorities are again using the death penalty to try and cow the opposition and silence dissent,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.
“SHOW TRIALS”
A series of “show trials” led to two men being hanged in January; the first executions which the authorities linked directly to the current unrest; although it later emerged that the pair were already in detention at the time of last June’s presidential election.
Among other things, they were convicted of “mohabareh”, or “enmity against God”. Nasrin Sotoudeh, lawyer for one of the men, Arash Rahmanipour, told Reuters “An execution with this speed and rush has only one explanation … the government is trying to prevent the expansion of the current (opposition) movement through the spread of fear and intimidation.”
An increasing number of people have been charged with “moharebeh”, a vaguely-defined offence. According to Philip Alston, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, it is “imposed for a wide range of crimes, often fairly ill-defined and generally having some sort of political nature.”
At least nine other people, sentenced to death following the popular demonstrations which began last summer and were continuing at the end of 2009, are believed to be on death row.
Recent comments by Tehran prosecutor Abbas Ja’fari Dowlatabadi served to fan suspicions that the sentences were politically motivated. Referring to the imposition of death sentences on a group of protesters, he said: “Today the Islamic system has firmly put its opponents and dissidents in their place. The people will not allow such incidents to reoccur in the country.”
EXECUTIONS UNDER PREVIOUS GOVERNMENTS
This is not the first time that Iran’s leaders have been accused of using summary executions or the death penalty as a tool of political control. Executions were used extensively under the Shah, and in the early days of the Islamic Republic as a way of eliminating political enemies and suppressing opposition.
In the 1970s, an increasingly unpopular Shah used the mass arrest of political opponents to eliminate political enemies and suppress opposition. At the time, Amnesty International criticized the Iranian authorities for what it described as the “extremely high number of executions” conducted after unfair trials by military tribunals.
In 1979, more than 600 people were summarily executed by firing squad in the months following the Islamic Revolution. Many were former ministers, officials or army officers under the Shah. Some were executed after grossly unfair trials lasting only a few minutes. By 1982, Amnesty International had recorded well over 4,000 executions since the time of the Revolution.
But the largest number of summary executions came in 1988. Up to 5,000 people – many of them political prisoners – are believed to have died in the so called “prison massacre” between 1988 and 1989, in what Amnesty International described at the time as a “purposeful mass killing of political opponents.” Many were members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, an opposition organization accused of collaborating with Saddam Hussain’s Iraq during the eight year Iran-Iraq war. But others were members of secular, left-wing political parties regarded as a threat to Iran’s Islamic system. In many cases, their “trials” consisted of a few questions put to them in their prison cells by members of what prisoners dubbed “The Death Commission”.
A REVIVAL OF THE DEATH PENALTY
The number of executions decreased in the 1990s. (Death sentences were handed down in the wake of student unrest in 1999, but were not implemented.) But they rose rapidly again after President Ahmadinejad was elected in 2005, pledging to improve public order, take action against “thugs and hooligans” and return Iran to the original values of the Islamic Revolution.
There was also a rise in the number of executions of juvenile offenders – people sentenced to death for crimes committed when they were under the age of 18. Iran is one of only a handful of countries to continue such executions, in clear violation of international law. According to UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston “No state really tries to defend it as a matter of principle – it’s clearly outlawed. And yet Iran continues to not only charge juveniles, but to execute them in significant numbers.”
Even before last summer’s unrest, there were signs that President Ahmadinejad’s government was increasingly using the death penalty as a way of stemming unrest in areas with large ethnic minorities. Bomb attacks in the predominantly Arab province of Khuzestan and ethnic Baluch areas of Sistan-Baluchistan province in recent years were followed by a wave of often public executions. Some of the condemned men were shown on state television making “confessions” that are believed to have been extracted from them under torture or other duress.
Ehsan Fattahian, arrested in 2008 and convicted of being a member of a Kurdish opposition group, was executed last November. In a letter sent two days before he was hanged, he said his original sentence had been increased because he refused to appear on camera confessing to crimes he had not committed. He alleged that this move was “a result of pressure from security and political forces outside the judiciary.” Since last year’s unrest, the number of Iranian Kurds being sentenced to death for political offences has continued to rise.
UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston adds that “International law says very clearly that the death penalty can only be carried out for the most serious crimes. I have shown very clearly that that phrase was intended to refer to crimes which result in an intentional death of some sort – homicide – and that any lesser crimes cannot be punished by the death penalty. Again, that is a prohibition that the Iranian courts and the Iranian government have consistently neglected or ignored.”
Hundreds, probably thousands, of individuals are currently on death row in Iran. Sometimes their ordeal can last for years. Amnesty International spoke to one prisoner who spent years on death row before his sentence was eventually commuted. In a telephone interview from jail he said:
“Have you ever experienced receiving a death sentence? Have your partner, parents, brother, sister and relatives been told that tonight a close relative of yours is going to be executed? Can you understand the horror and shock of hearing such news? But me, two of my close relatives and our families have been going through this – not for a night or two or few nights, but for a period of over two thousand nights.”
Death penalty report: China must end secrecy surrounding sentences and executions (News, 29 March 2010)
The death penalty in 2009
Delara Darabi executed in Iran (News, 30 April 2009)
Central Asia: Ban Ki-moon’s Visit Should Promote Human Rights
(New York) – United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon should promote respect for and better implementation of human rights obligations during his visit to Central Asia, Human Rights Watch said today.
Death penalty report: China must end secrecy surrounding sentences and executions
As Amnesty International publishes its world overview of the death penalty for 2009, the organization challenges the Chinese authorities to reveal how many people they execute and sentence to death
Amnesty International on Tuesday challenged the Chinese authorities to reveal how many people they execute and sentence to death, as the organization published its world overview of the death penalty for 2009.
The report, Death Sentences and Executions in 2009, reveals that at least 714 people were executed in 18 countries and at least 2001 people were sentenced to death in 56 countries last year.
This excludes the thousands of executions that were likely to have taken place in China, where information on the death penalty remains a state secret.
In a challenge to China’s lack of transparency, Amnesty International has decided not to publish its own minimum figures for Chinese executions and death sentences in 2009. Estimates based on the publicly available information grossly under represent the actual number the state killed or sentenced to death.
“The death penalty is cruel and degrading, and an affront to human dignity,” said Claudio Cordone, Amnesty International’s Interim Secretary General.
“The Chinese authorities claim that fewer executions are taking place. If this is true, why won’t they tell the world how many people the state put to death?”
Amnesty International’s research shows that countries that still carry out executions are the exception rather than the rule. In addition to China, the worst offending nations were Iran with at least 388 executions, Iraq at least 120, Saudi Arabia at least 69 and the USA with 52.
The past year saw capital punishment applied extensively to send political messages, to silence opponents or to promote political agendas in China, Iran and Sudan, according to Amnesty International’s report.
In Iran, 112 executions were known to have taken place in the eight-week period between the presidential election on 12 June and the inauguration of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for a second term as President on 5 August.
The report addresses the discriminatory way the death penalty was applied in 2009, often after grossly unfair trials, and used disproportionately against the poor, minorities and members of racial, ethnic and religious communities.
Yet the figures also show that the world continued to move towards abolition in 2009. The number of countries that have removed capital punishment entirely from their laws rose to 95 as Burundi and Togo abolished the death penalty for all crimes.
For the first year since Amnesty International began keeping records, no executions took place in Europe in 2009. Belarus is the only country in the region that continues to use the death penalty. Across the Americas, the USA was the only country to carry out executions.
“Fewer countries than ever before are carrying out executions. As it did with slavery and apartheid, the world is rejecting this embarrassment to humanity,” said Claudio Cordone. “We are moving closer to a death penalty free world, but until that day every execution must be opposed.”
Regional Summaries:
- In Asia, thousands of executions were likely to have taken place in China, where information on the death penalty remains a state secret. Only seven other countries were known to have carried out executions – Bangladesh, Japan, North Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam – with 26 executions known to have taken place. Afghanistan, Indonesia, Mongolia and Pakistan did not carry out executions in 2009, the first execution-free year in those countries in recent times.
- In the Middle East and North Africa at least 624 executions were known to have been carried out in seven countries: Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen. Saudi Arabia and Iran executed seven people who were under 18 at the time of the alleged offence, in violation of international law. Several countries – Algeria, Lebanon, Morocco/Western Sahara and Tunisia – maintained longstanding moratoriums on executions.
- No executions took place in Europe in 2009. Belarus remains the only nation to use the death penalty in the region. Although no one was executed in the former Soviet country last year, two people were killed by the state in March 2010.
- In sub-Saharan Africa only two countries executed prisoners: Botswana and Sudan. The largest mass commutation of death sentences ever known to Amnesty International took place in Kenya as the government announced that more than 4,000 condemned prisoners would have their sentences commuted to imprisonment.
Read more:
The death penalty in 2009
Iran executions send a chilling message (News feature, 30 March 2010)
World is ‘winning’ battle against death penalty despite setbacks (News, 25 February 2010)
South Korea death penalty abolition set back by Constitutional Court ruling (News, 25 February 2010)
Deadly Moscow subway bomb attacks condemned
At least 37 people were killed and dozens injured by two explosions within an hour of each other in the city centre.
Amnesty International unreservedly condemned Monday’s bomb attacks on Moscow’s subway system which killed at least 37 people and left dozens injured.
On the morning of 29 March, two bombs exploded within an hour of each other at two central Moscow subway stations during the height of the city’s rush hour.
It was reported that the attacks were carried out by suicide bombers. No group has as yet claimed responsibility for the blasts.
“There can be no justification for such vicious attacks on the lives of civilians and those who are responsible for it should be apprehended and brought to justice strictly in line with international human rights standards,” said Halya Gowan, Director of Amnesty International’s Europe and Central Asia Programme.
“The Russian authorities must also ensure human rights are respected in their response to the attack.”
Cambodia: No Justice for Grenade Victims
(New York, March 29, 2010) – The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) should revive its investigation into the deadly 1997 grenade attack on an opposition party rally in Phnom Penh that left at least 16 dead and more than 150 wounded, Human Rights Watch said today.
Malaysia arrests migrants as crackdown continues
The 140 arrests are part of an announced crackdown on migrants, many of whom come from Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Nepal, who live and work in Malaysia without authorization.
Malaysian authorities have arrested some 140 migrant workers in the past week, according to media reports, soon after Amnesty International released a report documenting police abuses and exploitation of migrants by employers.
The arrests are part of an announced crackdown on migrants, many of whom come from Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Nepal, who live and work in Malaysia without authorization, reports said. Malaysian authorities have arrested hundreds of migrants since the crackdown began at the end of February, according to news reports.
Those arrested face protracted detention in overcrowded immigration detention centres.
Migrants who are found to have violated the immigration laws are subject to substantial fines, imprisonment and in some cases caning.
“These immigration raids sweep up documented as well as undocumented workers,” said Michael Bochenek, the report author and director of policy at Amnesty International. “Regardless of immigration status, nobody should be subjected to arbitrary arrest or appalling detention conditions.”
Employers routinely demand that workers turn over their passports, meaning that migrants who have authorization to work in Malaysia often have only photocopies of their passport and work permit. Authorities frequently do not accept photocopied documents as proof of lawful status.
Untrained volunteers with the People’s Volunteer Corps (Ikatan Relawan Rakyat or RELA) often participate in immigration raids. These volunteers are often unfamiliar with the documents they are examining, but they enjoy broad powers to enter private homes without warrants, question suspects, and make arrests.
Refugees, including from Myanmar, who hold cards issued by the local office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) are among those caught up in the immigration sweeps this month. Malaysia does not recognize refugee status, but authorities had recently committed not to arrest and detain those holding UNHCR cards.
The detention of refugees in this month’s round-ups was a step back from that positive policy development, Amnesty International said.
Police and RELA agents both subject migrants to acts of harassment, extortion and violence, but RELA agents are responsible for the most rampant abuses against migrants, the Amnesty International report found.
Senior immigration officials assured Amnesty International in July 2009 that RELA no longer had a role in immigration enforcement.
Nevertheless, Amnesty International continued to receive reports of arrests and abuses by RELA agents throughout 2009 and the beginning of 2010. On March 21, an Amnesty International representative observed about 40 RELA agents checking immigration documents in the area of Kuala Lumpur’s central market.
Judges can and often do impose caning on migrants convicted of illegal entry. Nearly 35,000 migrants were caned between 2002 and 2008, the Malaysian government has confirmed.
Known as “whipping” in Malaysia, this punishment involves up to six strokes of the rotan, a thin wooden cane.
It leaves deep welts on the buttocks that take days to heal and is profoundly humiliating.
The practice violates the international prohibition on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.
Amnesty International has sought meetings with the Home Affairs and Human Resources ministries to present its findings and recommendations. To date, neither ministry has confirmed a meeting.
After the release of Amnesty International’s report, Minister of Home Affairs Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein announced in an interview with The Star (Kuala Lumpur) that his ministry would act against those who exploited and abused migrant workers.
Trapped: The Exploitation of Migrant Workers in Malaysia documents widespread abuses against migrant workers from eight South Asian and Southeast Asian countries who are lured to Malaysia by the promise of jobs but are instead used in forced labour or exploited in other ways.
Malaysia must end abuse of migrant workers (Report, 24 March 2010)
Photographic evidence shows the cruelty of caning In Malaysia (News, 24 August 2010)
Commission of Inquiry for Burma is long overdue
The call by Tomas Quintana, the United Nation’s human rights monitor to Burma, to consider the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry into possible crimes against humanity and war crimes in Burma is welcome, if long overdue.