Azerbaijan: Eurovision is deaf to human rights abuses
22 May 2012
The refusal of the organization behind Eurovision to condemn human rights abuses in Azerbaijan provides a carte blanche to the government’s crackdown, Amnesty International said after another two peaceful protests were violently dispersed.
Azerbaijan is hosting the song contest – the flagship event of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) – from 22-26 May.
“Despite publicly committing to support free expression in Azerbaijan, the EBU has maintained a deathly silence on recent repeated violations of that right,” said Max Tucker, Amnesty International’s Azerbaijan campaigner, who is currently in the country’s capital Baku.
“The lack of action by the EBU and the international community is giving the authorities carte blanche to continue violently crushing dissent without consequence.”
On Monday, more than 200 demonstrators gathered in two locations in central Baku, the Azerbaijani capital, calling for an end to corruption and respect for human rights.
According to protest organizers, police forced participants onto buses and drove them out of town, beating several and detaining 38.
One of the organizers, Abulfaz Gurbanly, told Amnesty International that he was punched, kicked and hit with a truncheon while being held at a police station. He said that several other protesters were also beaten in custody.
The peaceful protests were dispersed in full view of a number of international journalists, casting doubt on the EBU’s assertions that bringing international media attention to Baku would improve the human rights situation.
“The increased media coverage will be meaningless if it does not persuade Azerbaijan’s diplomatic and business partners to act in defence of freedom of expression,” Tucker said.
“Azerbaijan’s authorities seem to think they can ride out negative coverage unscathed, leading to a renewed crackdown on dissent.”
Amnesty International has noticed a fresh wave of human rights violations in Azerbaijan. A recent briefing documented numerous cases where journalists and human rights defenders have been attacked, blackmailed and imprisoned. The EBU has not publicly commented on any of these cases.
The organization is also concerned that local activists who have sought to use Eurovision to highlight rights abuses will be targeted after the event.
State-owned newspapers have already started a smear campaign against leaders of the Sing for Democracy campaign, labelling them as agents of neighbouring Armenia, with whom Azerbaijan has had a territorial dispute for the last 20 years.
“We hope the international journalists we have spoken to in recent weeks will not forget us after Eurovision,” said Rasul Jafarov, one of the Sing for Democracy campaign organizers. “That could be very dangerous for us.”
Eurovision organizers have remained silent on the Azerbaijani authorities’ fresh wave of human rights violations ahead of the song contest in Baku.
The Azerbaijani authorities should promptly follow the May 15, 2012 release of an opposition activist by releasing others held on politically motivated charges.
(Baku) – The Azerbaijani authorities should promptly follow the May 15, 2012 release of an opposition activist by releasing others held on politically motivated charges, Human Rights Watch said today.
Peru should remove significant barriers preventing people with disabilities from exercising their right to vote and other civil rights. The failure to dismantle the obstacles is undermining Peru’s leadership as one of the first countries to ratify, in 2008, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
(Lima) – Peru should remove significant barriers preventing people with disabilities from exercising their right to vote and other civil rights, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
Azerbaijan: Opposition activist freed as pre-Eurovision hunger strike begins
16 May 2012
Seventeen Azerbaijani prisoners of conscience must be released immediately, Amnesty International said as 11 people jailed for their role in anti-government protests last year launched a hunger strike on Tuesday.
An unexpected court decision the same day ordered the release of their fellow activist and a prisoner of conscience Elnur Majidli, who had been serving a two-year sentence following his arrest during an unsanctioned demonstration in the capital Baku on 2 April 2011.
The prisoners jailed in relation to last year’s anti-government’s protests have vowed to continue their hunger strike until the end of the Eurovision song contest, which takes place in Baku later this month.
“Elnur Majidli’s release is very welcome news, but the Azerbaijani authorities must now immediately and unconditionally free all the remaining 17 prisoners of conscience who remain behind bars,” said John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International’s Europe and Central Asia Programme Director.
“When viewers across the world tune in for the Eurovision this month, the most convincing way for Azerbaijan to present itself as a modern, progressive nation will be for the authorities to end their ongoing crackdown on freedom of expression.”
According to Majidli, Baku’s Khazar District Court responded to his request to be released by holding a hearing at his prison on Tuesday. His lawyer was not present at the session, which resulted in the activist being freed.
Speaking to an opposition newspaper, Majidli said the decision was unexpected and his release was unconditional – although he will serve the remainder of his two-year term out of prison.
The 11 hunger strikers still behind bars since last year’s demonstrations are Arif Hajili, Shahin Hasanli, Sahib Karimov, Mahammad Majidli, Babek Hasanov, Tural Abbasl?, Rufat Hajibaili, Ulvi Guliyev, Vidadi Isgandarov, Zulfuqar Eyvazov and Ahad Mammadli.
Some of the prisoners’ relatives have joined the hunger strike in solidarity with them. In addition to the hunger strikers, six other prisoners of conscience – including Bakhtiyar Hajiyev, who also participated in last year’s protests – still languish in Azerbaijani jails.
Members of Azerbaijan’s opposition plan to hold another unsanctioned demonstration in downtown Baku on 19 and 20 May, before the Eurovision finals. Baku’s mayor’s office has yet to respond to their request for a venue.
On Monday, police in Baku violently dispersed two separate peaceful protests in the city centre, detaining 18 opposition activists and organizers.
As with previous recent demonstrations, the protesters were calling for the release of prisoners of conscience and an end to restrictions on freedom of expression and freedom of association in Baku.
“Baku city authorities must stop preventing peaceful protests, and should grant permission for next weekend’s planned demonstrations,” said Dalhuisen.
“Their attempts to tighten the noose around dissent are bound to unravel amid increased international scrutiny during Eurovision.”
In recent months, Amnesty International has documented how Azerbaijani authorities have repeatedly targeted individuals for their journalistic work or peaceful activism.
In March, well-known investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova received a letter threatening the publication of intimate pictures of her if she did not abandon her work. When she refused and exposed the blackmail attempt, a video of her having sex was posted on a fake mirror website of Azerbaijan’s main opposition party.
Last month, state employees and police severely beat up journalist Idrak Abbasov while he was reporting on a forced eviction on the outskirts of Baku.
And earlier this month, student activist Jabbar Savalan was conscripted into the army despite being exempt from military service, prompting concerns he was targeted for his peaceful activism.
Azerbaijani prisoners of conscience have launched a hunger strike in the run-up to the Eurovision in Baku.
Hundreds of thousands of immigrant farmworker women and girls in the United States face a high risk of sexual violence and sexual harassment in their workplaces because US authorities and employers fail to protect them adequately, Human Rights Watch said in its 95-page report, “Cultivating Fear: The Vulnerability of Immigrant Farmworkers in the US to Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment.”
(New York) – Hundreds of thousands of immigrant farmworker women and girls in the United States face a high risk of sexual violence and sexual harassment in their workplaces because US authorities and employers fail to protect them adequately, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
Gen. Bosco Ntaganda, who mutinied against the Democratic Republic of Congo in early April 2012, has forcibly recruited at least 149 boys and young men into his forces since April 19. Ntaganda, a former rebel leader turned army general, is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of war crimes for previous recruitment and use of child soldiers.
(Goma) – Gen. Bosco Ntaganda, who mutinied against the Democratic Republic of Congo in early April 2012, has forcibly recruited at least 149 boys and young men into his forces since April 19, Human Rights Watch said today.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced by fighting in northern Mali and dozens have been subjected to arbitrary detention, extra-judicial executions or sexual violence including rape, Amnesty International said today.
In a report ‘Mali: Five months of crisis, armed rebellion and military coup’ Amnesty International catalogues a litany of human rights violations committed against the backdrop of a food shortage affecting 15 million people in the Sahel region.
“After two decades of relative stability and peace, Mali is now facing its worst crisis since independence in 1960,” said Gaetan Mootoo, Amnesty International’s West Africa researcher who has just returned from a three week research mission to the country.
“The entire north of the country has been taken over by armed groups who are running riot. Ten of thousands of people have fled the region, creating a humanitarian crisis in Mali and in neighbouring countries.”
During the research mission Amnesty International delegates visited the Malian capital Bamako and four refugee sites in Niger, about 200 kilometres north of the capital Niamey.
According to testimonies taken by Amnesty International women and girls were raped, sometimes collectively, by armed men including by members of the MNLA, particularly in Menaka and Gao.
A 19-year-old female student who had fled to Bamako told Amnesty International:
“I was on the way to a friend’s house around 8pm with one of my classmates. On the way, a motorcycle carrying two Tamasheq [Tuareg] and a car full of armed men and captured women, stopped beside us. One of the two Tamasheqs on the motorbike was wearing a military uniform. They began to tell us that we should go with them to the camp because they needed women. We refused. My friend lied and said she was pregnant. One of the Tamasheks then made me go into an empty house. I told him I was menstruating. He ordered me to show him. I showed him the blood. He said ‘What’s that?‘ and raped me.”
All parties to the conflict are believed to be committing human rights violations and abuses.
Malian soldiers beat and then extra-judicially executed three unarmed people accused of spying for the MNLA in Sevare (630 kilometres north of Bamako) on 18 April 2012. Other suspects are being held in locations not registered as places of detention such as the General Directorate of Public Security (Direction générale de la sécurité d’État or DGSE).
Similarly, Malian soldiers taken prisoner by armed groups have been ill summarily executed and some were ill-treated. Two Malian soldiers who had been taken prisoner in January 2012 before being released as part of an exchange described how some soldiers had been tortured and abused. Some had their throats slit.
Delegates found evidence of the presence of child soldiers within the ranks of the armed Tuareg and Islamists groups who took control of the north of the country.
Amnesty International has collected several testimonies indicating pressure from members of the Ansar Eddin armed group on people to change their behaviour, in accordance with their fundamentalist interpretation of Islam.
Witnesses said that the imposition of these new behaviours has been accompanied by intimidation and physical violence, including deliberate and arbitrary killings.
A resident of Gao said:
“Five days after the rebels took control of the city, a car was stopped at the edge of town by armed men. One of the car’s occupants then phoned the number given out by Ansar Eddin. They arrived immediately on the scene, they shot at the thieves, one was injured, the other ran off, a third was stopped and his throat slit.”
“Without coordinated action to protect human rights, uphold international humanitarian law and the assistance of displaced and refugee populations, the entire sub-region risks destabilisation through the effects of political instability, armed conflict in the north and the food crisis which affects the whole of the Sahel,” said Gaëtan Mootoo.
Amnesty International is calling all parties to the conflict to respect international humanitarian law and to take the necessary measures to protect civilians and combatants captured during the conflict. The organization calls upon Malian authorities to put an end to the harassment of those who campaign peacefully for the return of the rule of law.
Amnesty International also calls on the armed groups who have taken control of the north to stop immediately sexual violence against women and young girls and the recruitment and use of child soldiers.
The organisation also urges the Malian authorities and armed groups to allow United Nations and other humanitarian agencies unrestricted access to refugees and internally displaced people, particularly in northern Mali.
Fighting in northern Mali has displaced hundreds of thousands of people and led to dozens of human rights violations.
The government of Pakistan should halt the scheduled hanging on May 23, 2012, of Behram Khan for the murder of a lawyer in 2003.
(New York, May 15, 2012) – The government of Pakistan should halt the scheduled hanging on May 23, 2012, of Behram Khan for the murder of a lawyer in 2003.
Ukraine: Authorities must implement police criminality law
14 May 2012
A new law which paves the way for independent investigations into allegations of police violence in Ukraine must be enforced in order to curb widespread police criminality in the country ahead of Euro 2012, Amnesty International said.
Ukrainian prosecutors currently work alongside police officers to solve ordinary crimes, and frequently refuse to initiate criminal proceedings against their colleagues,
But the new Criminal Procedure Code allows for a new investigative body to look into crimes by officials. The code does not make clear exactly what this body will look like, but the provision allows for the creation of an investigative body that is genuinely independent.
“While we welcome the introduction of new safeguards against police torture and ill-treatment, some aspects of the law will not come into force for another five years” said Max Tucker, Amnesty International’s campaigner on Ukraine.
“As things stand, fans visiting Euro 2012 are under threat from a criminal police force. Moving quickly to set up an independent body to investigate officers’ crimes now would be a wake up call to a force accustomed to getting away with illegal behaviour.”
In a related development, a Kiev court on Monday ordered a new investigation into the death of Ihor Indilo, a student killed by a blow to the head while in police custody two years ago.
CCTV footage showed Officer Sergei Prihodko dragging Indilo unconscious into a cell and abandoning him there until he was discovered dead seven hours later.
The following morning Indilo’s parents were told that he had choked to death but when they saw his body they noticed numerous bruises. An autopsy revealed he had died of a head injury and found blood in his stomach, which may have been caused by a blow to the abdomen.
In January this year the two police officers who arrested, interrogated and abandoned him unconscious in a cell walked free after an investigation by the local prosecutor’s office absolved them of responsibility for his death.
Indilo’s case is just one of many documented by Amnesty International which highlight the inadequacy of a system that uses local prosecutors to investigate crimes by police.
“The fact that it has taken two years of intense media coverage and a court decision just to get this investigation opened shows how deeply flawed the current system is”, said Tucker.
“Without an institution that will hold officers accountable Ukrainian police will continue to beat and torture as they please. And in all the cases the media doesn’t hear about, they will get away with it.”
The organization also reiterated an offer made in October last year to work with the government on the design of a new investigative body.
“We have considerable experience working with governments across the globe on designing effective police complaints mechanisms. We would be more than happy to share that knowledge with the Ukrainian authorities.” Tucker said.
Ukraine should move quickly to enforce a new law which allows for an investigative body to look into crimes by officials.
The opening of the trial of Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb wartime military commander, is a salient reminder that justice catches up with those accused of atrocity crimes. Mladic’s trial for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide is scheduled to begin on May 16, 2012, before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague.
(Brussels) – The opening of the trial of Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb wartime military commander, is a salient reminder that justice catches up with those accused of atrocity crimes.
The Sudanese authorities must halt the ongoing harassment of independent media, Amnesty International said after a prominent journalist was re-arrested and copies of a national newspaper seized in Khartoum on Tuesday.
Faisal Mohammed Saleh, a columnist with several national newspapers who has reported in 2011 on the alleged rape of an activist by National Security Service (NSS) agents, is currently being held by the NSS.
Meanwhile copies of national newspaper al-Midan were confiscated at the printing press today for the fifth time in five weeks, putting the publication’s financial future in jeopardy.
“The Sudanese government is continuing its relentless harassment of journalists and editors who dare to do their job,” said Jean-Baptiste Gallopin, Amnesty International’s Sudan researcher.
“The authorities are deploying a wide array of coercive measures against individuals and media organizations to discourage or prevent independent reporting and critical comment.”
“The re-arrest of Faisal Saleh is a smack in the face for free speech and the Sudanese authorities must ensure that the NSS ends these constant attempts to silence any form of dissent.”
Faisal Saleh, who is also head of Teeba Press, an NGO which trains journalists, was summoned to the NSS offices every day for nearly two weeks in April and May.
He was made to wait all day for an interrogation that never took place, without being provided with food or water. After subsequently refusing to attend, he was re-arrested twice.
He now faces new and vague charges of “crimes against the state”, in addition to previous charges of defamation for reporting in March last year that activist Safia Ishaag was allegedly raped by NSS agents.
Amnesty International considers Faisal Mohammed Saleh to be a Prisoner of Conscience, imprisoned solely for the peaceful expression of his beliefs.
Meanwhile, journalist Haidar al Kashifi from the Al-Sahafa newspaper, was reportedly banned from writing on 6 May on orders of the NSS.
Newspapers similarly face constant obstacles as a result of NSS interference. Editors face great pressure from NSS agents, with whom they must remain in daily contact.
The NSS has repeatedly threatened editors with dismissal or cancellation of their newspaper’s license in a bid to coerce media coverage of events.
Newspapers also face direct forms of censorship, with NSS agents frequently banning editors from publishing articles or opinion pieces prior to publication.
The NSS on occasions seizes the entire print run of newspapers in a move that puts the paper under extreme commercial pressure.
Six issues of national daily al-Jareeda (‘The Newspaper’) have been seized since the beginning of April while the independent daily al-Tayyar (‘The Current’) also allegedly faced confiscation on 8 May.
Independent media in Sudan is facing continous harrassment from the authorities, with arrests of journalists and national newspapers seized.
