The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) called for national healing in a report on the Bangladesh 2024 protests. Credit: UN Photo

By IPS Correspondent
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 14 2025 (IPS)

A new report from the UN Human Rights Office confirms that Bangladesh’s former government coordinated and committed human rights violations against its civilians to suppress the protest movement in July last year, with the high commissioner calling for justice and serious reform to end the cycle of violence and retribution.

On 12 February, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released a long-awaited report on the human rights violations and abuses that took place during and following the anti-government protests in Bangladesh from 1 July to 15 August, 2024. This report is the outcome of a fact-finding mission conducted in September at the invitation of the interim government and its Chief Advisor, Dr. Muhammad Yunus.

The student-led movement began as a protest against the country’s high court’s decision to reinstate an unpopular quota system for civil service jobs. The movement spread across the country and garnered national attention when senior officials of the Awami League, the former ruling party, decried the students’ requests. As the students faced escalating retaliation from the Awami League and security forces, protestors shifted their demands towards wider government reform and the resignation of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina. She fled to India on August 5, 2024, marking an end to her regime.

The report found that Hasina’s government and the security and intelligence teams systematically engaged in serious human rights violations. These included hundreds of extrajudicial killings, use of force on protestors, including children, and arbitrary detention and torture. OHCHR states that these human rights violations were conducted with the full knowledge and at the direction of the political leaders and security personnel, with the intent to suppress the protests.

“The brutal response was a calculated and well-coordinated strategy by the former government to hold onto power in the face of mass opposition,” said UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk.

The OHCHR investigation found that senior Awami League officials mobilized their supporters and the Chhtra League, the party’s student wing, to carry out armed attacks on student protestors to dissuade dissent. When the protestors held their ground, police forces were instructed to take more forceful measures, and the government prepared to deploy paramilitary forces armed with military rifles.

The report confirmed the presence and use of metal pellets, rubber bullets, and tear gas on protestors, who were often unarmed. Excessive force was used against protestors by police and military personnel, notably the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), a paramilitary group that have been criticized by human rights groups for their excessive use of violence and intimidation. An examination from Dhaka Medical College of 130 deaths from that period revealed that 80 percent were caused by firearms. Bangladesh’s Ministry of Health recorded over 13,000 injuries, many of which are long-term damage to the eyes and torso.

Women that participated in the protests faced verbal abuse and physical assaults from the police and Awami League supporters. Female students were also threatened with sexual violence to dissuade them from joining the protests. OHCHR references at least two accounts of women who were physically assaulted and groped by Chhatra League members before being turned over to the police. They remark in the report that it was possible that many more such cases might have occurred but were unreported.

OHCHR estimates that as many as 1,400 deaths occurred relating to the protests, with children accounting for approximately 12 percent of those deaths. These deaths occurred among underage students who participated in the protests or children who were bystanders and were fatally shot by stray bullets.

The report also notes the state’s efforts to suppress information and conceal the extent of the unrest. Journalists faced intimidation from security forces; by the end of the protests, at least 200 journalists were injured and six were confirmed dead. Meanwhile, the former government’s intelligence and telecommunications agencies implemented internet and telecom shutdowns without providing legal justification. This was to prevent the organization of protests through social media and prevented journalists, activists and the general public from sharing or accessing information about the protests and the government’s retaliation.

In the immediate aftermath of Hasina’s departure, the violence did not end. Instead, there were reported cases of revenge violence targeting the police, Awami League supporters, or those perceived to be supporting them. Reports also emerged of attacks on indigenous communities from the Chittagong Hill Tracts and the minority Hindu communities. Although 100 arrests relating to these attacks were reportedly made, many of the perpetrators still faced impunity.

OHCHR remarks that the former government’s crackdown on the protest movement constituted violations of international law. It is emblematic of a deeper trend towards employing intimidation and even lethal force to clamp down on civic and political activity.

The report concludes with a series of recommendations for sweeping reforms across the justice and security sectors and to implement broader changes to the political system.

Since the report’s release, the interim government has indicated they welcome its findings and will take steps to implement the recommendations. “I, along with everyone else working in the interim government and millions of other Bangladeshis, am committed to transforming Bangladesh into a country in which all its people can live in security and dignity,” Yunus said on Wednesday. Noting the report’s reference to structural issues within the law enforcement sectors, Yunus called on the people in those sectors to “side with justice, the law, and the people of Bangladesh in holding to account their own peers and others who have broken the law and violated the human and civil rights of their fellow citizens.”

Türk expressed that his office would be ready to support Bangladesh in the process of national accountability reform. “The best way forward for Bangladesh is to face the horrific wrongs committed during this period through a comprehensive process of truth-telling, healing and accountability and to redress the legacy of serious human rights violations and ensure they can never happen again.”

The interim government’s acknowledgement of the human rights report is to be welcomed. In the past, it was common for previous governments to dismiss any such reports. Healing and retribution must be owed to the lives lost during the protests. At the same time, this government and the people they represent must also recognize that in their efforts to seek justice and accountability, they should not fall into the trap of mob violence or a total otherizing of former leaders, even as the ousted regime carries out a campaign against the interim government and last year’s protests.

Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, warns that the government “should not repeat the mistakes of the past” and instead ensure the proper procedures for impartial rule of law. “Bangladeshis are angry over the repression by the Hasina administration and they deserve justice and accountability, but it has to be in a rights-respecting manner,” she said. “All crimes, including mob violence, should be punished, but when authority figures characterize opponents as the ‘devil,’ it can fuel abuses by security forces that have never faced accountability.”

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Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch brief the press. UN Photo/Loey Felipe

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 30 2016 (IPS)

Saudi Arabia’s membership in the Human Rights Council (HRC) should be suspended by members of the UN General Assembly, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International (AI) said on Wednesday.

The two human rights groups have joined forces to make the exceptional call for action, noting that it is based on Saudi Arabia’s “gross and systematic violations of human rights” in Yemen and domestically.

“We believe that…Saudi Arabia does not deserve to sit anymore on the Human Rights Council,” HRW’s Deputy Director for Global Advocacy Philippe Bolopion said to press here Wednesday.

HRW and AI allege that they have documented 69 unlawful airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, which have killed at least 913 civilians including 200 children.

In total, the UN Human Rights Office estimates that there are more than 9,000 causalities since military operations began in Yemen in March 2015. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said that the Saudi-led coalition is responsible for twice as many civilian causalities as all other forces put together.

In a recent report, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon found that the coalition was responsible for 60 percent of recorded child deaths and injuries, and nearly half of the 101 attacks on schools and hospitals.

However, the Secretary-General removed Saudi Arabia from a list of countries that have committed violations against children in that same report earlier this month, after the Gulf state reportedly threatened to withdraw funding from critical UN programs. HRW and AI called the list of countries the “list of shame.”

“I had to make a decision just to have all UN operations, particularly humanitarian operations, continue,” the Secretary-General said upon receiving criticism of the move.

“I also had to consider the very real prospect that millions of other children would suffer grievously if, as was suggested to me, countries would defund many UN programs,” he continued.

In response, the Saudi ambassador to the UN Abdallah Al-Mouallimi denied the use of threats and intimidation to remove the country from the list.

“It’s important to defend this very important mandate to protect children affected by armed conflict. Member states of the General Assembly ought to stand up and defend this mandate,” Bennett told the press.

In addition to the UN’s reporting, HRW and AI have also documented 19 attacks by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen involving internationally banned cluster munitions, many of which were in civilian areas such as Sana’a University.

Alongside the nine nation-strong coalition led by Saudi Arabia, Executive Director of HRW’s Middle East and North Africa Division Sarah Leah Whitson also noted that the United States and the United Kingdom have “crossed the threshold to become a part of this war” by being principle suppliers of weapons including cluster munitions. In 2015, Saudi Arabia purchased $20 billion of weapons from the U.S. and $4 billion from the UK.

The two Western nations have also provided intelligence support and targeting assistance during the conflict.

This makes them legally responsible for crimes being committed on the ground, Whitson stated.

Meanwhile, the coalition’s naval blockade of Yemen’s ports have drastically limited the supply of food and medicine, leaving over 80 percent of the population in need of some form of humanitarian assistance. This barrier and starvation of civilians is “a method of warfare and a war crime,” Whitson said.

Saudi and U.S. officials could not immediately be reached for comment, but members of the coalition have repeatedly denied any violations of human rights.

Domestically, Saudi Arabia’s country’s crackdown on dissent has also persisted. In 2015, at least six people, including prominent writers and activists, were punished for the expression of their opinions. One was sentenced to death.

Even speaking to human rights groups such as HRW and AI is an offense, said Director of AI’s Asia-Pacific Program Richard Bennett.

Executions have also surged, Bennett noted.

Just in 2016, at least 95 people have been executed, higher than at the same point last year. Approximately 47 of them were killed in a mass execution in January. Many of these executions are for offenses which, under international law, must not be punishable by death.

Despite the well-documented violations in international humanitarian and human rights law, Saudi Arabia has used its membership in the HRC to shield itself from scrutiny and accountability, the two groups said.

In 2015, Saudi Arabia thwarted a resolution in the HRC that requested an investigation on alleged war crimes and other violations by all sides to the Yemeni conflict. Instead, the country drafted its own resolution that did not include a reference to an independent UN inquiry.

HRW and AI have also called on member states of the General Assembly (UNGA) to act in accordance to Resolution 60/251. The resolution states that the UNGA, with two-thirds of the vote, can suspend the rights of membership in the Council if a member commits human rights violations.

The rule has previously been invoked in 2011 when Libya’s membership was suspended due to human rights violations.

“We realize that the odds are against us,” Bolopion stated when asked about the likelihood of Saudi Arabia being suspended.

But Bolopion hopes the campaign will be a “wake-up call” for other countries to see that they cannot get away with conducting human rights abuses and to clean up their act.

HRW and AI also stressed that action is essential in order to maintain the UN’s integrity.

“Failure to act on Saudi Arabia’s gross and systematic human rights violations committed in Yemen and its use of its membership to obstruct independent scrutiny and accountability threatens the credibility of both the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly,” Bennett concluded.

In March 2015, Saudi Arabia, along with nine Arab states including Egypt and Kuwait, intervened in the Yemeni conflict and has since clashed with Houthi forces.

Despite UN-mediated peace talks which produced a ceasefire, there have been “serious violations” by both parties, the Secretary General said to Yemeni negotiators.

The negotiations are set to resume in mid-July following the Muslim Eid holiday.

Israeli commander who blocked the writer’s entrance to the village of Kafr Qaddoum – as clashes were taking place – for over two hours. Credit: Mel Frykberg/IPS

By Mel Frykberg
KAFR QADDOUM, West Bank, Apr 7 2015 (IPS)

It is becoming increasingly risky to cover clashes and protests between Israeli security forces and Palestinian protesters in the West Bank as the number of journalists injured, in what appears to be deliberate targeting by Israeli security forces, continues to rise.

During the last 12 months, Israel’s Foreign Press Association (FPA) has issued numerous protests at the manhandling, harassment and shooting of both members of the foreign media and Palestinian journalists.

“The Foreign Press calls on the Israeli border police (a paramilitary unit) to put an immediate end to a wave of attacks on journalists. In just over a week, border police officers have carried out at least four attacks on journalists working for international media organisations, injuring reporters and damaging expensive equipment. These attacks all appear to have been unprovoked,” was one of many statements released by the FPA last year.The rising trend of Israeli security forces using live ammunition against Palestinian protesters has expanded to include journalists as well.

“A change in policy appears to be the reason for unprecedented aggressive behaviour by the authorities against journalists covering demonstrations in Jerusalem,” read another FPA statement.

The assaults have included shooting rubber-coated metal bullets directly at journalists on a regular basis.

Tear gas canisters, which under Israeli law are meant to be shot from a safe distance in an upward arch so as not to endanger life, have also been shot directly at journalists from close range even when the journalists were out of the line of fire.

The rising trend of Israeli security forces using live ammunition against Palestinian protesters has expanded to include journalists as well.

Palestinian journalists and cameramen working for foreign agencies and local media appear to be bearing the brunt of these attacks, because assaulting and abusing Palestinians, males in particular, is an integral part of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land.

A colleague of IPS, a cameraman from Palestine TV, was shot in the leg several months ago with a 0.22 inch calibre bullet fired from a Ruger rifle by an Israeli sniper as he filmed a clash in the northern West Bank village of Kafr Qaddoum.

Palestinian journalists in the line of fire. Credit: Mel Frykberg/IPS

On a previous occasion, as he left the village, Israeli soldiers pulled his vehicle over, dragged him out and assaulted him.

Another IPS colleague, a cameraman from Reuters, was shot twice in both legs with a metal bullet with a 0.5 mm rubber coating at one Friday protest. The previous week he had been targeted directly with a tear gas canister.

“We are very concerned about the marked increase in the number of Palestinian journalists being deliberately targeted by the Israeli security forces,” said Reporters Without Borders in a statement  on the increase in violence by Israeli security forces against Palestinian journalists released last year.

“We reiterate our call to the Israeli authorities, especially the military, to respect the physical integrity of journalists covering demonstrations and we remind them that the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution on 28 March recognising the importance of media coverage of protests and condemning any attacks or violence against the journalists covering them.”

The situation was even worse during the Gaza war from July to August last year, when 17 Palestinian journalists were killed by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) even when they were not in the proximity of the fighting.

IPS has witnessed numerous attacks on journalists over the years and has also been harassed by Israeli soldiers when trying to cover clashes.

Last Friday, I was held up for over two hours in the sun by Israeli soldiers as I tried to enter Kafr Qaddoum where major clashes were taking place.

During this time other members of the media, ambulances and other protesters were refused entrance.

With Israeli government press accreditation, an accreditation denied to most Palestinian journalists, I was able to contact the IDF spokesman who coordinated my entrance, but only after several hours of standing in the sun.

I was neither assaulted nor was any of my equipment confiscated from me, another privilege of being white and Western.

Another Palestinian colleague and cameraman came in for very different treatment a month ago when he had had his camera confiscated by an Israeli soldier outside the Jelazon refugee camp, near Ramallah.

When he tried to retrieve his expensive piece of equipment he was warned to back off and knew better than to pursue the issue.

However, when I took the matter up with the commanding officer the camera was returned to its owner after the officer had taken me aside on a charm offensive while ordering the Palestinian journalists to stand back.

On another occasion, I was accompanying a Palestinian ambulance which was trying to reach Jelazon camp to help Palestinian youths injured during clashes with the IDF.

Several military jeeps blocked the roads leading to the camp and refused to move when asked by the ambulance driver.

After I got out and spoke to the soldiers, showing them my credentials yet again, the jeep moved to the side and allowed the ambulance to continue.

The Israelis still appear to be sensitive to a certain degree to how they are portrayed in the Western media.

This has become apparent to me when covering violent clashes. As soon as it has been established that I am Australian, white and a woman, the aggression of the Israeli soldiers has abated and they have tried to get me on side by asking me if I am alright and warning me to take care,

However, I know that I too could easily fall prey to Israeli ammunition if I am not exceedingly careful so, on this basis, I choose to stay well away from the frontlines of clashes.

Edited by Phil Harris  

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mr. Zeid Raad Al Hussein (right), opening the 27th Session of the Human Rights Council September 8, 2014. Credit: U.S. Mission Geneva/ Eric Bridiers;

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 17 2015 (IPS)

The 47-member Human Rights Council (HRC), responding to a request by the newly-elected government in Colombo, has deferred the release of a key U.N. report on human rights violations and war crimes charges against the Sri Lankan armed forces and Tamil separatists who fought a devastating decades-long battle which ended in 2009.

The request to the Geneva-based HRC came via the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, who sought the postponement of the long-awaited report, originally due in March, until September this year.

“This has been a difficult decision,” Zeid said Monday."A delay is only justifiable if more time will lead to a stronger report and to a concrete commitment by the new Sri Lankan authorities to actively pursue accountability."

“There are good arguments for sticking to the original timetable, and there are also strong arguments for deferring the report’s consideration a bit longer, given the changing context in Sri Lanka, and the possibility that important new information may emerge which will strengthen the report.”

But he pointed out that the deferral of the report was “for one time only,” and guaranteed it would be published by September.

Richard Bennett, Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific Director told IPS the decision to delay, until September, the release of a key report into widespread human rights violations during the conflict in Sri Lanka must not allow the perpetrators of horrific crimes during the country’s armed conflict to escape punishment.

“Sri Lankan victims of human rights violations deserve truth and justice,” he said.

Survivors of torture, including sexual abuse, people whose family members were killed or forcibly disappeared have waited a long time for this report.

“A delay is only justifiable if more time will lead to a stronger report and to a concrete commitment by the new Sri Lankan authorities to actively pursue accountability. This includes by cooperating with the U.N. to investigate conflict-era abuses and bring perpetrators to justice,” he added.

Bennett warned the Human Rights Council to be vigilant and “ensure that all those coming forward to give testimony are protected from any potential threats from those who do not want justice to prevail.”

The government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, which was unseated after national elections last month, refused to cooperate with the three member U.N.Panel of Inquiry comprising Martti Ahtisaari, former President of Finland and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Silvia Cartwright, former Governor-General and High Court judge of New Zealand, and judge of the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts in Cambodia and Asma Jahangir, former President of Pakistan’s Supreme Court Bar Association and of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

But the new government of President Maithripala Sirisena sought the postponement of the report’s release and has offered to set up a “domestic mechanism” not only to probe war crimes charges but also stall any possibility of an international war crimes tribunal.

Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the High Commissioner told IPS Zeid had also spoken by telephone with Sri Lanka’s new Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera, who is expected to attend the next regular session of the Human Rights Council which begins March 2.

Brad Adams, Asia Director at Human Rights Watch, told IPS he was pleased with Zeid’s statement.

“It’s very clear this approach will take away any chance the new government can say they haven’t had enough time to start a serious justice effort. By September we will all be able to judge the sufficiency of their efforts,” he added.

In a statement released Monday, Zeid said he has received clear commitments from the new Government of Sri Lanka indicating it is prepared to cooperate “on a whole range of important human rights issues – which the previous Government had absolutely refused to do – and I need to engage with them to ensure those commitments translate into reality.”

He also pointed out that the “three distinguished experts who were appointed by his predecessor Navi Pillay to advise the investigation, had informed him that, in their unanimous view, a one-off temporary deferral would be the best option to allow space for the new Government to show its willingness to cooperate on human rights issues.”

“Taking all this into account, I have therefore decided, on balance, to request more time to allow for a stronger and more comprehensive report,” Zeid said.

“I am acutely aware that many victims of human rights violations in Sri Lanka, including those who have bravely come forward to provide information to the inquiry team, might see this is as the first step towards shelving, or diluting, a report they have long feared they would never see.”

“I fully understand those fears and deep anxieties, given the history of failed or obstructed domestic human rights inquiries in Sri Lanka, and the importance of this international investigation being carried out by my team at the UN Human Rights Office.”

He said there should be no misunderstanding because “I give my personal, absolute and unshakable commitment the report will be published by September.”

Like his predecessors, he said, he believes that one of the most important duties of the High Commissioner for Human Rights is to act as a strong voice on behalf of victims.

“I want this report to have the maximum possible impact in ensuring a genuine and credible process of accountability and reconciliation in which the rights of victims to truth, justice and reparations are finally respected,” he declared.

The U.N. inquiry was the result of a resolution adopted by the HRC back in March last year which requested the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights “to undertake a comprehensive investigation into alleged serious violations and abuses of human rights and related crimes by both parties in Sri Lanka”

The HRC requested Zeid’s office “to establish the facts and circumstances of such alleged violations, and of the crimes perpetrated, with a view to avoiding impunity and ensuring accountability,” with assistance from relevant experts.

The resolution requested the Office to present a comprehensive report at its 28th session in March 2015.

The author can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

Edited by Roger Hamilton-Martin

Scene in north Bougainville. Searching for the missing following a civil war has been identified as a priority for reconciliation and development in the region. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
SYDNEY, Australia, Dec 21 2014 (IPS)

Thirteen years after the peace agreement which ended a decade-long civil war in Bougainville, an autonomous island region of 300,000 people located east of the Papua New Guinean (PNG) mainland in the southwest Pacific Islands, trauma and grief continue to affect families and communities where the fate of the many missing remains unresolved.

The Autonomous Bougainville Government, identifying this as a barrier to progressing post-conflict reconciliation and development, introduced a policy in September to begin helping families answer questions and find closure.“Most perpetrators will not admit to being responsible [for the fate of the missing] unless assured there is reconciliation after remains have been recovered and identified." -- Nick Peniai

“This is very important for reconciliation,” Nick Peniai, head of the Autonomous Bougainville Government’s Department of Peace and Reconciliation, told IPS.

“Most perpetrators will not admit to being responsible [for the fate of the missing] unless assured there is reconciliation after remains have been recovered and identified” and “reconstruction will become meaningful to families after they have reunited with their loved ones.”

Patricia Tapakau, a community leader in the vicinity of the Panguna mine, agreed, saying that the new policy received her full support.

There is no accurate data about the human loss which occurred during hostilities between the PNG military and indigenous militia groups involved in a local uprising in 1989 that succeeded in shutting down the Panguna copper mine, formerly operated by the Australian company, Bougainville Copper Ltd.  But some estimates of the death toll run as high as 20,000.

The mine, a major revenue earner at the time for the PNG government, was at the centre of local grievances about loss of customary land, environmental devastation and increasing inequality. The conflict continued following a government blockade of the islands in 1990 until a permanent ceasefire in 1998.

Today many families on the islands continue to search for their missing loved ones, reports the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). The endless uncertainty about their fate is keeping the memory and suffering of the war alive in communities and inhibiting people’s confidence in a better future.

“We need reconciliation from one end of the island to the other….we need to restore the relationship with the bodies that have rotted in the jungle by bringing them back to their villages and giving them dignity by doing a proper burial,” a community leader from Guava village near the mine was quoted in a report by Jubilee Australia.

But, according to Peniai, it has only recently become feasible to publicly address this sensitive issue.

“It could not have been possible to get information on missing persons soon after the brokering of peace 13 years ago due to fear for the lives of those with the information, and the same on the part of those who were responsible for the killings in the event of being exposed.  The families of missing people were also not attempting to investigate for the same reason of fear,” he explained.

Conditions are more conducive to this occurring now, Peniai believes, with people willing to freely discuss the issue and some improvements to the law enforcement sector, which is supporting public confidence.

The United Nations Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance supports international human rights laws that place an obligation on warring parties, including governments, military forces and armed groups, to take all possible measures to search for and return missing persons, or their remains, to next of kin.

In Bougainville, the new policy will address the humanitarian needs of affected communities, but exclude bringing perpetrators to justice and claims for compensation.  Implementation will include seeking information about victims’ whereabouts, identifying burial sites, exhumation and forensic identification of remains before their return to relatives for burial.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) will be on hand to assist the Bougainville Government and its partners with advice and expert support as the policy is rolled out.

Families of those who have disappeared “may have psycho-social needs which require medical attention, even years later, this is an important need in Bougainville,” Gauthier Lefèvre, Head of Mission for the ICRC in Papua New Guinea, told IPS.

“Many may also have difficulties making ends meet economically or be in a vulnerable position within society due to absence of their usual support networks.”

The humanitarian organisation supports similar efforts to reconcile families in other post-conflict zones, such as Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Iran and Iraq.  It emphasises these measures are vital to helping people overcome anger and mistrust. If unaddressed, this burden can be passed on to a younger generation who are at risk of inheriting a sense of humiliation and injustice.

The Leitana Nehan Women’s Development Agency, a local non-governmental organisation, claims that unaddressed trauma has been a direct factor in high levels of alcohol and domestic abuse and violence against women, including rape, on the islands since the end of the ‘Bougainville crisis.’

During the three months of April, July and August 2010 alone, local police received reports of 84 sexual offences, 261 cases of domestic violence and 16 of child abuse.

Returning the remains of loved ones “is unfinished business on the road to healing, forgiveness, rehabilitation and reconstruction of whole communities” in the autonomous region, claims the OHCHR.

It “will bring closure and even psychological healing to families of missing persons and in some cases resolve legal issues linked to landownership and inheritance,” Lefèvre said.  He added that such efforts “certainly have an impact on human and social development in post-conflict zones.”

Peniai believes there will be benefits for human development “in the sense of establishing national unity, as a truly reconciled society is likely to be more stable.”

The peace process in Bougainville since 2001 has been assisted by the United Nations and international aid donors, but the autonomous region still faces immense development challenges. Life expectancy is 59 years and the under-five mortality rate is 74 per 1,000 live births, compared to the global average of 46, reports the National Research Institute.

In Central Bougainville, where the conflict originated, 56 percent of people do not have access to safe drinking water and 95 percent lack access to sanitation, according to World Vision.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Journalist Steven Sotloff, moments before he was killed, in a screen capture from the video posted by ISIS. Credit: IPS

By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Sep 3 2014 (IPS)

While the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama ponders broader actions against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Amnesty International Tuesday accused the group of carrying out ethnic cleansing in Iraq on a “historic scale.”

In a 26-page report, which was based on on-site investigations and interviews with victims and witnesses of mass executions and abductions, the London-based rights group said the threats to ethnic minorities in the areas under ISIS’s control “demand a swift and robust response … to ensure the protection of vulnerable communities who risk being wiped off the map of Iraq.”

“The group that calls itself the Islamic State (IS) has carried out ethnic cleansing on a historic scale in northern Iraq,” the report said. “Amnesty International has found that the IS has systematically targeted non-Arab and non-Sunni Muslim communities, killing or abducting hundreds, possibly thousands, and forcing more than 830,000 others to flee the areas it has captured since 10 June 2014.”

Amnesty’s report was released as another major international rights organisation, New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), charged ISIS with executing between 560 and 770 men – all or most of them Iraqi army soldiers – in Tikrit after it took control of that city on June 11 as part of its stunning drive across northern and central Iraq. The following day, ISIS itself claimed to have executed 1,700 “Shi’a members of the army.”

The new HRW estimate, which was based on testimony from a survivor and analyses of videos and satellite imagery, was triple the death toll HRW had reported at the end of June. The group said the imagery confirmed the existence of three more mass execution sites in and around Tikrit in addition to the two it had reported earlier.

“Another piece of this gruesome puzzle has come into place, with many more executions now confirmed,” said Peter Bouckaert, HRW’s emergencies director. “The barbarity of the Islamic State violates the law and grossly offends the conscience.”

The United Nations Human Rights Council voted Monday to send a fact-finding team to Iraq to investigate possible war crimes by ISIS.

“The reports we have received reveal acts of inhumanity on an unimaginable scale,” Flavia Pansieri, the deputy high commissioner for human rights, told the Council.

The Amnesty and HRW reports came as ISIS posted a video purporting to show its beheading of a U.S. reporter, Steven Sotloff, who had been kidnapped in August 2013 while he was covering the civil war in Syria for Time magazine and the Christian Science Monitor, among other publications.’

The grisly video, which is certain to add pressure on the Obama administration to expand recent U.S. airstrikes against ISIS to include targets in Syria, as well as in Iraq, followed the release of a video of the beheading by ISIS two weeks ago of another U.S. reporter, James Foley. It also came after an emotional videotaped appeal aired last week by Sotloff’s mother to ISIS’ leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, to spare her son.

Sotloff had appeared in the Foley video, with the purported executioner, who is believed to be a British national, warning that Sotloff would be next to be killed unless Obama ceased conducting air strikes against ISIS positions around Mt. Zinjar and convoys approaching Erbil, the capital of Kurdistan.

Obama, however, has since broadened the U.S. target list. Dozens of air strikes have been carried out in coordination with ground attacks by Iraqi special forces, Shi’a militias, and Kurdish peshmerga fighters in a counteroffensive that initially recaptured the giant Mosul dam from ISIS forces and, more recently, reportedly broke the group’s siege of the largely Shi’a Turkomen town of Amerli.

“I’m back, Obama,” the same masked executioner said on the latest video. “I’m back because of your arrogant foreign policy toward the Islamic State, because of your insistence on continuing your bombings.”

“We take this opportunity to warn those governments that enter this evil alliance of America against the Islamic State to back off and leave our people alone,” he added, while standing over yet another unidentified captive who is believed to be a British citizen.

For its part, the White House released a statement noting that it had seen the video and that the intelligence community was working to determine its authenticity. “If genuine, we are appalled by the brutal murder of an innocent American journalist and we express our deepest condolences to his family and friends.”

Obama, who left Tuesday for the NATO summit in Wales later this week, is expected to urge other members of the alliance to adopt a coordinated strategy of diplomatic, economic, and military pressure against ISIS, which spread from its base in eastern Syria into Iraq’s Al-Anbar province in early 2014 before its sweep down the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys into northern and central Iraq beginning in June.

Among other measures, Washington wants its European allies to adhere to U.S. and British policies against ransom payments to free citizens who are captured by ISIS – a practice that has reportedly become a major source of income for the group.

Secretary of State John Kerry and Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel are also scheduled to visit key allies in the Middle East next week, especially in the Sunni-led Gulf states, to persuade them to crack down harder against their citizens who fund or otherwise support ISIS, offer greater support to a new government in Baghdad, and possibly contribute direct support for expanded international military efforts against the group.

Like the administration itself, U.S. lawmakers, who return here from their summer recess next week, are divided on how aggressively Washington should take military action against ISIS.

While many Republicans are urging Obama to conduct air strikes – and even deploy ground forces – against the group in Syria, as well as Iraq, many Democrats are concerned that such an escalation could well lead to Washington’s becoming bogged down in yet more Middle Eastern conflicts.

Some key Democrats, however, are becoming more hawkish, a process that is likely to strengthen as a result of Sotloff’s execution.

“Let there be no doubt we must go after ISIS right away because the U.S. is the only one that can put together a coalition to stop this group that’s intent on barbaric cruelty,” said Florida Sen. Bill Nelson Tuesday in announcing legislation that would give Obama legal authority to strike ISIS in Syria.

In its report, Amnesty detailed mass killings last month by ISIS forces of hundreds of non-Sunni Muslim men and boys as young as 12 in the predominantly Yazidi regions in Nineveh Province, as well as the mass abductions of women and children, many of whom, according to the report, are being held in Mosul, Tal ‘Afar, and Bi’aj under pressure to convert to Sunni Islam. Many others remain unaccounted for.

“The Islamic State is carrying out despicable crimes and has transformed rural areas of Sinjar into blood-soaked killing fields in its brutal campaign to obliterate all trade of non-Arabs and non-Sunni Muslims,” said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty’s senior crisis response adviser currently based in northern Iraq.

In addition to Yezidis, targeted groups include Assyrian Christians, Turkmen Shi’a, Shabak Shi’a, Kakai and Sabean Manaeans, as well as many Arabs and Sunni Muslims who are believed to oppose ISIS, according to the report which also called for Iraq’s government to disband Shi’a militias, some of which are believed to have targeted Sunni communities in the region.

“Instead of aggravating the fighting by either turning a blind eye to sectarian militias or arming Shi’a militias against the Islamic State as the authorities have done so far, Iraq’s government should focus on protecting all civilians regardless of their ethnicity or religion,” according to Rovera.

Edited by Stephanie Wildes

Navi Pillay at a press conference in the Palais des Nations, Geneva. Credit: UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferre

By Constanza Vieira
BOGOTA, Jul 18 2013 (IPS)

The Colombian army killed Marta Díaz’s son Douglas in 2006, dressed him in combat fatigues and reported him as a FARC guerrilla killed in a shootout. Díaz searched for him everywhere, in prisons, hospitals and morgues, until she finally managed to track down his remains in 2008.

Douglas was just another “false positive” – the euphemism used in this South American country to describe army killings of young civilians passed off as guerrilla casualties.

Since then, Díaz, an activist with the Movement of Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE), has helped hundreds of other mothers who have lost their sons.

“Last year I received 27 death threats. And there have been seven so far this year,” she told IPS.

On Wednesday, Díaz was at the Centre for Memory, Peace and Reconciliation in Bogotá, established by the city government to promote debate and actions to document what is happening in Colombia’s decades-long civil war.“Last year I received 27 death threats. And there have been seven so far this year” -- Marta Díaz.

Seven human rights umbrella groups representing more than 400 organisations met this week with United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay and Anders Kompass, her director of field operations and technical cooperation.

Many victims like Díaz were in the packed auditorium. Pillay and Kompass heard more than 100 three-minute speeches.

Closing the office

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos announced Tuesday that he would close the Colombia office of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

Díaz said the fact that the announcement was made just when Pillay was starting a four-day visit to Colombia indicated that it was aimed at “confounding her and all of us human rights defenders, to get us all to fight to prevent the OHCHR from pulling out.”

The strategy was to divert attention from denunciations of human rights violations, which would be overshadowed by the news, Díaz said.

“It surprised me as much as it did the rest of you,” Pillay said on Wednesday, referring to the president’s announcement.

“We don’t need a U.N. human rights office in our country anymore,” Santos stated in an address given in Bogotá, which reached Pillay when she was in Santander de Quilichao, in the war-torn southwestern province of Cauca.

Pillay travelled to Cauca to meet for several hours with leaders of black, indigenous and rural communities who had plenty to say about the need for multilateral bodies to continue monitoring human rights in this country.

The OHCHR office in Colombia opened in 1997, and each renewal of its mandate has been preceded by a quiet diplomatic tug-of-war.

The authorities’ dislike of the U.N. office peaked after the May 2002 massacre in the village of Bojayá, where 119 people were killed and 98 injured after villagers took refuge in the church.

Shortly before they fled, the leftwing FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), who were lobbing homemade mortars at far-right paramilitary fighters who had set up camp behind the church, hit the building with a gas cylinder bomb that veered off course.

Kompass, the OHCHR representative in Colombia at the time, went on a mission to the village of Bojayá, on the Atrato river in northwestern Chocó province.

In his report, Kompass said all of the armed parties to the conflict had to answer for the massacre: the FARC guerrillas, who bombed the church; the paramilitary United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC) – since demobilised in talks with the government – which had occupied the village; and the state itself.

The government of then-President Andrés Pastrana (1998-2002) criticised the report, and the army’s Fourth Brigade said it did not “share unfounded versions which are aimed at showing possible ties between the army and navy and the illegal (paramilitary) self-defence groups.”

From Geneva, then-U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson intervened in support of Kompass.

But on Jun. 14, 2002, Kompass’s mission in Colombia was abruptly cut short. His removal was the condition set by the government to keep the OHCHR office open.

Kompass is now the person who names the directors of the OHCHR country offices. For example, he designated Todd Howland to head the Colombia office, who at the start was seen by activists as too quiet.

But on Jul. 10, Howland issued a harshly worded report on what happened during protests by peasant farmers in Catatumbo, an impoverished area in northeast Colombia on the border with Venezuela.

The peasants in Catatumbo, who have been protesting for over a month, are demanding that the area be declared a “peasant reserve” and that a scheme be adopted that would allow them, in an organised manner, to stop producing coca – their main livelihood in the isolated, roadless area — and switch to alternative crops.

But no progress has been made towards an official declaration of the peasant reserve, and the government instead ordered the eradication of coca crops by force in June. The crackdown on the protests has left four dead and 15 injured.

Howland reported grave violations of economic, social and cultural rights in the Catatumbo region. He also said that during the crackdown on the protests shots were fired from high-powered rifles that are usually used by the security forces, which indicated “excessive use of force” against the demonstrators.

High-level Colombian officials accused the OHCHR office of exceeding its mandate, just a few days ahead of the second visit to the country by Pillay, who before being named to her current post served as a judge on the International Criminal Court, which has Colombia under observation.

Body count scandal

Pillay’s first visit was in October 2008, when the “false positives” scandal broke out, involving the killings of at least 1,416 people by the security forces as a result of the “body count” system. This army strategy used incentives like weekend passes, cash bonuses, promotions and trips abroad to reward soldiers and officers for “results” in the counterinsurgency effort.

The bodies of the victims, some of whom were lured from poor neighbourhoods by false job promises and then killed, were presented as guerrillas killed in combat.

Although extrajudicial executions have been committed for over three decades in Colombia, the statistics show that the number of “false positives” shot up during the government of rightwing President Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010).

According to Javier Giraldo, the priest who directs the human rights and political violence data bank of the Jesuit Centre for Popular Research and Education (CINEP), it is “very worrisome that the peak in false positives killings occurred from 2006 to 2008 – just when President Santos served as defence minister.”

Santos was defence minister from July 2006 to May 2009. The CINEP data bank documented 918 “false positives” between 2006 and 2008.

Reports of killings of this kind dropped to 18 a year in 2009 and 2010, before increasing to 85 in 2011 and falling again to 52 in 2012.

Santos claims that he worked to put an end to the practice when he was defence minister. “We changed the doctrine,” he said on Thursday – thus acknowledging that there was a specific “body count” strategy.

But according to the president, “the country’s need for a United Nations Human Rights Office…has gradually disappeared.

”I’m going to tell (Pillay) that we are discussing whether extending the mandate is really worth it. Or, if it is extended, it would be for a very short time, because Colombia has made enough progress to say: ‘We don’t need any more United Nations human rights offices in our country’,” he added.

Various U.N. sources, as well as international affairs expert Laura Gil, have been telling IPS over the last three years that the government was hoping to close down the U.N. office.

The sources said Santos wanted to shed Colombia’s reputation of having the worst humanitarian crisis in the Western hemisphere, in order to request admission to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the 34-member-strong nations club, which aims to sets high human rights standards.

They explained that being under OHCHR monitoring was not compatible with membership in the OECD.

Homosexuality is broadly accepted in North America, the EU and much of Latin America, but widely rejected in predominantly Muslim nations and Africa, as well as in parts of Asia and Russia. Credit: Bigstock

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 4 2013 (IPS)

The 193-member U.N. General Assembly (UNGA), in its supreme wisdom, has declared over 100 commemorative “days” dedicated to peacekeepers, refugees, children, migrants, girl children, rural women and indigenous people, among others.

And then there is also World Water Day, an International Day of Happiness, a World Day for Social Justice, World Tourism Day, International Day for Biodiversity and an International Day for Elimination of Racial Discrimination."The international level... frankly has been one of the last bastions of acceptable bias and intolerance in matters of sexual orientation and gender identity." -- Amnesty International's Jose Luis Diaz

The U.N.’s calendar of “international days” each month is virtually bursting at its seams.

But the General Assembly, which is sharply divided over the politically sensitive issue of gay and lesbian rights, has side-stepped a decision to declare an International Day dedicated to lesbians, gays, bisexuals and the transgender (LGBT) community.

Still, the New York Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the Joint U.N. Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) hosted a press conference last month to commemorate an International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO).

But there were no system-wide commemorative meetings at the United Nations because, for all intents and purposes, IDAHO was a low-profile event since it did not have the blessings of the General Assembly, the U.N.’s highest policy-making body.

Homosexuality is broadly accepted in North America, the European Union and much of Latin America, but widely rejected in predominantly Muslim nations and Africa, as well as in parts of Asia and Russia, according to a survey of 39 countries by the Pew Research Center.

The results of the survey, released Tuesday, also mirror the political division at the United Nations over gay and lesbian rights.

Charles Radcliffe, chief of the Global Issues Section at OHCHR, told IPS, “There has been no attempt to date to introduce a resolution designating 17 May as the International Day Against Homophobia.”

In total, he said, the United Nations and its agencies officially observe nearly 120 “international days” — in almost all cases these flow from UNGA resolutions or, in a few cases, decisions taken at an agency level through their governing boards.

Boris O. Dittrich, advocacy director of the LGBT programme at Human Rights Watch (HRW), told IPS the High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay gave a speech in The Hague where she remarked that the U.N. observes many “special days”, but not IDAHO.

She would like to see this changed, but in the United Nations one needs a majority vote.

Dittrich said HRW would support an initiative to celebrate IDAHO officially. “It is a great advocacy hook,” he added.

In many countries, he said, activists organise activities and there is some media attention for discrimination issues based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

Meanwhile, the 19-member U.N. Committee on Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), which recommends consultative status to gay and lesbian groups, has repeatedly rejected applications from these groups over the last few years.

In what was described as “a historic vote”, the Committee last week recommended special consultative status to the Lesbian Medical Association (LMA). The Australia-based organisation advances both lesbian health professionals’ visibility and lesbian health in general.

The representative of Bulgaria told the committee that the organisation had faced postponement for seven consecutive sessions and had answered 54 questions posed to it over the years. The Committee was systematically deterring its application. It was time, she stated, to take a decision.

The Committee then recommended consultative status to the LMA by a vote 10 in favour (Belgium, Bulgaria, Burundi, India, Israel, Nicaragua, Peru, Turkey, the United States and Venezuela) to six against (China, Morocco, Pakistan, Russia, Senegal and Sudan), with two abstentions (Kyrgyzstan and Mozambique).

Cuba, another committee member, was absent during voting time.

Jose Luis Diaz, Amnesty International’s representative at the United Nations, told IPS, “We heartily welcomed the vote to grant consultative status to the Australian Lesbian Medical Association.”

He said the vote sent a strong message for equality of treatment and non-discrimination, “rights to which we are all entitled without distinction”.

“It was also further evidence that the struggle of the LGBT community for equality is bearing fruit at the international level, which frankly has been one of the last bastions of acceptable bias and intolerance in matters of sexual orientation and gender identity,” he added.

And in another encouraging step, a week after the Australian group got the nod from the U.N.’s NGO committee, an Austrian organisation, Homosexuelle Initiative Wien, also obtained consultative status.

“I hope these two historic votes mean that the day the UNGA can decree without controversy a day against homophobia has drawn nearer,” Luis Diaz added.

Asked about NGO committee’s recommendation, HRW’s Dittrich told IPS, “It was a great day for the NGOs, but it was not unprecedented.” The Dutch LGBT group COC received observer status directly through the NGO Committee in 2008.

“It was a close vote then with only a one vote majority. I remember this very well as HRW lobbied for the COC group,” he noted.

Meanwhile, the Pew survey released Tuesday said the view that homosexuality should be accepted by society is prevalent in most of the EU countries surveyed, with 88 percent in Spain sharing this view.

Outside of Europe, it is accepted by about three-quarters or more: in Canada (80 percent), Australia (79), Argentina (74) and the Philippines (73). A smaller majority (60) believes homosexuality should be accepted in the United States.

In sub-Saharan Africa, at least nine in 10 respondents in Nigeria (98 percent), Senegal (96), Ghana (96), Uganda (96) and Kenya (90) believe homosexuality should not be accepted by society.

Overwhelming majorities in the predominantly Muslim countries surveyed also say homosexuality should be rejected, including 97 percent in Jordan, 95 percent in Egypt, 94 percent in Tunisia and 93 percent in the Palestinian territories.

For decades, Tibetans have called for freedom from Chinese rule. Above, Tibetan protestors outside the Chinese Mission in New York in March 2008. Credit: William Farrington /IPS

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Nov 5 2012 (IPS)

Human rights workers and Tibet-focused activists are hailing a strongly worded statement by the United Nations’ top official on human rights, drawing attention to growing public discontent in Tibet just ahead of a major leadership shuffle that will reverberate throughout the Communist Party of China.

The statement, released Friday, was the first time that the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights had publicly commented on the situation in Tibet, despite years of lobbying by activist support groups.

“Social stability in Tibet will never be achieved through heavy security measures and suppression of human rights,” the high commissioner, Navi Pillay, said. “Deep underlying issues need to be addressed, and I call on the [Chinese] government to seriously consider the recommendations made to it by various international human rights bodies.”

She also urged Beijing to allow independent monitors into Tibet, while noting that a dozen requests for invitations for U.N. special rapporteurs still await Chinese government action.

“The U.N. matters to China, and this is an important opportunity for China to be called out in a public forum,” Mary Beth Markey, president of the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT), based in Washington, told IPS.

“In recent years, China has been very successful at containing bilateral conversations on human rights in private settings. Yet while the U.N. has been seen as a major tool by Western states to strengthen their human rights calls, they have been reluctant to use it as well as they should.”

Pillay’s statement also received immediate plaudits from the Tibetan government-in-exile in northern India.

The head of the government-in-exile, Lobsang Sangay, noted that his government was “encouraged by the powerful statement”. But he also called on the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to convene a special session on Tibet, “in view of the desperate and unprecedented spate of self-immolations by Tibetans due to China’s repressive policies and the continued intransigence of the Chinese leadership to the relentless efforts of UNHRC”.

Seven a week

Pillay’s statement came as a trend of self-immolations has grown in recent weeks, signifying strengthening public frustration with the rigidity of Chinese rule on the Tibetan plateau. On Sunday, a young Tibetan farmer became the sixty-third Tibetan since 2009 to set himself on fire in protest, according to ICT. The government-in-exile puts the number even higher.

In her statement, Pillay specifically referenced the extremity inherent to self-immolation as a form of protest.

“I recognise Tibetans’ intense sense of frustration and despair, which has led them to resort to such extreme means,” she said. “But there are other ways to make those feelings clear. The government also needs to recognise this, and permit Tibetans to express their feelings without fear of retribution.”

Having risen to a rate of seven a week by late October, the self-immolations appear to have severely embarrassed the Beijing government, which has reportedly stepped up the security presence in Tibetan-strong areas.

On Monday, the Chinese government strongly criticised Pillay’s statement. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hong Lei turned the blame on followers of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader living in northern India, blaming them for “ugly and evil acts intended to achieve the separatist goal of Tibetan independence”.

The same day, while travelling in Japan, the Dalai Lama noted his optimism that the once-a-decade changes in Chinese leadership, set to be announced on Thursday, would lead to political reform. The aging monk, who formally gave up his political role in 2011 and has for decades refuted Tibetan aspirations for independence from China, has repeatedly rejected self-immolation, along with other forms of violence, as a method of protest.

New political momen

Yet the polite refusal on the part of dozens of Tibetans to heed the Dalai Lama’s diktat on self-immolation suggests that “these are clearly political acts of standing up to the oppressor”, ICT’s Markey said.

“While much of Tibetan society remains rooted in Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, these are very clearly not acts of retreating to pray in the monasteries,” she continued.

“This is very interesting, because the struggle [for Tibetan autonomy] has for so many years been driven by the Dalai Lama’s leadership from the outside. Now we’re seeing Tibetans within Tibet acting within the context of their own political life – doing this for themselves and their future.”

This new process, which can be traced back to the unprecedented public demonstrations that swept the Tibetan plateau in mid-2008, in the run-up to the Beijing Olympic Games, goes well beyond self-immolation, which has unfortunately become its strongest statement.

Increasingly, however, a discussion is taking place within Tibet on how to be Tibetan – and to assert their ethnic identity – within the People’s Republic of China. The result has been a greater consciousness on the part of Tibetans to emphasise their language rights, wear Tibetan clothing or patronise Tibetan shops.

“Our own understanding of self-immolations has developed over time, but it seems now that Tibetans are in new political moment,” Markey said. “There is a concerted effort being made to make known that their situation can no longer be tolerated. The Chinese have tried to characterise these people as unstable, but it’s clearly something greater – these are not mere individual acts.”

Rights-lite campaign

For the most part, however, Western governments, including here in Washington, have been slow to respond with any greater urgency to the strengthened calls for reform from the Tibetan public.

“We have consistently expressed our concern about the violence in the Tibetan areas, about the continuing pattern of self-immolations, heightened tensions, and Tibet in general,” U.S. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said in late October.

But even as nonstop media coverage of the U.S. presidential election has continued for months leading up to Tuesday’s polls, the two presidential contenders have had very little to say about international human rights generally, much less on Tibet. Indeed, while China has been referenced repeatedly in the campaigns, it has only been used to talk about trade, labour or protectionism.

“Compared with past campaigns, human rights in China have largely been an afterthought,” Frank Jannuzi, the head of the Washington office of Amnesty International, a watchdog, wrote last week. “China might now be powerful enough that both candidates are reluctant to raise human rights issues for fear of it withholding cooperation in other areas.”

More than 200 of Sudan’s journalists are now unemployed after the government forced the closure of a number of newspapers in the country amid increasing press censorship. Credit: Zeinab Mohammed Salih/IPS

By Zeinab Mohammed Salih
KHARTOUM, Sep 15 2012 (IPS)

In Sudan’s newspaper district in Khartoum East, dozens of people sit beneath the trees sipping tea or reading newspapers. Most are journalists who once worked for the 10 newspapers that were either forced closed by the country’s security services or because of economic constraints that resulted after the government raised printing taxes in an attempt to prevent the media from reporting on anti-government demonstrations. 

Mohamed Ahmed, a former journalist for the Ajrass Elhuriya newspaper, which was closed in July 2011, is one of them.

“I have been sitting under the trees for a year and a half because the government closed my newspaper and other newspapers, that consider me to be opposed to the government, are afraid to hire me.”

The Sudanese Network of Journalists, a union for reporters, estimates that about 200 journalists are currently unemployed by the closures, which, it says, is the highest unemployment rate the profession has seen. The crackdown against the press began more than a year ago, soon after Sudan and South Sudan separated in July 2011.

More than 10 journalists were reportedly arrested and tortured by the police before and during nationwide anti-government demonstrations in June after the implementation of a government austerity plan that scrapped fuel and commodity subsidies.

In addition, security services have been accused of preventing 15 reporters from publishing stories on the demonstrations.

On Sep. 9, the general court in Khartoum north upheld the closure of a local newspaper, the Rai Elshab, and fined it for breaching the “duties of the press” and for “starting sectarian strife” after it published a story about rebel forces fighting the government in the country’s volatile western region of Dafur.

The war between the rebel forces in Dafur and the Sudanese government has raged since 2003 when the Sudan Liberation Army and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) began attacking government, accusing it of oppressing black Africans in favour of Arabs. Since 2010, the warring factions have been in peace talks. However, fighting has continued in the region, with the most recent incident occurring on Sep. 6, which resulted in the death of 10 government soldiers.

The country’s National Intelligence Security Services (NISS) had closed the Rai Elshab newspaper in January, and owners had gone to court in an attempt to have the publication reopened. However, the judge ruled that the paper would not be allowed to publish again without NISS approval.

Ashraf Abdul-Aziz, the head of the political department at Rai Elshab, told IPS: “The NISS complained against us in a court and closed our newspaper because we published a story about JEM, which has been fighting against the government in Darfur. That the NISS has the right to allow us to publish or not is a very strange situation.”

The Sudanese Network of Journalists told IPS that in the coming weeks the organisation would lay a complaint against the Sudanese government with the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. According to one of the organisation’s leaders, Khalid Ahmed, the complaint will be made once all national and regional mechanisms to put pressure on the government for a free and fair media had been completed.

In July reporters protested against the censorship at Sudan’s Human Rights Commission to no avail.

Khalid Ahmed said that the network’s last memorandum to the Human Rights Commission in Sudan had been submitted on Jul. 4 and called for the cessation of censorship and the release of journalists in police custody.

“They didn’t reply to our memorandum as we’d expected, but we will continue on our mission to complain to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva to set the media here free,” he said.

Faisal Mahmed Salih, the former chief editor of the now-closed Eladwaa newspaper, and the head of Teebba Press Center, told IPS that the censorship had negatively affected the media’s role in disseminating information.

“Due to censorship, readers don’t buy newspapers because all of them are the same. People only buy one newspaper or two now.”

Political analyst Hafiz Mohamed told IPS that the crackdown against the press would have a negative effect upon democracy and any possible political reform.

“Freedom of expression is a basic part of the democratic process, included with other freedoms such as freedom of assembly and association. If the government forbids journalists and the media from doing their jobs, there will be no democracy in Sudan,” he said.

He added that the government’s current censorship “shows that the government is afraid of the freedoms of the press.”

However, Rabei Abdallatee, consultant to the Information and Communication Minster, told IPS that censorship had been imposed on the media because there were “public and special circumstances in the country.”

He said that the censorship would only end if the circumstances changed. “Our country has special circumstances, because we are in a war with rebel groups and the media has to be careful,” Abdallatee said.

He said that the newspapers closed by the NISS, which are yet to be charged, “published negative articles, and threatened our national security” and were being investigated.

Osman Shinger, the chief editor of Eljareeda newspaper, told IPS that his publication had been to court 15 times during the last two months because of an arrest warrant against him. Shinger was charged after the publication of an opinion article criticising the governor of Sudan’s Al Jazirah state.

“I think that all the Sudanese problems are relevant to freedom of expression and access to information,” Shinger said.

“We tried to talk to the Centre of Media and Information, but it is seen as an NGO that favours the government. They didn’t reply to our phone calls and they didn’t allow to us to enter their building.”

Meanwhile, some journalists who were arrested and subsequently released now face ostracism from other publications practising self-censorship.

Mohamed Alasbst, the former managing editor of the Al-Ahram daily newspaper, spent two months in prison because he aided the now-deported Egyptian journalist, Shymaa Adil, who was covering Sudan’s nationwide protests for the Egyptian Elwatin newspaper. She spent two weeks in prison. He told IPS that because of his stint in prison, newspapers will not hire him for fear of being targeted by the government.

Alasbst added that his own newspaper fired him after he was released from prison.

“They expelled me from my job and the other newspapers also don’t want me to work with them, because I was in prison and they are afraid for the government. They fear if they hired someone like me who is considered to oppose the government, the government might fight them or close them down.”

The difficult situation has resulted in some choosing to quit the profession altogether.

Mohamed Ahmed told IPS that he has decided to leave Sudan to find work in one of the Gulf states.

“I was just a professional in my career and the government didn’t accept the professionalism, they want all the journalists to be in with the government or not to be journalists at all.”

EU's Bernard Savage at a project site: Credit: EU mission

By Feizal Samath
COLOMBO, Aug 19 2012 (IPS)

Sri Lanka is in for some hard bargaining when it negotiates a new aid pact in 2013 with the European Union (EU), which withdrew a key trade concession  two years ago over this country’s human rights record.

Bernard Savage, head of the EU delegation to Sri Lanka and the Maldives, says political differences do not affect trade. “There are no specific irritants (at the moment) and I would like to stress that in the normal run of affairs political differences do not affect trade.”

Savage told IPS in an interview that the issue of withdrawal of  EU trade concessions was a specific case. “But, if you look at the broad spectrum of trade relations … that was not affected by short-term considerations.”

However, well-known human rights lawyer J.C. Weliamuna believes that trade and aid are invariably linked to human rights and corruption – two sectors where Sri Lanka has been asked to show tangible progress.

“What is promised on paper (by the government) is exactly the opposite of what is implemented on the ground,” the lawyer, a board member of Transparency International, told IPS.

The EU is among Sri Lanka’s largest providers of development assistance and has allocated an overall sum exceeding 478 million dollars for the  2007-2013 period for projects dealing with water and sanitation, housing, income generation, infrastructure, schools, health facilities, food security and others.

“The level of assistance for the next programme – 2013 to 2020 – will be more or less the same. It won’t decrease,” Savage said.

Sri Lanka had won generous tax concessions under the Generalised System of Preferences Plus (GSP+)  for the July 2005  – August 2010, but this facility was withdrawn over unaddressed human rights concerns.

EU investigations had found ”shortcomings in respect of Sri Lanka’s implementation of three United Nations human rights conventions – the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention against Torture and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.”

However, it was widely understood that the concessions were withdrawn owing to Sri Lanka’s failure to address alleged war crimes during the last stages of the country’s ethnic conflict.

The impact of lost EU concessions is now being felt with garments exports to Europe dropping by 15-20 percent in the five months up to May, said Rohan Abeykoon, chairman of the Sri Lanka Apparel Exporters Association.

Garments, Sri Lanka’s biggest export item, account for more than 50 percent of exports to Europe.

“It’s not the job losses that we are worried about because there is demand for labour, but lost contracts are affecting small and medium businesses,” Abeykoon said. “Local companies are losing out while those with multinational connections will shift production elsewhere.”

Abeykoom told IPS that he has urged the government to reapply for the facility, though there is no sign of that happening yet.  “With regard to GSP + we have had no request from the government for a new facility,” Savage confirmed.  

Trade unions are also backing the call for a revival of the  concessions. Palitha Athukorala, president of the Progress Union of Sri Lankan Apparel Workers, said the government seems unconcerned and has made no attempt to apply for GSP +.

“They (government) should ask for it. We are badly affected as small factories are closing and workers are losing jobs,” Athukorala told IPS.

Padmini Weerasuriya, coordinator of the Women’s Centre, a non-government organisation active in the country’s free trade zones, says there are no job losses owing to the loss of GSP + concessions, though this may change.  

“Our members (workers) have reported a drop in orders which then affects other incentives outside the monthly wage,” she said. Unions have already been campaigning for decent living wages.

On the political front, Sri Lanka this month did a major about-turn to invite the U.N. Human Rights Council to visit the country to review the human rights situation.

Earlier, Sri Lanka had even refused entry to a EU team examining Sri Lanka’s application for a renewal of GSP+ benefits.

The government has prepared an action plan on human rights and sent it to Geneva, five months after the U.N. passed a United States-backed resolution urging Sri Lanka to address alleged human rights abuses.

The March U.N. motion had called on Colombo to address violations of international humanitarian law; implement the recommendations of a local commission that probed the conflict; and encourage the U.N. Human Rights office to offer Sri Lanka advice and assistance and the government to accept such advice.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has repeatedly denied claims of large-scale civilian casualties during the last stages of the battle against Tamil separatist rebels that ended in May 2009.

Strained relations with the West have forced the government to rely on allies in the neighbourhood like China, Iran, Libya and India for war-related and development aid.

Constant international pressure and the March U.N. resolution – which was backed by India, a long-time Sri Lanka supporter – has  forced Sri Lanka to make conciliatory gestures to the West.

The respected Sunday Times newspaper said on Aug. 5 that the government’s decision to implement the full U.N. resolution and allow a U.N. team to visit the country would pave the way for a long-standing visit by U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, considered a vocal critic.

Weliamuna said issues in which the international community is concerned – human rights, declining rule of law, growing impunity and corruption – are relevant. “The government knows it cannot continue in this manner and is trying to convince the world that it has changed,” he said.

Abeykoon says the devaluation of the Sri Lankan rupee against the US dollar,  which has pushed the  rupee down to 132 per dollar, against 110 in February, has helped the garment industry. “If not, our exports (to the EU) would have worsened.”

For Savage, the GSP + is a “closed chapter”, using a phrase borrowed  from Sri Lanka’s external affairs minister Gamini Lakshman Peiris. “The fact is GSP+ was withdrawn and Sri Lanka has not reapplied. We need to move on,” Savage said.

The United Nations, which remains politically deadlocked over the drawn-out crisis in Syria, has hit another roadblock, this time over humanitarian assistance to the thousands of men, women and children caught up in the 11-month-old conflict.

Despite repeated efforts, Valerie Amos, U.N. under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, has failed to get approval for a proposed visit to Syria.

The government of President Bashar al-Assad has continued to stall – virtually refusing to cooperate with the United Nations.

“I am deeply disappointed that I have not been able to visit Syria, despite my repeated requests to meet Syrian officials at the highest level to discuss the humanitarian situation and the need for unhindered access to the people affected by the violence,” Amos said Wednesday.

The Syrian government has not only remained silent over the U.N. offer to facilitate food and medical supplies but also turned down a request by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for a pause in hostilities to evacuate the wounded.

U.N. spokesperson Martin Nesirky told reporters Wednesday that Amos was ready to go “at a moment’s notice” but that the Syrian government has failed to agree on a date.

“She hasn’t got the green light yet,” he said.

According to the United Nations, over 7,500 have been killed, mostly civilians, and including members of the Syrian security forces.

“Every day that we are not able to reach people, especially in the towns where there is heavy fighting, prolongs their suffering,” Amos said.

The United Nations and its partners stand ready to help humanitarian aid reach people in desperate need in Syria, she added, pointing out this should be one of the highest priorities in the ongoing conflict.

A meeting of Western and Arab leaders in Tunis last week called for a U.N. peacekeeping mission in Syria.

But this proposal is considered a non-starter since it has to be approved by the 15-member Security Council where Russia and China have already exercised their vetoes to protect the Assad regime.

Both countries rejected a Security Council resolution last month critical of the Syrian government which was accused of committing atrocities against civilians.

Speaking in Tunis last week, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was quoted as saying, “It’s quite distressing to see two permanent members of the Security Council using their veto when people are being murdered: women, children and brave young men.”

“It’s just despicable. And I ask, whose side are they on?” she said.

Clinton also told a U.S. Senate hearing Wednesday “there would be an argument to be made” that Assad was a “war criminal” in the context of a definition by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Navi Pillay, U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said Wednesday that Syria should be referred to the ICC.

Addressing an “urgent debate” of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Pillay said there were massive campaigns of arrest by the Syrian military and security forces and an escalation of violence in the country.

“Blockades have made it impossible for the injured to reach hospitals or for supplies of food, water and medical supplies to reach residents,” she said.

Pillay also referred to reports of increased armed attacks by anti- government fighters.

The Syrian government has provided the U.N. Human Rights office with casualty figures which put the total number of people killed in the violence – civilians, soldiers and police officers – between March of last year and mid January 2012 at more than 3,800, she said.

But the U.N. Human Rights office believes the actual numbers maybe many more, she noted.

“What is urgently needed today is for the killings to stop. Those committing atrocities in Syria have to understand that the international community will not stand by and watch this carnage and that their decisions and the actions they take today ultimately will not go unpunished.”

Pillay said she believed the situation of Syria should be referred to the ICC. The prosecutor of the ICC is able to initiate an investigation on the basis of a referral from a state party to the court or from the U.N. Security Council.

Pillay also called on the Syrian authorities to cooperate with international mechanisms, particularly the newly appointed special envoy, Kofi Annan. The former U.N. secretary-general was appointed jointly by the United Nations and the League of Arab States.

Syrian Ambassador Faysal Khabbaz Hamoui told the Human Rights Council it was the desire of some to use the Council “for slander and libel”. The real aim of the meeting was to cover up the murder and violence of armed groups directed against innocent civilians, he added.

“The Syrian government was aware that the quality of services had regressed but armed groups have targeted state infrastructure including educational and health institutions,” he said.

The international community, he said, should stop enticing and exciting sectarian violence.

The action by the Human Rights Council would fuel the flames of terrorism and prolong the crisis, he declared.

(END)

Strung across the main road leading away from the international airport is a banner that has an intriguing message: ‘USA, Pls Do Not Support Terrorism’.

Most of the other large billboards and banners on the same stretch are also directed at visiting tourists, but these are less political and exhort them to visit beach locations or buy jewellery.

The banner is part of a government campaign to thwart or at least discredit a United States-led resolution to be tabled at the ongoing session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) that began in Geneva on Monday.

The resolution calls on the Sri Lankan government to detail how it plans to act on the recommendations made by its own Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), according to U.S. assistant secretary of state for south and central Asia Robert Blake.

The LLRC was set up in May 2010 by President Mahinda Rajapaksa to inquire into the civil war and related events between 2002 and May 2009, when the conflict finally ended. It presented its final report in November 2011.

The Sri Lankan government has steadfastly rejected international intervention into the conduct of the final phase of the war, despite mounting allegations of rights abuses. So far, it has successfully resisted all attempts to bring on international scrutiny.

In May 2009, as the war was ending and government troops were mopping up the remnants of the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, Sri Lankan diplomats in Geneva were able to quash a resolution at the UNHRC calling for an international inquiry.

The South Asian nation, backed by India, China and Russia, was then able to get passed a counter-resolution hailing the victory of government forces.

Since then, however, the diplomatic atmosphere in Geneva has changed. Colombo appears shaken by the impending resolution, with high-ranking government officials publicly dubbing the move by the U.S. as intrusive intimidation.

“President Rajapaksa had challenged the conflict management theory introduced by some Western countries. They have named Sri Lanka a country engaged in human rights violations,” youth affairs minister Dullas Alahapperuma told media a day before the Geneva sessions were to start.

“At a moment when they should be supporting Sri Lanka’s revival, they are trying to impose their will on us,” Alahapperuma complained.

Mahinda Samarasinghe, minister and leader of the Sri Lankan delegation at Geneva, said as the sessions began: “We are of the view that this (resolution) could be perceived as undue interference with internal processes of recovery and reconciliation containing strong elements of prejudgement and the application of double standards.”

The government, Samarasinghe said, had in fact begun to implement some of the LLRC recommendations. He was referring to the army and the navy setting up internal inquiries to ascertain whether there were any rights abuses.

Separately, the attorney-general’s department too has begun interviewing some of those who gave evidence at the LLRC.

However, rights activists say that the government needs to show a consistent intent that it is serious about carrying through the LLRC recommendations, rather than reacting when calls for international scrutiny are heard.

“It has to set up an apex body, with possibly the president at the head, to carry out the recommendations. Then it would be clear that the intent is there,” Jehan Perera, executive director of the Colombo-based advocacy body, the National Peace Council, told IPS.

Perera believes that despite the criticism, the final report of the LLRC does give the government a vital entry point into national reconciliation after three decades of civil war. “It is a very important document, one that gives a lot of opportunities.”

Other activists say that widespread protests – some 150 were held in various parts of the country on Feb. 27, mostly organised by ruling party legislators – were unlikely to create any kind of pressure in Geneva.

“I don’t think protests here will change anything in Geneva. Any resolution in Geneva is usually negotiated for several months and weeks,” Ruki Fernando, head of the human rights in conflict programme at the advocacy body, Law and Society Trust, told IPS.

Fernando felt that the government was trying to drum up support by harping on charges of a foreign conspiracy against an independent leadership.

“I think it’s misleading to call this a resolution against Sri Lanka,” said Fernando. “How can a resolution that calls for the implementation of our own LLRC’s recommendations, dealing with accountability issues that the LLRC couldn’t address and having an action plan and road map with specific timelines be against Sri Lanka?”

No official version of the resolution has been made available, but leaked drafts indicate that it will call for the implementation of the LLRC recommendations.

In August 2011, the government acknowledged for the first time, in a report, that there were civilian casualties in the final phase of the war, but did not give any numbers.

The report was released soon after a U.N. experts panel spoke of tens of thousands of people having been killed in the last months of the war and deliberate shelling of civilians.

(END)

Illegal spying on human rights activists and journalists is still happening in Colombia, according to a new report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Juan Carlos Monge and Todd Howland presenting the report. Credit:OHCHR Colombia

In response to the allegation, Interior Minister Germán Vargas categorically stated: “It’s not true. There is no illegal wiretapping.”

“These allegations should be more precise, they should not be generalisations,” he added.

After a major scandal broke out in 2009 over wiretapping and harassment of Supreme Court magistrates, political dissidents, human rights defenders and reporters by the Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad (DAS), the domestic intelligence agency was officially closed in October 2011.

One month earlier, Jorge Noguera, director of DAS from 2002 to 2005, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for his involvement in the 2004 murder of a prominent sociologist by far-right paramilitaries.

More recent DAS directors as well as over 40 DAS employees and several high-ranking officials of the government of rightwing president Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010) are currently under prosecution for illegal spying and harassment.

Nevertheless, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) states in its report for 2011, presented Monday Feb. 27 in Bogotá, that it continued receiving reports about illegal spying, especially from human rights defenders and journalists.

The OHCHR report on the situation of human rights in Colombia says “there has been uncorroborated information on the involvement of State agents, including members of civilian and military intelligence services, in illegal and clandestine operations.

“Most cases have not been resolved. If no significant progress is made in preventing, investigating and punishing these acts, it will be difficult to guarantee non-repetition,” it adds.

The report cites, for example, interception of emails and information theft against human rights defenders and journalists, even after DAS was closed down.

Virtually every United Nations report on Colombia since 1997 has recommended purging the country’s intelligence files, to guarantee respect for human rights. The latest report is no exception, which indicates that the purge has not been carried out.

The report recommends that “the process for updating, rectifying, annulling or keeping personal information in intelligence files should be regulated,” Juan Carlos Monge, deputy director of the OHCHR office in Colombia, said in a press conference in Bogotá Monday.

The Constitutional Court handed down a ruling to that effect in October.

The report says “The military intelligence services require public regulations to define and limit their actions. Their internal control mechanisms and public accountability need to be substantially strengthened, particularly in view of the increased allocation of military intelligence service resources planned” by the government of centre-right President Juan Manuel Santos, who took office in August 2010.

The OHCHR report, which was also presented Monday in Geneva to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, recognises that progress has been made in some cases of interception of emails and surveillance. “Not progress that we can be totally satisfied with, but a step forward at least,” Monge said.

The main progress made on that front, according to the U.N. agency, was the adoption in mid-2011 of the “Intelligence Law”, which was drawn up with advice and observations from the OHCHR office in Colombia, “to ensure that it was compatible with international human rights standards,” Monge said.

The report explains that “The law defines the limits and purposes of intelligence in terms of respecting human rights and creates two commissions: one to assist in the purging of intelligence files and another, a congressional commission, to monitor intelligence activities.”

But, it adds, “Noteworthy challenges to the implementation of this law are the weak mandate of the congressional commission and the lack of effective internal control mechanisms.”

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay recommended that the office of the inspector general (Procuraduría General de la Nación) “take more in-depth preventive and disciplinary actions vis-à-vis the intelligence agencies” Monge said.

The office of the inspector general should take on a more active role in purging the intelligence files, the OHCHR report adds, especially given the fact that it was left in charge of the DAS files when the intelligence agency was shut down.

“The 2011 report indicates the importance of the procuraduría in the purge,” Todd Howland, the new director of the OHCHR office in Colombia, said in response to a question from IPS. “That recommendation is very important, because they can take on a role of civilian oversight with respect to the files and that process.”

In response to another question from IPS, and referring to the prosecutions in the DAS case, Monge said it is best in these cases to continue forward “with actions that vindicate the good use to which intelligence should be put.”

The OHCHR recommends that measures be adopted in order to comprehensively reform the intelligence services and “transform the institutional culture that led to the commission of human rights violations.”

It also says it is “necessary to protect public officials from the intelligence services who report abuses or refuse to comply with illegal requests.”

The espionage carried out by the DAS, which answered directly to Uribe, went across borders, targeted citizens from other countries, and purportedly diverted U.S. and British military aid.

In May 2011, the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee urged Colombia to clarify and explain DAS’s spying activities and determine who was responsible for illegal espionage activities carried out in Europe, and against European citizens.

And the U.S. Congress ordered the State Department to review the use to which military aid to Colombia was put over the last decade. The aid totalled eight billion dollars and was channelled through the Plan Colombia military and counterinsurgency programme. (END)