September 4, 2009

Hi Everybody,

Here is a compendium of news and news articles from Amnesty International you may find of interest, for the week of August 30th through September 4th.

I’ve provided links whenever possible.

Regards,

Joseph Jordan
Group 30 – San Francisco
Amnesty International

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A new Western Regional Office intern is:

Ashley Hill
WRO Outreach Coordinator
Amnesty International USA
350 Sansome Street, Suite 210
San Francisco, CA 94104
415.288.1800

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*Amnesty in the News (Iran)
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/09/01/iraq.deathpenalty.woman/index.html

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Power to the Peaceful
Join Amnesty International on Saturday September 12th at the 2009
Power to the Peaceful concert in Golden Gate Park! Enjoy a day full or art, music and action as an Amnesty volunteer!

Volunteers will assist Amnesty International staff in educating the
public about Troy Davis, and our Dealth Penalty Abolition campaign.

Volunteers will gather petition signatures, register new AI members, and enjoy a day of peaceful activism!

To volunteer contact Ashley Hill at outreachwest@aiusa.org

Visit www.powertothepeaceful.org for more details

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*Amnesty in the News (Cuba)
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/09/01/amnesty.cuba.health/index.html

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*Western Regional Conference
Join other AI activists from around the region at the 2009 Western Regional Conference November 6-8 at the Hilton Hotel in downtown San Francisco. To register visit http://www.amnestyusa.org/regional-conferences/west/page.do?id=1650028

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*Stopping Torture in the 21st Century – Event in Fremont
Amnesty International USA Group 612 (East Bay) invites you to the Fremont Community Center to learn about how you can help stop torture and help promote political rights in the 21st century. We are honored to have two exciting speakers, and refreshments will be served. The event information is directly below followed by our Group’s information- -we are a thriving AI group that is always! looking to add new members. And this is an excellent time to become more involved in Amnesty, not only with its historical work on Prisoners of Conscience but its new work advocating for economic rights.

EVENT INFORMATION

When: Saturday, September 12, 2009, 6:00-8:00 p.m.

Where: Fremont Community Center
http://www.Fremont. gov/index.aspx?nid306
40204 Paseo Padre Parkway, Fremont, CA 94538

Much more info can be found at the website for the event here:
http://www.amnesty- volunteer. org/usa/group612 /sept09event.shtml

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Help End Opression and Brutality in Honduras
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&aid=12929&ICID=E0908A03&tr=y&auid=5264998

July 10th, 2009

Authorities Widen Crackdown After Xinjiang Riots in China, Says Amnesty International

WASHINGTON – July 10 – Chinese president Hu Jintao’s threats of severe punishment for those who took part in the recent unrest in Xinjiang failed to address the serious human rights violations at the root of Uighur grievances, Amnesty International said.

At a meeting last night, President Hu and other state leaders called for stability and unity in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR), and blamed the “three forces” of terrorism, separatism and extremism for masterminding and organizing the riots.

“The Chinese leadership should focus both on the grim conditions that many Uighurs face and respond with a credible, truthful, transparent investigation into the recent violence,” said Roseann Rife, Amnesty International Asia-Pacific deputy director.

Amnesty International is concerned about the comments of Urumqi’s Communist Party Secretary, Li Zhi, who, according to state media China Central Television, stated in a news conference on July 8 that “brutal criminals will be sentenced to death.”

“Only the courts are eligible to make sentencing decisions. The remarks concerning capital punishment given by the city’s party chief outside the judicial system shows a complete disregard for rule of law and judicial independence,” said Rife.

Sources in China told Amnesty International that Beijing judicial authorities had sternly warned a number of human rights lawyers, through the law firms where they are employed, not to take on any cases related to the unrest in XUAR. Those who have already taken up cases related to last year’s unrest in the Tibet Autonomous Region had to return to the capital and report on their work to the judicial authorities.

“Intimidating lawyers not to defend individuals detained during the recent unrest obstructs their right to counsel of their choosing and undermines the likelihood of fair trials and due process,” said Rife.

Sources also told Amnesty International that Ilham Tohti, editor of the Uyghur Online website (www.uighurbiz.cn) and economics professor at Central Nationalities University in Beijing, has been detained by the Chinese authorities since the early morning of July 8. Beijing police interrogated Professor Tohti from July 5-7. His whereabouts are still unknown. Professor Tohti has been commenting on the situation of Uighurs in China for years, and his blog has been censored since the unrest in the Tibetan Autonomous Region in 2008.

“A crackdown that extends beyond the XUAR and to people not involved in any protests, much less violence, is not the answer to the unrest,” said Rife. “We urge the authorities to immediately account for Ilham Tohti’s whereabouts, and ensure that he has not been detained merely for peacefully expressing his opinions.”

Amnesty International recognizes the duty of the Chinese authorities to ensure the safety of everyone at risk from violence, and their duty to bring to justice those responsible for crimes of violence in the context of the current unrest in Xinjiang.

However, Amnesty International has documented instances where the authorities initiated heavy-handed crackdowns following protests in the region, including in Barren (Chinese: Baren) township in 1990 and in Gulja (Chinese: Yining) city in 1997, resulting in deaths of protestors and thousands of detentions. The organization urges the authorities not to repeat the patterns of past responses and to avoid the use of unnecessary or excessive force in restoring order, allow independent and impartial investigation into the events, and ensure that any trials be conducted fairly, in line with international standards, and without recourse to the death penalty.

Amnesty International reiterates its call for a fair and impartial investigation to the events that broke out in the XUAR since July 5 and urges the authorities to respect and protect the rights to life and freedom from discrimination on the basis of ethnic origin by addressing abuses and violations of these rights by state and non-state actors.

Amnesty International also calls on Chinese authorities to fully account for all those who have died and for all those in detention.
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Amnesty International is a worldwide movement of people who campaign for internationally recognized human rights for all. Our supporters are outraged by human rights abuses but inspired by hope for a better world – so we work to improve human rights through campaigning and international solidarity. We have more than 2.2 million members and subscribers in more than 150 countries and regions and we coordinate this support to act for justice on a wide range of issues.

CNN

Last month, Amnesty International said that pollution and other environmental effects from the oil industry in the Niger Delta are creating a “human rights tragedy” in which local people suffer poor health and loss of livelihood.

Governments and oil companies are failing to be accountable for the problems, Amnesty said in its report, called “Petroleum, Pollution and Poverty in the Niger Delta.”

But the state oil company said it was local communities that cause much of the environmental damage by vandalizing pipelines for monetary gain.

“We take environmental damage very seriously,” said Levi Ajuonoma, a spokesman for Nigerian National Petroleum Corp.

“Pipeline damage is a major cause of pollution,” Ajuonoma said, blaming “communities who… vandalize pipelines and make claims on the oil company operating in the area.”

The Niger Delta is a region in Nigeria consisting of nine oil-producing states. Covering 46,500 square miles (75,000 square kilometers), it is about the same size as the Czech Republic or Pennsylvania, according to the U.N. Development Program.

Report: Iran to prosecute satellite TV contributors

(CNN) — In another move to crack down on information flowing out of Iran, the Islamic Republic’s judicial chief has ordered the prosecution of individuals “who cooperate with satellite television programming providers,” a reformist newspaper reported Sunday.

“The individuals, who in any way collaborate with these networks or are entrenched in the nucleus of organizations which are active through Internet sites, must be adequately and properly subject to legal actions. It is imperative that this phenomenon be seriously dealt with by all judicial authorities of the country as well as by provincial judicial authorities,” Ayatollah Seyyed Mahmoud Hashemi-Shahroudi said in his order, which was quoted by the newspaper Hamshahri.

The ayatollah called on local judicial heads to work with investigators to determine “intentions, objectives and their sources of financial, political and intelligence support” of individuals who “operate against the system,” according to Hamshahri, a widely circulated pro-reform publication that has been in print for more than a decade.

The scope of the reported threat and whether it was referring to international networks, reporters and stringers was not immediately clear. Because international journalists have been limited in their ability to gather news in Iran, CNN has not been able to confirm the news report.

However, the government has been trying to limit the flow of online information and other forms of communications in Iran, according to activists and human rights officials.

Since June 12, when disputed presidential election results sent tens of thousands of Iranians into the streets to protest, the world got a front-row view of the unrest thanks largely to dissidents using online tools to spread the news.

News from Internet users has been important as Iran’s government began kicking out some reporters from traditional media outlets, arresting others and restricting the movements of those who remained.

More than 1,000 people have been arrested over the election fallout, including several journalists, according to the international human rights watchdog Amnesty International.

Most recently, the semi-official Fars News Agency reported that a journalist for Newsweek magazine who was arrested in Tehran confessed to doing the bidding of Western governments, though CNN could not verify the report. Maziar Bahari, 42, made his alleged confession at a news conference Tuesday.

Fars reported that the Canadian-Iranian reporter, who had worked for the BBC and England’s Channel 4 network, admitted having filed false reports for Newsweek during the elections. The magazine has rejected the allegation.

Amnesty: Israel killed hundreds of Gaza civilians

July 2, 2009

(CNN) — Israeli troops killed hundreds of unarmed civilian adults and children, broke laws and committed war crimes during their winter offensive in Gaza, Amnesty International said in a scathing report released Thursday.

The human rights group also pointed a finger at Hamas and other Palestinian militant organizations in its 117-page report.

Hamas and other Palestinian groups committed war crimes by firing hundreds of rockets into southern Israel, killing three Israeli civilians, injuring scores and driving thousands from their homes, according to the report.

Both sides must allow independent investigations into the 22-day conflict, which spanned December and January, Amnesty said.

Among the report’s criticism of Israeli actions:

“Hundreds of civilians were killed in attacks carried out using high-precision, air-delivered bombs and missiles and tank shells. Others, including women and children, were shot at short range when posing no threat to Israeli soldiers.”

Israel Defense Forces challenged Amnesty’s report.

“The slant of their report indicates that the organization succumbed to the manipulations of the Hamas terror organization,” said a Israel Defense Forces news statement. “The Amnesty report ignores a critical aspect of Operation Cast Lead — Hamas consistently, deliberately and routinely violated international law, specifically the prohibition against the use of ‘human shields.’”

About 300 children and hundreds of other unarmed civilians who were not part of the conflict were among the 1,400 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces, the report said.

Amnesty also said Israeli soldiers used civilians as human shields and said it found no evidence that Hamas had done so.

The human rights group’s report follows another released in May by a U.N. committee, which said the Israeli government was responsible for civilian deaths and more than $10 million in damage to U.N. buildings during the offensive.

Israel officials also disputed that report.

A U.N. team has begun to investigate the offensive, but Israeli authorities have not cooperated, the Amnesty report said.

“Israel’s failure to properly investigate its forces’ conduct in Gaza, including war crimes, and its continuing refusal to cooperate with the U.N. international independent fact-finding mission headed by Richard Goldstone, is evidence of its intention to avoid public scrutiny and accountability,” said Donatella Rovera, an Amnesty International researcher.

Iran cleric urges no mercy for protesters

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) — Two weeks into turmoil, Iran’s leaders turned up the heat Friday as a high-ranking cleric warned protesters that they would be punished “firmly” and shown no mercy.

“Rioters and those who mastermind the unrest must know the Iranian nation will not give in to pressure and accept the nullification of the election results,” said Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami during Friday prayers in Tehran, according to Iran’s state-run Press TV.

“I ask the Judiciary to firmly deal with these people and set an example for everyone,” Khatami said.

Khatami also blamed demonstrators for the death of Neda Agha-Soltan, the young woman who emerged as a powerful symbol of opposition after her death a week ago was captured on a cell phone video. Khatami said the foreign media had used Neda for propaganda purposes.

International journalists have been restricted from covering events unfolding within Iran. Many journalists, both Iranians and foreigners, have been detained by the government.

The human rights group Amnesty International called Friday for their release.

“The Iranian authorities must immediately release dozens of journalists arrested since 12 June and who are at risk of torture in detention,” the rights group said in adopting detained journalists in Iran as prisoners of conscience.

“Rather than trying to investigate alleged abuses, the only message the authorities are sending is that they are seeking to hide the truth, both from their own citizens and the rest of the world,” Amnesty said.

It said 20 of 25 employees of Kalameh Sabz, a newspaper established by opposition candidate Mir Hossein Moussavi, were arrested at their office in Tehran’s Haft Tir Square on Monday and have been detained at an undisclosed location. Amnesty gathers its information from media reports and a network of local correspondents.

Human Rights Watch, another group that has been monitoring the situation by interviewing people in Iran, said Friday that Iran’s paramilitary Basij is carrying out brutal nighttime raids, destroying property in private homes and beating civilians in an attempt to stop nightly rooftop chants of “Allahu Akbar” (God is great).

The nighttime chanting is emblematic of the protests 30 years ago during the Iranian revolution, which toppled the monarchy of the shah.

“While most of the world’s attention is focused on the beatings in the streets of Iran during the day, the Basiji are carrying out brutal raids on people’s apartments during the night,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director for Human Rights Watch.

“Witnesses are telling us that the Basiji are trashing entire streets and even neighborhoods as well as individual homes,” she said.

Residents from northern Tehran neighborhoods told Human Rights Watch that the Basij fired live rounds into the air, in the direction of buildings from which they believed the chants were sounding.

Basij members kicked down doors and “when they entered the homes, they beat” people, a resident said.

The rights group said it had collected similar accounts of violence from several other neighborhoods.

The accounts are consistent with numerous accounts CNN has received of nighttime roundups of opposition activists and international journalists from their homes. Amateur videos sent to CNN also show members of the Basij, wearing plain shirts and pants and wielding clubs and hoses, dispersing protesters and beating a handful of Iranians at a time. Watch how

Unrest in Iran erupted after the June 12 presidential elections in which hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner. Ahmadinejad’s chief rival, Moussavi, called the results fraudulent and has asked for a cancellation of the vote.

Members of Iran’s National Security Council have told Moussavi that his repeated demands for the annulment are “illogical and unethical,” the council’s deputy head told the government-run Iranian Labor News Agency.

Esmaeel Kowsari told the news agency Friday that the council met with Moussavi, former presidential candidates Mehdi Karrubi and Mohsen Rezaie, and former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who now chairs the Assembly of Experts. The assembly is responsible for appointing or removing the supreme leader.

The National Security Council, which includes dozens of political leaders, assists Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s unelected supreme leader. Together, they set the parameters of regional and foreign policies, including relations with Western powers, and the country’s nuclear programs.

It was not clear when the Security Council meeting took place, but based on information from it, the NSC will prepare a report and make recommendations to parliament in light of the candidates’ complaints, the Ministry of Interior, the Guardian Council and “higher levels,” Kowsari told the news agency.

The Guardian Council, which approves all candidates running for office and verifies election results, has declared that there will be no annulment of the votes.

Uruguay compensates ex-political prisoners

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (CNN) — Uruguay has paid $42 million (973 million pesos) in compensation during the past three years to more than 3,000 former political prisoners, the state-run news agency said Monday.

The government paid out more than $15.5 million (359 million pesos) in 2007, $19.6 million (454 million pesos) in 2008 and $6.9 million (160 million pesos) in the first four months of this year, the Ultimas Noticias official news agency said.

The payments are being made to about 3,200 Uruguayans imprisoned between February 9, 1973, and February 29, 1985, when a military dictatorship held power, the news agency said.

Amnesty International calculated that in 1976 Uruguay had more political prisoners per capita than any other nation in the world, with about one prisoner for every 415 citizens.

Amnesty International also noted the “widespread and systematic use of torture” during that period.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/06/22/uruguay.prisoners/index.html

© 2008 Cable News Network

Rights groups criticize CIA immunity on interrogations
CNN.com

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Human rights organizations reacted angrily Thursday to the Obama administration’s announcement that CIA officials would not be prosecuted for past waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics.

Attorney General Eric Holder made the announcement in a separate statement as the administration announced it was releasing four Bush-era memos on terror interrogations that included the controversial practice of waterboarding.

“The president has halted the use of the interrogation techniques described in these opinions, and this administration has made clear from day one that it will not condone torture,” Holder said. “We are disclosing these memos consistent with our commitment to the rule of law.”

The attorney general promised that officials who used the controversial interrogation tactics would be in the clear if their actions were consistent with the legal advice from the Justice Department under which they were operating at the time.

“It would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the Justice Department,” Holder said.

Amnesty International said the release of the documents was welcome, but condemned the decision to block prosecutions.

“The Department of Justice appears to be offering a get-out-of-jail-free card to individuals who, by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s own estimation, were involved in acts of torture,” said executive director Larry Cox. “No civilized definition of ‘reasonable’ behavior can ever encompass acts of torture. Torture has long been recognized to be a violation of both national and international law, and no single legal opinion, no matter from what source, can change that.”

The Center for Constitutional Rights, a nonprofit agency founded by attorneys who worked for the civil rights movement of the 1960s, also panned the decision not to prosecute.

“It is one of the deepest disappointments of this administration that it appears unwilling to uphold the law where crimes have been committed by former officials,” the organization said.

The center is pushing for prosecutions of high-level officials in the Bush administration.

“Whether or not CIA operatives who conducted waterboarding are guaranteed immunity, it is the high-level officials who conceived, justified and ordered the torture program who bear the most responsibility for breaking domestic and international law, and it is they who must be prosecuted,” the center said.

“Government officials broke very serious laws: For there to be no consequences not only calls our system of justice into question, it leaves the gate open for this to happen again.”

President Obama said officials involved in the questionable interrogations would not be subject to prosecution because the intelligence community must be provided “with the confidence” it needs to do its job.

“This is a time for reflection, not retribution,” he said. “I respect the strong views and emotions that these issues evoke. We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history. But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.”

Amnesty’s Cox rejected that argument.

“The United States has had plenty of time for reflection — there is very little information in the newly released material that hadn’t leaked out long before,” he said. Obama “also said that the United States is a nation of laws. But laws only have meaning if they are enforced.

“The United States has laws prohibiting torture, and two-thirds of Americans support an investigation into what has been done in their name. That is not seeking to lay blame; that is a call for justice long overdue.”

Leon Panetta, Obama’s CIA director, told his employees in a memo that he would “strongly oppose any effort to investigate or punish those who followed the guidance of the Department of Justice.”

“Although this administration has now put into place new policies that CIA is implementing, the fact remains that CIA’s detention and interrogation effort was authorized and approved by our government,” he said in the memo, a copy of which was obtained by CNN.

Panetta added that the CIA would provide legal counsel for any CIA employee who is subjected to an investigation relating to previously authorized policies.

“This is an opportunity for CIA to begin a new and great chapter in our history of service to the nation,” he said. “You need to be fully confident that as you defend the nation, I will defend you.”

The American Civil Liberties Union, which had been seeking the memos, called on the Justice Department to release other Bush-era memos regarding interrogations. The group also is seeking the appointment of an independent prosecutor to investigate whether laws were broken by the Bush interrogation policies, as well as who knew about them and who authorized them.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, reiterated that he wants a commission of inquiry to look into the matter.

“We must take a thorough accounting of what happened, not to move a partisan agenda, but to own up to what was done in the name of national security, and to learn from it,” he said.

Obama, who has said he does not want to criminalize policy differences between administrations, has not backed Leahy’s call for a commission, which is strongly opposed by Republican lawmakers.

The nation’s top intelligence officer, former Navy Adm. Dennis Blair, also weighed in on the issue, noting that he “experienced public scorn” for serving as a young officer during the Vietnam years, which he described as “an unpopular war.”

“Challenging and debating the wisdom and policies linked to wars and war fighting is important and legitimate. However, disrespect for those who serve honorably within legal guidelines is not,” he said. “I remember well the pain of those of us who served our country even when the policies we were carrying out were unpopular or could be second-guessed.

“We in the intelligence community should not be subjected to similar pain. Let the debate focus on the law and our national security. Let us be thankful that we have public servants who seek to do the difficult work of protecting our country under the explicit assurance that their actions are both necessary and legal.”

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/16/torture.cia.immunity/index.html

© 2008 Cable News Network

Rights report cites abuses in Kurdish Iraq

(CNN) — The Kurdish region of Iraq has seen gains in human rights, but security forces “regularly abuse their authority” and women continue to be targets of violence, Amnesty International said Tuesday.

The international human rights group drew the conclusions in a report titled “Hope and Fear, Human Rights in Kurdistan Region of Iraq.”

The Kurdish region has been an island of relative stability during the Iraq war, and the report said it has “witnessed growing prosperity” and has made progress in human rights. But serious problems remain, Amnesty said.

Asayish forces, as the local security forces are called, arrested and arbitrarily detained people, “including some who were tortured or forcibly disappeared and whose fate and whereabouts remain unknown,” the report said.

The report said the torture included electric shocks, sleep deprivation, kicking, suspension by the wrists and ankles, and beatings with fists, cables and batons.

Malcolm Smart, Amnesty’s director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme, said the Kurdistan Regional Government “must take concrete steps to rein in these forces and make them fully accountable under the law if recent human rights gains are to prove effective.”

Amnesty said that Kurdish authorities have also failed to control the security wings of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the two major Kurdish political movements that make up the regional government.

The report, based on research from a fact-finding mission last year, said the Kurdistan Regional Government has made progress in human rights, citing, for example, the release of political prisoners detained without charges or trial.

It also cites legislation expanding freedom of expression and measures that strengthen women’s rights, and said several agencies are working to monitor and prevent violence against women.

But Smart said problems such as “arbitrary detention and torture, attacks on journalists and freedom of expression, and violence against women” haven’t ended and “need urgently to be addressed by the government.”

As for abuse against women, authorities must “redouble their efforts to overcome discrimination and violence against women,” he said, “and end the vicious cycle of so-called honor killings and other attacks on women by men who wish to subordinate them.”

According to official records, the report said, at least 102 women and girls were killed between the beginning of July 2007 and the end of June 2008 in the region.

“These include an unknown number of ‘honor killings’ — women who were killed by male relatives because their behavior was considered to have infringed traditional codes of ‘honor.’ Victims of ‘honor crimes’ include women who have objected to being forcibly married as well as women who were found having telephone contact with a man without approval of their family,” the report said.

The report said 262 women and children “died or were severely injured in the same period due to intentional burning, including suicides. Some women were reported to have been burned to disguise a killing.”

The report cites one woman who was strangled to death apparently by her brother “because of her suspected relationship with another man.” A 17-year-old female “was shot dead after she sought a divorce from her husband.” A 13-year-old girl burned herself to death “to escape forcible marriage to an adult man.”

“Such cases show how much more still needs to be done by the KRG authorities to give women and girls effective protection against violence from those who wish to control their behavior or force them into marriages against their will,” Smart said.

“No effort should be spared to prosecute and imprison those who commit violence against women, and to make clear that those who perpetrate these crimes cannot escape justice.”

The report also said that emerging independent press outlets that have criticized the KRG or have focused on the security forces, human rights violations and government corruption have been harassed. Journalists “have been detained, beaten and harassed” by security forces, and several newspapers have been sued by the KRG.