Amnesty International Group 30

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.