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Update

(Originally posted on Daily Kos) The top dogs of international justice and reconciliation today called on UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and UN member states to set up a UN commission of inquiry into the Gaza conflict, adding a powerful voice to extend the current insufficient investigation beyond attacks against UN facilities. The impressive group of signatories surely knows what they are talking about: they are the world’s top investigators and judges, having worked on transitional justice issues in countries like Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, Sierra Leona and South Africa – among others. Signatories include Richard Goldstone, Mary Robinson and…

March 16, 2009

Update

In a powerful new video Oxfam America shows the fight of Congolese women against sexual violence (thanks to change.org for bringing this to the attention of a wider audience). It features the courageous story of Justine Masika Bihamba, a women’s human rights defender for who we are actively campaigning for. Justine is coordinator for Synergy of Women for Victims of Sexual Violence (Synergie des femmes contre les violence sexuelles), an organization that helps survivors of sexual violence. In the context of the Democratic Republic of Congo, her story is truly impressive, to say the least.

March 16, 2009

Update

On Monday, March 9, the Iraqi government announced to Amnesty International that 128 death sentences have been ratified, and that executions would commence soon at the rate of 20 per week.  Exactly who these 128 people are, what crimes they have been condemned for, or how imminent these executions are is not known.  It is also now known how many of these prisoners facing execution might have been transferred to Iraqi authorities from US custody following the Status of Forces Agreement that came into effect at the beginning of this year. What is known is that Iraqi trials do not…

March 16, 2009

Update

As if we needed more justification for a commission of inquiry, a new secret report by the International Committee of Red Cross was leaked this past weekend, and describes in great detail the unfathomable horrific abuse of detainees well into 2007.  Andrew Sullivan compares the reports' table of contents with the Gestapo's list of torture techniques, and the two are eerily similar: ICRC report: Contents Introduction 1. Main Elements of the CIA Detention Program 1.1 Arrest and Transfer 1.2 Continuous Solitary Confinement and Incommunicado Detention 1.3 Other Methods of Ill-treatment 1.3.1 Suffocation by water 1.3.2 Prolonged Stress Standing 1.3.3 Beatings…

March 16, 2009

Update

On Thursday, March 12th, Amnesty USA posted a new web action aimed at getting Sudan to reinstate the operations of 13 international humanitarian aid agencies that were kicked out of Sudan and 3 domestic agencies that were shut down after the International Criminal cort issued an arrst warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.  The action targets the UN Missions of the African Union and League of Arab States and the Sudanese Embassy in the U.S.   On Friday, calls from activists started pouring in, all with the same complaint: their emails to all three targets were being returned as "undeliverable".   It…

March 14, 2009

Update

Tristan Anderson, a 37 year old American, was shot in the head by Israeli forces with a high velocity tear gas canister while participating in an on-going protest of the wall being built illegally by Israel in the West Bank town of Ni'ilin.  Another Ni'ilin villager was also shot. Four residents of Ni'ilin, including children, have been killed while protesting the confiscation of their land in the recent past. [Note:  In 2004, the International Court of Justice found all parts of the wall being built on Palestinian land illegal and that these portions should be removed.  Instead the GOI continues to…

March 14, 2009

Update

As Alertnet is reporting, relief efforts in Sudan are “plunging into Chaos” after Sudanese president Omar al Bashir ordered 16 relief organizations to pack up shop and leave. As one aid worker described it: “Everything is crazy. Most of the agencies thrown out don't think they're going to get back so they're trying to work out how to transfer everything to agencies still in Sudan.” Or in plain UN language: These 16 organizations employ nearly 40 percent of the aid workers in Darfur – 6,500 national and international workers. The total number of humanitarian staff affected by the Government decision…

March 13, 2009

Update

The appointment of Daniel Fried, a career diplomat who has formerly been both Ambassador to Poland and Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, as the new Special Envoy on the Guantanamo Bay detention facility suggests that the Obama administration is stepping up its efforts to persuade European states to accept detainees who have been cleared for release. As things stand, there are approximately 40 detainees still held in Guantanamo who could leave tomorrow if a suitable home for them could be found. These individuals cannot return to their country of origin because they would face persecution, torture or worse…

March 13, 2009

Update

(Originally posted on Daily Kos) Reporters without Borders (RWB) today issued its "Enemies of the Internet" report, exposing state censorship of free speech and expression around the world. Topping the group's list were Burma, China, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. While the United States is not on the list, RWB and Amnesty International earlier in the week highlighted the role of U.S. companies in internet censorship by calling on Microsoft, Yahoo! and Google to uncensor their search engines and blogging portals, even if just for a day, on the World Day Against…

March 12, 2009

Update

Native American and Alaska Native women face a 1 in 3 chance of being raped in their lifetime. The numbers are shocking. In our report, Maze of Injustice, Amnesty uncovered the staggering statistic that Native American and Alaska Native women are more than two and a half times more likely to be raped or sexually assaulted than women in the USA in general. This has to change! Non-Native men who rape Native American and Alaska Native women can often do so with impunity, because of a lack of tribal authority to prosecute non-Native people who commit crimes of sexual violence…

March 12, 2009

Update

I wasn't going to post again today, but I was just reading Erica's post, and I went to Daily Kos to check out the comments. One commenter was of the opinion that free speech is just an American construct, and others responded that freedom of expression and information are acutally guaranteed in Article 19 of the UDHR and also in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, of which China is a signatory. That's good to know, but that level of discussion can make it easy to forget about the actual human cost of governments not respecting those human rights,…

March 12, 2009

Update

As the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility prepares to release its long awaited report on former Office of Legal Counsel deputy John Yoo’s alleged abuse of his office, there has been a renewed interest amongst political commentators in prosecuting human rights abuses committed as part of the Bush administration's war on terror. Writing for The Daily Beast Scott Horton, a law professor and commentator who has consistently led calls for such prosecutions, noted: “It is widely suspected that the memos were requested as after-the-fact legal cover for draconian policies that were already in place… If the Justice Department internal probe…

March 11, 2009