Afghan Child Bride Tortured for Six Months | Al Jazeera (Video)

An Afghan child bride is recovering in hospital after being held captive and tortured for six months by her husband’s family. While her case is extreme, it is still often acceptable in Afghan culture for a husband to hit his wife.

Al Jazeera’s Bernard Smith reports from Kabul.

Related: “Opium Brides” | FRONTLINE PBS (Video)

Situation Tense in South Sudan | Al Jazeera (Video)

Thousands of villagers in South Sudan are hiding in the bush, waiting for UN and government troops to stop a tribal conflict, which officials fear may have left scores of people dead over the weekend.

Armed youths from the Lou Nuer tribe have marched on the remote town of Pibor in Jonglei state, home to the rival Murle people, who they blame for cattle raiding.

Al Jazeera’s Haru Mutasa travelled to the troubled village of Pibor in South Sudan and sent this report.

Related: Ban Voices Deep Concern at Ethnic Tensions in South Sudan | UN News

Apple, Time to Make a Conflict-Free iPhone –By Delly Mawazo Sesete | Guardian UK

My name is Delly Mawazo Sesete. I am originally from the North Kivu povince in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where a deadly conflict has been raging for over 15 years. While that conflict began as a war over ethnic tension, land rights and politics, it has increasingly turned to being a war of profit, with various armed groups fighting one another for control of strategic mineral reserves.

Near the area where I grew up, there are mines with vast amounts of tungsten, tantalum, tin, and gold – minerals that make most consumer electronics in the world function.

These minerals are part of your daily life. They keep your computer running so you can surf the internet. They save your high score on your Playstation. They make your cell phone vibrate when someone calls you.

While minerals from the Congo have enriched your life, they have often brought violence, rape and instability to my home country. That’s because those armed groups fighting for control of these mineral resources use murder, extortion and mass rape as a deliberate strategy to intimidate and control local populations, which helps them secure control of mines, trading routes and other strategic areas.

Living in the Congo, I saw many of these atrocities firsthand. I documented the child slaves who are forced to work in the mines in dangerous conditions. I witnessed the deadly chemicals dumped into the local environment. I saw the use of rape as a weapon. And despite receiving multiple death threats for my work, I’ve continued to call for peace, development and dignity in Congo’s minerals trade.

But the good news is that your favorite electronics don’t have to fund mass violence and rape in the Congo, and neither do mine.

That’s why I’m asking Apple to make an iPhone made with conflict-free minerals from the Congo by this time next year. Apple has been an industry leader in both supply chain management and making corporate social responsibility a priority. In the past two years, Apple has taken great strides to source minerals responsibly and control their supply chain.

Apple is perfectly positioned to be the first company to create a Congo conflict-free phone, using minerals from Congo that further stability and economic development and don’t use slave labor or fund mass atrocities.

I believe that other Apple customers want what I want: the world’s first conflict-free iPhone. That’s why I launched a campaign on Change.org asking Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, to commit to making an iPhone with conflict-free minerals from the Congo by Christmas 2013. In the five weeks since I launched my campaign, nearly 50,000 people from more than 75 countries have signed on in support.

Apple, if you’re reading this, please give my family and my people a chance for a better future by being a leader for a clean minerals trade in eastern Congo. Commit to purchasing minerals from my country, but do so in a way that benefits communities, not destroys them.

You’ve always shown you know how to think differently. Now it’s time to think conflict-free.

Sign Delly Mawazo Sesete’s petition here.

Reprint: Apple, Time to Make a Conflict-Free iPhone –By Delly Mawazo Sesete | Guardian UK

Happy New Year!

Syria’s Frightening Reality –By Anderson Cooper | CNN

The Arab League is monitoring in Syria, but their findings and their leader are questionable. Anderson Cooper reports.

Related: The World’s Worst Human Rights Observer –By David Kenner | Foreign Policy

Killing of Syrian Children Provokes Outrage | Al-Jazeera

The United Nations says hundreds of Syrian children have been tortured and killed since anti-government protests began in March.

Al Jazeera’s Nisreen El-Shamayleh met one family whose teenage boy went missing after attending a rally. The family has since fled across the border to al-Mafraq, in Jordan, where they are seeking justice for the brutal killing of their son.

Reynaldo Bignone, Argentina Dictator, Guilty of Torture in Hospital –By Michael Warren | HuffPost

Last Argentine dictator and army chief Reynaldo Bignone gestures at the courtroom before being sentenced during his trial, in Munro, Buenos Aires on April 20, 2010. (Photo: Getty)

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Argentina’s last dictator was convicted Thursday of more crimes against humanity, this time getting 15 years in prison for setting up a secret torture center inside a hospital during the 1976 military coup.

Reynaldo Bignone personally oversaw the takeover of the Posadas de Haedo hospital in Buenos Aires province 35 years ago, leading soldiers in tanks and helicopters in search of medical personnel who allegedly treated leftist guerrillas. The military dismissed all the doctors and nurses, but kept some for questioning, including the hospital’s medical director. Eleven hospital staffers disappeared.

Bignone’s trial involved 21 cases of kidnappings and tortures, including two victims who were killed and made to disappear by a civilian group of thugs who called themselves the “SWAT” team and answered to the air force. The SWAT team set up shop inside the medical director’s home, interrogating the staff.

Some of those crimes are part of a second, upcoming trial involving the same hospital.

Bignone was the military junta’s social welfare delegate at the time. He later served as the junta’s president in 1982 and 1983, ordering the destruction of vast stores of evidence documenting illegal detentions and disappearances, and dictating a military amnesty before democracy returned to Argentina.

Bignone, now 85, already faces life in prison for other kidnappings and tortures in provincial Buenos Aires, including those committed in another torture center inside the Campo de Mayo military base. He’s also being tried along with former dictator Jorge Videla on charges of overseeing a systematic plan to steal the babies of pregnant detainees.

In his defense, Bignone has said that his actions were justified because Argentina was at war against armed leftist subversives.

Also convicted Thursday were SWAT team leader Luis Muina, 57; and a former air force brigadier, Hipolito Rafael Mariani, 85.

Prosecutors asked for 25-year sentences for all three, but Bignone received 15 years, Muina 13 and Mariani eight.

An official count determined that the regime killed some 13,000 people, but human rights groups estimate about 30,000 fell victim. Since Argentina’s democracy was restored in 1983, 268 people have been convicted of crimes against humanity and more than 800 others are being prosecuted, the government said.

Reprint: Reynaldo Bignone, Argentina Dictator, Guilty of Torture in Hospital –By Michael Warren | HuffPost

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Associated Press Writer Debora Rey contributed to this report.

Ethiopian Court Sentences Swedish Journalists to 11 Years in Prison | VOA

An Ethiopian court has sentenced two Swedish journalists to 11 years each in prison for supporting terrorism in Ethiopia and entering the country illegally. The court in Addis Ababa handed down the sentence Tuesday (Dec. 27), nearly a week after convicting investigative reporter Martin Schibbye and photojournalist Johan Persson. Each had faced up to 18 years in prison.

A judge said last week it was not likely the journalists were trying to gather news when they entered Ethiopia in July with the rebel Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) , which the African nation has designated as a terrorist group.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists rejected the idea that the journalists were supporting terrorism. In an interview with VOA, spokesman Tom Rhodes said the journalists were simply doing their jobs and he expressed fear the court case signals eroding press freedom in Ethiopia. The journalists admitted to entering the country illegally, but the Swedish government and rights groups have criticized Ethiopia, saying the two men were conducting legitimate work.

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton expressed ‘serious concern’ saying that while recognizing the Ethiopian judicial process, they hope that the two journalists can be released as soon as possible.

Ethiopia sharply restricts journalists and humanitarian aid workers in accessing the Ogaden region, which borders Somalia. The ONLF has been fighting for regional independence from Ethiopia since 1984. The rebels accuse Ethiopia of atrocities against the region’s largely ethnic Somali population.

Human rights and aid groups have accused both the ONLF and pro-government forces of numerous rights violations during the conflict. Both sides have denied the charges.

Reprint: Ethiopian Court Sentences Swedish Journalists to 11 Years in Prison | VOA

Massive Oil Slick in Nigeria Largest in Decades, Threatens Coastline | Democracy Now!

DemocracyNow.org – Communities along Nigeria’s Niger Delta have been put on alert following a major oil spill from the oil giant, Shell. The massive oil slick is making its way to the Nigerian coast, threatening local wildlife and massive pollution along the shore. Much of the available information about the spill comes from the company responsible for it, Royal Dutch Shell, which says less than 40,000 barrels have leaked so far. But Nigeria’s National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency says the spill could be three times as large. It comes just four months after the United Nations said it would take 30 years and around $1 billion for a small section of the delta to recover from environmental damage caused by Shell and other companies. We get an update from Nnimmo Bassey, executive director of Environmental Rights Action in Nigeria, which monitors spills around the country’s oil-rich southern delta.

Source: Oil Slick From Massive Spill in Nigeria Threatens Coastline, Maybe Largest in Decades –By Amy Goodman | Democracy Now!

Related: Coastal Pollution Fears After Nigeria Oil Spill | Euronews (Video)

Egyptian Court Orders Military to End Virginity Tests | BBC & Euronews

A Cairo court has ordered forced virginity tests on female detainees in military prisons to be stopped.

The court made the decision after a case was brought by protester Samira Ibrahim. She accused the Egyptian army of forcing her to undergo a virginity test after she was arrested during a protest in Tahrir Square in March.

Human rights organizations say the Egyptian military has used the practice widely as a punishment.

“The court orders that the execution of the procedure of virginity tests on girls inside military prisons be stopped,” judge Aly Fekry, head of Cairo administrative court said.

The ruling was greeted by cheers from hundreds of activists inside the courtroom. Activists had demanded that the authorities prosecute anyone responsible for subjecting protesters to such tests.

Earlier this year, an Egyptian general was quoted as acknowledging that the military had conducted such tests, saying that they were used so women would not later claim they had been raped by authorities.

Human rights groups say such tests are a degrading form of abuse and the general’s justification a legal absurdity.

Related: Activist: Verdict Has Shamed Military | Al-Jazeera (Video)