Human Rights Abuses Around the World | Videos

ERITREA

The Eritrean authorities must immediately and unconditionally release 11 prominent politicians, including three former cabinet ministers, who have been held incommunicado without charge for 10 years.

Among the 11 prisoners is Aster Fissehatsion, a veteran of the 30-year long war of independence with Ethiopia and a former prominent member of the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front (EPLF). The group also includes her husband, former vice-president and foreign minister Mahmoud Ahmed Sheriffo, as well as Haile Woldetensae, and Petros Solomon, both of whom are also former foreign ministers.

Appeals from their families that the prisoners be formally charged and tried or else released, and criticizing their secret incommunicado detention, have been dismissed repeatedly by the Eritrean authorities. In the months following the arrest of G15 members, dozens of other journalists, government critics and supporters of the dissidents were also detained in a sweeping crackdown on freedom of expression.

Widespread human rights violations are routine in Eritrea. President Isaias Afewerki and the ruling PFDJ, the only permitted political party, exert complete control over the state without a hint of elections which have been indefinitely delayed. There is no independent judiciary.

The government severely restricts freedom of expression and freedom of religion. No opposition parties, independent journalism or civil society organizations, or unregistered faith groups are allowed. The authorities use arbitrary arrests, detentions and torture to stifle opposition, holding thousands of political prisoners in dire conditions, many in secret detention.

IRAN

Amnesty International’s Drewery Dyke talks to Fakhteh Zamani, Association for Defense of Azerbaijani Political Prisoners in Iran.

The Azerbaijani minority in Iran, have been prevented from exercising their right to freedom of expression and assembly by participating in largely peaceful demonstrations over the environmental situation of Lake Oroumieh. Up to scores of others may have been arbitrarily arrested, and we have received unconfirmed reports that at least two demonstrators may have been killed.

Amnesty International calls on the Iranian authorities to ensure that all those who have been arrested are granted immediate access to their families and lawyers of their choice, that they are given an opportunity to challenge their detention, and that any held solely for the peaceful exercise of their rights to freedom of expression, association or assembly are released. We also urge the authorities to establish an independent review of the policing and overall administration of justice regarding the rallies relating to Lake Oroumieh and for law enforcement officials to be held accountable for any violations, including any unlawful killings for which state officials may have been responsible.

SYRIA

At least 88 people are believed to have died in detention in Syria during five months of bloody repression of pro-reform protests, a new Amnesty International report reveals.

Deadly detention: Deaths in custody amid popular protest in Syria documents reported deaths in custody between April and mid-August in the wake of sweeping arrests.

The 88 deaths represented a significant escalation in the number of deaths following arrest in Syria. In recent years Amnesty International has typically recorded around five deaths in custody per year in Syria.

Check out details of all 88 cases at Eyes on Syria.

EGYPT

More than 12 million people live in Egypt’s sprawling informal settlements (slums). Over the years, the authorities have treated these people with contempt, subjected them to unlawful forced evictions and threatened them with arbitrary arrest under repressive emergency legislation if they dared to protest.

The dramatic political changes that have happened since 25 January 2011 offer the new Egyptian authorities an historic opportunity to genuinely consult slum-dwellers about their housing, and to work with them to create a brighter and safer future.

SOUTH AFRICA

The fruits and wine that come from the Western Cape of South Africa are enjoyed by consumers around the world and generate billions of rand for South Africa’s economy, yet the farm workers who help produce these goods are denied basic human rights. The government of South Africa should take immediate steps to improve the working and housing conditions of the farmers who help produce its renowned wines and fruit.

NEPAL

Nepal’s ten year internal conflict resulted in over 1,300 unresolved cases of disappearances by state forces and the Maoists. To date not one person has been prosecuted for these grave human rights abuses.

This short film uses the story of five young men from Janakpur, Nepal, taken by members of the army and police in October 2003 to illustrate the political opposition to holding individuals responsible for such crimes to account from both sides of the conflict, through interviews with the brother of one of the disappeared, the lawyer working on the case, and the Maoist Home Minister.

 

Bahraini Security Accused of Beating School Girls | UPI & AJE

MANAMA, Bahrain, May 11 (UPI) — Bahraini security forces have kidnapped and beaten teenage schoolgirls, alleged victims charge.

In an interview with al-Jazeera aired Wednesday, a 16-year-old girl calling herself Heba said she and three classmates were seized from their school and beaten severely while held for three days.

An officer “hit and banged me against the wall to scream,” she said. “Since we did not cry out or scream, we were beaten more and more.”

The government did not respond to a request for comment.

The opposition Al Wefaq party charges police have raided up to 15 girls schools, detaining, beating and threatening to rape girls as young as 12. Meanwhile, pro-government MPs charged Wednesday that Shiite employees have been plotting for decades to sabotage the state oil company.

The Gulf Daily News reported lawmakers blamed Energy Minister Abdulhussain Mirza for lax control of Bapco. MP Jassim al-Saeedi charged the plot has been afoot ever since Bapco began promoting into senior posts in 1980.

“Employment, promotion and training was divided among this sect, while those belonging to the other sect (Sunnis) were left out in pain despite being deserving,” he said.

MP Abdulhaleem Murad charged Bapco gave bonuses to striking workers trying to overthrow the monarchy.

Reprint: Bahraini Security Accused of Beating School Girls | UPI & Al Jazeera English

 

Nobel Peace Prize Placed on Empty Chair in Honour of Liu Xiaobo

The 2010 Nobel Peace Prize was today placed on an empty chair in Oslo’s city hall in a symbolic act to mark its award to Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese writer and pro-democracy activist who is serving a jail sentence in his home country.

In the centrepiece of a simple, moving ceremony watched by an audience of 1,000 people, among them Norway‘s king and queen and a clutch of fellow Chinese dissidents, the chairman of the Nobel committee, Thorbjoern Jagland, placed the citation and medal on a simple, blue upholstered seat on a small row of chairs to the right of the hall’s stage.

“We regret that the laureate is not present here today,” Jagland told the audience, who stood several times during the ceremony to applaud.

“He is in isolation in a prison in north-east China. Nor can the laureate’s wife, Liu Xia, or his closest relatives be here with us. No medal or diploma will therefore be presented here today. This fact alone shows that the award was necessary and appropriate. We congratulate Liu Xiaobo with this year’s peace prize.”

It is the first time since 1936, when the German journalist and pacifist Carl von Ossietzky was stopped by Nazi authorities from travelling to Oslo, that the peace prize has been awarded in this way. On three other occasions – Aung San Suu Kyi in 1991, Lech Walesa in 1983 and Andrei Sakharov in 1975 – family members have had to collect the prize instead.

While Liu was jailed for 11 years last year for subversion, his wife remains under house arrest, meaning no one could collect the award for him.

The decision to award the prize to Liu, a former university academic radicalized by the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest – Jagland said the award was “dedicated to the lost souls of 4 June” – has enraged China, which insists Liu is a common criminal.

Beijing used its increasing economic heft to press 18 countries with diplomatic representation in Oslo not to send diplomats to the ceremony. Pakistan, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Argentina were among those boycotting the event.

Authorities in China launched a severe crackdown on other dissidents ahead of the ceremony, described by rights groups as one of the most severe for years. Some were placed under house arrest, others moved forcibly from Beijing or deprived of phone and internet connections. Some foreign websites, such as the BBC, were suppressed and there were even apparent attempts to censor the web use of pictures of an empty chair, a symbol for Liu’s prize.

In his absence, the Norwegian actor Liv Ullman spoke on Liu’s behalf, reading out extracts of his last public address, in December last year to the court which was about to jail him. Explaining his philosophy of protest, it has as a central message: “I have no enemies, and no hatred.” Several audience members wiped away tears during a section in which he described his love for Liu Xia.

The ceremony ended with a performance by a children’s choir – a request from Liu in the one message he was able to send from prison via his wife.

 

 

A picture of this year's Nobel Peace Laureate Liu Xiaobo at an exhibition at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo on December 10, 2010. Photo: Scanpix Norway / Reuters

 

Nobel Peace Prize Placed on Empty Chair in Honour of Liu Xiaobo| Guardian UK