Vietnamese Bloggers Held Indefinitely for Government Critiques

Vietnamese Bloggers Held Indefinitely for Government Critiques

David L. Chaplin II
Impunity Watch, Asia

HANOI, Vietnam – In South Vietnam, the police arrested two bloggers in a new crackdown on public criticism against the state. The government’s politically motivated prosecutions of independent bloggers and critics of the government violates their rights guaranteed under international law and spotlights the country’s poor human rights record, Human Rights Watch said.

The current governing Communist Party is planning to hold its five-year congress in January, when party leaders will be selected in a secretive election process and will map the country’s course for the next five years. The “pre-Party Congress crackdown” have heightened their scrutiny and government critics are being targeted.

“The Vietnam government is shameless in constructing charges and rationales to keep peaceful critics like Dieu Cay behind bars,” Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. ”

It was the latest in a series of rights violations against politically-oriented bloggers, Human Rights watchdogs said.

“In a country where the state controls all traditional media outlets, independent bloggers have emerged as important sources of news, information, and social commentary,” Robertson said. “The government should embrace the key role that independent bloggers are playing in society instead of harassing and imprisoning them.”

“They’re just making it up as they go along,” he said.

“The Vietnam government is shameless in constructing charges and rationales to keep peaceful critics like Dieu Cay behind bars,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. ”

Authorities submitted an unofficial statement saying Dieu Cay, the name for a traditional pipe, was being investigated under Penal Code Article 88, which covers “propaganda against the state”.

Dieu Cay is the founder of an independent group called the Club of Free Journalists. The tax charges were widely viewed as a pretext to muzzle his criticism of the government and its policy toward China. On October 18th, police in Ho Chi Minh City also arrested Phan Thanh Hai, another member of the group. Two other members, Ta Phong Tan and Uyen Vu, both bloggers, were placed under intrusive police surveillance at their homes. Police also briefly detained a democracy activist, Do Nam Hai, on October 19 according to the New York based Human Rights watch dogs.

Vietnam bans opposition political parties and independent media require all associations, religious groups and trade unions to come under government control.

The 17th summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which begins on October 28th in Hanoi, provides an excellent opportunity for ASEAN heads of state and other governments to raise concerns about the persecution of government critics, Human Rights Watch said.

Dieu Cay, charged with tax evasion was sentenced to a 30 month jail sentence after inspiring people to protest at the Olympic torch ceremonies in Ho Chi Minh City shortly before Beijing Olympics. Cay criticized China’s policies in Tibet and Vietnam’s handling of the disputed Spratly islands in the South China Sea.

For more imformation, please see:

Human Rights Watch –Vietnam: Free Peaceful Bloggers and Government Critics – 22 October 2010

Qatar Tribune – Vietnam blogger’s jail-term ends, but yet to be freed – 26 October 2010 

GMA News – Vietnam arrests 2 bloggers over anti-govt remarks – 26 October 2010

Guyana Sugar Workers Strike For Higher Wages

By Patrick Vanderpool
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

Sugar Workers in Guyana (photo courtesy of csmenetwork.com)
Sugar Workers in Guyana (photo courtesy of csmenetwork.com)

 GEORGETOWN, Guyana – Thousands of workers in the sugar industry recently carried out a strike on the Guyana Sugar Corporation, the largest sugar producing company in the country.  The workers are protesting unfair wages and calling for a 15 percent pay increase.

With hopes of producing 264,000 tons of sugar by the end of the crop, the state run Guyana Sugar Corporation said that the one-day strike would not result in an actual loss of production but would reduce the number of available production days of dry-weather to plough the fields. 

Although the Guyana Sugar Corporation seems unwilling to accommodate the demands for the pay increase demanded by the workers, Paul Bhim, the Company’s Chief Executive Officer, stated that “[t]he crop is still in an early stage because we are so far behind and as we go towards completing the crop, we’ll have more of an idea of what we could actually offer the workers in terms of a wage increase.”

In a statement released to the public, the Guyana Agricultural and General workers Union said it will not apologize for calling for the strike even though the sugar company is underperforming.

It is traditional for the sugar corporation to indicate whether there will be pay raises every year during the month of October.  However, the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union claims that the strike is in response to the sugar company’s silence on the issue.

The Guyana Sugar Corporation claims that it has been holding talks with the union regarding the pay issue and the need for the workers to improve their attendance, which averages 57 percent attendance for working days.

Guyana is the Caribbean’s leading sugar producer and one of a handful of countries in the region that continues to export sugar to the United States and Europe.

In an interview with demerarawaves.com, Bihm indicated that the striking workers would lose one day’s pay for their actions.

For more information, please see:

Caricom News Network – Sugar Workers on Strike for Higher Wages – 19 October 2010

Caribbean News Now – Thousands of Sugar Workers Strike in Guyana – 19 October 2010

Bloomberg Businessweek – Guyana Sugar Workers Launch 1-day Strike – 18 October 2010

Nation News – Guyana Sugar Workers on Strike – 18 October 2010

Arranged Marriage Has 3 and 5-Year-Olds Engaged in Syria

By Eric C. Sigmund
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

DAMASCUS, Syria – Two children in Syria, a boy of five-years-old and a girl of three, became engaged last week after being forced into the relationship through an arranged marriage. The children’s parents contend that both children consented to the engagement and that they love each other.  Although the parents of the children say that there will be no formalization of the marriage for at least a decade, the issue of arranged marriages has again received international attention. 

Khalid, 5, and Hala, 3 Engaged to be Married (Photo Courtesy of New York Daily News)
Khalid, 5, and Hala, 3 Engaged to be Married (Photo Courtesy of New York Daily News)

The boy’s father reported that he vowed to have his son, Khalid, engaged by the age of five and claims that his son fell in love with the girl, Hala, on a family trip.  He explained that after their encounter, both children suffered from “loneliness” when they were apart.  After returning home, Khalid refused to return to his day care center unless Hala attended with him reported the boy’s father.  Khalid’s parents note that their son’s new fiancé felt similar symptoms and that upon discussing the matter with Hala’s parents, agreed that the children should be engaged.

Arranged marriages are common in the region and often involve negotiations for the exchanged of goods or favors for a promise to marry.  Khalid’s father told Gulf News that he will “bear the education expenses of both the children till they graduate.”

Both families are facing growing criticism from within and outside of the country.  Articles in numerous Syrian newspapers and online discussion forums expressed their disapproval of the engagement.  “How can these idiotic and clearly blind parents not see that they are merely encouraging the destruction of their children’s childhoods?” comments one woman on an online forum.  But Forward Magazine, a Syrian magazine written in English, notes that Syrian marriages are traditionally arranged at an early age.  Typically, when a boy reaches puberty, his mother will search for a suitable female, usually younger than their son, to be his wife explains the magazine.  Despite the prevalence and custom of arranged marriages in Syria however, the ages of Khalid and Hala makes this case very unique. 

The United Nations has recommended that nations set a minimum age for marriage at 18 for both men and women, warning that child marriages often reinforce poverty and low education.  A number of international human rights agreements protect children from underage marriages however, enforcement of these agreements is often lax especially when a society’s customs and beliefs are implicated.

Khalid’s father notes that it is possible that the children may change their minds when they are older but failed to comment on whether the engagement could be broken off.  “We know that Khalid or Hala might change their mind in the future” states Khalid’s father “but what we do know at this stage is that they are very happy and talk to each other everyday.” Khalid is waiting until he is 15 to marry Hala.

For more information, please see:

CBS News – Syrian Boy, 5, Engaged to Girlfriend, 3 – 25 Oct. 2010

Huffington Post – Syrian Boy, 5, Proposes to 3-Year-Old Girlfriend – 25 Oct. 2010

New York Daily News – Boy, 5, Engaged to Girl, 3, in Arranged Marriage in Syria – 25 Oct. 2010

Gulf News – Five-Year-Old Khalid Pops the Question to Hala, Three – 21 Oct. 2010

Oil-rich Nigeria’s Lack of Sanitation Contributing to Cholera Outbreak

Child treated for cholera at a rural clinic in Nigeria- Photo Courtesy of AP
Child treated for cholera at a rural clinic in Nigeria- Photo Courtesy of AP

By Laura Hirahara
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa
LAGOS, Nigeria – In Nigeria, a country that earns billions as one of Africa’s biggest oil exporters, half the country, approximately seventy-five million, lack access to clean water and proper sanitation facilities or services.  In the country’s rural population, two-thirds of Nigerians do not have access to clean water.  When rains are heavy and flooding occurs, which happened this year, raw sewage drains down hill in the villages, contaminating ground well water sources.  Nigeria’s rural populations also suffer from poorly staffed hospitals and clinics.  All of these factors have contributed to a recent cholera outbreak that has spread to several Nigerian states and into bordering countries.

Since January of this year, 1,555 people have died in Nigeria from cholera out of over 38,000 reported cases.  Women and children account for about eighty percent of these deaths.  Paula Fedeski, spokeswoman for UNICEF in Nigeria, told Reuters, “The rains this year have been very severe . . . [The cholera outbreak]  is considerably worse this year.”  UNICEF believes the outbreak originated in Nigeria and then spread to its bordering nations of Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Benin, a country of particular concern since the floods earlier this year that have contributed to the deadliness of this outbreak covered about two-thirds of Benin.

Cholera is a water born disease marked by symptoms of abdominal pain, leg cramping, severe diarrhea and vomiting.  Death can occur within hours as the result of severe dehydration and shock if left untreated.  Outbreaks occur when a water source becomes contaminated, usually from the feces of an infected individual.  The floods this year in Nigeria and the surrounding region have only compounded the sanitation and drainage problems present throughout so much of the country.

Local officials have been working to remedy the situation.  Working in their communities, officials have chlorinated water supplies including rural wells and are providing education on the causes of cholera.  Many hope that this, coupled with the coming dry season, will lessen the severity of the outbreak soon.  For the time being, the outbreak is being labeled as the worst since the 1991 outbreak that killed over 7,500 people in Nigeria alone.

For more information, please see;

UK Guardian- Cholera Kills More Than 1,500 in Nigeria– 26 October, 2010

The Canadian Press- Cholera Deaths in Nigeria Rise to More Tan 1,500 as Disease Threatens Flooded Benin– 25 October, 2010

CNN- Cholera Kills 1,555 in Nigera, Says U.N.– 26 October, 2010

US: Khadr Sentencing Should Reflect Juvenile Status

Human Rights Watch

NEW YORK, New York, United States – The military commission sentencing jury at Guantanamo should fully take into account Omar Khadr’s status as a former child soldier captured when he was 15, Human Rights Watch said today. According to media reports, Khadr accepted a plea deal on October 25, 2010, to purported war crimes and other charges, making the US the first Western nation since World War II to convict someone for acts committed as a child in a war crimes tribunal.

“The US treatment of Omar Khadr has been at odds with international standards on juvenile justice and child soldiers from the very beginning,” said Jo Becker, children’s rights advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “As the military jurors consider sentencing this week, they need to take Khadr’s status as a child offender into account.”

Khadr, a Canadian citizen, has already spent more than eight years in US military custody. The terms of the plea deal have not yet been made public. Khadr was facing life in prison on the charges against him, which included murder and attempted murder in violation of the laws of war, conspiracy, providing material support for terrorism, and spying.

A sentencing hearing, which is scheduled to begin on October 26, 2010, will still take place, and a lesser sentence could be imposed. During the hearing, prosecutors plan to put forward 10 sentencing witnesses and the defense four. A military jury of seven will listen to sentencing evidence and then decide upon a sentence, which will be imposed if it less than that reached by the plea agreement.

“The US government’s failure to taken into account Khadr’s age should not persist at his sentencing,” Becker said. “The US Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized that adolescents lack the experience, perspective, and judgment of adults and should be treated differently.”

Khadr, now 24, was prosecuted for the killing of US Army Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer. Speer was killed on July 27, 2002, after US forces entered a compound in Afghanistan where Khadr and others were located and a firefight ensued. Prosecutors alleged that during the firefight, Khadr threw the grenade that killed Speer and wounded others. Khadr was also seriously wounded in the firefight with two bullet wounds in his chest.

After Khadr was captured, he was taken to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. While there he was forced into painful stress positions, threatened with rape, hooded, and confronted with barking dogs. The government’s own witnesses confirmed some of this treatment when they testified that Khadr was interrogated while strapped down on a stretcher just 12 hours after sustaining his life-threatening injuries. They also testified he was threatened with rape if he did not cooperate.

In October 2002, Khadr was transferred to Guantanamo where the abuse continued. He told his lawyers that he was shackled in painful positions, told he would be sent to Egypt, Syria, or Jordan for torture, and used as a “human mop” after he urinated on the floor during one interrogation session.

He was deprived of all access to legal counsel until November 2004, more than two years after he was first detained. At some point during his interrogations, Khadr confessed to throwing the grenade that killed Speer, although up until today he had recanted that confession on the basis that it was coerced.

While child offenders may be prosecuted for war crimes, the US has failed throughout Khadr’s detention to afford him the protections provided to children under international law. Under the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict (Optional Protocol), which the United States ratified in 2002, the US is obligated to recognize the special situation of children who have been recruited or used in armed conflict.

The Optional Protocol requires the rehabilitation of former child soldiers within a state party’s jurisdiction, mandating that states provide “all appropriate assistance for their physical and psychological recovery and their social reintegration.” Under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which the US is a signatory, governments should ensure that the imprisonment of a child offender “shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time.”

“The recruitment and use of child soldiers is regarded as a serious human rights abuse and international standards for dealing with former child soldiers emphasize rehabilitation, not punitive approaches,” Becker said.

Andrea Prasow, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch, is currently in Guantanamo Bay and will be monitoring the sentencing proceedings.

For more Human Rights Watch reporting on Guantanamo, please visit:
http://www.hrw.org/en/category/topic/counterterrorism

For more information, please contact:
In Guantanamo Bay, Andrea Prasow (English): prasowa@hrw.org; follow tweets at http://twitter.com/andreaprasow
In New York, Jo Becker (English): +1-212-216-1236; or +1-914-263-9643(mobile); or beckerj@hrw.org
In New York, Joanne Mariner (English): +1-212-216-1218; or +1-917-647-4588 (mobile); or marinej@hrw.org
In New York, Laura Pitter (English): +1-212- 216-1897; or +1-917-450-4361 (mobile); or pitterl@hrw.org