By Kenneth F. Hunt
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

BRUSSELS, Belgium – This week one of Belgium’s two legislative bodies passed a bill that would ban burqas within the country.

The lower house of Belgium’s Parliament, the Chamber of Deputies, voted on Thursday April 29 to ban certain types of veils worn by Muslim women, most notably including burqas.  According to various media accounts, the vote was nearly unanimous (136 to 2) and enjoyed clear majorities from both major Belgian political parties.  Read more...

By Stephen Kopko
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

HAWAII, United States- Yesterday, another state joined the ranks of those that recognize homosexual rights.  The Hawaii state legislature passed a bill that would allow for civil unions.  The legislation will go to the Governor for her approval or veto.

Hawaii has had a tradition in the homosexual rights debate.  In 1993, Hawaii became the first state to allow same-sex marriage after their Supreme Court found it was constitutional.  Nevertheless, the citizens of the state passed an amendment to their Constitution in 1998 that protected heterosexual marriage.  The amendment allowed the legislature to pass a law banning same-sex marriage.  Read more...

By Hyo-Jin Paik
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BEIJING, China – The twenty year old ban prohibiting foreign travelers with HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases, and leprosy from entering China has been lifted.

The Chinese government lifted the ban on Tuesday.  The revision comes just days before the opening of the Shanghai World Expo.

China’s State Council said that several provisions in the Border Quarantine Law and the Law on Control of the Entry and Exit of Aliens, which were implemented in the 1980s, are being revised because the ban was imposed two decades ago with “limited knowledge about HIV/AIDS and other diseases.”  However, the Chinese authorities have now come to a conclusion that such ban had either limited or very small influence in controlling the spread of HIV/AIDS or other sexually transmitted diseases in China.  Read more...

By M.E. Dodge
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BANGKOK, Thailand – A major hospital evacuated patients and suspended operations, except emergency surgical procedures, after Red-Shirt, anti-government, protesters surged the hospital in search of security personnel they suspected were using the hospital as a lookout of their base.

  A “red shirt” anti-government protester is detained by Thai soldiers on a street near the residence of Thailand’s Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. Photograph courtesy of Time.

Hospital directors and administrators pleaded with the group not to enter, and after storming the building, and not finding police or military within, the group of protestors withdrew back to their nearby barricaded enclave.  Read more...

By Cindy Trinh
Impunity Watch Reporter, Oceania

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea – People of Papua New Guinea (PNG) have signed a petition calling on Parliament to reject the proposed Ombudsman Commission Amendment Bill. They fear that the Bill will allow senior politicians in PNG to be free of investigation. The Governor of PNG’s National Capital District has offered to organize a meeting to discuss the controversial bill.

The PNG government’s draft of the Bill is designed by politicians to allow the Ombudsman Commission funds to be cut. People in PNG fear that this bill will prevent the Ombudsman’s Office from investigating senior politicians.  Read more...

By William Miller
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba – Canadian Citizen Omar Khadr was not present for the second day of hearings to decide if any of the evidence against him should be suppressed. Khadr who was just fifteen when he was arrested in Afghanistan is to be tried for war crimes in a military tribunal. He decided to boycott the proceedings because military officials required him to wear sensory deprivation equipment while he was being transported from the jail to the court house.

Omar Khadr at age 15 when he was captured and at age 22 (PHOTO: Miami Herald)  Read more...

By Eileen Gould
Impunity Watch Reporter, Oceania

CANBERRA, Australia – The Australian Government has refused to incorporate human rights into the law, an action which has been criticized by the ACT Human Rights Commissioner.

A recommendation suggested that the administration of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd adopt a law, allowing judges to review Australia’s laws, practices, and policies for human rights compliance.

Instead, Julia Gillard, Minister for Education, and Robert McClelland, Attorney General, announced the Government’s initiative to educate Australians and ensure their access to information about human rights.  Read more...

By Sovereign Hager
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

Photo Courtesy of MERCO Press

ASUNCION, Paraguay- On Sunday, April 25, 2020, Paraguay’s president signed a bill into law declaring a state of emergency in five of Paraguay’s seventeen provinces. The bill includes a thirty day suspension of constitutional due process guarantees, with an aim to grant the military greater power to combat the Paraguayan People’s Army (PPA). The PPA, an armed leftist group is allegedly responsible for murders, including four police officers.  Read more...

By Alok Bhatt
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BAGRAM, Afghanistan - Representatives of the US military recently divulged its designs to remove and re-locate non-Afghan prisoners presently detained in Bagram Air Base.  Bagram Air Base signifies the United States’ controversial detention facility outside the capital  city of Kabul.  Since 2001, the US military has utilized Bagram Air Base to hold suspected enemy combatants, persons classified as terrorists, and other alleged malefactors.  Numerous human rights issues have been invoked since the transformation of the Air Base into a prison.  Among the most significant international law violations charged are the torture of Bagram inmates and the indiscriminate abduction and subsequent captivity of persons with unconfirmed combatant status from countries surrounding Afghanistan.  Read more...

By Elizabeth A. Conger
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

MOSCOW, Russia – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered the online publication of the once-secret files pertaining the 1940 massacre of roughly 22,0o0 members of the Polish elite by Soviet forces.  The files, labeled “Packet No. 1″, had previously only been available to researchers.  The move is part of a campaign by Moscow to warm relations with Poland, and is seen as another step towards Russian acknowledgment of Soviet-era atrocities.

Medvedev told reporters in Copenhagen: “I think this is our duty . . . Let everyone see what was done, who made the decisions . . . all the signatures are there.”  Read more...