By Irving Feng
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

Local Indian police arrested five or six young men who allegedly gang raped a Swiss female tourist on Friday, bringing into question India’s commitment to providing adequate safety to women within its borders.

The Swiss woman, age 39, was vacationing with her husband when the gruesome crime occurred.  She and her husband were engaged in a 250 kilometer (roughly 155 miles) biking adventure tour from Orchha to Agra to visit the Taj Mahal when they stopped to camp near Sewda road.

They set up camp in a forested area, and the suspected perpetrators invaded their camp area during the night.  The men beat the woman’s husband with wooden sticks, and some of the men sexually assaulted and brutally raped the woman in front of her husband while he was tied up to a tree.

The suspects were reportedly carrying a firearm at the time of the assault.  Police say that the attackers also stole some of the pair’s valuables including cellular phones, laptop computer, and around 10,000 rupees ($185).

The young men suspected of committed the crime were all members of a local tribe known as the Kanjar from the village of Jharia in the Datia district.  Police checked the criminal history of the men and found their records to be clean.  Their ages ranged from 20 to 25.

The couple has made it safely to the Swiss embassy in New Delhi.  The Swiss Ministry for Foreign Affairs released a statement to the press indicating that there is an extreme interest in rectifying the situation for their two citizens, and a course of action will be implemented in due time.

The Swiss government had recently issued a travel warning last month to all tourists travelling to India regarding the alarming number of rapes and other sexual attacks occurring throughout the country.  Other countries may be prompted to release similar warnings to their general publics in the near future.

This newest incident involving a foreign victim comes at a time when sexual crimes in India are on the rise.  The National Crime Records Bureau suggests that roughly one woman is raped every 20 minutes in their country.

After last December’s brutal rape and murder of a physiotherapy student in Delhi, protestors took to the streets to demonstrate and called for the perpetrators to be sentenced to death.  India’s legislature has recently implemented harsher punishments for the crime of rape, increasing the prison terms from seven to ten years to a maximum of 20 years.

For further information, please see:

BBC – Six held over India rape of Swiss woman – 18 March 2013

The Times of India – 5 arrested for Swiss woman’s gang-rape – 18 March 2013

The Huffington Post – Five Men Arrested In Gang-Rape Of Swiss Woman In India – 17 March 2013

Reuters –  Six arrested for gang-raping Swiss tourist in India: police – 17 March 2013

By Karen Diep
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BANGKOK, Thailand – Yesterday, the Thai Navy denied reports of its members opening fire at a boat last February containing 20 Rohingya Muslim refugees, resulting in the deaths of at least two of the asylum seekers.

According to Voice of America, in recent months, thousands of Rohingyas are fleeing the ethnic turmoil and state-sponsored discrimination in Western Burma. As a result, many are traveling by boat to Malaysia and ending up on the West coast of Thailand.

“[N]o [Thai] navy officer could be that ruthless,” said Thai Navy commander Admiral Surasak Rounroengrom.

Mr. Surasak continued to state that the Thai Navy possessed no reason to kill the Rohingya refugees because they were not an enemy.

Although Thailand has refused to accept most of the refugees, it has ordered its navy to stop these boats to provide them with supplies.

“Since the policy is to push them back out to sea, we provide humanitarian aid with food and water, medicine and gas for them to continue their journey. All we do is help them, even fixing their boats [if necessary], before sending them back on their way,” continued Mr. Surasak.

However, according to BBC News, eyewitnesses said otherwise.  Witnesses informed human rights groups that they saw several bodies in the water and even protected some of these refugees during and after the February incident.

“Navy personnel fired into the air three times and told us not to move,” relayed one of the Rohungya refugees to Human Rights Watch (HRW), “But we were panicking and jumped off the boat, and then they opened fire at us in the water.”

Although the spokesperson for the United Nations refugee agency, Vivian Tan, can neither confirm nor deny the events last month, she stated that her agency is worried about the fate of Rohingya refugees.

“U.N.H.C.R. has been advocating that people fleeing persecution should be able to be processed in the country or territory where they arrive.  So, they should not be pushed off for sure,” said Ms. Tan, “They should definitely not be sent back to a place where their lives could be in danger.”

Historically, Thai officials have been suspect of dragging refugee boats that end up in Thai waters out to sea and leave them to die.  Furthermore, they have been accused of selling on asylum seekers to human traffickers.

According to BBC’s South East Asia correspondent Jonathan Head, Thai authorities are rarely held accountable for these allegations regardless of their promise to investigate such incidents.

For further information, please see:

BBC News – Thai Navy Denies Shooting Rohingya Refugee – 15 March 2013

The United Press International – Thais Deny Firing on Rohingya Refugees – 14 March 2013

Voice of America – Fleeing Rohingya Refugees Fired Upon, Says Rights Group – 13 March 2013

By Irving Feng
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India – Italy denied the return of two military security personnel to India for the purpose of standing trial after the two security guards killed two fishermen off of India’s southern coast last February.

The two security guards were placed on the Italian tanker, Enrica Lexie, to protect the vessel at sea from pirates.  The guards encountered an Indian fishing vessel, which they described as hostile and approached the tanker in an aggressive manner.  The fishermen were unarmed.

After administering warnings to the allegedly aggressive fishermen, the two guards opened fire and killed the two fishermen off of India’s southern coast near Kerala.  The security guards allegedly responsible for the murder of the two fishermen had been detained in India except for a brief holiday when the men were allowed to return home to Italy to spend with their families.

More recently, the men were allowed to return to their home country to participate in their nation’s general elections.  The Italian government, however, issued a statement informing the international community that the two security guards would not return to India to stand trial for their crimes.

The Indian Supreme Court handed down a ruling that stated India had jurisdiction over the two security guards’ crimes and demanded the return of the two alleged murderers to stand trial in India courts under India’s rule of law.  Italy has denied India’s Supreme Court ruling, stating that the incident occurred in international waters and believes they should be tried at home in Italian courts.

Italy bases its decision to not return the security guards on its assertion that India’s court decision would violate the guards’ rights (specifically the principle of immunity for foreign state actors).  An Indian protest leader, however, believes that this decision by the Italian government will set negative international precedent that would encourage foreigners to murder innocent Indian people and escape.

A woman, identified as Dora who is the wife of one of the slain fisherman, denounces Italy’s decision and calls the entire fiasco a conspiracy against justice which needs to be exposed on the international stage.  The woman said that although the Italian government compensated the families for their losses, monetary compensation could not possibly rectify the losses suffered.

Dora demands that the Italian government return the two alleged murderers to stand trial so justice can be served.  Reports say that the Italian government paid the families of the fishermen 10 million rupees (equivalent to 124,000 British pounds).

For further information, please see:

BBC – India fishermen killings: Italian ambassador is summoned – 12 March 2013

The Guardian – India furious after Italy blocks return of marines for murder trial – 12 March 2013

News Bharati – Italy blocks Marines’ Indian murder trial – 12 March 2013

Reuters –  India summons Italian envoy over marine killings dispute – 12 March 2013

By Irving Feng
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

PYONGYANG, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea – The United Nations (UN) met on Monday to vote on and, hopefully, establish an independent commission to probe the allegedly worsening human rights abuses rampant in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, or more commonly known as North Korea).

The UN’s desire to investigate the human rights situation in North Korea is based on a report compiled by Marzuki Darusman.  Mr. Darusman is an Indonesian lawyer by trade and has been appointed to the UN as a Special Rapporteur on human rights for North Korea.

Darusman, in his report, describes the human rights violations currently being perpetrated in the totalitarian state as “grave, systematic and widespread.”  The report highlights abuses such as rapes, tortures, executions, arbitrary arrests, government sanctioned abductions, and, perhaps what is most troubling, a seemingly large scale expansion of the gulag, or prison camp system.

According to official UN reports, analysts, who have been monitoring North Korea from 2006 to 2013, have found an expansion of a previously constructed 20 km perimeter located in the Ch’oma-Bong valley.  The site is known as Camp No. 14, and reports estimate roughly 200,000 prisoners are held within the borders of the camp.

The living conditions within the camp are described as “dire,” and “extremely harrowing.”  Darusman believes that the camps are designed in a way so that the detainees of the camps endure a slow and painful death.

Robert King, U.S. Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights Issues, provided additional evidence to support the worsening scenario in North Korea as the newly ascended, young leader, Kim Jong-un, tightens his grip on his squalid subjects.  King’s report suggested that 2,600 North Koreans were able to escape to South Korea in 2011.

This figure of escaped North Koreans has fallen by 43 percent in initial data reports for 2013.  Darusman also supported this scenario of Jong-un tightening his grip by noting that the number of North Koreans escaping to China has dwindled since the death of Kim Jong-il, Jong-un’s father.

The North Korean representative in the UN has slammed the investigation as a hoax and a witch hunt.  So Se Pyong, North Korea’s ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, denounced Darusman’s report, calling all of the evidence collected a fraud.

So Se Pyong believes that the investigation is the UN’s plot to put North Korea under greater international scrutiny and tarnish the sterling image of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.  Navi Pilay, the UN Human Rights Commissioner, called for a grave need to investigate North Korea’s human rights abuses rather than the media focus on the North’s nuclear arms programs.

For further information, please see:

Bloomberg – North Korean Rights Abuses May Be Crimes Against Humanity – 12 March 2013

International Herald Tribune – A Push to Investigate North Korea’s Human Rights Abuses – 11 March 2013

Reuters – North Korea slams U.N. “plot” to investigate its human rights record – 11 March 2013

The Asahi Shimbun – U.N. urged to probe North Korean leaders’ role in abuses – 5 February 2013