U.S. Confirms it Held 12 Juveniles at Guantanamo

U.S. Confirms it Held 12 Juveniles at Guantanamo

By Gabrielle Meury
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba – The U.S. has released a report admitting that it has held as many as 12 juveniles at Guantanamo Bay. In May, the U.S. told the United Nations that it held only eight juveniles. Navy Commander Jeffrey Gordon said that the U.S. did not intentionally misrepresent the number of detainees. “As we noted to the committee, it remains uncertain the exact age of many of the juveniles held at Guantanamo, as most of them did not know their own date of birth or even the year in which they were born.”

The Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas, based at the University of California, Davis, released a study last week that concluded that the U.S. has held at least a dozen juveniles at Guantanamo, including a Saudi who committed suicide in 2006. Almerindo Ojeda, director of the Center, stated, “The information I got was from their own sources, so they didn’t have to look beyond their own sources to figure this out,” said Almerindo Ojeda, director of the center at the University of California, Davis. According to the study, eight of the 12 juvenile detainees have been released.

Rights groups say it is important for the U.S. military to know the real age of those it detains because juveniles are entitled to special protection under international laws recognized by the United States.
Two of the remaining detainees are scheduled to face war-crimes trials in January. Canadian Omar Khadr, now 21, was captured in July 2002 and is charged with murder for allegedly throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. special forces soldier. Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan who is about 24, faces attempted murder charges for a 2002 grenade attack that wounded two U.S. soldiers. The study identified the only other remaining juvenile as Muhammed Hamid al Qarani of Chad.The Saudi who hanged himself with two other detainees in 2006, Yasser Talal al-Zahrani, was 17 when he arrived at Guantanamo.

For more information, please see:

USATODAY – U.S. confirms it held 12 juveniles at Guantanamo– 16 November 2008

Fox News – U.S. acknowledges it held 12 juveniles at Guantanamo– 16 November 2008

The Press Association – Dozen juveniles at Guantanamo Bay- 16 November 2008

Fiji’s Interim Government to Resume Drafting People’s Charter

By Hayley J. Campbell
Impunity Watch Reporter, Oceania

SUVA, Fiji – Fiji’s interim government has received a stay on a court injunction which will allow the National Council for Building a Better Fiji to continue revising the People’s Charter. This decision follows a High Court order which had effectively stopped the interim government from resuming any Charter-related work.

Dispute over the drafting of the People’s Charter stems from the 2006 coup of Fiji’s Federal Government. Since that time, the ousted SDL Party has expressed growing concerns that the interim government will not make good on its promise to restore democracy. Interim Prime Minister, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, has yet to relinquish power or hold democratic elections. Last month, a three judge court validated the 2006 coup, giving legitimacy to the interim government.

Amidst this friction, the SDL Party supported Judge Justice Filimone Jitoko’s previous decision to stop the drafting of the People’s Charter. SDL Party leader and ousted Prime Minister, Laisenia Qarase, brought this matter to court because of the potentially dangerous consequences of amending Fiji’s 1997 Constitution.

In its previous decision, the court asserted that the interim government was to stop “promulgating any law, decree order or doing or recommending anything whatsoever to alter or amend the 1997 Constitution or anything whatsoever, including changes to the electoral system that are contrary to or inconsistent with current provisions of the Constitution until the final determination of this matter.”

Although no High Court judges were available to review the matter, Fiji’s interim Attorney General, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, was able to get a stay on the decision from the Court of Appeal. According to Fiji law, a single member judge from the Court of Appeal may grant a stay in matters of urgency.

Court of Appeal Justice Byrne granted the stay on the grounds that section 15 of the State Proceedings Act indicates that an injunction cannot be granted against a State.

As a result, the interim government has resumed work on the People’s Charter.

But SDL Party lawyer, Niko Nawaikula, says that the interim government has responded to the court order too hastily. “As a lawyer and a professional I would have expected them to read this judgment and digest it before taking further action,”Nawaikula said.

The matter is scheduled to go before the Court of Appeal on November 20th.

For more information, please see:
Radio New Zealand International – Ousted Fiji PM gets court order to stop charter process – 14 November 2008

Radio New Zealand International – Fiji’s interim government gets court injunction to continue charter process – 15 November 2008

Fiji Times – Lawyer disappointed with stay on order – 15 November 2008

Tonga MP Says State of Emergency Extensions Are Unjustified

By Sarah E. Treptow
Impunity Watch Reporter, Oceania

NUKU’ALOFA, Tonga – Clive Edwards, a pro-democracy MP in Tonga, says there is no justification for the continuation of the state of emergency into its third year.  The state of emergency was put into place after riots in Nuku’alofa in November of 2006.

Mr. Edwards thinks the state of emergency should be lifted as soon as possible, “The law is nonsense because it says you bring it in to quell and stop or prevent a riot or restore peace and you’ve got to do that within one month.  Once that’s done you’ve got no justification for the emergency laws but here in this case we’re going on for three years and that’s how much respect they have for the people of this country.”  Mr. Edwards is a former minister of police and says that as recently as two weeks ago soldiers beat up five people who were meeting in a private household.

He suspects the government is trying to provoke a reaction to justify the continuation of the state of emergency.

For more information, please see:

Radio New Zealand International – Tonga MP says extension of state of emergency into a third year cannot be justified – 17 November 2008

Pacific Islands News Association – Tonga pro-democracy MP says ongoing state of emergency regulations cannot be justified – 17 November 2008

Forced Abortion Case in China

By Ariel Lin
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BEIJING, China – Arzigul Tursun, a Uyghyr woman who is six months pregnant with her third child, is forced to have abortion in China, according to human rights groups.  She fled from a local hospital to avoid a forced abortion.  But she has been found by police and taken under guard to a larger hospital, where she was scheduled to undergo an abortion against her will, according to her husband, Nurmemet Tohtasin.  “The police found my wife,” he said in a telephone interview from the Women and Children’s Welfare Hospital in Ili prefecture. He added, “My wife’s father was already at the hospital. They will probably do the abortion today.”

The village chief and party secretary had forced Nurmemet Tohtasin to find his wife after she escaped from the local hospital.  Nurmemet took officials to two of Tursun’s relatives’ homes and to her parents’ home.  “They said if we don’t find Arzigul, they would take our house and our farmland,” he said. The local Party secretary, Nurali, and the Dadamtu township mayor, Juret, declined to comment. The case of Arzigul Tursun is raising international attention because she is six months pregnant and an abortion could threaten her health.

According to China’s official news agency, Xinhua, China maintains a one-child-per-family rule on majority Han Chinese, with more flexible rules for ethnic minorities, to contain its massive population of 1.3 billion citizens. According to the One-Child policy, Uyghurs in the countryside are permitted three children while city-dwellers may have two.  Under “special circumstances,” rural families are permitted one more child, although what constitutes special circumstances was unclear.  Besides abortion, the government also uses financial incentives and disincentives to keep the birthrate low.  Couples can also pay steep fines to have more children, although the fines are well beyond most people’s means.

U.S. Rep. Christopher Smith, a New Jersey Republican, wrote China’s ambassador to Washington, Zhou Wenzhong, to demand that “the nightmare of a forced abortion” not be carried out.

For more information, please see:

ABC News – Outrage Over Forced Abortion Case – 17 November 2008

LifeNews – China Officials Trying to Force Woman Six-Months Pregnant to Have Abortion – 14 November 2008

Radio Free Asia – Uyghur Woman Found, Facing Abortion – 17 November 2008

大纪元 – 新疆维族妇女怀孕6月被迫人工流产 – 11月15日2008

Journalist Shot by Pakistani Soldiers

By Shayne R. Burnham
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – Journalist Qari Muhammad Shoaib was shot by Pakistani soldiers while driving his car in Mingora in the Swat Valley of northwest Pakistan.  Pakistani soldiers were stationed in the Swat Valley patrolling the area in response to threats of a suicide attack.

Shoaib was accompanied by a family member driving home.  The family member said, “They shot at us as we reached Airport Road.  We received no indication that we should stop.”  On the other hand, the military stated that warning shots were fired, yet the vehicle did not stop and as a result, they opened fire.  Police official Khaista Rehman said that “the security forces personnel gave him several warnings, he was signalled to stop, then they shouted and also fired shots in the air, but he kept moving towards a military convoy and finally one of the bullets hit him.”  He continued by saying that shots were fired because suicide bombers have attacked in the past in a similar manner.

Military officials said that they regretted the incident and promised to compensate his family.  Shoaib was a reporter for the Khabar Kar daily and survived by two wives, three daughters and a son.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, eleven journalists have been killed in Pakistan since 2000.  Several journalists allege that the soldiers fired intentionally at Shoaib stating, “If they had wanted to stop the vehicle they could have shot out the tires.”

Approximately forty journalists protested in Mingora on Sunday, demanding an investigation of the Shoaib shooting.  On Monday and Tuesday, more journalist protesters rallied.  They said that many journalists have been killed for no reason except performing their professional duties.  They also criticized the government for not providing protection to journalists and demanded that the soldiers involved in Shoaib’s killing be arrested and punished.

For more information, please see:

BBC News – Pakistan Troops ‘Kill Journalist’ – 10 November 2008

Daily Times – Journalists Protests Colleague’s Killing – 11 November 2008

Pakistan Times – Security Forces Kill Seven Militants in Swat – 11 November 2008

Reporters Without Borders – Journalist Shot Dead in the Swat Valley – 10 November 2008