European Human Rights Court Finds Discrimination In Bosnian Constitution

European Human Rights Court Finds Discrimination In Bosnian Constitution

By David Sophrin
Impunity Watch, Reporter

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina – The European Court of Human Rights ruled on Tuesday that the national constitution of Bosnia-Herzegovina discriminates against Jews and Roma and must be amended.

Currently in Bosnia only Muslim Bosniaks, Roman Catholic Croats, and Christian Orthodox Serbs are allowed to run for political office, while Jews and Roma are forbidden.  This ruling by the European Court of Human rights came about after two activists, Jakob Finci, a Bosnian Jew and the current Bosnian ambassador to Switzerland, and Dervo Sejdic who is of Roma ethnicity, filed a complaint in the Court in 2006.  Past attempts by both men to run for national office in Bosnia were thwarted by the constitutional provision that the Court ruled on.

Following the ruling, Finci applauded the Court’s action.  “I am delighted that the European Court has recognized the wrong that was done in the constitution 14 years ago.  The Bosnian politicians need to right the wrongs in the constitution quickly.”

Bosnia, as a party to the Convention that established the European Court of Human Rights, is now obligated to amend its Constitution.  In making its decision, the court noted that “authorities must use all available means to combat racism, thereby reinforcing democracy’s vision of a society in which diversity is not perceived as a threat but as a source of enrichment.”  Bosnia had previously agreed to modify its election laws to put them in line with the European Convention on Human Rights, a requirement for EU membership.

The Bosnian Constitution was drafted as a part of the broader Dayton Peace Accords, which ended the nearly four year war in the former Yugoslavian republic between Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian ethnic groups.  The constitution currently separates the population of the nation between “constituent peoples”, including Bosnians, Croats, and Serbs, as opposed to “others”, including Jews and Roma.

Past attempts to amend Bosnia’s election laws have had little success.

For more information, please see:

AP – Court: Bosnia discriminates against Jews and Roma – 22 December 2009

DW – European Court rules Bosnia’s constitution is discriminatory – 22 December 2009

EUROPEAN VOICE – Human rights rebuffs Bosnia – 22 December 2009

RADIO FREE EUROPE – European Court Condemns Bosnia Over Jews – 22 December 2009

VOA – European Court: Bosnia’s Constitution Unfair to Jews, Roma – 22 December 2009

Non-ID Palestinians Look for Basic Refugee Rights

By Brandon Kaufman
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

SIDON, Lebanon– Non-ID Palestinians are those individuals who arrived to Lebanon after the 1967 exodus when Israel invaded the West Bank and Gaza Strip.  Additionally, some of the Non-ID Palestinians are a byproduct of the Black September events in 1970 when clashes between Jordanian forces and Palestinian fighters forced many Palestinians to flee.  Now, over forty years later, many of these Non-ID Palestinians in Lebanon are being denied the most basic of human rights because in the eyes of the Lebanese government they simply do not exist.

The number of Non-ID Palestinians was relatively few just after 1967, but that number in Lebanon today varies between 4,000 and 5,000.

According to Issam Halabi, the director of the Palestinian Union for Refugees, the Lebanese government has refused to treat thousands of Non-ID Palestinians as refugees or even give them the same legal status as illegal aliens.  He further added that the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is the authority responsible for the Non-ID Palestinian caseload, but in his opinion, they have failed to provide suitable living conditions for nearly all of the Non-ID Palestinians.

To many, education, the ability to marry and other freedoms would seem to be basic human rights, yet Halabi says these rights are not being given to the Non-ID Palestinians.  In fact, Halabi has said that the living conditions for the Non-ID Palestinians is so dire because they do not have the right to attend schools or universities, come and go as they please, and possess legal identification or a passport.  The common sentiment is that “the government sees them as illegal.”

In one striking example, sixty-five year old Abu Mohammad Omar, a refugee at Lebanon’s largest Palestinian gathering Ain al-Hillweh, has told of the struggles facing Non-ID Palestinians.  “As if the hardship we face as Palestinian refugees is not enough.  I cannot leave the camp and I cannot work because I have no legal status.  I cannot even guarantee that Lebanese security forces won’t arrest me because I have no proof of existence,” said Omar.

In 2008, the Lebanese General Security began issuing identification papers to undocumented Palestinians, but the documents are no longer valid.  Nonetheless, Non-ID Palestinians are still hoping that talk of issuing new identifications will come true.

For more information, please see:

The Daily Star- Non-ID Palestinians Lack Even Basic Rights of Refugees– 14 December 2009

Relief Web- Lebanon’s ‘Non-ID Palestinians’: No Legal Status, No Hope– 6 December 2009

Tadamon- Lebanon: Palestinians Without Papers– 28 March 2008

Israel Admits Organ Harvesting From Both Palestinians and Israelis

By Meredith Lee-Clark

Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

 

JERUSALEM, Israel/West Bank – Officials admitted on December 21 that Israel harvested organs without family members’ permission from both Palestinians and Israelis throughout the 1990s. The practice reportedly ended in 2000.

 

The admission came after an interview with Jehuda Hiss from 2000 was released after allegations of organ harvesting in Israel appeared in Swedish newspaper during the summer of 2009. The Swedish report had alleged that Israeli soldiers had stolen organs from Palestinian men after killing them; Israel immediately denied the claims, calling them anti-Semitic. Sweden refused to apologize for the article, citing freedom of the press.

 

In the 2000 interview with University of California at Berkeley anthropologist Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Jehuda Hiss said that the practice began with harvesting corneas for transplants in public hospitals, and spread to harvesting other parts such as skin, heart valves, and bones.

 

“Whatever was done was highly informal,” said Hiss. “No permission was asked from the family.”

 

Hiss said that after getting permission from family members to do an autopsy, “we felt free” to harvest organs. Israel’s health ministry told Israeli television that transplant guidelines during the 1990s were “not clear,” and that since 2000 “Abu Kabir has been working according to ethics and Jewish law.”

 

After she released the interview, Scheper-Hughes said she did not believe that Israel murdered Palestinians for their organs, though the practice had implications that were, at the very least, unsettling.

 

“The symbolism of taking skin out of a population that is considered to be the enemy and using it for skin for the military, that’s something that—just in terms of symbolic weight—has to be reconsidered,” Scheper-Hughes told Israel’s Channel 2.

 

After complaints surfaced at the end of the 1990s about improper practices at Abu Kabir, an investigation was launched and there was a change in institute management.

 

The Palestinian Authority’s Central Council announced after the interview had been aired that its Minister of Prisoner Affairs, Issa Qaraqe, would launch its own investigation and report back to the Palestinian government.

 

For more information, please see:

 

ABC News (Australia) – Israel Admits Organ Harvesting – 21 December 2009

 

Al Jazeera – Israel Admits to Organ Thefts – 21 December 2009

 

CNN – Israel Harvested Organs Without Permission, Officials Say – 21 December 2009

 

Ma’an News Agency – PA to Follow Up on Organ Harvesting Allegations – 21 December 2009

 

Post Chronicle – Israel Organ Harvesting Palestinians and Soldiers; Secrets Revealed – 21 December 2009

Woman Files Human Rights Complaint After Strip Search

21 December 2009

Woman Files Human Rights Complaint After Strip Search

By William Miller

Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

Sarah Archer
Charmaine Archer filed a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission after she was forced to submit to a strip search at an Ottawa Airport (PHOTO: Montreal Gazette)

OTTAWA, Canada – A woman has filed a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission claiming she was racially profiled when authorities selected her for a strip search at an Ottawa Airport. Charmaine Archer, a duel citizen of both Canada and Jamaica, and her four-year-old son were pulled aside by authorities upon returning from Jamaica.

Archer went to Jamaica for four days to attend her grandmother’s funeral. She was stopped after exiting a plane coming from Philadelphia to the Ottawa airport.

Authorities claim that they selected her for screening because of her short stay in Jamaica and because she purchased her ticket at the last minute. She however claims that her selection was racially motivated. As archer points out, “I was the only black person on that flight and I was the only one in there being searched. I have all reason to assume it was racial profiling.”

Authorities unpacked her suitcase and tested her belongings for the presence of drugs. They claimed that her tooth brush tested positive for Marijuana and heroin during the search. Archer maintains that this was a lie: “I don’t do drugs, I don’t know anybody that does drugs and I wasn’t around drugs when I was in Jamaica. … I come from an upstanding family and nobody touched that toothbrush but me.”

Archer complied with the guards when they first pulled her aside and continued to cooperate as they searched her belongings. It was not until they told her she would have to be strip searched that she protested saying she would rather be arrested. She was handcuffed and forced to comply with a full cavity search despite her protest. She has now decided to file a complaint. No drugs were found during the strip search.

Archer says that her goal is to show that authorities faked the presence of drugs on her toothbrush and to make sure the video tape goes public so people will know she was compliant up until she was strip searched. She has contacted the Human Rights Commission and expects to hear back from them next week.

For more information, please see:

Winnipeg Free Press – Strip Search Criticized – 21 December 2009

Montreal Gazette – Woman to File Human Rights Complaint after Airport Strip Search – 20 December 2009

Montreal Gazette – Woman Claims Profiling Following Strip Search – 19 December 2009

Spanish Legislation Takes First Step Towards Easing Ban on Abortion

By David Sophrin
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

MADRID, Spain – The lower-house of the Spanish parliament voted on Thursday to approve a bill that would legalize access to abortion.  Abortion has in almost all cases been categorizes as an illegal act.  This new legalization would all abortions to be legally carried out for the first fourteen weeks of the pregnancy without any government restrictions.

Currently in Spain abortions are only legal in cases of rape or out of concern for the health of the mother.  And while as a matter of law abortions are very difficult to obtain, in practice many of the 100,000 abortions that are legally performed in Spain are carried out under the mother’s health exception.  The bill will now be presented in the upper-house.  If it is approved there, this legislation will face a final vote by the whole parliament.

Legalizing a broader right to access to abortion has been a leading domestic priority for Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.  The current Socialist government under Zapatero was able to gather 184 votes in the lower house, Congress of Deputies, by eliminating the most controversial provision of the bill, which would have allowed any woman over the age of 15 the right to have an abortion without their parent’s consent.  In reaching the necessary number of votes, the Socialist government joined forces with smaller political parties in the lower house.

The movement towards legalization has been described by its leaders as a fight for women’s rights.  The Socialist Party’s spokeswoman Carmen Monton declared that this movement is about “…legislating women’s right to decide whether to be mothers.”

The Catholic Church and Popular Party (PP) have led the opposition to this legislation.  A leader of the PP noted at a rally outside the parliament that the legislation would “[banalize] the meaning of human life.”  The Catholic Church has declared that if abortion is legalized, anyone who participates in assisting abortion procedures may face excommunication.

A vote on this bill in the upper house of the parliament is expected to take place in early 2010.

For more information, please see:

AFP – Spanish lawmakers vote to legalise abortion – 18 December 2009

AP – Spanish lawyers vote to ease abortion law – 18 December 2009

EARTHTIMES – Spanish parliament approves liberalization of abortion – 17 December 2009