Putin, Kadyrov & Lukashenko Named as Freedom of Press “Predators”

Putin, Kadyrov & Lukashenko Named as Freedom of Press “Predators”

By Elizabeth A. Conger
Impunity Watch Reporter

PARIS, France – Media watchdog group “Reporters Without Borders” released an updated list of the top forty enemies of the press on Monday, May 3, 2010, to mark the UN-backed World Press Freedom Day. The group named Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as a top “predator” in their annual compilation of global leaders who suppress freedom of press. Also on the list were Chechnya’s pro-Kremlin President Ramzan Kadyrov, and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Russia was the only country with two politicians on the list.

The report states that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has promoted: “a climate of pumped-up national pride that encourages the persecution of dissidents and freethinkers and fosters a level of impunity that is steadily undermining the rule of law.” As evidence of the growing level of impunity, the report cited the killing of five journalists in 2009, which brought the total figure of journalists killed in Russia since 2000 to twenty two.

The report also stated that after the chaotic post-Soviet years under former President Boris Yeltsin, Putin’s leadership effectively consolidated “control” over national media outlets.

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, known as “Putin’s guard dog,” has been linked to the deaths of a number of journalists and activists, including reporter Anna Politkovskaya [killed in Moscow in October of 2006], and human rights activist Natalia Estemirova [gunned down in Chechnya in July of 2009].  Those journalists who do continue to operate in Chechnya, continue by abstaining from publishing criticism of either Kadyrov or the Russian state.

Kadyrov was quoted as saying: “The press must be in the service of the Chechen people’s unity.”

According to the report, under the leadership of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, free press has effectively been eradicated in Belarus, and the state has obtained a monopoly on printing and distribution facilities. Independent journalists in Belarus, forced underground, have returned to the clandestine methods of publication and distribution used during the Soviet era. The report also notes that the Lukashenko government has determined “to put an end to online anarchy,” and regularly monitors online activity.

Elsewhere in Europe, the report states that the Basque separatist group in Spain, Eta, and criminal gangs in Italy have threatened and intimidated journalists.

For more information, please see:

BBC – Media watchdog group names freedom “predators” – 3 May 2010

Radio Free Europe – ‘Predators of the Press’ List Released – 3 May 2010

Reporters Sans Frontières Report – Predators 2010 – 3 May 2010

The Moscow Times – Kadyrov, Putin Called “Predators” of Media – 3 May 2010

President Medvedev Pledges Investigation Into Most Recent Russian Prison Death

By David Sophrin
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

MOSCOW, Russia – Russian President Dimitry Medvedev has pledged to fully investigate the most recent death of a prisoner being held while awaiting trial in a Moscow jail.

Prisoner Vera Trifonova, 53, died on Friday at the Matrosskaya Tishina prison near Moscow while being held on fraud charges.  At the time of her death, Trifonova was being held in the same prison that Sergei Magnitsky was in when he died last year due to an untreated medical condition.

Medvedev’s quick response to reports of the death off Russian prisoner comes after the intense national and international scrutiny that Russia and its prison system faced last year following the death of prominent lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.  The Russian Investigative Committee stated a comprehensive investigation would be made into the facts surrounding Trifonova’s death.

In the aftermath of Magnitsky’s death, twenty leading officials in the Russian prison system were fired.  It was determined that Magnitsky had developed pancreatitis while in prison but did not receive the proper medical attention.

Prior to her death, Trifonova had been suffering kidney failure and diabetes.

Trifnova’s defense attorneys stated that they had petitioned for her release prior to trial because of her fragile medical condition.  “However, the pre-detention center’s administration, investigators and court officials decided that [Trifnova was] able to withstand the conditions of the ward.  Perhaps the story with Magnitsky did not teach anyone a lesson.”

Vladimir Zherebyonkov, a member of Trifnova’s defense team, also alleged that the chief investigator in Trifnova’s case had offered to release her from prison if she confessed to the charges against her.  “They have actually led her to death.  Knowing that she needed special medical care, like hemodialysis, they still put her in prison, where she could not have received such aid, of which the prison administration chief said at the very state.”

For more information, please see:

AP – Another prison death at Moscow jail being probed – 1 May, 2010

RIANOVOSTI – Russia’s Medvedev orders full investigation into prison death – 1 May, 2010

TAIWAN NEWS – Russia investigates another prison death – 1 May, 2010

INTERFAX – Woman who died in prison Friday was offered freedom in exchange for confession – 30 April, 2010

RIANOVOSTI – Russian prosecutors probe death of seriously ill woman in pre-detention center – 30 April, 2010

Report on Religious Persecution

 By Jonathan Ambaye
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa Desk

 JOS, Nigeria-The United States commission on International religious Freedom released a new report this week about the level of religious persecution around the world. The report identifies over two dozen countries as offenders. Some of the countries include Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Nigeria. Egypt has been noted to discriminate against those who are members of minority Muslim sects in the country. Many are known to be imprisoned because of their faith, some fired from their jobs, and kicked out of universities, amongst many other things.

 Of all of the countries identified for religious persecution, Nigeria has been getting the most attention for its impunity violations.  In the past ten years 12,000 people have been killed in a cycle of violence between Christians of Southern Nigeria and Muslims in the North.  Last week two Christian journalists were killed in Northern Nigeria.  The murders are believed to have been committed by young muslim men who were answering calls to the cell phones of the deceased journalists, bragging about what they had done.  The deceased were identified as Nathan S. Dabak, an assistant editor at a newspaper of the Church of Christ in Nigeria, and Sunday Gyang Bweade, a reporter at the publication.

 In response to the religious persecution in Nigeria one interdenominational Christian religious group based in Nigeria called on Christians and Muslims in the country to be more tolerable of one another and live in harmony.

 Other countries identified in the report were North Korea, Eritrea, Iran, Pakistan, China, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Myanmar, and Iraq. The list has grown by five since the State Department released a list of its own in 2009.

 For more information please see:

 CNN – Religious Persecution Is Widespread Report Warns – 29 April 2010

Mission Network – Christians Murdered…- 29 April 2010

Nigerian Compass – We Must Live In Harmony..- 28 April 2010

American Drones To Target Yemeni Cleric

By Ahmad Shihadah
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

SA’NA, Yemen – Armed US drones have been deployed to target Anwar Al-Awlaki, one of the world’s most wanted Islamist terrorists following reports that he was involved in last week’s failed suicide bomb attack against Britain’s ambassador to Yemen.

The cleric, who allegedly had ties to the September 11 hijackers, later praised the Fort Hood killings and said Muslims should only serve in the US military if they intended to carry out similar attacks.

He is also believed to have played a role in the radicalization of Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the British-educated Nigerian student accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound jet last Christmas.

Mr Obama took the highly unusual step of authorizing the assassination of an American citizen after US intelligence officials convinced the White House that the radicalization of impressionable young Muslims by al-Awlaki’s sermons posed a major threat to national security.

Senior US intelligence officials say they have stepped up their efforts to target Al-Awlaki following new evidence that the American-born cleric is taking an increasingly operational role in the operation of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

But experts caution that unless Yemen diversifies its approach – which led to success in neighboring Saudi Arabia – increased military action as well as overt cooperation with America may ultimately backfire.

“Up until Christmas Day 2009, Al-Qaeda … was stronger in Yemen than it had ever been before. Over the last few months, they’ve taken a series of hits … but none of these have been sort of the debilitating blow that’s going to knock the organization off its tracks for any sustained period of time,” says Gregory Johnsen, a Yemen expert at Princeton University in New Jersey.

For more information, please see:

Telegraph UK – American Drones Deployed To Target Yemeni Terrorist – 2 May 2010

One India – Obama Orders Deployment Of US Drones To Target Yemeni Terrorist – 2 May 2010

CSM – Why Yemen’s US-Aided Fight Against Al-Qaeda Could Backfire – 2 May 2010

Violent Clashes Erupt Between Protesters and Police Over Austerity Measures Which Will Primarily Affect Workers and the Poor

By Elizabeth A. Conger
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

ATHENS, Greece – Annual May Day marches in Athens erupted into violent clashes between leftist demonstrators and Greek police.  Tens of thousands of workers took to the streets to protest proposed austerity measures as disproportionately harmful to the nation’s workers and poor.

According to AFP, one demonstrator described the government cutbacks as “the biggest attack on workers for centuries.”  He added: “They want to return us to the 19th Century – this is not going to be a battle but a war that will last for months and even years.”

Greek riot police used tear gas to disperse the rioters in Athens as rioters threw bottles, rocks and petrol bombs at police and television vans. Rioters in Athens and Thessaloniki also vandalized banks and government buildings.

Yannis Papangopoulos, head of the Confederation of Greek Workers, said:  “These policies are totally unfair.  They place all the burden on the have-nots to pay the price of this crisis and not the plutocracy . . . There will be a social explosion once they begin to bite.”

The measures that the ruling Pasok Party hopes to implement include an injection of roughly 120 billion euros into the Greek economy over the next three years, as well as stringent reforms and tax increases.  This involves a reduction of collective bargaining rights, abolition of additional wages paid to supplement low public sector salaries, and the overhaul of the pension and health systems.  Effectively, the measures will eradicate nearly every right acquired by Greek workers and unions over the past thirty years.

Spiros Papaspirou, head of Greece’s Adedy civil servants union, said: “The bill should go to those who looted this country for decades, not to the workers . . . This is the most savage, unjust and unprovoked attack workers have ever faced.”

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou has said that the measures are necessary in order to prevent complete economic collapse and to assure the nation’s survival.

For more information, please see:

BBC INTERNATIONAL – Greece police tear gas anti-austerity protesters – 1 May 2010

GUARDIAN – Greece erupts in violent protest as citizens face a future of harsh austerity – 1 May 2010

LOS ANGELES TIMES – Violent May Day Protests in Athens – 1 May 2010