International Criminal Court– Office of the Prosecutor Weekly Briefing – 1-7 June – Issue 40
Argentina’s Lower House Passes Same-sex Marriage Bill
By Patrick Vanderpool
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America
Argentina’s lower legislative house, the Chamber of Deputies, recently approved a gay marriage bill. By a 125-109 vote, the Chamber of Deputies passed a bill that not only allows gay marriage, but also allows gay couples to adopt children for the first time.
Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires, has a strong reputation for being gay friendly. Many bars, restaurants and other forms of entertainment specifically cater to homosexual clientele. Support for a gay marriage bill has mounted since December of last year, when the first same-sex marriage was performed in Latin America. Since that time, five same-sex couples have been married in Argentina by judges who authorized the ceremony.
The Chamber of Deputies was faced with a difficult decision: pass a bill that would allow civil unions, but would not allow adoptions; or take a bold step and allow equality across the board. When asked why he supported the equal marriage bill, Agustin Rossi, member of Front for Victory Party, explained that a civil union option “would not have solved the problem” and that the legislature was focused on “equaling rights in the most genuine manner.”
Rossi went on to say that it is very unfair for those who have power to deny equality to those who do not. Deputy Felipe Sola, who supported the bill, added that “love isn’t owned by heterosexuals.”
While there have previously been few same-sex marriages in Latin America, this victory marks the first time the body of a legislative branch has voted for same-sex marriages in Latin America. If the bill passes Argentina’s upper house, Argentina would be the first Latin American country to allow full same-sex marriage and adoption rights. Currently, Mexico City is the only place in Latin America where same-sex couples share the same marriage and adoption rights as heterosexual couples.
Maria Rachid, president of the Argentine Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transsexuals, is optimistic that the bill has the necessary support to pass. Deputies from President Fernandez’s faction, as well as members of groups on the left and right of the political spectrum, have all shown support for the bill.
For more information, please see:
Advocate.com – Argentina’s lower house OKs gay marriage bill – 5 May 2010
Bloomberg – Argentina’s Lower House Approves Gay Marriage Bill, Clarin Says – 5 May 2010
On Top Magazine – Argentina’s Lower House Approves Gay Marriage Bill – 5 May 2010
Reuters – Argentina’s lower house passes gay marriage bill – 5 May 2010
Taliban suspects will be reviewed and released.
By Kwangmin Ahn
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia
KABUL, Afghanistan –Afghan President Hamid Karzai has ordered a review of the cases of every Taliban suspect in the country’s prisons. cThe head of international forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, told the BBC that Mr Karzai had asked “to get sovereignty over all detention operations in Afghanistan and we are working full speed to do that”, with the aim of achieving this by the end of the year.
General McChrystal said Mr. Karzai had asked him to release suspects in cases where evidence was doubtful, or where they did not pose a threat. He added that as Mr. Karzai’s review process took off, he anticipated that international forces would be able to provide “good visibility on the background why a person was detained, rationale for release or continued detention”.
Mr. Karzai’s announcement of prisoner case reviews is the first official response to the national peace conference, which ended on Friday. The conference discussed measures to promote reconciliation, including negotiations with militant factions, and recommended the release of Taliban suspects being held in Afghan police custody and by the US military if they were being held on “inaccurate statements or unsubstantiated allegations”.
Delegates to the conference also urged the Taliban to cut its ties with the al Qaeda terror network and asked that Taliban prisoners be freed from international detention centers. Among other things, the delegates recommended that names of all Taliban members should be removed from blacklists maintained by the United States and United Nations. Those lists contain the names of suspected militants that U.S. authorities and their allies would like to arrest.
For more information, please see:
Al Jazeera – Afghan officials resign over attack – 06 June 2010
CNN – Afghan officers quit over peace conference attack– 06 June 2010
BBC – President Hamid Karzai orders Afghan prisoner review– 06 June 2010
Ukrainian Student Dies While in Police Custody
By Yoohwan Kim
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe
KYIV, Ukraine – A twenty year-old Ukrainian student, Ihor Indilo, died while he was in custody of Kyiv’s Shevchenkivsky district police on May 25. The details of the death are unclear, but Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, Nina Karpacheva, says Indilo died after he was beaten by the police. Karpacheva stated on June 1 that “this is the second time in the last several months a student held in the Shevchenkivsky police precinct has been murdered.”
Indilo, a fourth-year student at a Ukrainian teachers’ training college, had gone out with his friends to celebrate his twentieth birthday. After he returned to his dormitory, he was engaged in a quarrel with a dormitory patrol officer and he was brought into the police station.
Police claim that Indilo fell down several times and hit his head. Police then called his mother to tell her that he died by asphyxiation, after choking on his vomit. The student’s parents and rights activists believe, however, that he was a victim of police brutality.
When Indilo’s parents arrived at the morgue, they were not allowed to view their son’s body. Instead, they were told to claim the body first, and then inspect him. His parents received the medical examiner’s report that stated Indilo died due to a “hemorrhage of the brain, skull fracture, damage due to contact with blunt object.”
On June 1, Kyiv police chief, Olexiy Krykun, told lawmakers in parliament that Indilo died due to self-inflicted injuries. Krykun said, “He collapsed. I repeat: He fell down.” According to Krykun, Indilo was intoxicated when he arrived at the station and he was placed in a cell around 10pm. At 4am, Indilo was found lying on the floor next to a puddle of vomit.
This incident has sparked increased national protests and has highlighted the country’s long history of police brutality. Government authorities have taken measures after news broke out of Indilo’s death.
President Viktor Yanukovych placed himself in charge of the investigation. The Interior Minister, Anatoliy Mohilev, immediately suspended the police chief of the Shevchenkivsky police station, the policemen who brought Indilo to the station, and the precinct officers who were on duty that night.
The Shevchenkivsky district precinct is infamous in Kyiv for police brutality. Despite numerous allegations of police torture and unsanctioned methods, police officers are rarely either convicted or sent to prison.
For more information, please see:
KYIV POST – Student’s Death While in Kyiv Police Custody, Called a Murder by Top Official, Sparks Outrage – 3 June 2010
RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY – Ukraine’s Ombudsman: Student’s Death In Police Custody Was Murder – 1 June 2010
MEDIA INTERNATIONAL GROUP NEWS – Shock! Student Killed in District Police Department – 27 May 2010
CIA Doctors Performed Torture Experimentation on Detainees
By Ali Sprott-Roen
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America
MASSACHUSETTS, United States – A just-released report from Physicians for Human Rights alleges that Bush-era CIA medical personnel conducted human research and experimentation on detainees in an attempt to provide legal cover for torture and to refine future torture techniques. This created the unintended consequence of placing the medical professionals involved in legal and ethical jeopardy.
There are domestic and international laws limiting human research and experimentation, based on both the post-World War II Nuremberg Code and American Common Rule, which ban experimentation on humans without informed consent.
“In an attempt to justify the war crime of torture, the CIA appears to have committed another alleged war crime — illegal experimentation on prisoners,” says Nathaniel Raymond, director of the PHR’s Campaign Against Torture and lead author of the report.
Allegedly illegal and unethical human research was conducted by medical staff in three ways, according to the report. First, they monitored and collected data on waterboarding. This lead to modifications of the procedure that resulted in “waterboarding 2.0,” which added saline to the water to avoid rendering detainees comatose or dead. Second, they studied interrogation techniques to determine the most effective tactics, whether in combination or over time, based on the susceptibility of the subject to severe pain. Third, they conducted sleep deprivation experiments, for up to 180 hours, in order to collect data to support future policies. The goal of this research and experimentation was to develop interrogation methods that remained within the limits established by government lawyers, while producing the maximum effect of the torture.
“There was no therapeutic purpose or intent to monitor and collect this data,” said Jonathan D. Moreno, professor of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania. Consequently, according to the report, medical professionals crossed the line from treating the detainees as patients to treating them as research subjects.
These conclusions were based on an analysis by Physicians for Human Rights of publicly released government documents and reports regarding the CIAs interrogation program, including previously classified documents released by President Obama between May 2009 and February 2010.
However, despite evidence of human experimentation and research, the government has not investigated any of the medical professionals involved in the interrogations.
According to Dr. Steven H. Miles, an expert on the role of medical professionals in torture, “There are countries that, over the years, have condemned medical complicity in torture in principle, but which haven’t really been willing to investigate medical professionals or hold them accountable,” and that includes the United States.
The CIA denies any wrongdoing, but Physicians for Human Rights is calling on President Obama to initiate a criminal investigation into the allegations and all agencies involved, and to prosecute the responsible parties if a crime is found. In addition, there is a strong demand for Congress to repeal changes made to the War Crimes Act in 2006 which allow for a more lenient definition of illegal experimentation on detainees.
Physicians for Human Rights seeks redress for past wrongdoing and prevention of future interrogation experimentation and research tactics, which its CEO, Frank Donaghue, calls “gross violations of humans rights law” and “a grave affront to America’s core values.”
For more information, please see:
Salon.com – PHR report: CIA personnel engaged in human experimentation – 7 June 2010
New York Times – Medical Ethics Lapses Cited in Interrogations – 6 June 2010
New Haven Register – Bush administration conducted torture research on detainees, report claims – 7 June 2010
HeraldSun – Doctors helped CIA perfect ‘torture” technique – 7 June 2010
NatureNews – Medics performed ‘interrogation research’ – 7 June 2010