Syrian Network for human rights documented 647 victims, on Wednesday, 21 August 2013 all across Syria. Most of the victims are women and children.
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Damascus and countryside: 606 victims
Aleppo: 8 victims
Idlib: 3 victims
Dier Alzoor: 7 victims
Daraa: 2 victims
Homs: 6 victims
Hama: 13 victims
Qunaitra: 1 victims
Lattakia: 1 victims
by Tony Iozzo
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe
LONDON, England – The decision of British authorities to detain the partner of a journalist who has reported on both United States and United Kingdom surveillance programs has come under fire, as opposition politicians and human rights lawyers are demanding an explanation.
David Michael Miranda, the partner of journalist Glenn Greenwald, who writes a column for the British newspaper The Guardian, was detained for nine hours before being released without charge.
Greenwald has written about the U.S. and U.K. surveillance programs based on the leaks by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. Miranda had met with Laura Poitras, an American filmmaker who has worked with Greenwald on the Snowden leaks, in Berlin and was in route to Rio de Janeiro. The Guardian has stated that Miranda, though not an employee of the newspaper, “often assists [Greenwald] in his work,” and the newspaper generally reimburses Miranda for his flights.
During Miranda’s nine-hour detention, the maximum allowed by law, he was questioned by many agents. “I stayed in a room; there were six different agents, entering and leaving, who spoke with me. They asked questions about my whole life, about everything. They took my computer, video game, cellphone, memory thumb drives- everything,” Miranda stated.
The police have stated that Miranda’s detention was lawful under Schedule 7 of Britain’s Terrorism Act 2000, which allows police to detain an individual at an airport, port or international rail station for up to nine hours for questioning about whether they have been involved with acts of terrorism.
“They completely abused their own terrorism law for reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism,” Greenwald has written in a column.” He opined that his partner’s detention and questioning were “clearly intended to send a message of intimidation to those of us who have been reporting on the NSA and GCHQ.”
Britain’s official independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, David Anderson, stated he has asked authorities to explain why Miranda was detained for the maximum allowable amount of time. Of the 69,000 people stopped pursuant to Schedule 7 between 2011 and 2012, less than 40 people have been held for over six hours.
As Miranda is a Brazilian national, Brazil’s foreign minister Antonio Pariota has sought reasoning from British Foreign Secretary William Hague, calling Miranda’s detention “not justifiable.”
Though the United States government has stated it was given a “heads up” regarding the planned detention, it has stated that the decision for the detention was independent from them.
Greenwald now plans to “write much for aggressively than before” about the U.K.’s surveillance programs. “I’m going to publish many more things about England as well. I have many documents about the system of espionage of England, and now my focus will be there, too. I think they will regret what they’ve done.”
For more information, please see:
Al Jazeera – Snowden Journalist to Publish UK Spy Secrets – 20 August 2013
The Independent – Snowden Affair: US Was Given ‘Heads-Up’ on Detention of David Miranda at Heathrow – 20 August 2013
BBC News – US Given ‘Heads-Up’ on David Miranda Detention – 19 August 2013
The Guardian – David Miranda: “The Said I Would be Put in Jail if I Didn’t Cooperate” – 19 August 2013
New York Times – Britons Question Whether Detention of Reporter’s Partner Was Terror-Related – 19 August 2013
Yahoo News UK & Ireland – Use of UK Terror Law to Detain a Reporter’s Partner ‘a disgrace – 19 August 2013
By Brian Lanciault
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia
PYONGYANG, North Korea– North Korea has agreed to South Korea’s proposal to resume reuniting families that were separated during the Korean Civil War (1950-53). Observers take this as a sign of encouragement that the otherwise bitter and flaring relationship between North and South is beginning to cool down.
The reunions are expected to take place on September 19, during the elaborate Chuseok harvest festival, according to reports released on Sunday by KCNA, a major North Korean news agency.
North Korea set off months of unsettling tensions with a long-range rocket launch in December followed by an underground nuclear test in February. The North’s menacing rhetoric against the United States and South Korea hit its apex between March and April amid U.S.-South Korean military drills in the region, and a vote by the U.N. Security Council to impose even tougher sanctions on the Pyongyang regime, in hopes to quell the swelling tide of nuclear threats.
The KCNA reported that both North and the South, following an agreement to reopen the Kaesong Industrial Zone, will soon discuss the possibility of resuming cross-border tours at Mount Kumgang.
The Kaesong Industrial Zone, a massive complex, located in the North but shared by the two nations, has been closed since April. Kim Jong Un’s regime began blocking South Koreans from entering the manufacturing complex, which sits on the North’s side of the heavily fortified border and houses the operations of more than 120 South Korean companies. Pyongyang then removed the more than 50,000 North Koreans working in the zone’s factories, saying it was temporarily suspending activity in the area. The decision to halt operations surprised some observers, since Kaesong has long been considered an important source of hard currency for Pyongyang.
Mount Kumgang is a North Korean resort where a South Korean tourist was shot by a North Korean soldier in 2008 after allegedly walking into an off-limits area. The reunion will take place at the resort.
“The Kaesong Industrial Zone and the tours to Mt. Kumgang resort are valuable works common to the nation which should not be delayed as they are symbols of reconciliation, unity, reunification and prosperity,” the KCNA reported.
The tragedy of divided families dates to the 1950-1953 Korean War, when the Cold War’s division of the peninsula into two nations became a permanent state of affairs. Amid fighting, millions became refugees — either fleeing violence or fearing political repercussions from either side. In the winter of 1950, some 650,000 refugees left North Korea as U.N. forces retreated after a surprise Chinese offensive.
There is no direct contact between the two Koreas, but a few families in the South have managed to establish voice and written contact, albeit in secrecy, with their relatives in the North in recent years. Most such communications are a result of North Korea’s border with China, which has become easier to overcome, not to mention the prominence of illegal cell phones that have penetrated the otherwise insulated state.
The first family reunions took place following a landmark summit between the two Koreas in 2000. Since that time, 17,100 people representing 3,500 families have been reunited on more than 18 separate occasions.
The meetings are bittersweet, as the chances of any of the divided family members meeting again are slim. The last such reunion took place in 2010.
According to a report at the time, approximately 80,000 South Koreans registered to join one of the few reunions, but 40,000 people are believed to have since passed away or given up hope, according to the South’s Ministry of Unification. Figures from north of the demilitarized zone remain unknown.
For more information, please see:
BBC — North Korea Agrees to Family Reunions with South — 18 August 2013
Reuters — North Korea accepts South’s proposal to resume war-torn family reunions — 18 August 2013
Bloomberg — North Korea Agrees to Reunion Talks After Gaeseong Accord — 18 August 2013
Deutsche Welle — North Korea agrees to resumption of family reunions — 18 August 2013
CNN — North Korea agrees to family reunions with the South, report says — 18 August 2013
LIMA, Peru – Two top commanders of Peru’s Shining Path group were killed during a clash with government troops in southeast Peru according to President Ollanta Humala.
Alejandro Borda Casafranca, and Martin Quispe Palomino were killed by a covert force formed to track down top rebel leaders. “The intelligence sources that have participated in this action have confirmed that the dead terrorist criminals are the number one and number two of the Shining Path’s military structure,” Mr. Humala said, referring to Mr. Borda Casafranca and Mr. Quispe Palomino, respectively.
After a firefight, their bullet-riddled and burned corpses were found in a house in an isolated township of Ayacucho, south of Lima. President Humala said a third rebel believed to be Casafranca’s close colleague was also killed in the military operation.
The announcement is a victory for Humala’s administration, which has struggled to combat remnants of the Shining Path in the Apurimac, Ene and Mantaro river valley, or VRAEM. President Humala has made bringing peace to the VRAEM one of his top priorities since coming to office in July 2011. He has pledged to root out the Shining Path and increase the state’s presence in the region.
The VRAEM, the most densely planted coca-growing region in the world, is the last remaining stronghold of the Shining Path. The group is believed to still have 300 to 500 members in the area located in southern Peru.
Peru’s terrorism and security analyst Jaime Antezana said that the killing of the two rebel leaders was the government’s first successful blow in recent years at the top military ranks of the group. Antezana said the two men were deeply involved in the rebels’ management of coca leaf cultivation, as well as the processing and transport of cocaine.
Last year, security personnel captured one of the group’s original leaders in the Upper Huallaga Valley, Peru’s other major cocaine producing region located north of the VRAEM. He was sentenced to life in prison in June.
Shining Path’s insurgency began in 1980. Inspired by Maoism, the rebels tried to lead a “People’s War” to overthrow what they called “bourgeois democracy” and establish a communist state. They took control of Peru’s rural regions and some urban areas by the early 1990s, raising fears in the U.S. government that it might someday take power. However, its founder, Abimael Guzman, was captured in 1992 and subsequently sentenced to life in prison. The conflict resulted in some 70,000 deaths.
The group has largely been crushed by the army, but remnants of the group remain, and they often attack military patrols in jungle areas. Security forces say the group has allied itself with drug traffickers and now finances itself by growing and smuggling coca, the raw ingredient for cocaine.
For more information please see:
Al Jazeera– Peru says Shining Path leaders killed – 14 August 2013
Los Angeles Times – Peru commandos kill two Shining Path leaders – 13 August 2013
The Wall Street Journal – Peru President Says High-Ranking Shining Path Members Killed – 12 August 2013
Reuters – Peru says top two Shining Path rebels killed in jungle shootout – 12 August 2013
BBC – Peru’s security forces kill three Shining Path rebels – 12 August 2013