Russia Plans to Discuss Removal of Children from LGBT Parents

By Ben Kopp
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

MOSCOW, Russia – Russian lawmakers will soon discuss a bill to remove children from homosexual parents. Among other issues, world leaders plan to express their concerns about Russia’s policy at the G20 summit in St. Petersburg.

Protesters demonstrate in over 33 cities upon hearing of Russia’s plan to remove children from homosexual parents. (Photo courtesy of the Moscow Times)

In June 2013, Duma Deputy Yelena Mizurina proposed both the “Gay Propaganda to Minors” bill—now law—and the idea of revoking parental rights from homosexuals.

Currently, under Russian law, sufficient grounds to revoke parental rights include alcoholism, drug addiction, and “premeditated crime against a child’s life.” If made law, the bill adds to such grounds the “fact of non-traditional sexual orientation.” Parental rights could be terminated whether one or both parents are homosexual.

With reference to the June 2013 law, Deputy Alexei Zhuravlev of Putin’s United Russia Party stated that homosexual “propaganda” must be prohibited in the public and “also in the family.”

In the bill, Russian lawmakers cited Mark Regnerus, an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas—Austin, who conducted a controversial study claiming that “gay parenting” results in psychological problems for children. Although the entire theory has been declared invalid by the American Sociological Association, Zhuravlev said, “The harm that could be inflicted on a child’s mental health if their parents are homosexual is immense.”

Head of the Kremlin’s Human Rights Council Mikhail Fedotov responded to the new bill, asking, “Will we deprive left-handed people of their driver’s licenses now too? They’re left-handed, you know, and all our vehicles have the steering wheel on the left side, so it’s harder for a left-handed person to drive.”

This law will create “unwanted tensions between Russia and the West”, predicted Leading LGBT activist Nikolai Alekseyev. “I cannot imagine how this initiative can be taken in the Duma. It is just another populist campaign [by Zhuravlev] to attract attention to himself. I don’t believe that such a law could possibly be signed by the President.”

While Putin attempted to cite Russia’s love for composer Pyotr Tchaiskovsky as proof that Russia appreciates its LGBT community, activists assert that fellow Russians are turning homosexuals into scapegoats for problems ranging from low birth rates to an HIV epidemic.

In anticipation of the G20 summit in St. Petersburg, activists held protests in over 33 cities.

On the importance of challenging Russia’s anti-homosexual laws, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said, “Britain cannot have a foreign policy without a conscience and I don’t believe it is ultimately in the nature of British people to act without a conscience.”

Without children in a household to be orphaned upon their parents’ arrest or disappearance, Russia’s new law enables the country to take the next step in removing rights from its LGBT community.

For further information, please see:

The Moscow Times – Gays’ Kids Could Be Taken by State under Proposed Bill – September 6, 2013

Euronews – Draft Bill Could See Russian Parents Lose Custody of a Child – Because They’re Gay – September 5, 2013

Irish Times – Russian Duma to Debate Bill That Would Remove Parental Rights of Gay People – September 5, 2013

Washington Post – Russian Lawmaker Proposes Bill That Would Deny Gay Parents Custody over Children – September 5, 2013

The Independent – Tchaikovsky Was Gay But Russians Love Him, Says Vladimir Putin as David Cameron to Raise Concerns over Russia’s Controversial Policies – September 4, 2013

Paraguayan Bus Drivers Who Were Laid Off Crucify Themselves in Protest

By Ellis Cortez
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

ASUNCION, Paraguay – Eight Paraguayan bus drivers have nailed themselves to crosses in a protest against being laid off from their jobs two months ago. They have vowed to continue their protest until they are reinstated.

Eight bus drivers crucify themselves after getting fired in the city of Luque, Paraguay.
Eight bus drivers crucify themselves after getting fired in the city of Luque, Paraguay. (Photo Courtesy of Bernardo Agustti/Diario ABC Color)

They protested in mid-July outside the offices of the Vanguardia bus company, their former employer. After realizing they were not going to be reinstated they crucified themselves three weeks ago across the street from Vanguardia’s headquarter in the Paraguayan city of Luque, a town north of the capital, Asuncion.

The protesters are on their backs, nailed to wooden crosses laid out on the ground. Large nails pierce their hands at the base of the fingers.

The bus company says it has done everything in its power to try to find a solution to the labor conflict. The general manager of the Vanguardia bus company, Aufredi Paredes, said five of the drivers would be re-hired and the other three would receive legal separation payments and assistance in finding employment.

Paredes stated “we have done a little bit of everything to find a solution, including calling on the human rights commissions from the (Paraguayan) Senate and the Lower House. We have also met with the workers several times, but their leadership has been inflexible. We have followed labor regulations and will continue to abide by the law.”

However, Juan Villalba, one of the drivers crucified said they would not give up their protest until they all are reinstated. Villalba told Paraguayan media that his group is willing to take the protest “to the very end,” regardless of the consequences. Villaba, is also the secretary of the Paraguayan Federation of Transportation Workers.

Villalba alleged they were fired after asking for overtime pay, medical insurance and state pension contributions. “The drivers are tired of being exploited,” he said. Some of the drivers’ wives are taking turns being nailed to crosses alongside their husbands.

Damián Espinola, communications director with the Luque municipal government, has stated that the bus drivers are “also on hunger strike and some of them are in critical condition. They only drink water. They don’t consume any solid food. Their hands are perforated.”

There have been several meetings between representatives of the bus drivers, the company and mediators, but they have been unable to reach a resolution. The protest by the eight is part of a larger labor action by some drivers for Vanguardia. There are currently a total of 50 bus drivers on strike, but there has been no interruption of service.

For more information please see:

CNN Fired Paraguayan bus drivers crucify themselves in protest 31 August 2013

Reuters Fired Paraguayan bus drivers have themselves nailed to crosses 30 August 2013

The Telegraph Sacked Paraguayan bus drivers crucify themselves in protest 30 August 2013

ABC News Laid-off Paraguay Bus Drivers Crucified in Protest 28 August 2013

BBC Sacked Paraguay bus drivers stage crucifixion protest  28 August 2013

Anonymous Gunmen Attacked and Killed 16 Shi’ite Family Members

By Darrin Simmons
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

 BAHGDAD, Iraq-Gunmen stormed a Shi’ite family killing sixteen people, including six children and five women in an overnight attack on Tuesday.  The killings took place in Latifiya, forty kilometers south of Baghdad, a city located in a religiously mixed region known as the “Triangle of Death.”

Loved ones of victims protest the recent loss of so many Iraqi people (photo courtesy of BBC News)

“Gunmen broke into our house overnight and shot my father four times in the head, they killed my two brothers, they killed my cousin, they were shooting everyone they saw, I escaped from the back door,” said Haneen Mudhhir, a survivor of the attack.

Family and friends of the victims gathered outside of a Baghdad hospital in a moment of distress and anguish.  Many wept over the loss of their loved ones as they waited to receive their bodies.  One woman, struck by grief, continually cried out, “God is Greatest!”

Another teenage survivor stated “We were sitting in our house when some gunmen opened fire at us through the windows.  My father stood and moved toward the door.  They shot him dead immediately.  They shot my sister dead.  They were shooting randomly.”

No group has taken responsibility as violence in Iraq has surged in recent months.  The shooting occurred only hours after the death of at least sixty people in a series of car bombs in Bahgdad, the largest explosion come from a busy street in the al-Talibiya district.

Five soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb that exploded as their convoy passed through Tarmiya, fifty kilometers outside of Baghdad.  Five police officers were also killed following a suicide bomber attacking a local police headquarters in the city of Mosul.

In the past five months, more than four thousand people have been killed in Iraq, including more than eight hundred in the month of August, according to figures provided by the United Nations office in Iraq.

Increasing death tolls in Iraq have been cited to the withdrawal of U.S. troops eighteen months ago.  Concerns have risen that Iraq is headed towards a time similar to the “sectarian slaughter of 2006-07,” where monthly death tolls exceeded three thousand.

The conflict in Syria has also increased violence in Iraq, where Sunni militant groups of al-Qaeda have gained prominence.  Shia dominance in Iraq has sided with the Alawite-dominated government in Syria while the Iraqi Sunni have backed the rebels drawn from Syria’s Sunni majority.

For more information, please see the following: 

Aljazeera-Sixteen Shia family members killed in Iraq-4 September 2013

BBC News-Iraqi Shia family targeted in deadly attack-4 September 2013

Huffington Post-Iraq Violence: Gunmen Kill 16 Members Of Shiite Family, Blow Up Their Homes-4 September 2013

Sky News-Iraq: Gunmen Kill 16 Members Of Shi’ite Family-4 September 2013

Reuters-Gunmen kill 16 members of Shi’ite family in Iraq-4 September 2013

Indian Author Dragged out of her Home and Shot 15 Times by Taliban Militants

By Brian Lanciault

Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

NEW DELHI, India — Taliban militants in Afghanistan shot and killed an Indian author, Sushmita Banerjee, whose memoir about marrying an Afghan and living under the Islamist militia was made into a Bollywood movie. The killing  was the latest in a string of attacks on prominent women in Afghanistan, adding to growing fears that women’s rights in the country will recede even more after foreign military  forces  withdraw in 2014.

Sushmita Banerjee, who was brutally killed by Taliban militants, is pictured holding a copy of her novel. (Photo courtesy of AP)

The militants arrived before dawn at Banjerjee’s residence in eastern Paktika province, which lies in Afghanistan’s east region, where the Taliban are particularly influential. According to provincial police chief Gen. Dawlat Khan Zadran, her husband, Jaanbaz Khan, answered the door and was immediately bound and blindfolded.  The militants then dragged Banerjee outside, and took her to a nearby road where they shot her at least 15 times, Zadran said.

Banerjee, who was in her 40s, was buried Thursday morning. She lived in Daygan Sorqala village, and was well-known as a medical worker in the area, with special training in gynecology. Originally from Kolkata, India, Banerjee wrote “A Kabuliwala’s Bengali Wife,” which later became the basis for the 2003 film “Escape from Taliban.” The book described how she met Jaanbaz in India and agreed to marry him despite her parents’ disapproval of the fact that he was Muslim while she was Hindu. According to an online synopsis of the book, Banerjee moved to Afghanistan as Jaanbaz’s second wife, only to find that life under the Taliban’s increasing hold over the country would be unbearable. The Taliban militia, which rose to prominence in 1994 and officially ruled from 1996-2001, placed severe restrictions on women, forcing them to wear all-encompassing burqas and banning employment and education opportunities.

In an interview with India’s Rediff news, Banerjee described trying to flee Afghanistan multiple times to get away from the Taliban, and how she was ordered executed as a result of her attempts. She made it safely back to Kolkata in  1995.

“I still remember the day I stepped on Indian soil for the first time after I had left,” she said. “It was raining outside. People were scurrying for shelter. But I didn’t run. I just stood there and let the rain wash off my pain. I felt if I could bear so much in Afghanistan, I can surely bear my motherland’s rain. I don’t know how long I stood there, but I won’t forget that day.”

Her book was published in 1997, nine years after her marriage.

Zafar Khan, the father of Jaanbaz’s first wife, said Banerjee was beloved in the area, and was known locally by the name Sahib Kamal. He told Indian reporters that many residents were upset that an unarmed woman had been targeted.

“She was a very kind woman. She was very educated — she knew the Internet,” he told them. “Myself, I am very sad. Believe me, I haven’t been able to eat.”

Militants have targeted prominent women several times in recent months in Afghanistan. Last month, officials confirmed that Fariba Ahmadi Kakar, a lawmaker who represents Kandahar province in parliament, was kidnapped and was being held hostage, to be exchanged for four insurgents detained by the government.

In August, insurgents ambushed the convoy of a female Afghan senator, seriously wounding her in the attack and killing her 8-year-old daughter. Senator Rouh Gul Khirzad’s husband, son and another daughter were also wounded in the attack.

For more information, please see:

India Times– Indian author Sushmita Banerjee executed in Afghanistan by Taliban — 6 September 2013

ABC News– Afghan militants shoot dead Indian woman Shushmita Banerjee, who wrote about escape from Taliban — 5 September 2013

Indian Express– Indian author who wrote on her escape from Taliban killed in Afghanistan — 5 September 2013

CBS News– Police: Afghan militants drag female author out of her home, shoot her dead –5 September 2013