COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – Action Against Hunger/Action Contre la Faim (ACF), an international human rights organization, has claimed that the Sri Lankan government is responsible for and is covering up the massacre of 17 of their aid workers in 2006.

The mostly Tamil ACF workers were helping rebuild in the town of Muttur after the tsunami when they were murdered.  They were found on the ground of a ACF compound, shot in the head.

The University Teachers for Human Rights (UTHR), a Sri Lankan organization, recently published a study on the murders.  The report stated that a local guard and two police constables killed the ACF workers, and that senior police officers covered up the murders.  It stated that three witnesses to the event had already been killed, one was missing, and others had left the country in fear of their lives.  The report also mentioned that since the ceasefire between the government and rebel Tamil Tigers collapsed in 2002, there has been an environment of impunity which has prevented justice from being reached.

The Sri Lankan government originally claimed that the aid workers had been caught in civil war fighting and had been killed by the Tamil Tigers.  The government responded to this latest report by saying that they will conduct an inquiry into the deaths.

Rajan Hoole, a UTHR spokesman, said, “The killing of civilians during time of conflict is a war crime. The perpetrators and their superiors should be brought to justice.”

For more information, please see:

Action Against Hunger – The Muttur Massacre: ACF Demands International Inquiry into Sri Lankan Assassinations – 1 April 2008

BBC News – Sri Lanka accused over massacre – 1 April 2008

By Ariel Lin
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

KATHMANDU, Nepal – A group of 200 Tibetan exiles and Buddhist monks tried to storm the Chinese Embassy in Kathmandu, Nepal on Sunday. Tibetan exiles and their children tried to gain entry to the Chinese embassy’s visa office near the city center.  Shouting “stop the killing”, the protesters attempted to open the office’s metal gate before they were stopped by a police bamboo baton charge.  A Tibetan activist said a girl and a monk were badly hurt and taken to hospital.

At least 200 police officers surrounded the building and hauled the demonstrators away in police vans as they sought to approach the mission.  “A total of 227 Tibetan protesters, including 113 women, were detained and would be freed later,” Surnedra Rai, a police officer at the station where the protesters were held, said.

Nepal is home to around 20,000 Tibetans who began arriving in large numbers in 1959 after a failed Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule.  Exiled Tibetans in Nepal have been protesting regularly since a riot broke out in the Tibetan, China on March 14.  Nepal’s government has said it cannot allow the protests because it recognizes China’s claim to sovereignty over Tibet.  The BBC Charles Haviland in Kathmandu says the authorities in Nepal have been adopting a “zero tolerance” attitude to Tibetan demonstrations for fear of annoying the country’s powerful neighbor, China.

The UN has criticized the continued mass arrests of pro-Tibetan protesters in Nepal, saying it violates the right to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression. International rights groups, like New York-based Human Rights Watch have repeatedly criticized Nepal’s handling of the Tibetan protests and beating of the protesters.

For more information, please see:

BBC News – Nepal police halt Tibet protest – 30 March 2008

Reuters – Tibetans scuffle with Nepal police, 113 detained – 30 March 2008

Reuters – Nepal police break up Tibet protests, 284 held – 30 March 2008

By Kristy Tridhavee
Impunity Watch Senior Desk Officer, Asia

BANGKOK, Thailand – Thai officials have pledged to investigate the death of Yapa Kaseng, a Muslim prayer leader. He was arrested on March 19^th for his alleged involvement in bomb attacks by insurgents. According to his relatives, his body showed signs of torture. Yapa Kaseng’s body as covered with bruises and burn marks, and his ribs appeared fractured.

Army Chief General Anupong Phaochinda announced that a special committee would investigate the death and punish guilty parties. However, Human Rights Watch [HRW] is deeply concerned that the pledge is insincere because Yapa Kaseng’s family has been pressured to remain silent and not pursue a lawsuit.

In interviews with HRW, other Muslims said they have been tortured by interrogators after being arrested. The most common forms of torture were ear-slapping, punching, kicking, beating with wooden and metal clubs, forced nudity, exposure to cold temperatures, electric shocks, strangulation, and suffocation with plastic bags.

In response to the torture allegations, Army spokesman Colonel Acra Tiproch said only “a small faction” of Muslim detainees had been abused and then only because they “provoked” interrogators as a ploy to demonize the Buddhist state and its troops. He continued, “Some of these suspects are well-educated and they know well how to make junior interrogators lose their patience and start beating them.”

Thailand annexed the three southern provinces in 1902, and then tensions began to erupt between the region’s largely Muslim population and the largely Buddhist country of Thailand. A separatist campaign started in the 1970’s.

The separatist campaign erupted again in 2004 after a decade of peace. Muslim separatists have become increasingly angry with the Thai government because it began to impose assimilation policies in the region, which included adopting Thai names, giving up religious and cultural customs, and ending education in the Malayu language. Thus far, the conflict has caused about 3,000 deaths in the last 50 months, according to the Bangkok Post.

For more information, please see:

Human Rights Watch – Thailand: Iman’s Killing Highlights Army Abuse in South– 26 March 2008

Inter Press Service – Thailand: Islamic Teachers Blamed for Violent Separatism –24 March 2008

Reuters – Detained Muslims Tortured by Thai Army: Rights Body – 26 March 2008

By Ariel Lin
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BEIJING, China – After the mid-March violence and a subsequent government crackdown, the Chinese government invited international journalists to tour Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. The reporters, from 19 media organizations including the U.S. Associated Press, Britain’s Financial Times and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, toured the Tibetan capital on a three-day trip press junket in Lhasa.  The purpose of the tour is to show foreign reporters the city is calm after recent anti-China protests, and to help sway international opinion on China’s crackdown and arrests in the aftermath of the riots.  It is first time foreign reporters had been allowed into Tibet since the unrest began two weeks ago.

According to the schedule, the reporters first went to a Tibetan medical clinic that had been attacked in the riot near the Jokhang Temple square in downtown Lhasa.  They were also shown the Yishion clothing store where five girls had been trapped and burned to death in an arson attack by the rioters, the torched buildings of the Lhasa No. 2 Middle School, and a smashed Bank of China outlet.  The reporters also allowed to visit local markets, shopping centers, the city’s relief station and interview government officials and injured police, said the Chinese information office official.

However, the tour at the sacred Jokhang Temple, one of Tibet’s holiest shrines, was disrupted by outburst of a group of 30 monks in red robes shouting there was no religious freedom, and the Dalai Lama had been wrongly accused by China of responsibility for the rioting.  “Tibet is not free! Tibet is not free!” yelled one young Buddhist monk, who then started crying, said an Associated Press correspondent in the tour.  Some journalists even said a monk complained that the government had planted fake monks in the monastery to talk to the media.

Government handlers shouted for the journalists to leave and tried to pull them away during the protest.  The protesting monks appeared to go back to their living quarters. There was no way of knowing immediately what happened to them.  Later, People’s Armed Police sealed off the area around Jokhang.  The only people allowed to enter are those who live in the narrow lines around the temple.

When some reporters attempted to break away from the group, Chinese officials followed them throughout Tibet.  Only furtive conversations with Tibetans were possible.  But the reporters were kept away from any potential hotspots, including the Ramoche monastery, where the violence started on March 14.

For more information, please see:

AP – Tibet Monks Disrupt Tour by Journalists – 27 March 2008

CNN – Monks protest upstages China’s PR tour – 27 March 2008

New York Times – Monks Protest During Press Tour of China – 27 March 2008

Wall Street Journal – Tour of Lhasa Shows, Wide Scope of Unrest – 27 March 2008

XinHua – Overseas journalists’ Lhasa tour interrupted, resumes soon – 28 March 2008

ASTANA, Kazakhstan – The Kazakh government has formed a working group to fully develop a National Action Plan on human rights for 2008-2011, and it met for the first time today.  The group will consist of rights experts from government and public human rights institutes across the country.

According to Yerlan Karin, the head Internal policy department of the Presidential Administration, “Kazakhstan has ratified a number of international documents in the sphere of human rights. Several international regulatory acts are planned to be ratified as well. The work of the state bodies in this direction is among priority ones in the activity of all state bodies.”

Kazakhstan’s human rights record has been in the spotlight often, especially since the country was named chair-in-office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in November 2007.  Many human rights organizations criticized the appointment, claiming that it undermined the integrity of the OSCE’s human rights principles because Kazakhstan does not meet its own human rights obligations.  Some of the criticisms state that Kazakhstan has not held a fair election, its media is dominated by loyalists, and libel is still a criminal defense often used against independent journalists.

The Kazakh government states that it has been attempting to make changes, but human rights critics claim that they do not see results and they watch the country closely.  For that reason, the National Action Plan developed by today’s working group will likely be widely critiqued and regularly monitored.

For more information, please see:

Human Rights Watch – Kazakhstan: OSCE Chairmanship Undeserved – 30 November 2007

Kazinform – National Action Plan in the field of human rights for 2008-2011 discussed in Astana – 26 March 2008