News

Widespread Corruption Reported Across Europe, Suggestions for Change Follow

By Ben Kopp
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

BRUSSELS, European Union – The European Union Anti-Corruption Report, a first of its kind, highlighted “breathtaking” corruption across the EU. The report offered suggestions to help reduce corruption.

A new report revealed perceptions of corruption across all 28 EU countries. (Photo courtesy of Irish Independent)

While presenting the European Union Anti-Corruption Report, EU Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem stated that corruption in the EU costs the bloc’s economy 120 billion euros per year. That amount is roughly the same as the EU’s annual budget. Malmstroem called the extent of EU corruption “breathtaking.”

The first-of-its-kind report analyzed all 28 EU Member States, looking into existing measures, problems, and successful policies related to corruption. Over three-fourths of surveyed persons in the report said they believed corruption is widespread in their own country. More than a half added that corruption levels were on the rise.

The report suggested more accountability standards, control mechanisms in public authorities, improve the effectiveness of courts and police, protection for whistleblowers, more transparent lobbying practices, and increased transparency through e-tools.

The EU Commission plans to meet with all Member States, European Parliament, and national parliaments to discuss and work on recommendations discussed in the report. A follow-up report is being planned for about 2016 to measure European progress.

“There are no corruption-free zones in Europe,” Malmstroem said.

While carrying the lowest levels of witnessed corruption, Finland and Denmark each had three percent of respondents claim that corruption in their country was widespread.

Greece and Italy ranked as the top countries in which respondents believed corruption was widespread; Lithuania, Spain, and the Czech Republic tied for the third place ranking. The report highlighted that countries behind in their scores of “perceptions and actual experience of corruption” include Croatia, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece.

“In these countries,” the report stated, “between 6 and 29 percent of respondents indicated that they were asked or expected to pay a bribe in the past 12 months, while 84 percent up to 99 percent think that corruption is widespread in their country.”

When it came to doing business in the EU, more than 40% of companies claimed that corruption is a problem for European operations.

In a press conference, Malmstroem said that corruption destroys democracy and the trust in public institutions. “It undermines our internal market, it hampers foreign investment, it costs taxpayers millions, and in many cases it helps organized crime groups do their dirty work.”

While Bulgaria, Romania, and Italy were noted hotspots for organized crime, white-collar crimes and VAT fraud were deemed widespread in many EU countries.

“The price of not acting is simply too high,” Malmstroem concluded.

For further information, please see:

RT – Cost of Corruption across EU Equals Its Annual Budget – EU Commission – February 4, 2014

AFP – ‘Breathtaking’ EU Corruption Costs 120 bn Euros a Year – February 3, 2014

BBC – Corruption across EU ‘Breathtaking’ – EU Commission – February 3, 2014

Irish Independent – Corruption Costs EU £99bn a Year – February 3, 2014

New York Times – Study Details Graft in European Union – February 3, 2014

U.S. Poised to Table a Human Rights Resolution against Sri Lanka

By Brian Lanciault

Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka– State Department officials announced Saturday that the United States will table a United Nations human rights resolution against Sri Lanka, putting new pressure on Colombo to address war crimes allegations.

Assistant Secretary of State Nisha Biswal addresses reporters along with U.S. Ambassador Michele Sison (right) on Saturday. (Photo Courtesy of AFP/Getty Images)

The UN has already called on Sri Lanka to punish military personnel responsible for atrocities in the civil war that the government won in 2009.  Washington says the human rights climate on the island is worsening each day.

Nisha Biswal, the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, held talks with Foreign Minister G.L. Peiris over a range of issues including allegations that government troops killed thousands of Tamil civilians during the final months of the war in 2009.

“Lack of progress in Sri Lanka has led to a great deal of frustration and skepticism in my government and in the international community,” assistant secretary of state Nisha Biswal told reporters in Colombo after her two-day visit.

“There hasn’t been sufficient action taken by the government to address the issues of justice and accountability. We heard from many people about people who are still unaccounted for, whose whereabouts and fates are unknown to their family members.”

Biswal declined to say what would comprise the resolution set to be tabled at the March session of the UN Human Rights Council, but US embassy officials have said it may call for a full-scale international investigation into Sri Lanka and their military affairs.

“We understand growing concern, frustration, and skepticism among many in my country and many in the international community that has led to increasing calls for international investigation and an international process.” Biswal said.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government, which finally put down an exhaustive 26-year rebellion by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009, has rejected UN calls for an international inquiry and said repeated requests from overseas were to please the large Tamil diaspora in the west.

A top Sri Lankan official announced last week that an international inquiry into war crimes would bring “chaos” and insisted that the government’s national reconciliation process must be given several more years to work.

Biswal acknowledged that the reconciliation process needed more time, but said credible steps had to be taken now.

“The culture of deterioration of human rights gives us great concern when churches and mosques are burnt down and people feel that they cannot practice their faiths freely and without fear. Then I believe the urgency that has gripped the international community is justified,” she said.

The British Prime Minister, David Cameron, has said he will push for the international inquiry into war crimes allegations if Sri Lanka does not conduct its own probe by March.

Some Sri Lankans who met with Biswal told reporters that they had told her an international process was essential.

“We do not have confidence in a local investigation because that would be done by the military, who are accused of war crimes,” one activist from northern Jaffna peninsula told Reuters, on condition of anonymity.

A UN panel indicated that about 40,000 mainly Tamil civilians died in the final few months of the war. Both sides committed atrocities, but army shelling killed most victims, it concluded. Separatist Tamil Tiger rebels renowned for the use of child soldiers and suicide bombings battled with government forces since 1983.

For more information, please see:

New York Times– U.S. Envoy to Visit Sri Lanka as Pressure Builds for War Crimes Inquiry— 30 January 2014

The Guardian– US to table UN human rights resolution criticizing Sri Lanka over ‘war crimes’— 1 February 2014

AFP– US envoy in Sri Lanka as pressure builds over war crimes— 31 January 2014

NDTV– US envoy to visit Sri Lanka as pressure grows for war crimes inquiry— 31 January 2014

Colombian Priest Who Ran Far-Right Militia Captured

By Ellis Cortez
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

BOGOTA, Colombia – The Colombian Attorney General’s Office has announced the capture of a fugitive Catholic priest who was convicted in absentia last year of organizing a killer far-right militia made up of members of a dismantled paramilitary bloc.

Colombia nabs fugitive priest linked to criminal gangs
Gang members give their guns during a ceremony at a church in Medellin, Colombia. (Photo Courtesy of AFP Photo/Raul Arboleda)

After months-long search, Rev Oscar Albeiro Ortiz was arrested in the town of La Virginia, in the central-western province of Risaralda. The Colombian Army took part in the raid.

Ortiz, a former parish priest of a Roman Catholic Church in San Antonio de Prado, was arrested in 2010, but was cleared by a lower court and continued to maintain that he was innocent. This past August, Ortiz was retried and sentenced to 19 years in prison. The High Court in Medellin convicted him in absentia of giving orders to a group known as “Los Desmovilizados de El Limonar.”

Ortiz created the group in San Antonio de Prado in 2003. During this time, Ortiz had accompanied members of the paramilitary bloc and then recruited them after the bloc was ostensibly disbanded under a peace pact brokered by the government of then-president Alvaro Uribe. The group engaged in kidnappings, extortion, and murder.

Authorities say investigators using wiretaps had overheard Ortiz pointing out people as leftist rebels who later turned up murdered. People beaten or driven from their homes by paramilitary henchmen of Ortiz were told they were being punished “for disobeying the orders of the priest.”

The so-called paramilitaries, organized under the umbrella of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, committed more than 70% of the killings in the country’s nearly half-century-old dirty war, according to prosecutors.

The AUC, accused of committing numerous human rights violations, demobilized more than 31,000 of its fighters between the end of 2003 and mid-2006 as part of the peace process with the Uribe administration.

Under the terms of the 2005 Peace and Justice Law, former AUC members face a maximum of eight years in prison if convicted of any of the scores of massacres of suspected rebel sympathizers.

Their foes in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia are now engaged in peace talks with the government in Cuba.

For more information please see:

ABC News – Colombian Priest Who Ran Far-Right Militia Nabbed – 1 February 2014

The Guardian – Catholic priest who ran right-wing death squad arrested in Colombia – 31 January 2014

The Washington Post – Colombian priest who ran far-right militia nabbed – 31 January 2014

Fox News – Priest captured who ran far-right death squad in Colombian suburb – 31 January 2014

Unseen President Unsuccessfully Attempts to Resolve Ukrainian Unrest

By Ben Kopp
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

KYIV, Ukraine – Ukrainian tensions remained high following President Yanukovich’s attempted relief to the opposition. However, world leaders offered help.

Ukrainian opposition continues to stand against the government, despite amnesty and the repeal of anti-protest laws. (Photo courtesy of RT)

Unseen since taking sick leave, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich repealed anti-protest legislation, and signed an amnesty into law for activists detained during massive protests. Amidst news reports of a prominent opposition activist’s kidnapping and torture claims, many rejected Yanukovich’s decision because he conditioned it on activists leaving occupied buildings.

“There’s no point in signing this amnesty law,” said an improvised clinic worker at Kyiv’s occupied city hall. “No one will leave here until this government is gone.”

Concerned for demonstrators’ health in Arctic temperatures, opposition leaders urged protesters not to take to the streets for their weekly rallies. However, media outlets continued to replay video of activist Dmytro Bulatov’s story of kidnap and torture, which has kept anti-government tensions high.

Bulatov disappeared on 22 January 2014, at the hands of unknown kidnappers. Since Bulatov’s return, an interior ministry official has accused him of faking his claims to stir unrest.

“There isn’t a spot on my body that hasn’t been beaten. My face has been cut. They promised to poke my eye out. They cut off my ear,” Bulatov said. “They crucified me by nailing me to a door with something and beat me strongly all the while.”

In a statement, the Defense Ministry said, “The military and the Ukrainian armed forces … called on the supreme commander to take immediate steps, within the framework of the law, to stabilize the situation in the country and reach agreement with society.”

While Yanukovich has expressed concerns that Ukraine is on the verge of civil war, the military refused to take sides. A Defense Ministry news website quoted retired Admiral Serhiy Rybak, as he recalled Ukrainian peacekeeping missions abroad: “No political ambition is worth a drop of human blood.”

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen tweeted that the “military must remain neutral” even if it were to become involved in the crisis.

Moscow highlighted its economic over Ukraine by refusing its planned purchase of $2 billion of Ukrainian government bonds. The move contributed to the currency falling to its lowest point against the dollar in over four years.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry planned to meet opposition leaders, on the sidelines of a security conference in Munich.

“Our message to Ukraine’s opposition will be the full support of President Obama and of the American people for their efforts,” Kerry said in Berlin before the meetings. “But we will also say to them that if you get that reform agenda… we would urge them to engage in that because further standoff, or further violence that becomes uncontrollable, is not in anybody’s interests.”

Kerry also said, “We would … say to our friends in Russia this does not have to be a zero (sum) game, this is not something where Ukraine should become a proxy and trapped in some kind of larger ambition for Russia or the United States.”

For further information, please see:

Al Jazeera – Tension Grips Ukraine over Torture Claims – February 1, 2014

BBC News – Stand-Off over ‘Tortured’ Ukrainian Activist Dmytro Bulatov – January 31, 2014

Reuters – Ukraine President Signs Amnesty but Anger Remains, Currency Slumps – January 31, 2014

RT – Russia’s Emergency Loan to Ukraine on Hold until Govt Forms – January 30, 2014

Times Of India – Ukrainian President Takes Sick Leave, No Crisis Solution in Sight – January 30, 2014

Snowden’s Leaked Documents Shows Canada Spying On Airport Travelers

By: Brandon R. Cottrell 
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America 

OTTAWA, Canada – The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported today that leaked documents by Edward Snowden show Canada’s electronic spying agency collected data from “ordinary airline passengers” travelling through Canadian airports over a two week period.

Airline passengers who used the airport’s free wi-fi were the victim of a Canadian spying effort, per an Edward Snowden leaked document (Photo Courtesy CBC News).

Though Canadian law prohibits the Communications Security Establishment Canada (“CSEC”) from targeting any individual in Canada without a warrant, the CSEC has defended its action by citing its mission, which is to collect foreign intelligence by intercepting phone and internet traffic in order to protect Canadians.  CSEC has also said that no Canadians were spied on, yet most find no merit to that claim, as it is mostly Canadians that frequent Canadian airports.

Ronald Deibert, one of Canada’s foremost authorities on cyber-security, said, however,  that he “can’t see any circumstance in which this would not be unlawful, under current Canadian law, under our Charter, under CSEC’s mandates.”

The CSEC further defends its action by saying that it only collected metadata, which it is legally authorized to collect and analyze.  Metadata, the information about a communication, such as the date and location of the communication but not the details of what was said or written, is however, still valuable information and considered by most to be an invasion of privacy.

Deibert, in regards to metadata, said that it is “way more powerful than the content of communications . . . you can tell a lot more about people, their habits, their relationships, their friendships, even their political preferences, based on that type of metadata.”

The report also indicates that the metadata was collected using a new powerful software program that was being developed by the United States’ National Security Agency (“NSA”), and is now fully operational.  Experts say that the program, after initially capturing information, “would have enabled the agency to track them for a week or more as they showed up in other wi-fi ‘hot spots’ around Canada, such as other airports, hotels or restaurants.”  The new program is also considered to be “game-changing,” as it could be used for tracking “any target that makes occasional forays into other cities/regions.”

A spokeswoman for the Canadian agency was critical of the leak, and defended the document as a “technical presentation between specialists exploring mathematical models built on everyday scenarios to identify and locate foreign terrorist threats [and that] the unauthorized disclosure of tradecraft puts our techniques at risk of being less effective when addressing threats to Canada and Canadians.”

Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor, is currently living in Russia after fleeing the US in May 2013 after he leaked thousands of documents that revealed extensive internet and phone surveillance by US intelligence services.

For further information, please see: 

BBC – Snowden Leaks: Canada ‘Spied On Airport Travellers’ – 31 Jan. 2014 

Bloomberg – Spy Agency Tracked Canadians At An Airport – 31 Jan. 2014 

CBC News – CSEC Used Airport Wi-Fi To Track Canadian Travellers: Edward Snowden Documents – 31 Jan. 2014 

RT – Attention Fliers: Canada’s Electronic Spy Agency Is Following You – New Snowden Leaks – 31 Jan. 2014