News

Mozambique Officers Arrest Child Smugglers

By: Danielle L. Gwozdz
Impunity Watch News Reporter, Africa

MAPUTO, Mozambique – Mozambican officers have rescued 27 children being smuggled to South Africa.

South Africa is the wealthiest country in the region (photo courtesy of BBC)

The children were between the ages of 1 and 7.

Seven people were arrested for attempting to smuggle these children across the border to South Africa.

Children end up in the hands of smugglers when parents send their children to stay with relatives in South Africa during school holidays. Instead of going to their relatives, many of them end up being smuggled.

Many of the children also end up in the hands of criminal networks.

When parents send their children to South Africa, they risk the potential for the children to be smuggled and forced into prostitution, child labor, illegal adoption, or used in “witchcraft,” BBC reports.

One of the mothers, whose child was smuggled, denies any criminal intentions when she sent her child on a minibus with the group. This group was later arrested for smuggling.

“I always took my child with me to Johannesburg because she was attached to my now-expired passport. This time I could not secure money to get a passport for my child,” said the mother, who has not been named in the local media.

One of the arrested men alleged of trafficking the children denies they were smuggling children. He claims they were paid to bring the children to South Africa to spend the holiday season there.

However, the police are confident they were dealing with child trafficking.

“We are talking about children who are not authorized to cross the border without being accompanied by a relative,” police spokesman Emidio Mabunda said.

“Even with a relative, the child must have a passport or must be attached to a passport of a parent.”

Some of the children found were sent back to their families, whereas others were put into the care of the social welfare department.

For more information, please visit:

BBC News – Mozambique ‘child smuggling’ arrests at South Africa border – 12 November 2013
Ghana Visions – Mozambique Child Smuggling Arrests At South Africa Border – 12 November 2013
Local UK News – Mozambique ‘child smuggling’ arrests – 12 November 2013
NewsForAfrica.com – Mozambique ‘child smuggling’ arrests – 12 November 2013

Thousands of Bulgarians Protest Incumbent Government After Ousting Previous Government in May

by Tony Iozzo
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

SOFIA, Bulgaria – Approximately 4,000 Bulgarian protesters marched in the country’s capital on Sunday, demanding that the current ruling party of the government step down to give rise to premature elections.

Thousands protested the country’s education system and current government over the weekend. (Photo courtesy of Novinite)

 

The protesters called for an end to the “rein of the oligarchy,” on a day exactly twenty-four years after the fall of the Communist Party in Bulgaria. Demonstrators gathered outside of government buildings in central Sophia, protesting that Bulgaria was still not a stable, prosperous country.

The protesters congregated at major intersections in the city, and were focusing their chants on pressuring incumbent Prime Minister Plamen Oresharski to resign. Many protesters toted images of Oresharski depicted as a zombie. A few protesters went so far as to burn their pictures. The Prime Minister recently took office in May but has already faced pervasive pressure to resign.

The previous administration was brought down by similar popular protests, but the new Socialist-led administration is already facing the same pressure to resign, as citizens are alleging corrupt ties with business groups.

Protesters are charging that the current government is “connected to the oligarchy” just like the previous administration. Sunday’s protest was the latest in a five-month-old anti-government movement that accuses its leaders of having ties with shady businessmen.

Sunday’s demonstrators carried banners stating, “Down with the mafia”, and “We stay, you emigrate.” Many signs referenced the twenty-four year anniversary of the fall of Communist dictator Todor Zhivkov, as many citizens do not believe the country has achieved true democracy.  “24 years of sham democracy is enough.”

Bulgarian students had also protested the previous day on Saturday, calling for changes to the country’s education system, which they said should develop “independent people with a critical mind, instead of conformists.” “We are protesting against poverty and unemployment”, the students stated in a written declaration. “We are protesting before we become beggars with a higher education.”

Bulgaria is one of the poorest countries in the European Union, and has been politically unstable this year with protests against poverty and corruption in February prompting the previous government to resign. The average monthly wage in Bulgaria is the lowest in the EU at 400 euros and the average pension just 130 euros.

A concert has already been organized for Sunday, also in Sofia, set to headline protest songs from the first anti-communist demonstrations in 1989-1990.

For more information, please see:

BBC News – Bulgaria Protests: Clashes Outside Parliament – 12 November 2013

Novinite – Students Reignite Popular Anti-Corruption Protests in Bulgaria – 12 November 2013

The Republic – Protesters Block Bulgarian Parliament, Hoping to Oust Demanding Early Elections – 12 November 2013

Al Jazeera – Bulgarians Protest Against Government Policy – 10 November 2013

San Salvador Archbishop Closes Human Rights and Legal Aid Office

By Ellis Cortez
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador – The Roman Catholic Church in El Salvador has abruptly closed its important human rights and legal aid office, which for years denounced and investigated the most egregious massacre cases of the 1980’s civil war.

Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes, responding to the closure of the Tutela Legal office in San Salvador, said he was “worried about the bad signal this sends.”
Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes, responding to the closure of the Tutela Legal office in San Salvador. (Photo Courtesy of Roberto Escobar / European Pressphoto Agency)

The closure triggered national and international condemnation from faith, human rights and solidarity groups. They called for the preservation of Tutela Legal’s extensive archive, which contains evidence for unresolved criminal cases.

On September 30, employees showed up for work at the Tutela Legal office and found the locks changed on the doors and armed guards at the door. They were allowed 10 minutes to clear their desks. Attorneys who have worked with survivors and victims’ families for decades now have no access to evidence in the cases.

The current Archbishop, José Luis Escobar Alas, had closed Tutela Legal and issued a statement saying its work was “no longer relevant.” Employees said they were told that, with the war long over, the office was no longer necessary.

“We had no idea this was going to happen,” Tutela’s director, Ovidio Mauricio Gonzalez, said. “It is a strange coincidence. Just as they are talking about the amnesty, they close Tutela Legal, they close access to the archive, and abandon it to its fate,” he said.

The timing of the closure has caused widespread suspicion. The closure of Tutela Legal comes in the wake of a Supreme Court decision to consider vacating an “Amnesty Law” that has long protected perpetrators of war crimes.

The amnesty law, passed in 1993 by the military-allied Nationalist Republican Alliance government, protected numerous government officials, military officers and guerrilla leaders from prosecution for acts committed during the civil war that took place between 1980 and 1992, in which approximately 80,000 people died.

The court’s decisions renewed hope of the amnesty law being repealed and the possibility of reopening several prominent human rights cases that were investigated and documented by Tutela Legal. 

Late last year, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that the law cannot be used to protect those who ordered and carried out the single largest massacre in the war: the 1981 El Mozote massacre in which at least 800 peasants, including children, were killed by the army.

“I am worried about the bad signal this sends,” President Mauricio Funes said in a news conference, adding he did not know the reasons behind the closing. “The Catholic Church, and especially the archbishop of San Salvador, are not determined to accompany the just causes of the people,” Funes added.

Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero founded the Human Rights Office, originally known as Socorro Juridico (Legal Relief) in 1977, in order to document human rights violations from across the country. In addition to counselling the poor and oppressed, it was one of the only places people could go to report state-sponsored crimes. Every Sunday until his assassination in March 1980, Romero would broadcast a homily from the grand cathedral in San Salvador which included the latest denunciations.

Since then, Tutela Legal has documented more than 50,000 cases of human rights abuses. It holds the most comprehensive archive of El Salvador’s bloody history and its lawyers continue to represent survivors of notorious massacres including El Mozote and Rio Sumpul.

In the past two decades Tutela Legal’s work has proven crucial in cases brought against senior military figures living in the United States.Tutela Legal was also active in new cases, such as the 2007 Red car battery factory lead-poisoning case, and ran education programs and human rights training across El Salvador. Tutela’s work has recently included studies of gang violence, abuses tied to the expanded role of the military in policing, and important legal work for the poor.

Members of the Tutela Legal staff have been examining alternatives. There were suggestions that the office reopen as an independent human rights organization, without the auspices of the church.

For more information please see:

Al Jazeera – El Salvador shutters historic rights clinic – 12 October 2013

National Catholic Reporter – Salvadoran archbishop closes legal aid office – 4 October 2013

Los Angeles Times – Catholic Church in El Salvador shuts down rights and legal office – 2 October 2013

Center for Democracy in the Americas – San Salvador Archbishop shuts down historic human rights office, Tutela Legal – 2 October 2013

Orphanage Worker Charged With Poisoning Children

By: Danielle L. Gwozdz
Impunity Watch News Reporter, Africa

PRETORIA, South Africa – An orphanage worker in South Africa has been charged after 20 young children were rushed to hospital with symptoms of poisoning, police say.

Children playing soccer in South Africa (photo courtesy of AFP)

The children are mostly Aids orphans living in the Malerato Centre for Hope in Mamelodi township outside Pretoria.

Children at the Centre complained of stomach ache shortly after lunch on Thursday, according to police spokesman Tsekiso Mofokeng.

“Twenty kids were admitted,” he said.

“A woman 35 years of age was arrested on suspicion of poisoning and charged with assault with the intent of causing grievous bodily harm,” he told AFP.

The children are reported to have consumed the poison in powder form with their lunch. After they complained of stomach pain, they started crying and vomiting.

Two of the children were in a critical condition with one being airlifted to Johannesburg hospital and the other rushed to Steve Biko hospital in Pretoria.

Eighteen others were rushed to various hospitals. Eight of the children have since been discharged from the hospital.

The Centre houses 42 abandoned children, as well as orphans, whose parents died from AIDS, according to South Africa’s Sunday Times.

The orphanage’s principal, Johanna Mashapa, told local media the children had been given powder.

“We were so worried. They were vomiting and crying. They had runny stomachs and were so sick,” she told South Africa’s Sunday Times.

Government inspectors were sent to the orphanage to investigate.

Staff at Malerato Centre for Hope orphanage was taken for forensic testing.

For more information, please visit:

BBC News – South Africa orphanage worker charged in poisoning – 10 November 2013
The China Post – Suspected poisoning at an orphanage hospitalizes 20 – 10 November 2013
Yahoo! News – S. Africa Orphanage worker held after suspected poisoning – 10 November 2013
msn news – Twenty orphans poisoned in Sth Africa – 10 November 2013
sabc – Woman to appear in court for child poisoning – 10 November 2013
france 24 – Orphanage worker held after suspected poisoning in S. Africa – 10 November 2013

Nazi Rally on Anniversary of the Night of Broken Glass Not Successful in United States City

By Ben Kopp
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

WASHINGTON, DC, United States – Neo-Nazis protested against immigration reform in the United States. In response, several organizations and city officials staged counter-demonstrations.

Nazis planned their rally for the 75th anniversary of the Night of Broken Glass, which devastated Jewish communities throughout Germany in 1938. (Photo courtesy of ABC News)

On 9 November 1938, non-Jewish persons throughout Germany plundered and destroyed Jewish homes, synagogues, schools, and businesses. An estimated 1500 people died as a result of the attacks, which began around Hesse, making it one of the deadliest and most violent programs during the Nazi reign.

On 9 November 2013, the 75th anniversary of what is now called “Kristallnacht” or the “Night of Broken Glass,” the National Socialist Movement (NSM) staged a rally at 3:00 p.m. at the Jackson County Courthouse in Kansas City, Missouri to protest against immigration reform. NSM is a white supremacist party that claims to be “the political party for every white American.”

A leaflet for the event stated: “If you are working for a slaves wage, making barely enough to feed your family, and are tired of seeing the corruption that is crippling our land, the time to get active in this fight is now.”

NSM claimed that politicians who advocate amnesty for “illegal aliens” are allowing the “nation to drown in a free fall of economic collapse.”

Kansas City police screened all persons entering the protest for firearms, padlocks, chains, backpacks, and baby strollers, which were strictly prohibited. Police stated that the security measures ensured “a peaceful expression of ideas” and helped avoid any violent incidents.

The ACLU objected to the restrictions, saying protesters on both sides needed pickets to hold up their signs.

About three dozen neo-Nazis attended, marched down the sidewalk, and preached their views in the shadow of an Andrew Jackson statute.

Across from the NSM rally, hundreds of opponents held signs and shouted from behind barricades and police tape. One sign, with a picture of Southern cook Paula Deen demanded, “White Flour! And more butter.” Pro-diversity protesters outnumbered the Nazis approximately nine-to-one.

Pro-diversity protester Ryan Jones said, “Humor dispels hate. Making a mockery of it makes the whole thing hard to take seriously.”

Before the protest, NSM claimed that other white supremacist groups would join them, including the White Christian Group of Aryan Nations, the Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club, and the Traditionalist American Knights, a Klu Klux Klan affiliate.

In response to the protest, several civil, human rights, and anti-racism organizations planned counter-rallies for the same time.

The Latino Coalition of Kansas City (LCKC) called for members to peacefully “stand up against the Nazis.”

At the Liberty Memorial, Kansas City officials and organizations staged a rally to support immigration reform. Kansas City Mayor Sly James said that immigration reform will happen only if people push their representatives and use voting as a voice.

The Ida B Wells Coalition against Racism and Police Brutality of Kansas City called local hotels to confirm that they were “not harboring Nazis.”

While the city made clear that it did not agree with NSM’s message, the city demonstrated that freedom of speech means the diversity of people and ideas.

For further information, please see:

ABC News – Neo-Nazis Stage Rally on Kristallnacht Anniversary in Kansas City – November 9, 2013

Kansas City Star – Freedom of Speech Reigns in Rally Faceoff – November 9, 2013

KCTV 5 News – ACLU Has Concerns over Restrictions at Neo-Nazi Rally – November 9, 2013

Kansas City Business Journal – Kansas City Council Roundup: Nazis Not Welcome – November 1, 2013