News

Czech President Impeached and Charged with Treason for Amnesty

By Alexandra Sandacz
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

PRAGUE, Czech Republic – On Monday, the upper house of the Czech parliament impeached outgoing President Vaclav Klaus for treason. The charges arise over his amnesty of thousands of prison inmates and others.

Czech parliament impeached outgoing President Vaclav Klaus for treason. (Photo Courtesy of Reuters)

On January 1, President Klaus ordered more than 6,000 inmates serving short prison terms to be released. Furthermore, his amnesty stopped court proceedings in several fraud cases because he wanted to stop “endless criminal proceedings.” These proceedings lasted for more than eight years and caused widespread public anger.

As a consequence, a dozen high-profile corruption cases, some which involved millions of dollars in asset-stripping, bribes, and fraud, were thrown out.

38 out of an 81-seat house voted to impeach the president for his New Year amnesty. Only the Senate has such power in the Czech legal system.

The senators also accuse Klaus of violating the constitution when he refusing to ratify several European treaties, and for “refusing to rule on the appointment of judges despite being ordered by courts to do so”.

Klaus’s opponents do not necessarily want to punish the former president. However, they want to clarify the rules for the future.

Senator Miroslav Antl stated, “We want to know how far a president [is permitted] go.”

Petr Necas, prime minister and chairman of the conservative Civic Democratic Party, called Klaus’s move “an attack on our country’s reputation … It is purely motivated by personal hatred.”

The Czech citizens also oppose Klaus’s orders. More than 73,000 Czechs have signed a petition backing the charges of treason, and numerous Klaus portraits have been torn down in schools and offices.

However, Vaclav Klaus stated he does not regret the amnesty and “would do it again in absolutely the same way”. Moreover, Klaus rejected the accusations that said he deliberately formulated the amnesty to free serious criminals.

The Constitutional Court expects to deal with Klaus’s case quickly, but it is still likely to be weeks before a verdict is announced.

The worst punishment Klaus faces is the loss of his presidential job, a role the 71-year-old will terminate later this week after serving two full terms in office. However, he will most likely not be able to run again.

If found guilty, Klaus will also lose his state pension as a former president that equals about $5,000 a month.

For further information, please see:

BBC News – Czech President Vaclav Klaus Faces Treason Charge – 4 March 2013

Financial Times – Vaclav Klaus Faces Treason Charges – 4 March 2013

Reuters – Czech Upper House Votes to Impeach President Klaus – 4 March 2013

The Washington Post – Czech Parliament’s Upper House Agrees to Charge President Vaclav Klaus with High Treason – 4 March 2013

HRW to Yemen: Stop Executing Juveniles

By Ali Al-Bassam
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

SANAA, Yemen — Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a 30 page report last Monday, revealing the number of juveniles who currently face capital punishment in Yemen.  For their report, HRW interviewed five young men and a young woman on death row in Sanaa Central Prison, and also reviewed case files for nineteen other alleged juvenile offenders.

A view from Hodeida Central Prison taken in 2010, home to a prisoner facing execution for a crime she committed when she was fifteen. (Photo Courtesy of Al Jazeera)

Titled “‘Look at Us with a Merciful Eye’: Juvenile Offenders Awaiting Execution on Yemen’s Death Row,” HRW urged President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi to immediately reverse execution orders for three alleged juvenile offenders who had exhausted their appeals process and currently await an execution by firing squad.

The report also revealed that at least 22 juveniles were sentenced to death despite being under 18 years old at the time they allegedly committed the crime.  It also stated that at least fifteen men and women who claimed to be below the age of eighteen were executed in the last five years.

Human Rights campaigners criticize Yemen, who has one of the highest death penalty rates in the world, for increasingly jailing and executing people who committed crimes as children.  Campaigners also criticized Yemen for its failure to provide everyone with birth certificates, and for having a failing justice system.

Mariam al-Batah, a nineteen year old who is currently awaiting execution, was one of the prisoners mentioned in HRW’s report.  For three years, she has called Hodeida Central Prison, a crowded jail located in Yemen’s Western Coast, home.  She was sentenced to death for committing murder at the age of fifteen.  Her family came from a rural background, like 80% of Yemen’s estimated population, and failed to register a birth certificate for her, resulting in tragic consequences.  Al-Batah, who was married off at the age of twelve, killed the child of her husband’s first wife when the child released her from a room that her husband had locked her in.  She recalled rushing out of the room in a “disoriented and dizzy state,” and then violently hurled the child to the floor, killing it immediately.  When she could not produce a birth certificate before the court to prove she was younger than eighteen, she was sentenced to death.

Since 1994, Yemen’s penal code had banned the execution of juveniles.  Under Yemeni law, children fifteen years and younger can be tried as adults, but are only subject to a maximum penalty of ten years imprisonment if found guilty of murder.  “Proving one’s age is a huge issue in Yemen in these cases,” said Priyana Motaparthy, a researcher for HRW. “But there is a second issue: even in cases when juvenile offenders and lawyers were able to produce strong evidence suggesting they were under eighteen for their alleged crime, judges and prosecutors have disregarded Yemeni law and called for death sentences.”

HRW said that President Hadi should review all death sentences where doubt exists that the defendant was at least eighteen years of age at the time the offense was committed, and to commute sentences when evidence of a defendant’s age is inconclusive or in conflict.

HRW says that Yemen is one of four countries in the Middle East where juveniles can still be face capital punishment.  The other three are Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan.

Al Jazeera — Yemen Unyielding on Child Executions — 4 March 2013

Human Rights Group — Yemen: Juvenile Offenders Face Execution — 4 March 2013

United Press International — HRW: Yemeni Government Urged to Stop Executing Youthful Offenders — 4 March, 2013

Yemen Post — HRW Urges new Government in Yemen to Stop Executions of Juveniles — 4 March 2013

Uruguayan Supreme Court Judge Unprecedented Resignation Leads To Court Granting Technical Immunity

By Brendan Bergh
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America 

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay – The resignation of Uruguay’s Supreme Court Justice Marina Moto sent shockwaves through the country. Not simply due to the Justices’ unparalleled transfer from the criminal sector to the civilian court, but because Judge Moto had been the main driving force behind the investigations of crimes against humanity during the military governments control of the country from 1973-1985.

Judge Mota has inexplicably resigned her Supreme Court Criminal Judgeship for the the civil judgeship.(Photo Courtesy of BBC)

Human rights defenders and groups throughout Uruguay and Argentina have protested the change, citing Mota as one of the most significant contributors in trials against military and civilians related to war crimes. She had more than 50 open cases under investigation at the time of her transfer.

Her transfer triggered wide spread reaction, Human rights officials organized a joint-protest at Mota’s ascension to the civil judgeship. Some 300 protestors came to show their disapproval for her shift, and of a new controversial Supreme Court ruling that declared unconstitutional a law that prevented the statute of limitations on crimes committed during the military regime. There were clashes at the protest requiring police action to evict some of the unruly protestors.

The court’s ruling which repealed law 18,831 has effectively nullified investigations into military personal accused of human rights violations and granted technical immunity to those accused. The court justified its ruling that abuses committed during the military regime cannot be considered crimes against humanity, because at the time the crimes were committed, there were not considered crimes against humanity within the Latin American country.

The Uruguayan military dictatorship is accused of forcibly disappearing some 200 people. Thousands of others may have been arbitrarily detained and tortured. According to data, Uruguay had one of the highest rates of political prisoners per capita in the world in the 1970s.

Alberto Pérez Pérez, who currently serves as a judge of the Inter-American court of Human Rights has stated that if the Supreme Court ruled 18, 831 unconstitutional, than the country would be in violation of international law.

While Moto claims she has no reason to explain herself, Enrique Rubio a member of the Uruguayan Senate plans to call the justice before parliament to justify her actions. While a Supreme Court Justice has never called a justice before them since the fall of the dictatorship, the parliament lacks a legal means to force a compulsory presence from a Supreme Court Justice. Despite not being able to force a meeting, Rubio has referred to the meeting as an extension of an invitation to explain herself.

For further information, please see:

BBC Mundo – Uruguay: Protests At Supreme Court For Ruling On Human Rights Cases – 25 February 2013

BBC Mundo – How Are Cases Of Abuse Of DD.HH. In Uruguay – 23 February 2013

BBC Mundo – Uruguay: Judge Transfer Sweeping The World Of DD.HH. – 22 February 2013

Pulsa Merica – Uruguay: Human Rights Judge Mota Transferred To Civil Court Duties – 17 February 2013

 

Sudan Judicially Orders Amputation of Convict’s Limbs

KHARTOUM, Sudan – For the first time since 2001, government doctors were judicially ordered to amputate a man’s right hand and left foot as punishment for the crime he was convicted of.

Corporal punishment has been part of Sudanese law since 1983. (Photo courtesy of AFP/File, Ashraf Shazly)

30-year-old Adam Al-Muthna was convicted of armed robbery under article 167 of the 1991 Sudanese Penal Code. Under the same law, the penalty for such an offense is cross amputation. So, on February 14 Muthna was brought to the Sudanese Ministry of Interior’s Al Rebat Hospital and had his limbs cut off.

The Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), along with the African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies (ACJPS), Human Rights Watch, and REDRESS, cried that the amputation was against the credo of the medical profession. “Cross amputation is a form of state-sponsored torture,” said Dr. Vincent Iacopino, senior medical advisor at Physicians for Human Rights. “The complicity of medical personnel in such practices represents a gross contravention of the UN Principles of Medical Ethics for health personnel, particularly medical doctors who engage, actively or passively, in acts of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

According to the executive director of ACJPS, Osman Hummaida, “amputations violate the absolute prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment under international law and have no place in any criminal justice system.”

Thus, hoping to convince the Sudanese government to reform its penal laws, the PHR, ACJPS, Human Rights Watch and Redress came together to demand not only Sudan, but international actors as well, to condemn the practice immediately.

“Authorities should immediately stop imposing such cruel and inhuman punishments, and bring laws in line with Sudan’s human rights obligations,” said Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “They should stop ordering amputations, stoning, flogging and all other forms of corporal punishment that violate basic human rights.”

Dr. Lutz Oette, Counsel at REDRESS added that corporal punishments are “frequently used as an instrument of repression against those who do not conform to the State’s conception of moral order.” She said that this was contrary to the ruling in Doebbler v Sudan, concerning the use of flogging as a punishment in Sudan. In that case, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights ruled that: “there is no right for the government of a country to apply physical violence to individuals for offences. Such a right would be tantamount to sanctioning State sponsored torture contrary to article 5 of the African Charter.”

In 1996, Sudan signed, but has yet to ratify, the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

 

For further information, please see:

AFP – Sudan man’s foot, hand ‘amputated’ by court order – 28 February 2013

France Diplomatie – Sudan – Court ordered amputation – 28 February 2013

Radio Dabanga – Sudanese Doctors Union condemn reintroduction of cutting hand and foot – 28 February 2013

UPI – Rights groups blast Sudan amputation – 28 February 2013

All Africa – Sudan Doctors Carry Out Court Ordered Amputation Sentence – 27 February 2013

Human Rights Watch – Sudan: Doctors Perform Amputations for Courts – 27 February 2013

Reuters – Sudan cuts off hand, foot of man convicted of robbery: activists – 27 February 2013

Brazilian Police Storm Rio Slums In Preparation For Soccer

By Brendan Oliver Bergh
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

BRASILIA, Brazil – The allure of the world cup draws near, and Brazil has taken drastic actions to prepare Rio de Janeiro before crowds and crowds of people descend upon the city. After the relative success of past military incursions into the favelas, or to put it more aptly, slums of Rio, police, tanks and military units stormed multiple favelas over the past months in order to reestablish control over the population.

Brazilian police and military storm Rio’s slums in order to pacify the areas before the World Cup arrives next year. (Photo Courtesy of AFP)

Previously drug backed gangs took control of the slums and the people languished in poverty without access to many basic necessities. Since the military occupation, spokesmen claim that the pacification has benefited over 400,000 impoverished people, with another 1.1 million people left that could still benefit. The overall plan is to provide social services and improve the quality of care of those at risk while quashing any illegal activity that could harm their reputation when FIFA and the Olympic Committee arrive to assess the suitability of Brazils shinning gem that is Rio de Janeiro.

The operation which began in earnest back in January, represents a massive shift to clean up the slums. Early last week, a Brazilian Police force supported by military tanks and helicopters stormed gang occupied slums near Rio’s international airport. Fortunately most of the pacification incursions have gone without a hitch. The police have taken to celebrate their victories by raising the Rio’s and Brazil’s flags on the roofs of buildings, symbolizing the end of the drug traffickers dominion over the impoverished parts of the city.

Critics of the operation state that while the pacification program is effective, the favelas targeted are not the poorest areas, and are simply focused on areas that would be popular during the World Cup and the Olympic Games. Civilians living within the favelas have had different reactions to the pacification. Some note that while there is less major crime, petty crime has increases as they no longer fear retaliation from local crime bosses.

After the pacification of the controlling gangs, staff from Rio’s municipal authority could start entering the areas safely without fear, and begun implementation of new social services, such as schools, healthcare centers and trash collection. Eduara La Rocque, president of the Instituto Pereira Passos has noted that there are over 150 new schools within the favelas as well as formalizing the area into the confines of Rio’s boundaries and maps. Ms. Law Rocque has hoped to implement many new training courses so the previously disenfranchised can acquire legitimate work experience in the future.

However because of the lack of resistance from drug traffickers many believe that the gangs have simply been relocating to other favelas, or to towns outside Rio, effectively just spreading out the problem.

For further information, please see:

Publico – Brazilian Police Occupy Slums 13 – 3 March 2013

Voice of Russia – Brazil: Police Occupied The Favelas In Rio De Janeiro – 3 March 2013

Terra – Police Ranks Near The Slums Of Rio De Janeiro Airport – 3 March 2013

BBC – Rio’s Shanty Towns Spread Their Wings – 8 February 2013