News

South Africa: “Drag Death” Highlights Police Brutality Concerns

By Hannah Stewart
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Eight South African police officers have been arrested over the death of a Mozambican man who was dragged through the streets behind a police vehicle.

Protesters gesture in front of the police outside the Daveyton Police station, east of Johannesburg. (Photo Courtesy of Reuters/Stringer)

The event took place in the east Johannesburg area of Daveyton.  Moreover, the incident was captured on video, sparking outrage nationwide.

Mido Macia, a 27 year-old taxi driver was found dead in detention with signs of head injuries and internal bleeding.  Police told media they had detained Macia after he parked illegally, creating a traffic jam, and then resisted arrest.

The video shows the man scuffling with police, who subdue him.  He is then bound to the back of a vehicle by his arms before the vehicle drives, dragging him down the road as he struggles, in front of a crowd of witnesses.  Crowds chased after the van as the man kicked and writhed.  He later died in custody.

It is still unclear how many officers were involved in the incident.  The police force stated that it will conduct an internal investigation, and said the Daveyton station commander was removed from his position “so that the investigations can proceed uninhibited.”

It was the latest in a series of scandals to hit South Africa’s police force in recent months.

For example, Hilton Botha, the lead detective in the murder investigation involving Olympic and Paralympic star Oscar Pistorius was removed from the case last week when it was revealed that he is facing seven charges for attempted murder. Botha is accused of chasing and firing on a minibus full of people while drunk in 2011.

Moreover, the police fatally shot 34 striking workers at a platinum mine in August 2012; this event was the deadliest security incident since apartheid ended in 1994.

This latest video footage of the taxi driver’s treatment has revived concerns about police brutality in a country where more than 1,200 people a year die while in custody.  Furthermore, the scandal serves to undermine confidence in South Africa’s police force, which has expanded from 120,000 to nearly 200,000 over a decade.

For more information, please see:

BBC News – South Africa: Eight Police Arrested Over Drag Death – 1 March 2013

CNN – South Africa Disarms, Suspends Officers Linked to Man’s Dragging Death – 1 March 2013

Reuters – South Africa Suspends Eight Policemen Who Dragged Man Behind Vehicle – 1 March 2013

USA Today – South Africa: Officers in Dragged Man Case Suspended – 1 March 2013

Russian Opposition Lawyer’s Credentials Questioned

By Madeline Schiesser
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

MOSCOW, Russia – Anti-corruption blogger and prominent opposition figure Alexei Navalny is no stranger to butting heads with Russian authority.  His stance as one of the leaders of the opposition movement against President Putin’s 13-year rule has already garnered Navalny three criminal investigations.  However, on Wednesday, investigators levied a new accusation, accusing Navalny of having acquired his qualifications as a lawyer illegally.  Navalny denied the charge.

Prominent opposition blogger Alexei Navalny has been accused of fraudulently stating his legal credentials in order to become a lawyer. (Photo Courtesy of BBC News)

The Federal Investigative Committee, which answers directly to President Putin, claimed that Navalny provided fraudulent information regarding the two year work experience required to qualify as a lawyer.  The Committee took issue with the Navalny’s statement on his law application that he had obtained the necessary experience while he was the deputy director responsible for legal issues at Allekt, a company where he was also director.

The Committee explained in a statement on its website, “So he named himself both director and his own deputy,” and further claimed that Allekt did not exist when Navalny says he received his legal experience and that Navalny had refused to testify.

Navalny fired back on his blog, pointing out that the Committee’s statement was posted before the Committee had actually interviewed him.  Navalny web activity had already drawn the ire of the Committee.  He had previously used his blog to accuse Investigative Committee chief Alexander Bastrykhin of hiding real estate and other investments in Europe.

Navalny asserted that there are no grounds for denying him his legal credentials and condemned the charges are politically motivated.  Navalny’s lawyer, Vadim Kobzev, has further said his client received his status as a lawyer legally and that there were no reasons to deprive Navalny of his credentials.

Denouncing President Putin’s United Russia as “the party of crooks and thieves,” Navalny’s prominence and effectiveness in the opposition movement appear to have made him a target for a defensive government.  Navalny claims that Putin abuses the justice system to persecute adversaries and the parliament to adopt laws to stifle opposition.  Last week, a senior figure in the United Russia Party resigned after Navalny produced documents evidencing he had failed declare homes owned in the United States on his taxes.

Therefore, three pending investigations are currently underway against Navalny.  He has been accused of stealing timber worth more than $500,000 from a state company in 2009; embezzling up to $3.24 million from a political party in 2007; and, along with his brother, cheating a mail-transport company out of $1.79 million.

Navalny, who worked in commercial law before becoming involved in political activism, became a lawyer in 2009 when working as an adviser to Nikita Belykh, currently the governor of the Kirov region and another prominent opposition figure.

After the Investigative Committee’s announcement, the Moscow Legal Chamber, which registers lawyers in the capital city, announced it would be investigating Navalny’s credentials.

On his blog, Navalny further ridiculed the Committee, calling the allegations old and baseless: “So far, all these complaints have been unsuccessful because they contain a load of garbage that is instantly exposed under critical examination.”

For further information, please see:

Moscow Times – Navalny Fraudulently Obtained Lawyer Credentials, Investigators Say – 28 February 2013

BBC – Russia’s Alexei Navalny Accused of New Fraud – 27 February 2013

Returns – Russia Piles Pressure on Opposition Leader With New Accusation – 27 February 2013

RFE/RL – Russian Opposition Leader’s Law Credentials Questioned – 27 February 2013

Live Journal – The Blog of Navalny in English, In Russian [Original]

U.S. Supreme Court Rejects Secret Surveillance Case

By Mark O’Brien
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

WASHINGTON, United States — The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit on Tuesday that challenged a federal law giving the government a broader ability to eavesdrop on international communications.

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a challenge on Tuesday to a federal wiretapping law that allows the government to eavesdrop on international calls and emails. (Photo Courtesy of RT)

In a 5-to-4 ruling split along ideological lines, the Court shielded a government anti-terrorism program from ever facing a constitutionality challenge, at least according to court observers.

“[The decision] insulates the statute from meaningful judicial review and leaves Americans’ privacy rights to the mercy of the political branches,” said American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Jameel Jaffer in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.

The law is called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, or FISA.  Congress amended FISA in 2008, giving the National Security Agency broader authority to secretly monitor emails and phone calls of any U.S. citizens, so long as they are suspected of communicating with anyone located outside of the United States.  The amended provision was set to expire at the end of last year, but Congress renewed and reauthorized the bill for another five years.

In the now-rejected case, Clapper v. Amnesty International USA, journalists, lawyers, and human rights advocates challenged the constitutionality of the law on the grounds that they might be subject to future wiretapping.  But Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the Court’s majority, held that such fear was too speculative for the case to proceed.  In other words, they could not show that the law harmed them, so they lacked standing to sue.

“They cannot manufacture standing by incurring costs in anticipation of nonimminent harms,” Alito wrote.  The plaintiffs claimed that the reason they had not been harmed yet was because they had taken steps to avoid the surveillance — for example, traveling out of their ways to meet sources and clients in person rather than sending emails or talking on the phone.

Alito reasoned that the plaintiffs had the burden of showing they had standing.  To do that, the Justice wrote, they must point “to specific facts.”  The government had no burden to disprove the plaintiffs’ standing.

Justice Stephen Breyer wrote the Court’s dissenting opinion.  He agreed with the plaintiffs that, if they had not shown harm already, it was only a matter of time.

“Indeed, it is as likely to take place as are most future events that common-sense inference and ordinary knowledge of human nature tell us will happen,” Breyer wrote.

To the dissent, the fact the plaintiffs had to alter their work practices to avoid having confidential calls overheard indicated some harm already.

“In my view, this harm is not ‘speculative,’” Breyer added.

For further information, please see:

Supreme Court of the United States — Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l USA — 26 February 2013

GlobalPost — Supreme Court Blocks Warrantless Wiretapping Lawsuit — 26 February 2013

Los Angeles Times — Supreme Court Rules out Secret Surveillance Lawsuits — 26 February 2013

The New York Times — Justices Turn Back Challenge to Broader U.S. Eavesdropping — 26 February 2013

RT — US Supreme Court Refuses to Let Americans Challenge FISA Eavesdropping Law — 26 February 2013

U.N. Officials Call for the Release of Judge Maria Lourdes Afiuni

By Pearl Rimon
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

CARACAS, Venezuela – Human rights officials from the United Nations are asking for the government of Venezuela to free Judge Maria Lourdes Afiuni, who is currently on house arrest. Afiuni has been charged with corruption, abuse of authority and aiding an inmate’s escape. U.N. officials are also asking for Afiuni to be offered adequate compensation and to investigate her accusations of acts of violence against her.

Judge Maria Lourdes Afiuni. (Photo Courtesy of AP)

Margaret Sekaggya, the U.N’s Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders and other U.N. officials in an appeal to reverse Afiuni’s conviction. “Judge Afiuni’s situation represents an emblematic case of reprisal,” Sekaggya said in a statement issued by the United Nations.

In 2009, Afiuni infuriated Chavez in 2009 by freeing a banker, Eligio Cedeño,from prison as he waited trial after being accused on charges of flouting currency exchange controls. She says that he was being held in prison awaiting trial longer than law generally permitted.

“Reprisals against a judge for enforcing an opinion of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and withholding her waiting for a process for more than three years is like opening the door to further abuses and has a widespread intimidating effect,” independent expert and current chair of the UN body, El Hadji Malick Sow, stressed.

President Hugo Chavez said on national television that Afiuni should face the maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.

Aifuni accused state authorities of rape and other grave acts of sexual violence while in the infirmary of a women’s prison in 2010. These allegations went public in November when a book by Francisco Olivares was published that detailed her arrest and detention. She claims that she got pregnant from the crime. “After that episode was when I got sick and they removed my uterus,” Afiuni is quoted as saying in the book.

“It is unacceptable that Venezuelan authorities are not acting with due diligence to investigate the acts perpetrated against Judge Afiuni in an immediate and impartial manner, and severely punish those responsible,” said Special Rapporteur on violence against women, Rashida Manjoo.

Aifuni is currently on house arrest due to medical problems following the abortion she had from the prison rape. In December, her lawyer requested for her to be freed, but this was denied by the government the following month.

U.N. Special Rapporteurs are appointed by the Human Rights Council to examine and report on a country situation or a human rights theme.

 

For more information, please see:

Nuestra Tele Noticias — Hermano de María Lourdes Afiuni denuncia “traslado relámpago” de tribunal de la jueza venezolana –20 Feb 2013

Ghana New-Spy Ghana — UN Ask Venezuela To Release Judge María Lourdes Afiuni. – 15 Feb 2013

El Universal — UN: Having Afiuni imprisoned is like opening the door to further abuses –14 Feb 2013

Huffington Post — UN Human Rights Officials Urge Venezuela To Free Judge Maria Lourdes Afiuni – 14 Feb 2013

 

Britain Warns Against Travel to Nigeria

By Heba Girgis
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

ABUJA, Nigeria—Britain today advised its citizens against traveling to several regions of Northern Nigeria after a recent increase in attacks that have been blamed on Islamist militants and the kidnapping of several foreigners earlier this month.

Crowds fill the central market after authorities relaxed a 24 hour curfew in northern region of Nigeria. (Photo Courtesy of Reuters).

The country also advised against “all-but-essential travel” to the Kaduna, Kano, Jigawa and Katsina states of Nigeria. These attacks by Islamist groups in this region have become the biggest threat to stability in Africa’s top oil producer.

Most recently gunmen killed a security guard and abducted a Brit, an Italian, a Greek and four Lebanese workers after storming and attacking the compound of a Lebanese construction firm in the Bauchi state of Northern Nigeria on February 16. This kidnapping was considered the worst case of foreigners being kidnapped in this region.

Western governments are also concerned that the militants may link up with other groups in the region including al Qaida’s North Africa wing, especially given the conflict in nearby Mali.

The Islamist group Ansaru claimed responsibility for the attack on the Lebanese compound, Setraco. The raid was “based on the transgression and atrocities done to the religion of Allah by the European countries in many places such as Afghanistan and Mali,” said the group which has also kidnapped other foreigners in Nigeria in the past. The group’s full name is Jama’atu Ansarul Musilimina Fi Biladis Sudan, which translates roughly to “Vanguards for the Protection of Muslims in Black Africa.” The group is also believed to be a breakaway group from the better-known Islamist sect Boko Haram. The Boko Haram group has killed hundreds in recent months in its own attempt to carve out an Islamic state in Nigeria which is a country truly split roughly equally between Christians and Muslims.

In November, Britain had put the Ansaru group on its official “terrorist group” list, noting that it was aligned with al Qaida and was behind the kidnapping and abduction of two Europeans killed last year during a failed rescue attempt.

This violence is not only affecting travel, but is also stunting economic development in North Nigeria and risks increasing the divide with the wealthier and largely Christian south, which is also the home to the commercial hub Lagos and the oil-producing Niger Delta region.

 

For further information, please see:

Business Day – Britain Warns Citizens Against Visits to Northern Nigeria – 27 February 2013

Reuters – Britain Warns Against Travel to Northern Nigeria After Islamist Raids – 27 February 2013

Channels – France Says Will Not Negotiate With Boko Haram Over Family Hostage – 26 February 2013

Daily Nation – Nigeria Military Claims It Kills 17 Islamists in Raid– 2 February 2013