By Mark O’Brien
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

HAVANA, Cuba — A Cuban human rights organization reported Thursday that the Cuban government arrested more than 400 people for political reasons during the month of May.

The opposition Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation said there were at least 423 arbitrary arrests last month, part of what it calls a “disturbing” trend.

“The Cuban government has among the highest number of prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants in the world,” said activist-leader Elizardo Sanchez in the commission’s monthly report, according to Fox News Latino.

The report came less than a day after police released Cuban opposition leader Jorge Luis García Pérez amid U.S. demands for his release.

Many dissidents believe Cuban authorities arrested García Pérez because of his testimony to a U.S. Senate subcommittee about recent harassment of oppositionists in Cuba.  Police arrested García Pérez within 48 hours of his testimony, which happened via teleconference from the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.

Reports quickly surfaced that García Pérez was beaten by Cuban authorities.  According to the Wall Street Journal, “An activist who was with (García Pérez) at the jail said that police pumped pepper spray into his mouth until he lost consciousness.  He was later taken away to a detention center, and his wife was not allowed to see him for more than three days.”

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) was among those denouncing the beating of García Pérez and accusing Cuba of retaliation.

“I want to be crystal clear that I strongly condemn any efforts to intimidate Mr. Perez or any other Cuban citizen into silence,” Kerry was quoted as saying in the Charlotte Observer.  “I echo the calls of my Senate colleagues, demanding an end to repression in Cuba and urging international observers to conduct and investigation into his detention.”

The Miami Herald reports criticism has grown in recent days because President Raúl Castro has increased efforts to block opposition plans to honor political prisoners on Father’s Day this Sunday.  The government has reportedly blocked cell phones of several dissidents so they cannot communicate with supporters or journalists.

“These actions highlight once again the repressive nature of the Cuban government,” said U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, “particularly with regard to citizens who peacefully express opposite points of view.”

For the opposition Commission on Human Rights, however, they continue to speak out.  The group also said Thursday that the government released data on Cuba’s prison population for the first time in 50 years.  The official number of inmates stands at 57,337, but the commission estimates the total may reach 70,000.

Sanchez and his organization are calling on Cuba to open its jails to inspection by international organizations, including the Red Cross.

For further information, please see:

Fox News Latino — Commission Reports 423 Political Arrests in Cuba Last May — 14 June 2012

The Miami Herald — Speaking Truth to Cuba’s Despots — 14 June 2012

The Miami Herald — Cuban Opposition Leader Jorge Luis García Pérez Released by Police — 13 June 2012

The Wall Street Journal — Cuban Payback — 13 June 2012

The Charlotte Observer — Dissidents, US Denounce Cuba on Man’s Beating — 12 June 2012

By Mark O’Brien
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

LOS ANGELES, California — The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted Wednesday to right a 70-year-old wrong.

The supervisors unanimously repealed a 1942 resolution that supported the internment of Japanese Americans at the start of World War II.

“We were imprisoned behind barbed wire fences when there were no charges, no trial,” former “Star Trek” actor George Takei told the Los Angeles Daily News.  He gave a moving presentation to the board supporting the repeal about his time in the camps when he was only five years old.

“It still stank of horse manure,” he said of the stables at Santa Anita Park, a thoroughbred racetrack, where he, his parents, and two siblings were housed.  “My mother said it was her most humiliating and degrading experience up to that point, but more were to follow.”

Takei’s family was among the 17,000 who lived at the camp for several months before they were shipped to internment camps in northern California and southeast Arkansas.

“Our only crime was looking like the people who had bombed Pearl Harbor,” he said.

The board passed the resolution shortly after Japan’s surprise military attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.  The bombing directly led to the American entry into World War II.  At the time, the board hoped its resolution would urge President Franklin D. Roosevelt to move forward with the internment camps because the board felt it was difficult “if not impossible to distinguish between loyal and disloyal Japanese aliens.

Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 in February 1942, placing roughly 120,000 Japanese Americans in camps for up to three years.  Nearly a third of them were in Los Angeles County.  Thousands of people with German or Italian ancestry were also placed in the camps.

“The internment of American citizens of Japanese ancestry was, no doubt, a low point in American history,” said Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, who introduced the motion to rescind the old resolution.  “To ignore this and leave it as unfinished business is essentially to trivialize it, and we choose not to trivialize this travesty.”

Over the weekend, many Japanese Americans, who once were housed at Santa Anita Park, gathered there to reflect on the struggles and foster inspiration and healing.

“Every family that was put in the camps has a wide range of emotions,” event organizer Wendy Fujihara Anderson.  “My parents never talked about the camps.”

President Gerald Ford proclaimed in 1976 that Roosevelt’s executive order officially ended when the war did.  President George H. W. Bush issued an official apology in 1989.

Many who supported the board’s repeal said it was a long time coming, and a significant one at that.

“We (now) can face the future having extracted important lessons from our democracy,” Takei said.

 

For further information, please see:

CNN — L.A. County Board Repeals Support of WWII Japanese Internment — 6 June 2012

Contra Costa Times — Supervisors Repeal 1942 Act Supporting Japanese-American Internment — 6 June 2012

Los Angeles Times — County Supervisors Rescind 1942 Japanese American Internment Vote — 6 June 2012

Los Angeles Daily News — L.A. County Supervisors to Repeal 1942 Resolution Supporting Internment of Japanese Americans — 4 June 2012

San Gabriel Valley Tribune — Japanese Internment Recalled in Santa Anita; Heroes of Era Honored — 4 June 2012

ArcadiaPatch — Japanese-American Internment Camp Victims Remembered, Honored — 3 June 2012

By Mark O’Brien
Impunity Watch Reporter, Oceania

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Proponents of gay adoptions in New Zealand got a boost over the weekend as an unlikely duo joined forces to sponsor a legalization bill and a major party showed signs of a changing tide.

Political rivals Nikki Kaye and Kevin Hague announced they are teaming up to draft a bill to legalize adoption by gay couples.  Kaye, a member of parliament from the right-leaning National Party, and Hague, a member of parliament from the leftist Green Party have been working on the initiative for about 18 months.

“We know there are thousands of same-sex couples bringing up children,” Kaye told 3 News.  She said it was time for the law to recognize and support that.

Gay adoption has been outlawed in New Zealand since the Adoption Act was passed in 1955.  The law only allows married couples to adopt, and Kaye said that creates a range of adoption problems for defacto heterosexual couples, same-sex couples, surrogate children, and the Maori customary adoption of “whangai,” where children are raised by other relatives.

“Kevin and I realize there are many complex policy and legal issues involved,” Kaye said in an interview with TVNZ.  “That’s why we have taken an approach where if we work together from the center-left and the center-right, and work through a number of those issues and come up with a draft bill, we can process the law that way.”

The announcement of their partnership came after the National’s northern conference voted over the weekend to support adoption by civil union couples.  Many viewed this as a precursor to a similar vote of support by the party’s national conference in July.

Efforts to overhaul the law have been led by younger members of the National Party, called the Young Nats, who sponsored the northern conference vote.  Young Nats President Daniel Fielding called the Adoption Act “archaic” and told NZ Newswire that people spoke passionately about both sides of the issue at the conference.

“It was supported enough to be passed,” he said, though he would not disclose detailed results.  The vote was held behind closed doors.

Kaye and Hague hope to finish their proposal of roughly 40 changes to New Zealand’s adoption and surrogacy laws within the next few months, and their efforts appear to be gaining high-level support.

“There are some wonderful adults out there that would love to be parents and would do a magnificent job, but they don’t get that opportunity,” Prime Minister John Key told TVNZ.  When asked if the issue could be discussed on the Parliament floor, Key told Radio Live, “I’m not afraid to have debates on those areas.”

Key, however, told the New Zealand Herald that gay adoptions were not a priority given the nation’s economy.

“My own personal opinion is the issue of gay adoption is not hugely significant issue (sic) and it’s not because it doesn’t matter to those couples who might want to adopt children,” he said.  “But the truth is less than 200 non-family adoptions take place in New Zealand at the moment.”

For further information, please see:

3 News ­— Support Grows for Gay Adoption Law Change — 28 May 2012

The New Zealand Herald ­— Gay Adoptions not a Priority – PM — 28 May 2012

The New Zealand Herald ­— Political Rivals Unite on Gay Adoptions — 28 May 2012

Radio New Zealand — National Party Begins Gay Adoption Debate — 28 May 2012

TVNZ — Key ‘Not Afraid’ to Back Gay Adoption Legislation — 28 May 2012

Yahoo! New Zealand ­— Young Nats Push for Gay Adoption — 28 May 2012