By Polly Johnson
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

JERUSALEM, Israel – A former Israeli soldier who posted photos of herself posing with blindfolded Palestinian prisoners to her Facebook account is defending her actions.

Eden Abergil, twenty-six years old, claims that she did nothing wrong and was surprised at the controversy surrounding the pictures.

The pictures show Abergil posing in provocative positions near the blindfolded prisoners. They were part of an album she posted entitled, “Army – the best time of my life.” The pictures were discovered by a blogger who circulated them around the Internet. The images prompted comments from many users, and her Facebook account quickly became blocked to outside users.

In one of the photos, in which Abergil is shown smiling in front of blindfolded prisoners, a friend of hers posted about the photo, “That looks really sexy for you.” Abergil posted a response – “I wonder if he is on Facebook too – I’ll have to tag him in the photo,” referring to one of the prisoners in the background.

Abergil says that she did not intend to make a political statement or spark such outrage. In an interview with Israeli Army Radio, Abergil claimed that the images had no “political significance.”

“There was no violence in the pictures, there was no disrespect,” she said. “I did it out of excitement, to remember the experience.”

Yet both Palestinian and Israeli groups have attacked her actions. The incident highlights a pattern of claims of alleged abuse of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.

“This shows the mentality of the occupier, to be proud of humiliating Palestinians,” Ghassan Khatib, Palestinian Authority spokesman, told the Associated Press. “All aspects of occupation are humiliating. We call on the international organisations, starting with the UN, to work hard to end the occupation, because it is the source of humiliation for Palestinians and a source of corruption for the Israelis,” Khatib said.

The Israeli army has attempted to distance itself from the controversy. IDF spokesman Barak Raz said that the pictures did not “reflect the spirit of the IDF, our ethical standard to which we all aspire.”

Because Abergil was discharged from the army last year, future legal action is still unclear.

Yet Jawad Amawi, director of legal affairs for the Palestinian government’s prisoners ministry, told CNN, “She did this act while she was in military service, so in retrospect the Israeli occupation is responsible for her acts. This is a breach of international law, clearly a breach of human rights.”

For more information, please see:

Al Jazeera – Storm over Israeli ‘abuse’ photos – 17 August 2010

BBC – Israeli woman soldier denies Facebook photos wrongdoing – 17 August 2010

CNN – Israeli in Facebook incident dismisses criticism – 17 August 2010

Haaretz – ‘Facebook photos of soldiers posing with bound Palestinians are the norm’ – 17 August 2010

New York Times – Ex-Israeli Soldier’s Photos Condemned – 16 August 2010

By Alyxandra Stanczak
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

CAIRO, Egypt – Up to 730 muezzins, men who transmit the call to prayer five times daily in each mosque, face unemployment after the Egyptian government instituted a uniform call to prayer earlier this week.  Religious scholars are also worried that this government-mandated regulation of call to prayer could constitute a further intrusion by the Egyptian government in religious affairs.

Officials at the Ministry of Religious Endowment have said that the regulation is necessary to restore the dignity of the azan, the Islamic call to prayer. Although the government has stated that the muezzins would be able to maintain their salary, their tasks around the mosque would become much less prestigious and could include anything from leading prayers to custodial work. Muezzins are generally paid a  small wage, roughly $55 per week in some instances, but that wage goes far in a country with a yearly per capita income of  $2,161.

Sheik Youssef al-Badri, a religious conservative, opposes this regulation on the basis that “the Prophet Muhammad never ordered people to unify their calls to prayer in (his home of) Medina, so we shouldn’t do the same in Cairo.” Other conservatives are worried about the fact that the regulation tampers with an age-old Islamic ritual.

The Ministry of Religious Endowments hopes to regulate all of Egypt’s over 100,000 government-funded mosques after successful implementation of the program in Cairo. However, muezzins in impoverished areas of Cairo are worried that this regulation would mean that non-government funded mosques would be prevented from transmitting a call to prayer, which could possibly result in many people missing the five-times daily prayer ritual.

Other religious scholars have said that they are not worried about the governmental interference on religious affairs. Mohamed el Shahat el Gindy, Professor of Islamic Law at Helwan University, indicated that this decision could lessen the confusion caused by the mix of voices heard during the call to prayer.

For more information, please see:

Al Jazeera – Egypt’s unified call to prayer – 12 August 2010

USA Today – Cairo mosques begin unified call to prayer – 12 August 2010

NPR – In Cairo, and end to the cacaphony of calls to prayer – 5 August 2010

Egypt then and now – Unified call to prayer will be first activated in Greater Cairo – 2 August 2010

By Elizabeth A. Conger
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

TEHRAN, Iran –  Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman sentenced to execution by stoning for alleged adultery has reportedly appeared on Iranian state television and ‘confessed’ to her crime.  The ‘confession’ was broadcast on Wednesday night, and Ashtiani [or a woman who identified herself as Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani] confessed to conspiring to murder her husband with her husband’s cousin, the man she is accused of having an affair with.

The face of the woman who identified herself as Ashtiani was blurred, and her words were dubbed from Azeri, Ashtiani’s native language, into Persian.  These factors rendered positive identification of Ashtiani impossible.

The interview was broadcast the day after U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, urged Iran to honor treaty obligations which require Iran to respect the rights of citizens and to halt executions.

Ashtiani, a forty three-year-old mother of two, was first convicted of the crime of having an “illicit relationship” with two men in 2006 and received 99 lashes. Later that year an inquiry into whether she had committed “adultery while married” was opened and she was retried, receiving the sentence of execution by stoning.

Houtan Kian has taken on representation of Ashtiani since her last attorney, Mohammad Mostafaie, fled the country and sought asylum in Norway. He told the Guardian that the interview was genuine, and that Ashtiani was, in the days preceding the interview, “severely beaten up and tortured until she accepted to appear in front of the camera.” Kian added that he was worried that the judiciary would move quickly in order to carry out her death sentence now that they have a confession.

He reported that Ashtiani’s twenty two-year-old son and seventeen-year-old daughter were “completely traumatised by watching this programme.”

Nazanine Moshiri, an Al Jazeera reporter reporting from Tehran, said that a source connected to the Iranian judiciary has stated that is is unlikely that Ashtiani will be executed during Ramadan [which lasts until September 9th], and added that there remains a “small possibility” that her execution will be revoked.

The supposed confession comes nearly a month after her death sentence was suspended for judicial review.  Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Middle East, Hassiba Hadj Sahroui, said that the broadcast calls into question the independence of the Iranian judiciary. Sahroui stated:

“If the judiciary in Iran is to be taken seriously, this ‘confession’ needs to be disregarded  and assurances given that it will not affect the review of her case.”

Mina Ahadi of the Iran Committee against Stoning (ICAS) said:

“It’s not the first time Iran has put an innocent victim on a televised programme and killed them on the basis of forced confessions – it has happened numerously in the first decade of the Islamic Revolution.”

Ashtiani’s case still remains to be heard before the Iranian Supreme Court.

For more information, please see:

Al Jazeera – Iran stoning woman ‘confesses’ – 12 August 2010

The Guardian – Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani ‘confesses’ to murder on Iran state TV – 12 August 2010

New York Times – Woman Sentenced to Death by Stoning Reportedly Appears on Iranian Television – 12 August 2010

Radio Free Europe – Lawyers Say Stoning Defendant ‘Tortured’ To Confess on TV – 12 August 2010

 

By Alyxandra Stanczak
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

SHARJAH, United Arab Emirates – Thirty-eight Bengali and Pakistani workers are currently stranded in the emirate of Sharjah after their Indian employers fled the country, leaving the workers without ten-months of back pay. The workers earn approximately $220 a month, and there is no sign that the employers have any intention of paying the workers. These workers are forced remain in the UAE without work visas as they generally do not have enough money to return to their respective homes.

In March, the workers took to the Emirati courts to attempt to seize their lost wages, but no progress was made on the issue. They have also registered their status as abandoned with the courts, resulting in an issuing of passports which would allow them to leave the country. It is customary for employers of migrant workers to retain the passports of their employees upon entering the UAE for work purposes.

This past week, the abandoned workers attempted to appeal to the Ministry of Labor. The Ministry stated that they cannot help these workers because of the legal action that they previously took against their employers. Saher Shaikh stated that “The authorities are extremely proactive and supportive in trying to help camps in this situation. [However], this particular camp … seems to be dragging on for a quite a while.”

These thirty-eight workers currently face eviction, and cannot afford food, water, and power – much less a flight home. They are surviving on handouts they receive off the streets.

Approximately 12 million foreign workers, primarily from Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, and other South Asian countries, have come to the UAE and other Gulf countries where they earn higher wages than they can in their respective home countries. Mirgrant workers they do not have substantial legal protection in the UAE, and cannot form labor unions. Since the economy in the UAE has slowed, migrant workers, particularly in the emirates of Dubai, Sharjah, and Abu Dhabi, face abandonment as their employers liquidate their remaining assets and flee the country when ventures prove unprofitable.

A non-profit group, Adopt-A-Camp, has been set up by Saher Shaikh to provide assistance to Gulf workers in these situations.

For more information, please see:

Al Jazeera – Gulf laborers remain stranded – 5 August 2010

Change.org – Exploited workers stranded in Dubai – 3 August 2010

Migrant Workers – UAE: Thousands of laborers left to fend for themselves – 23 July 2010

Reuters – Migrant workers collateral damage of UAE slump – 20 July 2010

By Warren Popp
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

KUWAIT CITY, Kuwait – Hundreds of domestic workers from the Philippines are filling the lobby of the Philippine embassy in Kuwait. As more domestic workers continue to arrive, they are straining the already limited capacity of this make-shift shelter.

The Philippine workers have been fleeing their Kuwaiti sponsors on a daily basis since at least 2009 (a Kuwait Times article in July 2009 cited reports of five to ten Philippine maids fleeing daily). The New York Times reported that Philippine embassy officials fear that the arrival of Ramadan in the coming weeks, with the extra strain of the long days of food preparation for the large evening meal, and long nights, is expected to lead to the arrival of perhaps hundreds of new domestic workers seeking protection at the embassy. To highlight this fear, the New York Times reported the case of Rosflor Armada, who said that during Ramadan last year, she was only permitted to sleep for two hours because she need to cook for the evening meal. She reportedly left her employers after they tried to make her wash windows at three in the morning. Armada is one of those staying in the embassy shelter.

The New York Times notes that the existence of these types of shelters represents “a hard reality here:” There are few legal safeguards for employers who mistreat or refuse to pay their domestic workers, and the existing laws pertaining to domestic workers reportedly err on the side of protecting employers. Thus, for many workers, escape from their employers is their only viable option. It should also be noted that, according to the New York Times, these informal shelters are open secrets and touchy subjects in Kuwait.

A 2010 United States Department of State report noted some migrants “are subjected to conditions of forced labor by their sponsors and labor agents, including through such practices as nonpayment of wages, threats, physical or sexual abuse, and restrictions on movement, such as the withholding of passports.”

Kuwaiti official claim that the majority of the approximately 650,000 domestic workers in Kuwait are treated well, with many being considered a part of the families that they are employed by, and many are even given extra pay and benefits during Ramadan.

However, separate stories of Indonesian domestic workers being brutally killed by their sponsors in recent weeks, as well as reports that a Sri Lankan domestic worker was imprisoned by her Kuwaiti employers for 13 years, have drawn attention to the issue. In the case of domestic worker, Abdulaziz al Falekh, the couple that was sponsoring her admitted to torturing her, and then, after fearing that the maid would die from the torture, taking her to the desert and crushing her to death with their car to make it look like she was run over by another motorist.

In the case of a domestic worker named Sariah, an Indonesian forensics team found that she was beaten to death with a blunt object, while a Kuwaiti forensics team had earlier claimed that Sariah had died of natural causes. According to the Jakarta Globe, Sariah told her family that her boss routinely abused her, and, in her last phone conversation with her family, she informed them that she had been beaten and locked in a room without meals. The director of Migrant Care, which was contacted by Sariah’s family after she was admitted to hospital in a coma, claims that Kuwaiti officials failed to investigate the case despite solid evidence that there was torture and beatings caused by her employer. The director said that Migrant Care was forced to act to ensure an autopsy was completed, as the government does not routinely do autopsies on deaths of migrant workers.

The director of Migrant Care said that, according to its data, there has not been a single foreign employer from a Middle-East country that has been found guilty of abusing a domestic worker. She hopes that Sariah’s case, “could be the starting point to investigate other deaths and we hope the government will be more attentive to our workers.”

For more information, please see:

New York Times – Immigrant Maids Flee Lives of Abuse in Kuwait – 1 August 2010

Jakarta Globe – Ministry Probes Brutal Death Of Indonesian Maid in Kuwait– 23 July 2010

Manilla Bulletin Publishing Corporation – DFA Confirms Death of 2 OFWs in Kuwait – 20 July 2010

Arab Times – Couple Admits Killing Filipina Maid – 17 July 2010

Kuwait Times – 5 to 10 Filipina Maids Fleeing Sponsors Daily – 27 July 2009