By Ann Flower Seyse
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

TUNIS, Tunisia– On August 19, Reporters Without Borders (RWB) announced that a group of pro-government reporters in Tunisia have taken control of the largest Tunisian union for journalists only two months before the general election. 

RWB stated their concern for the independence of the national union of journalists, and stated that this change does not “bode well” for the fairness of the upcoming election. 

Tunisia’s current president, Zine El Abdine Ben Ali, will be seeking a fifth term in this election. He has been in power since a bloodless coup in 1987.  In 2002, Ben Ali challenged the constitution so that he could have more time in office. He has also continued to poll ninety-percent in elections.

The new union president Neji Bghouri stated that he believes that the government took over an organization that was meant to be independent. The new president of the journalists’ union denies any government involvement with the vote that resulted in his placement.

These alleged problems with the press only add to several other human rights violations that human rights organization Amnesty International (AI) reported on August 20. 

Amnesty International’s report documents continued abuse in the name of counter-terrorism and security. AI’s focus surrounds the continued reports of mistreatment and ‘pervasive’ torture in Tunisian detention centers. 

The report also criticizes other countries that continue to return prisoners to Tunisia against the prisoners’ wills, and with full knowledge of likely mistreatment.  Extraditing a person to a country where it is known they are likely to face mistreatment, a practice sometimes called ‘Extraordinary Rendition,’ is a violation of the Convention Against Torture, Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment.  

Amnesty has called for the immediate end to torture and a clampdown on mistreatment and unlawful ‘security’ measures used in Tunisian detention centers.

For more information, please see:

Amnesty International – Tunisia Continues Human Rights Abuses in the Name of National Security – 20 August 2009

Afrique en Linge – Tunisian Journalists Change Leadership– 19 August 2009

BBC – Tunisia Reporter Move ‘Bodes Ill’ – 19 August 2009

Reuters – Row as Tunisia Journalist Picks Pro- Government Boss – 16 August 2009

By Meredith Lee-Clark
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East   

RAMALLAH, West Bank – On August 22, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad reiterated Fatah’s assertion that it did not hold any political prisoners.   

The Prime Minister spoke at a ceremony for Protect the Palestinian Flag in Ramallah. Fayyad’s statement contradicted claims by several human rights organizations, which have confirmed that prisons in both the West Bank and Gaza hold prisoners arrested for political reasons. Fatah’s rival party, Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, has also claimed that several of its members have been detained by Fatah security forces because of political motivations.   

Hamas claimed earlier this month that one of its members, Fadi Hamarna, who was imprisoned in Jneid Prison in Nablus in the West Bank, died at the hands of Fatah security forces. The Palestinian government in the West Bank stated that Hamarna had committed suicide in his cell after interrogation.  
 
The Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP) attributes many of the abuses within the Palestinian security system to its chaotic power struggles between the nine security forces operating under the Palestinian Authority (PA). The PA employs almost 40,000 people, one of the highest ratios of police to citizens in the world. The PA security forces are often characterized as having wide-spread corruption and little systematic regulation. The Gaza Strip, which is smaller than the U.S. state of Rhode Island, has at least twenty-four detention centers, the locations for which were kept secret until April 2009. According to MERIP, search and arrest warrants are rare, and mistreatment of prisoners is the norm rather than the exception.
 
On August 21, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met with the Palestinian interior minister about security issues, focusing on the release of so-called “petty criminals” ahead of the end-of-Ramadan festival, Eid-al-Fitr. President Abbas also noted that the PA had already recently released approximately seventy prisoners, and he encouraged efforts to maintain order within the Palestinian Territories.   

For more information, please see:   

Ma’an News Agency – Fayyad: PA Has No Political Detainees – 22 August 2009  

International Middle East Media Center – Hamas Political Prisoner Dies at a Palestinian Prison – 11 August 2009

Middle East Report – Palestinian Political Prisoners – Fall 1996

By Meredith Lee-Clark

Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

 

JERUSALEM, Israel/West Bank – The Israeli blockade on Gaza is having a disastrous effect on the health of pregnant women in the seaside region, according to a recently released study by the World Health Organization (WHO) office based in Jerusalem.

 

According to the WHO’s July 2009 assessment, inadequate infrastructure, a lack of proper equipment, and a shortage in trained medical personnel have all led to a decline in the quality of hospital care provided to new mothers and their babies. The WHO attributes these conditions to the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip, which began in July 2007, when Hamas took control of the government in Gaza.

 

“The Israeli blockade affects the supply of medical equipment and conditions in the maternity wards, and perpetuates the isolation of healthcare professionals, making it difficult to maintain international standards of practice,” said Tony Laurence, head of the WHO West Bank and Gaza Office in Jerusalem.

 

Munir al-Bursh, head of Gaza’s Department of Pharmaceuticals, reported that ten types of medications essential for proper maternal care, such as Prostin gel, which induces labor, are completely out of stock in the territory. One pregnant woman reported sending her husband to search for a needed medication while she was in the delivery room.

 

Pre- and post-natal care also suffers in Gaza. The Palestinian Health Ministry has reported that seventy percent of the nearly 1.5 million Gazans suffer from anemia, including forty-four percent of pregnant women. Additionally, women are typically discharged within two hours after giving birth, due to a lack of beds. In its report, the WHO advocated increasing the in-patient time to six hours. Compounding the problem is a lack of adequately trained midwives. The blockade has isolated midwives working in the Gaza Strip, leading to outdated medical knowledge and stifling the flow of information about medical advances.

 

Israel’s Ministry of Defense has said that medical supplies have priority as imports into Gaza, but that Israel is not obliged to allow anything into the territory aside from basic humanitarian supplies needed for survival.

 

For more information, please see:

 

Ma’an News Agency – Gaza Mothers, Newborns Affected by Israeli Blockade (IRIN) – 20 August 2009

 

Association of International Development Agencies – The Gaza Blockade: Children and Education Fact Sheet – July 2009

 

The Guardian – No Gourmets in Gaza – 16 June 2009

 

VOA News – Conditions for Palestinian Refugees in Gaza Deteriorating – 22 May 2009

 

IslamOnline.net – Blockade Worsens Gaza Malnutrition – 2 June 2008

 

By Ann Flower Seyse
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

CAIRO, Egypt– On August 17, thirty- eight members of the opposition Muslim brotherhood were arrested in Egypt. According to a security official, the total number of Brotherhood members in detention is four-hundred fifty.

Of those arrested on August 17, thirty members of the Muslim Brotherhood were detained in Suez when they had a meeting at a group member’s home. Another eight members were apprehended in the Nile River Delta the same day.  

The Islamist Muslim Brotherhood controls almost one fifth of the seats in Egyptian Parliament, even though the party is technically banned under the Egyptian Constitution, which bans political parties based on religious or class affiliation. The Brotherhood won these seats by fielding independent candidates in the 2005 election. Many Egyptians like the party because of the social services that the group provides.  

In 2007 Human Rights Watch accused Egyptian President Mubarak, and the governing National Democratic Party of using the law that bans parties based upon religious or class affiliation to maintain control of the government, holding a virtual monopoly

Also on August 17, the Islam-affiliated party Al-Wasat al-Jadid (the New Center) was rejected for a fourth time in their application to become a legally recognized political party in Egypt. Al-Wasat al-Jadid has also had their application for party status denied in 1996, 1998, and 2006.  The government considers Al-Wasat al-Jadid a front for the Muslim Brotherhood.

Although the party would ban Coptic Christians or women from heading the country, their platform of peaceful rule through Islamic law is popular among many Egyptians who see the ruling National Democratic Party as corrupt.

Egypt has been cracking down on the Brotherhood, and subsequently, Al-Wasat al-Jadid.  In an interview with CBS news, President Mubarak claimed that the Brotherhood has connections with Lebanese and Palestinian groups Hezbollah and Hamas .

For more information, please see:

AFP- Egypt Police Arrest 38 Islamists – 18 August 2009

Afrique en Lingue- Egypt Rejects Islamist Party – 18 August 2009

AP – Egypt Rejects Request for Moderate Islamic Party – 17 August 2009

Money Biz – Egypt Refuses to Recognize Moderate Muslim Party – 17 August 2009

By Nykoel Dinardo
Senior Desk Officer, Middle East

BAGHDAD, Iraq – On August 17, Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report titled “They Want Us Exterminated: Murder, Torture, Sexual Orientation, and Gender in Iraq” which details the attacks that gay men in Iraq have suffered in recent months.

According to the report, militias in Iraq are persecuting gay men, torturing and killing them.  Although there have been reports about attacks by several small militias, HRW believes that most of the attacks are being perpetrated by the Mahdi Army, a militia led by Moqtada al-Sadr.  To support this claim, HRW cites the facts that the attacks seem centered around Sadr City, a slum in Baghdad that is named after al-Sadr’s martyred father.  

Moreover, Sadrist Mosques and officials of the Mahdi Army have been spreading warnings about the “third sex,” a derogatory term for homosexuals in Iraq.  According to the report, men have been kidnapped, tortured and murdered for something small, such as wearing a tight shirt, tight jeans, or a certain hairstyle – fashions claimed to be worn by the “third sex.”  HRW describes the situation as “social cleansing.”

According to HRW, hundreds of men have been killed in the last few months.  A hospital employee interviewed by HRW after he fled Iraq described the stories he was receiving from colleagues, “a fellow doctor-a colleague, a classmate of mine, who works at al-Kindi hospital-told me over the phone that more were killed yesterday. Four were brought in with their genitals cut off. And some were brought in, not dead, with glue in their anuses.”  The report explains that injecting glue into the anuses of suspected gay men has become a common form of torture, and men who suffer its effects are brought into hospitals almost daily.

HRW explains that the most astounding aspect of the situation is the lack of action to stop the killings.  According to the report, government officials actually participate in the persecution.  The report details the story of a man in Baghdad who ran safe-houses for gay men who had been disowned by their families.  He told HRW that officials for the Ministry of the Interior has arrested him, tortured and raped him, and finally he was freed when he bribed one of the guards.  According to HRW, ministry members take these actions claiming that they are within the law, punishing those who have participated in “indecent acts.”

The report concludes by calling on the Iraqi government to take action s to stop the persecution of gay men.  HRW reminds Iraq of their international obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which require states to provide for the rights to Life and Security (Article 9), to Protection against Torture, and Inhuman and Degrading Treatment (Articles 7 & 11), and to Non-Discrimination and Fundamental Rights (Articles 26, 17, 19, and 21).   They ask the government to publicly condemn such action and to prosecute those responsible.

For more information, please see:

CNN – Gay Men Attacked, Executed in Iraq, Rights Group Says – 17 August 2009

Human Rights Watch – Iraq: Stop Killings for Homosexual Conduct – 17 August 2009

Human Rights Watch – “They Want Us Exterminated”: Murder, Torture, Sexual Orientation and Gender in Iraq – 17 August 2009

USA Today – Rights Group Reports Anti-Gay Death Squads at Work in Iraq – 17 August 2009

The Washington Post – Gay Men Targeted In Iraq, Report Says – 17 August 2009