By Yasmine S. Hakimian
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

HEBRON, West Bank – On December 4, Israeli troops forcibly evicted nearly 200 Jewish settlers from a contested building in Hebron. The operation to remove the settlers took about one hour and involved at least 600 Israeli soldiers. At least 20 Israeli settlers and police were injured during the eviction.

According to the New York Times, evacuees were dragged out with four police officers per person. Palestinians watched from rooftops and windows while some settlers shouted at the troops, calling them Nazis. A few settlers had sewn yellow stars on their shirts. On a wall near the confrontation, Hebrew graffiti displayed, “There will be a war over the House of Peace.”

A cloud of black smoke covered much of the neighborhood as militant supporters of the colonists set Palestinian olive fields alight and torched two homes and a dozen cars. In several areas of the city, youths clashed with Israeli security forces, who responded with tear gas.

After the eviction, clashes erupted in numerous West Bank towns as settlers expressed their anger. According to B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, settlers have shot and wounded three Palestinians. The Haaretz newspaper reported that settlers began to throw stones at Palestinian cars in Nablus, Ramallah and Hebron.

The contested building, which occupants had named the House of Peace, is on the road to the Cave of the Patriarchs, where Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their wives are said to be buried.  Muslims and Jews have coveted and fought over this site for centuries.

Ownership of the building has been in dispute. The settlers say that they bought the house from its Palestinian owner, but the owner claims he rescinded the deal. The Israeli Supreme Court ordered the occupants to clear the building until another court could determine ownership. The settlers refused to leave the house after the Supreme Court order.

Riyad al-Malki, the Palestinian Foreign Minister, accused the settlers of “waging war” on Palestinians and urged the United Nations Security Council to help. Robert Serry, the U.N. envoy for the Middle East, issued a statement demanding “an immediate end to the settler attacks and restraint and calm from all parties”.

The southern part of the West Bank is now designated as a closed military area in an effort to prevent further trouble from outside settlers. Now, only those who live there may enter. Within an hour of the order, cars were backed up in enormous lines at new military roadblocks.
 
For more information, please see:

Welt – Hebron Unrest Escalates as Palestinians React – 6 December 2008

BBC – Israeli West Bank Forces on Alert – 5 December 2008

Daily Star – Hebron Colonists Attack Palestinians After Eviction – 5 December 2008

Guardian – Jewish Settlers in Hebron Shoot Palestinian Men – 5 December 2008

By Lauren Mellinger
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

SANA’A, Yemen– On December 3, Yemen announced the implementation of a five-year plan to reduce the practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) or female circumcision.  The practice of FGM operations occurs most often in coastal areas of the country.

According to Ali Hashim Al-Seraj, an expert on family and reproductive health issues, Yemen remains the last Gulf country where the rate of FGMs remains high.  The rates of FGM are highest in coastal areas of Yemen; in Hodeidah, 97% of girls are forced to undergo the procedure.  The practice is also frequent in Hadramout (96%), Aden (82%), Al-Maharah (96%), and Sana’a (45%).

Al-Seraj claims the rate of FGM operations in Yemen is comparable to Sudan and Egypt, two countries with the highest rate of FGM operations annually.  According to UNICEF Director of the Childhood Protection Program, Nour Al-Kasadi, FGM operations are generally more popular in areas that have high illiteracy rates and where there is a lack of awareness of the negative health effects of the practice.  In addition, coastal areas in Yemen have large numbers of African immigrants who come from countries where the practice is common.

Legislation that bans the procedure without a sufficient public education program regarding the dangerous consequences of FGM has proved to have little deterrent effect.  While the Yemeni government has taken measures in the past to reduce the practice of FGM operations, including banning the procedure from all hospitals and health centers in the country in 2001, this failed to reduce the practice.  Instead, it led to an increase in “back-alley” procedures, involving no sterilized tools and the absence of doctors or other medical experts to perform the procedure.  A study by the US Agency for International Development revealed that only 10% of FGMs carried out in coastal areas of Yemen are performed by trained medical personnel.

The new plan will focus on public education and involves coordination among the government, civil society organizations, and the media.  The goal is to raise public awareness of the negative health effects of the procedure.  In addition, according to Dr. Nafissah Al-Jaifi, Secretary General of the High Council of Motherhood and Childhood, support from religious leaders in the community is vital to the success of the program.

The plan has been well received internationally.  The United Nations Children’s Fund, which regards FGM as “one of the most persistent, pervasive and silently endured human rights violations,” has pledged to assist with both the implementation and assessment stages of the program once it is accredited by the Yemeni government.  According to UNICEF’s Yemen Representative Aboudou Karimou Adjibade, “We cannot let this harmful practice take its toll on the health and development of girls and women.  We are ready to accelerate the abandonment of FGM in one generation.”

For more information, please see:

Yemen Times – Yemen to Reduce the Practice of FGM by 30 Percent by 2012 – 5 December 2008

Yemen Times – Yemen National Plan to Accelerate FGM Eradication – 19 November 2008

Gulf News – Yemen to Fight Female Genital Mutilation – 27 June 2008

US Department of State – Yemen: Report on Female Genital Mutilation or Female Genital Cutting – 1 June 2001

By Yasmine S. Hakimian
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

JERASH, Jordan – On December 1, an unidentified Jordanian man was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison for strangling his 16-year-old married sister. Using wire and his sister’s scarf, the 20-year-old man strangled his sister to cleanse his family’s honor. The man testified it took 30 minutes to strangle his sister to death. He killed her in January in the Gaze refugee camp in the town of Jerash after she visited a female friend.

Girls younger than 18 can legally wed in Jordan. The girl was married for six months at the time of her death.

The presiding judge on the case, Judge Hassan Amayreh, reported the man confessed to the killing. He testified to killing his sister to cleanse his family’s honor after her husband complained that she regularly disappeared from home without a reason. Investigations indicated the girl was visiting her female friend when she wasn’t at home.

Judge Amayreh explained he originally sentenced the man to a 15-year prison term on November 30. However, the judge reduced the sentence since the girl’s family gave up their legal rights. In Jordan, prison sentences are reduced if the family drops the charges against the person who committed the honor killing.

Despite continuous campaigns by local and international human rights activists, those who commit honor killings receive reduced sentences because parliament has refused to reform the penal code to ensure harsher sentences.

Between 15 and 20 women are murdered each year in the name of “honor” in Jordan. Last year around 18 honor killings were recorded.

In the past, Jordan has been criticized for giving lenient sentences in so-called honor killing cases. Some honor killings have carried jail sentences of just six months.

According to the United Nations, over 5,000 women and girls are killed every year by family members in honor killings. These crimes occur where cultures believe that a woman’s unsanctioned sexual behavior brings such shame on the family that the female must be murdered. Honor killings have resulted from talking to a man or in suffering rape.

Honor killings are a controversial issue within the Muslim world. Although a tradition in some teachings of Islam, they are increasingly criticized by Westerners and moderate Muslims around the world.

For more information, please see:

Bare Naked Islam – It Took Him 30 Minutes to Strangle his Sister to Death with a Metal Wire and Her Own Scarf – 3 December 2008

International Campaign Against Honour Killings – Girl Strangled Slowly in Sick ‘Honour Killing’ – 2 December 208

WA Today – ‘Honour Killing’: Man Strangles Sister – 2 December 2008

BBC – Jail for Jordan ‘Honour Killing’ – 1 December 2008

By Nykoel Dinardo
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

UNITED NATIONS – On December 3 the United Nations Security Council decided to take up a complaint by Libya, who claimed that Israel unlawfully intercepted a cargo ship carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza.  An emergency session was held at Libya’s request.  Libya claims that Israel’s actions constitute an affront to peace.

On December 1, Israel stopped a Libyan cargo ship that Libyan and Palestinian officials claim was carrying over 3,000 tons of food and humanitarian aid for residents in Gaza.  Libya says that Israel ships confronted the cargo ship and forced it to veer towards Egypt.  Unable to dock in Gaza, Tripoli officials say that the ship will have to return to Libya.

Israel claims that Libya is using its status as a member of the Security Council for public relations purposes.  Israeli Ambassador Gabriella Shalev responded to Libya’s accusations that Israel’s actions are an affront to peace by saying that Libya was not acting as a peace-maker when Hamas attacked Israel earlier this year.  Libya currently has no diplomatic relations with Israel and has criticized the handling of the situation in Gaza.

In response to Palestinian attacks, Israel has imposed a blockade against Gaza since November 2007. As of February, they allowed humanitarian aid to the region three times.  Karen Abu Zayd, the UN official in charge of humanitarian aid to the area, accused Israel of punishing the Palestinians in the area, including aid workers.  According to Zayd, Israel recently published a list of items that could not be received into Gaza; including spices, kitchenware, and paper.  She also claimed that aid workers were not allowed to send or receive mail. 

On December 2, groups held protests against the blockade in several Middle Eastern countries.  Palestinian children held a protest where they imitated sick children who lacked medical supplies.  Some children also wore loaves of bread as masks to protest hunger in Gaza.  In Lebanon, nearly 2,000 students marched on the UN headquarters in Beirut, where they sang resistance songs for 30 minutes before dispersing peacefully.

For more information, please see:

AFP – UN Council to Take Up Israel Blockade of Libya Ship: Source – 3 December 2008

The Daily Star – Scores of Children Protest Against Israel’s Seige of the Gaza Strip – 3 December 2008

New Zealand Herald – Israel Punishing Aid Workers, Says UN Official – 3 December 2008

YNet News – UN to Discuss Israel’s Refusal to Allow Libyan Ship to Dock in Gaza – 3 December 2008

Radio Netherlands Worldwide – Gaza’s Hungry Children – 2 February 2008 

By Lauren Mellinger
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

BAGHDAD, Iraq  – On December 2, the Iraqi High Tribunal sentenced Ali Hassan al-Mahid, also known as “Chemical Ali” to death for his role in suppressing a Shia uprising in 1991.  This is the second death sentence al-Majid has received since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

The court also sentenced former Baath Party official Abdulghani Abdul Ghafour to death for the same offense.  Both al-Majid and Ghafour are scheduled to be hung, for “committing wilful killings and crimes against humanity.”  Ten other defendants on trial received sentences ranging from 15 to 20 years in prison, while some received life sentences.  It is estimated that between 20,000 and 100,000 people were killed in the regime’s attempt to put down the rebellion.

In explaining why other defendants received lighter sentences, Judge Mohammad al-Uraibi stated that “Most of them apologized and felt regret during the trial except Ali Hassan al-Majid.”

Al-Majid received his first death sentence in June 2007 after being convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes for his actions during the 1988 Anfal campaign against the Iraqi Kurdish population, which killed more than 100,000 people, including many women and children.  Also part of the Anfal campaign was the gassing of the Kurdish village of Halabja in northern Iraq, killing more than 5,000 civilians.  For his role in the Anfal campaign, he received the nickname “Chemical Ali.”

During the Shia uprising in 1991, Al-Majid served as the Defense Minister and was considered to be Saddam Hussein’s “right-hand man.”  As a member of the Revolutionary Command Council, Al-Majid was routinely called upom to put down Shia and Kurdish rebellions.

During the trial for Al-Majid’s involvement in “crushing” the Shia uprising following Saddam Hussein’s defeat in the first Gulf WAr, witnesses gave testimony of the mass executions; including accounts of family members being thrown from helicopters, massacres in and around the Shia holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, and the bombing of Shia towns and villages in southern Iraq.

The execution for Al-Majid’s prior conviction was never scheduled due to a political dispute.  The Iraqi High Tribunal has not set a date for execution following this latest conviction, leaving time for Al-Majid to appeal the decision, if he chooses.

For more information, please see:

BBC –New Chemical Ali Death Sentence  – 2 December 2008

CNN – Chemical Ali Sentenced – Again – to Death – 2 December 2008

Guardian – Iraq’s ‘Chemical Ali’ Gets Second Death Sentence for Shia Massacre – 2 December 2008

International Herald Tribune – Iraq’s ‘Chemical Ali’ Gets Second Death Sentence – 2 December 2008