By Ali Al-Bassam
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

SANAA, Yemen — Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a 30 page report last Monday, revealing the number of juveniles who currently face capital punishment in Yemen.  For their report, HRW interviewed five young men and a young woman on death row in Sanaa Central Prison, and also reviewed case files for nineteen other alleged juvenile offenders.

Titled “‘Look at Us with a Merciful Eye’: Juvenile Offenders Awaiting Execution on Yemen’s Death Row,” HRW urged President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi to immediately reverse execution orders for three alleged juvenile offenders who had exhausted their appeals process and currently await an execution by firing squad.

The report also revealed that at least 22 juveniles were sentenced to death despite being under 18 years old at the time they allegedly committed the crime.  It also stated that at least fifteen men and women who claimed to be below the age of eighteen were executed in the last five years.

Human Rights campaigners criticize Yemen, who has one of the highest death penalty rates in the world, for increasingly jailing and executing people who committed crimes as children.  Campaigners also criticized Yemen for its failure to provide everyone with birth certificates, and for having a failing justice system.

Mariam al-Batah, a nineteen year old who is currently awaiting execution, was one of the prisoners mentioned in HRW’s report.  For three years, she has called Hodeida Central Prison, a crowded jail located in Yemen’s Western Coast, home.  She was sentenced to death for committing murder at the age of fifteen.  Her family came from a rural background, like 80% of Yemen’s estimated population, and failed to register a birth certificate for her, resulting in tragic consequences.  Al-Batah, who was married off at the age of twelve, killed the child of her husband’s first wife when the child released her from a room that her husband had locked her in.  She recalled rushing out of the room in a “disoriented and dizzy state,” and then violently hurled the child to the floor, killing it immediately.  When she could not produce a birth certificate before the court to prove she was younger than eighteen, she was sentenced to death.

Since 1994, Yemen’s penal code had banned the execution of juveniles.  Under Yemeni law, children fifteen years and younger can be tried as adults, but are only subject to a maximum penalty of ten years imprisonment if found guilty of murder.  “Proving one’s age is a huge issue in Yemen in these cases,” said Priyana Motaparthy, a researcher for HRW. “But there is a second issue: even in cases when juvenile offenders and lawyers were able to produce strong evidence suggesting they were under eighteen for their alleged crime, judges and prosecutors have disregarded Yemeni law and called for death sentences.”

HRW said that President Hadi should review all death sentences where doubt exists that the defendant was at least eighteen years of age at the time the offense was committed, and to commute sentences when evidence of a defendant’s age is inconclusive or in conflict.

HRW says that Yemen is one of four countries in the Middle East where juveniles can still be face capital punishment.  The other three are Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan.

Al Jazeera — Yemen Unyielding on Child Executions — 4 March 2013

Human Rights Group — Yemen: Juvenile Offenders Face Execution — 4 March 2013

United Press International — HRW: Yemeni Government Urged to Stop Executing Youthful Offenders — 4 March, 2013

Yemen Post — HRW Urges new Government in Yemen to Stop Executions of Juveniles — 4 March 2013

By Justin Dorman
Impunity Watch Reporters, Middle East

The latest viral fad that has dominated YouTube in the United States has been the dance videos made to DJ Baauer’s hit, the “Harlem Shake.” The video begins with one person dancing to a combination of hip-hop, house, and crunk music known as trap music, before it cuts to a group of people in costume dancing at the same location. The internet sensation has now taken the Middle East by storm.

While the essence of the videos are entertainment, the viral video has found a niche in the Arab protest movements. Videos have arisen all around the Middle East like Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, but the biggest impacts have been felt in Syria, Tunisia, and Egypt.

In Tunisia, students brawled last week with Salafi extremists outside the Bourguiba Language Institute in Tunis. The Salafi are ultraconservative and tried to stop the shooting of a student made video which they found to be indecent. One of the Salafis held a firebomb, but he was surrounded by students and teachers who kept him from using it. His main concern was that his fellow Muslim brothers were dying in Palestine, and all these students wanted to do was dance.

Shortly after, a younger group of Tunisians from the Père Blanc school filmed their own video without any protest. Upon receiving word of its completion, however, the Tunisian Minister of Education, Abdul Latif Obaid, ordered a criminal investigation of the matter. The Minister who is viewed as more of a moderate leftist pulled this maneuver in order to solidify his cabinet position when the ruling conservative Ennahda Party makes its new choices. This investigation prompted organized protests by students outside the of the Ministry of Education building. These protesters were greeted with tear gas.

In Egypt, approximately seventy demonstrators performed the popular dance just outside the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood is the ultraconservative Islamist party that boasts Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi. Besides for performing the “Harlem Shake,” the group of demonstrators chanted anti-government slogans. The group was specifically reacting to last week’s arrest of four pharmaceutical students who were detained for making their own “Harlem Shake” video. The arrested individuals were dancing in just their underwear, which is in violation of their public decency laws.

While the “Harlem Shake” has caused conflict in the two previously mentioned countries, its greatest unifying effect has taken place in Syria. There, a group of adolescents staged a scene that appears to be a fight between Assad loyalists and the Free Syrian Army. Before long, the fight busts out into a dance party with the “Harlem Shake” playing in the background. Posters can be seen in the video that read, “Stop the Violence” and “Do the Harlem Shake.”

For further information, please see:

France 24 – ‘Harlem Shake’ Rocks Deeply-Divided Arab World – 1 March 2013

New York Times – ‘Harlem Shake’ Protests in Tunisia and Egypt – 28 February 2013

The Times of Israel – ‘Harlem Shake’ Stirs up North Africa – 28 February 2013

New York Times – Arab Spring Blues? – 27 February 2013

By Justin Dorman
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

TEHRAN, Iran – A couple of weeks ago, at the 63rd annual Berlin International Film Festival, also known as the Berlinale, Jafar Panahi was awarded the Silver Bear for Best Script for his film, Closed Courtain. Iranian authorities were far from proud of their fellow Iranian’s success, and seized the passports of co-director/actor Kambuzia Partovi and actress Maryam Moghadam. The move was made to ensure that those affiliated with the film could not promote it internationally.

Javad Shamaghdari, the head of Iran’s ministry of culture’s cinema and film department was furious with the Berlinale for screening and awarding the film. “We have protested to the Berlin film festival. Its officials should amend their behavior because in cultural and cinematic exchange, this is not correct,” said Shamaghdari. “Everyone knows that a license is needed to make films in our country and send them abroad.” 

In December 2010, Panahi was sanctioned with a twenty year ban from making films. He was also barred from giving interviews, and was given a six year jail sentence. Nevertheless, in 2011, his work, “This Is Not a Film,” reached Cannes and was well received. Much of that video, filmed largely on his cell phone, tells the day-in-the-life account of Panahi while on house arrest.

His most recent work, Closed Curtain, which is also known as Padré, is a fictional drama that is a not so subtle critique of Iranian authorities’ repression of Iranian artists, which mirrors much of Panahi’s own situation. The tale focuses on individuals who are hiding at a remote beachfront villa, trying to evade the authorities. This is Panahi’s villa by the Caspian Sea where he is under house arrest.

Parvoti, who co-directs the film, also plays a screenwriter who is hiding from the authorities at  the villa. He blacks out the windows and attempts to write when Melika, played by Maryam Moghadam finds him. She claims to be a mere girl also on the run from the police, however, the nature of her prying questions about Parvoti’s hiding and screenwriting indicate that she may represent the spirit of freedom. Shortly after it is revealed that Parvoti and Melika are just on the set of a film which Pahini is shooting, however, characters from the film continually haunt Pahini. The film goes on to artistically suggest that Pahini is Parvoti.

The next appearance the film will make will be at the Hong Kong film festival. None of the major participants in the film will be allowed to leave Iran to promote it.

Panahi is also well known for directing The White Balloon, Crimson Gold, and Offside. Jafar Panahi, along with Nasrin Sotoudeh,  were co-winners of the prestigious 2012 Sakharov Prize, which is the top award given for freedom of thought.

For further information, please see:

Blouin Art Info – Iran Seizes Passports of Jafar Panahi’s “Closed Curtain” Collaborators – 28 February 2013

Film Society Lincoln Center – “Closed Curtain” Filmmakers Banned From Leaving Iran – 28 February 2013

Guardian – Jafar Panahi’s Closed Curtain Collaborators Grounded in Iran – 28 February 2013

Radio Zamaneh – Collaborators of Panahi Film Banned From Travel – 28 February 2013