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Human Rights Watch Brings Focus to the Problem of Elderly Prisoners

By Brittney Hodnik
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

WASHINGTON, United States – According to figures from 2010, eight percent of the prison population (or 124,400 inmates) is 55 years old or older.  This number is up from three percent in 1995.  A report released by Human Rights Watch acknowledged this change and demonstrated why this is such a problem.

The growing elderly prison population causes problems for states, facilities, officers, and the prisoners themselves. (Image courtesy of CNN)

Human Rights Watch issued a 106-page report titled “Old Behind Bars: The Aging Prison Population in the United States.”  Not only does the report outline the problems, but also calls for changes on harsh sentencing rules, mandatory minimum sentences, reduced opportunities for parole, and additional changes in prison facilities.

Not only does the aging prison population cause problems for the prisons themselves, but also for taxpayers and policymakers.  According to CNN, older prisoners incur medical costs that are three to nine times higher than younger prisoners.

Jamie Fellner, a Human Rights Watch special adviser who wrote the report, sees extreme comparisons between prisons and geriatric facilities.  “U.S. corrections officials now operate old age homes behind bars,” Fellner said, as reported by TIME.

Elderly prisoners face many issues within the prisons themselves.  The facilities are not equipped for wheelchairs; the elderly cannot easily climb into top bunks or up sets of stairs.  Some facilities struggle with whether they need grab bars and handicap toilets for elderly inmates.

A.T. Wall is the director of the Rhode Island Department of Corrections and president of the Association of State Correctional Administrators.  According to TIME, Wall said “Dementia can set in, and an inmate who was formerly easy to manage becomes very difficult to manage.”  He continued on to explain, “There are no easy solutions.”

While the report wants changes in many areas of sentencing, Human Rights Watch is not advocating for complete release.  According to The New York Times, Fellner said, “Age should be a get-out-of-jail-free card, but when prisoners are so old and infirm that they are not a threat to public safety, they should be released under supervision.”  Fellner goes on to argue that if changes are not made soon, “legislatures are going to have to pony up a lot more money to pay for proper care for them behind bars.”

Besides lengthy sentences and more life sentences, the other factor that contributes to the elderly inmate population is that the number of old people entering for the first time, according to The New York Times.

Although the lacking budget in most states hinders significant change, some states are really making an effort.  For example: The Louisiana State Penitentiary has a hospice program where fellow prisoners provide care for their fellow dying inmates.  They provide everything from changing diapers to saying prayers, according to TIME.

Other states like Washington and Montana are looking into opening assisted living facilities for elderly inmates.  Each facility is small – capacities of 74 and 120 beds respectively – but will provide specialized treatment for the elderly inmates.

The biggest dilemma is that some of the inmates are still dangerous and some are not, so it is difficult to create a bright line rule for release.

In a nation where sentences seem to get longer and longer, the problem is only going to get worse.  The report points out that almost 10% of state prisoners are serving a life sentence, according to CNN.  Furthermore, another 11.2% have sentences longer than 20 years.

While facility changes are beginning, the report points out the fact that guards and other correctional officers are not trained properly to deal with the elderly.  Linda Redford, director of the geriatric education center at the University of Kansas Medical Center has helped train prison staff and inmates to better deal with geriatric prisoners.  Even the medical staff is not prepared to deal with it: “They’re used to having to deal with issues of younger prisoners, such as HIV and substance abuse,” Redford said, according to TIME.

States and prisons will continue to try to deal with caring for elderly patients.  Often times they are disregarded due to their inmate status.  The Human Rights Watch report will hopefully point out some of the common problems across the nation.

According to the Lawrence Journal World, Feller begs us to ask the question, “How are justice and public safety served by the continued incarceration of men and women whose bodies and minds have been whittled away by age?”

For more information, please visit:

CNN — Human Rights Watch Expresses Concern for Aging Prisoners — 27 Jan. 2012

Lawrence World Journal — As Inmates Age, Medical Costs Soar — 27 Jan. 2012

TIME/AP — Number of Elderly Inmates Surges — 27 Jan. 2012

The New York Times — Older Prisoners Mean Rising Health Costs, Study Finds — 26 Jan. 2012

 

Impunity Watch Launches Online Law Journal App

by Staff
Impunity Watch

Announcing the Launch of the Impunity Watch App
The First Online Law Journal App

Learning about human rights violations and other instances of government impunity is now available through smartphone. Impunity Watch, the first global, law student-run blog to monitor instances of impunity, has launched its first official mobile application in the Android Marketplace, available January 25, with its Apple Store version available soon. Impunity Watch is managed by Syracuse University College of Law student reporters who constantly monitor human rights news around the world.


“The app allows users to read news from all over the world,” says Laura E. Hirahara, a third-year law student and technical director for Impunity Watch.  “As the first law journal app, it allows readers to interact with the website and receive instant updates on human rights issues on their phone.”

Impunity Watch, which was founded by Syracuse University College of Law Professor David M. Crane L’80, the former chief prosecutor of the Special Court to Sierra Leone, offers readers an exclusive online format that provides uncensored online dialogue that sorts issues of impunity by global regions and a separate area that allows posting of academic or formal papers on the issues of impunity.

The app is currently available for Android smartphones, and will be available on the Apple App Market soon. You can download the app from the Android Market by clicking here.

For the latest information about the new app, visit Impunity Watch at http://www.impunitywatch.net, follow the blog on Twitter @ImpuniTweet and on Facebook.

Don’t have a smartphone? Don’t worry, even though you still haven’t entered 2012, you can still follow Impunity Watch on Twitter and Facebook, or visit our website to sign up for our RSS Feed or have daily news headlines sent to your email.

Venezuelans Protest Chavez’s Decision to Close Consulate in Miami

By Paula Buzzi
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

CARACAS, Venezuela  — An estimated 160,000 Venezuelans living in Florida may not be able to participate in the upcoming elections after President Hugo Chavez closed the Venezuelan consulate in downtown Miami following the recent exile of Consul General Livia Acosta Noguera. The consulate served thousands of Venezuelans living in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas.

Venezuelans gather in downtown Miami to protest the closing of the Venezuelan consulate. (Photo Courtesy of AFP).

Hundreds of Venezuelans living in Florida gathered over the weekend in downtown Miami in protest to demand that the consulate be reopened immediately. Many Venezuelans living in the Southeast depend on the consulate to, among other things, renew passports, receive pensions, transfer currency and vote.

Mario Di Giovanni, a student at Florida International University, helped organize the protest. “There are a lot of things necessary for the day-to-day life of Venezuelans here that cannot be done now that we don’t have the consulate,” Di Giovanni said. He is asking for the rights of Venezuelans to be defended.

One of the biggest concerns surrounding the closing of the consulate is the question of how Venezuelans will be able to register and vote in the upcoming presidential elections in Venezuela where Chavez is seeking another six-year term. Although Venezuela’s National Electoral Council has promised Venezuelan’s living in the United States that they will be able to vote, protestors say they have yet to receive any information. The opposition primary in Venezuela is on February 12.

There has been some speculation that reason behind Chavez’s decision to close the consulate is to sabotage the primary elections of the oppositions. Chavez denies that accusation, and instead, blames the United States for the closing.

“Now that we are closing the consulate administratively over threats against the personnel, they’re accusing me now that it’s a plan to sabotage the primary elections (of the opposition), that it’s an outrage against the Venezuelans who live in Miami,” the Venezuelan president said during an interview with Televen.

Chavez states that he closed the consulate following an “unjust” order from Washington to exile Acosta on January 6. A documentary aired by Univision accused Acosta of having discussed a possible cyber-attack against the U.S. while working at a Venezuelan Embassy in Mexico in 2006.

Vice President Elias Jaua assures Venezuelans residing in the United States that both the Los Angeles consulate and the New York consulate are open and able to carry out consular functions. Some protestors residing in Florida, however, say that the travel to New York or California would be cost-prohibited.

For further information, please see:

Herald Tribune – Chavez Blames U.S. in Venezuela’s Consulate Closing – 24 January 2011

AFP  – Venezuelans in Miami Protest Closing of Consulate – 21 January 2012

The Washington Post – Venezuelans in US Protest Closure of Miami Consulate Following Diplomat’s Expulsion – 21 January 2012

ABC News – Venezuela: Consulate Officials in US Threatened – 15 January 2012

Fox News – Latino Chavez to Close Venezuelan Consulate in Miami – 14 January 2012

 

 

 

British Government Ceases Inquiry into Rendition and Torture Collusion; Activists Call for Independent Investigation

By Alexandra Halsey-Storch
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

LONDON, England–On Wednesday, January 18, Justice Secretary Ken Clarke announced that England would discontinue an investigation, initiated by Prime Minister David Cameron in 2010, to look into the country’s involvement with the United States’s extremely controversial extradition and rendition program. The decision to cease Cameron’s “Detainee Inquiry” came shortly after the statement announcing that the Metropolitan Police and Crown Prosecution Service would instead “launch a criminal investigation into claims that Britain’s domestic intelligence service, M15, and overseas spy agency, M16, were complacent in the illegal rendition of terror suspects to Libya. These “fresh allegations” were made by Abdel Hakim Belhadj, a Libyan Islamist and his attorneys at Leigh Day & Co.

Abdel Hakim Belhadj, commander of the former rebel forces in Libya, has brough torture charges against the British Government

Cameron’s Detainee Inquiry was to be led by a retired appeals court judge, Peter Gibson, who was appointed to investigate whether British agents had collaborated with foreign security services, namely the Central Intelligence Agency (“CIA”), in a supposed effort to obtain information from suspected terrorists being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and in so doing engaged in abusive and torturous tactics. Additionally, the inquiry was to investigate allegations made by several British citizens of Pakistani descent who claimed that “they were abused in custody” while in Pakistan “with complicity from British officials.”

Scotland Yard has already investigated the Guantanamo Bay detainee’s cases and although Peter Gibson “regretted the inquiry would not be completed” he “agreed it was not practical to continue for an indefinite period.” Further, he hopes that the investigations that have been done will not be for naught and anticipates that the information that has already been collected “will materially assist the future inquiry that the government intends to establish.”

On the other hand, however, according to Belhadj’s attorneys, the Detainee Inquiry “was ill-conceived from the beginning, the government reserved the right for the final say on what material would be published and did not allow for cross-examination or any other way of testing the evidence from members of the UK security services, which was to be given secretly. Additionally, only “as much of the report as possible” would have been accessibly to the public, rather than the entire investigation.

Human Rights activists have taken a similar stance. Clare Algar, an executive director of Reprieve, stated that the inquiry, “simply did not have the power or independence to get to the truth.” She went on to say that the organization “looks forward to working with the government to ensure that an inquiry with real clout and independence is established.”

Amnesty International’s Europe and Central Asia director, Nicola Duckworth, agreed with Algar’s sentiments, saying that the inquiry was never fit for purpose, and fell short of the UK’s international human rights obligations to fully and independently investigation allegations of UK involvement in torture and ill-treatment.” Duckworth went on to iterate that Amnesty International “hopes that the government seizes the opportunity presented by the mounting allegations of UK involvement , the ongoing criminal investigations into specific cases, and the report of the Detainee Inquiry’s work to date, to establish a human-rights- compliant inquiry that ensures real accountability.”

According to the BBC, the new police investigation came about as a result of claims made by Abdel Hakim Belhadj, a commander of the former rebel forces in Libya and Sami-al-Saadi. “The allegations raised in the two specific cases…are so serious that it is in the public interest for them to be investigated now rather than at the conclusion of the Detainee Inquiry.” It is likely that the British government will also need the police investigation to build its defense in the legal action which Belhadj and his attorneys have initiated against the government.

Belhadj says that he was tortured in Libya after being arrested in 2004 while in Bangkok, Thailand. The arrest allegedly occurred during a CIA and M16 operation which was conducted to help Muammar Gaddafi “round up his enemies.” Belhadj says he tortured for six year.  Belhadj was not allowed to bathe and was “subjected to protracted investigations.”  He also says that his pregnant wife was held in Libya for four months and released only just before she gave birth. Belhadj claims that he told British intelligence services about the torture when they visited him in Libya; they did nothing to prevent future harm.

“Those who contributed to this, those who have harmed us, and the people who elected them—they committed this crime while pretending to protect human rights—we want to see them brought to justice,” commented Belhadj.

The allegations have been consistently denied by both “current and former heads of M15 and M16 and British authorities say they would never use, or encourage others to use, torture to gain information” despite years of accusations suggesting that they did in fact assist in the “ill treatment of detainees, often at the hands of U.S. authorities after the September 11 attacks on the United States.”

In yet a similar case, Sami-al-Saadi has made like allegations, claiming “British collusion in rendition and is demanding damages for the torture he suffered in one of Gaddafi’s prisons.”

For more information, please visit:

Reuters–UK Scraps Torture Inquiry While Police Probe Libya Cases–January 18, 2012

BBC–UK Inquiry Into Rendition and Torture Collusion Scrapped–January 18, 2012

 

 

Thousands of Forced Sterilization Cases Reopened in Peru

by Emilee Gaebler
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

LIMA, Peru – In a decision dated October 21, Peru’s Attorney General re-opened the investigation into thousands of forced sterilizations that occurred during the presidency of Alberto Fujimori.  Fujimori, who served as President of Peru from 1990 until 2000, utilized this sterilization program in an attempt to reduce poverty rates throughout the country.

Victoria Vigo a victim of Fujimori's forced sterlization program. (Photo Courtesy of Global Post)

Attorney General José Bardales was able to re-open the cases due to a recent announcement, by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that crimes against humanity had occurred in Peru’s sterilization program.  The cases related to the program were closed back in 2009 on grounds that they were not a serious violation of human rights and under the statute of limitations.  With this new classification as a crime against humanity, the program is now reachable as it cannot be proscribed.

About 2,000 women have provided testimony that they were forced to undergo sterilization surgeries, although it is estimated by human rights groups that overall, 300,000 women were forcibly sterilized.  Additionally, evidence shows that at least 18 deaths occurred as a result of these surgeries.  The women were mainly from rural areas and illiterate.  Those who were indigenous Quechua speakers were also targeted by the program.  Amnesty International states that the program clearly violated human rights law in denying women their reproductive rights but was also racially motivated because of the victims being predominately indigenous Andeans.

“Instead of providing women with other methods of family planning, like birth control pills, Fujimori promoted surgical and definitive methods. Health officials gave women no other options, no alternatives, they pressured and threatened them into having the operation,” said Francisco Soberon, head of Peru’s biggest human rights group APRODEH, in a phone interview with TrustLaw.

The case receiving the most attention is that of María Mestanza.  Mestanza was a 33 year old woman with 7 children who died in 1996 from complications after undergoing a sterilization procedure.  Her family originally brought the case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights due to testimony that Mestanza only went through the surgery after being threatened by officials.  “Mestanza was told that a law had been passed and that she and her husband were going to be fined or imprisoned because they had (more than) five kids already,” said Alejandra Cardenas of the Center for Reproductive Rights based in New York.

In 2001, the Peruvian government reached a settlement with Mestanza’s family that consisted of a $100,000 compensation payment as well as free education for her children.  However, at the time of the settlement the regional human rights commission urged the Peruvian government to prosecute those responsible.

The issue of consent was hotly contested when the cases were first brought.  Officials of the Fujimori government claimed that all surgeries were done voluntarily as evidenced by signed consent forms.  However, investigators paint a different version of the story with the women being harassed, threatened and outright lied to in order to get the forms signed.

The sterilization policy to reduce poverty was started in 1995 and announced by then President Fujimori as a free program.  The United States originally supported it with USAID donating $35 million.  Shortly after the announcement, monthly quotas were enacted and enforced, driving doctors to forcibly sterilize many.

Another victim, Victoria Vigo was sterilized during a cesarean surgery in 1996.  Her baby was born prematurely causing the doctors to operate during which time the surgeon severed her fallopian tubes.  The baby died during surgery, and afterwards, Vigo accidently overheard a conversation between two doctors that she had been sterilized.

“He [the surgeon] had even omitted it from my clinical notes. He knew what he was doing. I could have gone on trying for years and years to have another child without even knowing that I had been sterilized. I felt mutilated, completely violated. What kind of values does a person like that have?” said Vigo to Global Post.

In 2003 Vigo sued the doctor and won $3500 in compensatory damages.  At the trial the surgeon argued that he was simply following orders and that the program was official policy which he was bound to follow.

Alberto Fujimori listens to the guilty verdict in 2009 during his trial for using a death squad. (Photo Courtesy of Guanabee News)

Fujimori himself is currently serving a 25 year sentence for other human rights abuses committed during his presidency.  At the end of his leadership in 2000, rampant corruption was exposed and Fujimori fled to Japan from where he faxed his resignation as President.  Japan granted him citizenship, forcing Peru to spend years trying to extradite him.

In September of 2007, Fujimori was brought to Peru and tried for his crimes involving a death squad.  The 73 year-old was then diagnosed with cancer.  His family is urging the current President Ollanta Humala to release him early on medical grounds.

Humala, who won elections this past June, narrowly beating Fujimori’s daughter Keiko, has yet to respond to the request.  The sterilization program was arguably a huge reason why Fujimori’s daughter lost.  Throughout her campaign she remained vague about the program, responding with apologies to victims but insisting the sterilizations were done by individual “bad doctors” acting independently.

 

For more information, please see;

Trust Law – Investigation Reopens Wounds of Peru’s Forcibly Sterilized Women – 9 November 2011

Global Post – Peru: Forced Sterilization Cases Reopened – 8 November 2011

Latin America Press – Forced Sterilization Cases Reopened – 3 November 2011

Amnesty International – Peru to Reopen Investigation Into Forced Sterilization of Women – 31 October 2011

Gulf Times – Pardon Sought for Fujimori – 31 October 2011

Antara News – Fujimori Family Wants Pardon for Peru Ex-Leader – 30 October 2011

Associated Press – Peru Reopens Probe of Forced Sterilization – 28 October 2011

Latin American and Caribbean Womens Health Network – Peru: Forced Sterilization Cases Reopened – 28 October 2011