War Crimes Prosecution Watch, Vol. 6, Issue 15 — October 24, 2011

Vol. 6, Issue 15 — October 24, 2011

IN MEMORIAM: The staff of War Crimes Prosecution Watch would like to dedicate this issue to the memory of Judge Antonio Cassese, a giant in the field of international criminal law, and former president of both the Special Tribunal for Lebanon and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. For more on his life, please see here or the website of the Special Court for more information.

 

INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT

Central African Republic & Uganda

Darfur, Sudan

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Kenya

Libya

Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast)

AFRICA

International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

Special Court for Sierra Leone

EUROPE

Court of Bosnia & Herzegovina, War Crimes Chamber

International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Domestic Prosecutions In The Former Yugoslavia

MIDDLE EAST AND ASIA

Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia

Special Tribunal for Lebanon

Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal

War Crimes Investigations in Burma

NORTH AND SOUTH AMERICA

United States

TOPICS

Terrorism

Piracy

Universal Jurisdiction

Gender-Based Violence

REPORTS

UN Reports

TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSIONS

Canada

Ivory Coast

Liberia

COMMENTARY AND PERSPECTIVES

WORTH READING

 

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War Crimes Prosecution Watch is a bi-weekly e-newsletter that compiles official documents and articles from major news sources detailing and analyzing salient issues pertaining to the investigation and prosecution of war crimes throughout the world. For more information about War Crimes Prosecution Watch, please contact warcrimeswatch@pilpg.org.

Another Herder Killed By Truck in Mongolia

By: Jessica Ties
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

HOHHOT, Inner Mongolia – Chinese authorities are being accused of attempting to cover up the killing of an Ethnic Mongolian herdsmen who was struck by an oil truck while protesting the destruction of grazing land in the Uushin Banner district of Inner Mongolia.

Another herder in Inner Mongolia has been killed in the escalating conflict between Ethnic Mongolian herders and oil and gas companies (Photo Courtesy of Radio Free Asia).

Zorigt, was one of several local Inner Mongolian herders involved in protests attempting to prevent the destruction of their land by “… unregulated Chinese oil and gas transport trucks that drive roughshod through their grazing lands and kill livestock.”

Conflicts between herders trying to protect their grazing land and the Shuurhei Oil-Gas Field transporters have resulted in numerous beatings that have caused several herdsmen, including Zorigt, to be hospitalized.

The Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center (SMHRIC) has claimed that the Chinese government is attempting to “…prevent possible unrest by the Mongolians…” and that they had “…preemptively reported on the event, calling it a ‘traffic accident.’” This report, however, has since been removed from other Chinese language internet news sites.

The government’s fear of protests stems from demonstrations that occurred after a similar incident last May. On May 10 another herdsman, Murgen, was run down by the driver of a coal truck as he tried to prevent him from driving over the pasture.

The May killing catalyzed mass demonstrations that were fueled not only by the herdsman’s death, but also by Inner Mongolian anger at the exploitation of natural resources and the apparent erosion of Inner Mongolian self-rule by Han Chinese settlers and developers.

The protests resulted in a government crackdown and the execution of the man convicted of killing Murgen with his truck.

Given the lingering anger of many Inner Mongolians, the Chinese government allegedly hopes to avoid a repeat of the May protests by claiming that the death was caused by Zorigt’s own recklessness in attempting to pass a truck on his motorcycle and was not another intentional killing by a truck driver.

According to the SMHRIC, the government has combated the accusations by posting messages in internet chat rooms to encourage people to disregard the rumors that the death was intentional. One message states, “[s]ome people who have hidden intentions are interpreting it as an ethnic problem or a conflict with the oil and natural gas development.”

Ethnic Mongolians claim that mining and desertification, defined as land degradation that is often caused by human activity, have ruined their grazing lands and that the Han Chinese majority has been the main beneficiaries of the resulting economic development.

 

For more information, please see:

BBC – Truck Kills Herder in Inner Mongolia China – 24 October 2011

China Digital Times – Truck Kills Protesting Herder in Inner Mongolia – 24 October 2011

Radio Free Asia – Group Charges Cover-Up – 24 October 2011

Reuters – Truck Kills Herder in China Inner Mongolia Protest: Group – 24 October 2011

Straits Times – Truck Driver Kills Ethnic Mongol Herder in China Land Dispute – 24 October 2011

Uganda Struggles with Gay Rights as LGBT Advocate Wins Human Rights Award

By Tamara Alfred

Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

Earlier this month, Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera, a Ugandan woman, won the 2011 Martin Ennas Award for Human Rights Defenders.  The award is given annually by 10 of the world’s leading human rights NGOs and has been referred to as the Nobel prize for human rights.  Nabagesera is the founder and executive director of the LGBT rights organization Freedom and Roam Uganda.

The situation for Uganda’s LGBT community is extremely difficult, with numerous documented cases of discrimination, arbitrary arrests, unlawful detention, torture and other ill-treatment based solely on sexual orientation and gender identity.  Activists who work to expose such abuses are frequently targeted.

Ugandan tabloid Rolling Stone publishes a list of the 100 “Top Homos” calling for the people to be hanged. (Photo Courtesy of San Diego Gay and Lesbian News.)

In late January, Ugandan gay rights activist David Kato was murdered after the Ugandan tabloid Rolling Stone published a list of Uganda’s 100 “Top Homos” and called for the people named in the list to be hanged.  Nabagesera’s name also appeared on the list.

“I’ve lived my life fighting openly for gay rights in Uganda, and I’ve had to pay a price for that,” Nabagesera previously told Amnesty International.  “I’ve been evicted from house to house; my office has been evicted; I can no longer move on the streets openly; I’ve been attacked.”

Currently, homosexuality is a criminal offense that carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.  On Tuesday, Parliament voted to reopen a debate over a bill that seeks to expand on the criminalization of homosexuality and make it punishable by the death penalty.

The legislation was first proposed in October 2009 by Ugandan lawmaker David Bahati.  The Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee suggested that the penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” should be the same as for “defilement,” a crime that is punishable by death.  The bill could mandate the death penalty or life in prison for people who are identified as gay, or caught engaging in homosexual acts.

The bill had failed at the end of the previous legislative session after an international outcry directed at the nation.  Both U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague condemned the bill, and more than 1.6 million people around the world signed a petition urging the Parliament to let the bill die.

However, the speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga announced Tuesday that the legislature was interested in saving the bills from the previous parliament.

MP Barnabus Tinkasimire backed the bill, saying, “the anti-gays Bill is overdue because the spirit of my ancestors tell me that they lived without these practices [homosexuality]…We can’t afford to stay with such ills in our society and when it comes before the floor, we shall all pass it and support it.”

Bahati had previously said that the bill is aimed at stamping out western-imported immoral behaviors from society, protecting the moral fabric of the nation, saving the traditional family and buttressing legislation against ‘gayism.’

Uganda is not the only African nation currently dealing with gay rights.  Various other countries, including Ghana and Malawi, have passed laws making homosexuality illegal, while some in Zimbabwe are seeking to have gay rights included in the constitution.

For more information, please see:

Advocate.com – Ugandan Parliament Revisits Kill-The-Gays Bill – 25 October 2011

AllAfrica.com – Zimbabwe: Prime Minister Criticised for Supporting Gays – 25 October 2011

San Diego Gay & Lesbian News – “Kill the Gays Bill” returns, passage could be “imminent” – 25 October 2011

The New York Times – Uganda: Anti-Gay Bill Is Revived – 25 October 2011

Bikya Masr – Uganda gay activist wins human rights award – 15 October 2011

Brazilian Doctors Declared Guilty of Harvesting Organs From Patients Before Death

by Emilee Gaebler
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America 

BRASÍLIA, Brazil – After 25 years a sentence has finally been handed down in a criminal case involving illegal organ harvesting.  Last Thursday a judge sentenced Doctor Rui Sacramento, Doctor Pedro Torrecillas and Doctor Mariano Fiore Jr. to seventeen years and six months each in prison.

The criminal justice system in Brazil is notorious for its protracted cases like this one which took 25 years to reach a sentence. (Photo Courtesy of CTV News)

The three doctors were charged with removing kidneys from four patients that were not really dead.  The patients had signed off on being organ donors in the event of their respective deaths.  The victims were patients in the time period from September to December of 1986.  They were incorrectly declared brain dead by neurosurgeon Mariano Fiore Jr. who then authorized the removal of the organs.    

Torrecillas and Sacramento were the doctors who removed the organs and prepared them for transplant.  Following the removal of the organs, the patients did actually die.  Another neurosurgeon, Antonio de Carvalho Monteiro was also accused but died last year.

The organs were harvested at a public hospital and then sent to a private organ transplant facility.  At public hospitals, transplants are free but the waitlists are long.  At the private facilities the organ transplant process can be accelerated for those wealthy enough to pay the price.  For each kidney, it is estimated that US $41,000 was paid.

Two organ recipients testified in the trial that they paid that amount for a kidney transplant at the private facility.  Both noted that they were not informed of where the organ donation was from. 

The case first came to light in December of 1986 when the head Doctor at the University of Taubate’s medical school noticed irregularities in records regarding organ transplants.  He investigated further into the transplants and the team of doctors who performed them then turned the information over to the Federal Council of Medicine.

The state prosecutor on the case, Marcio Friggi de Carvalho said that the victims, “simply did not have the diagnosis of brain death.”

The doctor’s defense attorney, Sergio Salgado Badaro told the jury, “[I]f you convict them, you will be the first jury in the country to convict doctors for killing people who were already dead.” 

When the sentence was handed down, Baldaro noted that he respected the jury’s decision but his clients were going to appeal.  The doctors will be permitted to continue practicing while their appeal is considered.

Family members of the victims present when the sentence was handed down cried and hugged each other.  The decision has long been awaited and Brazilian authorities have termed it extremely complex in order to explain the 25 year wait.  The Brazilian criminal justice system is known to be a slow machine and it is not uncommon for cases to take years or even decades to be decided. 

 

For more information, please see;

Bio Edge – Brazilian Transplant Doctors Convicted After 25 Years – 22 October 2011

CTV News – Doctors Guilty of Harvesting Organs of Live Patients – 21 October 2011

WHDH News – Brazil Doctors Found Guilty of Killing Patients – 21 October 2011

MSNBC News – Docs Charged For Removing Organs From Live Patients – 17 October 2011