By: Sara Adams Impunity Watch News Reporter, Europe
Russian police pat down a protester. Image courtesy of Nikolay Koreshkov.
MOSCOW, Russia – Several protesters were arrested by the Russian police in Moscow on November 5th.
News outlets are reporting anywhere from 86 to 260 have been arrested at an unauthorized gathering at Manezh Square.
The rally was allegedly planned by a group known in Russia for their anti-Vladimir Putin stance. The group, called Artpodgotovka, has been labeled an “extremist” group by a Russian court.
Russia’s security agency also reported that it had arrested several group members suspected of plotting to firebomb government buildings.
This is not the first time President Putin has sent in law enforcement to arrest people who oppose him.
In early October, 290 protesters were arrested among 26 cities. The protests were marches against Mr. Putin, taking place on his birthday.
Thousands reportedly marched against Mr. Putin’s government.
Free speech and assembly rights in Russia have been severely limited since Mr. Putin took presidential power in 2012.
Before that, Mr. Putin served as prime minister since 1999.
Much of the anti-Putin sentiment is stoked by fears of another revolution.
This year marks the 100-year anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution, the event that led to a massive civil war with millions of casualties.
The Russian government, the Kremlin, will not commemorate this event for fears of stoking anti-government sentiment.
Dima Litvinov is the great-grandson of Maxim Litvinov, who was a Soviet foreign minister after the Bolshevik revolution.
He says that his great-grandfather would be “horrified by the extreme nationalism and religious intolerance that is going up in Russia.”
He adds, “Russia, in a way, hasn’t moved on. People feel detached from the ability to affect their fate and the government. The authorities like it that way.”
Mr. Litvinov may not be far off.
The November 5th protesters are alleged to have been led by nationalist politician Vyacheslav Maltsev. Mr. Maltsev is an outspoken critic of Mr. Putin.
Mr. Maltsev has called publicly for Mr. Putin to be impeached. He also has said that a “revolution is imminent.”
While several of the protesters are being released from detainment, Mr. Maltsev is reportedly living abroad after a Moscow court issued an arrest warrant for him.
By Sarah Purtill Impunity Watch Reporter, North America
WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S. – The Davis family wanted to add to their family by adopting a child. After being in contact with Debra Parris of The European Adoption Consultants (EAC), Jessica and Adam Davis were told about a little girl named Mata. EAC said that Mata’s father was deceased and that her mother was severely neglecting her. The EAC informed the Davis family they had to decide quickly if they wanted to adopted Mata and so they quickly adopted her.
Mata and the Davises after they “adopted” her. Photo Courtesy of Jessica Davis.
As Mata’s English improved, the Davis’s learned more about Mata’s mother. The way Mata spoke of her mother did not reflect what the Davis’s were told. Jessica Davis then became suspicious. After a skype call between Mata and her mother, Jessica’s suspicions were confirmed. During the skype conversation, Mata’s mother revealed it was not her intention to give up Mata for good.
Instead, Mata’s mother explained how she was tricked into giving Mata up. Mata’s mother had been told that Mata would be given a great educational opportunity if she was sent away. Her mother was also told that Mata would one day return and that her mother would always be a part of her life. Mata’s mother unknowingly signed away her parental rights when she thought her daughter was being given a once in a life time experience.
When Jessica and Adam realized the information they had been told by the EAC was not true, they realized they had to reunite Mata with her mother. Jessica Davis contacted the U.S. State Department for guidance on how to proceed with the situation. The State Department told Jessica, “you can just keep her if you want.” She responded with, “I didn’t purchase her at Walmart.” Jessica was fearful that if the government notified EAC, something would happen to Mata’s mother. After a three-year journey, and $65,000, Mata was returned to her mother.
Mata reuniting with her mother and siblings after the Davis family brought her back to Uganda. Photo Courtesy of Keren Riley.
The Davis’s were crushed by this experience. They wanted to adopt a child as it was in line with their religious beliefs. Adam said, “We unwittingly placed an order for a child. The only trauma this poor kid ever experienced was because we essentially placed an order for a child.” The Davis’s had filed paperwork to vacate Mata’s adoption and the Ugandan government gave Mata’s mother her parental rights back. Jessica and Adam both believe that other Ugandan children like Mata are being trafficked without the American families who were “adopting” them being aware.
CNN investigated these claims and found that children were being taken from their homes in Uganda. Their mothers were being promised the same thing Mata’s mother was being promised, an educational opportunity for their children. The children were then placed in orphanages and sold for as much as $15,000. CNN also discovered that multiple families had been tricked by EAC. EAC was an adoption agency started by Margaret Cole. Cole started the adoption agency after she lost her child to SIDS.
EAC has been responsible for placing more than 2,000 children from overseas in homes across America since 1991. The agency continued to grow and handled adoptions from countries around the globe. CNN states, “tax records from 2000 to 2015 show that EAC reported more than $76.1 million in revenue and more than $76.3 million in expenses over that period.” In 2004, several families raised questions about their adoptions through EAC in story for Cleveland Magazine. Cole claimed back then that she had a “radar” for the shady businesses involved in adoptions but now stories like the Davis’s shows that this clearly is not the case. CNN has also been unable to locate Cole to receive commentary on CNN’s investigation.
EAC has been shut down by the State Department for 3 years. Since the shut down, the FBI has raided the building and taken away materials. The Ohio attorney general’s office filed suit in June to have the adoption agency ended for good. The EAC “failed to adequately supervise its providers in foreign countries to ensure” that they didn’t engage inthe “sale, abduction, exploitation or trafficking of children,” according to the State Department. The Ugandan government shut down the orphanage that Mata had been placed in. In a letter to CNN, they said the orphanage had been closed for “trafficking of children,” “operating the children’s home illegally” and “processing guardianship orders fraudulently.”
The EAC building in Ohio has been abandoned since the agency has been debarred. Photo Courtesy of CNN.
A study done by the Ugandan government and sponsored by UNICEF in 2015 revealed that Ugandan parents were being deceived and bribed with financial incentives and orphanages were often complicit. The orphanages did not always verify information about children’s histories before putting them in the orphanage.
Mata’s story is similar to that of Violah. At 7-years-old, she was adopted by Stacey and Shawn Wells. Like the Davis’s, the Wells were coerced into making a decision quickly on whether or not they would adopt Violah. They paid EAC about $15,000 for the adoption. Violah lived with the Wells family for a year and during that time, they too saw inconsistencies with the adoption agencies story. They were told that Violah had been abandoned. But the longer Violah was with them, the more they learned how her mother took her to church and cooked dinner with her.
Violah also spoke about the day that she and her sister were taken away from their mother. After hearing Violah’s story, Shawn went on a Facebook page for the group Reunite. The page shared a post about a mother whose children were taken away from her against her will. Stacey knew that the woman in the post was Violah’s mother. The Wells thought they were adopting an orphan, but instead, Stacey says, “she was made an orphan.”
The Wells wanted to reunite Violah with her mother like the Davis’s reunited Mata with her mother. Stacey and Shawn reached out to Reunite’s Riley who told the Wells that Violah’s mother was lied to. She had been told Violah would get an education in America. It’s the same lie the traffickers told Mata’s mother. Violah’s mother had four children taken from her and she has only been reunited with two of them.
Violah and her mother are reunited in Uganda and embrace with each other and Stacey Wells. Photo Courtesy of Stacey Wells.
Violah and Mata are from the same village in Uganda. They have become friends since their return home. Mata’s mother said she was “very, very, very happy” that Mata has been returned to her. Violah’s mother also said she was “very happy and very grateful.” Now that the girls have been reunited with their mothers, they have kept in touch with the Davis and Wells families. The girls have blossomed since returning home.
Violah and Mata have become fast friends since returning to their mothers in Uganda. Photo Courtesy of Jessica Davis.
By: Emily Green Impunity Watch Reporter, South America
LIMA, Peru –Peru’s Miss Universe Pageant broke from tradition in early November and dedicated the stage to raising awareness for gender violence. Instead of the standard answers, participants gave hard-hitting statistics about femicide that plagues their country.
Miss Peru Beauty Pageant 2018. Image Courtesy of Canal Peru.
The opening segment of Sunday night’s Miss Peru 2018 contest presented an unexpected set of figures to the audience. The time came for contestants to reveal their most intimate measurements on stage including bust, waist, and hip size. One woman responded, “my name is Camila Canicoba and I represent the department of Lima. My measurements are: 2,202 cases of murdered women reported in the last nine years in my country.” Each participant answered in the same way, offering horrific statistics about violence against women in place of their measurements. Another woman offered, “my measurements are: the 65 percent of university women who are assaulted by their partners.”
The pageant organizers later explained that the protest was planned. As each woman spoke, images of brutalized women and newspaper clippings about femicide killings flashed across the enormous screen. Pageant organizer and former beauty queen Jessica Newton sees the event as an opportunity to empower women. In a country with an appalling record for gender violence, the pageant is an effective way to reach the country. The program concluded with a question and answer portion where women were asked how they would change the legal code to better protect women.
Latin American beauty pageants are sometimes criticized as sexist and patriarchal in their portrayal of women. Many are quick to criticize the pageant for maintaining a swimwear segment where contests pose in bikinis. However, pageant supporters disagree. They argue that they should be treated with respect regardless of what they are wearing. Newton responds, “if I walk out in a bathing suit I am just as decent as a woman who walks out in an evening dress.”
Gender violence is an escalating problem in Peru, but awareness is growing. One of the most widely publicized cases was that of Lady Guillen. After showing photos of her bruised face that spanned all the way back to 2012, the judge decided that there was not enough evidence to prove her life was in danger. Her ex-boyfriend was released after only four years in prison. This case, along with many others, sparked the women’s rights campaign in Peru. In August, more than 50,000 people took part in a march in the capital, Lima, to protest the lenient sentences given to perpetrators of violence against women. The movement has continued under the slogan #NiUnaMenos (Not One Less).
The ultimate winner of the competition, Romina Lozano, said her “measurements were 3,114 female victims of trafficking that have been registered since 2014”. She also answered in her final question that she would “implement a database containing the name of each aggressor, not only for femicide but for every kind of violence against women”.
Accordingly, Human Rights Watch released a report that around 700 women were murdered in Peru between 2009 and 2015. Also, more than 50% of Peruvian women will experience severe domestic violence in her lifetime. These startling statistics make the #NiUnaMenos movement even more crucial.
[Jennifer Trahan is an Associate Clinical Professor at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University.]
As Jens Ohlin has written, a highly awaited verdict came out Wednesday, November 22, sentencing Ratko Mladic, former commander of the Main Staff of the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS), to life in prison for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed from 1992-1995.
The verdict was not unexpected given Mladić’s lengthy trial, and that his involvement as commander of the troops who committed the Srebrenica massacre was recorded on well–known news footage. Wire intercepts of his communications were until recently hanging on display on the walls of the Potočari memorial near Srebrenica, in the former battery factory that had also housed UN peacekeepers.
This high-level verdict is an extremely significant one for the ICTY. Mladić was convicted of:
genocide and persecution, extermination, murder, and the inhumane act of forcible transfer in the area of Srebrenica in 1995;
persecution, extermination, murder, deportation and inhumane act of forcible transfer in municipalities throughout Bosnia;
murder, terror and unlawful attacks on civilians in Sarajevo; and
hostage-taking of UN personnel.
The only count of which he was acquitted was the “greater genocide” theory—genocide in additional municipalities in Bosnia in 1992. The verdict is subject to appeal, as is the sentence.
These were extremely brutal crimes with large numbers of victims—over 8,300 alone in and around Srebrenica, over 13,000 in Sarajevo, after a multi-year campaign of sniping and shelling its citizens. The ICTY’s proceedings were extensive, thorough, (and lengthy). Trial commenced in May 2012, and according to the ICTY, there were 530 trial days, 592 witnesses, and nearly 10,000 exhibits introduced into evidence.
While the verdict is coming late in the day no doubt for some victims and their families (for example, 22 years after the Srebrenica massacre), this is not entirely the ICTY’s fault. Mladić spent nearly 16 years on the run, and was only captured and sent to The Hague in 2011.
Well-done trials of international tribunals also take time, particularly when so many victims and so many crimes are involved. Funder states often complain about the high costs of international trials, but these costs pale in comparison to peacekeeping expenditures that might have been required had high-level perpetrators not been indicted and apprehended. And, if one measures the number of crime scenes involved or number of victims whose crimes were adjudicated, then costs seem not nearly as high. States’ representatives and tribunal critics who make these cost arguments should reflect: would they really like to argue to remaining family members that justice for their loved ones is not worth it?
Victims may or may not feel some “closure” at this verdict. Complete closure is of course impossible, as no one can restore their loved ones. But hopefully surviving victims and family members of those who did not survive will take some measure of solace from the verdict.
As Marko Milanovic has written, denial of crimes and partial denial of crimes is still a pervasive problem among certain communities in the former Yugoslavia (particularly in Repŭblika Srpska and Serbia), and today’s verdict is not anticipated to change that. Yet, establishing the facts, hearing witness testimonies, and introducing documentary evidence is extremely significant in its own right, and helps create a solid record that makes denial harder, and perhaps will make it gradually less and less plausible.
Finally, the Mladić verdict can also give us hope for future prosecutions—that justice is sometimes delayed, but remains possible and one needs to remember this. For years (when I was a junior attorney at Human Rights Watch) there was only an “arrest Mladić and Karadžić campaign,” and we had no idea if these two fugitives from justice would ever be apprehended. It took years of concerted pressure and economic leverage from the US and the EU, but the arrests did occur, and the trials did occur. So, as we look on as mass crimes continue today in other countries (such as Syria and Myanmar), and the geopolitical roadblocks to seeing any kind of comprehensive justice solutions, we should remember this long trajectory that the ICTY’s work took, and the need to stay the course.
Welcome to our weekly summary of Syria Deeply’s top coverage of crisis in Syria.
This week saw an unprecedented amount of diplomatic discussions aimed at setting the stage for a settlement to the nearly seven-year conflict in Syria. The uptick came ahead of the eighth round of talks in Geneva and the first Russia, Iran and Turkey-sponsored all-Syria congress aimed at bringing together representatives from the Syrian opposition, government and civil society.
We’ve rounded up what you need to know about Wednesday’s simultaneous but separate meetings between Moscow, Tehran and Ankara in Sochi and the Syrian opposition in Riyadh, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s discussions with several heads of state, including U.S. President Donald Trump, and the upcoming talks on Syria.
Assad Visits Russia: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad met his Russian counterpart in the Black Sea resort in Sochi on Monday. Assad reportedly met with Russian President Vladimir Putin for three hours to discuss a possible settlement to the conflict in Syria.
“Regarding our joint operation to fight terrorists in Syria, this military operation is indeed coming to an end,” Putin said
Assad also spoke to Russian military generals during his surprise visit to Sochi. “I have conveyed to [Mr Putin], and on his behalf to the Russian people, our gratitude for Russia’s efforts to save our country,” Assad told the Russian generals. “In the name of the Syrian people, I greet you and thank you all, every Russian officer, fighter and pilot that took part in this war.”
The visit – believed to be the second time the Syrian president has left the country since the war began in 2011 – came just two days before the presidents of Russia, Iran and Turkey met in Sochi to discuss settling the conflict in Syria. Moscow had reportedly previously assured Iranian and Turkish leaders that it would “work with the Syrian leadership” to ensure any forthcoming agreement “would be viable.”
Syria On The Line: Putin and Trump then discussed a political settlement for Syria in a phone call on Tuesday. Putin reportedly informed Trump of the “need to keep Syria’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity intact,” according to Moscow’s statement. The two leaders reportedly stressed the importance of U.N.-led peace talks in resolving the Syrian conflict, according to a statement released by the White House. Putin also on Tuesday also discussed Syria with a number of other leaders, including Saudi king Salman, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Reuters reported.
Trilateral Talks In Sochi: The presidents of Russia, Iran and Turkey then met in the Russian resort town of Sochi on Wednesday to discuss a solution to the conflict in Syria.. Talks wrapped up on Wednesday evening with an agreement between the three countries’ leaders to hold an all-Syria congress aimed at “gathering delegates from various political parties, internal and external opposition, ethnic and confessional groups at the negotiating table,” Putin said.
“The militants in Syria have sustained a decisive blow and now there is a realistic chance to end the multi-year civil war,” Putin said, according to the Guardian.
An official source at Syria’s Foreign and Expatriates Ministry told state-run news agency SANA that Damascus welcomed the final statement from Sochi, “in light of the Syrian Arab Republic’s commitment to support any political step that respects the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Syria and contributes to sparing the blood of the Syrian people.”
The congress is expected to take place in early December and assemble 1,400 delegates from the regime, opposition, and civil society groups, Syria expert Sami Moubayed wrote in Gulf News. The opposition has yet to issue a statement about the Sochi agreement.
Opposition Meets In Riyadh: Parallel to the Sochi meeting, Syrian opposition representatives gathered for their own set of talks in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday. The opposition High Negotiation Committee (HNC) is hoping to form a stronger, more unified front ahead of the upcoming Syria peace talks in Geneva.
Wednesday’s meeting came two days after Riad Hijab, top HNC negotiation, announced his resignation, citing attempts to force the opposition to come to terms with Assad’s survival.
“With his resignation, Hijab preempted the Riyadh conference on Wednesday, which was planning to form a (new) HNC, elect a new head coordinator, and form a delegation to Geneva talks,” a senior opposition official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Another Round In Geneva: The eighth round of Geneva talks is set to kick off November 28. U.N. special envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura previously stated that this round of Syria talks in Switzerland will focus on drafting a new constitution that would eventually allow for U.N.-verified elections.
The rise of independent Syrian news outlets created more opportunities for women in the media, but many of Syria’s female journalists still face higher security risks than their male colleagues and rampant sexism in the workplace.
As Islamic State continues to lose territory in its major strongholds in Syria, activists and civil society organizations are leading deradicalization efforts, hoping ultimately to erase the militants’ ideological legacy.
Maram Haddad, Program Assistant, Physicians for Human Rights
Physicians for Human Rights program assistant Maram Haddad speaks to doctors and medical professionals in the Eastern Ghouta district outside Damascus about the devastating impact of the intentional use of siege and the lack of medical and food supplies in aid convoys.
Nicholas A. Heras, Middle East Security Fellow, Center for a New American Security
As ISIS pulls out of eastern Syria, U.S.-backed forces will have to contend with stabilizing this territory. But without local allies, the security of SDF-held territory will be challenged, write journalist Omar Abu Layla and security expert Nicholas A.. Heras.
Syria Deeply’s expert community weighed in on how the capture of resource-rich territory from ISIS in east Syria could affect competition to control the country’s gas and oil and how it could impact the parties fighting ISIS.
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