Greece Continues to Postpone Reform for Asylum Seekers

By Ricardo Zamora
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe Desk

ATHENS, Greece – The Greek government has failed to follow through on a January promise to reform its asylum system.  Under the current asylum procedure, Greece continues to recognize as few as 0.05% of asylum seekers as refugees in their first interview and leaves them with no guarantee against the risk of deportation back to their countries where they are subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment.

Human Rights Watch reports that Greece’s current policy is inconsistent with Article 39 of the EU’s procedures directive and articles 13 and 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.  Greek’s failure to adopt policies consistent with the EU directives have prompted the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to withdraw from participation in Greece’s asylum procedure.  Human Rights Watch is urging the UNHCR to reconsider.

Earlier this year Greece proposed a presidential decree to adopt relevant emergency reforms to address asylum issues.  However, the decree, which was previously postponed until September 1, 2010, has been postponed once more, making it unlikely to be implemented before the end of 2011.

“Despite its formal commitments, the Greek government has utterly failed to meet its most basic responsibilities to protect refugees,” said Bill Frelick, Refugee Program director at Human Rights Watch.  “The UN refugee agency has a mandate to protect refugees when a government is unable or unwilling.  It needs to step in now and take over processing asylum claims.”

But the delays are not entirely the government’s fault.  Serious domestic problems are also prohibiting Greece from being able to meet the demands of asylum reform proponents.  For example, the recent financial crisis has drained the government’s already scant resources, making it difficult to implement the changes set out in presidential decree.

Greece is also receiving burdens from the international arena.  Due to its location at Europe’s external border, it has to address over 10,000 requests by other EU nations wanting to funnel their own asylum seekers to Greece.  Thus, Greece has to process not only the asylum seekers of other EU nations, but its own as well.

“Greece is seriously and unfairly overburdened,” Frelick said.  “EU member states need to recognize that, stop sending migrants back to Greece, and reform the Dublin regulation.  Without that, the benefits of reforms in Greece will be undermined by ever greater numbers of returns from other EU states.”

For more information, please see:

Human Rights Watch – Greece: Asylum Reform Delay Unacceptable – September 20, 2010

Human Rights Watch – Open Letter to the Government of Greece on Reform of the Asylum and Immigration System – July 28, 2010

UNHCR – UNHCR Chief Gutteres Backs Planned Greek Asylum Reform – January 20, 2010

BARBADOS: RIGHTS OF HIV/AIDS VICTIMS A PRIORITY

By Erica Laster

Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados –“We have not yet gotten to the stage where a man or woman will disclose equally, routinely and without abashment, that he or she is HIV positive,” indicates Barbados Prime Minister Freundel Stuart at the commencement of the Caribbean Region Symposium on HIV/AIDS and human rights.  

Photo Courtesy of Caricom News Network.
Barbados Acting Prime Minister Freundel Stuart. Photo Courtesy of Caricom News Network.

Caricom News reports that the Cave Hill campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI) organized the symposium with support from a variety of organizations, including the Pan Caribbean Partnership Against HIV and AIDS (PANCAP),  UNAIDS, UNDP and AIDS2031.  Stuart proposed an increased desire to understand the AIDS virus and increased legislation for public educational programs to ensure that the rights of those affected by the virus were upheld. With about 20,000 new cases of the AIDS virus appearing in 2008 and 12,000 deaths per year due to the virus, Stuart recognizes that the stigma has only increased.

Citing the European Convention on Human Rights which extended to Caribbean countries as colonies in 1953, Stuart asserts that this instrument neither expressly nor through implication permits discrimination against persons or citizens on the ground of personal illness.

With discrimination an actionable offense, Stuart notes that “the burden of proof will rest on him or her to produce evidence of the legally required standard to support the allegation made.  The decisions of the Courts of Law are, invariably, based on the strength of the evidence adduced at trial.” 

While information about the disease is widespread and readily available, few in the Caribbean choose to discuss the topic, only furthering the stigmatizing affects on those contracting it.  In the Caribbean areas, the main method of transmission of HIV occurs through commercial sex and more than 2% of Caribbean adults have contracted the virus.

For More Information Please Visit:

Caricom News – CARIBBEAN-Regional symposium on HIV/AIDS and human rights – 14 September 2010

Caricom News – HIV and Human Rights to Be Discussed at Regional Symposium – 8 September 2010  

The Barbados Advocate – Human Rights of Persons Living with HIV/AIDS must be protected – 14 Septemeber 2010

PERU: LEGISLATIVE DECREES ARE A GRAVE SETBACK FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Amnesty International
Campaign for International Justice

The Peruvian Government should abandon any attempt to legislate in favour of human rights violators, Amnesty International said today.  Four legislative decrees issued by President Alan García, using powers delegated to him by the Peruvian Congress, could allow cases involving people under investigation for crimes against humanity to be closed.

“The legislative decrees adopted last Wednesday in Peru are a grave setback for respect of human rights and lay the foundations for a possible covert amnesty”, Susan Lee, Director of Amnesty International’s Americas Programme said.

The provisions approved by President García range from the sanctioning of a new Code of Police and Military Justice to the application of new procedural norms for cases involving human rights violations. 

Decree 1097 allows the dismissal of cases in which the period allowed for investigation of the accused by the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the judiciary has been exceeded. “The failure of the Peruvian State to make efforts to investigate human rights violations committed in the past is an excuse to close investigations of those accused of having committed such crimes which could amount to a covert amnesty”, Susan Lee said.

The decree, which establishes a new Code of Police and Military Justice, exceeds its powers because it proposes that military courts should not only try typically military crimes and offences but also all war crimes committed during internal armed conflicts that target the civilian population. Such offences should be tried in civilian courts. In addition, decree 1094 allows war crimes to be time-barred.

In 2006 the Constitutional Court had decided that the inclusion of war crimes in the Code of Military Justice was inconsistent with the Peruvian legal system and ruled it unconstitutional.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Notwithstanding any detailed critique of the four legislative decrees adopted on 1 September by President Alan García that Amnesty International may publish at a later date, the organization believes that, in flagrant breach of the Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations for War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, to both of which Peru is a State party, the new Code of Police and Military Justice establishes a limitation period for war crimes and also allows amnesties and pardons to be granted to those responsible for such crimes.

Such practices are contrary to Peru’s obligations under both international treaty and customary lawand should be immediately shelved. For its part, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has stated on several occasions that States cannot oppose amnesties, statutes of limitation orres judicata in cases involving grave violations of human rights.

According to the Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was set up to determine the circumstances surrounding the human rights abuses committed during the 1980s and 1990s, of the 69,000 cases of people who were believed to have lost their lives or ‘disappeared’ during that 20-year period, 54 per cent were the work of the armed opposition group Sendero Luminoso, Shining Path, and 46 per cent that of the armed forces.

While at the moment hundreds of members of Sendero Luminoso are imprisoned, the first trials of members of the armed forces allegedly responsible for 47 of those cases began in 2005 in very difficult circumstances. Concerns were expressed that arrest warrants against members of the army and police accused of human rights violations were not being executed, that some cases were still being tried in military courts and that the Defence Ministry had reportedly failed to cooperate with the civilian courts. Nevertheless, the Peruvian justice system has taken important steps to end impunity over the past few years, including the trial of former President Alberto Fujimori that is currently taking place.

For more information, please see:

Amnesty International – www.amnesty.org – 03 September 2010

Senegal must stop delaying the trial of Hissène Habré

Amnesty International
International Justice Project

Ten years after a Senegalese judge charged former Chadian President Hissène Habré with torture and crimes against humanity, he continues to avoid trial in Senegal.

Thousands of Chadians were subjected to unlawful killings and systematic torture between 1982 and 1990 when Hissène Habré was President of Chad. Victims and their families have been campaigning for justice for 20 years.

In May 2006, the UN Committee against Torture concluded that Senegal had violated the Convention against Torture by failing to fulfil its obligation to either prosecute Hissène Habré before its courts or to extradite him to another country willing to do so.

The government of Senegal refused to extradite Habré to Belgium where charges have also been filed against him.

In the same year, the African Union called on the government of Senegal to prosecute Hissène Habré “on behalf of Africa.” Four years later, Senegalese authorities have yet to commence the case.

Each month that passes, victims or their relatives die without being able to see Hissène Habré face the charges against him.

Victims should not have to wait any longer. Senegal must bring Hissène Habré to trial immediately.

Please sign Amnesty International’s petition to Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade and circulate it to your friends, families and networks: http://www.amnesty.org/en/node/18650

Aid Requested as Thousands Flee Clashes in Yemen

By Eric C. Sigmund
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

SANA’A, Yemen – More than 8,000 civilians were forced to flee their homes as Yemeni forces launched an assault on a suspected al-Qaeda stronghold in the town of Hota in Shabwa province.  The government contends that over 100 al-Qaeda fighters were hiding in the town.  The outbreak in fighting comes as John Brennan, President Obama’s top counter-terrorism advisor, was visiting Yemen. 

Authorities suspect that radical Muslim cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-Yemeni citizen wanted by the U.S. has been hiding in his home province of Shabwa.  Analysts have been monitoring the development of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) which has considerable influence in the country’s tribal regions.   AQAP is responsible for a series of attacks inside Yemen, the latest happening in June.  Today, the government detailed that it had engaged “armed elements” of al-Qaeda inside the town killing at least three militants. 

The government has been giving notice to citizens since Saturday urging them to flee in anticipation of the anti-terror offensive.  Civilians fled to nearby towns creating cramped conditions.  The Red Crescent has been calling for food and medical supplies to support the growing populations.

This attack is just the latest in a larger campaign against AQAP within Yemen.  With U.S. military and intelligence support, the Yemeni government has been able to step up its attacks against al-Qaeda in the last year.   Yemen remains critical battlefield in the War on Terror as al-Qaeda continues to grow its ranks in the region.   The Christmas Day Bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was found to have spent time training in Yemen.   

Last month fighting in Loder left 19 militants and 11 Yemeni soldiers dead.   The United States has expressed its confidence in the Yemeni government stating that it is “convinced” that the government can defeat the militant forces.   As the government steps up its military strategy it must remain aware that it not only has to manage the conflict but also the humanitarian fallout. 

For more information, please see:

Agence France Presse – South Yemen Clashes Send Thousands Fleeing: Govt Official – 20 Sept. 2010

BBC Middle East – Thousands Flee Fighting in Yemen’s Shabwa Province – 20 Sept. 2010

CNN – Obama Counterterror Aid Visits Yemen – 20 Sept. 2010

Reuters Africa – Thousands Flee in Qaeda Clashes in South Yemen – 20 Sept. 2010

Agence France Press – Yemen Troops Kill Two at Checkpoint in Troubled Town – 19 Sept. 2010