Last Thursday, the Federal Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit’s three judge panel upheld the conviction and 97 year sentence of Charles McArthur Emmanuel, also known as Chuckie Taylor. Emmanuel is the son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, and is notorious for leading a violent paramilitary unit, Anti-Terrorism Union, ordering the torture of dozen’s of his father’s political opponents between 1997and 2003.
Chuckie Taylor On Trial
The panel also affirmed the constitutionality of the Torture Act, a 1994 law allowing prosecution for torture acts committed overseas. Emmanuel’s attorney’s argued that the torture law was broader than the Convention Against Torture treaty which authorized his prosecution. Attorney’s also claimed the provision making use of a firearm during the crime an additional violation should not apply to overseas actions. The criminalization of foreign government actions they argued, was outside the jurisdiction of the United States. The panel held that Congress’s power to criminalize torturous acts was “a valid exercise of congressional authority,” under the Torture Act, rejecting all of the arguments.
United States Circuit Judge Stanley Marcus wrote that “The facts of this case are riddled with extraordinary cruelty and evil.” Emmanuel, now 33, a Boston born United States citizen was convicted in 2008. His convictions included the use of gruesome techniques including electric shocks, cigarette burnings, the use of scalding water, shoveling biting ants onto prisoners and using water filled holes on torture victims. Five Liberian torture victims sued Emmanuel after his criminal trial, winning $22.4 million in damages. Emmanuel blasted his charges “deceptive propaganda,” claiming the U.S. was using him as a “poster boy for human rights abuse.”
Associated Press reports that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents tracked Emmanuel for years for possible illegal arms violations. After attempting to get a passport by using a fake name for his father on the application, Emmanuel was arrested at a Miami airport in February of 2006. Emmanuel pled guilty later that September. Emmanuel’s father remains on trial for war crimes committed in Sierra Leone in The Hague, Netherlands. His father is facing 11 counts of violations of the Geneva Convention, crimes against humanity and efforts to terrorize the civilian population of Sierra Leone.
By Elizabeth Conger
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East
JERUSALEM, Israel – An Arab man has been sentenced to jail time by a Jerusalem District Court for holding himself out to be a single Jewish bachelor to a Jewish woman he had consensual sex with.
Photo: Sabbar Kashur / Courtesy of Emil Salman, Haaretz.com
According to the woman, thirty-year-old Sabbar Kashur introduced himself as a single Jew looking for a serious relationship. The two then had sex in a nearby building. When the woman later discovered that Kashur was not Jewish, she filed a police complaint which ultimately let to charges of rape and indecent assault.
Prosecutors acknowledged that the sex was consensual, but accused Kashur of ‘rape by deceit.’
Judge Zvi Segal said, in the verdict, that the court had the duty to protect the public from sophisticated criminals who could deceive innocent victims. “If she hadn’t thought the accused was a Jewish bachelor interested in a serious romantic relationship, she would not have cooperated.”
The standard for ‘rape by deception,’ according to High Court Justice Elyakim Rubinstein, is whether an ordinary person would expect such a woman to have sex with a man without the false identity he created. Rubinstein stated that a conviction of rape should be imposed whenever a “person does not tell the truth regarding critical matters to a reasonable woman, and as a result of misrepresentation she has sexual relations with him.”
Abeer Baker, an attorney with Adalah, an organization that advocates for Arab rights in Israel, said of the legal standard: “In this case, the ruling seems to say that if a ‘reasonable’ Jewish woman knew a man was an Arab, then she would not make love to him.”
Baker called this a “dangerous precedent,” and said it opened the door to allowing the Israeli government to interfere in the private lives of citizens.
Kashur has been under house arrest for nearly two years since the incident occurred. He said that he first met the woman, who was in her late twenties, when he was leaving a grocery store in downtown Jerusalem and she asked him about his motorcycle. He told the woman his nickname, which was ‘Dudu,’ a common Jewish nickname for Daniel. He said:
“I said my name is Dudu because that’s how everybody knows me. My wife even calls me that.”
Kashur asserts that the verdict is racist, and his lawyers are contemplating an appeal of his sentence. He said:
“For two years I’ve been under house arrest for nothing . . . If I were Jewish they wouldn’t even have questioned me. That’s not called rape. I didn’t rape her in the forest and throw her away naked. She agreed to everything that happened.”
The High Court of Justice set a precedent for rape by deception in 2008 when they convicted Zvi Sleiman, a Jewish man who impersonated a senior official in the Housing Ministry whose wife worked in the National Insurance Institute. He told the women he deceived that he could get them a better apartment and higher insurance payments if they slept with him.
The High Court also convicted a man on three counts of fraud for telling a woman he was a neurosurgeon in order to persuade her to have sex with him.
Elkana Laist of the Public Defender’s Office said that the Jerusalem District Court’s conviction had gone too far, “opening the door to a rape conviction every time a person lies regarding the details of his identity.” She added: “Every time the court thinks a reasonable woman would not have had sex with a man based on that representation, the man will be charged with rape. That approach is not accepted around the world either.”
Laist also said that the decision is paternalistic to women and problematic in application. “It means that every time a man tells a woman he loves her, based on which she sleeps with him, he could be convicted of rape.”
Dana Pugach, head of the Noga Center for Victims of Crime, said, however, that she had no problem with the verdict.
“We all have different characteristics, and it is a person’s right to have sexual relations with a person knowing the facts about those characteristics. I see no difference between impersonating a Jew if you are an Arab and a wealthy pilot when you are penniless, if those are relevant characteristics to the decision to have sex.”
A 2007 poll conducted by Israel’s Geocartography Institute found that more than fifty percent of Israeli Jews thought marrying an Arab was “equal to national treason.”
Intermarriage between Arabs and Jews is actually forbidden in Israel, and, in the settlement of Pisgat Zeev, a vigilante group patrolled the streets for more than a decade looking for mixed couples. Another settlement, Petah Tikva, has established a team of pyschologists and counsellors to “rescue” Jewish women from relationships with Arab men.
Gideon Levy, a columnist for Haaretz, asked whether the “rape by deception” law would have been applied differently in the case of an Arab woman deceived into having sex with a Jewish man.
“Would he have been convicted of rape?” Levy asked. “The answer is: of course not.”
By Patrick Vanderpool Impunity Watch Reporter, South America
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – On July 15, Argentina became just the tenth nation in the entire world, and the first in Latin America, to legalize gay marriage. Legislators, backed by Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, passed the same-sex marriage bill by a vote of 33-27 in the Senate after a 14 hour debate. The Senate’s vote comes about a month after the marriage equality bill was passed by Argentina’s lower legislative house, the Chamber of Deputies.
The bill will allow gay and lesbian couples the same marriage responsibilities and protections that heterosexuals are afforded. In addition to marriage equality, the bill will also offer homosexual couples the same adoption and social security rights as heterosexual couples.
While on a visit to China, President Fernandez de Kirchner said, “It’s a positive step which defends the rights of minorities in Argentina.”
The Catholic Church was among the most outspoken leaders of the public campaign against the bill, going as far as to sanction clerics who supported the bill. Buenos Aires’ archbishop described the bill as “a plan to destroy God’s plan” and a move to “deceive the children of God.” Although 90 percent of people living in Argentina describe themselves as Catholic, the bill was met with public support.
Norma Morandini, a member of President Fernandez de Kirchner’s party, compared Argentina’s discrimination of gays to the cruelty of past dictators, saying “what defines us is our humanity, and what runs against humanity is intolerance.”
News of the bill’s passing has spurred public outcry for other Latin American countries to follow suit and legalize gay marriage. Ratified in 1999, Venezuela has what many people consider as one of the most progressive constitutions in the world. Currently, the Venezuelan Government is embroiled in a public war of words with the Catholic Church in an effort to limit the conservative institution’s role in politics. Many believe that pushing forward with a same-sex marriage bill similar to Argentina’s would challenge the conservative establishment.
Argentina’s first legal gay marriage is set to be held on August 13 between Ernesto Rodriguez Larrese and Alejandro Vanelli. Maria Rachid, who leads the Argentine Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transexual Federation, said she expected around 100 same-sex couples to wed around the same date.
Courtesy of the International Committee of the Red Cross
This month the ICRC announced three awardees of the prestigious Florence Nightingale Medal, given in honor of their exceptional courage and devotion in caring for the victims of the January 12 earthquake in Haiti. Click to learn more and meet these individuals.
Also, the Regional Delegation for the United States and Canada welcomes the ICRC’s new executive management team, led by Director-General Yves Daccord. Read on to learn more about the people who will guide the ICRC for at least the next four years. We also share some insight into Mr. Daccord’s thinking about the future in a short interview.
Next, in response to a reader’s inquiry, they look at the question of diversity at the ICRC. Did you know that while the ICRC was once an organization staffed exclusively by Swiss nationals, today their staff members represent more than 128 nationalities?
And lastly, they share the latest ICRC video that encourages you to “become part of the action.” Watch it and find out more. It is available on the website as well as on YouTube.
By Warren Popp
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East
Iraqi Soldiers inspecting the scene of a suicide attack in western Baghdad, where at least forty-three people, mainly Awakening Movement members, were killed. (Photo by Khalid Mohammed, Courtesy of the AP)
BAGHDAD, Iraq – On Sunday, at least forty-seven people were killed in two coordinated suicide attacks. The first occurred as the victims were waiting in line to get paid by the Iraqi government at an army office in western Baghdad, and the second occurred in al Qaim, a city in the Anbar Province in western Iraq. Most of those killed in the attacks were Sahwa militiamen, members of what is often called the Awakening movement. The Awakening movement is made up of former Sunni insurgents who joined with the United States and Iraqi forces to fight against al-Qaeda in Iraq—a shift in allegiance that many see as a key turning point in the direction of the war.
The recent attacks are part of an increase in what appear to be revenge attacks against members of the Awakening movement and their families, largely carried out by elements of al-Qaeda in Iraq. The attacks are generally viewed as payback for what has been viewed by many as a significant role played by the Awakening movement in fighting al-Qaeda throughout central Iraq.
The Awakening movement complains that the Shiite-led Iraqi government, which they allege has always viewed them with suspicion, neglects them and also fails to protect them and their families from revenge attacks. They claim that the government has failed to fulfill its promises to integrate twenty percent of the roughly ninety-two thousand Awakening members in the regular security forces, to find jobs for others, and to keep paying their salaries on time—the victims of the most recent attacks reportedly had not been paid in five months, and it is reported that the monthly salaries of Awakening members have been cut from the three hundred dollars when they were under United States leadership, to one hundred dollars under Iraqi government control.
According to the Awakening commander of Baghdad’s Radwaniya district, “The [Iraqi] army has good relations with us and is cooperative, but there is no support from the government.” He further claimed, “I used to command 1,240 men, each one an important part of a security net, and now I command 400 only. The rest have become either porters or cleaners or are simply paid a monthly salary and stay at home.” The poor treatment by the government is cited as the reason many people leave both the Awakening and their new low-level jobs in civil ministries. Moreover, the Los Angeles Times reports that many Awakening leaders have recently been arrested for crimes they allegedly committed when they were insurgents, and that other Awakening members have been assassinated.
The Christian Science Monitor cites numerous examples of such assassinations: In December, two roadside bombs in December killed two Awakening commanders; in March, men broke into the house of a Awakening militiaman, shooting him and his wife; in June, an Awakening member’s house was blown up on the outskirts of Fallujah; last month, gunmen raided the home of a man who belonged to a tribe that has been vocal in its anti-Al Qaeda views, killing five of his family members; and just last week, an Awakening leader was brutally slain along with his wife and children in his South Baghdad home. There have also been frequent attacks of police officers, which have had their houses blown up and have witnessed family members being killed by gunmen.
Many Awakening members describe themselves as caught between radicals seeking revenge against them, and a government that appears just as likely to arrest them as give them their paychecks. Senior tribal leader, Sheik Ali Hatem Sulaiman, who is associated with the Awakening movement, said on Al Arabiya television, “The sons of the Awakening are paying with their blood . . . We haven’t seen the government, politicians or the Americans finding a solution to this problem.”
