China Executes Senior Justice Official Wen Qiang

David L. Chaplin II
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BEIJING, China – Wen Qiang, 55, former director of the Chongqing Justice Bureau in the Chongqing region and highest ranking official also an ex-deputy police chief, was sentenced to death in April on massive corruption charges, for sponsoring and protecting five gangs as well as rape and taking bribes.

Chinese Highest Ranking Official Executed on Massive Corruption Charges
Chinese Highest Ranking Official Executed on Massive Corruption Charges

He was executed in Chongqing, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday.

Wen’s case was part of a huge operation that exposed illegal activities in Chongqing, a city of more than 30 million people, as well as highlighting China’s problem of rampant official corruption.

The crackdown resulted in more than 3,300 detentions and hundreds of prosecutions, including the trials of nearly 100 officials.  Several people have already reportedly been executed or sentenced to death in the trials.

Wen allegedly raped a number of women including film and music personalities, as well as having affairs with subordinates.

He was also found guilty of taking more than 12 million yuan ($2 million U.S.) in bribes and engaging in a range of corrupt activities.

At his trial in February, Wen admitted he took money from others on numerous occasions but said that no corruption was involved and much of it was for “birthday and New Year” greetings, according to state media.

Wen was tried with his wife, Zhou Xiaoya, and three former Chongqing police associates, all of whom received jail sentences of up to 20 years.

Last November, Wen’s sister-in-law Xie Caiping was sentenced to 18 years in prison on charges of running illegal gambling venues and drug dealing.

The crackdown is widely seen as a bid by Bo Xilai – who was appointed Communist Party secretary in Chongqing in 2007 – to move up in the national hierarchy via political maneuvering.

The corruption trials, covered extensively by Chinese media, have transfixed the nation and rallied Chongqing residents, who claim they are fed up with being bullied by their own local officials.

“Only capital punishment will serve him right. He deserves to be killed a thousand times,” one person commented online about Wen in February.

“The Wen Qiang case is only the tip of the iceberg,” another wrote. “If China wants more rapid development, there should be a purge to wipe out all the corrupted officials in Communist Party.”  Analysts said a harsh crackdown on corruption was vital to maintaining public faith in the Communist leadership.

For more information, please see:

CNN World – Ex-Chinese official executed for corruption – 7 July 2010

BBC – China rejects police official Wen Qiang death appeal – 21 May 2010

Al Jazeera English – China ‘executes’ justice official -7 July 2010

Australia proposes new policy for asylum seekers

By Polly Johnson
Impunity Watch Reporter, Oceania

Australian PM Julia Gillard makes a policy announcement regarding asylum seekers. (Photo Courtesy of CBC News.)
Australian PM Julia Gillard makes a policy announcement regarding asylum seekers. (Photo Courtesy of CBC News.)

SYDNEY, Australia – In an effort to unveil a new refugee policy, Australia’s new leader has proposed a plan to develop a regional processing center in East Timor in order to curb public opposition to an influx of asylum seekers from Sri Lanka and Afghanistan.

“In recent days I have discussed with [President] Ramos Horta of East Timor the possibility of establishing a regional processing center for the purpose of receiving and processing irregular entrance to the region,” Julia Gillard announced in her first policy speech since assuming her role as prime minister.

“A boat ride to Australia would just be a ticket back to the regional processing center,” Gillard added.

A hotly debated topic in Australia, illegal immigration has been dealt with in different ways by past leaders. Prime Minister John Howard set up detention centers in Papua New Guinea and Nauru. In 2007, Kevin Rudd supported a processing center at Australian-run Christmas Island, which can no longer cope with the number of people.

Though Australia only receives a tiny fraction of the world’s asylum seekers, since 2007 more than four thousand asylum seekers, many of them Afghans and Sri Lankans, have made the dangerous voyage via Indonesia on rickety boats, fleeing war and persecution.

East Timor’s deputy prime minister, José Luis Guterres, says that the country’s government has told Australia that East Timor is not ready establish such a center, though the government will consider Gillard’s request and send an official response soon.

Added East Timor’s foreign minister Zacarias da Costa, “We are a new country. Of course our borders are not yet one hundred percent secure. We are still developing our policies and we’ve been working together with Australia to strengthen our own mechanisms.”

Australian opposition leader Tony Abbott has also announced measures to deal with asylum seekers, including prioritizing offshore refugee applicants and turning away incoming boats when possible.

Gillard also announced that the Australian government was lifting the suspension on processing claims for Sri Lankans after the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a report that the Sri Lankan refugee situation was improving.

For more information, please see:

Sydney Morning Herald – Labor’s Indian Ocean Solution – 7 July 2010

ABC News – East Timor ‘not ready’ for asylum centre – 6 July 2010

Al Jazeera – Australia plans new refugee policy – 6 July 2010

CBC News – Australia proposes East Timor refugee hub – 6 July 2010

New York Times – Australia Proposes Refugee Hub in East Timor – 6 July 2010

Sky News – PM Gillard Attempts To Calm Immigration Storm – 6 July 2010

Former Argentina Dictator Takes Responsibility For Rights Abuses

Former Dictator Jorge Rafael Videla (Photo Courtesy of momento24.com)
Former Dictator Jorge Rafael Videla (Photo Courtesy of momento24.com)

By Patrick Vanderpool
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina-Jorge Rafael Videla, a former Argentina dictator who helped to overthrow former President Isabel Martinez de Peron, is on trial for human rights abuses.  The abuses, which date from 1976-1983, include kidnapping and torture.  The trial comes shortly after another former Argentina dictator, Gen. Reynaldo Benito Bignone, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for very similar crimes.

Videla’s reign as dictator, often referred to as the “Dirty War,” was shroud with secret military prisons and torture centers.  It was not uncommon for Videla’s regime to capture leftist students, labor leaders or intellectuals and seclude them in one of these secret holding places.  Some estimate that as many as 30,000 leftists were abducted.

Just days into the trial, Videla, who has previously been found guilty of unrelated human rights abuses and sentenced to life in prison, took responsibility for the military’s actions under his watch.  Speaking to the court, Videla stated “I fully assume my military responsibilities for all the Argentine army’s actions during this internal war.”

Videla is one of about two dozen individuals who face charges stemming from human rights abuses during the “Dirty War” era.  Videla and his codefendants are specifically on trial for the murder of 31 political prisoners who were held captive and then shot to death when they tried to escape.

One attorney stated that there are significant differences between the previous cases against Videla and the present case.  The 31 political prisoners at the center of this case were jailed under the civilian government before Videla’s coup and were then murdered when Videla took power, before the prisoners had a chance to stand trial.

Miguel Ceballos, an attorney representing the victims, has a more personal connection to this trial than most: Ceballos’ father was killed under Videla’s watch.  Ceballos said, “when they came looking for my father at the prison, he knew he would be killed.  He said goodbye to his friends and left a photo of our family so they could tell us what had happened.”

Any added jail time from this trial would mean little to Videla because he is already serving a life sentence; however, a conviction would offer relief to the victim’s friends and family members.  Ceballos stated, “This trial has been a long time coming.  He is having the trial that he denied my father.”

For more information, please see:

Euro News – Former Argentine Dictator Speaks In Court – 6 July 2010

Philly.com – Argentine Ex-dictator Faces Human Rights Charges – 2 July 2010

CNN – Former Argentina Dictator To Go On Trial In Rights Abuse Case – 30 June 2010

Execution of Juvenile Offender Scheduled for Tomorrow in Iran

by Warren Popp
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

TEHRAN, Iran – On the fourth of July, Iranian authorities delivered a notice to the parents of Mohammad Reza Haddadi, informing them that they should plan their final visit to see their son because he is scheduled to be executed by hanging just three days later, on the seventh of July.

Mohammad Rexa Haddadi may be executed by hanging as ealy as tomorrow morning for a crime allegedly commited at age fifteen. (Photo Courtesy of Stop Child Executions)
Mohammad Rexa Haddadi may be executed by hanging as ealy as tomorrow morning for a crime allegedly commited at the age of fifteen. (Photo Courtesy of Stop Child Executions)

Haddadi was given a death sentence in January 2004 for the 2003 murder of a man who purportedly offered Haddadi and his co-defendants (all above the age of majority) a ride in his car. He reportedly confessed to the commission of the murder, but then retracted his confession during trial, claiming that he had confessed to the killing because his two co-defendants had offered his family money.

His co-defendants later withdrew their testimony, which had initially implicated him in the murder. In spite of these developments, a branch of the Iranian Supreme Court upheld his death sentence. The head of Iran’s Judiciary, Ayatollah Shahroudi, then reaffirmed this decision.

Haddadi was first scheduled to be executed in October 2008, but the execution was stayed by the Head of the Judiciary. His execution was stayed two more times, but only after his family, on each occasion, received notice that they should visit him one final time. The organization, Stop Child Executions, claims that Haddadi’s father  told reporters that Haddadi’s sister set herself on fire due to the anguish of knowing that her brother might be executed, and she is now crippled for life and in the hospital. His mother has also been seriously ill.

Haddadi is scheduled to die by hanging tomorrow for a crime he allegedly committed when he was only fifteen years old. His father claims he was even younger at the time—three months shy of his fifteenth birthday. Human Rights Watch says that Iran’s interpretation and use of Sharia law in its Civil Code defines the age of majority as puberty, which is defined as fifteen lunar years (fourteen and five months) for boys and nine lunar years (eight years and eight months) for girls. Judges are thus allowed to sentence children as adults beginning at these ages. While Haddadi’s execution may be legal under Iranian law, Iran is a party to two major international treaties that prohibit the execution of juvenile offenders when the crimes were committed when the alleged offenders were under eighteen years of age: These treaties are the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Other recent executions of minors include the tenth of June hanging of Mohammad Hassanzadeh, age seventeen, who was convicted of an alleged murder when he was only fourteen to fifteen-years-old, and the highly publicized execution last May of a twenty-three-year-old woman, Delara Darabi, who had allegedly committed a murder while she was seventeen years old. While Darabi had confessed to the murder, she retracted her confession, claiming that she made it after her nineteen year-old boyfriend told her that she could not be executed because she was a minor.

Tehran continues to maintain that the death penalty is an effective deterrent, which is carried out only after the completion of an exhaustive judicial process.

According to Human Rights Watch, Iran continues to be the World’s leader in the number of executions of juvenile offenders. Human Rights Watch claims that Iran executed at least four juvenile offenders in 2009, eight in 2008, and that human rights lawyers in Iran believe that more than a hundred juvenile offenders are currently on death row. Moreover, Iran is now only one of four other countries, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Pakistan, and Yemen, that are known to have executed juvenile offenders since 2005.

“Regardless of guilt or innocence, no one should be executed for a crime committed as a child,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The Iranian judiciary should show Haddadi mercy and abide by Iran’s international obligations banning executions for crimes committed by children.”

For more information, please see:

Human Rights Watch – Iran: Rescind Execution Order of Juvenile Offender – 6 July 2010

Stop Child Executions – URGENT: Mohammad Reza Haddadi Scheduled for Execution in Over 24 Hours – 6 July 2010

Amnesty International – Document – Iran: Further Information: Juvenile Offender’s Execution Scheduled: Mohammad Reza Haddadi – 5 July 2010

Iran Human Rights – Another Minor “Offender” in Imminent Risk of Execution at the Sanandaj Prison – 18 June 2010

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – Iran Executes Woman Convicted Of Crime as a Minor – 1 May 2009

French Parliament Begins Debate on Burqa Ban

By Yoohwan Kim
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

PARIS, France – The French parliament begins their debate today on a controversial bill to ban full-face veils, such as the burqa and the niqab, worn by some Muslim women in public.  The proposed bill is the focus of the ongoing conflict between Islam and France’s secular system, which rigorously separates the church and the state.

France has the largest Muslim community in Europe, with an estimated five to six million Muslims residing in the nation.  The interior ministry estimates that the bill will only affect about 2,000 women who wear the burqa, which is a full-body cover that includes a mesh over the face, or the niqab, which is a full-face veil that has an opening for the eyes.  France already bans religious symbols and Muslim headscarves from being worn in schools.

The French Council of Ministers, who stated that veils that cover the face “cannot be tolerated in any public place,” approved the bill in May, and following their approval, the bill was sent to parliament.  A parliamentary vote is not expected until next week and if approved, the French Senate will vote on the bill in the fall.

Photo: France proposes a bill that will fine women who wear full-face veils. [Source: CNN]

The proposed bill will make it illegal for anyone to wear an “item of clothing that hides their face” in public, and will impose a fine of 150 euro ($190) and/or mandatory enrollment in a “citizenship course” as punishment.

Additionally, forcing a woman to wear a full-face veil will be punishable by a year in prison and/or a 15,000 euro ($19,000) fine.  The French government believes that forcing someone to wear a burqa or niqab is “a new form of enslavement that the republic cannot accept on its soil.”

French President Nicolas Sarkozy initiated the bill, and stated during his first state of the nation address that the full-face veil is “not welcome” in France, because it is “not a religious symbol, but a sign of subservience and debasement.”

Amnesty International urged lawmakers not to approve the bill back in May.  Amnesty International’s expert on discrimination in Europe, John Dalhuisen, stated that “a complete ban on the covering of the face would violate the rights of freedom of expression and religion of those women who wear the burqa or the niqab in public as an expression of their identity or beliefs.”  Additionally, the French Council of State warns that the ban would violate international human rights laws and the French constitution.

Those who support the ban argue that wearing garments that hide women’s faces violates France’s secular system and gender equality, while opponents say only a small minority of Muslim women wears a burqa or a niqab and the bill will restrict individual freedom.  Some opponents believe Sarkozy is utilizing this controversy as a way to distract attention from his political problems and low approval ratings.  Critics of the bill believe a ban of the burqa and the niqab could further strain relations with Muslim communities in France, and could increase tensions between France and Muslim nations.

If parliament and the Senate pass the bill and it is signed into law, it will be the first national ban in Europe on the burqa and the niqab.  Similarly, other European Union nations have initiated their bans on veils worn in public.  Belgium’s parliament passed a similar ban in April and Spain’s Senate approved a motion to ban the full-face veil in June.

For more information, please see:

ALJAZEERA  – France Set to Debate Veil Ban – 6 July 2010

CNN – French Parliament Debates Burqa Ban – 6 July 2010

FRANCE 24 – Parliament to Debate Bill to Ban the Burqa – 6 July 2010

REUTERS  – French Parliament to Vote on Proposed Veil Ban – 5 July 2010