Palestinian Child Allegedly Forced to Drink Sewage, Vineyard Flooded by Israeli Settlement Sewage

By Meredith Lee-Clark
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

BEIT UMMAR, West Bank – In Beit Ummar, a Palestinian child was allegedly captured by Israeli soldiers on April 16. The child, fifteen-year-old Sabri Awad, was seized by the soldiers at the entrance to Beit Ummar after they suspected he was involved in stone-throwing. Awad told Al-Jazeera that the soldiers questioned him about the stone-throwing, which he denied, then the soldiers reportedly beat him for two hours. During the beatings, he was forced to drink fetid water, which Awad believed was sewage. Awad said that he vomited, after which the soldiers continued to beat him. Awad alleges the soldiers then threw him out of the Army jeep and sped away.

Media reports estimate that Israel is currently holding approximately three hundred Palestinian youth in custody, and that up to seven hundred Palestinian children and adolescents were detained by Israelis in 2009. Experts say that the full effects of such detentions are not fully known. Over 760,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned since 1967, which many experts say is one of the main sources of a trans-generational trauma that is pervasive throughout the Palestinian population, and one that will necessarily remain as long as there is occupation. Palestinian children who had at one time been in Israeli custody account for twenty percent of patients in the only torture victim center in the Palestinian territories. Even if the youth had not been tortured while in prison, mental health experts say that these young people tend to suffer more severe post-traumatic stress than adults who had been imprisoned.

In the same village where Sabri Awad was allegedly beaten, Israeli settlers from the Gush Etzion settlement opened their sewage pipe on April 21, flooding a Palestinian vineyard and destroying 70,000 square meters of prime agricultural land. Land experts who had surveyed the damage later said that both the land and the crops were effectively destroyed.

The Israeli Civil Administration later confirmed the incident, and said that compensation for the incident would have to be sought in court. A spokesman for the agency said that the sewage pump in the settlement had stopped working due to a power outage and that the resulting flood was a mistake.

The Israeli military has imposed a tight blockade on Beit Ummar and the surrounding areas since last week.

For more information, please see:

International Middle East Media Center – 58 Detained, One Wounded and 70 Dunams Drowned in Sewage – 23 April 2010

Ma’an News Agency – Vineyard Flooded with Settlement Sewage – 23 April 2010

Al-Jazeerah.info – Palestinian Child Reveals Abuse, Beating, and Drinking Sewage Water by Israeli Occupation Soldiers – 22 April 2010

Press TV – Palestinian Kid Forced to Drink Sewage – 22 April 2010

Al-Jazeera – Young Palestinians in Israeli Jails – 17 April 2010

Iraqis Allege Abuse at Secret Jail

By Bobby Rajabi

Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East.

BAGHDAD, Iraq – On April 19 it was revealed that an Iraqi security force that was direclty under the command of current Iraqi Prime Miniters Nuri al-Maliki held hundreds of detained from northern Iraq. The detainees were kpet in an undisclosed prison in Baghdad. It is alleged that dozens of the detainees were tortured. Iraqi and American officials have said that the torture ended after Iraq’s human rights minister and the United States intervened late in March.

According to Iraqi officials, Prime Minster Maliki order that the prison be closed, but said that he had already been aware that the prison existed. The move to close the prison brought about the release of over seventy detainees and the transfer of many others to other prisons. However, over two hundred detainees remain on the grounds of the Old Muthanna military airfield. All of the detainees are alleged to be Sunnis.

The minister of human rights, Widjan Salim, praised the Iraqi Prime Minister’s efforts in moving to close to prison. Ms. Salim commented that “he’s doing the best he can. The problem we have is not the prime minister, it’s with the judicial system.”

Iraqi officials have announced that they are investigating claims that the detainees at the secret jail were tortured by electric shocks and suffocated with plastic bags. Officials will also investigate claims that the prisoners were beaten by prison guards. Kamil Amin, the Deputy Human Rights Minister of Iraq, announced that three army officers have been arrested for their connection to the case.  The men detained were reportedly detained by the Iraqi army in October in sweeps targeting anti-government militias in Nineveh.

Al Jazeera obtained interviews with two men who claim to be tortured at the secret prison at the Muthanna air base. One individul claimed that “our hands were tied and eyes covered so we couldn’t see the torturers.” He explained that torture was dictated by the information provided by informants. The former detainee showed cigarette burns on his body and insisted that “we were all innocent.”

For more information, please see:

Al Jazeera – Iraqis Allege ‘Secret Jail’ Abuse –  22 April 2010

Morning Star Online – Investigation into Iraq Brutality Launched – 22 April 2010

New York Times – Secret Baghdad Jail Held Sunnis From the North – 21 April 2010

Congressman Wants Yemeni Cleric Stripped of Citizenship

By Ahmad Shihadah
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

WASHINGTON DC, USA – A U.S. lawmaker is seeking to revoke the American citizenship of radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is known for his inflammatory anti-American teachings and his communications with Maj. Nidal Hasan, the suspected shooter in the Fort Hood rampage in November.

Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa., introduced a resolution Wednesday urging the Obama administration to strip al-Awlaki of his American citizenship, arguing that the cleric voluntarily renounced his citizenship by recruiting terrorists.

“As recent reports highlight, the U.S. government views al-Awlaki as a proven threat, and will take him dead or alive,” Dent said in a written statement, referring to Obama’s approval of the targeted killing of al-Awlaki. “Being a citizen of the United States of America is more than a right; it’s a responsibility.”

”He’s an inspiration to many of these terrorists,” Dent said. ”This guy is a traitor. This man is a real threat to this country and it’s long since time to deny him his citizenship.”

Legal experts were skeptical of success.

Temple University law professor and international law expert Peter Spiro said the Supreme Court has ruled the U.S. Constitution prohibits the government from terminating an individual’s citizenship against his will.

‘There have also been proposals with respect to other Taliban or other al Qaeda-associated Americans that their citizenship be revoked and those proposals have gone nowhere, and I expect the same thing to happen here,” Spiro said.

Similar efforts to strip so-called ”American Taliban” John Walker Lindh and Yaser Hamdi, an American captured in Afghanistan, of their citizenship failed, he said.

”Maybe that Dent some points politically, making him look like he is tough about terrorism, but this is going nowhere,” he said. Hamdi later surrendered his citizenship in exchange for being released to Saudi Arabia.

Rutgers School of Law constitutional law professor and citizenship expert Linda Bosniak said the Supreme Court has set a high bar for the government to withdraw citizenship from native-born Americans.

”It is considered a constitutional right that individuals should be able to maintain their citizenship unless the government can prove they affirmatively desire to renounce it,” Bosniak said.

Certain acts, such as treason or serving in a foreign army in conflict with the United States, are presumed to be ”expatriating acts,” she said. But to strip someone of his citizenship the government has to prove that the acts were committed and that they were done voluntarily and with the intent of relinquishing citizenship.

Dent said he’s heard those arguments but he contends that al-Awlaki is voluntarily a traitor. ”He has declared war on the United States,” Dent said. ”He has voluntarily revoked his citizenship by his own actions.” Al-Awlaki could appeal but would have to return to the United States, where he would face arrest.

For more information, please see:

Fox News – Rep. Introduces Resolution To Strip Radical Cleric Of Us Citizenship – 22 April 2010

Pennsylvania Ave. – Rep. Dent Takes Lead On Revoking Islamic Cleric’s Citizenship – 21 April 2010

The Morning Call – Dent Wants to Revoke U.S. Citizenship Of Radical Cleric – 22 April 2010

Nuremberg Prosecutor Whitney Harris Leaves Legacy of Justice and Hope

By Sovereign Hager
Impunity Watch Managing Editor, News

Photo Courtesy of University of Washington Alumni
Photo Courtesy of University of Washington Alumni

ST. LOUIS, Missouri – On April 22, 2010 the world lost Whitney Harris, a leading advocate of international criminal justice. Harris was the last surviving prosecutor of the principal surviving Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg. He was ninety-seven years old.

Harris was originally from Seattle and attended the University of Washington. He went on to obtain his law degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1936. Harris joined the Navy after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and was charged with investigating war crimes after the war.

Harris was one of the first members of the staff for the trial of major German war criminals, trying twenty-two high ranking Nazi officials, leading to nineteen convictions. During the Nuremberg war-crime trials in 1945, Harris, then just thirty-three years old, served as a lead prosecutor and tried the senior leader of the Nazi Security Police. He was instrumental in getting the confession of Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Hoess, head of the Auschwitz concentration camp, and aided in the cross examination of Hermann Goering, Hitler’s second in command.

Following his service as a prosecutor, Harris continued a life of public service and continued to address war crimes and genocide. He served as Chief of Legal Advice during the Berlin Blockade and was a law professor at Southern Methodist University. Harris also served as chairman of the International Law Section of the American Bar Association. He authored “Tyranny on Trial, the Evidence at Nuremberg,” considered by the New York Times to be the first “complete historical and legal analysis of the Nuremberg trial.”

Harris’s later work centered on speaking, writing, and teaching about international law and justice. He gave numerous speeches on human rights and in 1980 established the Whitney R. Harris Collection on the Third Reich of Germany at Washington University in St. Louis. Today the Whitney Harris World Law Institute continues his legacy. The current director remembers Harris’ consistent emphasis of the good that came out of Nuremberg. “I think he had a truly undying faith in the ability of humankind to do better.”  Harris was an outspoken supporter of international tribunals, which he saw as building and growing from the principles and achievements of Nuremberg.

In June of 2006, Harris recorded an essay for NPR’s “This I Believe Series,” where he shared these powerful words: “We must learn to end war and protect life; to seek justice and find mercy; to help others and embrace compassion.”

Acquittal of Dutch Arms Dealer who Supplied Liberia’s Charles Taylor Overturned

By Elizabeth Conger
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

Koer
Photo: Alleged arms dealer to Charles Taylor, Guus Kouwenhoven.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – The Dutch Supreme Court has ordered a retrial of Guus Kouwenhoven, the Dutch businessman convicted in 2006 for illegal arms dealing to Liberia during the Second Liberian Civil War. Kouwenhoven appealed his eight year sentence in 2008 and was released. The Dutch Prosecutor’s office subsequently appealed the acquittal, and was granted an appeal by the Supreme Court on Tuesday.

Guus Kouwenhoven, a timber trader who was in charge of the Oriental Trading Corporation between 2000 and 2003, was accused of  breaking a UN arms embargo by supplying anti-tank weapons and rifles to Charles Taylor’s regime in exchange for Liberian timber. During that period Liberia was embroiled in a bloody civil war.

Kouwenhoven acknowledged his close ties with Charles Taylor, but denied the charges against him. The Hague acquitted Kouwenhoven in 2008 on the grounds that it was not convinced of the credibility of the testimony provided by certain witnesses in his original trial.

The Supreme Court says that the Prosecutor’s appeal will allow two more witnesses to testify regarding Kouwenhoven’s complicity. The two witnesses allegedly saw Kouwenhoven take delivery of large shipments of weapons bound for Liberia. These two witnesses, who have chosen to remain anonymous, previously made their statements regarding the arms dealing to the Sierra Leone Tribunal.

A date has yet to be set for the Kouwenhoven appeal. Charles Taylor is currently on trial in The Hague before the Special Court for Sierra Leone.

For more information, please see:

BBC – New trial for Dutch ‘arms smuggler’ Guus Kouwenhoven – 21 April 2010

AP – Dutch court: New appeal for alleged arms smuggler – 20 April 2010

Radio Netherlands Worldwide – Supreme Court annuls arms dealer’s release – 20 April 2010