A Voice for the Voiceless

Belarusian Journalist, Critic of Lukashenko Government, Stripped Of Citizenship

By David Sophrin
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

MINSK, Belarus – A prominent Belarusian journalist and critic of the national government was stripped of his citizenship earlier this week.

Pavel Sheremet was informed by officials from the Belarusian Embassy in Moscow, where he is currently living, that his citizenship had been revoked.

The Belarusian government pointed to 2002 legislation which attached new requirements regarding Belarusian citizens who reside in other countries.  Those citizens face a possible revoking of their citizenship if they join a military, law enforcement or intelligence unit of that foreign nation.  The final order to take action against Sheremet was made by national Belarusian Security Council.

In response to the notification regarding his citizenship, Sheremet declared that he had done nothing to violate the 2002 legislation.  Since living in Moscow, he stated that he had not joined a Russian government agency of any kind.  He also questioned why, after he had been openly living in Russia for over a decade, the Belarus government decided now to take this action.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, an international non-governmental organization that attempts to protect the rights of journalists, was quick to criticize the actions of the Belarusian government and call for the re-establishing of Sheremet’s citizenship.

“Sheremet has long been critical of the regime of Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko and has been jailed, attacked, and harassed for his work in the past.  This latest official move appears as yet another act of official retaliation.  It must be stopped at once.”

Sheremet noted that “the desire to take away my Belarusian passport [was] a manifestation of aggravation of the Belarusian special services’ hysteria.”  He went to conclude that the action of Belarus was “revenge for [his] professional activities.”

Sheremet has been detained and jailed a number of times by both Belarusian and Russian authorities.  During the 2006 Belarusian Presidential election, Sheremet was jailed while covering protests that arose in its aftermath.  In 2004 Sheremet was attacked in Minsk and subsequently charged with disturbing the peace following his publishing of a biography critical of the Lukashenko government.

For more information, please see:

CHARTER 97 – Committee to Protect Journalists has called upon returning citizenship to Sharamet – 31 March 2010

CHARTER 97 – Paval Sharamet deprived of Belarusian citizenship – 31 March 2010

RADIO FREE EUROPE – Belarusian Journalist ‘Loses Citizenship’ – 31 March 2010

CPJ – More than two dozen journalists jailed in Belarus – 28 March 2006

Prisoners Escape After Yemen Jail Blast

By Ahmad Shihadah

Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

ADEN, Yemen – About 40 southern separatists escaped from a prison in Yemen after a guard lobbed a hand grenade to disperse an inmates’ protest at the facility, officials said Thursday.

The men escaped amid a melee that erupted when the grenade exploded in the prison in the southern town of Dali, the officials said. Authorities immediately imposed a curfew on the town and launched a manhunt to track down the escaped inmates.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak to the media, said four prisoners were wounded in the blast. The inmates were protesting their detention without trial.

Southerners in Yemen complain of neglect and discrimination by the north, and an increasingly vocal southern separatist movement has been coming to blows with the central government. The two parts of the country were separate nations before they united in 1990.

Yemen’s interior ministry on Thursday denied the police report that around 30 recently arrested prisoners had made a run for it after a bomb exploded outside a jail in the south of the country. “Information about prisoners fleeing is completely false,” the ministry said in a statement of an earlier police report that sympathizers of a southern secessionist movement had escaped from outside prison.

Also Thursday, police fired tear gas to disperse protesters in Dali and several other southern towns. The demonstrators were protesting the government’s ongoing crackdown against southern pro-secession activists.

Police officials said scores of protesters were detained. Pro-independence protests have multiplied in the south, especially on Thursdays, the start of the Muslim weekend, amid a worsening economic situation in Yemen and charges of discrimination in favor of northerners.

Elsewhere in Yemen’s south, an activist was shot dead and three others were injured when security forces dispersed a protest in the town of Radfan in Lahej province, the local official and media reports said.

Western countries and neighboring Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, fear al Qaeda is exploiting instability in Yemen to launch attacks in the region and beyond.

For more information, please see:

Reuters – Mass Escape From Yemen Jail After Blast – 1 April 2010

AP – 40 Activists Bust Out Of Yemen Prison After Blast – 1 April 2010

AFP – Yemen Denies Prisoners Fled After Bomb Blast – 1 April 2010

BBC – Prisoners Escape From Yemen Jail – 1 April 2010

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Says It Is Time for Young Politicians To Take Over

By Cindy Trinh
Impunity Watch Reporter, Oceania

HONIARA, Solomon Islands – The Solomon Islands’ Prime Minister, Derek Sikua, says that long-serving politicians have nothing new to offer the country and it is time to make way for the young politicians to take over the running of the country.

Sikua says that he hopes the upcoming elections will bring “a new style of politics that will help shape the Solomons’ future.”

In a report to Radio Australia’s Pacific Beat Programme, he believes that a younger generation of politicians is the answer to the long battle for democracy and peace within the country.

He stated: “Being in politics for the last four years, what I have learnt is that it’s time for change…It’s time for young people and I will be encouraging young people to come in and be in politics here.”

Sikua believes that the politicians who have served the country for a long time now have nothing new to offer the country. In fact, according to Sikua, long-standing politicians have only added to the corruption and furthered the struggle for democracy.

“Stamping out corruption is shaping up to be one of the most important election issues. Recent foreign aid has allegedly disappeared, and there are concerns that a lot of aid has been used by politicians to buy votes, rather than to improve services to the provinces.”

Sikua would like to see new guidelines put in place to ensure better accountability. He emphasizes that there needs to be more “transparency” in what is happening with foreign aid.

Sikua hopes for a better future for the Solomon Islands. Since he took office as Prime Minister, Sikua has been determined to bring change to the Solomon Islands. He stated: “I want to see a new Solomon Islands that is united, strong and God-fearing – a Solomon Islands that is secure and prosperous…[this] can only be realized though good leadership…political leadership that is honest, visionary, inclusive and consultative.”

For more information, please see:
Islands Business – Solomon Islands’ call to young politicians – 30 March 2010

Australia Network News – Solomon Islands’ call to young politicians – 29 March 2010

Islands Business – Solomon Islands: Sikua’s Vision

Bangladesh: Important step forward for international justice

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC STATEMENT
25 March 2010

Amnesty International welcomes Bangladesh’s ratification of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court on 23 March 2010. The ratification follows more than a decade of campaigning by Amnesty International and other civil society groups since Bangladesh signalled its willingness to do so by signing the Rome Statute on 16 September 1999.

Bangladesh is the 111th state to ratify the Rome Statute and the seventh in Asia to do so, joining Afghanistan, Cambodia, Mongolia, the Republic of Korea, Timor-Leste and Japan.

By ratifying the Rome Statute, Bangladesh has demonstrated an important commitment to international justice and working to end impunity for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

The ratification by Bangladesh could have a significant impact in Asia, particularly on Nepal and Indonesia, which has promised to ratify the Rome Statute. Amnesty International hopes that Bangladesh will encourage these and other states in the region to do so and to join it in sending a high-level delegation, either as states parties or as observers, to the Review Conference on the Rome Statute scheduled to take place in Kampala from 31 May to 11 June 2010.

The Rome Statute sets a high-standard for states in investigating and prosecuting crimes under international law. Bangladesh will need urgently to re-examine the law establishing International Crimes Tribunals, which it plans to set up to try people accused of crimes committed during Bangladesh’s independence war. This will be to ensure that the law it applies and the procedures it uses are fully consistent with the Rome Statute and other international law.

Ratification of the Rome Statute is, however, just the first step.

Second, Bangladesh must enact effective implementing legislation defining genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes as crimes under international law in accordance with the strictest international law definitions. This will enable it to prosecute persons regardless of rank for those crimes, whenever and wherever they were committed. That legislation needs also to provide for full cooperation with the International Criminal Court.

 Third, in order to ensure such cooperation, it must also ratify the Agreement on the Privileges and Immunities of the International Criminal Court (APIC) so that the Court and its officials can visit Bangladesh.

Fourth, Bangladesh should enter into agreements with the Court providing for relocation of victims and witnesses.

Fifth, it should enter into an agreement with the Court providing for the enforcement of Court sentences in Bangladesh and in prison facilities which meet international standards.

Amnesty International hopes the government of Bangladesh will now rise to the expectations generated by the ratification of the Rome Statute to enhance human rights protection in the country and elsewhere.

For more information, please see:

Amnesty International – Bangladesh: Important Step Forward for International Justice – 25 March 2010

Response to Violence in Hyderabad

By Alok Bhatt
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

HYDERABAD, India – The southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh has been facing extensive violence and disorder in its streets, as continual rioting has plagued its streets since Saturday.  The riots allegedly began as a result of an agitated skirmish over decorations for the celebration of the Hindu deity Hanuman’s birthday.  Hindus and Muslims both committed violent acts towards one another as the Hyderabad streets dissolved into chaos.   Communal tensions between the two religious groups are not new to the state of Andhra Pradesh, which has an approximately 60:40 Hindu-to-Muslim population ratio.

It seems that greater friction between Hindus and Muslims has manifested since the Indian government began discussing splitting the Andhra Pradesh state.  However, the riots that began on Saturday represented an instance in which the streets of Hyderabad were consumed in violent action.  There have been myriad reports of people setting buildings aflame, damaging vehicles on the street and turning the Andhra Pradesh streets essentially to a war zone.  Also, about five mosques and one Hindu temple were damaged in the streets

Approximately one-hundred people have been arrested in connection to the rioting thus far.  While there has only been one reported death, a man who was stabbed to death in the riots, scores more have been injured to varying degrees.  The continual activity and disturbance on the Hyderabad streets would have made it difficult to deliver assistance to those who have sustained injuries.

The police have allegedly been looking into possible catalysts for the extensive violence.  However, cooperation from Indian nationals has been difficult to attain.  In order to crack down on the raging communities in the Muslim-majority Old Hyderabad, where the riots spiraled out of control, the police stations in various parts of the city have been subject to a curfew.  Fluctuations in the terms of the curfew have occurred over the week, including relaxations to allow women and older women to wander.

Both Hindu and Muslim groups claim that the government has done a poor job in quelling the riots, declaring that there was actually a Congressional interest in allowing the riots to continue.  These allegations, however, have yet to be confirmed or substantiated.

For more information, please see:

Al-Jazeera – Curfew follows Hyderabad riots – 30 March 2010

HinduJagruti – Jihadi Riots in Hyderabad… – 31 March 2010

SifyNews – Shoot-at-sight orders issued in Hyderabad… – 30 March 2010