ICC Postpones Bemba’s Trial

By Kylie M Tsudama

Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – Former Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) Vice President Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo’s war crimes trial has been postponed.

Bemba faces charges for murder, rape, and pillaging that occurred from October 2002 to March 2003 in the Central African Republic (CAR).

The International Criminal Court (ICC) announced Monday that the trial, scheduled to start April 27, has been pushed back to July 5.  Last month, Bemba’s lawyers challenged the admissibility of his case in the ICC based on the complementarity principle.  The ICC only has authority to try cases when it does not interfere with any national proceedings.

Bemba’s defense team also called the ICC proceedings “an abuse of process in the case against Mr. Bemba,” and questioned the ICC’s “lack of the requisite level gravity,” believing that the case is not serious enough to be heard in the ICC.

The Office of the Prosecutor and victims’ legal representatives have until March 29 to make submissions to the Court and the CAR and DRC authorities have until April 19 to respond.  A status conference is scheduled for April 27 where the trial chamber will consider all submissions alongside oral submissions made at the conference.  The trial chamber will then issue a decision.

Last summer, the ICC pre-trial chamber found that Bemba had the “necessary criminal intent” when he ordered the Movemenr de Liberation du Congo (MLC) into CAR.  It also determined that the MLC armed group committed war crimes and crimes against humanity under Bemba “acting as military commander” during that mission.

Bemba was arrested in Belgium and transferred to the ICC in July 2008.  Last September, the Court reversed a decision granting Bemba a temporary conditional release, deciding that he would remain in the custody of the Court until the trial’s commencement.

This is one of four cases being investigated by the Prosecutor of the ICC.  Bemba is the most senior political figure in the Court’s custody.

For more information, please see:

AP – Bemba War Crimes Trial Delayed – 08 March 2010

Relief Web – Commencement of the Trial of Jean-Pierre Bemba Postponed Until 5 July 2010 – 08 March 2010

UN News Centre – ICC Postpones Trial of Former Congolese Leader Charged with War Crimes – 08 March 2010

Slovak Village Builds Wall to Keep Roma Out

By Elizabeth A. Conger
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe Desk

OSTROVANY, Slovakia – In the eastern Slovak town of Ostrovany the town council approved and built a 150 meter long and 2.2 meter high wall out of gray concrete slabs to separate the Roma community from the rest of the village.  Officials in Ostrovany say that the wall was necessary to protect Slovak homeowners whose gardens bordered the Roma settlement.

The wall was built with €13,000 of public funds in a community where two-thirds of the population are Roma.

The wall dividing the eatern Slovakian village of Ostrovany from the Roma encampment. / Source: BBC
The wall dividing the eastern Slovakian village of Ostrovany from the Roma encampment. / Source: BBC

Stanislav Daniel of the European Roma Rights Center said of the wall:

“It has very high symbolic value. We could not object to the owners building their own wall and paying for it. But this is the first time that a municipality in Slovakia is using public money to protect the property of a few people.”

The village council first agreed to build the wall in 2008 after concerns were expressed over rising criminality in the village, primarily in the form of  fruit theft by Roma children. The wall was supposed to have become part of a community complex including a kindergarten, primary school, and community center –  which have yet to materialize.

The building of the wall has caused outrage among the Roma and human rights activists.  Peter Kaleja, a twenty-one-year-old Roma man who lives with his wife and nineteen-month-old baby daughter in a shack made of mud and wood, said:

“Nobody told us that this was happening – they just came one day and started building . . . The mayor should not have spent that money on the wall, but should have built houses for us.”

The Kaleja’s  live on €170 a month, and have no running water, gas, or sewage connection in their shack. 

Cyril Revak, mayor of Ostrovany, said that the Roma shacks are built illegally on private land.  He said:  “The Roma are also citizens of this country. They deserve all the help they can get, but they must obey the law.” Revak remarked that the municipality was trying to purchase the land the Roma are living on, and planned to build houses for the Roma.  He also said that the village had launched a program to help Roma children graduate from high school.

“I’m not a racist,” Revak said, “I know that there are many decent people living among our Roma. But on the other hand, I do not wish for anyone to go through hell everyday, like the people living in the neighbourhood of the settlement.”

Štefan Šarközi of the Institute of Roma Public Policy criticized the wall, which he said effectively categorized all of the residents of the settlement as thieves.  Šarközi also said that the money would have been better spent on social workers and guards to prevent crime.  He said:

“If someone steals, he or she should be punished for that, but we shouldn’t punish the whole community . . . Where does that leave those who live in the settlement behind the wall now and who never stole anything?”

 There are roughly 350,000 Roma in Slovakia, which is approximately seven percent of the nation’s population. The Roma of Slovakia, and in the rest of Eastern Europe, have a shorter life expectancy, are more likely to be unemployed, and have a higher infant mortality than their non-Roma neighbors.

For more information, please see:

BBC – Slovakia’s separation barrier to keep out Roma – 9 March 2010

The Sofia Echo – Slovak town raises concrete wall around Roma ghetto – report – 18 February 2010

Times Online – Slovakian council in Ostrovany funds wall to isolate Roma community – 18 February 2010

The Slovak Spectator – A wall to keep out Roma – 26 October 2009

 

British Reporter Held by Hamas in Gaza

By Meredith Lee-Clark
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East
 
GAZA CITY, Gaza – British reporter and filmmaker Paul Martin continues to be held in a Gaza prison, over three weeks after he was arrested by Hamas officials at a trial of Palestinian man who was accused of collaborating with Israel. According to a Hamas military court, Martin “committed offenses that harmed the security of the country.” Hamas has refused to publically specify Martin’s alleged offenses.
 
Hamas security officers arrested Martin on February 14, and after the fifteen-day detention period lapsed, security officers petitioned the Hamas military court for another fifteen-day extension, which was granted on March 1. Martin had been working on a documentary about Mohammed Abu Muaileq, the accused collaborator, when he was arrested. Martin has previously produced stories for the BBC, The Times of London, Al Jazeera International, CNN, and Channel Four News.
 
Martin’s lawyer, Sharhabil Zayim, said that the fifteen-day extension would be the longest that investigators could hold Martin without filing formal charges. When the Associated Press interviewed Zayim on February 28, Zayim said he had last seen Martin ten days previous, that he looked fine, but that he had not been allowed to see his client since.
 
Since that interview, Martin’s family in the United Kingdom have broken their silence and expressed concern about Martin’s well-being. Martin’s wife, Anne Martin, released a statement saying that her husband “has been kept in solitary confinement and interrogated whilst being denied access to his Gazan lawyer or to official British representatives. …We understand that he is now being held without reading and writing materials and without means of communication with the outside world.”
 
The British Embassy in Israel has also expressed concern, echoing Anne Martin’s statement that her husband’s arrest was the first arrest of a foreign press representative in Gaza.
 
“We are urgently looking into the matter and following up with the responsible people so we can sort this matter out on the consular level,” said Fadi Adeeb, a spokesperson for the British consulate in Jerusalem.
 
For more information, please see:
 
Sky News – Family’s Fears for Briton Held by Hamas – 2 March 2010
 
BBC News – Hamas Extends British Reporter Paul Martin’s Detention – 1 March 2010
 
New York Times – Hamas Says it is Extending Briton’s Stay in Detention – 1 March 2010
 
Associated Press – Hamas Seeks Extension of Detention of UK Reporter – 28 February 2010
 
Ha’aretz – Hamas Seeks to Extend Gaza Arrest of U.K. Journalist – 28 February 2010
 

Concern for Abused Addicts at Cambodian Drug Centers

By M.E. Dodge
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Many treatment centers in Cambodia have raised serious human rights alerts as reports of  physical abuse and involuntary administration of experimental drugs and medication become more frequent.

A woman in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, prepared to inject herself with heroin in a back alley used by addicts, like those in the background. Image courtesy of The New York Times.

 

The Human Rights Watch issued a recent report describing the abuse and mal-treatment in eleven different government-run centers. The report indicated that electric shock, beatings, rapes, forced labor and forced donations of blood were practices at most of these institutions.

According to the report, “Sadistic violence, experienced as spontaneous and capricious, is integral to the way in which these centers operate.” It went on to state that, “the practice of torture and inhuman treatment [is] widely practiced throughout Cambodia’s drug detention centers.”

The Cambodian government dismissed the report, and uttered in a public announcement that the report was,  “without any valid grounds.” Meas Virith, deputy secretary of the National Authority for Combating Drugs, stated at a news conference that, “The centers are not detention or torture centers,” and that “They are open to the public and are not secret centers.” She declined to describe the specific treatment practices the centers uses.

Aside from the few government-run centers, there are very few other resources for drug users to rely on to seek help for their addictions. Government figures for drug use in Cambodia are unreliable and range from about 6,000 to 20,000.The United Nations believes this figure could be as high as 500,000. In light of such heavy use, desperate families sometimes commit their relatives to the centers.  Others are said to be institutionalized against their will.

A drug dealer working in a poor neighborhood in Phnom Penh. Image Courtesy of: Justin Mott for The New York Times.

In December of 2009, the Cambodian government engaged in administering and experimental herbal drug to try and treat addicts. The treatment was heavily criticized by rights groups and health professionals because it was  imported from Vietnam but not registered for use in Cambodia. It is uncertain how many people the drug was used on, but twenty-one drug users documented and administered “bong sen” for ten days at various treatment centers before being released. There is no indication that a systematic follow-up was conducted, and the national drug authority conceded that at least some of those treated returned to drug use.

According to Graham Shaw, an expert on drug dependence and harm reduction with the World Health Organization in Phnom Penh, “No information is known to exist as to the efficacy of this claimed medicine for the detoxification of opiate dependent people, nor to its side effects or interactions with other drugs.”

“If Cambodian authorities think they are reducing drug dependency through the policy of compulsory detention at these centers, they are wrong,” said the report by Human Rights Watch. “There is no evidence that forced physical exercise, forced labor and forced military drills have any therapeutic benefit whatsoever.”

For more information, please see:

The New York Times – Cambodian Addicts Abused in Detention, Rights Group Says – 15 February 2010

Voice of America – Drug Treatment Centers Rife with Abuse – 30 January 2010

IPS – CAMBODIA: ‘Abuse Rampant in Drug Detention Centres’ – Human Rights Watch – 7 March 2010

Cambodia News – Rights Group Says Cambodia’s Drug Treatment Centers Rife with Abuse – 30 January 2010

Terrorist Cell Convicted In Germany For Failed Plot

By David Sophrin
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

DUSSELDORF, Germany – Four members of a German terrorist cell were convicted for a foiled terrorist plot target United States soldiers and military installations that they had attempted to carry out in 2007.

German citizens Fritz Gelowicz, Daniel Schneider and Attila Selek were arrested, along with Adem Yilmaz of Turkey, in 2007.  Found in their possession at the time of arrest were military detonators and large quantities of hydrogen peroxide.  The cell had been under investigation by German law enforcement authorities for approximately nine months prior to their arrest.  It was their intention to target the U.S. Air Force base in Germany, Ramstein Air Base, along with a number of regional airports and restaurants.  Each defendant had trained at an Al Qaeda camp in northern Pakistan.  They also had joined the Islamic Jihad Union in 2006.

The defendants confessed to the charges leveled against them last year.  Gelowicz and Schneider were sentenced to twelve years in prison.  Yilmaz was given an eleven year sentence, while Selek was sentenced to five years.  Schneider was also was convicted for the attempted murder of one of the police officers who participated in the cell’s arrest.

Judge Ottmar Breidling, who handed down the sentences, commented that the four defendants wanted to carry out a “second September 11th”.  He described the plot as having the potential to have been a “monstrous bloodbath, designed to kill at least 150 people, mostly Americans.”

This failed plot constituted the first radical Islamic plot to be organized and prepared by German citizens.

For more information, please see:

CNN – 4 convicted over foiled German terror plot – 4 March 2010

THE NEW YORK TIMES – Germany Sentences 4 in Terror Case – 4 March 2010

VOICE OF AMERICA – 4 Muslims Convicted in Germany – 4 March 2010

UPI – Germany convicts home-grown militants – 4 March 2010