Members of Polish Ethnic Group Jailed and Fined in Belarus

By Elizabeth A. Conger
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

HRODNA, Belarus –  On Sunday, police in Belarus arrested approximately forty members of a banned Polish cultural group, the Union of Poles (ZPB).  Members of the ZPB were arrested as they travelled to a court hearing in the  northwestern town of Volozhyn.

The ZPB, a nonpolitical organization with approximately 20,000 members, promotes Polish language and culture among ethnic Poles living in Belarus. It has been banned for the past five years, ever since it elected Anzhelika Borys as it’s leader in 2005.  The ZPB is currently the largest NGO in Belarus.

A protest was held on February 10, 2010, after police seized a building owned by ZPB, which housed the ZPB’s headquarters. Members of the ZPB were travelling to the court in Volzhyn on Sunday in order to attend the court hearing regarding the confiscation of the house when they were arrested by Belarusian police. 

The Polish government  has condemned the actions of Belarusian authorities, and recalled the its ambassador from Belarus.

Photo: Anzhelika Borys, Chairwoman of the ZPB, elected in 2005. [Source: RFE/RL]
Photo: Anzhelika Borys, Chairwoman of the ZPB, elected in 2005.
Three ZPB members were sentenced to jail today by a court in the western Belarusian city of Hrodna, while dozens of others remain in detention. The court fined Anzhelika Borys, ZPB Chairwoman, one million Belarusian rubles ($360), while ZPB Deputy Chairman Meczislaw Jaskiewicz, spokesman Igor Bancer, and Council Chairman Andrzej Poczobut were sentenced to five days in jail.  Borys has gone into hiding to avoid being taken into militia custody, and she has reportedly given her mobile phone to Bancer to avoid being traced.

Poland’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Andrzej Kremer, told the AFP news agency that the Polish government was:  “deeply worried by the operations being pursued against the representatives of the Polish minority in Belarus.”

Polish media reported that Polish Foreign Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, has given the Belarusian Foreign Minister, Syarhey Martynau, a letter for President Lukashenko warning him that if Minsk continued to violate the rights of its Polish minority, the Polish government would ban Belarusian government officials from entering Poland and would recommend that Belarus be blocked from entering the EU.

Roughly 400,000 ethnic Poles currently live in Belarus. Human rights groups have accused the Belarusian government of repressing the rights of ethnic Poles living in Belarus. The Belarusian government only recognizes a breakaway faction of the Union of Poles which has declared its loyalty to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. 

Lukashenko has ruled Belarus since 1994, and human rights activists have criticized his authoritarian tactics, which he has used to stifle dissent.

For more information, please see:

BBC – Belarus arrests members of ethnic Polish group – 15 February 2010

RFE – Belarus Fines, Gives Jail Terms to Ethnic Poles – 15 February 2010

thenews.pl – Militia arrests more Poles in Belarus – 15 February 2010

British Government Ordered to Release Torture Memo of Guantanamo Detainee

By Brenda Lopez Romero
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America desk

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The British government was compelled to disclose a document that the judge called the “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” of a former Guantanamo Bay inmate while he was in U.S. custody.  David Miliband, the British foreign secretary, said they would not seek to appeal the ruling.

The judge rejected the British government’s argument of harm to intelligence ties with the United States and national security concerns.   News agencies sued for the release of the documents on public-interest grounds and claimed the judgment as a “resounding victory for freedom of speech.”

The judge outlined the British intelligence from the United States regarding Binyam Mohamed, a British resident that was arrested in Pakistan for allegedly being a terrorist plotter.  The techniques used in Mohamed’s interrogation while in U.S. custody included “continuous sleep deprivation,” shackling during questioning, threatened and played on his fears of being “disappeared.”  Mohamed suffered “significant mental stress and suffering” and was kept under suicide watch.

Mohamed is of Ethiopian descent and was arrested on a passport violation in 2002.  He sustains that the CIA took him to Morocco and Afghanistan were he was tortured.  The charges against Mohamed were dropped in October 2008, and in February 2009 Mohamed became the first Guantanamo Bay inmate released by the Obama administration.

Miliband also said British judgment affirmed that intelligence provided by an ally could not be disclosed without that country’s permission indicting that said permission was given by the U.S. court action allowing for similar information to be disclosed.

The summary did not include the more serious torture allegations such as being severely beaten, left in stress positions, and his genitals being sliced with a scalpel during repeated interrogations.  These allegations occurred under U.S. auspices, but the nationalities of the interrogators remain uncertain.

For more information, please see:

The Huffington Post – Memo Confirms ‘Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading’ Treatment Of Guantanamo Detainees – 11 February 2010

The Los Angeles Times – British Ruling Releases Memo on “Inhuman” Treatment of Guantanamo Bay Prisoner – 10 February 2010

Five Kenyans Arrested at Gay Wedding

By Kylie M Tsudama

Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

MTWAPA, Kenya – Hours before Kenya’s first gay wedding was to due take place, it was violently stopped by protesting youths and police.

(Source:Daily Nation)
(Source:Daily Nation)

Dozens of Christian and Muslim adolescents raided the apartment where the gay couple and another man lived in order to stop the wedding.  The youths banded together under the name “Operation Gays Out.”

The police intervened and arrested several wedding guests, five of whom were suspected homosexuals.

“I sent Mtwapa OCS to rescue them from angry residents baying for their blood because they were trying to conduct that marriage between two men,” said Kilifi police chief Grace Kakai.

Homosexuality is illegal in Kenya and almost all of Africa is homophobic.  South Africa is the only African country that allows gay marriage.

When asked about Kenya’s intense homophobia, Kenyan police spokesman Eric Kiraithe said, “It’s culture, just culture.  It’s what you are taught when you are young and what you hear in church.  Homosexuality it unnatural.  It’s wrong.”

The wedding was supposed to be secret.  It was to take place at a private villa but a group of locals found out and a mob quickly formed.  They headed to Kikambala, a beach town on Kenya’s coast, where the ceremony was to be held.  Bystanders heard them say that the people at the wedding should be burned.

“You know, down at the coast, where there are so many tourists, people tolerate a lot,” said Kiraithe.  “But this is too much.  These people were nearly stoned.”

The two men who were set to be married were not arrested but the five who were may be subject to testing to determine whether or not they had “illegal carnal knowledge of each other.”  No reason has been given for letting the engaged men go.

Muslim and Christian clergymen condemn the planned marriage.

Sheikh Ali Hussein of the Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya said, “We cannot allow these young boys to ruin their future through homosexuality.  We shall use all means to curb this vice.”

Added Bishop Lawrence Chai of the National Council of Churches of Kenya, “This is immoral and we shall not allow it, especially here in Mtwapa.”

A Kenyan gay rights organization has appealed to the Human Rights Commission to step in.

For more information, please see:

AFP – Five Arrested in Kenya Over Planned Gay Wedding – 12 February 2010

BBC – Kenyan Police Raid ‘Gay Wedding’ and Arrest Five Men – 12 February 2010

Daily Nation – Mob Attacks Gay ‘Wedding’ Party – 12 February 2010

NY Times – Kenyan Police Disperse Gay Wedding – 12 February 2010

BBC – Kenya Chiefs Block Mombasa Gay Wedding – 11 February 2010

Human Rights Watch Calls Zeitoun Case “Fatally Flawed”

By Meredith Lee-Clark
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

CAIRO, Egypt – In the wake of the first session in state security court, Human Rights Watch called on the Egyptian government to move the trial of twenty-five suspected terrorists to criminal court.  The twenty-two Egyptians and two Palestinians of the so-called “Zeitoun” cell were arrested and charged in connection with an armed robbery and murder in Cairo in May 2008 and a planned attack on the Suez Canal.  One additional defendant is abroad and is being tried in abstentia.

Human Rights Watch and other rights organizations have criticized the Egyptian government’s handling of the twenty-four defendants since their arrest in July 2009.  The members of the Zeitoun cell are accused of setting up a terrorist cell targeting Coptic Christians and foreigners in Egypt, with possible connections to Al Qaeda.  The twenty-four men were held without charge for several weeks without being charged, as State Security Investigations (SSI) officers were granted consecutive fifteen-day detention orders under Egypt’s emergency law.  Defense lawyers have filed multiple applications to visit with their clients in private; the defense attorneys reiterated their requests at the first session of the trial on February 14.

Since the case was moved to the State Security Court on July 22, 2009, some of the defendants’ lawyers were not allowed at the prosecution’s interrogations.  Additionally, during the first session, several defendants told the state security forces that they had been tortured during their interrogations, obtaining several confessions by torture.

The case is drawing heavy media attention in Egypt and throughout the Middle East.  The trial opened under tight security, as security officers prevented late-arriving journalists and family members from entering the courtroom.  Defendants’ family members who were in the courtroom were prevented from talking with the defendants, even though many have seen their relatives only once or twice in nearly two years.

After the initial court session on February 14, the judge adjourned the trial until March 20 to allow defense attorneys an opportunity to examine police documents.  Sarah Leah Whitson, Human Rights Watch’s Middle East director, called on the Egyptian judiciary to ensure that the defendants are granted a fair trial.

“The government’s reliance on a state security court that lacks fair trial protections means that the verdict will be unsound,” said Whitson.  “If the prosecution feels it has sufficient evidence, if should bring this case before a regular Egyptian criminal court.”

For more information, please see:

Gulf News – Egypt Accuses Terror Suspects of Links with Al Qaida – 16 February 2010

Al-Masry Al-Youm – “Zeitoun” Cell Suspects Claim Police Torture – 14 February 2010

Human Rights Watch – Egypt:  Transfer Zeitoun Trial to Criminal Court – 14 February 2010

TMCnet.com – Zeitoun Terrorism Case Begins Amid Heavy Security Presence – 14 February 2010

Disabled Man Wins Battle over Polling Locations

By William Miller

Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

TORONTO, Canada – The Canadian Human Rights Commission ruled against Elections Canada on Friday, February 15, finding that they needed to take steps to improve accessibility to disabled voters across Canada. The complaint was filed by Reverend Peter Hughes after he had difficulty accessing a polling place in Toronto.

Rev. Hughes problems with Elections Canada began in March 2008. When Hughes arrived at the polling site, he found that the voting booths where located at the bottom of a long flight of stairs.  Hughes uses a walker to get around and was unable to negotiate the stairs standing up.

Hughes was forced to sit on the stairs and slide down them one at a time in order to access the polls. As Hughes described the experience, “I sat down on the edge of the stairs and I went down on the seat of my pants down to the bottom of the stairs while somebody carried my walker.”

Hughes problems only got worse when he complained at the polling site. Elections Canada told him it was not their problem and that he was in error. They told him to exit using a snow covered ramp used for maintenance and garbage. “There was no way that a disabled person could easily get up that ramp. It was very difficult for me to struggle up the ramp in the middle of the snow,” said Hughes.

When Hughes found out that the same site would be used again for an election in October he took his complaint to the Human Rights Commission. Hughes said the complaint was not just for himself but for all disabled people across Canada.

Last Friday the Commission ruled in favor of Hughes, finding that Elections Canada had not done enough to address the needs of disabled individuals in Canada. They ordered Elections Canada to improve accessibility in all Canadian polling places, to improve their complaint system, and to report to parliament on the issue of accessibility for physically impaired.

In their ruling the court said “it is disappointing that in the disability rights/accessibility heightened time in which we find ourselves living as we enter the second decade of the 21st century, that Mr. Hughes would have had to experience the humiliation and indignities of those two voting events, followed by the tardy investigation, inaccurate conclusions and poor handling of his verbal and written complaints.”

Human Rights Tribunal decisions can be appealed in the Canadian Federal Courts. Elections Canada is planning to appeal the decision.

For more information, please see:

Canada News Wire – Elections Canada Ordered to Stop Using Inaccessible Polling Stations by Canadian Human Rights Tribunal when Disabled Voter forced to crawl to polling station on seat of his pants – 12 February 2010

CBC – Elections Canada ordered to make voting accessible – 13 February 2010

680 News – Elections Canada ordered to ensure polling stations accessible to all – 13 February 2010