Iran Begins Advanced Enrichment of Uranium

By Bobby Rajabi
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran has begun enriching uranium at a purity level of twenty percent. The state-run media in Iran reported on February 9 that the increase in purity allows for the production of a higher grade of nuclear fuel. This action was defiance of many Western countries who remain concerned that Iran’s ultimate goal with their nuclear program is the ability to manufacture  weapons of mass destruction.

An unnamed Iranian official told Iran’s Arabic-language Al Alam channel that “Today (Iran) started to make twenty percent enriched nuclear fuel…in the presence of IAEA inspectors at Natanz.” Iran’s envoy to the IAEA, Ali-Asghar Soltanieh, announced that the government informed the UN’s atomic watchdog that would begin enrich the fuel at the higher level.

This announcement from Iran was met with calls from the United States and its allies for the imposition of stronger UN sanctions against Iran over it’s nuclear program. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates explained that “the only path that is left to us at this point, it seems to me, is that pressure track but it will require all of the international community to work together.” A spokesman for the US State Department, PJ Crowley, did make it clear that the US government had “no interest in creating additional hardships on the Iranian people.”

The enriching of uranium to twenty percent does not by itself produce nuclear fuel that could be easily used in a bomb. The level of uranium enrichment that is required for a nuclear weapon is ninety percent. The concern from Western countries lies with the fact that the technological jump to get from twenty percent to ninety percent is fairly straightforward.

Iran’s top nuclear official, Ali Akba Salehi, also said that the Iranian government would build ten new enrichment plants next year. This is despite the fact that there are still problems with its first one. The United States and its allies, in response to this news, said that the time had come “fore the adoption of strong sanctions.” The UN Security Council has already imposed three rounds of sanctions against Iran in response to it’s uranium enrichment activities.

For more information, please see:

Al Jazeera – Iran ‘Begins Advanced Enrichment’ – 9 February 2010

BBC – Iran ‘Starts Enriching Nuclear Fuel to 20%’ at Natanz – 9 February 2010

New York Times – Small Step in Iran’s Nuclear Effort Suggests Ambitions for a Weapon, Experts Say – 9 February 2010

Voice of America – Iran Defies West, Begins Boosting Uranium – 9 February 2010

Fighting Continues In Northern Yemen

By Ahmad Shihadah
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

SA’NA, Yemen – Ten Yemeni soldiers have been killed, most of them by snipers, and 18 wounded in a fresh outbreak of fighting with Shiite rebels in north Yemen, a military official said on Monday. The latest clashes come days after the government announced a timetable for a ceasefire, to which the rebels have yet to respond. The fighting took place around the northern city of Sa’ada, in Harf Sufyan, which lies to the south of the city, and in the Malahidh border area, the official told the AFP on condition of anonymity.

The rebels, meanwhile, reported the deaths of two children in what they said was Saudi shelling near the border in northern Yemen. The children, aged five and 10, were killed when one of almost 150 shells fired by the Saudi army towards positions near the border crashed into their farm, the rebels said in a statement on their website.

Yemen’s defence ministry said this week that the government would stop its war with rebel Houthi fighters if they were to begin complying with its six conditions. Ceasefire terms, presented in August, included removing checkpoints, ending banditry, handing over all military equipment and weapons, and releasing civilians and military personnel. But a government official said on Sunday that the ceasefire deal should have included a pledge by the group not to attack neighbouring Saudi Arabia.

Government officials have said Houthi leaders twice rejected the terms, while Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the Houthis’ leader, said last week that his fighters had twice declared they wanted to end the conflict.

The latest round of clashes erupted on August 11, when government forces launched “Operation Scorched Earth” — an all-out offensive to stamp out the uprising. Saudi Arabia entered the conflict on November 4th , a day after Houthi forces killed a Saudi border guard and occupied two villages within Saudi territory. The rebels accused the kingdom of aiding Yemeni forces, a charge it denied.

The rebels announced their withdrawal from Saudi territory on January 25.
The UN refugee agency says that about 250,000 people have been displaced by the fighting.

For more information, please see:

Al-Jazeera – Yemen’s Houthi Truce Under Scrutiny – 10 February 2010

Tehran Times – Saudi Forces Raid Yemen’s Northern Villages – 10 February 10

AFP – Ten Soldiers Killed in North Yemen Clashes – 9 February 2010

CNN – Fighting Erupts in Yemen During Peace Talks, Journalist Says – 6 February 2010

ICC Clears Rebel Leader of War Crimes Charges

By Jonathan Ambaye
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa Desk

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – On Monday, February 8, 2010 the judges of the International Criminal Court ruled that there is not enough evidence to send Darfur rebel Leader, Bahr Idriss Abu Garda, to trial on charges he commanded an attack on African Union peacekeepers in 2007.
Garda is alleged to have ordered over 1,000 members of the different factions of the Justice and Equality Movement in an attack with a multitude of military weaponry, on the Haskanita base of the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) in North Darfur.

 A panel of three judges, in a 103 pg decision, said that prosecution failed to prove Garda, who is the leader of the Darfur United Resistance Front (“URF”) played a role in the killings of 12 soldiers in 2007.  The courts chamber said, “Considered as a whole, the evidence of the prosecution witnesses from AMIS regarding the purported existence of an armed group under the command and control of Mr. Abu Garda in the area of Haskanita at or around the time of the attack is not sufficient to support the prosecution’s allegations.” The chamber further said, “The same evidence appears, rather to point to other individual acting as commanders of rebel armed groups in the area”.  Garda was the first of many individuals to appear before “The Hague based court in connection with the Darfur case.” Garda surrendered himself voluntarily last year to confront the charges he adamantly says he not guilty of.
 The judges based their ruling on the lack of consistency in the prosecutions primary argument. The prosecution’s case rested on testimony by seven witnesses who spoke to two meetings that took place prior to the attacks. The testimony failed to convince the judges that Garda was present saying, “that the cumulative evidence is weak and unreliable due to inconsistencies inherent in them.”

This decision actually marks “the first time in the history of the court that the prosecution failed to move a case past the confirmation of charges hearings on at least one of the counts contained in a summons to appear or an arrest warrant.”
For more information please see:
All Africa – Hague Court Attacks Prosecution Evidence– 9 February 2010

BBC – ICC Rejects Darfur Rebel Charges – 9 February, 2010

Sudan Tribune – Darfur Rebel Leader Cleared of War Crimes Charges – 9 February, 2010

Chechen Human Rights Activists Detained

By Kenneth F. Hunt

Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

SHALI, Russia – Police in a Shali, a small town in the Republic of Chechnya in Russia, “arbitrarily” detained three human rights activists overnight on Sunday February 7.

According to Human Rights Watch, the three men were questioned separately through the night, not given access to an attorney, and allowed to make phone calls to human rights colleagues outside of Chechnya. Although the men were never under arrest, they were not allowed to leave the Shani precinct.

According to Aleksandr Cherkasov of Memorial Human Rights Center, a rights watchdog based in Moscow, claims that activists were not provided with an explanation for the basis of their detention.

Allegedly, the activists were detained because they met with a Shali citizen who had pertinent information about a local abduction victim. But no official explanation for the detention has yet been given. Moreover, Shanli police did not officially process any of the detentions.

The three prominent activists, Dmitry Yegoshin, Roman Veretennikov, and Vladislav Sadykov, were involved in an investigation of numerous abductions and killings of Chechens over the past years.  In particular, the activists were investigating the abduction and murder of Natalya Estemirova, a member of a Memorial branch in Chechnya. Ms. Estemirova was abducted by unidentified masked kidnappers. Her body was found dead in a vehicle that was shot at and struck dozens of times.

Human rights groups, including Memorial, claim that Ramzan Kadyrov, the President of the Republic of Chechnya, ordered Ms. Estemirova’s kidnapping and killing. Mr. Kadyrov has since dismissed these allegations as “slanderous”.

Human rights activists have accused Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov of ordering kidnappings and murders in the republic. Kadyrov has dismissed the allegations, calling them slanderous.

International human rights groups, including Amnesty International, Civil Rights Defenders, Front Line, and Human Rights Watch, have since released a statement to probe the detentions further.

The groups decried the detentions as continuing examples of Russian impunity. Specifically, Holly Cartner, the Europe and Central Asia Director at Human Rights Watch, said that “[t]his arbitrary detention clearly demonstrates that the Chechen law enforcement agencies continue harassing human rights defenders despite Prime Minister Putin’s recent call for a healthy working environment for human rights groups.”

For more information, please see:

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH – Watchdogs Call For Probe Into Chechen Detentions – 09 February 2010

MOSCOW TIMES – Rights Activists Detained in Chechnya – 09 February 2010

RADIO FREE EUROPE – Watchdogs Call For Probe Into Chechen Detentions – 09 February 2010

Turkey Voices Displeasure with Armenian Genocide Bill

By Brandon Kaufman
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

ANKARA, Turkey– Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu strongly denounced a U.S. congressional committee over the weekend for scheduling a vote on an Armenian genocide resolution.  Davutoglu said that passage of a resolution would severely hamper Turkey’s relations with both the United States and Armenia.

Davutoglu reportedly suggested that Washington is using the prospect of passing the resolution to force Turkey to ratify its fence-mending agreements with Armenia.  “The draft’s inclusion on the agenda is not in the interests of the United States, Turkey and Armenia.  This process can lead both our bilateral relations with the U.S. and Turkey’s rapprochement with Armenia into deadlock,” said Davutoglu.

The resolution, before the U.S. House of Representatives, was introduced by pro-Armenian U.S. lawmakers a year ago.  The resolution strongly urges President Obama to “accurately characterize the systematic and deliberate annihilation of 1,500,000 Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide.”  It is believed, based on comments by the House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman that the resolution will come to a vote early next month.

The resolution vote will come almost two months before the 95th anniversary of what many believe was the start of mass killings and deportations against the Armenians.  In the past, Turkey has vehemently condemned similar bills that were passed in committee, but that never were put to a full House vote.  Turkey contends that the killings occurred on a smaller scale and were not part of a premeditated government effort to exterminate Turkey’s Armenian population.

On Saturday, Davutoglu said that he raised Ankara’s concerns with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg at a meeting held in Munch which addressed international security concerns.  Davutoglu claims that Armenia is in some ways behind the scheduling of the congressional committee vote.  Meanwhile, Armenian officials have voiced their satisfaction with the progress of the “genocide resolution.”

For more information, please see:

Armenia Diaspora- Turkey Unhappy with U.S. Over Armenian Genocide Bill– 9 February 2010

Armenia Now- Genocide Resolution is “Element of Pressure;” would “Hamper” Protocol Process– 9 February 2010

Radio Free Europe- Turkey Slams U.S. Over Armenian Genocide Bill– 8 February 2010