New Zealand Immigration Scam Targets Pacific Islanders

By Eileen Gould
Impunity Watch Reporter, Oceania

WELLINGTON, New Zealand – New Zealand immigration officials have warned Pacific Islanders that they may be the targets of a possible immigration scam.

Both Immigration New Zealand and the Ministry of the Pacific Island Affairs have advised Pacific people not to travel to Waitangi in order to gain New Zealand citizenship.

The immigration scam, according to the New Zealand Labour Department, promotes citizenship and residency to individuals who are unable to gain permanent status, also known as overstayers.

Overstayers are being promised citizenship if the Maori tribe (or hapu) adopts them.

It is expected that many overstayers will travel to Waitangi because they were told that in exchange for $1,000 they would be able to gain citizenship from Ngapuhi elder by being adopted into the hapu.

A Ngapuhi elder claims that Pacific peoples will be welcomed but there are no plans to grant them citizenship.

Earlier this week, One News broke the news of this alleged immigration scam.

Former Maori vice-president of the National Party, Rahiri Dargaville, labeled the Ngapuhi elder’s comments as ‘misleading’ and that there was no intention to grant Pacific people citizenship.

Mr. Dargaville further stated that “[p]olarizing such issues using the media is not in keeping with Ngapuhi customs and traditions”.

The Immigration department requested those who may have been subjected to the scam to be report it to the police.

In assessing the accuracy of information presented to Pacific people, the chief executive of the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs, Dr. Colin Tukuitonga, advised these individuals that its probably a scam if it sounds too good to be true.  “Only Immigration NZ or people licensed by them are able to issue permits.  Don’t give your money to a fraudster.”

In order to remain in New Zealand, Immigration NZ has the sole responsibility for the authorization of the visas.

Immigration Minister Jonathan Coleman stated that “[a]doption into a hapu will not legally confer citizenship or residency upon anyone.”

Pacific people should be aware that individuals authorized to give advice on immigration in New Zealand must hold a license or be exempt from the license requirement under the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act.

For more information please see:
Fiji Times Online – Warning over NZ immigration scam – 04 February 2010

New Zealand Herald – No plans to ‘adopt’ Tongan overstayers – Ngapuhi elder – 03 February 2010

Radio New Zealand – Overstayers told citizenship not available at Waitangi – 03 February 2010

TVNZ – Tongan overstayers warned over immigration scam – 03 February 2010

Chained Child Shows Fear of Child Trafficking in China

By M.E. Dodge
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BEIJING, China – A father, afraid his son would be taken from the same spot where his four-year old  daughter was abducted just two weeks ago, chained the toddler to prevent anyone from snatching the young boy. Chen Chuanliu is unable to afford child care, and secured his son to a lamp post outside Huaguan shopping mall in Beijing so he could go to work as a pedicab driver.
A 2 year old Chinese boy is chained to a post on roadside

Pedicab driver Chen Chuanliu chains his 2-year-old son to a lamppost outside Beijing mall to avoid being abducted. Image courtesy of: The Guardian.

Chen’s daughter is like the tens of thousands of children that go missing each year in China. Many are the offspring of impoverished migrant workers like Chen, whose children are kidnapped and then sold. It is reported that Chinese officials have announced that the problem is on the rise. In fact, the problem has grown so acute that authorities have launched a campaign to crack down on child trafficking. The country is struggling to cope with a wave of child abductions, and allegedly has more than 200 babies and toddlers stolen every day, according to some estimates. It is considered a lucrative business in which an abducted girl child can fetch $1,200 and a boy anything up to $5,000, far more than the average annual salary in urban China.

Last year a national DNA database was created to reunite families. A website featured the photographs and details of rescued children in hopes that their parents could identify and prove they were related. Officials say they have saved around 2,000 children and returned at least some to their parents.

Despite a newly launched effort to reunite abducted children, Chen’s daughter still remains missing. According to him, “The police didn’t tell me anything – I don’t know whether they have opened a case or not. They just told me to look around the area myself.” Officers have apparently begun to look for the girl by reviewing footage from surveillance cameras, however, Chen’s daughter has been missing for over two weeks.

Chen’s story is not all that unique. His wife, Yang Caihong, has learning disabilities and is unable to care for the children, and the couple has no relatives in the city. Although the family has lived in Beijing for several years, China’s household registration system means they are still regarded as migrants, which means that they are not entitled to free nursery care like official residents.

Since the effort has begun to clamp down on child trafficking in China, officials have begun to launch multi-month investigations. In late December, following a nine-month investigation, police arrested eleven people suspected of abducting and trafficking dozens of babies within the last two years. In making the arrests, police were able to rescue 28 boys before being sold.

Chen is not confident that even with China’s new initiative to stop child abductions his son would not go missing. While the world remains shocked by the site of a padlocked toddler to a lamp post, one father believes it is for the child’s own protection.

For more information, please see:

London: Daily Mail – Childcare, Chinese style: Rickshaw driver chains two-year-old son to a post while he’s at work – February 4, 2010

Yahoo! News – Chinese dad leaves toddler in chains – February 4, 2010 

New York Daily News – Boy in China Tied to Lamppost While Father Works – February 5, 2010

China Digital Times – China Arrests 11 Suspected Child Traffickers: Media – December 2009

Double Bombing in Karbala Kills Dozens

By Bobby Rajabi
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

BAGHDAD, Iraq – A double car bombing on February 5 in the southern city of Karbala killed at least thirty two individuals. The attacks also left over one hundred people wounded. The dead and injured were among the hundreds of thousands of Shi’ite pilgrims who commemorated a major Shi’ite Muslim holy day in Karbala.

This bombing followed two other attacks against the pilgrims in the past week. The other attacks caused the deaths of over seventy pilgrims who were on their way to Karbala. The attack took place on the last and most important day of the Arbaeen. The holy day marks the fortieth day of mourning for the prophet Muhammad’s grandson, Imam Hussein. Imam Hussein was killed in a seventh century battle in Karbala.

The attack took place at the eastern entrance to the city, one of the three main entrances to Karbala. During this time pilgrims from around Iraq were leaving the commemorations that were taking place in the city center. The first explosion was caused by a car bomb that exploded near a hospitality tent. The tent had been erected to offer refreshments. Moments later a second explosion went off as a suicide bomber drove a vehicle through the carnage created by the first bombing. There were some reports that the car bomb attacks were followed up by mortar rounds.

Attacks on the Shi’ite pilgrims during Abaeen were not a surprise to the Iraqi government’ Major General Qassim al-Moussawi, Baghdad’s security spokesman, said in a statement that “the terrorist groups are gathering together all their capabilities to launch attacks during Arbaeen and after it.” Moussawi continue, saying that “the coming days will see these terrorist groups carrying out other attempts whenever they get a chance.”

Close to thirty thousand troops and police have been deployed to protect the Shi’ite pilgrims. Mohammed al-Moussawi, head of the provincial council, estimated that seven million pilgrims visited Karbala in the past ten days.

Overall there have been eight suicide bombings in Iraq in the last eleven days, targeting hotels and government buildings as well as pilgrims. Officials view this as a sign that the Sunni extremist insurgency appears to be regrouping in an attempt to destabilize Iraq ahead of the March 7 election.

For more information, please see:

Al Jazeera – Deadly Blast in Iraq’s Karbala City – 5 February 2010

BBC – Bombings Hit Iraq Shia Pilgrims in Karbala – 5 February 2010

Los Angeles Times – Double Bombing Kills 32 in Iraq – 5 February 2010

Washington Post – Iraqi police: Attacks Kill 28 Shiite Pilgrims – 5 February 2010

Hamas Formally Rejects War Crimes Allegations

By Meredith Lee-Clark

Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

 

GAZA CITY, Gaza – Hamas submitted a formal response to the United Nations on February 3, rejecting allegations that it committed war crimes during the 2008-2009 Gaza War between Hamas and Israel. Hamas has been the governing party in the Gaza Strip since 2006.

 

Hamas’ fifty-two-page response said that the killing of three Israeli citizens was an accident and that Hamas only targeted military installations. During the twenty-two day war, as many as 1,387 Palestinians, including hundreds of civilians, and thirteen Israelis were killed.

 

After the fighting ended, the U.N. commissioned an investigation and a report on the hostilities. The mission was headed by South African jurist and former war crimes prosecutor Richard Goldstone, and the mission’s final report accused both Israel and Hamas of targeting civilians and other war crimes during the Gaza War. The Goldstone Report also called for Israel and Hamas to conduct internal investigations about the war crimes allegations. The deadline for submitting internal findings to the U.N. is February 5.

 

Human Rights Watch, which has also condemned Israel’s actions, responded to Hamas’ response, saying the party’s “claim that its rocket attacks against Israel are not war crimes is factually and legally wrong.”

 

Israel submitted its forty-six page response earlier in the week, likewise denying any allegations of war crimes and stating that two of its top military officers had been reprimanded for shelling a U.N. building where hundreds of Palestinians had been staying. Palestinian and human rights groups rejected Israel’s account; Amnesty International called the Israeli response “totally inadequate.”

 

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said on February 4 that he could not determine whether Israel and Hamas had met the U.N. requirements for credible, independent internal investigations.

 

The Palestinian Authority said it would open its own internal investigation into Hamas’ actions during the war. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had announced in the week leading up to the investigation deadline that he would establish a committee to investigate the conduct of P.A. security officers during the Gaza War. Fatah is the ruling party of the P.A., and has been at odds with Hamas since Hamas took over control of the Gaza Strip from Fatah in 2006.

 

For more information, please see:

 

AFP – UN Chief Uncertain if “Credible” Gaza Probes Underway – 4 February 2010

 

Ha’aretz – PA to Probe Alleged Hamas Gaza War Crimes – 3 February 2010

 

New York Times – Hamas Gives U.N. Response to Gaza War Crimes Report – 3 February 2010

 

Human Rights Watch – Gaza: Hamas Report Whitewashes War Crimes – 28 January 2010

 

Washington Post – Human Rights Group: Hamas Targeted Civilians – 28 January 2010

New Legislation Gives Belarusian Government Authority To Monitor Internet Use

By David Sophrin
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

MINSK, Belarus – Recent legislation passed by Belarus will now give the federal government monitor the internet use of its citizens.

The decree, set to take effect on July 1, requires that the nation’s internet providers save all data concerning the websites visited by internet users in the nation for one year.  Upon request, that information must be turned over to law enforcement agencies.  Internet providers also will have to restrict access to any website that the government chooses.

National security concerns were the impetus for the legislation, according to Belarus’s President Alexander Lukashenko.  “To ensure the security of the state and it’s citizens,…Internet service providers will be required to identify devices used to connect to the Internet and keep information on those devices and the services provided.”

Criticism from the larger European community has called the decree a restriction of individual freedom.  Lucia Morillion, of Reporters Without Borders (RWB), commented that “whatever…president [Lukashhenko] is calling this decree, it is not done to improve the situation of Internet freedom in the country.”  Another response from the RWB declared that Belarus had “[fallen] to the level of North Korea and China…as an enemy of the Internet.”

The Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ) was also quick to condemn the legislation, which will give the government greater control over what has been one of the few remaining arenas of free speech in the Eastern European country.  “It is complete control of information” said Andrei Bastunets, deputy chairman of the BAJ.

Belarus has long been criticized by international press watchdog organizations for the government’s extensive control over the country’s media.  There are currently no independent television or radio stations, and virtually all of the remaining opposition newspapers have been shut down by the government.

The recent internet legislation is likely to further damage the recent attempts by Belarus to become part of the larger European economic and political community.  President Lukashenko, who was re-elected to office in 2006 by results that were disputed by opposition groups in Belarus, has held the office since 1994.  Recent efforts by the President to gain better relationships with Europe has shaken the long-standing relationship that Belarus has traditionally had with Russia.

For more information, please see:

RADIO FREE EUROPE – EU Calls Belarusian Internet Decree ‘A Step In Wrong Direction’ – 4 February 2010

AFP – Opposition attacks Belarus Internet crackdown – 2 February 2010

DEUTSCHE WELLE – Belarus to further tighten Internet control – 2 February 2010