Tamil Editor Freed on Bail

By Michael E. Sanchez
Impunity Watch Reporter, AsiaCOLOMBO, Sri Lanka- On Monday, Sri Lanka’s court of appeal freed on bail a Tamil editor who was sentenced to 20 years in prison last year.

J.S. Tissainayagam, who edited the North Eastern Monthly magazine in Colombo, was arrested in 2008 and charged with inciting violence in articles for his magazine.  A court official said that Mr. Tissainayagam was told to surrender his passport and to post 50,000 rupees ($437 dollars) in bail pending a full appeal hearing.  He has appealed his conviction in August on charges of raising money for terrorism and of causing racial hatred through his writing about Tamils affected by the country’s 37-year seperatist conflict.

Mr. Tissainayagam’s case has received widespread attention in Sri Lanka, and international rights groups have been campaigning for his release.  The European Union, the United States and international press freedom groups have condemned the 20 year sentence in jail with hard labor.  The sentence given to Mr. Tissainayagam’s was the harshest given to a Sri Lankan Journalist in recent years.

Mr. Tissainayagam, who was found guilty of “causing communal disharmony”, was among the handful of journalists mentioned last May by President Barack Obama, who called Mr. Tissainayagam and others “emblematic examples” of a persecuted journalist.

In October, Sri Lankan courts acquitted S. Jaseeharan, publisher of North Eastern Monthly and his wife on the charges of supporting terrorism.  All three were detained in March 2008 for articles published in the magazine.

In September, Mr. Tissainayagam was given an award for courageous and ethical journalism by the Paris-based group Reporters Without Borders.  In addition, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists selected him as a recipient of a 2009 International Press Freedom Award. He was also the first recipient of the Peter Mackler Award, set up in memory of Associated Foreign Press journalist Peter Mackler.

In May 2008, the Sri Lankan government defeated the Tamil Tigers rebels fighting for a separate homeland for the ethnic Tamil minority.  The United Nations estimates that up to 100,000 people were killed in the separatist conflict which erupted in 1972.

Official figures show nine journalists have been killed and 27 assaulted in the past three years in Sri Lanka, while activists say over a dozen journalists have been killed.

For more information, please see:

BBC News- Sri Lankan Editor JS Tissainayagam Gets Bail– 11 January 2010

AFP- Sri Lanka Court Frees Tamil Editor On Bail– 11 January 2010

Greenslade Blog- Tamil Editor Freed For Appeal– 11 January 2010

French Legislator Proposes Ban On Wearing of Veils In Public

By David Sophrin
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

PARIS, France – Legislation offered in the French parliament on Thursday that would result in a complete ban on individuals wearing veils over their faces in public.

The legislation’s sponsor is Jean-Francois Cope, the President of the center-right Union for a Popular Movement party (UMP) in the National Assembly.  President Nicolas Sarkozy is a member of the UPM.  Cope has argued that the ban is necessary on the grounds of public safety and to protect the ‘dignity’ of women.  “Permanently masking one’s face in public spaces is not an expression of individual liberty.  It’s a negation of oneself, a negation of others, a negation of social life.”  Under this legislation, those women failing to abide by its provisions would face fines of up to 7,000 euros.  Men who force women to wear a veil would face even higher fines.

This is not the first time that the issue of hear of veils and headscarves have become issues of public debate in France.  In 2004 Islamic headscarves and other certain religious symbols from school classrooms.  In the summer of 2009 a committee was established in the French parliament to hold hearings on a potential future ban on the wearing of veils in public.  President Sarkozy also commented last June that the presence of veils in France were a “sign of subservience and debasement that imprison women” in and were “not welcome”.  The President has not indicated, however, whether he supports Capo’s legislation.

Criticism to the proposed legislation has come from other French politicians.  The French Labor Minister Laurent Wauquiez commented that Cope was using this issue as a means of self-promotion.  The center-left Socialist Party opposes the ban.  National politicians have also indicated that the proposed legislation could be struck down by EU Courts, to which France is subject to.

Cope also introduced a resolution on Tuesday meant to reaffirm the nation’s values against “radical practices which harm them.”

Approximately 5 million Muslims currently live in France.  However, a recent news report noted that only approximately 400 women wear a veil, which is not required by Islam, in the country.

For more information, please see:

AP – France may ban Muslim veils – 12 January 2010

DAILY NEWS – No veiled threat – France mulls fines for wearing a burka in public – 8 January 2010

UK EXPRESS – France In Bid To Fine Those Who Wear Veils – 8 January 2010

AFP – French draft bill to fine burqa-wearing women – 7 January 2010

Massive Bomb Plot Uncovered in Iraq

By Bobby Rajabi
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

BAGHDAD, Iraq – On January 12 Iraqi security forces arrested twenty five people suspected of plotting attacks throughout Baghdad . They then imposed a temporary curfew on parts of Iraqi capital as they conducted raids and seized explosives. The raid followed a tip-off that a series of car bombings were planned in Baghdad. Security forces were already on heightened alert ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for March 7.

Iraqi police confiscated four hundred forty pounds of C4 explosives, the same amount of TNT and sixty other explosives of different types. Additionally, according to Baghdad security forces spokesman Major General Qassim al-Moussawi, a quantity of ammonium nitrate was found. Ammonium nitrate can be used as an ingredient in bombs.

According to Moussawi, the twenty five men who were arrested “were planning to implement terrorist acts.” Authorities in Iraq also said that at least four, and as many as ten, suicide car bombers were on their way to government buildings on the morning of January 12 when there were stopped by police and arrested.

The raids that followed brought much of Baghdad to a virtual standstill. Hundreds of checkpoints were set up throughout the city. The lockdowns caused gridlock of vehicles on roads into Baghdad. People were forced to travel by foot. Bridges into the center of the city were closed due to the alleged bomb plot, but were later reopened.

Government officials said that the far-reaching plot involved sending suicide bombers with vehicles packed with explosives to blow themselves up at the Ministries of Defense, Health and Trade. Other areas that were to be targeted included public places such as markets. Other insurgents were to be sent to assassinate political and tribal leaders. Mohammed al Askari, a defense ministry spokesman, said that the Iraqi forces received “tips about places (where people were making) car and vest bombs.” This led to the raids by security forces.

American and Iraqi forces have said that there is an expectation that violence will increase sharply as the date of the Iraqi elections grows nearer. The outcome of the Iraqi elections could determine whether American forces are able to withdraw from the country on schedule by the end of 2011.

For more information, please see:

AFP – Arrests, Explosives Seized as Baghdad Car Bombs Foiled – 12 January 2010

Al Jazeera – Bomb Plot Prompts Baghdad Lockdown – 12 January 2010

New York Times – Iraq Says Raid Uncovered Plot to Bomb Ministries – 12 January 2010

Reuters – Iraqi Forces Seize Explosives, Arrest 25 in Raids – 12 January 2010

Israel to Build Wall on Egyptian Border

By Meredith Lee-Clark

Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

 

JERUSALEM, Israel/West Bank – In an effort to keep out illegal migrants, Israel will build a barrier wall in two sections along its southern border with Egypt. The announcement was made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a press conference on January 10.

 

Israel has become a new “promised land” of opportunity for many refugees from war-torn countries in northeast Africa, with border crossings increasing over the past several weeks. In recent years, thousands of undocumented migrants have crossed in Israel through its southern border. Eritrea is the most common country of origin for migrants crossing into Israel from Egypt, followed by Ethiopia and Sudan.

 

International human rights observers have strongly criticized practices by Egyptian border officials; many migrants attempting to cross into Israel have either been shot dead by Egyptian border guards or detained in Egyptian prisons before being sent back to their home countries. This violates the standards set out in the United Nations Convention on Refugees.

 

Israel’s border with Egypt spans 226 kilometers, and Israeli officials estimate the construction will take approximately two years to complete. The border wall will not cover the length of the Israeli-Egyptian border, the initial construction will focus on the area near the Israeli city of Eilat and the area near the Israeli border with the Gaza Strip near the town of Rafah.

 

Prime Minister Netanyahu said that Israel would “remain open to refugees” but said that Israel “cannot let tens of thousands of illegal workers infiltrate into Israel through the southern border and inundate our country with illegal aliens.” Netanyahu added the decision was one “to secure Israel’s Jewish and democratic character.”

 

Egyptian officials said they had not been notified of Israel’s decision to build a wall, but that they did not object, so long as the wall was built on Israeli soil.

 

Approximately fifty to sixty percent of Israel’s borders are already walled in, according to Alon Liel, a professor at the University of Tel Aviv. Israel has built walls along its borders with Lebanon, Jordan, most of the West Bank, and all of the Gaza Strip.

 

“It is a very unpleasant feeling, but for the Israeli public the alternative to not having a fence seems worse,” said Professor Liel.

 

For more information, please see:

 

Al Jazeera – Israel Plans Wall for Egypt Border – 11 January 2010

 

Ma’an News Agency – Israel to Build Wall Along Egyptian Border – 11 January 2010

 

Palestine News Network – Israel to Construct Barrier Along Egyptian Border – 11 January 2010

 

Ha’aretz – Israel to Build NIS 1.5b Fence Along Egypt Border – 10 January 2010

Human Trafficking Violates Antislavery Convention, Says European Human Rights Court

By David Sophrin
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

STRASBOURG, France – The outcome of a human trafficking case involving a Russian woman transported to Cyprus has resulted in a significant change in the definition of human slavery and the protection of immigrants for many nations in Europe.

In its ruling on Thursday, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) determined that the act of human trafficking violates the antislavery provisions of the treaty for which all nations who are party to the European Convention on Human Rights are subject to.  Under this new application of the Court’s jurisdiction, each member nation that is the destination or origin of a sex trafficking case is required to independently investigate this matter.

The events that brought about this change in law centered on Oxana Rancheva, a young Russian woman who died after she had been transported to Cyprus in 2001 for the purpose of working in a cabaret.  Rancheva died while attempting to flee in March of 2001 from an apartment building in which she had been held against her while.  Following her death, her father brought her case before the ECHR.  In review of the facts of this case, the ECHR concluded that both Russia and Cyprus had failed to properly investigate the parties that had engaged in the human trafficking in their respective countries.

The Court found Russia and Cyprus to have violated Article Four of the European Convention on slavery.  Cyprus also “violated the girl’s right to life and right to protection under the law” by failing to determine how Rancheva had arrived in Cyprus and what she was doing there, while Russia should have done more to determine how Rancheva was originally recruited to perform in a foreign cabaret.  The Court ordered the government of Cyprus to pay damages to the family of the woman involved.

The Court decision was welcomed by immigrant rights groups.  Doros Polycarpou, the leader of one such group in Cyrus, commented that the Court’s ruling was significant because “the Republic of Cyprus must finally get the message that we are no longer an isolated village where whatever we do stays between us.”

Rancheva had arrived in Cyprus on an artist visa, a bureaucratic instrument that the Court commented had been used in recent years to allow for the importation of women to the island nation to be exploited.  Three thousand such visas were issued in 2007.  Calls from international organizations for the elimination of this type of visa loophole resulted in its recent discontinuance.

Prior to the Court’s decision, the national government of Cyprus had publicly acknowledged its violations of international law in regards to this case.  However, the ECHR decided to rule on this case anyway, breaking with the court’s past tradition on not hearing cases in which “the defendant admits guilt”.

For more information, please see:

CYPRUS MAIL – ‘Handed over as if she was his possession’ – 9 January 2010

WALL STREET JOURNAL – Rights Court Raises Sex-Trafficking Oversight – 8 January 2010

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE – Cyprus and Russia violated human trafficking laws: court – 7 January 2010