Numerous Bombings Kill Scores Throughout Iraq

By Bobby Rajabi
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

HILLA, Iraq – A string of bombings in Iraq on December 24 have killed more than thirty four people. The bombs also injured over one hundred people. Among the bombings was a double explosion in the central Iraqi town of Hilla. Additionally there as a bombing in Sadr City, a predominantly Shi’ite district in Baghdad.

The bombings came three days before the climax of Ashura, when hundreds of thousands of pilgrims converge on Kerbala to mourn the killing of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, Imam Hussein. The forty day mourning period commemorates this 680AD event that sealed the split between Sunni and Shi’ite. Most of the individuals killed by the bombings were Shi’ite pilgrims attending mourning ceremonies.

The two bombs in Hilla, the capital of Babil province, targeted Shi’ite pilgrims who gathered at a bus station to mark Ashura.  The first bomb was in a car and exploded at 2pm. The second bomb came fifteen minutes later when police had arrived. According to Fadel Hassa, an eyewitness, “police came to disarm a bomb some twenty meters from the site of the first attack, and it exploded as they arrived, causing numerous injuries among passersby and the police.

The bomb in Sadr City appeared to target a funeral procession. The attack killed at least nine people and injured thirty three. The bomb went off in a tent where mourners were gathered. According to Ahmed Rushdi, a journalist in Baghdad, “they were not by the hand of al Qaeda – they were not suicide bombers, but mostly car bombs and bombs besides cars.”

Another bomb in Baghdad went off in the eastern district of Zafraniya, south of the city center, and killed three people. The Zafraniya bombing injured twenty people and was located near the area where a preliminary Ashura ceremony was taking place. Additionally, a bomb blast in the Shi’ite sacred city of Karbala, about one hundred kilometers south of Baghdad, killed two people and injured four others.

More than twenty five thousand security forces have been assigned by the Iraqi government to protect the Shi’ite pilgrims during the celebrations for Ashura.

For more information, please see:

AFP – Iraq Attacks Kill Scores on Eve of Christmas, Ashura – 24 December 2009

Al Jazeera – Scores Killed in Iraq Blasts – 24 December 2009

BBC – Iraq Bomb Explosions Leave 23 People Dead – 24 December 2009

Guardian – Iraq Sectarian Bomb Attacks Kills 26 – 24 December 2009

Pakistan Court Orders Removal Of 2 Mens Ears, Noses

By Michael E. Sanchez
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan- A Pakistani court has ordered the noses and ears of two men cut off, as punishment for doing the same to a woman who refused to marry one of them.  In September, the two brothers were found guilty of kidnapping 19-year-old Fazeelat Bibi, one of their cousins.  

The Sentence was passed on Monday under a rarely invoked Islamic law dating back to the 1980s.  The anti-terrorism court in the court in the eastern city of Lahore said it was applying Islamic law by ordering the punishment.  Similar sentences in the past have been revoked on appeal.  The court also ordered that the brothers spend life in prison and pay 700,000 rupees($8,300) in compensation to the victim, Punjab province chief prosecutor Chaudary Mohammad Jahangir said on Tuesday.

Ehtisham Qadir, prosecutor for the government said the punishment had been awarded in accordance with the Islamic principle of “an eye for an eye”  

Lahore prosecutor Chaudrhy Ali Ahmed said Sher Mohammad, one of the accused, was a cousin of the 19-year-old woman and wanted to marry her.  Sher Mohammad and Ammanat Ali, along with their cousin Mohammad Ali and two other men abducted Fazeelat Bibi on her way home from work at a brick kiln in the Raiwing area of Lahore, and strangled her with a wire.  Mr. Qadir told the BBC, “They put a noose around her neck, and then cut off her ears and nose.”  The crime was committed after her parents refused to give their daughter’s hand in marriage to Sher Mohammad.

They mutilated her body “to set an example”, prosecutor Jahangir said.

Mohammad Ali has also been arrested, while the other two men allegedly involved in the attack have not been charged.  The brothers were tried under anti-terror laws because the incident “created tyranny” in the district.  The high court must confirm the sentence before it is carried out, and a doctor must determine that they can survive the punishment.

Pakistani human rights groups have long campaigned for more to be done to stop attacks against women, which often includes facial disfigurement.  However, they also disagree with the type of punishment handed out in Lahore, correspondents say.

For more information, please see:

BBC News- Pakistan Court Orders Ears and Noses To Be Cut Off – 22 December 2009

The Associated Press- Pakistani Court Orders 2 Men’s Noses, Ears Cut Off – 22 December 2009

CNNWorld- Pakistan Court Orders Men’s Ears, Noses Hacked Off – 22 December 2009

Paraguayan Government Refuses to Disclose Contaminated Aquifers

By Sovereign Hager

Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

ASUNCIÓN, Paraguay-Consumer advocacy groups report that the Paniño aquifer, depended on by forty percent of Paraguay’s population, can no longer be relied on for water that meets quality standards. The National Food and Nutrition Institute issued a press release in late November finding that faecal coliform bacteria was found in samples of eleven aquifers. In response, consumer advocacy groups called on the government to release the names of firms being monitored. The government refused.

Consumer associations have urged the public not to buy mineral water until the government guaranteed the safety of the water. The Inspector General claimed that the contamination findings were blown out of proportion by the press and that there is no threat to water safety.

The Paniño aquifer supplies 360 registered industrial water wells, used by hundreds of water bottling plants, soft drink and dairy companies, cold-storage plants and car wash firms. Only sixty-five percent of households in Paraguay receive piped drinking water from the national grid, while others rely on wells.

Advocates argue that the quality of groundwater is declining due to domestic and industrial waste, lack of controls and monitoring of wells, increased number of companies drilling wells, and a lack of oversight and regulation. Members of the Paraguayan Association of Water Resources, comprised of experts and professors report that since 2000, there has been a significant increase in nitrate levels, indicating contamination by sewage. Thirty-four percent of water samples analyzed by this group had bacteria levels above the acceptable level.

The study highlights the lack of sanitation in the area of the Patiño aquifer, where twenty-three percent of households are connected to the sewage system, and seventy-seven percent use cesspools. Cesspools often leak into groundwater. Aquifers in Paraguay’s Chaco region and the Guaraní Aquifer are also threatened by contamination. The Guaraní aquifer is the third largest subterranean aquifer in the world.

The Environment Ministry says that the public has not been completely aware of the threats to the country’s groundwater. “Today we have more information on the aquifers, but we don’t have the resources to undertake government plans to protect them,” stated one official. He pointed out that the 2007 law on water resources has not been enforced due to lack of resources.

For more information, please see:

IPS-Paraguay: Bottled Water Scare Exposes Threat to Groundwater-24 December 2009

La Ultima Hora-Todas las Aguas Superficiales Están Contaminadas-15 December 2009

ABC Digital-Instituciones Verifican la Calidad del Agua Mineral-14 December 2009

UN Suspends Peacekeeping Units in DRC Due to Increased Human Rights Violations

By Jared Kleinman
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

NEW YORK, New York– United Nations peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have suspended support for units of the National Armed Forces (FARDC) due to evidence showing their operations have contributed to human rights violations in the conflict ridden region.

In January the Congolese and Rwandan governments began joint military operations against a Rwandan Hutu militia, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), in a five-week operation known as Umoja Wetu. It was followed in March by a second military operation, Kimia II, conducted with the support of the UN peacekeepers, which continued until this month.

A reported 1,400 civilians between January and September 2009 had been killed by Congolese or Rwandan troops and by rebels in eastern DRC as a result of the Kimia II military operations launched with the cooperation of the UN Mission in DRC, known as MONUC. The report is based on 23 Human Rights Watch fact-finding missions this year and interviews with over 600 victims, witnesses, and family members.

The Congolese government said the military operations were intended to bring peace and security to this volatile region. UN peacekeepers made important efforts to protect civilians in this complex and difficult terrain, Human Rights Watch said. But the peacekeeping force’s role as a joint player in the military operations, providing substantial support to the Congolese army, has implicated peacekeepers in the abuses and undermined the mission’s primary objective, which is to protect civilians.

Congolese army soldiers and FDLR rebel combatants have attacked civilians, accused them of being collaborators, and “punished” them by chopping many to death with machetes. Both sides also shot civilians as they tried to flee or burned them in their homes. Some victims were tied together before their throats were, according to one witness, “slit like chickens.” The majority of the victims were women, children, and the elderly.

“Continued killing and rape by all sides in eastern Congo shows that the UN Security Council needs a new approach to protect civilians,” said Anneke Van Woudenberg, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. Over the first nine months of 2009, the UN recorded over 7,500 cases of sexual violence against women and girls across North and South Kivu in eastern Congo, nearly surpassing the figures recorded during all of last year, and probably representing only a fraction of the total. Most of the women and girls were gang raped, some so violently that they later died. Many women and girls were held as sex slaves by both the Congolese army and the FDLR for weeks or months at a time; they were raped repeatedly and some were mutilated and then killed by machete or shot in the vagina.

“Many UN Security Council ambassadors have visited Congo and expressed outrage at the massive sexual violence,” said Van Woudenberg. “Yet rape is increasing – not decreasing – in eastern Congo. That outrage needs to be translated into bold and effective action to help protect these women and girls.”

In responding to the UN’s recent suspensions, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated, “MONUC continues to give the highest priority to the protection of civilians, which is something I strongly value. We have always acted in accordance with the mandate provided by the Security Council.” “Unfortunately, the Kimia II operation has been proved to be where many civilian casualties have happened, and that is why we have immediately suspended our military operations and cooperation with some parts of the Congolese national forces.”

The Secretary-General pointed out that MONUC’s mandate is to help the Congolese Armed Forces, but stressed: “I made it, and we made it, quite clear that whenever there [are] grounds for violation of the human rights situation, then we will suspend these military operations.” “There is an overall important mission that MONUC has to carry out in accordance with the Security Council mandate to preserve peace and security and to protect the civilian population,” said Ban Ki-moon. “I am not sure whether it is desirable to suspend the whole peacekeeping operation there. That is what the Security Council has to decide, in closely following the situation, as well as assessing the situation there.”

For more information, please see:

UN News Service – UN Has Suspended Cooperation With Army Units Accused of Rights Abuses – 14 December 2009

Human Rights Watch – UN – Act to End Atrocities in Eastern Congo – 12 December 2009

Institute for War & Peace Reporting – Lubumbashi Tackles Abusive Officers – Better Training and Working Conditions Seen as Key to Ending Police Violations – 11 December 2009

Reuters – U.N. suspends support to Congo army units in east – 2 November 2009

Iranian Police and Protesters Clash at Montazeri Memorial

By Bobby Rajabi
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

ISFAHAN, Iran – On December 23 Iranian security forces clashed with opposition supporters demonstrating in the central city of Isfahan. The clashes occurred reportedly as large crowds gathered to mourn the death of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri. Opposition websites claim that pro-reform protesters had been injured by the police in the clashes.

The violence erupted when thousands of Iranians attempted to gather for a memorial to Montazeri at a mosque. Security forces and hard-line militia men beat opposition protesters and fired tear gas into crowds. Alireza Ronaghi, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Iran, said that witnesses allege that they had not heard shots fired. Opposition websites report that over fifty opposition supporters had been arrested.

The government’s crackdown marked the first time that clerics who supported the opposition had been targeted. Basij militiamen surround the house and office of two prominent religious figures. They shouted slogans and broke windows, opposition websites reported.

The death of Grand Ayatollah Montazeri gave new push to the opposition protests. Montazeri was a sharp critic Iranian leaders, including Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He died December 20th at the age of 87 and a funeral held the following day in Qom  that drew tens of thousands of Iranians onto the streets.

Mehrad Khonsari, an Iranian affiars analyst in London and a former diplomat in Iran explains that “the government cannot allow for great celebrations of (Montazeri’s) life to be carried out given the fact that that would be counter the kind of policies they been making in the course of the last 20 years.” He says that in an increase in government pressure is inevitable as the opposition has been incrementally increasing their pressure.

The United States government expressed concern with how Iran’s security forces acted in the clash. State Department spokesman Phillip Crowley told reporters, “Iran is increasingly showing itself to be a police state.” Crowley explained that the Iranian government’s security forces are attempting to eliminate the fact that “clearly the aspirations of the Iranian people (are) for a different relationship with their government.”

For more information, please see:

AFP – Iran Behaves Increasingly Like a ‘Police State’: US” – 23 December 2009

Al Jazeera – Clashes Reported at Iran Protests – 23 December 2009

Associated Press – Police, Protesters Clash in Southern Iran – 23 December 2009

BBC – Clashes at Montazeri Ceremony – 23 December 2009