Theme for World AIDS Day ‘Strikes at the Heart’ for Pacific Islanders

By Cindy Trinh
Impunity Watch Reporter, Oceania

NOUMEA, New Caledonia – Scheduled for December 1st, the theme for World AIDS Day 2009 has been announced: “Universal Access and Human Rights.” This theme “strikes at the heart” of what perhaps is the single largest challenge faced by people living in the Pacific Island countries.

Under the theme of this year’s World AIDS Day, global leaders have pledged to work towards universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, and care. These rights have been recognized has fundamental human rights.

These leaders emphasize that the protection of human rights is fundamental to combating the global HIV and AIDS epidemic. Violations against human rights fuel the spread of HIV. By promoting individual human rights, leaders hope to prevent the spread of HIV.

Michel Sidib, the Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), stated: “Achieving universal access to prevention, treatment, care and support is a human rights imperative. It is essential that the global response to the AIDS epidemic is grounded in human rights and that discrimination and punitive laws against those most affected by HIV are removed.”

Many countries still have laws and policies that impede access to HIV services and criminalize those most vulnerable to HIV. Many of these laws discriminate people who are infected with HIV and prevent them from moving freely and from working.

An example of such a country is New Caledonia, home to a Fiji native named Pita.

Pita faces the most difficult challenge that many other Pacific Islanders face today. Pita is a 30-year-old male who tested positive for HIV three years ago.

When explaining the hardships that he faces, Pita stated: “Life hasn’t been rosy. Even in the hospital, I experienced how people living with HIV are constantly discriminated against and stigmatized. To this day, such discrimination stops me from revealing my positive status to anyone.”

When the theme for the World AIDS Day theme was announced, Pita expressed how the theme “focuses on issues close to [his] heart.”

“To me being HIV positive doesn’t mean others should point the finger. As humans we still have equal rights to live. The World AIDS Day campaign is a call to those in power throughout the Pacific to work together to revise laws, activities and cultural practices that discriminate against people living with HIV and those living on the edge.”

Other leaders that support the campaign include Dr. Jimmy Rodgers, who is the Director-General of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC).

“The everyday increase in discrimination against our fellow human beings just because they seem different is the not the Pacific way. Whether a colleague or someone we encounter is a member of a sexual minority, a sex worker or a person living with HIV should make no difference. Every person has equal rights and should be embraced with the same level of respect.”

Currently, only a few Pacific Islands have laws that specifically protect the rights of people living with HIV. These countries include Papua New Guinea, French Territories, and Pohnpei State. Fiji is in the process of drafting a regulation specific to HIV, while other countries, such as Palau, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu, are considering amending their Public Health Acts or developing other comprehensive legislation.

Most countries still have laws that discriminate against men who have sex with men and against sex workers.

For more information, please see:
Islands Business – Universal Access ad Human RIghts is the international theme for World AIDS Day 2009 – 20 November 2009

Pacific Islands News Association – Universal Access and Human Rights is the international theme for World AIDS Day 2009 – 20 November 2009

Trading Markets – Universal Access and Human Rights is the international theme for World AIDS Day 2009 – 20 November 2009

Zibb – Universal Access and Human Rights is the international theme for World AIDS Day 2009 – 20 November 2009

Avert – World AIDS Day 2009: Universal Access and Human Rights – 06 November 2009

Caleidoscop – 2009 World AIDS Day Theme Launched – Universal access and human rights – 03 November 2009

Saudi Forces Clash With Yemeni Rebels

By Ahmad Shihadah

Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

SA’NA, Yemen – According to Huthi rebels, Saudi Arabian forces have carried out an incursion into Yemeni territory using tanks, artillery and aircraft. The statement from the Yemen-based group said that the attacks on Monday were taking place in the border districts of Malahiz and Shada provinces.

Hashem Ahelbarra, Al-Jazeera’s correpondent in northern Yemen, said Saudi Arabia’s incursion could be a rescue operation. Witnesses from the northern border town of Razah told the Agence France-Presse (AFP) that the Saudis began the offensive on Monday, but a Yemeni official denied that a Saudi assault was taking place. “These are allegations and lies that the rebels often repeat to expand the scope of the conflict, and also to give themselves more importance than they really have,” he told AFP.

The Saudi military is trying to enforce a buffer zone around the border, but has denied crossing into Yemen. The Saudi media has reported that three soldiers had been killed in the raids, and said the military claimed to have stopped a rebel plan to seize the Yemeni port town of Midi. Prince Nayef bin Abdel Aziz Saudi, Saudi Arabia;s interior minister, said on Monday that “other countries should not interfere” in Yemen’s affairs. “We condemn any interference in Yemen, and any action is to be be taken by Yemenis themselves,” said the minister.

The Huthis pushed through the border and took over a mountainous region of Saudi Arabia on November 3rd. The incursion was wiped out by Saudi airstrikes days after it happened. The Saudi and Yemeni governments have been bombarding them in an attempt to drive them back from the border.

For more information, please see:

Agence France-Presse – Yemen Rebels Accuse Saudi of Launching Major Attack – November 23 2009

Al-Jazeera – Saudi Forces ‘Fighting in Yemen’ – November 23 2009

BBC – ‘Saudi Casualties’ in Border Fight with Rebels – November 23 2009

Chinese Activist Sentenced for State Secret Laws

 

By M.E. Dodge
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BEIJING, China –  After helping families whose children died during the earthquake in Sichuan in May last year, Huang Qi, a veteran dissident, was sentenced to three years in prison. He was arrested after raising awareness about poorly built schools which collapsed and killed thousands of children during China‘s massive earthquake last year. Huang was taken by the police in Chengdu in June 2008 and has been held in custody ever since. 

The verdict was delivered at the close of a 10-minute hearing at Wuhou District People’s Court in the city of Chengdu. Very few details about the charge were released, although activist’s wife and mother were allowed to enter the court to hear the sentence, and were present when Huang was given the maximum jail term for this crime. 

There is great concern that Huang was imprisoned for illegally holding state secrets in what some believe is an attempt by the Chinese government to squelch such information. Amnesty International said Huang was a victim of China’s “vague” state secrets laws, and that he should be released immediately. “The Chinese government is penalizing someone who is trying to help the victims of the Sichuan earthquake,” said Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International’s Asia Pacific director.

Huang-Qi_649379a Photograph of Huang Qi. Image Courtesy of Times Online.  

The government linked its charge against Huang in connection to the human rights Web site he founded. He was detained in 2008 after he made several posts on his blog that criticized the government’s response to the massive earthquake that struck Sichuan province a month earlier and killed about 90,000 people.  

According to one news source, Huang had also spoken to foreign media outlets about parents’ accusations that their children had been crushed in badly built schools. The government has attempted to quash such complaints, fearing the contentious issue could undermine the admiration and goodwill it earned for the massive rescue effort it led, boosted by volunteers and international aid.

Zeng, Huang’s wife, said the Wuhou district court in the western city of Chengdu gave no details about the state secrets charge, an ill-defined accusation often used by Communist leaders to clamp down on dissent and imprison activists. As a result of the charge, authorities were able to bar Huang from seeing his lawyer, and forbid the photocopying of court documents, according to Amnesty International. 

This current bout with authorities is not the only time that Huang has been imprisoned for voicing his opinion. He previously served a five-year sentence for “inciting the subversion of state power” in connection with material published on his website.  

Huang is not the only activity to investigate the Sichuan schools issue and is also not the only one to be prosecuted for his actions – or words.

For more information, please see:

BBC News – China activist Huang Qi sentenced to three years  – November 23, 2009 

Yahoo! World News – China activist who spoke out on quake gets 3 years – November 23, 2009 

ABC News – China Activist Who Spoke out on Quake Gets 3 Years  – November 23, 2009 

The Guardian – China jails earthquake activist – November 23, 2009

UN Condemns Latest Rebel Attacks in CAR

By Kylie M Tsudama
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

KAMPALA, Uganda – The UN has urged the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic (CAR), and Sudan to protect civilians, especially women and children, by sharing information with the UN.  There has been an upsurge of attacks by the Lord’s Resistance Army, a rebel group, in these countries.

“The (15) members of the Security Council strongly condemned the continued and recently increasing attacks carried out by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Central African Republic and Sudan,” said a statement by the Security Council.

According to Austrian Ambassador Thomas Mayr-Harting, who holds the council’s rotating presidency this month, the LRA’s attacks “have resulted in the death, abduction and displacement of thousands of civilians.”  He also encouraged the regional governments’ full cooperation with the United Nations in order to protect civilians.

The LRA guerilla group first appeared in northern Uganda in 1988 and has since expanded into these three other countries.  LRA Chief Joseph Kony is wanted by the The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC).  The rebels are known for mutilating and murdering civilians and kidnapping children for fighting and sexual slavery.

The UN Security Council has called on MONUC (UN Mission in the DRC), UNMIS (in the Sudan), MINURCAT (in Chad and the CAR), UNAMID (African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur), and BONUCA (United Nations Peace-Building Office in the CAR) to coordinate strategies for civilian protection.

On Tuesday the Ugandan army killed Lt. Col. Okello Ogutti, a commander of the LRA.

“Okutti used to be the overall commander for LRA operations in Pader district, and he was a senior commander among the groups currently in CAR,” said Lt. Col. Felix Kulayigye, the Defense and Army spokesman for Uganda.  Although they killed Ogutti, he added, “Our unique ideology is that while the targeting of LRA commanders continues, the door for Joseph Kony to sign a peace agreement is still open.”

Currently, Ugandan special forces are seeking out LRA rebels within the DRC, the CAR, and Sudan.

The Security Council has demanded “that the LRA immediately cease all attacks on civilians, and urged them to surrender, assembly [sic] and disarm, as required by the Final Peace Agreement.”

For more information, please see:

AFP – Ugandan Troops Kill Top Rebel in Centr.Africa – 20 November 2009

AllAfrica – America Moves to Make Life Harder for Kony Rebels – 19 November 2009

AFP – UN Condemns Rebel LRA Attacks in Africa – 18 November 2009

Taiwan News – UN Condemns Upsurge in Ugandan Rebel Attacks – 18 November 2009

Australia Must End Discriminatory Practices Against Aborigines

By Eileen Gould
Impunity Watch Reporter, Oceania

CANBERRA, Australia – In a visit to the Australian region of Utopia last week, Amnesty International’s Secretary General Irene Khan urged Australia to rescind its laws, putting an end to discrimination against Aboriginal people.

Khan estimates that approximately 45,000 Aboriginal people have been affected by certain measures, in particular, those that allow land confiscation and interference with income payments.

After a report revealed large amounts of abuse and violence in these communities, the government enacted discriminatory practices as part of the 2007 Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER).

Critics of NTER, including Amnesty International, believe that it imposes harsh measures on all Aboriginal people living in the Northern Territory.  One such practice is “compulsory income management”, which stipulates that individuals shall receive half of their welfare payments in the form of the Basics card, a “virtual payment” which can only be spent in particular shops on certain goods.

Amnesty claims that Australia has breached its international obligations on human and indigenous rights by imposing these measures, which have left the Aborigines feeling stigmatized and lacking the flexibility to manage their own lives.

“Disempowered, robbed of their dignity, threatened with the loss of their identity and attacked on their own ancestral lands”, Khan is shocked by these human rights violations.

In her statement, Khan said “[i]ndigenous people . . . deserve the same respect, safety and protection as does any Australian . . . but this will not be achieved in a sustained manner under the Emergency Response which is stigmatizing and disempowering an already marginalized people and which is in violation of Australia’s international obligations.”

Khan found the existence of human rights violations within one of the world’s most developed nations to be “inexcusable” and “morally outrageous.”

Individuals living in these communities are subject to chronic violence, housing problems, and health issues.  Alcohol and substance abuse are also rampant.

Australia’s Indigenous Affairs Minister, Jenny Macklin, indicated that Australia would put forth legislation to reinstate the Racial Discrimination Act in the Northern Territory.

The government suspended the Racial Discrimination Act and Northern Territory anti-discrimination legislation, which allowed it to enact NTER and intervene into the affairs of Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory.  In doing so, the government contributed to worsening poverty levels in Aboriginal communities.

The Secretary General of Amnesty has called on Australians to put an end to this disparity.

For more information please see:
New Tang Dynasty Television – Amnesty Cracks Down on Australia – 21 November 2009

Associated Press – Amnesty boss urges equality for poor Aborigines – 18 November 2009

Amnesty International – Australia: Government must overturn law which discriminates against aboriginal people – 18 November 2009

ABC News – Shocking Conditions in Utopia: Amnesty – 16 November 2009