WOZA and Mahlangu Win RFK Human Rights Award

By Jared Kleinman
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

HARARE, Zimbabwe – Magodonga Mahlangu and her organization, Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), have been named as the 2009 Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Human Rights Award winners.

WOZA is a grassroots movement of over 60,000 Zimbabweans working throughout their country, empowering women from all walks of life to mobilize and take non-violent action against injustice. Tens of thousands of women have joined WOZA in standing up for human rights and speaking up about the worsening economic, social and political conditions in Zimbabwe. Along with WOZA co-founder Jenni Williams, Mahlangu has led campaigns with WOZA supporters to address many of the most crucial human rights issues facing Zimbabwean women, including domestic violence and rape, the right to food and education for children, the rights to participation and the right to association.

Since its founding in December 2002, WOZA has staged more than 100 non-violent marches in support of democratic reform and women’s empowerment. Mahlangu organizes WOZA’s protests and helped create its signature style of peaceful, yet relentless actions. In the course of her work as a human rights defender, Mahlangu has been arrested over 30 times.

“Despite constant harassment and 2500 members spending time in police custody, WOZA members continue to build a grassroots movement to ensure that the voice of the people of Zimbabwe is central to determining the future of their country” said Monika Kalra Varma, Director of the RFK Center for Human Rights.

“I feel both great excitement for the recognition of my work with WOZA and sadness because although my work has gained recognition internationally, in my own country I have been labeled an enemy of the state,” said Mahlangu in reaction to the award. “Now I know I am not alone, the world is watching and one day [Zimbabwe] shall be a normal society. With the determination of the members of WOZA, anything is possible.”

Mrs. Robert F. Kennedy will present Mahlangu and WOZA with the 2009 Award in a ceremony in mid-November. Mahlangu joins 39 RFK human rights laureates in 23 countries as the recipient of the 26th annual prize.

Commenting on the acheivement, Gay McDougall, RFK Human Rights Award Judge and U.N. Independent Expert on Minority Issues said, “In a country torn by violence and economic ruin, Magodonga Mahlangu and WOZA provide a desperately needed voice for the people of Zimbabwe and we were proud to select her and her organization for this prestigious award,”

For 41 years, the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights has worked for a more peaceful and just world. The Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award was established in 1984 to honor courageous and innovative human rights defenders throughout the world who stand up against injustice, often at great personal risk. The award includes a cash prize of $30,000 and on-going legal, advocacy and technical support through a partnership with the RFK Center. Winners are selected by an independent panel of human rights experts. The 2009 panel included McDougall; Makau Mutua, Dean of University at Buffalo Law School; Sushma Raman, President of Southern California Grantmakers; and Dr. William F. Schultz, Senior Fellow at Center for American Progress.
For more information, Please see:
SWRadio Africa News – WOZA scoops top human rights award – 12 October 2009

SWRadio Africa News – Woza Protestors Beaten by Police in Bulawayo – 22 September 2009

Nehanda Radio – WOZA scoop Kennedy human rights award – 17 September 2009

Australia Forms New Independent Committee To Facilitate Immigration Processes

By Eileen Gould
Impunity Watch Reporter, Oceania

CANBERRA, Australia – In light of recent controversy surrounding the Government’s immigration policies, Australian Immigration Minister Chris Evans announced the establishment of a new advisory board.

The Council of Immigration Services and Status Resolution (“CISSR”) will advise the Minister on matters involving the new immigration policies, including New Directions in Detention and the newly created Community Status Resolution Service.

By providing independent advice on policies, services, and programs, the council aims to “resolv[e] the immigration status of people [seeking asylum or other migration outcomes] quickly and fairly while ensuring they are treated humanely and with dignity and respect”.

CISSR will be comprised of individuals from various sectors, ranging from a former Air Force official and a member of the Governing Council of the International Catholic Migration Commission to an Associate Professor at the University of South Australia’s school of nursing and the chair of the Violence Against Women Advisory Group.

Council members will use their diverse backgrounds and areas of expertise to assist in the implementation of the New Directions in Detention policy.

The Minister, while expressing his gratitude to the previous Immigration Detention Advisory Group for “valuable and long-standing contribution[s]”, believes that the new committee’s “community links will help strengthen the provision of community services to immigration clients in support of timely case resolution”.

In addition to advising the Minister on programs aimed at resolving immigration status outcomes, the CISSR will also provide guidance with respect to detention matters and the “adequacy of services available to assist people whose immigration status is unresolved”.  More specifically, the council will attempt to resolve the immigration status of an individual from within the community as opposed to the confines of a detention facility.

This announcement comes as the Government faces problems with the influx of people seeking asylum in Australia.

The Indonesian navy intercepted a boat today carrying approximately 260 Sri Lankan asylum seekers as they attempted to get to Australia.  Many of these individuals will be taken to one of Australia’s immigration detention centers on Christmas Island to have their applications processed.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has been the subject of heavy criticism in the past few months, as opposition lawmakers blame the influx of asylum seekers on the administration’s lax immigration policy.

After coming to office in late 2007, the Prime Minister ended his predecessor’s policy, known as the “Pacific Solution”, which some lawmakers, including former immigration minister Philip Ruddock, would like to see reintroduced.  Mr. Rudd’s new policy has placed an emphasis on expediting the claims of asylum seekers held on Christmas Island rather than keeping them detained for years in facilities in Nauru or Papua New Guinea.

The Prime Minister “makes no apologies whatsoever for deploying the most hardline measures necessary to deal with problems of illegal immigration into Australia”.

For more information, please see:
News.com.au – Boat fire refugees headed our way – 14 October 2009

BBC News – Australia PM seeks migrant help – 13 October 2009

Australia and New Zealand Magazine – New Advisory Body for Australian Migration Services – 12 October 2009

Australian Visa Bureau – Australian immigration advisory council announced – 12 October 2009

PS News – New Immigration Council allowed in – 12 October 2009

Australian Labor – New immigration advisory council – 09 October 2009

Sri Lankan IDP Camps Face Further Criticism


By Alok Bhatt
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – The U.N. recently released statements containing its sharpest lambast of the Sri Lankan refugee camps.  With the monsoon season looming over Sri Lanka, the U.N. and international human rights groups worry that the heavy rains and possible flooding will render the camps rife with water-borne disease and devastation. 

Conditions in the camps have long been criticized by the international community, as the Sri Lankan government has failed to provide adequate food, clothing, and shelter to displaced persons.  Annual summer rains foreshadowed the potential catastrophe of maintaining congested camps during the monsoon season; August rains destroyed housing structures and collapsed imperative delivery routes for supply vehicles.  Unable to cook and keep dry, the Tamil minority members endured dilemmas which would worsen during the monsoon season.       

Over 300,000 Sri Lankan nationals have been held in temporary government-run camps since the state military’s defeat of the Tamil Tigers this spring.  While the government’s victory effectively ended the civil war that plagued the island nation, human rights groups have asserted myriad issues concerning the treatment of citizens in the aftermath.  The Sri Lankan government made numerous promises of improving camp conditions and liberating displaced persons, but few of their planned initiatives ever came to fruition.
 
(Photograph courtesy of AFP)

 

Besides monitoring and pressure from the U.N., displaced refugees voiced requests to resettle from the camps.  However the government’s liberation process has been lethargic at best.  Furthermore, tensions between the Tamil minority and camp workers have lead to situations in which military-men abused and otherwise mistreated displaced persons.  Additionally, the government’s screening process to identify and remove Tamil Tigers among the camp dwellers has extensively prolonged the Tamil minority’s detainment period.  

 

The Sri Lankan government assured the U.N. that its camp facilities were prepared to endure the torrential rains and flooding of the monsoon season.  The government claimed that it will install proper drainage to mitigate the effect of the rains.  However, given the government’s history of hollow promises concerning vacating and the betterment of its interment camps, there is no reason to believe any further measures will be taken.  Also, the U.K. announced that it would cease all but life-saving assistance funds after the floods subside.  Without additional funding, the Sri Lankan camps may endure more declines in conditions and facilities, as well as longer internment.  

‘

For more information, please see:

Al-Jazeera – Sri Lanka defends internment camps – 12 October 2009

American Free Press – UN ratchets up criticism of Sri Lankan Camps – 29 September 2009 

BBC News – UK to cut Sri Lanka camp funding – 6 October 2009

UN Philippines Flood Funds Inadequate


By Michael E. Sanchez
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia  MANILA, Philippines– An appeal to the UN for funds to help the millions of Indonesians hit by the floods and storms in the Philippines has raised only a quarter of the total which they were looking for.

John Holmes, the UN’s emergency relief coordinator stated that in its relief appeal for $74m has only garnered $19m so far.  The region has been hit by back to back typhoons in about a weeks time which has lead to landslides and widespread flooding, resulting in over 650 deaths and many left homeless.  

Predicting the situation may be dire, Mr. Holmes said the UN may need to increase the size of its emergency appeal.  Weeks after Typhoon Ketsana hit on September 26 and Parma hit on October 3, many villages are still flooded with water, increasing the risk of diseases spreading.  Mr. Holmes stated that “Water has been standing already now for three weeks, and is still waist, or chest-deep in places…The longer the water is there and is stagnant, the greater the risk diseases which come from water- malaria, dengue fever, diarrhea, skin infections, leptospirosis.”  The Philippine government has estimated that about six million people have been affected by these Typhoons.  The numbers of homeless as a result are in the hundreds of thousands.

The government has estimated the cost of the damage could be at least $350m, with expectations that losses to agriculture and fisheries will be much more.  The UN estimates that the flooding has destroyed crops including rice worth an estimated $117m, which will lead to food shortages in the country unless aid is received.

The ‘Right to Adequate Food’ is derived from the United Nation’s International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.  The right to adequate food is an inherent human right for all, to have regular and permanent access, either directly or by financial means to adequate and sufficient food.  Unless additional aid to the Philippines is sent by the UN this right to adequate food will not be realized.  

For more information, please see:

Media with Conscience- UN IN PHILIPPINES FLOOD AID APPEAL– 07 October 2009

BBC News- Toll Rises in Philippine Flooding  – 10 October 2009

BBC News- UN Philippines Fund ‘Falls short’ -13 October 2009

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations-The Right to Food

Al-Aqsa Restrictions Lifted As Tensions Mount

By Meredith Lee-Clark

Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

 

EAST JERUSALEM, Israel/West Bank – On October 11, Israeli police lifted restrictions on Palestinians visiting the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, two weeks after violence exploded around the site. The Al-Aqsa Mosque, also known as the Temple Mount, is on land considered holy by both Jews and Muslims.

 

Since September 27, the Israeli police had closed the site to Muslim males under the age of fifty. On that day, Palestinians threw rocks at a group of visitors the Palestinians suspected of being right-wing extremists. The Israeli police responded with shun grenades. Many Palestinians expressed concern that the tourists would try to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque as a political statement during the Jewish Yom Kippur holiday. In the past, political tensions have sparked violence during the Jewish holy days. Most notoriously, the Second Palestinian Intifada, or Uprising, began after Ariel Sharon, who later went on to become Israeli Prime Minister, visited the Al-Aqsa Mosque during the holidays.

 

Prior to lifting the restrictions, Palestinians who did not meet the age requirement and did not have an Israeli ID card were barred from religious services at the mosque. Israeli soldiers were stationed at the gates to the mosque courtyard, checking the IDs of all who arrived. Demonstrations against the police action sprouted up throughout the West Bank and Gaza. On October 9, hostilities had heightened, with Israeli helicopters circling the site and several Palestinian news sources reported that Israeli police posing as journalists were sent into demonstrations to seize those participating.

 

While the police have lifted the restrictions, there may be further repercussions in the region. Jordan has threatened to expel Israel’s ambassador from Amman, citing the provision in the Jordanian-Israeli 1994 peace treaty in which Israel recognized Jordan’s right to look after all Muslim and Christian holy sites in East Jerusalem. The United Nations considers East Jerusalem an occupied territory.

 

There were also unconfirmed rumors running through the city that Israel was planning to dig under the area, with the aim of building a synagogue on the site. At his cabinet meeting on October 12, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the Arab world to ignore the “lies.” Prime Minister Netanyahu also directly addressed Israeli Arabs:

 

“You are citizens with equal rights; we want to live together in coexistence and bring our children prosperity.”

 

For more information, please see:

 

Ha’aretz – Netanyahu to Arab World: Ignore “Lies” About Temple Mount – 12 October 2009

 

Ma’an News Agency – Christians Gather in Support of Muslims Trapped in Al-Aqsa – 12 October 2009

 

Press TV – Al-Aqsa Flares Up Tensions Between Israel, Jordan – 12 October 2009

 

Al Jazeera – Israel Lifts Al-Aqsa Restrictions – 11 October 2009

 

Palestinian News Network – Worshippers Banned from Reaching Al-Aqsa, Prayers Held Outside, Soldiers Pose as Journalists – 10 October 2009