India’s Police Culture Breeds Impunity

By Hyo-Jin Paik
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BANGALORE, India – Police forces in India are accused of undermining democracy and breeding brutality.  Human Rights Watch is urging the Indian government to take major steps to rectify the police system that facilitates and encourages human rights violations, such as torture, illegal detention and extra-judicial killings.

Indian police (Source: AFP)

For example, in one case, a death of a woman killed while in custody was passed off as a suicide.  In other cases, suspects have been tied to wooden sticks and tortured until they fainted.

India’s dysfunctional police system is the result of poor working conditions and a culture that encourages impunity by allowing the police to commit human rights abuses so as to alleviate excessive workload and not create a backlog of cases. 

85% of the Indian police comprise low-ranking officers who work long hours and live in cramped quarters far from their homes.  Furthermore, most of the policemen are not trained to handle complex criminal investigations.  Indian police officers also receive immunity from prosecutions for actions conducted while on “official duty.”  For example, official figures from 2005 show that 23 policemen were charged with atrocities, but none were convicted.

“India is modernizing rapidly, but the police continue to use their old methods: abuse and threats.  It’s time for the government to…fix the system,” said Brad Adams of Human Rights Watch.  He also added, “Police who commit or order torture and other abuses need to be treated as the criminals they are.  There shouldn’t be one standard for police who violate the law and another for average citizens.”

Indian police2 (Source: AP)

Often, religious and sexual minorities, women, and lower-caste Indians are the victims of police abuse because they lack money and political connections.  Many Indians also avoid contact with the police out of fear.

A Supreme Court decision in 2006 mandated police law reforms, but the Indian government has failed to implement the court order.  The government elected in May has promised to actively pursue police reforms.
For more information, please see:

AFP – Indian police culture breeds brutality: report – 4 August 2009

BBC – Indian police accused of abuses – 4 August 2009

Human Rights Watch – India: Overhaul Abusive, Failing Police System – 4 August 2009

Reuters – India’s police undermine democracy, human rights – HRW – 4 August 2009

U.S. Disappointed with Kenya’s Fight Against Impunity

By Jennifer M. Haralambides
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

NAIROBI, Kenya – On Wednesday, the United States warned the Kenyan government that it must quickly implement delayed reforms and that the corruption, impunity, and human rights abuses are holding the country back. She also said that Kenya’s failure to investigate a bout of deadly violence after the 2007 election is disappointing to the U.S.

President Barack Obama’s father was Kenyan, therefore U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered a personal message from President Obama to President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga that they must work harder to fully implement the power-sharing deal that ended the bloody violence which spawned from a disputed election in December 2007.

Even though at least 1,300 people were killed during the violence, the cabinet has resisted the many calls for a tribunal in order to hold those responsible for the violence accountable.

Clinton warned that investors would shun states on the continent that had weak leaders and economies which are riddled with corruption and crime.  In a press conference with Kenyan Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula, she made her point abundantly clear.

“The absence of strong, effective democratic institutions has permitted ongoing corruption, impunity, politically motivated violence, human rights abuses and a lack of respect for the rule of law,” said Clinton.

Wetangula followed her remarks by saying that his government was doing everything it could.

“All sanctuaries of corruption will be destroyed to make Kenya a cleaner and safer place to do business,” he promised.

Clinton mentioned a few opportunities that Africa, specifically Kenya, has in making a change. For example, she mentioned that Africa has an opportunity to create its own “Green Revolution.”

“Right now, Africa suffers from a severe shortage of electric power and too many countries rely on oil as virtually their only source of revenue. But the capacity for producing renewable and clean energy is far and wide,” said Clinton.

She also mentioned that empowering women in Africa would be a valuable step in boosting development and decreasing the impunity that surrounds Kenya.

For more information, please see:

BBC – Kenya Impunity ‘Disappoints U.S.’ – 5 August 2009

Bloomberg – Kenya Committed to War on Corruption, Impunity, Minister Says – 5 August 2009

Daily Nation – Obama’s Warning – 5 August 2009

Reuters – Clinton Tells Kenya to Implement Delayed Reforms – 5 August 2009

Pambazuka News – Kenya: Impunity and the Politicisation of Ethnicity – 31 July 2009

Australia and New Zealand Comdemn Call for Fijian Uprising

By Hayley J. Campbell
Impunity Watch Senior Desk Officer, Oceania

SUVA, Fiji – Prime Ministers from Australia and New Zealand are speaking out against a call for Fijians to rise up against the country’s military regime.

Last week, at the Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Cairns, Niue Premier, Toke Talagi, told the people of Fiji that if they want to restore democracy, they must rise up and claim it for themselves.

“The people of Fiji must be responsible for constructing their own destiny,” Talagi said. He added, “I wonder, sometimes, whether people realise you can’t shoot 500,000 Fijians.”

Meanwhile, New Zealand and Australia have shown their disapproval of Talagi’s message, despite their condemnation of Fiji interim PM, Commodore Frank Bainimarama for delaying democratic elections.

Mr. John Key, New Zealand PM, told reporters that he would not support Fijians in an uprising against the interim government.

“We have encouraged Frank Bainimarama to engage with former leaders in Fiji…and we think that’s the right course of action, not some sort of uprising against the military coup,” Key said.

Australian PM, Kevin Rudd, said “I would emphasise in absolutely clear-cut terms the importance of a peaceful solution to the problems which exist within Fiji.” He added, “They are real problems and that is one of the reasons why the countries of the Pacific Islands Forum agreed on a mechanism for the suspension of Fiji.”

But Talagi says he was not pushing violence, but rather, hoped the people of Fiji would find a way to peacefully protest the military regime.

The Pacific Islands Forum, an organization of Pacific leaders from 16 nation states, chose to suspend Fiji from the group after Bainimarama refused to hold elections by May 2009 as originally promised.

For more information, please see:
National Business Review – Key plays down call for uprising in Fiji – 06 August 2009

ABC News – Rudd plays down call for Fijian uprising – 05 August 2009

New Tang Dynasty Television – Pacific Leaders Express Concern over Fiji – 05 August 2009

Violence Against Christians in Pakistan

By Alishba I. Kassim
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Last week Muslim protestors in Gojra, Pakistan set fire to Christian houses, resulting in seven dead, and over twenty injured. The cause of this outbreak of violence in the province of Punjab was an allegation against Christians, who had supposedly desecrated the pages of the Quran at a wedding. Over forty houses were burnt during the outbreak, and around 100 were looted, as the two religious groups engaged in gunfire.

The Federal Minister of Minorities, Shehbaz Bhatti, declared that no such desecration of the Islamic text had occurred. The minister claimed the allegations were “baseless”. In light of the violence and unfortunate deaths of the two men, four women, and one child, all of whom were Christian, over a thousand Christians would not acknowledge the dead until the government held the demonstrators responsible. Now, two hundred people have been arrested.

The provincial minister of human rights and foreign affairs in Punjab, Kamran Michael, called for three days of mourning for the victims, causing all Christian institutions to close down. The leader also denounced the current Pakistani “law of offenses relating to religion” which strictly prohibits any debasement of the Quran, possibly leading to life imprisonment or the death penalty. The minister called for a change in the law, helping to protect minorities against the predominantly Muslim societal structure.

For more information, please see:

The Hindu – Communal Clashes in Pakistan – August   5, 2009 

CNN – 200 Arrested in Violence against Christians in Pakistan – August 3, 20 09 

CNN – Pakistani Police Patrol Streets after Christians Murdered – August 2, 2009 

Indonesia and PNG Border to Remain Closed

By Angela Marie Watkins
Impunity Watch Reporter, Oceania

JAKARTA, Indonesia – The border between Indonesia and Papua New Guinea is to remain closed following last month’s shootings in Papua’s Freeport area.

Indonesia’s military headquarters said that both countries have agreed to close the border following various shootings in the Freeport area and to anticipate further interference.

“The closing is to anticipate the incidents’ impact, including possible foreign interests toward the incidents,” military spokesperson Air Vice-Marshall Sagom Tamboen said.

The border closing was first adopted during Indonesia’s presidential election on July 8, 2009 in response to early incidents and in anticipation of further unrest.

Violence in Freeport began this summer when an employees’ bus at the company’s security post at mile 53 was set fire, killing Drew Nicholas Grant from Australia.

The following day, a security guard Markus Rante Allo was killed by gunfire at mile 51. The latest incident was July 13 when the body of internal affairs police officer Vice Brigadier Marson Fredy Pettipelohi, of Papua’s regional police, was found with severe wounds in his neck at mile 64.

Sagom said that all three incidents are being investigated by both the police and the military.

For more information, please see:
Radio New Zealand – PNG/Indonesia border remains closed – 04 August 2009

China View –  Indonesia, Papua New Guinea agree to keep border closed – 04 August 2009