A Voice for the Voiceless

Bangladesh to Start War Crimes Tribunal

By Pei Hu
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

DHAKA, Bangladesh – On April 9th, 2009 the Bangladeshi government announced that it would create a war crimes tribunal within two weeks to try war crimes committed from the bloody 1971 liberation struggle.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who was elected last year, had promised to jump start the tribunal as soon as possible.

The Bangladeshi Law Minister Shafig Ahmed, told the media that the government was in the final stages of putting together the defendant list. “We have begun the process by deciding to appoint the investigating agency, prosecutors, investigation officers and form tribunals in two weeks,” Ahmed said.

The United Nation (UN) promised to aid the tribunal. Last Wednesday, the UN said that some of its top war crimes experts would advise Bangladesh on how to try the defendants accused of murder and rape. Renata Lok Dessallien, head of the United Nations in Bangladesh, told AFP “We have suggested the names of some top international experts who have experience in how war crimes tribunals operate across the globe.”

Dessallien also said the UN would look into whether Bangladeshi law complies with international war crimes law. Dessallien added, “This is the first time Bangladesh is conducting war crimes tribunals and it is important it understands how other countries have held them. There are some countries where mistakes were made and we don’t want Bangladesh to repeat those mistakes.”

“The UN will advise us so that we don’t make any mistakes and so that the process is transparent and does not create any questions” Ahmed said.

The tribunal was welcomed by human rights NGOs like Amnesty International.

During the 1971 war for liberation, Bangladesh was then West Pakistan and fought against East Pakistan to become an independent country. The alleged war criminals sided with West Pakistan and committed murder, rape, and arson. About three million people were killed during the war.

A private investigation that investigated the conflict listed 1,775 people responsible for the atrocities. The private group blamed top Pakistani generals and local Islamists that allied with Pakistan for the atrocities.

For more information, please see:

AFP – Bangladesh war crimes tribunals in two weeks – 9 April 2009

AFP – UN to help Bangladesh war crimes trial planning – 8 April 2009

BBC – Bangladesh to announce war probe – 7 April 2009

Pakistani Judge Holds Hearing to Investigate Taliban Flogging

By Shayne R. Burnham
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudry has ordered a court hearing to investigate the flogging of a 17 year old girl depicted in a video that was shown to the world.  The video was first shown in Pakistan on Thursday, April 2.  The film shows two Taliban members holding a young girl down and a third hitting her with a strap.  She was allegedly punished for “coming out of her house with another man who was not her husband”.  She was given 34 lashes and then taken into a stone building.

Chaudhry condemns what happened and criticized the government for not taking immediate action.  “Before the video became public, what were you doing, why couldn’t you find out what happened?” he asked the attorney general, Sardar Latif Khosa.  Chaudhry was reinstated as Chief Justice after two years of being fired from the bench by President Zardari.

The video was taken by a local with a mobile telephone camera.  It was allegedly filmed a month and a half ago, but only recently released.  Its release coincides with the Sharia peace deal that will be implemented in the near future.

Taliban spokesman Mian Iftikhar said, “We believe there is a conspiracy to sabotage the peace process by airing a video recorded before the deal.”

Samar Minallah, a human rights activist, bought the video in the markets of Swat and distributed it to the media.  In broadcasting the video, Minallah wanted to let the nation know of the types of transgressions happening in the Swat Valley.  “The most fundamental rights are violated every second of every day.  People are being ejected from their houses, courts are closed, 300 schools have been demolished,” she said.

A journalist in the Swat Valley, Ehsan Haqqani, said that it was encouraging for the Supreme Court to take action.  “We were the forgotten people. . . .  The government was only a silent spectator.  Now the Supreme Court is forcing the government to take notice.  That is encouraging for us.”

For more information, please see:

BBC – Pakistan to Probe Girl’s Flogging – 3 April 2009

Daily Times – Taliban Flog 17 Year Old Girl for Having Affair – 4 April 2009

The Hindu – Swat Girl Denies She was Flogged – 7 April 2009

International Herald Tribune – Pakistan’s Chief Justice Assails Attorney General Over Taliban Flogging – 6 April 2009

Native Hawaiians Denied Recognition of Aboriginal Lands by U.S. Supreme Court

09 April 2009

Native Hawaiians Denied Recognition of Aboriginal Lands by U.S. Supreme Court

By Karla E General
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

HONOLULU, Hawaii – The U.S. Supreme Court overruled the Hawaiian Supreme Court last week when it decided that the 1993 Official Apology Resolution issued by the Congress to the Native Hawaiians did not constitute recognition of Native Hawaiian rights to their ancestral lands. With this decision, 1.2 million acres of disputed Native Hawaiian lands will be opened for public sale.

In 2002, a Hawaiian state court initially ruled that Hawaii could sell the disputed lands. The case eventually went up to the state’s highest court in 2008, with the Hawaii Supreme Court finding that Native Hawaiians had a claim to the disputed lands. The Court then issued an injunction to prevent the sale of “ceded lands” held in trust until the outstanding aboriginal land claims had been resolved. The Hawaii Supreme Court relied on the 1993 Apology Resolution – an official acknowledgment of the illegality of the U.S. overthrowing of Hawaii’s sovereign government, creation of a provisional government, and annexation of Hawaii as a U.S. territory with the Newlands Resolution – in it’s landmark decision.

The recent Supreme Court’s ruling is extremely dangerous – it accepts the Newlands Resolution as the legal resolution of land disputes, vesting absolute title to the United States over the disputed lands – while ignoring the Congressional Apology which recognized that “the Indigenous Hawaiian people never directly relinquished their claims to their inherent sovereignty as a people or over their national lands to the United States, either through their monarchy or through a plebiscite or referendum.” J. Kehaulani Kauanui, Associate Professor of American Studies and Anthropology at Wesleyan University, expressed frustration over the Court’s mishandling of the case: “If the Apology Resolution has no teeth in the court of the conqueror, then how is it that the Newlands Resolution that unilaterally annexed Hawaii does? This (ruling) is a legal fiction to cover up the fact that the U.S. government accepted the stolen lands from the Republic of Hawaii government that confiscated these lands after the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom.”

The U.S. Supreme Court remanded the case back to the Hawaii Supreme Court for “further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.”

For more information, please see:

Indian Country Today – U.S. Supremes Rule Against Native Hawaiians’ Land Claims – 6 April 2009

Chicago Tribune – Hawaii: Land Sale Upheld – 1 April 2009

Honolulu Star – Ceded Land Ruling Creates Quick Need for Sovereignty – 1 April 2009

New York Times – Supreme Court Backs Hawaii in Land Dispute – 31 March 2009

A 75-year-old Retired Professor Beaten in Cemetery

By Ariel Lin
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BEIJING, China – Last Saturday marked “Qingming”- grave-sweeping day, when Chinese honor the dead. A 75-year-old retired professor, Sun Wenguang, was beaten for honoring the death of a reformist communist leader Zhao Ziyang on Saturday. Mr. Zhao is a former prime minister and Communist Party general secretary who was purged for supporting the 1989 Tiananmen protests.
In 2005, Mr Zhao died under house arrest.

According to Mr. Sun, a police car followed him when he went to visit a memorial honoring Chinese martyrs on Heroes’ Mountain in Jinan.  When he entered the memorial grounds, he was beaten and “kicked like a football” for more than 10 minutes by a group of five men.

“They were very strong. They did not say a word,” Sun said in a telephone interview from a Jinan hospital.  “They wanted to punish me and let people know that Zhao Ziyang is not allowed to be memorialized,” he claimed.  Mr. Sun suffered three broken ribs and injuries to his hands and legs in the attack.  It was not clear who the men were.

Mr Sun is a retired physics professor from Shandong University.  He spent some times in prison from the 1960s to the 1980s, for criticizing communist leader Mao.  He said he had paid his respects at Zhao Ziyang’s grave every year on the Qingming, but was warned not to do so this year by police and officials from Shandong University.

Human Rights in China condemned the attack on Mr Sun.  “This deplorable act, committed in broad daylight and in clear view of the police… calls into serious question officials’ professed commitment to building a society that puts people first,” said executive director Sharon Hom.

Human Rights Defenders, a Hong Kong-based group, says that “Chinese authorities are staging a campaign of terror to intimidate and suppress expressions of commemoration for the 1989 Tiananmen massacre,” the group said in a statement. The attack on Mr. Sun “is part of the overall campaign.”

For more information, please see:

AP – Professor beaten for honoring ousted China leader – 07 April 2009

BBC – Scholar beaten at Tiananmen grave – 07 April 2009

Human Rights in China – Retired Professor Attacked after Honoring Memory of Late Party Secretary Zhao Ziyang – 06 April 2009

New York Times – China Rights Activist Beaten in Cemetery – 07 April 2009

Two Detained US Reporters Face Trial in North Korea

By Ariel Lin
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

Pyongyang, North Korea – Two detained US reporters last month will face trial in North Korean.  North Korean government will charge Euna Lee and Laura Ling for illegal entry and “hostile acts”, the country’s state-run news agency says. The two reporters were working on a story about North Koreans who flee the closed country to make a better living in China.

“The illegal entry of US reporters into the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) and their suspected hostile acts have been confirmed by evidence and their statements,” the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.  The KCNA is preparing for indictments and a trial. It is also being reported that two reporters will be allowed consular access and will be treated in accordance with international law.

US government continues to work on this matter through diplomatic channels, according to an unnamed senior White House official.  “We have seen the brief North Korean press report (on the trial), and we have no higher priority than the protection of American citizens abroad”, the official says.

The detentions come in the middle of growing tension in the region as North Korea launched its satellite.  The North Korean government insists that the rocket is designed to put a communications satellite into orbit.  However, the international community believes it may be a test of a far-ranging military missile.  Some reports say that Laura Ling and Euna Lee’s fate may depend on missile launch diplomacy between North Korea and US.
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The use of the language “hostile acts” in the North Korea’ statements statement could means espionage.  Espionage convictions come with severe penalties, such as five to 10 years, or longer, in prison.

For more information, please see:

BBC – US reporters face N Korea trial – 31 March 2009

Bloomberg – North Korea Prepares to Indict U.S. Reporters Held at Border – 30 March 2009

CNN – Report: North Korea planning to put American reporters on trial – 31 March 2009

People – Fate of Lisa Ling’s Sister Linked to Missile Launch Diplomacy – 03 April 2009

Wall Street Journal – Arrest of U.S. Reporters Adds to the Tension – 06 April 2009