Manipur Woman Who Fasts in Protest Rearrested

By Shayne R. Burnham
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

GUWAHATI, India – An Indian human rights advocate, Irom Sharmila, was released from prison last Saturday only to be rearrested Monday.  She was sent back to prison when she declared that she would continue fasting in protest of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) of 1958.

The AFSPA provides the military the power to kill suspected rebels without prosecution.  The AFSPA applies only to Kashmir and northeast India due to the prevalence of insurgency these areas.   Human rights groups state that the AFSPA allows security forces to kill, torture and rape with impunity.

Sharmila first began protesing against the AFSPA and its abuse in quelling rebellion in the northeast in 2000.  A prominent event during that time was when troops shot ten young men in Manipur.  Her brother, Irom Singhajit Singh, describes how it began, “The killings took place on November 2, 2000. It was a Thursday. Sharmila used to fast on Thursdays since she was a child. That day she was fasting too. She has just continued with her fast.”

Three days later, Sharmila was arrested and charged with trying to take her own life.  She was taken to the security ward of a hospital where she continued to fast in protest of the law. She was force fed a liquid diet through a nasal tube.  She remained imprisoned until her release, last Saturday.

Sharmila was then rearrested upon her declaration that she would continue to fast.  “I will only withdraw the fast when the government withdraws the Armed Forces Special Powers’ Act unconditionally. Not before that,” she stated to the media.

The Indian government claims that the AFSPA is a necessary measure to maintain and secure the northeast.

“There’s tremendous pressure from the army and paramilitary forces not to scrap the AFSPA. The government cannot overlook that pressure. But that alienates the government from the Manipuris all the more,” says Manipur’s leading civil society activist Binalaxmi Nephram.

For more information, please see:

Asian Centre for Human Rights – Arrest of Irom Sharmila Condemned – 8 March 2009

BBC – Manipur Fasting Woman Re-Arrested – 9 March 2009

Reuters – India’s Iron Lady Rearrested a Day After Release – 9 March 2009

Five Mexican Indigenous Human Rights Activists Remain Unfairly Detained

13 March 2009

Five Mexican Indigenous Human Rights Activists Remain Unfairly Detained

By Maria E. Molina
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

GUERRO, Mexico – Despite insufficient evidence against them five indigenous human rights activists in Mexico are still being held in prison nearly a year after their arrest.

The activists are members of the Guerrero-based Me’ phaa Indigenous People’s Organization (OPIM). They are being held in a Guerrero state prison on charges of murder. Manuel Cruz, Orlando Manzanarez, Natalio Ortega, Romualdo Santiago and Raúl Hernández were detained on 17 April 2008. They were charged with the murder of Alejandro Feliciano García on 1 January 2008 in the town of El Camalote, Guerrero.

A federal review judge ordered the release of four of them on 20 October 2008, after ruling that the evidence presented did not implicate them. However the four remain in prison after Mexico’s Federal Attorney General’s Office filed an appeal against the ruling, despite not providing further evidence in the case.

The fifth detainee, Raúl Hernández, was denied an injunction by the federal judge because two witnesses testified that he was present at the time of the murder.
Other eyewitness have testified, however, that Hernández was not present have been disregarded.

Most likely the five activists are still being detained as reprisal for their work promoting the rights of their community and exposing abuses by a local political boss and local authorities.  There has been a documented a pattern of harassment and intimidation in Guerrero state against members of Indigenous rights organizations such as the OPIM. These groups highlight cases of violations of human rights by members of the Mexican Army.

Most recently, both the Secretary and President of the Organization for the Future of Mixtec Indigenous Peoples (Organizacion para el Futuro de los Pueblos Mixtecos, OFPM) were found murdered late at night on 20 February in Tecoanapa municipality, Guerrero State.

For more information, please see:

Amnesty International – Indigenous human rights activists unfairly detained in Mexico – 12 March 2009

Source News – Mexico: Indigenous human rights defenders still unfairly imprisoned despite government promises to UN – 12 March 2009

Upside Down World – Mapping Controversy in Oaxaca: Interview with Aldo Gonzalez, Director of UNOSJO – 12 March 2009

HRW Reports on Efforts to End Dress Code Arrests

12 March 2009

HRW Reports on Efforts to End Dress Code Arrests

Human Rights Watch posted the following story about a Guyana law requiring people to wear gender appropriate clothes on March 5, 2009.

(Georgetown) – Guyana should halt arrests and police abuse of transgender people and repeal a repressive law that criminalizes wearing clothes considered appropriate only for the opposite sex, six human rights organizations said today in a letter to President Bharrat Jagdeo.The letter was signed by the Caribbean Forum for Liberation of Genders and Sexualities (CARIFLAGS), Global Rights, Guyana Rainbow Foundation (Guybow), Human Rights Watch, International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), and the Society Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination (SASOD). They called on the Guyanese authorities to drop the charges against seven people arrested under the law in February, 2009, and investigate allegations of abuse by the police.

“Police are using archaic laws to violate basic freedoms,” said Scott Long director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. “This is a campaign meant to drive people off the streets simply because they dress or act in ways that transgress gender norms.”

Between February 6 and 10, police in the Guyanese capital, Georgetown, detained at least eight people, some of them twice, charging seven of them under section 153 (1) (xlvii) of the Summary Jurisdiction (Offences) Act Chapter 8:02. This criminalizes as a minor offense the “wearing of female attire by man; wearing of male attire by women.”

Officers took the detainees to Brickdam police station. The detainees reported to SASOD Guyana, a local human rights organization working for the freedoms of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, that police refused to allow them to make a phone call or contact a lawyer, both basic rights under Guyanese law.

Police kept five of the men in solitary confinement until the day of the trial, contending that it was for their safety.

The first arrests took place on February 6, when plainclothes policemen detained three men in downtown Georgetown, near Stabroek Market. On February 7, the police detained five more. In both occasions acting Chief Magistrate Melissa Robertson fined the detainees GY$7,500 (US$36) each. On February 10, the police detained four people; three of whom had been among those arrested on February 6 and 7.

In court, when handing down the sentence, Chief Magistrate Robertson told the detainees they were not women but men and exhorted them to “go to church and give their lives to Christ.”

“The enforcement of laws repressing individuals’ self-expression is against basic provisions of human rights,” said Stefano Fabeni, program director of the LGBTI Initiative at Global Rights. “Police treatment during arrest and detention of the eight men shows serious breaches of Guyana’s international human rights obligations.”

The Summary Jurisdiction (Offenses) Act provides for adjudication of these cases without a jury. The act dates from colonial times. Other offenses under the same provision include: “exposing for sale cattle in improper part of town (iv); beating [a] mat in [a] public way in town (vii); cleansing cask, etc. in public way (xl); driving cattle without proper assistance (xv), etc.”

Police use the law to target people born male who wear what police regard as female clothing. This violates the individual’s privacy, freedom of expression, and personal dignity.

“It is outrageous in this day and age that human beings get arrested for cross-gender expression,” said Vicky Sawyer, transgender representative for CARIFLAGS. “Transgender issues should be dealt with using international human rights standards, not police abuse.”

As a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Guyana has agreed to respect the absolute prohibition against torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment set out in the treaty (Article 7). Article 14 of the same treaty affirms the right to counsel. The treaty also bars interference with the right to privacy (Article 17) and protects freedom of expression (Article 19). Guyana has the obligation to respect and ensure these rights, and to do so in a nondiscriminatory manner, as set forth in Article 2.

Guyana has several laws that criminalize relationships between people of the same sex. Section 351 of the Criminal Law (Offenses) Act punishes committing acts of “gross indecency” with a male person with a two-year prison sentence. Section 352 criminalizes any “attempt to commit unnatural offenses.” This includes a 10-year prison sentence for any “male [that] indecently assaults any other male person.” Finally Section 353 states that “Everyone who commits buggery, either with a human being or with any other living creature, shall be guilty of felony and be liable to imprisonment for life.”

The original article can be found here.

United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees Visits Myanmar

By Ariel Lin
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

YANGON, Myanmar – The United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, visited Myanmar earlier this week.  According to a Myanmar official, he met with the junta’s ministers in charge of foreign affairs, home affairs, immigration and border areas.  Mr. Guterres also toured Myanmar’s border with Bangladesh and Rakhine state where most of the Rohingya reside.

Rohingya is a Muslim ethnic group that Junta refuses to recognize as citizens of Myanmar.  Earlier this year, Myanmar’s consul general to Hong Kong says that the Rohingya could not possibly be Myanmar since they were “dark brown” and “ugly as ogres.”

Rohingya issue has caught attention from the international community recently.  Thousands of Rohingya fled Myanmar to escape poverty and hardship were mistreated by Thai military.   The international media published photographs that show the Thai military rounded up Rohingya and set adrift in boats towed out to sea with limited supplies.  Some of them were rescued in Indian and Indonesian waters.  The UN refugee agency has expressed concern over the fate of hundreds rescued Rohingya.

At the Association of South-East Asian Nations last month, Myanmar agreed to allow Rohingyas to return to the country if they could prove they were Bengalis.  Bengalis is included on the government’s list of 135 recognized ethnic minority groups in Myanmar.

For more information, please see:

AFP – UN refugee chief visits Myanmar – 10 March 2009

Reuters – UNHCR chief in Myanmar, to visit Rohingya area – 10 March 2009

Time – Visiting the Rohingya, Burma’s Hidden Population – 09 March 2009

Voice of America – UN Official to Discuss Refugees with Burmese Government – 09 March 2009

Thai Officials Deny Secret Prison

By Pei Hu
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BANGKOK, Thailand – On Wednesday, Thailand’s army general Anupong Paochinda denied allegations of secret United States prisons in Thailand. General Anupong told reporters, “I can say 1 million percent that a secret jail like this has not existed in Thailand.”

Thai officials have been denying the existence of Washington prisons in Thailand for years, specifically in Udon Thani, a US airbase from the Vietnam War era. Other military bases were also suspected to be detention centers to hold and interrogate suspects. The speculation of secret prisons was renewed after the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) confirmed it has destroyed 92 tapes of interviews with Al-Qaeda suspects.

After the 9/11 attacks, Thailand offered the use of its military bases in the US. Last week, the CIA confirmed that the tapes were held in Thailand and were destroyed 4 years ago. The US Justice Department has admitted that the tapes were destroyed on the orders of CIA head Jose A Rodriquez. The tapes allegedly contained footage of the interrogation and torture of key Al-Qaeda suspects at a Thai military base.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has been fighting a campaign against the CIA to expose the mistreatment of suspects by extraordinary rendition programs. A BBC correspondent in Thailand reported that as the ACLU proceeds its case against the CIA, more details of Thailand’s involvement will emerge.

In 2003 Thailand was rewarded the status of a major non-NATO ally after it helped in the capture of Hambali, the head of Al-Qaeda’s regional affiliate. However, US-Thai relations have been strained after the 2006 military coup and trade disputes.

For more information, please see:

BBC – Thai Military Deny Secret US Jail– 4 March 2009

Electric New Paper – Documents Show US Has Secret Prisons in Thailand– 6 March 2009

Top News – Thai Army Chief Denies Existence of Secret American Prison– 4 March 2009