Cuban Children Not Allowed to Leave Island

By Karla E General
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

HAVANA, Cuba – Cuban children of medical professionals domiciled in the United States are being prevented by the Cuban government from being reunited with their parents. The Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), a U.S. group that represents Cubans in exile, has criticized the Cuban government of holding the children hostage in Cuba even though many of them have U.S. visas.

A 2006 Homeland Security policy allows Cuban doctors and medical professionals living abroad legally to bring spouses and children to the U.S., but this has been made nearly impossible because the Cuban government refuses to grant exit visas according to a 2005 report by the Human Rights Watch. The children are being denied visas because many of the doctors living abroad have been classified as traitors by the Cuban government for their failure to return to Cuba after being sent to work in government-sponsored events or missions overseas.

CANF representatives plan to file formal complaints against the Cuban government with international organizations such as the Organization of American States’ Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations.

For more information, please see:

Associated Press – Cuban Doctors Say Children Held Hostage – 18 November 2008

Miami Herald – Cuba Won’t Let Our Kids Leave, Medical Workers Say – 18 November 2008

Miami Herald – Cuban Doctors: Children Kept From Leaving Island – 18 November 2008

Uzbek Human Rights Activist Recalls 3 Year Prison Stay, Honored by HRW

By Kristy Tridhavee
Impunity Watch Senior Desk Officer, Asia

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan – Although Uzbek Human Rights Activist Mutabar Tojibaeva was released from the Tashkent City Prison 6 months ago, she regularly has nightmares of her three year stay in the jail, which included 112 days in solitary confinement.

In 2005 Tojibaeva openly criticized the Uzbek government after the massacre in Andijan.  In Andijan the Uzbek government attempted to stop an antigovernment uprising.  She condemned the shooting of hundreds of mostly unarmed civilians by government forces.  Tojibaeva is the head of the Burning Hearts Club, an unregistered nongovernmental organization (NGO) in the city of Margilan.  She has also helped ordinary people seek justice, and she has also monitored trials and published reports on illegal child labor.

Tojibaeva was later arrested and was charged with 17 counts of criminal activity, which included slander, extortion, tax evasion, polluting the environment and membership in an illegal organization – her own unregistered NGO.  4 months after her arrest she was sentenced to eight years in prison.

In 2007, prison authorities placed Tojibaeva in the prison’s psychiatric ward without informing her lawyers.  Prison authorities forced Tojibaeva to take daily medication. Her family also told Human Rights Watch (HRW) that she was forced to spend 40 straight days in the ShIZO (punishment cell), causing her health to deteriorate. Tojibaeva was later diagnosed with cancer and on March 18, 2008, had surgery at the Tashkent Oncological Hospital.  Soon after Tojibaeva was released for health reasons and must continue to serve a three year suspended sentence.

Recalling her experience in prison, Tojibaeva said, “Those classified as political prisoners, such as practicing Muslims or government critics, face ill-treatment and torture.  They are subject to verbal abuse, as well as physical and psychological pressure. Prison workers treat them like animals.  They never get proper food.  Prison food largely consists of boiled porridge and cabbage soup. Inmates have to wait for hours — sometimes in the snow or rain — outside the prison canteen to get lunch or dinner.”

HRW has honored Tojibaeva with the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders.  The award is a unique collaboration among 10 of the world’s leading human rights organizations to give protection to human rights defenders worldwide.  The chairman of the jury of the Martin Ennals Award, Hans Thoolen, described Tojibaeva as “an exceptionally brave woman in a country where standing up for human rights is a dangerous activity that can lead to imprisonment and death; where human rights defenders often have to choose between prison or exile.”

Presently, Tojibaeva is in Germany receiving medical treatment but does not plan on staying in the country long.  Tojibaeva says she will return to Uzbekistan to continue her campaign to improve the human rights situation.

For more information, please see:

Daily Times – Uzbek Activist Jailed for 10 Years – 24 October 2008

Eurasia – Arrests, Beatings, Torture All Party of Job Description for Uzbek Rights Activists – 15 November 2008

Human Rights Watch – Uzbek Human Rights Activist Honored – 15 May 2008

Immigrant Children Mistreated at United States Border

By Maria E. Molina

Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

DALLAS, United States – The Center for Public Policy Priorities has released A Child Alone and Without Papers which reveals that children are mistreated when they are removed from the United States and repatriated to their home countries.  The report found that children’s rights, safety, and well-being, are compromised contrary to international law and U.S. child welfare standards.  The paper reported that children are transported home unsafely and denied access to representation.

Children interviewed for the study reported going without water at U.S. Border Patrol stations, being handcuffed and having their requests for medical attention ignored. At least one child reported being struck and knocked down by an agent.

According to the study, many children faced complicated immigration proceedings without legal representation. Last year, 50 to 70 percent of detained unaccompanied minors went before an immigration judge without a lawyer.  The study found that , at  times, consulates were not notified that children from their country were being removed, a violation of an international treaty.

Children flown to non-bordering countries were shackled during the flight and those taken by vehicle across the border to Mexico were transported in kennel-like compartments.  Mexican officials reported that children were returned in the middle of the night and brought to ports of entry that were not specified in agreements.

According to the study, an estimated 43,000 unaccompanied illegal immigrant children were removed from the U.S. in 2007.

For more information, please see:

Center for Public Policy Priorities – De Falta de Representacion a Maltratamiento: Reporte Demuestra Lo Que Pasa A Ninos Indocumentados – 13 November 2008

Houston Chronicle – Study Says Immigrant Children Mistreated – 14 November 2008

Market Watch – From Lack of Legal Representation to Maltreatment: Report Reveals What Happens to Undocumented, Unaccompanied Children Removed From U.S – 13 November 2004

U.S. Confirms it Held 12 Juveniles at Guantanamo

By Gabrielle Meury
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba – The U.S. has released a report admitting that it has held as many as 12 juveniles at Guantanamo Bay. In May, the U.S. told the United Nations that it held only eight juveniles. Navy Commander Jeffrey Gordon said that the U.S. did not intentionally misrepresent the number of detainees. “As we noted to the committee, it remains uncertain the exact age of many of the juveniles held at Guantanamo, as most of them did not know their own date of birth or even the year in which they were born.”

The Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas, based at the University of California, Davis, released a study last week that concluded that the U.S. has held at least a dozen juveniles at Guantanamo, including a Saudi who committed suicide in 2006. Almerindo Ojeda, director of the Center, stated, “The information I got was from their own sources, so they didn’t have to look beyond their own sources to figure this out,” said Almerindo Ojeda, director of the center at the University of California, Davis. According to the study, eight of the 12 juvenile detainees have been released.

Rights groups say it is important for the U.S. military to know the real age of those it detains because juveniles are entitled to special protection under international laws recognized by the United States.
Two of the remaining detainees are scheduled to face war-crimes trials in January. Canadian Omar Khadr, now 21, was captured in July 2002 and is charged with murder for allegedly throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. special forces soldier. Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan who is about 24, faces attempted murder charges for a 2002 grenade attack that wounded two U.S. soldiers. The study identified the only other remaining juvenile as Muhammed Hamid al Qarani of Chad.The Saudi who hanged himself with two other detainees in 2006, Yasser Talal al-Zahrani, was 17 when he arrived at Guantanamo.

For more information, please see:

USATODAY – U.S. confirms it held 12 juveniles at Guantanamo– 16 November 2008

Fox News – U.S. acknowledges it held 12 juveniles at Guantanamo– 16 November 2008

The Press Association – Dozen juveniles at Guantanamo Bay- 16 November 2008

Fiji’s Interim Government to Resume Drafting People’s Charter

By Hayley J. Campbell
Impunity Watch Reporter, Oceania

SUVA, Fiji – Fiji’s interim government has received a stay on a court injunction which will allow the National Council for Building a Better Fiji to continue revising the People’s Charter. This decision follows a High Court order which had effectively stopped the interim government from resuming any Charter-related work.

Dispute over the drafting of the People’s Charter stems from the 2006 coup of Fiji’s Federal Government. Since that time, the ousted SDL Party has expressed growing concerns that the interim government will not make good on its promise to restore democracy. Interim Prime Minister, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, has yet to relinquish power or hold democratic elections. Last month, a three judge court validated the 2006 coup, giving legitimacy to the interim government.

Amidst this friction, the SDL Party supported Judge Justice Filimone Jitoko’s previous decision to stop the drafting of the People’s Charter. SDL Party leader and ousted Prime Minister, Laisenia Qarase, brought this matter to court because of the potentially dangerous consequences of amending Fiji’s 1997 Constitution.

In its previous decision, the court asserted that the interim government was to stop “promulgating any law, decree order or doing or recommending anything whatsoever to alter or amend the 1997 Constitution or anything whatsoever, including changes to the electoral system that are contrary to or inconsistent with current provisions of the Constitution until the final determination of this matter.”

Although no High Court judges were available to review the matter, Fiji’s interim Attorney General, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, was able to get a stay on the decision from the Court of Appeal. According to Fiji law, a single member judge from the Court of Appeal may grant a stay in matters of urgency.

Court of Appeal Justice Byrne granted the stay on the grounds that section 15 of the State Proceedings Act indicates that an injunction cannot be granted against a State.

As a result, the interim government has resumed work on the People’s Charter.

But SDL Party lawyer, Niko Nawaikula, says that the interim government has responded to the court order too hastily. “As a lawyer and a professional I would have expected them to read this judgment and digest it before taking further action,”Nawaikula said.

The matter is scheduled to go before the Court of Appeal on November 20th.

For more information, please see:
Radio New Zealand International – Ousted Fiji PM gets court order to stop charter process – 14 November 2008

Radio New Zealand International – Fiji’s interim government gets court injunction to continue charter process – 15 November 2008

Fiji Times – Lawyer disappointed with stay on order – 15 November 2008