19 year old Sri Lankan Maid to be beheaded in Saudi Arabia

Rizana Nafeek is scheduled to be beheaded on July 16, 2007.  She is a 19 year Sri Lankan maid who migrated to Saudi Arabia seeking a better life through employment.  She was barely 17 when she immigrated to be a nanny in 2005, although her forged identification documents stated she was 23.  Eighteen days after she arrived in the country, the four month infant she babysat began choking. Nafeek tried to massage and stroke the child, while she screamed frantically to the child’s mom for help.  Despite all her efforts, the child still died.

Following the incident the child’s family pressed charges against the Nafeek claiming that she strangled the child to death.   The police arrested the girl and interrogated her without procuring a translator for her.  After much coercion the girl signed a confession admitting to strangling the infant to death.  However, when she was given access to a translator at a later time, through the translator she denied strangling the baby and tried to explain what had actually happened.  She also refused to sign a second confession to causing the child’s death.  However, when trying the case the court only contemplated the girl’s first confession to decide her verdict.  She was given no legal representation by either Saudi Arabia or Sri Lanka and was condemned to death by decapitation by the court. 

Nafeek is one of the many young South Asian girls who have migrated to the Middle East seeking employment.   These migrants have benefited their home nation greatly by sending money to family.  For example, there are about 400,000 Sri Lankans working in Saudi Arabia alone.  (UPI Asia Online.)   These workers ought to be protected in court, especially in capital punishment cases.  They need to be protected either by their home nation, or the home nation needs to pressure the sponsoring nation to represent these workers.  Otherwise, it will continue to create more situations where undeserving hired workers will die, and live in fear.

UPI Asia Online.  Commentary: Teenager’s beheading tests Saudi’s sharia law. 13 July 2007.

Des Moines Register. Basu: Tried without a lawyer, teen about to be beheaded. 13 July 2007.

Arab News. Initial Legal Fees Paid for Filing Sri Lankan Maid Appeal. 13 July 2007.

Arab News.  Lankans Appeal to Victim’s Father. 14 July 2007.

International Herald Tribune. Sri Lankan housemaid on death row highlights a surge in Saudi beheadings. 13 July 2007.

Born and raised in a North Korean gulag

On Nov. 29, 1996, in a North Korean prison camp, Shin Dong Hyok (14) and his father were made to sit in the front row of a crowd assembled to watch executions. They had already spent seven months in a torture compound, and Shin assumed they were also going to be executed. Instead, the guards executed his mother and brother. Shin was born in a prison camp and escaped in 2005.

Shin is the first North Korean who is known to have escaped from a prison camp. He was confined to a “total-control zone.”

According to the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul: “Prisoners sent to a total-control zone can never come out. They are put to work in mines or logging camps until they die. Thus the authorities don’t even bother to give them ideological education. They only teach them skills necessary for mining and farming.”

There are at least four other prison camps in North Korea. These others are far less known because so few have emerged to describe them.

According to Shin, the prison authorities matched his father with his mother and made them spend five days together before separating them. This is known as “award marriage,” a privilege given only to outstanding inmates. An exemplary worker might be allowed to visit the woman chosen as his wife a few times a year.

Young children lived with their mothers, who worked from 5 a.m. to midnight. Once they turned 11, guards moved the children to communal barracks but were allowed to visit their mothers if they excelled at their work.

Inmates were fed the same meal three times a day: a bowl of steamed corn and a salty vegetable broth.

Shin’s life changed in 1996, when his mother and brother were accused of trying to escape. Guards interrogated him in an underground cell. They stripped and hung him by his arms and legs from the ceiling, and held him over hot charcoal.

During the interrogations he learned that his father’s family belonged to a “hostile class” because his uncles had collaborated with the South Korean Army during the Korean War.

On Jan. 2, 2005, when Shin and his co-worker were collecting firewood near the camp’s electrified fence and could not see any guards, they ran.

In July 2005, Shin reached China. In February 2006, a South Korean helped him seek asylum at the South Korean Consulate in Shanghai. He arrived in Seoul last August.

For more information, please see:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/09/news/korea.php

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/born-to-a-life-in-n-korean-gulag-for-sins-of-unknown-ancestor/2007/06/21/1182019286590.html

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2679480.ece

Charles Taylor to be Jailed in UK if Convicted

By Impunity Watch Africa

Former Liberian President Charles Taylor, on trial in The Hague for war crimes committed during Sierra Leone’s civil war, will serve his sentence in Britain if convicted.  Britain’s government signed a sentence enforcement agreement with the United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone this week.

Taylor’s trail opened last month, and he has plead not guilty to all eleven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity related to Sierra Leone’s civil war that killed an estimated 50,000 people. He is accused of instigating murder, mutilation, and the recruitment of child soldiers while backing Sierra Leone’s rebels in exchange for diamonds.  After an initial boycott of his trial, Taylor made a surprise appearance earlier this month.  He has argued that he had inadequate funds to provide a defense, despite many suspicions that he his hiding a fortune somewhere.  Judges ordered that Taylor be assigned a new defense team, increased the amount of money available for his legal defenses, and postponed the trial until August 20.

Meanwhile, Liberia’s government has started to make moves to seize Taylor’s assets.  A bill that covers the property of Taylor’s relatives and associates has been passed to Liberia’s parliament for discussion.  The Liberian government is seeking power “to seek the assistance of other nations in tracking, freezing, confiscating the funds, properties and assets” of the ex-president and others concerned.   All of his assets held abroad have already been seized through a 2004 UN Order.  Taylor, who has claimed he is indigent, will be receiving $100,000 a month for his legal defense by the Special Court.

For more information, please see:

Reuters – Liberia’s Taylor to be Jailed in UK if Convicted – 13 July 2007

Daily Mail – Former Liberian President Will be Jailed in UK if Convicted of War Crimes – 13 July 2007

BBC – Liberia ‘to Seize Taylor Assets’ – 12 July 2007

Jurist – Liberia Moves to Seize Taylor Assets – 13 July 2007

Gunmen in Niger Delta Seize Chief’s Son

By Meryl White
Impunity Watch, Africa

Three year old son of Iriebe Chief Eze Francis Amadi was captured en route to school in Nigeria’s oil capital, Port Harcout. This most recent kidnapping in the Niger Delta comes four days after the three year old British girl, Margaret Hill was freed from captivity. Moreover, seven hostages, including five foreigners and two executive Nigerian managers, were recently released last week.

Nevertheless, in the past month, four children have been held hostage in this volatile region. Furthermore, in this year alone, more than 150 foreigners have been victims of targeted kidnappings. Presently, more than a dozen people still remain in captivity.

Tom Ateke, leader of a militant group in the Niger Delta calls for armed groups in the area to abandon their weapons and seek discussion with the Nigerian government. However, militants are likely to refuse this option, as they believe that it is unfair that they live impoverished conditions while residing in Africa’s largest oil producing nation. These militants want an increased share of the oil revenues.

Currently, criminal gangs take advantage of Nigeria’s oil state, as it allows for targeted kidnapping of wealthy and political individuals. According to journalist, Tony Tamuno, “It is all about cash; criminals have taken over,” he said. Conversely, other militants take hostages in an attempt to gain more political rights.

The “commercialization” of kidnappings have lead to much instability in the region. Moreover, it has decreased Nigeria’s oil production by more than 25%, which has ultimately lead to increased oil prices throughout the world.

For more information, please see:

BBC – Gunmen Seize Nigerian Chief’s Son – 12 July 2007

MSNBC – Police: Nigeria’s Chief’s 3 Year Old Son Kidnapped – 12 July 2007

VOA – Gunmen Kidnap Three-Year-Old Child in Nigeria – 12 July 2007

Battle Between Ugandan Clans

By Myriam Clerge
Impunity Watch, Africa

During the 1970’s and 1980’s Uganda was notorious for its civil rights abuses. Since then current President Yoweri Museveni has introduced democratic reform and has been credited with improving human rights.

Unfortunately that has not been enough to quell the dispute between rival groups, the Bagungu and the pastoralists. The source of dispute between the farmers and the herdsmen is a 20 square-mile piece of land at Bugana, Kichoke, Katareba and Waiga villages. Some claim the fighting is fueled by prospects of oil that has been discovered in the area. Last month 10 people were injured when the Bagungu tried to forcefully evict the pastoralists.

Two herdsmen were injured this past Saturday when the two groups clashed. The fighting erupted during a meeting convened by the Second Deputy Prime Minister, Henry Muganwa Kajura. The intention of the meeting was to come create dialogue between the two groups.

Mass police forces were deployed and stationed to the village of Rwangara, a village prone to trouble. Since the deployment there has not been any attack. However past fighting have left most homes deserted or burnt to the ground and the remains of hacked cattle.

In the meantime, herdsmen in the conflict torn Bulisa village are sleeping in the bushes at night, while their families shelter in camps protected by the police.

For more information please see:

AllAfrica – Uganda- ‘We’ll Die Here’- Bulisa Herdmen – 11 July 2007

AllAfrica – Uganda- Fresh Fighting in Bulisa – 09 July 2007

BBC – Country Profile: Uganda – 12 April 2007