Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect: Atrocity Alert, Issue 4: Syria, Nigeria and Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories

Atrocity Alert is a weekly publication by the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect highlighting and updating situations where populations are at risk of, or are enduring, mass atrocity crimes.

UN Photo/Elma Okic

Syria

Despite the cessation of hostilities, fighting in Syria increased during mid-April, including government forces bombing hospitals and displacement camps. Violence in Aleppo has killed over 300 people in the last two weeks. On 9 May the United States and Russia led a diplomatic push to reinstate the nation-wide cessation of hostilities. The Syrian government agreed to extend a truce in Aleppo, in place since 5 May, until midnight on 11 May.

Nigeria

The humanitarian crisis in Nigeria and neighboring countries remains dire due to the widespread displacement of populations, acute food insecurity and the ongoing threat of attacks by the extremist group Boko Haram. The upcoming regional security summit, taking place in Abuja on 14 May and bringing together the heads of state of Nigeria, France, Cameroon, Niger, Chad, and Benin, should emphasize the humanitarian situation in Boko Haram-affected areas and address ways to improve support for IDPs and refugees.

 UNHCR/C.Arnaud

UN Photo/Evan Schneider

Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories

For the first time since the 2014 war in Gaza, Hamas and Israeli forces engaged in cross-border attacks. The attacks started two days prior to a UN Security Council Arria Formula meeting on the protection of the Palestinian civilian population in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The meeting was convened on 6 May by the Permanent Missions of Angola, Malaysia, Senegal and Venezuela.

Civitas Maxima: Civitas Maxima Annual Report 2015

Civitas Maxima’s Annual Report 2015

Dear friends and colleagues,

Civitas Maxima’s team is thrilled to share with you its 2015 Annual Report!
You can download the Report here.

2015 has been an exciting year with considerable progress being made on the different cases Civitas Maxima works on, and with the first ever arrest for the crime of pillage of blood diamonds from Africa (Sierra Leone).

We are working hard to keep this momentum in 2016 and we continue devoting all our strength to bringing justice to the too many forgotten victims of international crimes.

Thank you so much for all your support.

Alain Werner, Director
Visit our updated website at http://www.civitas-maxima.org/

Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect: Strengthening South-South Cooperation to Prevent Mass Atrocities

During 2015 states, civil society and the UN took stock of the progress made in operationalizing the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) over the decade since it was first adopted at the UN World Summit in 2005. While practitioners noted the normative and institutional progress towards protecting populations from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing, critical gaps remain in our collective response to the risk of mass atrocity crimes. As security challenges around the world evolve, we need to continue discussing how to address these threats in innovative ways.
The Department of International Relations and Cooperation of the Republic of South Africa and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Sweden, in partnership with the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, convened a workshop during December 2015 on Strengthening South-South Cooperation to Prevent Mass Atrocities in Johannesburg, South Africa. The interactive workshop brought together practitioners from the Global South – including from the emerging powers of India, South Africa and Brazil – to highlight mechanisms for enhancing South-South cooperation in implementing R2P.
The following outcome document highlights the challenges in implementation identified by participants and provides recommendations for strengthening South-South cooperation on mass atrocity prevention.
The document is accessible on our website via the following link: Ten Years of the Responsibility to Protect: Strengthening South-South Cooperation to Prevent Mass Atrocities.

Justice for Sergei Magnitsky:Crane 1 of 1 French TV Station ARTE Permanently Cancels Nekrasov’s Anti-Magnitsky Propaganda Film

French TV Sta­tion ARTE Per­ma­nently Can­cels Nekrasov’s Anti-Magnitsky Pro­pa­ganda Film

 

9 May 2016 – The French TV sta­tion, ARTE, has per­ma­nently can­celled the anti-Magnitsky pro­pa­ganda film by Russ­ian film­maker Andrei Nekrasov.

 

French lawyer Safya Ako­rri who rep­re­sents the widow of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, and William Brow­der, the leader of the inter­na­tional jus­tice cam­paign for Sergei Mag­nit­sky, wrote to ARTE, sub­mit­ting a list of false alle­ga­tions made in Nekrasov’s film and pre­sent­ing the evi­dence of their falsity.

 

ARTE has since can­celled the show sched­uled for release on 3 May 2016 and offi­cially informed their lawyers that they had no inten­tion to show it at any point in the future.

 

ARTE’s deci­sion fol­lows the deci­sion at the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment on 27 April 2016 not to air the Nekrasov’s film for sim­i­lar rea­sons. The screen­ing of Nekrasov’s film was sched­uled as a per­sonal ini­tia­tive of Nekrasov’s girl­friend, Heidi Hau­tala, a mem­ber of the Euro­pean par­lia­ment from the Green Party in Finland.

 

Speak­ing about the deci­sion by ARTE to can­cel the film, William Brow­der, leader of Mag­nit­sky jus­tice cam­paign, said:

 

“There are many peo­ple who wish to avoid fac­ing jus­tice for Magnitsky’s death and the crimes he exposed by try­ing to destroy his mem­ory and legacy. It is our duty to make sure this doesn’t hap­pen.”

 

Andrei Nekrasov’s film on Sergei Mag­nit­sky was pre­pared for release on ARTE’s Euro­pean cul­tural chan­nel on May 3, 2016 ignor­ing the fact that Sergei Magnitsky’s mother did not con­sent to the use of video footage of her.

 

“We are out­raged that Mr. Nekrasov pre­tended that he sym­pa­thized with our grief,” said Nataliya Magnitskaya.

 

Nekrasov’s film, which claims to be a “doc­u­men­tary”, con­tains numer­ous false alle­ga­tions against Sergei Mag­nit­sky, which had been reviewed and refuted by inde­pen­dent Russ­ian and inter­na­tional bod­ies, includ­ing the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the Coun­cil of Europe, com­pris­ing del­e­gates from 47 states, the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment, theUS Depart­ment, and the US Con­gress, among others.

 

The let­ter from Magnitsky’s mother and widow denounced any form of dis­tri­b­u­tion of Nekrasov’s film which, they believe, used com­pro­mised meth­ods char­ac­ter­is­tic of Krem­lin pro­pa­ganda films:

 

“Mr. Nekrasov is not unique, such mis­lead­ing movies and pro­grams are demon­strated in Rus­sia on a reg­u­lar basis to drag Sergei Magnitsky’s name through the mud and to jus­tify the per­sons respon­si­ble for his death. Direc­tors use frag­ments of inter­views which are often taken by deceit, sin­gle sen­tences or even words are taken out of the con­text of the doc­u­ments, cer­tain phrases are turned inside out and acquire the oppo­site mean­ing, frag­ments of speeches are com­bined in a way nec­es­sary to manip­u­la­tive indi­vid­u­als, accord­ing to the order.”

 

When the Mag­nit­sky fam­ily learned about Nekrasov’s film, they issued a let­ter of protest against this lat­est anti-Magnitsky pro­pa­ganda ini­tia­tive. The Mag­nit­sky fam­ily said:

 

“We think that the film by Andrei Nekrasov, which is based on his con­coc­tions but not on the doc­u­ments  and facts, degrades the dig­nity of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, degrades the deceased per­son who is unable to defend himself.”

 

“This movie is made in the inter­ests of those who are scared of the truth uncov­ered by Sergei Magnitsky,”

said Magnitsky’s mother and widow.

 

Fol­low­ing the rev­e­la­tion of Nekrasov’s turn-around on Mag­nit­sky case, ques­tions have been raised as to what could explain it.

 

Andrei Nekrasov was pre­vi­ously known for films, includ­ing about poi­son­ing of Alexan­der Litvi­nenko, which were pro­duced by his wife, Olga Kon­skaya, who passed away in Ger­many in 2009. Andrei Nekrasov’s pub­lic stance on Putin’s Rus­sia changed since at least March 2014 — the time of Pres­i­dent Putin’s inva­sion in Ukraine.

 

In Andrei Nekrasov’s blog post of 21 March 2014 avail­able on the web­site of ‘Echo of Moscow,’ Russ­ian radio sta­tion, he expressed a strong anti-American sen­ti­ment, jus­ti­fy­ing Putin’s actions, saying:

 

“Why Amer­ica (and allies) can vio­late inter­na­tional law, and Rus­sia — not? Amer­i­cans and Co vio­late it, and this is not Kremlin-Kiselev’s pro­pa­ganda, it is a fact rec­og­nized by the inter­na­tional community;”

 

“Putin con­trols the imag­i­na­tion of the peo­ple, and this is not the result of him “usurp­ing power…;”

 

“In the opin­ion of aggrieved Rus­sians, Crimea is not sub­ject to Budapest memorandum.”

 

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

 

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e-mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

Syrian Network for Human Rights: Hama Prison 2016 on the pace of Sidnaya Prison 2008

Fears threats the life of 762 detainees in the Hama Central Prison

Hama Prison 2016

I. Introduction and the Executive Summary:
Hama Central Prison have witnessed several protests by the inside prisoners since 2013. The Governmental Forces detain nearly 762 prisoners from different governorates, such as: Hama, Al Raqqa, and Damascus countryside. The prison is an official civilian detention center located in the eastern area of Hamah city. The detainees’ files are subjected to the court of “Combating Terrorism” in Damascus, in the first place, then the Military Court and the court of the military field.

This protest “stubbornness” is considered as the third one the detainees do in Hama Central prison, in protest against the unfair death sentences provisions issued against them by the anti-terrorism court and the court of the military field in one hand, and the governmental forces and the transfer of convicts to Sidnaya Military Prison on the other hand. We have published earlier a report entitled “The Anti-terrorism Court” issued verdicts against 56 detainees in Hama Central Prison, Amongst 15 death sentences). The Syrian authorities after the end of second protest punished all the prisoners who participated, through transferring them to prisons that are far from their areas such as Tartous Central Prison, because the conditions of detention are worse, and it is difficult for their families to visit the detainees. We mentioned in a previous report about the detainees’ strike (Political Prisoners in Tartous Central Prison on Hunger Strike For their. 13th day so far)

SNHR managed to contact a number of prisoners inside the prison; all the people we talked to them expressed their fear from the governmental forces breaking into the prison for punishment and retaliation; we will do mention in this report only two scenarios due to the similarity of the stories of the detainees.
We recorded the death of one detainee infected with cancer because of the refusal of the prison administration to let him receive treatment. That happened on 5 May 2016, which marks the fourth day of protest inside the prison.