The United States Election Was Not the Only Election the World Was Watching

By: Alexis Eka

Impunity Watch Staff Writer

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania – Democracy in Tanzania is being threatened. John Magufuli, the president who began his term in 2015, has faced public backlash for his decisions that have eroded civil liberties. In January 2020, President Magufuli promised that elections scheduled for October 28, 2020 would be free and fair. However, it soon became clear that President Magufuli had other plans in mind.

A supporter of Tanzania’s ruling party holds sign during the official launch of the party’s campaign. Photo Courtesy of Ericky Boniphace via Getty Images.

President Magufuli restricted local organizations from monitoring voter turnouts and harassed his opponents, several local newspapers, and journalists for their disparaging coverage of him in his presidential capacity. The sub-Saharan African representative for the Committee of Protect Journalists, Muthoki Mumo, stated that since January 2020, the government has restricted at least six different social media sources including Twitter and WhatsApp, ranging from periods of one week to one year. The authorities also directed telecommunication companies to censor longer messages and voice services in the midst of reports that cellphone users were restricted from loading and sending messages featuring the names of Magufili’s opposing candidates.

Several human rights organizations have been exempt from observing and publishing commentaries about the election. These groups include the Legal and Human Rights Center, a group that is tasked with coordinating non-governmental organizations that have traditionally overseen the Tanzania’s polls.

Numerous groups have made clear that police forces and governmental authorities have targeted them and accused them of hosting unauthorized meetings as well as conspiring against the president. These allegations have led to violence for individuals that have openly declared opposition to president Magufili. For example, authorities have created obstacles for opposing party members who have attempted to campaign in good faith. Many of these party members failed to obtain proper accreditation for their poll watchers who sought to help with the election. The United Nations secretary-general, António Guterres addressed Tanzania’s political leaders and their allies to “refrain from violence”.

As elections occurred on October 28, 2020, the presidential candidate for the opposing party, Tundu Lissu, stated that his agents were denied entrance to polling stations to cast their votes.  Lissu and his agents were detained by the police authorities after inducing street protests against the leaders in East Africa. Lissu sought refuge at the German ambassador’s residence in Dar es Salaam, claiming that his life was being threatened as a result of the contentious election. Lissu claims that telephone calls to the Dar es Salaam head of police Lazaro Mambosasa, remained unanswered. “I just want a safe passage out of the country, given the deterioration in the security situation for myself,” Lissu said. The police contend that Lissu was in safe conditions and that there were no threats or issues of election-related violence.

While political leaders from the opposing party have been scrutinized and arrested and with the current slow of social media outlets, many feared that the president’s win, will make the country inevitably lose. Dan Paget, a politics professor at the University of Aberdeen stated, “This is the election where any resemblance Tanzania bears to democracy probably ends”.

Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, more than 29 million citizens voted at more than 80,000 polling stations in Tanzania as they sought to elect a new president, appoint new lawmakers, and local counselors. There is a common fear amongst Tanzanians that president Magufili’s re-election would be accompanied by harsh political and constitutional changes that include the dismissal of term limits as well as additional restrictions on civil liberties. Large protests could derail the progress made by Tanzanians in their search for economic stability, but the government and president Magufili continue to put pressure on the backs of those seeking and advocating for change.     

For further information, please see:

Bloomberg – Tanzania Opposition Leader Seeks Refuge with German Ambassador – 07 Nov. 2020 

NYTimes – As Tanzania Votes, Many See Democracy Itself on the Ballot – 29 Oct. 2020

The Economist – Democracy is faltering in Tanzania and Ivory Coast – 5 Oct. 2020  

The Economist – President Magufuli is likely to win an unfair vote in Tanzania – 22 Oct. 2020

Supreme Court of India Temporarily Suspends Implementation of Farmer Laws

By: Reena Patel

Journal of Global Rights and Organizations, Associate Articles Editor

NEW DEHLI, India – On January 12th, 2021, the Supreme Court of India issued a judgment to suspend the implementation of three proposed “farmer” laws by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) until a committee of government officials and protestors meet to find a solution. The decision to suspend the farmer laws, for the time being, comes after weeks of national protest by Indian farmers, namely farmers from the northern states of Punjab and Haryana.

Farmers protesting at New Delhi’s border during the week of January 4th, 2021. Photo Courtesy of The New York Times.

Currently, Indian farmers sell their produce at government-controlled markets (mandis) that have guaranteed minimum prices for crops. With the mandi system, farmers have assured prices and the option to use the mandi system if prices by private buyers are not satisfactory. The three farmer laws passed by Parliament in September would strip the protections offered to farmers through the mandi system. Instead of using middlemen through the mandi system, the farmer laws would open up the agricultural business to the free market. Farmers see the laws as pro-market laws that would privatize their business and strip their livelihoods for the sake of corporate greed.

While Modi attempted to pass laws that would fundamentally change the quality of life for more than 60% of India’s population that depend on farming to make a living, the farmers have organized to defend their rights. The first protests began in July, mostly taking place in Haryana and Punjab. In November and the following weeks, thousands of farmers from Haryana and Punjab traveled to Delhi. Farmers blocked almost all entry points to Delhi and remain in protest even when police brutalized the protestors with tear gas and water cannons. The farmers have parked their tractors and trailers to remain in protest until the laws are repealed. The protestors have slept in tents and on the street at Delhi’s entry points and show no sign of moving, which raised health concerns for the Supreme Court given the current COVID-19 pandemic.

A protestor and a police officer clashing at a demonstration on Friday, November 27, 2020. Photo Courtesy of The New York Times.

The farmer protest is one of, if not the, biggest protests to take place in India. The reason that many individuals have risked their lives on behalf of the 150 million farmers in India to travel to Delhi during a pandemic and withstand police violence is due to the fact that this movement is more than just a farming issue. Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party are known for their Hindu nationalist policies that exclude the freedoms and rights of religious minorities in India. Punjab and Haryana, states of individuals who are of the Sikh religion, fall into this category of religious monitories. Modi has not faced mass protests on this scale since his regime and has attempted to discredit many of the Sikh protestors as “anti-national.”

Farmers in India are “fearlessly taking on the powerful government” as a “revolution for their rights” because many farmers fear exploitation of their rights. Even now, farmers struggle with increasingly rising levels of debt, and many farmers have committed suicide due to unfair treatment. With so much on the line for farmers, they remain in protest until Modi repeals the three laws completely. 

For further information, please see:

Bar and Bench – Supreme Court Stays Implementation of Three Farm Laws, Forms 4-member Committee to hold Talks – 12 Jan. 2021

BBC News – Bharat Bandh: India Farmers Protest Against Law – 8 Dec. 2020

BBC News – How Narendra Modi Misread the mood of India’s Angry Farmers – 13 Jan. 2021

NY Times – Angry Farmers Choke India’s Capital in Giant Demonstrations – 30 Nov. 2020

NY Times – Indian Farmers vow to Continue Protest, Unappeased by Court Ruling – 12 Jan. 2021

NY Times – Why Are India’s Farmers Angry? – 14 Jan. 2021

ECHR Hit By Cyberattack Following Judgment Against The Republic of Turkey For Enduring Pre-Trial Imprisonment of Kurdish Opposition Leader

By: Benjamin Kaufman

Journal of Global Rights and Organizations, Senior Articles Editor

STRASBOURG, France – Following the publication of a ruling in which the ECHR reprimanded Turkey’s refusal to adhere to a 2018 judgment by the court, an as-of-yet unattributed cyberattack was carried out against the court’s website on December 22, 2020.

Supporter of Turkey’s Main pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Holds Portrait of Jailed Former Leader Selahattin Demirtas During a Campaign Event in Istanbul, Turkey. Photo Courtesy of Reuters and Huseyin Aldemir.

The Grand Chamber’s decision, understood to have prompted the hack, came 4 years after the imprisonment of Selahattin Demirtaş, the leader of a pro-Kurdish political party called the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and former member of the Turkish Parliament.  HDP is one of the left-leaning opposition parties to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP).  

HDP was alleged to have ties to the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) based on contemporaneous tweets calling for public demonstrations from both organizations in October of 2014.  Those public demonstrations led to several dozen deaths and for which PKK was blamed.  In May 2016, the Turkish parliament voted to amend the Turkish Constitution to selectively suspend parliamentary immunity and permitted police to arrest Demirtaş along with 7 other HDP members of parliament for incitement among other terrorism-related offenses on November 4, 2016. Since that time, Demirtaş has remained imprisoned by Turkish authorities.

The first review by the ECHR of Demirtaş’s case came in 2018.  When the Grand Chamber heard his claim in 2020, it considered six alleged violations stemming from the pre-trial detention:  that the pre-trial detention violated his freedom of expression both by denying his ability to sit once elected and by invalidating parliamentary immunity owed to a member of parliament; that his imprisonment was intended to suppress and deter opposition, that his detention was supported by insufficient proof, that the Turkish Codes of Criminal Procedure lacked sufficient remedy for such complaints, and that the time taken to review his initial application was a violation of his right to a speedy trial.

In its judgment, the Grand Chamber largely dismissed the Government’s arguments in favor of Demirtaş’s claims calling his incarceration “a dangerous message to the entire population” to stifle civil society and deter opposition.  The Grand Chamber ordered Turkey to take all necessary measures to immediately release Demirtaş based on violations of his rights under Articles 10, 5 §§ 1 and 3 of the Convention, Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention, and Article 18 in conjunction with Article 5. 

For these violations, the Grand Chamber awarded Demirtaş EUR 3,500. Additionally, the Grand Chamber ordered the State to compensate Demirtaş for non-pecuniary damages assumed by virtue of his imprisonment in the amount of EUR 25,000.  Furthermore, the Grand Chamber awarded the full amount claimed for court expenses, totaling EUR 31,900 for his representatives’ hourly rate and translation costs.

Shortly after publishing its judgment, the ECHR’s website was subjected to a cyberattack that took it offline for roughly 16 hours.  The ECHR issued a statement noting that the cyberattack began shortly after the Demirtaş decision was published and “strongly deplor[ing] this serious incident.”

ECHR’s website is back online, though responsibility for the attack has not yet been claimed.

For further information, please see:

European Court of Human Rights, Judgment (Merits and Just Satisfaction): SELAHATTİN DEMİRTAŞ v. TURKEY (No. 2), Grand Chamber – 22 Dec. 2020

European Court of Human Rights, Press Releases: Cyberattack on the website of the European Court of Human Rights – 23 Dec. 2020

Human Rights Watch – Turkey: Opposition Politicians Detained for Four Years – 19 Nov. 2020

InfoSecurity Magazine – Sarah Coble: Cyber-attack on European Court of Human Rights – 23 Dec. 2020

Reuters – Ali Kucukgocmen: European Court of Human Rights says Turkey must free Demirtas – 22 Dec. 2020

Australia Has Violated Human Rights During The Pandemic

By: Dianne Jahangani

Journal of Global Rights and Organizations, Administrative Editor

AUSTRALIA – As the world continues to face the COVID-19 Pandemic, each country has been tasked with the duty of protecting the lives of its citizens. In the next few months, as the world enters the one-year anniversary of battling against this virus, individuals are growing more impatient by the day. Everyone is focused on surviving the Pandemic to the best of their ability, but what happens when the governments that you look to in times of protection are the same entities that are causing you more harm? Shocking as it may seem, Australia, a nation that has score of 97/100 on Freedom House, is one of these such governments that is causing harm.

Man Takes Photo in Front of Mural in Melbourne After the City Ended Lockdown. Photo Courtesy of The Washington Post and William West/Getty Images

COVID-19 is a scary reality that every single person in the world has been living with for almost a year now; as if that was not enough, when Sydney, Australia made the decision to lockdown more than 3,000 people in public housing towers to contain a COVID-19 outbreak in July 2020, its decision violated human rights. Eight of the nine public housing towers confined its residents in the apartments for a total of five days. Further exacerbating the situation, the ninth tower was under lockdown for a total of two weeks. During this time, residents were left without food and medicine.

Residents did not receive a warning before being required to lockdown. As such, the residents have since reported that they felt trapped and traumatized, and suspected discrimination since the towers consisted of residents who are minorities or immigrants.

Since this lockdown, the state government has conceded that mistakes were made; however, Australia has now placed restrictions on Australians wishing to return home from abroad, which is a violation of International Human Rights of Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The Article states, “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country.” Tens of thousands of Australians have been stranded abroad because the government has capped the number of people allowed onto flights into the country.

Australia has been praised in the media for tackling COVID, as the nation of 26 million just defeated the second wave of surge of cases in Europe. In November of 2020, Australia recorded a total of 907 deaths, while the United States reported a death toll exceeding 234,000 at that time. It is without a doubt that Australia has been successful, but we are left with the question of “at what cost?” We have to wonder if the end goal of ensuring that no Australian is infected by the virus was worth all of the human rights violations that occurred – the lack of access to food and medicine and the restriction of re-entering the country that one is the citizen of.

For further information, please see:

CNA – Australia’s Victoria state violated human rights in COVID-19 lockdown: Report – 06 Jan. 2021

Freedom House – Australia – 06 Jan. 2021

Reuters – Australian State Violated Human Rights In COVID Lockdown-Report – 06 Jan. 2021

The Globe and Mail – Australian State Violated Human Rights In COVID Lockdown, Ombudsman says – 06 Jan. 2021

The New York Times – ‘Nightmare’ Australia Housing Lockdown Called Breach of Human Rights – 06 Jan. 2021

The New York Times – Stranded Overseas, Thousands Beg Australia to Let Them Come Home – 06 Jan. 2021

The Washington Post – Australia Has Almost Eliminated The Coronavirus – By Putting Faith In Science – 06 Jan. 2021

United Nations Human Rights – International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights – 06 Jan. 2021

China, Minorites, Persecution, and Summer 2020… Now, Why Does That Sound So Familiar?

By: Marshall Read

Journal of Global Rights and Organizations, Associate Articles Editor

GUANGZHOU, China – Okay, stop me if you have heard this one before: a national government using crisis response measures to suppress and discriminate against minority communities within that nation’s borders. No, it is not the United States this time; it is China. In a sequence of events that should, unfortunately, surprise no one, the Chinese government has persecuted Africans, trampling on the equal protection mandated by international law and Beijing’s stated policy of equal treatment.

An African Restaurant in Guangzhou Shut Due to Coronavirus Fears.

Before the pandemic, the Chinese Province of Guangdong was officially home to some 14,000 African people. However, thousands more are expected to reside there undocumented. The city of Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong, has become a hub for African immigrants. One district, dubbed “Little Africa,” was populated by roughly ten thousand Africans. When the COVID-19 was still an epidemic in China, the African population dropped by nearly seventy percent. Most left or were evacuated by African Governments. Those who remained in China are still on their own.

It all began mere weeks after China closed its borders. 5 Nigerian individuals tested positive for COVID-19 in Guangdong Province. This was followed by false rumors that over 1,000 Africans in china had caught the disease.  China ordered that all foreigners must submit to COVID-19 control measures. This kicked off a wave of COVID-19 suppression measures on African’s in Guangdong.

All of this happened during the Summer of 2020, while other parts of the world, including the United States, saw massive BLM demonstrations against police brutality. In response to international outcry, the Chinese government has insisted that China and Africa (yep, the whole continent) are friends, noting Beijing’s “zero tolerance” policy for discrimination. The response makes sense considering China’s participation in the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. However, the reality of events in China is contradictory to those stated goals. The law may say “all foreigners,” but it only seems to be enforced against the black foreigners.

The government began forcibly testing all Africans in the region this past April. Police entered homes, either forcibly tested, or ordered residents to go to a hospital to get tested. Africans were also quarantined. Additionally, Africans are routinely being evicted and denied service throughout China.

Ade, a Nigerian student at Guangdong University, had just paid his University fees when his landlord evicted him. Police met him and his roommates as they frantically moved their stuff out.

Mohammed, a Tanzanian trader in Guangzhou, was forced out of his apartment and quarantined in his shop. He lived like this for months until the situation in Guangdong Province began to subside. Nonetheless, the circumstances are such that it will be challenging to continue as normal for either Ade or Mohammed, because now in China, the virus is inextricably linked to African immigrants.

Writing this in December of 2020, it appears as though the situation has mostly subsided. Despite being a space away from having a winning summer 2020 bingo card, China appears to have gotten away with its persecution of Africans. Despite the start of a return to normalcy in Guangdong Province, the damage has already been done. The Chinese government has continued the dark tradition of persecuting black people by tying their presence in China to the spread of COVID-19.

For further information, please see:

Reuters – “In China’s ‘Little Africa’ a struggle to get back to business after lockdown” – 26 June 2020

BBC – “Africans in China: We face coronavirus discrimination” – 17 Apr. 2020

Nikkei Asia – “China’s ‘Little Africa’ shrinks 70% as coronavirus leaves its mark” – 24 June 2020

Human Rights Watch – “China: COVID-19 Discrimination Against Africans” – 5 May 2020

OHCHR – International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination – 21 Dec. 1965