Pakistan Court Order Over Anti-Drone Activist

By Kevin M. Mathewson
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan –The Lahore High Court (LHC) in Pakistan has ordered the government to produce an anti-drone activist, Kareem Khan, whose lawyers say was detained by the country’s intelligence agencies.

Kareem Khan has not been heard from for a week. (Photo courtesy of BBC News)

Kahn, whose teenage son and brother were killed in a drone strike in North Waziristan Agency in 2009, went missing days before he was due to testify to the impacts of the CIA-operative unmanned strikes in Pakistan’s troubled northwest border.

Since the death of his son and brother, Kahn has waged a legal battle against the United States.

His lawyers say he was picked up from his residence in Rawalpindi last week and has not been heard from since. Police deny any involvement.

Britain-based rights group Amnesty International, citing the eyewitnesses, has claimed that the Kareem Khan was picked up by a dozen men, some of whom were wearing police uniforms while others were in civilian clothes, on February 5.

“The Rawalpindi bench of Lahore High Court has sought reply from the intelligence agencies through the government, ordering the intelligence agencies to produce Kareem Khan on 20 February or give the reason behind his arrest in writing to the court,” his lawyer Shahzad Akbar told AFP news agency.

A decade after they first took to the skies over Pakistan’s unruly tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan, U.S. drone aircraft’s are causing fierce controversy in both the United States and Pakistan.

U.S. officials argue the drone attacks are vital in the fight against Taliban and al-Qaeda militants based in the border area of Pakistan and that they take “extraordinary care” to ensure the strikes comply with international law.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has called for an end to drone attacks in his country, saying the attacks violate Pakistan’s sovereignty.

Several thousand people have been killed in the attacks, many of them militants – but precise numbers and the identities of victims are in dispute because local claims of the numbers of civilian deaths are almost impossible to prove.

For more information, please see:

BBC News – Pakistan court order over missing activist Kareem Khan – 12 February 2014

The Frontier Post – Pakistan court order over missing activist Kareem Khan – 12 February 2014

Al Jazeera – Pakistan pressed over missing drone activist – 12 February 2014

Pakistan Tribune – LHC Orders to Produce Missing Anti-Drone Activist on February 20 – 12 February 2014

Body of Slain Mexican Journalist Discovered

By Brandon R. Cottrell
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America 

MEXICO CITY, Mexico – The body of Gregorio Jimenez, a Mexican journalist who was kidnapped from his home several weeks ago, has been found in the town of Las Choapas, along side two other unidentified bodies.

Several Mexican journalists protesting, in response to their colleague, Gregorio Jimenez’s kidnapping and murder (Photo Courtesy BBC).

Jimenez, who worked for the El Liberal del Sur newspaper, had recently been reporting on the wave of kidnappings in his hometown of Coatzacoalcos.  In particular, he wrote about the disappearance of Ernesto Ruiz Guillen and how there was little being done in that investigation.

Gina Dominguez, a Veracruz state spokeswoman, said authorities believe Teresa Hernandez threatened Jimenez three months ago after a falling out between her son and his daughter.  The four men arrested earlier this week claim that Hernandez paid them to kidnap and kill him.

Several people have been arrested as a result of the investigation, including one of Jimenez’s neighbors.  However, some government officials have said that the murder was in response to a personal vendetta and had nothing to do with his work as a reporter.

Whether that is believable is, however, questionable as in at least three cases involving murdered journalists, the state attributed the murder to personal disputes.  Additionally, Jimenez’s coworker doesn’t “believe in what the government says because Gregorio was not one to get into fights, he was a kind, humble person.”

In response to the kidnapping, Jimenez’s colleagues had organized a social media campaign in hopes that Jimenez would be found.  Now that Jimenez has been found dead, many are outraged and are calling for the resignation of Javier Duarte de Ochoa, the governor of Veracruz.

In addition, Articulo 19, a press rights group, has called for a thorough investigation and said that it is  “unacceptable to rule out the journalistic work of . . . Jimenez as a possible motive for his murder” and that authorities should do more to “guarantee the safety of the victim’s family and the media outlets at which he worked.”

Since 2010, at least a dozen Veracruz journalists have been killed.  Veracruz is plagued by drug related violence and the Zetas cartel has a strong presence in the area.  Consequently, there are numerous accounts of abductions, extortions, and robberies.

Collectively, there have been eighty-seven journalists murdered in Mexico since 2000, which makes Mexico one of the most dangerous countries for members of the media to work in.

 

For further information, please see:

BBC – Missing Mexican Journalist Gregorio Jimenez Found Dead – 12 Feb. 14

Business Week – Few Believe Account Of Mexican Reporter’s Slaying – 13 Feb. 14

Global Post – Mexican Journalists Demand Full Investigation Of Reporter’s Murder – 12 Feb. 14

Global Post – Kidnapped Mexican Journalist Found Dead – 11 Feb. 14

Al-Qaeda Inmates Escape from Yemeni Jail

By Darrin Simmons
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

SANA’A, Yemen-Fourteen Al-Qaeda inmates escaped from the central prison in Yemen’s capital Thursday while gunmen launched a deadly assault on the facility, reported officials.

Police have sealed off the road to the airport which runs through the neighborhood where the prison is located (photo courtesy of Al Jazeera)

Seven policemen and three gunmen were killed.  Another two policemen and two gunmen were wounded, and one of the attackers was captured, the foreign ministry said.

The attack began when an explosives-laden vehicle exploded at the facility’s eastern entrance, breeching a hole in the prison fence, security.  Gunmen also attacked guards at the main entrance to create a diversion that allowed the prisoners to escape through the hole in the fence.

Residents reported that an explosion and heavy gunfire rang out near the jail where officials say around 5,000 prisoners are held, before security reinforcements were dispatched to the area.

Nasser al-Wuhayshi, chief of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula who is seen by the United States as the network’s deadliest franchise, vowed in August to free imprisoned members of his network.

Wuhayshi escaped from the same Sana’a prison with 22 other members of AQAP in February 2006 and was named as the group’s leader a year later.

The AQAP detainees escaped through a 44-metre (145-foot) tunnel they dug between their cell and a nearby mosque.

Saudi and Yemeni Al-Qaeda branches combined in January 2009 to form AQAP, posing a serious threat to Western interests across the region.

Thursday’s assault was the second major one in the capital in a little over two months.  In early December, a suicide bomber and several gunmen attacked the defense ministry in a brazen operation in broad daylight, killing at least 52 people and wounding another 167.

Former prisoners at the US prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba who had been returned to Saudi Arabia in December 2006 later escaped to Yemen, two years ago after completing a reform program.

After a wave of deadly Al-Qaeda attacks between 2003 and 2006, Saudi authorities launched a crackdown on the local branch of the group founded by the late Osama bin Laden.

AQAP has taken advantage of the weakening of the central government in Sana’a since a popular uprising that toppled President Ali Abdullah Saleh in 2011.

For more information, please the following: 

Al Bawaba-14 ‘mostly Qaeda’ inmates flee Yemen jail after attack-13 February 2014

Al Jazeera-Al-Qaeda inmates freed in Yemen jail attack-13 February 2014

Global Post-14 ‘mostly Qaeda’ inmates flee Yemen jail after attack-13 February 2014

Reuters-Attack on prison in Yemeni capital kills 11-13 February 2014