This Week in Syria, Deeply: Sunday, 8 December 2013
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Thousands of Eritreans Abducted for Ransom
By: Danielle L. Gwozdz
Impunity Watch News Reporter, Africa
ASMARA, Eritrea – Up to 30,000 Eritreans have been abducted since 2007 and taken to Egypt’s Sinai to suffer torture and ransom demands, new research says.
The study, presented to the European parliament, says Eritrean and Sudanese security officers are plotting with the kidnap gangs.
The report focuses on the trafficking of refugees from the Horn of Africa who are targeted by criminal networks for extortion and exploitation. The report looks at the experiences of the refugees who have fled their countries looking for safety and security.
The captives are threatened with being sold to people traffickers if they do not raise tens of thousands of dollars. Some are freed if they raise the ransoms. Others are sold on to traffickers, even after money has changed hands, only to be tortured to extract further cash from relatives.
At least $600m has been extorted from families in ransom payments, the report says.
Eritrea has denied its officials are involved in the kidnappings. The report, however, says Eritrea’s Border Surveillance Unit (BSU) and Sudanese security officials are among the “actors” conspiring with the gangs that hold people hostage in the largely lawless Sinai.
Most of those targeted are Eritrean refugees fleeing the country.
Almost every Eritrean knows somebody who has been held hostage.
“Their captors are opportunistic criminals looking to profit from their vulnerability,” the report says.
“[The victims] are then taken to the Sinai and sold, sometimes more than once, to Bedouin groups living in Sinai.”
These hostages include men, women, children, and infants fleeing from desperate circumstances in Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Sudan. An estimated 95% are from Eritrea.
Many of the hostages die in captivity or after their release. Some simply disappear – killed while being held, shot by border guards, or from just being lost in the desert.
The study interviewed an Eritrean woman living in Sweden who told them her son was abducted from the camp. He and six other children were forced into a car by a high-ranking Sawa military officer and driven into Sudan. Once there, they were made to call their parents, who were given three days to pay $7,500 or they would be sold to traffickers.
“[The hostages] are chained together without toilets or washing facilities and dehydrated, starved, and deprived of sleep,” the report says.
“They are subject to threats of death and organ harvesting . . . . Those who attempt to escape are severely tortured.”
The report said trafficking would have been impossible without the direct involvement of Eritrean security officials, given the “restrictions on movement within the country, the requirement of exit visas at the border and the shoot-to-kill policy for illegal border crossing.”
Eritrea’s UK ambassador said Eritrea is a “victim of human trafficking” and that the government was “working hard” to arrest and bring justice to justice criminal gangs operating along its border.
For more information, please visit:
BBC News – Thousands of Eritreans ‘abducted to Sinai for ransom’ – 4 December 2013
Free Republic – Thousands of Eritreans ‘abducted to Sinai for ransom’ – 6 December 2013
WADR – Thousands of Eritreans ‘abducted to Sinai for ransom’ – 5 December 2013
Agencia Angola Press – Thousands of Eritreans ‘abducted to Sinai for ransom’ – 7 December 2013
allAfrica – Eritrea: The Human Trafficking Cycle: Sinai and Beyond – 2 December 2013
The Guardian – Eritrea’s military is trafficking the nation’s children, report says – 3 December 2013
Attack on Yemen’s Defense Ministry Leaves 52 Dead
By Darrin Simmons
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East
SANA’A, Yemen-The heavily guarded defenses ministry compound was attacked by a suicide bomber and gunmen yesterday, resulting in the death of 52 doctors and nurses as well as injuring 162 people.
No one has immediately claimed responsibility for the attack but a Yemeni expert on Islamist militant affairs stated that it had the characteristics of al Qaeda, who have repeatedly attacked government officials and sites over the past two years.
Abdelrazzaq al-Jamal, a Yemeni analyst who specializes in Islamist militant affairs, stated, “the operation carries the fingerprints of al Qaeda because of the suicide nature of the attack.”
The U.S. military issued its alert status throughout the region after the coordinated strikes on Yemen, an ally and what Washington believes to be the home to the most active branch of al Qaeda.
The area poses a security threat for the international community. The impoverished Yemen shares a long border with Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, as well as key shipping lanes.
One of the attackers drove a loaded car with explosives through the gate of the ministry’s compound while a gunmen in another vehicle sped in and opened fire on soldiers, doctors, and nurses all working at hospital inside, reported witnesses.
The explosion rippled throughout the city, shaking the active neighborhood of Bab al-Yemen on the edge of the capital. The area is known for its maze of market stalls and stone towers that are decorated with stained glass windows and ornate plasterwork.
One employee working the area reported that “the explosion was very violent, the whole place shook because of it.”
A defense ministry official reported that the gunmen grabbed a Western doctor and a Filipino nurse into the courtyard of the hospital and shot them in front of local staff. It was also reported that the attackers killed one of Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s relatives, who was visiting a patient in the onsite hospital.
The bloodshed ceased when security forces retook the compound after killing most all of the attackers.
For more information, please see the following:
New York Times-Attack on Yemen’s Defense Headquarters Is Linked to Al Qaeda-06 December 2013
Al Jazeera-Doctors killed in Yemen’s ministry assault-05 December 2013
Reuters-Suicide bomber, gunmen kill 52 at Yemeni defense ministry-05 December 2013
Voice of America-Yemen: Suicide Car Bomb, Assault Kill 52-05 December 2013
Egyptian Authorities Continue to Crack Down on The Right of The Egyptian People to Protest
By Kathryn Maureen Ryan
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East
CAIRO, Egypt – According to Egypt’s Interior ministry, Egyptian police have arrested dozens of Islamist protesters Friday while dispersing demonstration rallies across the country.
In Cairo, police fired tear gas into crowds in the Mohandiseen neighbourhood, a middle class community in the capital city, in order to disperse demonstrators who gathered outside a mosque after mid-day prayers.
Egyptian authorities have targets Islamist activists and supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi since he was forced from power by the Egyptian military in July. However, attacks on attacks on civilian rights by authorities have not been limited to right leaning Islamist activist.
Egypt’s public prosecutor Ahmed Maher, a leading political activist in Egypt, for trial on Thursday. According to a judicial official his charges will include protesting without government permission. Wael Shibl, the prosecutor, said Maher will also face other charges including allegedly assaulting police and “resisting the authorities”. He will be the first to be charged under a new law of a new law which has been criticized for limiting the right of Egyptian people to protest.
Ahmed Maher is a well-known activists, he is the founder and leader of the April 6 youth group that played a major role in encouraging Egyptian youth to protests against the Mubarak regime in 2011 which eventually led to the fall of the oppressive Hosni Mubarak regime.
Last week, Maher compared the current oppressive climate in Egypt to the political climate in 2008, before the fall of President Mubarak in 2011. He said “when I was hiding and trying to escape the police, and trying to make my wife and family safe”.
Last week, another high-profile activist Alaa Abd El Fattah, was arrested in a violent raid during which his wife claims he was assaulted by police. Abd El Fattah has been targeting by every Egyptian regime since Hosni Mubarak’s brutal regime. Activists claim his arrest, and alleged abuse by police, is evidence that the interim government is being led by the military back into the dark days of the Mubarak regime.
Abd El Fattah’s arrested followed the sentencing of 14 women and young girls to 11 years in prison for participating in pro-Morsi demonstrations. Human rights organizations have accused the government of severely curtailing the right of the people to protest through the use of a legal process that the United Nations has called seriously flawed.”
For further information please see:
Al Jazeera – Dozens of Protesters Arrested In Egypt – 6 December 2013
Reuters – Egyptian Police Fired Tear Gas to End Clashes In Cairo – 6 December 2013
The Guardian – Egypt Charges Three Top Activists over Cairo Protest – 5 December 2013
The Guardian – Egyptian Activist Arrested Amid Government Crackdown on Dissent – 29 November 2013
Former French General Dies 12 Years Following Admitting Role in Torturing and Killing Prisoners of War
By Ben Kopp
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe
PARIS, France – At age 95, Paul Aussaresses died on 4 December 2013 of causes not released by the French veterans’ association that announced his death. Former-General Aussaresses became disgraced in France for defending torture.
Paul Aussaresses enlisted in the French secret services and founded the counter-espionage unit during the 1954-1962 Algerian war for independence. Later, he achieved the French military rank of general.
In his 2001 book about the Algerian war, Aussaresses became the first senior French officer to admit torturing and killing prisoners of war. Aussaresses defended the use of torture because “it became legitimate when the situation demanded it.” He claimed that, at the time, the French government “ignored, if not openly recommended” the use of torture; and he did not suffer sleepless nights.
“Once you have seen with your own eyes as I did,” Aussaresses said, “civilians, men, women, and children quartered, disembowelled and nailed to doors [by the rebels], you are changed for life. What feelings can anyone have towards those who perpetrated such barbaric acts and their accomplices?”
In a 2001 interview, Aussaresses said that he expressed regrets. “But I cannot express remorse. That implies guilt. I consider I did my difficult duty of a soldier implicated in a difficult mission.”
“Am I a criminal?” Aussaresses asked. “An assassin? A monster? No. I’m but a soldier who did his job and who did it for France because the country demanded it.”
“The methods I used were always the same: beatings, electric shocks, and, in particular, water torture, which was the most dangerous technique for the prisoner,” Aussaresses wrote. “It never lasted for more than one hour and the suspects would speak in the hope of saving their own lives.”
Aussaresses admitted that many deaths were concealed as suicides.
Aussaresses described his unit as a “death squad” that carried out night raids, torture, and removed certain detainees. Following the war, he lectured U.S. special forces at Fort Bragg, North Carolina on techniques used; particularly in the Battle of Algiers. Analysts have claimed that many of those techniques were later used in the Vietnam War.
During the war, both sides committed atrocities, although torture was a shocking revelation to the French.
Louisette Ighilahriz, who a National Liberation Front member who served in the war, said that Aussaresses should have shown remorse.
“He was honest. He admitted torturing Algerians… But he didn’t go all the way. He should have expressed regret,” Ighilahriz said.
Having also served in Algeria, President Jacques Chirac expressed horror at Aussaresses’s actions. President Chirac ordered that Aussaresses be stripped of his military rank and medal.
After his book appeared, France stripped Aussaresses of one of the country’s top merit awards, the Legion of Honour. In 2002, a French court convicted Aussaress of “complicity in justifying war crimes.” However, under the terms of a post-war amnesty agreement, Aussaresses could not be tried for war crimes.
No individual can hide behind the guise of a State authority to act with impunity. This, France made clear.
For further information, please read:
FRANCE 24 – Disgraced French General and Algeria Torturer Dies – December 5, 2013
BBC News – Algeria Torture: French General Paul Aussaresses Dies – December 4, 2013
Telegraph – French General Paul Aussaresses Reviled for Algeria War Crimes Dies at 95 – December 4, 2013
Washington Post – Paul Aussaresses Dies at 95; French General Defended His Use of Torture Techniques – December 4, 2013