By Darrin Simmons Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East
DAMASCUS, Syria-Syrian authorities have released at least 10 women detainees, with other reports amounting to 16 detainees, in a hostage deal with kidnappers in northern Syria. The women were the first of 126 women expected to be freed in a three-way prisoner and hostage swap.
Freed hostages landed safely in Beirut (photo courtesy of Al Arabiya)
The release of the women was the main demand of kidnappers who released nine Lebanese men who were held hostage for 17 months. The nine hostages and two Turkish pilots were abducted in Lebanon and were freed last week under a deal negotiated by Qatar.
Syria has made no official comment about the release, nor has it acknowledged playing any role in the hostage exchange deal. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition monitoring group, stated that Damascus had released dozens of prisoners last week, who also may have been part of the deal.
Turkey hosts many opposition groups and has generally kept its border open to rebels. The Turkish pilots were abducted by relatives of the Lebanese hostages to put pressure on Turkey since it is believed to hold sway with the opposition.
“They [the women] were released overnight. We do not know if more will be released today or later, or if that is it. We are waiting,” said a Syrian human rights activist.
“For their own safety, they will have to leave the country,” said activist Semar Nassar. “Among them was a cancer patient who had been imprisoned twice before and whose husband has been killed in Syria’s 31-month-old conflict,” continued Nassar.
Little information has been provided about the women who were released or when they were originally detained. It is believed that the women are those whose release Syrian rebels had originally demanded as the price for freeing the Lebanese hostages.
Other activists have reported that only 13 female prisoners were released in Damascus province, but it was uncertain whether their release was related to the exchange deal. There has been no official comment in Damascus on the women detainees.
By Thomas Murphy
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East
SANA’A, Yemen – A fifteen-year-old Yemeni girl was burned to death by her father after he caught her contacting her fiance before their wedding. Prosecutors intend to press charges against her thirty-five-year-old father, who was arrested in the remote village of Shabaa, in Taiz province.
Child brides are popular in Yemen and have attracted widespread criticism from international human rights groups. (Photo Courtesy of Corbis)
“The father committed this heinous crime on the pretext that his daughter had been keeping contacts with her fiance,” the police website said on Tuesday, giving no further details.
Local news websites have reported that the father had caught the pair talking on the phone.
In some parts of Yemen it is traditional tribal custom to prevent men and women from contacting each other before marriage. Tribal loyalties run deep in the impoverished Arabian peninsula nation and often take precedence over the writ of the central government.
Yemeni women are generally accorded a low status in the family and community. Women often find themselves subject to of various forms of violence, deprivation of education, early and forced marriages, sexual abuse, restrictions over freedom of movement, forced pregnancy, and female genital mutilation. Killings of daughters, wives or sisters to punish perceived breaches of family honor are not uncommon.
Last year, the UN Human Rights council raised concerns about so-called “honor killings” in the country. Perpetrators were not charged with murder, and faced only a six-month to one-year prison sentence, it found.
In 2010, the Yemen Social Affairs Ministry released a report that stated more than 25 percent of the country’s females marry before the age of fifteen. It is a traditional tribal belief that younger brides are more easily molded in desirable and obedient wives.
The country previously required individuals to be at least fifteen-years-old before they could be married, but in the 1990s the law was annulled. The current policy is that parents should decided when their daughters are to be married. This scenario allows impoverished families to marry away their daughters at young ages for compensation sometimes reaching into the hundreds of dollars.
BERLIN, Germany – The White House released a statement on Wednesday indicating that the United States has not been spying on German Chancellor Angela Merkel by tapping into her cell phone.
Merkel called Obama after receiving a tip, which Germany has not elaborated on. (Photo courtesy of Reuters)
Merkel had called U.S. President Barack Obama after reportedly receiving information that the United States may have tapped in conversation on her mobile phone.
“The United States is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of the chancellor,” White House Spokesman Jay Carney stated on Wednesday.
Merkel’s spokesman stated that the Chancellor “views such practices… as completely unacceptable”. Germany demanded “an immediate and comprehensive explanation” from the U.S. about what it stated “would be a serious breach of trust”.
Germany also issued a statement, stating, “Among close friends and partners, as the Federal Republic of Germany and the US have been for decades, there should be no such monitoring of the communications of a head of government.”
The United States has been receiving anger and skepticism from allies regarding spying allegations based on sources believed to originate from intelligence leaker Edward Snowden.
During a visit in June, President Obama assured Chancellor Merkel that German citizens were not being spied upon. At the time, Merkel was criticized by political opponents for not being more skeptical.
The German government did not elaborate on how it received the tip about the alleged U.S. spying. However, German news magazine Der Spiegel, which has published stories based on material from Edward Snowden, claimed that the information had come from its investigations.
Carney told reporters that the U.S. was examining concerns over U.S. intelligence practices from several American allies, including Germany and France. Carney did not address whether Merkel’s phone had indeed been monitored in the past.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff recently cancelled a visit to the U.S. this month in protest at alleged electronic espionage by the NSA against her country, including of communications at her office. Rousseff rejected U.S. claims that the interception of information was aimed at protecting nations against terrorism, drugs trafficking and other organized crime, in a speech at the United Nations.
The Mexican government has called the alleged spying on the emails of its former and current presidents, Enrique Pena Nieto – the incumbent – and currently Felipe Calderon, as “unacceptable”.
By Thomas Murphy
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East
TEHRAN, Iran – Iran’s Justice Minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi ruled that there is “no need” for a man who survived a hanging to be hanged a second time. Lawyers and human rights activists lobbied the head of the judiciary to prevent a repeat hanging after the man was found alive in a morgue.
Human rights groups believe that Iran is behind only China in the number of people it executes each year. (Photo Courtesy of AFP)
Justice Minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi reasoned that executing the man would have negative repercussions against Iran’s image, the ISNA news agency reported. Iran’s government had no direct control over the decision as the power fell directly with the judiciary.
One senior judge, Nourollah Aziz-Mohammadi, argued that the law required that the convict must die.
“When a convict is sentenced to death, he must die after the sentence is carried out,” Aziz-Mohammadi said. “Now that he is alive, we can say the sentence was not carried out and must be repeated.”
The 37-year-old convicted drug smuggler, named as Alireza M, was hanged at a jail in the north-eastern city of Bojnord last week. He had been left to hang for 12 minutes and was declared dead by a doctor. It was not until the next day that he was discovered alive in the morgue when his family came to retrieve his body. Alireza was taken to a Bojnord hospital, where he is reportedly in a coma and under armed guard.
Last week, Amnesty International and other human rights activists urged Iran to spare Alireza based upon international laws against cruel and unusual punishment. Amnesty International estimates that Iran has executed at least 508 people this year alone and has called for a moratorium on all executions in Iran.
“The horrific prospect of this man facing a second hanging, after having gone through the whole ordeal already once, merely underlines the cruelty and inhumanity of the death penalty,” said Philip Luther, director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa program.
BEIJING, China– China’s human rights record under President Xi Jinping has come under formal international scrutiny for the first time since Xi took power. The main U.N. rights forum is set to hear accusations that the government has aggressively expanded a crackdown on dissent.
China’s envoy, Wu Hailong, has acknowledged that China still has a ways to go to live up to the pledges made the last time its policies were scrutinized by the UNHRC. (Photo Courtesy of AFP)
The United Nations Human Rights Council, which reviews all U.N. members every four years, will give concerned countries a chance to challenge the administration of Xi, who many experts believed would be less hardline than his predecessors.
Instead, critics say Xi has instituted a clampdown that has moved far beyond the mere targeting of dissidents seeking political change. Just recently authorities have detained at least 16 activists who had demanded that government officials publicly disclose their wealth. Dozens of other people, accused of online ‘rumor-mongering”, have also been detained.
“Xi Jinping has definitely taken the country backwards on human rights,” prominent rights lawyer Mo Shaoping told Reuters. “Look at the number of people who are being locked up and the measures that are being taken to lock them up.”
China will open the debate in Geneva with a presentation. Non-governmental organizations are not permitted to address the council but can submit reports, often reflected in statements offered by concerned countries.
The council has no binding authority. Its rotating membership of 47 states does not include China, although Beijing is expected to run for a spot next month. The hearing will be the second time China has been assessed under the process since it began in 2008.
Diplomats are likely to raise questions over China’s crackdown on dissent, the death penalty and the use of torture among other topics, reported Maya Wang, an Asia researcher for New York-based Human Rights Watch.
Of special concern, Wang said, is the arrest in August of prominent activist Xu Zhiyong, who had called for officials to reveal their wealth. Wang also cited the September disappearance of Cao Shunli, who had helped stage a sit-in this year outside the Foreign Ministry to press for the public to be allowed to contribute to a national human rights report.
China sent a large delegation to Geneva to engage in dialogue with an “open and frank attitude”, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Monday at a news conference.
“If there are some criticisms, some constructive criticisms, the Chinese government will listen with an open mind and accept them and will give them serious consideration,” she said. “As for malicious, deliberate criticisms, of course we will uphold our own path and our own correct judgments.”
In 2009, China rejected requests from Western and some Latin American nations to end the death penalty but agreed to suggestions from Cuba that it take firm action against “self-styled human rights defenders working against the Chinese state and people”.
The rise of Xi as Communist Party chief last November gave many Chinese hope for political reform, encouraging citizens to push officials to disclose their wealth in several movements throughout the country.
But the detention of activists making those calls is a strong indication the party will not tolerate open challenges to its rule, even though it boasts more transparency. These activists now face trial on charges of illegal assembly.
Hundreds of microbloggers, people who post short comments online, have also been detained. Beginning in August, a campaign against “rumor-mongering” was implemented to root-out and shutdown critical blogs. Most have been released, but some are still being held on criminal charges.
On Sunday, Chinese police arrested Wang Gongquan, a well-known venture capitalist. Wang had helped lead a campaign for the release of another activist. Chen Youxi, Wang’s attorney, did not answer calls to his mobile phone.
“Before, officials used a selective form of suppression, which is to say, they mainly suppressed rights lawyers and dissidents,” said Huang Qi, a veteran rights activist. “But in the past few months what the government used to allow some people to say online – things that violated or exceeded the official view – has now been suppressed.”
Li Fangping, a prominent rights lawyer, said China would likely win a seat on the council given its strong international influence.
“I don’t believe that China is ready for that,” Li said. “There are still a huge number of citizens for whom a lack of human rights is a growing problem.”
