Hungarian Constitutional Amendment Restricts Freedoms

By Madeline Schiesser
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

BUDAPEST, Hungary – Despite protests in the capital city throughout the weekend, Hungary’s parliament voted to pass an amendment Monday which critics say amounts to an attack on democracy.  The amendment, the fourth to Hungary’s 14-month-old constitution, will limit the ability of Hungary’s Constitutional Court to Challenge new laws as well as effectively annul all decisions made by the Court since January 2012.  Rolling back the Court’s decisions will bring back a narrow definition of marriage as a heterosexual union, a ban on sleeping on the streets, a requirement for students who accept state scholarships to stay in Hungary, and a ban on political campaign adverts in private media.

Hungarian members of parliament voted Monday for an amendment that some critics say will severely limit democratic freedoms. (Photo Courtesy of Al Jazeera)

The European Union and United States expressed concern over the effects the amendment would have on the independent judiciary, the latter saying the amendment deserved “closer scrutiny and more deliberate consideration”.  The Council of Europe (an independent human rights body) urged for delays to allow legal experts time to examine the amendment, claiming the amendment “raise[s] concerns with respect to the principle of the rule of law, EU law and Council of Europe standards.”  However, members of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz ruling party remained persistent, and passed the amendment.

MP Antal Rogan declared in a speech in the chamber: “We won’t allow either any international business lobby or the political forces that speak on their behalf to interfere with the decisions of the Hungarian parliament.”

The amendment, passed by the Fidesz party, which has a two-thirds majority, says that the Constitutional Court will no longer be able to overturn laws passed in parliament with a two-thirds majority and enshrined in the constitution.  Rather, the court will only have the power to review cases on procedural grounds.  PM Orbán explained that the amendment would create an “irreversible” situation in which parliament’s role in protecting the constitution supersedes that of the Constitutional Court.

Furthermore, the president’s veto power has been removed and he will be obliged to sign amendments, except when there is an objection on procedural grounds.

“When they lay down in the constitution how those who have nowhere to go may or may not sleep on the street then we need to ask whether it’s us protesters who have gone crazy or those who write the constitution,” opposition activist Miklos Tamas Gaspar said.

The EU may decide Thursday, when heads of state are scheduled to gather in Brussels, whether to take action. Although the EU has the power to strip a country of voting rights, doing so is a laborious process.

Rui Tavares, a Portuguese MEP, stressed the importance ensuring Hungary’s new constitution remains compatible with European values: “You have to ensure that the judiciary in every member state is compatible with these values we have in the treaties.”

For further information, please see:

Al Jazeera – Hungary amends constitution despite warning – 11 March 2013

The Independent – Hungary Erupts in Protest after PM Viktor Orbán is Accused of Assault on Democracy – 11 March 2013

The Independent – Hungary Votes Yes Over Change to Constitution Despite Human Rights Concerns – 11 March 2013

Xpatloop – EC Prepared To Enforce EU Law In Hungary – 11 March 2013

They’re (Not) Lovin’ It. McDonalds And Labor Violation In Brazil

By Brendan Oliver Bergh
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

BRASILA, Brazil – Ronald McDonald’s has another fire to put out, and this one is not related to its flame broiled burgers. In Brazil new information is being released that would implicate labor violations imposed against young workers in order to keep the costs of running a fast food franchise down.

McDonalds in Brazil has been facing allegations of labor violations towards their young workers. (Photo courtesy of Vice)

Brazil has the second most McDonalds of any country in the Western hemisphere after the United States, and with that comes its share of scandals. While not rocked by the horse meat scandal that has hit the United States, here McDonald’s young workers are coming forth complaining about slave-like working conditions that are being imposed upon them. Conditions such as sexual harassment, lack of minimum worker comfort, and work hours above the weekly maximum – which according to article 7 of the Federal Constitution on employee rights should not exceed 44 hours a week – are unfortunately far reaching. Beyond hourly violations furnishing workers with inadequate food are just some of the conditions many workers are forced to deal with in Brazil.

Last year, the Brazilian corporate office of McDonalds at Sao Paulo was facing 1790 cases for labor violations from claims concerning overtime violations, and minimum wage violations, and until recently has seemingly been able to get away them. The hiring of young workers for fast-food is everyday practice for many corporations, but in Sao Paulo the act has taken a slightly more predatory nature. McDonald’s in Brazil has taken to a habit of hiring teenagers with little to no job experience and no notice of their rights.

These recent labor violations have resurfaced thanks to a suit by a seventeen year old girl. She had been working at a Sao-Paulo McDonalds for 8 months without pay and has agreed to testify against her former employers.

Antonio Carlos Lacerda, a lawyer representing the young girl working for the Hotel and Restaurant Workers Union, believes this is one of many other similar situations. He believes “that when the investigation is concluded, they will prove that there is a systematic pattern of this kind of behavior through the entire McDonald’s system.”

These labor law violations are just some of the issues being discussed by the Inter-American Commission 0n Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights this month in Brazil. These issues crucial to Brazil – like slave labor and gender-based violence – are to be addressed to alter Brazil’s sometimes deplorable human rights violations.

For more information, please see:

Vice – McDonalds Is Violating Labor Laws In Brazil – 4 March 2013

Independent European Daily Express – Inter-American Human Rights System Reform Faces Deadline – 1 March 2013

The Drum – Horse Meat Scandal – McDonald’s Is Loving It – 7 February 2013

The Brazil Business – Brazilian Employment Law In A Nutshell – 15 May 2012

Lo De Alla – McDonald’s In Brazil: A Campaign To Cover Up Exploitation – 20 March 2011

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Malian Media Strikes Following Editor’s Arrest

By Hannah Stewart
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

BAMAKO, Mali — Mali’s private media launched a news strike after an editor was arrested for publishing a letter about the substandard conditions of Malian soldiers fighting Islamist militants in the north.

Man selects one of the 40 newspaper titles typically published each week in Bamako. (Photo Courtesy of BBC)

Agents from Mali’s intelligence service arrested Boukary Daou, editor-in-chief of Le Republican newspaper, and took him from his home on March 6.  This followed soon after his newspaper published a letter from an army officer denouncing Captain Amadou Haya Sanogo’s recently-decreed salary of $8,000 per month.

Sanogo’s salary is incredibly high salary for anyone in the impoverished country.  The letter contends that the salary — as much as 26 times what Sanogo earned before last year’s coup — serves as an incentive for future coups.

The letter further threatened that if Sanogo’s salary is not reduced, soldiers deployed in northern Mali’s will refuse to fight.  Currently, the average salary of an enlisted soldier is just $100 a month, which is 80 times less than what Sanogo’s salary.

Sanogo seized power a year ago last March.  Just weeks later, he was forced to relinquish control due to international sanctions.  Sanogo managed to negotiate a “golden parachute” before resigning, including the salary of an ex-head of state.  Despite officially stepping down, many observers contend that Sanogo continues to pull the strings in government, as Daou’s arrest evidences.

President Dioncounda Traore spoke to reporters at a stop in Dakar, Senegal, and defended his administration’s decision to arrest Daou.  President Traore assured reporters that if Daou is innocent that he will be freed.  Moreover, President Traore condemned the letter published in Le Republican as subversive and aimed to demoralize the nation’s troops during wartime.

Sources in the capital of Bamako, say that approximately 40 periodicals are published weekly; however, none appeared on newsstands on Tuesday morning.  Furthermore, the 16 local private FM radio stations are either silent or only playing music.

According to a statement from the country’s press association, the media strike “will continue until Boukary Daou is freed.”

“Mali is in a state of emergency.  We all need to remember this.  We are in a state of war, and we cannot allow this kind of thing,” President Traore said.  “If he is guilty, he will need to answer to the courts.  If he is not, there’s no reason he’ll be kept in prison.”

Following Sanogo’s coup last year, various rebel groups allied with al-Qaeda forces in northern Mali have sent the the country and the region careening into crisis.  Since January, French troops have joined with Malian and regional soldiers to push back against the northern rebels.

For more information, please see:

BBC News – Mali Media Strike Over Editor Boukary Daou’s Arrest – 12 March 2013

Bloomberg – Media in Mali Protest Journalist’s Arrest with National Strike – 12 March 2013

Financial Times – Mali Media Strike Against Editor’s Arrest – 12 March 2013

NPR – Mali Media Outlets Go Silent Over Editor’s Arrest – 12 March 2013

North Korea Denounces the U.N.’s Probe into Human Rights Abuses at Home

By Irving Feng
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

PYONGYANG, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea – The United Nations (UN) met on Monday to vote on and, hopefully, establish an independent commission to probe the allegedly worsening human rights abuses rampant in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, or more commonly known as North Korea).

So Se Pyong attending the UN meeting on Darusman’s report. (Photo Courtesy of Reuters)

The UN’s desire to investigate the human rights situation in North Korea is based on a report compiled by Marzuki Darusman.  Mr. Darusman is an Indonesian lawyer by trade and has been appointed to the UN as a Special Rapporteur on human rights for North Korea.

Darusman, in his report, describes the human rights violations currently being perpetrated in the totalitarian state as “grave, systematic and widespread.”  The report highlights abuses such as rapes, tortures, executions, arbitrary arrests, government sanctioned abductions, and, perhaps what is most troubling, a seemingly large scale expansion of the gulag, or prison camp system.

According to official UN reports, analysts, who have been monitoring North Korea from 2006 to 2013, have found an expansion of a previously constructed 20 km perimeter located in the Ch’oma-Bong valley.  The site is known as Camp No. 14, and reports estimate roughly 200,000 prisoners are held within the borders of the camp.

The living conditions within the camp are described as “dire,” and “extremely harrowing.”  Darusman believes that the camps are designed in a way so that the detainees of the camps endure a slow and painful death.

Robert King, U.S. Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights Issues, provided additional evidence to support the worsening scenario in North Korea as the newly ascended, young leader, Kim Jong-un, tightens his grip on his squalid subjects.  King’s report suggested that 2,600 North Koreans were able to escape to South Korea in 2011.

This figure of escaped North Koreans has fallen by 43 percent in initial data reports for 2013.  Darusman also supported this scenario of Jong-un tightening his grip by noting that the number of North Koreans escaping to China has dwindled since the death of Kim Jong-il, Jong-un’s father.

The North Korean representative in the UN has slammed the investigation as a hoax and a witch hunt.  So Se Pyong, North Korea’s ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, denounced Darusman’s report, calling all of the evidence collected a fraud.

So Se Pyong believes that the investigation is the UN’s plot to put North Korea under greater international scrutiny and tarnish the sterling image of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.  Navi Pilay, the UN Human Rights Commissioner, called for a grave need to investigate North Korea’s human rights abuses rather than the media focus on the North’s nuclear arms programs.

For further information, please see:

Bloomberg – North Korean Rights Abuses May Be Crimes Against Humanity – 12 March 2013

International Herald Tribune – A Push to Investigate North Korea’s Human Rights Abuses – 11 March 2013

Reuters – North Korea slams U.N. “plot” to investigate its human rights record – 11 March 2013

The Asahi Shimbun – U.N. urged to probe North Korean leaders’ role in abuses – 5 February 2013

Phosphorous Used Against Protestors in Myanmar

By Karen Diep
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

Naypyidaw, Myanmar – Yesterday, a parliamentary report ordered by President Thein Sein revealed that the Myanmar Police Force (MPF) used smoke bombs containing phosphorous against protestors on November 29th of last year.

Injured Buddhist monks (Photo Courtesy of BBC News).

According to the Huffington Post, the November incident was the biggest use of force against protesters in Myanmar since President Thein Sein’s reformist government took office in March 2011.

Protestors have been opposing the $1 billion copper mine in Monywa, a city in the northwest of Myanmar.  The mine is owned by a Chinese company and Myanmar Economic Holdings, the latter owned by the Myanmar military.

These protestors, including local villagers, activists, and Buddhist monks, claim that they have been unfairly forced to give up their land and subjected to environmental, social, and health problems.

A panel, led by opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, stated that the protestors suffered “unnecessary burns.”

“We have found that unexpected and unnecessary burns were caused to some monks and civilians because the police used smoke bombs without knowing what their effect would be,” stated the report.

Although the report did not specifically mention white phosphorus, it stated that devices used on the protesters contained phosphorus.

According to BBC News, the Myanmar government subsequently apologized to the injured protestors and created an investigation commission led by Ms. Suu Kyi. She is also expected to travel to the mine on Wednesday and speak with local villagers.

In response, the MPF stated that they only used water cannons, tear gas, and smoke grenades against the protestors.

Despite the opposition, the parliamentary report suggested that the mine operations continue. “This massive project is beneficial to the country even though the benefit is slight,” read the report.  The report also stated that eliminating the mine would create tension with China and may discourage or deter future foreign investments.

“Some people are afraid of China, but the people in general are not, and they don’t feel any obligation toward China,” said Aung Thein.

Others are equally outraged. “I am very dissatisfied and it is unacceptable,” said Thwe Thwe Win, a protest leader. “There is no clause that will punish anyone who had ordered the violent crackdown. Action should be taken against the person who gave the order,” continued Thwe Thwe Win.

A separate report last month by Burmese lawyers and the US-based Justice Trust accused the MPF of using military-issue white phosphorus grenades to diffuse protesters.

For further information, please see:

BBC News – Burma Confirms phosphorus used at mine protest – 12 March 2013

Washington Post – Myanmar protestors hit by police crackdown outraged over report that supports mine operations – 12 March 2013

Huffington Post – Myanmar police used phosphorus at mine – 11 March 2013