Nasrin Sotoudeh Temporarily Released from Prison

By Justin Dorman
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

TEHRAN, Iran – Recent Sakharov Prize winner and Iranian human rights attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh has been released from Evin prison. Her release is only a temporary furlough that is set to last just three days. Sotoudeh has spent roughly more than two years in jail thus far.

Nasrin Sotoudeh, now weighing 95 lbs. after her hunger strikes, has been given a three day furlough from Evin prison, after two-years of incarceration. (Photo Courtesy of the Guardian)

Currently, Sotoudeh is serving a six-year prison sentence and a ten-year ban on practicing law for “acting against national security and propaganda against the regime.” She was arrested for providing legal services in human rights cases for activists who were viewed unfavorably by the Iranian authorities. Many believe it was her specific representation of Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian Nobel peace prize laureate who is living in exile, that upset the Iranian authorities.

Throughout the course of her detainment, Sotoudeh was often held in solitary confinement. Additionally, her family was harassed with international travel bans, and Sotoudeh was frequently denied access to family visitation and telephone communication. She was also denied the right to attend her father’s funeral who died while she was in jail; although, she was allowed to attend her mother’s who also died around the same time. In an effort to protest such harassment, Sotoudeh began to partake in a hunger strike.

She wrote to her children, “I know that you require water, food, housing, a family, parents, love, and visits with your mother. . . However, just as much, you need freedom, social security, the rule of law, and justice.”

After a forty-nine day hunger strike, Sotoudeh finally began eating again once her daughter’s travel ban was lifted in early December.

Since the start of her temporary release, it has been reported that Sotoudeh weighs just ninety-five pounds. Drewery Dyke of Amnesty International stated that, “We urge the Iranian authorities to confirm an extension to this period of leave, to allow Nasrin to get any medical checks which she may not have received in Evin prison.”

Besides for an extension of her furlough for health reasons, Amnesty International further urges the Iranian government to release Sotoudeh indefinitely. Dyke added, “In order to abide by human rights commitments, though, her conviction should be overturned and she should be released unconditionally.”

Amnesty International was thrilled to hear of Sotoudeh’s three-day release, however, Dyke believes, “Nasrin shouldn’t have been imprisoned in the first place.”

For further information, please see:

Eurasia Review – Iran: Human Rights Lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh Given First Furlough – 18 January 2013

Women News Network – Imprisoned Iran Rights Attorney Ms. Nasrin Sotoudeh Gets 3 Day Release – 18 January 2013

Guardian – Iranian Human Rights Lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh Temporarily Freed – 17 January 2013

Amnesty International – Iran: Further Information: Lawyer Ends Hunger Strike but Still Detained: Nasrin Sotoudeh – 7 December 2012

Journalist Arrested for Interviewing Somali Army’s Rape Victims

By Ryan Aliman
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

MOGADISHU, Somalia – Somali police have detained freelance journalist Abdiaziz Abdinur Ibrahim, who is also known as “Koronto”, without warrant and charges filed against him. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and other local journalist organizations suspect that Koronto was brought to custody for interviewing women who claimed they were raped by national security forces.

A rape victim hides her identity. She is among the internally displaced women frequently exploited by both rebels and government soldiers in Somalia. (Photo courtesy of Sven Torfinn/The New York Times)

On January 6, Al-Jazeera English published a story about government soldiers raping internally displaced women in Mogadishu camps.

4 days later, the Somali police’s Central Investigation Department (CID) in Mogadishu arrested one of those women, along with Omar Faruk, a correspondent for the Al-Jazeera Arabic Service in Somalia.

During interrogations, the head of CID, Gen. Abdullahi Hassan Barisse, allegedly compelled the woman to give them contact information of any journalist who interviewed her for the Al-Jazeera story. According to local news reports, she gave Koronto’s name and phone number. Using the alleged rape victim’s phone, they called Koronto who admitted that he recently interviewed the same woman, but has yet to publish the story. The police ordered him to come to the CID headquarters. Koronto complied and was brought to custody on January 10. On the same day, the police searched his home and confiscated his belongings including his laptop and digital recorder.

During a phone interview with the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ), Koronto described what happened: “I received a phone call this afternoon from the number of the woman I interviewed, but, It was Gen. Barise, the CID chief and told me to come to the CID headquarters. When I came to the CID, I saw the woman. . . I was asked if I interviewed this lady and I said, ‘Yes, I interviewed.’ Later, I was told that I was under arrest.”

The CID decided to release the alleged rape victim provided that she returns the following week for further questioning. Omar Faruk was likewise released after convincing the police that he was not involved in the Al-Jazeera report. Koronto, however, remains in detention.

According to the CPJ, both the information minister and deputy information minister refused to answer the CPJ’s calls to clarify why the police is still keeping Koronto in custody.

“It is shameful that Somali authorities have arrested a woman who has reported a rape, and a reporter who documented her story, instead of conducting an investigation into this reported crime,” said CPJ East Africa Consultant Tom Rhodes. “There is absolutely no reason Abdulaziz Abdinuur should be in custody. He should be released immediately and his personal property returned.”

Meanwhile, Africa director at Human Rights Watch Daniel Bekele urged the President to take action, “President Hassan Sheikh should honor his commitment by making sure the police handling of this case doesn’t discourage journalists from reporting government abuses or victims from seeking justice.” “Silencing rape victims and journalists will not end sexual violence, but just reinforce Somalia’s climate of impunity,” Bekele added.
For further information, please see:

Human Rights Watch – Somalia: Free Journalist, Others Linked to Rape Allegation – 12 January 2013

RBC Radio – SOMALIA: Vicious Campaign against Somali Journalists Continues in Mogadishu – 12 January 2013

All Africa – Somalia: Journalist Arrested for Interviewing Reported Rape Victim – 11 January 2013

SpyGhana – Police In Somali Are Questioning A Journalist, Whiles Detaining Another – 11 January 2013

Court Turns Down Pussy Riot Band Member Appeal

By Madeline Schiesser
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

BEREZNIKI, Russia – Maria Alyokhina’s 5-year-old son, Filipp, will likely not see his mother for nearly two years.  The 24-year-old member of the punk rock band Pussy Riot lost her appeal yesterday requesting a deferral of her prison sentence until her son was older.  Instead, Alyokhina, convicted of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” over a “punk prayer” aimed at Russian President Vladimir Putin last winter, will serve out the remainder of her incarceration until 2014.

Maria Alyokhina’s request to serve her sentence when her son is older was denied by a Russian court. (Photo Courtesy of BBC News)

In her plea, Alyokhina reasoned that Filipp, in his formative years, would suffer irreparable psychological damage from long-term separation from his mother.  “I’m in a situation where I have to prove here that my son needs me, which is obvious,” she said.  Instead, she asked to be allowed to serve her sentence when her son is 14.

However, the Berezniki court in the Perm region of the Urals Mountains near where she is jail, determined that the length of Alyokhina’s sentence already reflected her role as a mother.  In rejecting the petition, Judge Galina Yefremova stated that “the fact that Alyokhina has a young child was taken into account by Moscow’s Khamovnichesky court.”  Because Alyokhina had showed “[n]o new circumstances,” she will remain in prison at Corrective Labor Colony No. 28, 750 miles north-east of her family in Moscow.

Unfortunately, sentence deferrals are uncommon.  In several prison colonies, female prisoners raise their children in jail.

Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, and Yekaterina Samutsevich were convicted in August of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” for a “punk prayer” protesting the Putin presidency.  Samutsevich was later released on a suspended sentence.  (See Conviction Upheld for 2 Pussy Riot Members, 1 Released for more information.)  All three have refused to admit any wrongdoing.

“No-one will force me to say I’m guilty – I have nothing to repent for,” Alyokhina said earlier in court.

Tolokonnikova launched a similar deferral appeal in October.

Amnesty International has characterized the denied appeal as a “travesty of justice.”  The organization considers Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova to be prisoners of conscience and believes that their sentences were politically motivated.  David Diaz-Jogeix, Deputy Program Director for Europe and Central Asia says that the decision shows “the Russian authorities are uncompromising in their suppression of freedom of expression” and that the verdict was “in line with the suppressive policies of the Russian authorities, stifling dissent in any form.”

Alyokhina has described her existence at the prison colony as “an anti-life.”  “Everything around is grey. Even if something is another color, all the same it has an element of grey. Everything: the buildings, food, the sky, words,” she says.

In addition to the monotony, life at the prison colony consists of adjusting to a strict set of rules and few resources.  The women must rise at 5:30 am, and forty prisoners share a bathroom with three basins and two toilets.  They have learned the prison rules by rote in a special room with a security camera.  Activities include stringing together cigarettes, and sewing nametags onto their uniforms.  In a workshop, female prisoners sew for 12 hours a day and receive a maximum pay of 1,000 rubles ($32.57) a month.

Alyokhina explained that one’s entire mindset is focused on following the rules in order to receive early parole.  Points are awarded for visiting the library and the psychologist, contacting relatives, and even going to a prayer room, although Russia is actually a secular state.  “Everything a prisoner does is to get a tick for early parole,” she said.

However, early in her stay at the colony, Alyokhina stated her intent to maintain her autonomy, saying “we make different choices in a hopeless situation.”  This attitude may have brought her into conflict with other prisoners.  In November, Alyokhina was transferred to solitary confinement, at her own request, because other inmates were said to be behaving aggressively towards her after she refused to join them in a hunger strike.

In the meantime, Filipp is staying with his grandmother, but, according to Tolokonnikova’s husband, the boy “is small and misses his mother.”

For further information, please see:

Moscow Times – Court Turns Down Pussy Riot Appeal – 17 January 2013

Amnesty International – Russian Punk Singer Refused Sentence Deferral – 16 January 2013

BBC News – Russia Court Turns Down Pussy Riot Jail Plea Over Child – 16 January 2013

RFE/RL – Russian Court Denies Pussy Riot Member’s Appeal – 16 January 2013

The Journal – Jailed Pussy Riot Member Slams Routine in ‘Grey’ Camp – 18 December 2013

Religious Group Defends Exemptions in New Australian Human Rights Bill

By Mark O’Brien
Impunity Watch Reporter, Oceania

CANBERRA, Australia — As the Australian government tries to overhaul anti-discrimination legislation, the Christian lobby is rejecting any effort to eliminate religious exemptions in the bill.

Australia’s Christian Lobby calls suggestions that a proposed law will allow religious groups to discriminate against sinners is overblown. (Photo Courtesy of the Herald Sun)

The draft of the Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill integrates five current discrimination laws into one law, but it allows religious organizations to discriminate against certain groups lawfully when hiring or firing someone.

“Anti-discrimination laws should be about protecting those affected by discrimination, not protecting those who conduct the discrimination themselves,” said New South Wales independent MP Alex Greenwich, who has been a long-term campaigner for gay and lesbian rights.

Greenwich and others urged Prime Minister Julia Gillard to reconsider whether the religious exemptions should be allowed, especially when taxpayer money is involved.

“I hope the government seizes the opportunity of this review,” Greenwich told ABC News, “to make some real change to help those who are affected by discrimination on a daily basis.”

But Jim Wallace, head of the Australian Christian Lobby, said religious groups need to be able to hire people who share and reflect their values and philosophies.

“The church wants to reflect through its staff the philosophy of Christ,” he said to Sky News.

Wallace also downplayed the issue and described the effort to characterize the exemption as a “freedom” to discriminate gays and other people they consider sinners as “a complete beat-up.”

“I’m not aware of any Christian organization that has refused to hire anyone (based on their sexuality,” he told reporters.  “I’ve looked.”

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the Australian Human Rights Commission received nearly two dozen complaints in 2012 from people claiming they were discriminated against at work based on their sexuality.  While the commission kept no record of whether the work was with a religious organization, its president said some of the complaints were against religious groups.

“We can and do receive complaints about discrimination in employment with faith-based organizations on the ground of sexual preference,” Gillian Triggs told the Sydney Morning Herald.

Some critics of the exemption also worry that faith-based groups, including schools and hospitals, will be able to refuse to hire women who are pregnant or potentially pregnant.

Anna Brown, the advocacy and strategic litigation director of the Human Rights Law Centre, called the bill a “missed opportunity” to narrow the broad exemptions available to religious groups.

Still, Triggs called the bill an important first step in creating a coherent federal human rights system.  But she added that more work needs to be done.

“In a secular society such as Australia,” she said, “one does not want to give any sort of particular priority to one freedom above the right of people to non-discriminatory employment.”

For further information, please see:

Sydney Morning Herald — Religious Groups Free to Discriminate Against Pregnant Women — 17 January 2013

Sydney Morning Herald — Review ‘Missed Opportunity’ to Separate Church and State — 17 January 2013

ABC News — Christian Lobby Rejects Push to Remove Religious Exemptions — 16 January 2013

Herald Sun — Sinners Story a Complete Beat-up, Says Australian Christian Lobby — 16 January 2013

Syrian Revolution Digest: Wednesday, 16 January 2013

Tired Baby, Tired!

It’s getting quite hard keeping track of it all: the cluster bombs and sectarian sentiments, the incendiary minds and arid hearts, the shifting red lines in our overloaded brains, the hypocrisy of it all. Yet, chronicling our irrelevance is an important part of the struggle. Tomorrow needs to know who the real heroes were, and who the imposters… and which emperors had no clothes, which emperors betrayed us all. 

Today’s Death Toll:183 (including 18 children and 9 women)

50 martyrs were reported in Damascus and Damascus Suburbs, 37 in Homs, 25 in Aleppo, 23 in Idlib, 15 in Hama, 16 in Daraa, 9 in Raqqah, 5 in Latakia, and 1 in Hasakeh (LCCs).

Points of Random Shelling: 331

including 20 points that were shelled by warplanes, 6 points using cluster bombs, 5 points using TNT barrels, and 2 points with vacuum bombs. Also, 135 points were shelled with heavy caliber artillery, 86 points were shelled with mortar, and 77 points were shelled with rockets (LCCs).

Clashes: FSA rebels clashed with regime forces in 145 locations. Rebels managed to successfully bring down 3 regime fighter planes, 1 in Al-Ramdan near Dumair city, 1 in Damascus suburbs, and 1 Talbeeseh in Homs. The FSA also seized control of Kuwairis military airport in Aleppo, and repelled regime attempts to storm Busr Al-Harir in Daraa, as well as in Daraya and Mouadamieh in Damascus Suburbs (LCCs).

News

U.S. Shoots Down Secret Report That Syria Used a Hallucinogen Weapon State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland has denied the report, saying that the Foreign Policy story ”did not accurately convey the anecdotal information that we had received from a third party regarding an alleged incident in Syria in December.” “At the time we looked into the allegations that were made and the information that we had received, and we found no credible evidence to corroborate or to confirm that chemical weapons were used,” she added. That’s a major deal, because the international community has repeatedly told the Assad Regime in Syria that the use of chemical weapons is beyond unacceptable. The White House issued a statement along similar lines.

The Case of Agent 15: Did Syria Use a Nerve Agent? what happened? Was the mystery gas in fact sarin, or a nerve agent like it? Did its use alter the dynamic of the Syrian conflict in fundamental ways? The brief answer to all of these questions is: so far, hard to say.

Syria to Receive More International Food Aid The World Food Program currently provides food aid to 1.5 million needy people inside Syria.  WFP Executive Director Ertharin Cousin says the agency has not been able to expand its operation because only the Syrian Arab Red Crescent has been authorized to distribute food. But last week, she says, the Syrian authorities gave the agency a list of 110 non-governmental organizations that can help distribute food.  Out of this list, she says WFP has chosen 44 groups with whom it will work. Cousin says this will enable WFP to scale up its operation to feed an additional one million people.

Iran gives Syria $1bn import credit line While the agreement is not a direct cash transfer to bolster Syria’s depleted foreign exchange reserves, it will allow Syrian importers credit to source consumer supplies from Iran at a time when it is hard for them to do so from many other countries.

 

Special Reports

The gruesome toll of deadly cluster bombs in Syria
Since mid-2012, Human Rights Watch and others have reported several times on civilian casualties caused by Syrian use of air-dropped cluster bombs, but Latamneh and other recent attacks are the first known instances of Syrian use of ground-based cluster munitions. The rockets were apparently launched from the vicinity of nearby Hama airport, which is under government control.

Jordan is Living Dangerously as Syria Burns
The immediate impact of the Syrian conflict on Jordan’s fragile polity is twofold: The influx of refugees into Jordan, and the outflow of jihadists from Jordan into Syria to join the fight.

Referring Syria to the international criminal court is a justified gamble
An international criminal court investigation may split the United Nations – but it would change the civil war’s political dynamics

Obama shows there are no red lines on Syria
Let’s be frank here: There are no red lines for this president when it comes to projecting U.S. military force. And if he won’t act when Syria is at issue, no realistic observer thinks he would act against Iran.

 

Video Highlights

In Anadan, Aleppo, rebels fend off an attack by pro-Assad militias http://youtu.be/2MPHc-ErHKo

The town of Zabadani continues to be pounded http://youtu.be/G33rhMsVzNE Meanwhile, the towns of Eastern Ghouta continue to be pounded by MiGs http://youtu.be/8JsIkMYrpXA

People in the town of Rastan, Homs, rush to save the injured in the aftermath of an aerial raid http://youtu.be/HV4iqlCAsb8 Some of the dead http://youtu.be/2-lKwcsD3RQ