A Voice for the Voiceless

Rape by US Servicemen of an Okinawan Woman Exacerbates Relations

By Karen Diep
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

TOKYO, Japan – On Tuesday, Japanese authorities arrested two United States sailors for allegedly raping a Japanese woman on the island of Okinawa.

Okinawan Women Protesting. (Photo Courtesy of Huffington Post)

Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary, Osamu Fujimura, shared that ministry defense representatives informed United States officials that “the incident is completely unacceptable.”

“[We] have strongly requested measures to increase discipline and prevent things like this from happening again,” said Mr. Fujimura.

“This should never have been allowed to happen,” stated Japan’s Prime Minister, Yoshihiko, to Japanese reporters.

The two sailors were identified as Petty Officer 3rd Class Skyler Dozierwalker and Seaman Christopher Browning of the Fort Worth Naval Air Base in Texas.  Furthermore, according to information relayed to the Huffington Post, the two men were drinking before they purportedly raped her.

United States Ambassador, John Roos, stated that the United States was “extremely concerned by recent allegations of misconduct” by the two servicemen.

“We are committed to cooperating fully with the Japanese authorities in their investigation,” continued Mr. Roos.

On Friday, Lieutenant General Salvatore Angelella apologized in a statement that announced the United States’ plan to impose a curfew.  “I want to personally apologize for the grief and trauma the victim has endured,” shared the lieutenant.

The curfew confines United States military personnel to the base, a personal home, or hotel between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m.  This curfew will affect an estimated fifty thousand servicemen currently stationed in Japan.

It is important to note that the relationship between the United States and Okinawans has already been strained by events in the past.

Last month, more than one hundred thousand gathered to protest the deployment of the Marine Corps Osprey aircraft.  Many Okinawans believe this is adding to the already heavy United States presence in the area.

Furthermore, prior to Tuesday’s attack, in August of this year, a U.S. Marine was arrested for purportedly molesting and assaulting a woman Okinawa’s capital, Naha.

Moreover, in 1992, three United States personnel allegedly gang-raped a twelve-year-old girl on Okinawa.  The event caused the United States to reduce military presence on the island.

The United States currently bases approximately twenty six thousand troops on Okinawa.

For further information, please see:

CNN – U.S. troops in Okinawa on curfew after arrests in rape case – 19 Oct. 2012

New York Times – Curfew is Imposed on the U.S. Military in Japan Amid Rape Inquiries – 19 Oct. 2012

BBC – US troops held over Okinawa alleged rape – 17 Oct. 2012

Huffington Post – Okinawa Military Rape Arrests: Japan Decries U.S. Troops in Sexual Assault Allegations – 17 Oct. 2012

Yemeni Hospitals Becoming Increasingly Unsafe

By Justin Dorman
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

SANA’A, Yemen – Most people who have been shot will check into a hospital to seek treatment and recovery. Rarely ever does one enter a hospital anticipating that he will end up shot. At present day, such is not the case in Yemen as Central Security Forces’ storming of hospitals threatens to shut down hospitals and weaken the overall health care system.

Saleh Amhad Abdullah was selling fruit outside the medical center when he was shot in the head. (Photo Courtesy of Human Rights Watch)

Yemeni security forces have been raiding hospitals and taking alleged militants from their beds to arrest them. These patients have been suspected of being engaged in illegal activities like armed robbery and attacks against state security. While there is no prohibition against hospital patients being lawfully arrested, international law mandates that they retain their rights to health care. When these patients are forcibly removed, not only is international law violated, but the their lives are put at risk.

The raids pose additional dangers to people other than the patients. A recent Central Security Forces attack on al-Naqib Hospital, in search of two alleged militants, left two hospital guards injured after they were beaten with Kalashnikov assault rifles and a gurney. The Central Security Forces also confiscated cell phones from both patients and staff and ripped out the hospital’s telephone landlines. Gunmen connected to the two men the Central Security Forces were seeking, opened fire on the hospital from the outside. A similar raid at MSF Hospital earlier this month led to shootings inside of the hospital when gunmen tried to prevent the arrests of patients. The shootings forced the MSF hospital to evacuate all of its patients and shut down the facility.

“Gunfights in hospitals put patients and medical workers at grave risk and threaten to shut down health care in Aden,” said Letta Tayler, a senior Yemen researcher at Human Rights Watch.

In addition to the incursions themselves, the security forces’ actions of have had other negative implications on hospitals. A few days ago, security forces began shooting live rounds at unarmed anti-government demonstrators in Sana’a. One hospital received more than one hundred injured people and eventually ran out of beds. It tried to transfer the injured to other nearby hospitals, but the checkpoints set up at almost every intersection by security forces made those efforts difficult.

“Sana’a is a very tense place to be at the moment. This was a huge protest that took place…and I think it just completely overwhelmed the security forces,” said Tariq Norman, the chief surgeon at a field hospital in Sana’a.

For further information, please see:

Human Rights Watch – Yemen: Security Forces Raiding Aden Hospitals – 20 October 2012

Al Jazeera – Deadly Fighting Engulfs Yemen Protests – 16 October 2012

Doctors Without Borders – Yemen: MSF Hospital in Aden Shuts Down due to Violence – 7 October 2012

Doctors Without Borders – Yemen: Violence Forces Closure of Hospital – 5 October 2012

Uruguay Senate Votes to Legalize Abortion

By Margaret Janelle R. Hutchinson
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay – Late last month Uruguay’s Lower House contemplated and passed legislation that would give women the right to an elective abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and decriminalize later-term abortions when the mother’s life is at risk or when the fetus is so deformed that it wouldn’t survive after birth.  Wednesday that bill also narrowly passed in the Senate, by a vote of 17 to 14.

Uruguayan senators raise their hands to vote 17 to 14 in favor of a bill to legalize abortions during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy in Montevideo, Oct. 17, 2012. (Photo Courtesy TIMEWorld)

President José Mujica has openly supported the legislation. Alberto Breccia, a top aide to Mr. Mujica, said Wednesday that the president had no plans to veto the bill, almost ensuring that it would become law by early November.

If it does become law, it would be the second of its kind in South America; Guyana allows elective abortion up until the 8th week of pregnancy.

Uruguay is already considered one of the most liberal countries in South America.  It was the first nation to officially separate the state from the Catholic Church in the early 1900’s and President Mujica has also discussed the possibility of legalizing marijuana in the tiny country.

Uruguay may be geographically small, but pro-choice advocates hope this potential law will make a big impact on neighboring nations.  Although there have been many advances in terms of sexual rights in South America – most notably with Brazil and Argentina legalizing same-sex unions in 2004 and 2010, respectively – abortion is extremely divisive.

Just last week the Argentinian Supreme Court issued a ruling granting an abortion to a women rescued from a prostitution ring.  Even though Argentina allows abortion in the case of rape, a lower court judge had blocked the procedure claiming there was no proof of rape.

Véronica Pérez, a political scientist at Montevideo’s University of the Republic says,

“In terms of the reactions and conflicts [abortion and same-sex marriage] provoke in society,” pushing same-sex unions isn’t the same as advocating the legalization of abortion. For same-sex marriage or gay adoption, for some men it’s like ‘that’s OK, I don’t like it much but it doesn’t affect my rights.’ On the other hand, a woman’s decision to interrupt her pregnancy strikes at the core of masculine decision-influencing power.”

Chile, considered the most conservative country in the region, outright bans abortion even in the case of rape.  Chile only legalized divorce in 2004.

This week’s vote was the third time the bill has been introduced in the Uruguayan Parliament and the Senate’s final vote tally of 17 in favor and 14 against shows how divisive the issue remains. A previous bill was approved in 2008, but then-President Tabaré Vázquez vetoed it.

For further information, please see:

The Christian Science Monitor – Uruguay’s Senate approves abortion bill: Will there be a ripple effect? – 19 October 2012

TIMEWorld – Uruguay Diverges From a Continent Where Abortion is Worse Than Rape – 19 October 2012

BBC News – Uruguay legalises abortion – 17 October 2012

The New York Times – Uruguay Senate Approves First-Trimester Abortions – 17 October 2012

The Wall Street Journal – Uruguay Senate Legalizes Abortion – 17 October 2012

Civil Rights Groups Upset over Boston Police’s Spying

By Mark O’Brien
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

BOSTON, Massachusetts — Civil rights groups criticized the Boston Police Department this week for secret surveillance of activists who are not criminal suspects.

Susan Barney is among the activists included in intelligence reports compiled by the Boston Police Department, which civil rights groups criticize as a federal violation. (Photo Courtesy of The Boston Globe)

On Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts and the National Lawyers Guild of Massachusetts called on the department to stop illegally spying on anti-war groups that have no affiliation with crime or terror.

“This kind of monitoring of political groups is just the kind of subtle interference that threatens to chill legitimate constitutionally protected speech,” the groups said in a letter to Police Commissioner Edward Davis.  “When police surveillance penetrates the internal workings of peaceful organizations, some Bostonians will be less likely to exercise those fundamental rights.”

By Wednesday, the police department issued a statement in response, saying that routine monitoring is not their practice.  But the department admitted that a computer glitch saved some intelligence reports unrelated to crime for longer than they should have been.

“Boston residents should confidently participate in any lawful, peaceful protest or demonstration knowing the Boston Police Department is not monitoring the events without specific information on suspected criminal activity,” the police statement read in part.

Police officials said the computer software problem was fixed last year, but not before 11 intelligence reports were saved for too long.

The civil rights groups sued the department last year.  They said that resulted in materials that showed police officials tracked and kept records on peaceful groups.

Now the groups are calling on Police Commissioner Edward Davis to create an independent auditing system to identify incoming surveillance reports on expressive activity, determine whether they are crime related, and purge anything unrelated to crime within three months.

But that might be too late for protesters named in the reports.  According to the Boston Globe, they were outraged but not surprised to learn that police documented their connections to protest groups.

“It’s appalling,” Susan Barney said in an interview with the Boston Globe.  She was a political activist listed in two reports.

“Money is being spent to harass, spy on, and surveil (sic) the public, instead of being used for education or housing for low-income communities,” she said.

“I don’t like being considered a homeland security threat,” Ridgely Fuller told the Boston Globe.  “I’m like this middle-aged suburban woman who just wants to speak out against injustice and war.”

The police intelligence reports detail how various Boston activist groups operate and who is involved.  Some even go in-depth about some groups’ views on politics and elections.

Civil rights groups said this violates federal regulations.

For further information, please see:

The Boston Globe — Boston Police Accused of Spying on Antiwar Groups — 18 October 2012

The Boston Herald — Civil Rights Groups Criticize Boston Police Department Surveillance — 18 October 2012

New England Cable News — Boston PD Accused of Spying on Anti-War Groups — 18 October 2012

WHDH-TV — Hank Investigates: Secret Police Files — 17 October 2012

15 Year Old Malian Girl Lashed 60 Times for ‘Speaking to Men’

By Ryan Aliman
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

 BAMAKO, Mali – A 15 year old girl was publicly whipped 60 times in Timbuktu three days ago for speaking to a person of the opposite sex.

Ansar Dine members stand guard as they prepare to punish a 15 year old girl.(Photo courtesy of Nine News/AAP)

Ansar Dine, the rebel group who currently controls Timbuktu and the rest of Northern Mali, convicted her of speaking to the opposite sex which is allegedly forbidden in Islam. The teenage girl was caught standing alongside a group of men on the street. Ansar Dine members contend that she was warned repeatedly to stop what she was doing, but the girl refused to listen. “The Islamists charged that the girl was warned five times by the Islamist police, but she continued speaking to men on the street. After the hearing, the Islamists gave 60 lashes to the girl,” Ousmane Maiga, a Timbuktu resident relayed to the Associated Press on Monday.

The lashing took place at around 11:00 in the morning local time in front of the police headquarters in downtown Timbuktu. “The population did not turn out in large numbers to attend this flogging,” Maiga added.

This is just one in a series of incidents revealing the harsh and grim state of women in the country. Recent reports have shown that after the enforcement of an extremist version of the Sharia law in Northern Mali, there has been an increasing number of human rights violations particularly aimed at women.

Last Wednesday, after his visit to Mali, U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Simonovic reported that Islamic extremists are currently compiling a list of unmarried mothers. “It is frightening to hear lists are being compiled of women who are either pregnant or have children and are not married and we do not know what is going to happen to them … We do not know what will happen with those lists, but certainly women were scared that there might be some action taken against them,” he said.

According to local residents Simonovic interviewed during his trip, they feared that women who have had children out of wedlock, or who were unmarried and pregnant, will face severe punishments such as stoning, amputations and executions. Another possible fate for these listed women is to be forced into marriage. After meeting with government officials, community leaders and displaced Malians, Simonovic found out that forced marriages are becoming prevalent in the region. “Wives” are sold for less than $1,000. It is also a common practice among “husbands” to resell their “wives” — a practice Simonovic described as “a smokescreen for enforced prostitution and rapes that are taking place.”

 

For further information, please see:

Malaysian Digest – Teenage Girl Lashed 60 Times for ‘Speaking to Men in the Street’ – 18 October 2012

Nine News – Mali teen whipped for talking to men on street – 18 October 2012

Huffington Post – Mali Girl Reportedly Whipped For Speaking To Men – 15 October 2012

CNN – Fear grows as Mali extremists compile list of unmarried mothers – 13 October 2012

USA Today – Mali Islamists compiling list of unwed moms – 11 October 2012