By Adom M. Cooper Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East
Location: Hamaa | Halfaya
http://youtu.be/54q6lCNAGeI
This hospital’s freezer is filled with bodies after the regime’s forces shelled the town. The young man seen here is one of the victims of the assault.
Location: Hama | Masha’ Al-Arba’een
This woman is begging a monitor to help save the embattled citizens of Syria, telling him, “We are slaughtered, we are slaughtered.”
Location: Damascus Suburbs | Douma
(WARNING: EXTREMELY GRAPHIC CONTENT)
Several residents were killed and dozens were injured when the regime’s forces violently shelled the town on Tuesday. This footage was taken inside a makeshift hospital, and pictures the bodies of the dead. Extremely graphic footage of one of the victims, whose brain was blown out.
Location: Aleppo | A’zaz
http://youtu.be/udOrOzNAFj4
To keep up the appearance of committing to the Annan plan and fool the UN monitors before their arrival, the regime’s forces are seen here hiding tanks in trenches in the town.
By Emilee Gaebler Impunity Watch Reporter, South America
LA PAZ, Bolivia – Public workers, including teachers and health service providers, throughout Bolivia continue to strike in protest of the recent passage of Supreme Decree 1126. The newly-passed decree mandates that the previous 6-hour work day be increased to an 8-hour work day, with no increase in salary, for those in the public sector.
Public workers in Bolivia protest against new mandate of longer work days with no additional pay. (Photo Courtesy of NTN24 News)
The strike began on March 28, and just last week, a number of the groups began hunger strikes. News sources in Bolivia report that close to 500 workers have joined in on the national hunger strikes. Saúl Azcárraga, the leader of the Federation of Urban Teachers expressed the hunger strikers stance from a small school room in La Paz.
“Not a single drop of water nor food will enter their room. We assume this measure because in 2010 the government signed an agreement about salaries and hours but is not honoring the agreement,” Azcárraga said.
Rural teachers in Bolivia currently make almost twice the amount of an urban teacher. In 2010 the Morale’s administration agreed to work to equalize pay rates progressively; but almost no steps to achieve this were taken.
Medical workers in state facilities echo similar concerns. They are outraged over the labour reforms by President Evo Morales because they violate earlier agreements made in the 1970s that established this 6-hour day for them. Currently, Bolivian public sector doctors make roughly $200 a week, receive no benefits, no pension, and no overtime pay.
President for the Committee of Doctors on Strike, Francisco Sanchez, emphasized that those in the medical profession have previously asked and presented reasonable arguments for their incorporation into the General Labour Act. Each time the government refuses to listen.
“We workers have always said that we do not agree to work eight hours of the working day . . . . Unfortunately, the authorities do not take this request seriously, or the arguments we give them. For this reason, in a situation of despair, not knowing what else to do, we have taken this extreme measure, the hunger strike, to raise awareness in front of the authorities,” said Sanchez.
Juan Carlos Calvimontes, the Minister of Health, maintains that the strike is “illegal.” Calvimontes is calling for the docking of doctors pay during the time that they are on strike. On March 31 the protestors hosted a “White Apron” March through downtown La Paz and burned an effigy of Calvimontes while calling for a repeal of the decree.
President Morales expressed his unwillingness to consider revoking the decree in a conference held on Tuesday last week. Morales said that the decree was not his own initiative but one proposed at the Plurinational Social Meeting and supported by the Bolivian people.
On Tuesday, Morales emphasized the government’s firm stance that any worker’s who choose to strike are acting illegally. Morales also announced that workers will have their pay reduced for each day that they take to the streets in protest.
“[A] day worked, a day paid, he who doesn’t work does not get paid,” said Morales.
25 April 2012 – Yesterday, at the Spring Session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) meeting in Strasbourg, 69 members of Parliament from 29 countries signed a motion entitled: “Refusing impunity for the killers of Sergei Magnitsky”. The motion calls for a ‘dedicated report’ to investigate the death of Sergei Magnitsky and return the findings to the Assembly at a later date this year.
Sergei Magnitsky (Photo courtesy of Russian Untouchables)
The motion states:
“The conspiracy leading to Mr Magnitsky’s death was exposed by journalists and investigated by the Presidential Human Rights Council and other civil society bodies, which concluded in the summer of 2011 that a number of named officials were indeed apparently responsible for this crime.
According to investigators, following the events in question, the officials concerned acquired luxury properties and other assets whose value far exceeds what they could afford on their salaries as public servants. The competent authorities have nevertheless failed to properly investigate and prosecute those responsible for Mr Magnitsky’s death. Instead, they have continued to accuse Mr. Magnitsky, even seeking to prosecute him posthumously.”
It further states:
“For the sake of its own credibility and that of the Russian Federation, the Assembly should now engage in co-operation with Russia, through the preparation of a dedicated report, in order to fully elucidate this landmark case.”
The motion was introduced by Pieter Omtzigt, a Member of Parliament from the Netherlands and member of the European People’s Party (EPP) at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
Mr Omtzigt said:
“It is a highly unusual step within the Council of Europe to focus on one case from one country for a report. The high number of supporters from so many countries within the Council of Europe suggests the truly emblematic nature of the Magnitsky case and the Russian Government’s inadequate response.”
The motion will be considered by the PACE Bureau at the Council of Europe on Friday 27 April. The Bureau is made up of the President of the Assembly, 18 Vice –President’s (each from a different member state), the Chair of each Political Group and Chairs of each PACE Committee. Once the Bureau approve the motion, steps will be taken to commission a special report into the Magnitsky case and assign a rapporteur to conduct the investigation and write the final report.
Special reports have previously been conducted into the Khodokovsky case, CIA extraordinary rendition and organ thefts in Kosovo.
The Magnitsky case was previously raised at length in the August 2009 Legal Affairs and Human Rights Committee report written by the former Rapporteur Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, currently serving as Germany’s Minister for Justice. This report can be found here: http://russian-untouchables.com/docs/D42.pdf
