South Africa Rape Video Goes Viral

By Tamara Alfred
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

A cell phone video allegedly showing a group of seven Soweto youths filming themselves raping a 17-year-old girl, who is said to have the mental age of a five-year-old, went viral on Twitter in South Africa.

Women place white flowers outside parliament during a demonstration on the International Day for the Prevention of Violence Against Women in South Africa. (Photo Courtesy of Getty Images.)

Eight suspects, between 14 and 20 years of age, were arrested Tuesday morning and charged with kidnapping and rape, according to police spokesperson Warrant Officer Kay Makhubela.

“The video is very bad.  The men can be clearly identified as they take turns raping and filming her,” Makhubela told CNN.

“The girl can be heard pleading with the boys to stop,” journalist Mandy Weiner reported.  “They crudely jest and crassly spur one another on.”

The Daily Sun, a local tabloid, reports that it was the one to alert the police after a concerned mother who caught her daughter watching the video handed it over to the paper.

“The mother of a teenage girl saw the horrifying pictures and confiscated her daughter’s phone.  A work colleague of the woman said they recognized some of the boys and advised her to take the video to Daily Sun,” the newspaper reporter.  Interestingly, the colleague did not advise the woman to go the police directly.

The paper reports that the video lasts just over 10 minutes and the girl can be heard shouting “you are forcing me” repeatedly.

The Sun was also the one to inform the victim’s mother.  The woman reportedly said that her daughter had been a victim of rape since age 12.

“People took advantage of her illness and because my family is poor,” the Sun quoted her as saying.

The girl’s mother reported her missing on March 21.  Media reports suggest the police initially failed to open a missing persons case, but that the girl has since now been found.  Police suspect the girl was kidnapped and turned into a sex slave.

A local radio station got hold of the video and has been receiving requests to post it.  Eyewitness News editor Katy Katopodis stated that the station would never do that.

“To those asking for the #rapevideo link that #EWN reported on today.  Stop!  Not happening!  We’d never put it on our site.  Illegal & wrong,” Katopodis posted on Twitter.

According to the Film and Publication Board CEO Yoliswa Makhasi, the Films and Publications Act states that minors may not be used or featured in pornographic content and the creation, possession and distribution of child pornography is illegal.  Authorities have warned anyone who has received a copy of the video to delete it or risk being charged under these laws.

A popular radio talk show host broke down Wednesday morning as she encouraged listeners to come up with solutions to the problem of rape in the country.  According to the latest police statistics more than 60,000 cases of sexual assault were reported in the year ending March 2011, down from 70,000 in 2008.  NGOs estimate a woman is raped every 26 seconds in the country.  Women’s rights activist Lisa Vetten says that in the province where Johannesburg is located, one in every five rapes is a gang rape.

“Rape is a young man’s crime.  It’s a bit of a performance for them, showing off to each other how macho they are,” said Vetten.  “We need to teach our young men that you can be masculine in ways that do not involve violence and degrading women.”

Experts say that the South African government is well aware that the problem needs urgent attention.  “We are not lacking in terms of legal instruments to deal with this kind of thing,” said Nomboniso Gasa, an expert on gender and culture.  “What we lack are ways of making these instruments effective.”

The country has created a ministry of women and children headed by Lulu Xingwana precisely to deal with violence against women and other related matters.  Xingwana says that this case will be a high priority.  “Distributing child porn is illegal in this country so the police must confiscate this video,” said Xingwana in a radio interview.  Furthermore, “[i]n addition to the painful ordeal of rape the young woman was forced to endure, she is now subjected to a second assault on her dignity (the video),” Xingwana added.

For more information, please see:

BBC News – Outrage in South Africa over internet rape video – 18 April 2012

CNN – Shocking rape video goes viral in South Africa – 18 April 2012

South African Press Association – South Africa: Board Warns About Rape Video – 18 April 2012

Israel Prevents Pro-Palestinian Activists From Boarding Flights

By Carolyn Abdenour
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

JERUSALEM, Israel – On Sunday, 15 April, Israeli police denied 43 pro-Palestinian activists entry into Israel at Ben-Gurion Airport.  The authorities sent 12 activists to their country of origin and detained 31 activists to the Givon detention center.  Moreover, the police held 9 people protesting at the airport for investigation.

Israeli police escort an activist through Ben-Gurion Airport. (Photo Courtesy of Haartez)

However, two female activists with French and Italian citizenship gained access to the country and arrived in Bethlehem on Sunday.  The 23-year-old French activist reported she attempted to board a flight to Israel from the Lyon airport in France as part of a 50 person group.  The French police prevented half of the activists from boarding the flight while she expects the Israeli authorities to deport the other half.

She commented that the security forces in France and Israel “treated us like criminals or terrorists, despite the fact that we made it clear that we came for peaceful purposes.”  She added, “It was very frustrating and surprising that French authorities cooperated with Israel’s claims and propaganda.”

Carriers in Manchester and Brussels also prevented passengers from flying.  Manchester passenger Mick Napier said, “We were demonstrating over our right to travel but we also had the extra provocation of Jet2 refusing to reimburse us for our flights.”  Jet2 recently agreed to reimburse the passengers.

These activists intended to travel to Israel to participate in the “Welcome to Palestine 2012” weeklong conference.  The protest organizers reported airlines notified 60 percent of the expected 1,500 activists scheduled to arrive in Israel on Sunday that their flights were cancelled.  After Israel release this list, it  warned the airlines they must take responsibility for passenger’s immediate return if a banned person arrived in the country.

A similar “fly-in” protest took place in July 2011 where the Israeli authorities detained 120 of the 300 international activists that arrived in Israel.  The authorities denied entry to 69 people as well.

The airlines that prevented the activists from boarding flights over the weekend included Lufthansa, Jet2, Air France, and EasyJet.  EasyJet announced it would not allow passengers on Israel’s no-entry list to board.  In a letter to the international airlines, Israel’s Internal Ministry wrote, “due to statements of pro-Palestinian radicals to arrive on commercial flights from abroad to disrupt the order and confront security forces at friction points, it was decided to deny their entry.”

If an activist arrives in Israel, the authorities will give them a letter stating the activists are disregarding the humanitarian crisis in Syria, the militants firing rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip, and Iran’s support of terror.  The letter reads, “We therefore suggest you first solve the real problems of the region, and then come back and share with us your experience…Have a nice flight.”

For further information, please see:

BBC – Pro-Palestinian Activists Refused Israel Flight – 15 Apr 2012

Haaretz – Pro-Palestinian ‘Fly-In’ Activist: Israel and Europe Treated Us Like Terrorists – 15 Apr 2012

Reuters – Update 4 – Israel Moves To Thwart Pro-Palestinian “Fly-In” – 15 Apr 2012

The Boston Globe – Airlines Cancel Activists’ Flights To Israel – 14 Apr 2012

 

ICC Office of the Prosecutor Weekly Briefing – April 2012

Magnitsky Case Files Identify New Information on Russian Officials Involved In $230 Million Tax Fraud Cover-Up

Press Release
Hermitage Capital

18 April 2012 — New files from the posthumous case files against Sergei Magnitsky reveal the name of the main “expert” witness used to absolve Interior Ministry officers from liability for the $230 million corruption scheme uncovered by Sergei Magnitsky. The expert was Maxim Tretiakov, head of the legal department of Moscow Tax Office No 28, the office at the centre of the corrupt tax refunds scheme.

Sergei Magnitsky (Photo courtesy of Jewish Russian Telegraph)

In return for his “friendly testimony”, the Interior Ministry officers who themselves had a conflict of interest, exonerated him and his colleagues and claimed that the $230 million tax refund was executed by a “sawmill employee” and a “jobless” individual, and that all bank records proving otherwise had burned in a truck explosion and cannot be traced. As a result, officials from the Moscow Tax Office Number 28 were able to continue with their corrupt scheme, and were recently shown to have executed $1 billion in fraudulent tax refunds over a four-year period from 2006-2010. Families of the tax and Interior Ministry officers involved in the scheme have become $47 million richer after the thefts and have been shown to invest in luxurious foreign real estate and foreign bank accounts.

“The fact that the head of the legal department at the tax office who oversaw the theft of the $230 million that Sergei Magnitsky uncovered would be the expert witness justifying the police actions sheds further light on the absurdity and complete breakdown of law in Russia. In any other country, revelations like this would lead to mass resignations of cabinet ministers,” said a Hermitage Capital representative.

Documents from the case files indicate that Maxim Tretiakov from the Moscow Tax Office No 28 provided “expert” testimony on 12 February 2008, two months after his Tax Office perpetrated the $230 million tax refund. His testimony was obtained by Pavel Karpov, Interior Ministry officer directly implicated in the $230 million tax refund. Pavel Karpov was named by Sergei Magnitsky and in Hermitage Fund’s complaints, along with officer Artem Kuznetsov, for their role in the illegal seizure of documents of Hermitage Fund companies that were used by Russian officials and criminals to fraudulently re-register those companies and perpetrate the tax refund scheme.

Maxim Tretiakov whose office approved the $230 million tax refund in one day, claimed that there was a legal justification for Interior Ministry officers’ actions. To confirm his expertise, Mr Tretiakov said in his testimony to investigator Karpov: “My job responsibilities include the representation of the interests of tax inspection in court, sanctioning of decisions, and clarification of current legislation.”

A year later, on 27 February 2009, Mr. Tretiakov gave further testimony in relation to the $230 million tax refund. He claimed he had not been aware that the refund was illegal and requested to be declared a “victim,” claiming his “business reputation suffered” from the refund. “On 19 February 2009 from the documents received from the Interior Ministry’s Investigative Committee we learned that the directors of Parfenion and Mahaon, earlier in 2007, presented to the tax inspection Number 28 in Moscow false documents to justify the overpayment of income tax for 2006 and thus received illegally budget funds and caused damage to the business reputation of tax office Number 28 and material damage for the refunded amount,” said Mr Tretiakov in his 27 February 2009 testimony.

On the back of Mr Tretiakov’s testimonies, the Interior Ministry’s investigation into the $230 million tax refund was closed in March 2011 concluding that the tax officials, including Maxim Tretiakov, were “tricked,” “mislead” and “unaware.” The only persons prosecuted by the Interior Ministry for the largest single tax refund fraud in Russian history, were a sawmill employee and an unemployed man. Both men had previous links to Interior Ministry officers Artem Kuznetsov and Pavel Karpov named by Sergei Magnitsky as involved in the scam (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bdae02a8-e784-11df-b5b4-00144feab49a.html#axzz1sKATheoD) who were absolved from responsibility.

At the same time, Mr Tretiakov’s tax office was in the middle of a four-year $1 billion tax refund embezzlement scheme, according to the newspaper Novaya Gazeta (http://www.novayagazeta.ru/inquests/51924.html).

Tax Official Maxim Tretiakov is Number 45 on the U.S. Helsinki Commission List of officials involved in the torture and death of Magnitsky and the corruption he uncovered. Investigator Pavel Karpov is Number 21 on the list.

The scale and duration of the tax refund scheme has raised questions over the role of Alexei Kudrin, former Russian Finance Minister. Public questions were formulated by Andrei Illarionov, former economic advisor to the Russian president (http://echo.msk.ru/blog/aillar/875912-echo/).In Kudrin’s reply on 11 April 2012, he said that neither he, nor his subordinates at the Federal Tax Ministry and Treasury gave instructions to execute the illegal tax refunds (http://akudrin.ru/news/otvety-na-voprosy.html). This prompted further questions from Mr Illarionov on 12 April 2012 (http://echo.msk.ru/blog/aillar/877960-echo/questioning) who is challenging whether Mr Kudrin is fit to lead the Committee for Civic Initiatives, an organization he unveiled on 5 April 2012, which stated fighting corruption as one of its goals (http://akudrin.ru/news/zayavlenie-o-sozdanii-komiteta-grazhdanskikh-initsiativ.html).

For further information please contact:

Hermitage Capital

Phone:              +44 207 440 17 77
Website:           http://lawandorderinrussia.org
 
Facebook:        http://on.fb.me/hvIuVI
Twitter:             @KatieFisher__
Livejournal:       http://hermitagecap.livejournal.com/

Chávez Decline Forecasts Instability for Venezuela, Military Forces Consolidating Power

by Emilee Gaebler
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

CARACAS, Venezuela – As President Hugo Chávez continues his six month fight with an unspecified cancer, talks about the future of Venezuela circulate.  A new article, by former Former Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere Affairs, Roger Noriega, addresses the tenuous situation.   The startling article, published just days ago on April 11, describes a complex power scheme that is currently playing itself out.

President Chávez inspects troops with Defense Minister, General Henry Rangel Silva, in January of this year during Silva's swearing in ceremony. (Photo Courtesy of San Antonio Express News)

Noriega believes that the increasing visibility and operational roles of high-ranking military officials are indicators that the military is preparing to take control of the country.  In one portion of his article Noriega even notes his belief that the military plans to instate martial law throughout the nation if necessary to gain control in an unstable situation.

“In my estimation, the approaching death of the Venezuelan caudillo could put the country on the path toward a political and social meltdown. The military cadre installed by Chávez in January already is behaving like a de facto regime determined to hold onto power at all costs…his lieutenants and foreign allies are behaving as if he were already dead — consolidating power, fashioning a “revolutionary junta,” and plotting repressive measures,” writes Noriega.

Other analysts express concerns with the recent promotional decisions by Chávez.  In January, he named Diosdado Cabello as the leader of the ruling party and of the National Assembly.  As reported by MercoPress, this was done to pacify a group of powerful military officers including; Defense Minister – General Henry Rangel Silva, Chief of Intelligence – Cliver Alcalá, and Chief of Military Intelligence – General Hugo Carvajal.  All three men have been linked by US drug offices as having associations to the drug trade.

Noriega makes clear his belief that these military cadres will, “never surrender power and the impunity that goes with it,” and abide by the results of an election because it will never provide legitimacy for a “Venezuelan narco-state.”  Noreiga forecasts an unstable Venezuela, with the fall of the Chávez administration, where men like Cabello, Silva, Alcalá, and Carvajal will not hesitate to use the billions of dollars in illegal drug money they have acquired and the force of the tens of thousands soldiers under their command to keep hold of power.  Troubling statements by General Silva earlier this month hint at this.

“We are going to recognize whoever wins the October 7 elections. We’re not just going to recognize whoever says they won,” was Silva’s obscure comment.  He has previously expressed a very strong stance that the Venezuelan military would never accept an opposition party taking control of the country.

The next presidential elections are scheduled to occur in just over six months, on October 7 of 2012.  Chávez pledged earlier this year to be a candidate for them, but at a mass in his hometown last week, his statements indicated the gravity of his desperate struggle against cancer.

“Christ … give me life, because I still have things to do for the people and this country. Do not take me yet,” he said.  Chávez made this statement just after returning from his third trip to Cuba to receive cancer treatments.

 

For more information, please see;

MercoPress – Revolutionary Junta to Consolidate Chavism, Forecasts US Expert in LatAm Affairs – 14 April 2012

In Sight – Is the Venezuelan Military Eyeing a Power Grab? – 13 April 2012

Washington Post – Hugo Chávez Rallies Thousands of Supporter Marking Return After 2002 Coup in Venezuela – 13 April 2012

CNN – Chávez Returns to Venezuela After Latest Round of Treatment – 12 April 2012

Foreign Policy – After Chávez, the Narcostate – 11 April 2012