UN votes once again to end executions: Amnesty International

11 November 2010

The UN General Assembly’s human rights committee today adopted a resolution on a moratorium on the use of the death penalty, the third since 2007.


The resolution was adopted by 107 votes in favour, 38 against with 36 abstentions at the UN General Assembly's Third Committee in New York.

The resolution garnered more support from UN Member States than the previous resolution in 2008, confirming the worldwide trend towards ending the use of capital punishment.

“This third resolution by the UN General Assembly in favour of a moratorium on executions is yet another milestone in the campaign to end premeditated killing by the state,” said José Luis Díaz, Amnesty International’s representative at the UN in New York.


“Once again, a clear majority of countries have committed to the goal of abolishing the death penalty, the ultimate denial of human rights”.

When the UN was founded in 1945 only eight states had abolished the death penalty for all crimes. Today, 136 out of the 192 UN member states have abolished the death penalty in law or practice.


Bhutan, Kiribati, Maldives, Mongolia and Togo changed their vote to back the moratorium. In a further sign of support, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Solomon Islands and Thailand moved from opposition to abstention.

“These positive changes are an encouraging development that we hope will be followed by concrete steps by these states to remove capital punishment from national legislation as soon as possible”, added José Luis Díaz.

The General Assembly is expected to endorse the resolution in its plenary session in December. Amnesty International urges all UN Member States to support the plenary resolution and, if still retaining the death penalty, to immediately establish a moratorium on executions while considering abolition. View original article

Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer must be released

Kareem Amer an Egyptian blogger has completed a four year prison sentence but the authorities continue to detain him. He received this severe punishment for criticising President Hosni Mubarak and Islam on his blog. He was scheduled for release on 5 November but is still behind bars at the State Security Intelligence (SSI) detention centre in Alexandria. Read more

It is appealed to the Egytian authorities to release fellow blogger and fellow human being Kareem immediately.

Chhattisgarh authorities must immediately release Prisoner of Conscience Kartam Joga: Amnesty International

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL


PUBLIC STATEMENT

1 November 2010


India: Chhattisgarh authorities must immediately release Prisoner of Conscience Kartam Joga


Amnesty International has been closely following the case of Kartam Joga, an adivasi (Indigenous) political activist who has been imprisoned in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh. 40-year-old Kartam Joga has been in Dantewada district jail since 14 September 2010.

Amnesty International considers Kartam Joga to be a Prisoner of Conscience and that the charges brought against him are politically motivated and a pretext to detain him on account of his political activism which has never involved the use or advocacy of violence. The organization believes that the authorities in Chhattisgarh decided to imprison and charge him in response to the Supreme Court criticism

The organization believes that the real reason for Kartam Joga’s imprisonment is his peaceful political activities as an activist of the Communist Party of India (CPI) and an elected member of a local self-government body and his defence of human rights of adivasi communities.

In 2007 he had participated in petitioning India’s Supreme Court regarding human rights violations in Chhattisgargh and impunity for security forces and Salwa Judum, widely held to be a state-supported militia who were involved in operations against the armed Maoists in the Bastar region of the state since 2005.

The charges against him include collaborating with the Maoists in ambushing and killing 76 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel on 6 April 2010, murdering a leader of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Budhram Sodi in May 2010, killing the father of a special police officer attached to the CRPF in August 2010, and ambushing a truck and killing four persons on 7 December 2009.

Kartam Joga’s arrest and the bringing of these charges came after India’s Supreme Court, on 31 August 2010, criticized the Chhattisgarh government for being “wholly vague and indefinite” while replying to several questions raised by two petitions filed three years ago seeking an end to impunity and violations by the Salwa Judum and the security forces engaged in operations against the armed Maoists in Chhattisgarh since 2005. The first of the two petitions had been filed by Kartam Joga and two other CPI activists, and the second, by sociologist Nandini Sundar, historian Ramachandra Guha, and E.A.S. Sarma, a former civil servant.

The charges against him and his imprisonment are another glaring example of how the authorities in Chhattisgarh target those who have sought to consistently defend the human rights of the adivasi communities since 2005.

 Two other human rights defenders in Chhattisgarh – medical doctor Dr Binayak Sen and cinematographer TG Ajay – spent two years since 2007 and three months in 2008 respectively in jail on charges of collaborating with the Maoists before they were released on bail. In May 2009, another human rights defender Himanshu Kumar, and some staff of his organization, Vanvasi Chetna Ashram, which continued to document the violations and abuses against the adivasi communities, had to flee the Bastar area after persistent harassment by the police and district authorities.

Kartam Joga underwent medical treatment and an operation for injuries he received when he was attacked by members of the Salwa Judum’s militia in 2005. Since then, he has been in the forefront of documenting and exposing human rights abuses against adivasis, including more than 500 unlawful killings and instances of sexual assault, rape and burning down of adivasi hamlets and houses and the displacement of more than 30,000 adivasis during the conflict in Chhattisgarh since 2005.

Acting on the petitions filed by Kartam Joga and others, the Supreme Court, in April 2008, directed India’s National Human Rights Commission to ascertain the veracity of the allegations; eight months later, an NHRC report confirmed some of the allegations and said there was a need for further investigation into the complaints of violence perpetrated by the Salwa Judum, the security forces and Maoists. Three months later, the Supreme Court asked the Chhattisgarh authorities to list the measures it had taken to disband the Salwa Judum militia, register and investigate complaints of violent acts during the conflict, and compensate and rehabilitate the victims.

The Supreme Court has now asked the Chhattisgarh government to file a comprehensive affidavit in response to the allegations made in the petitions. In On a specific point made by the petitioners that the Salwa Judum militiamen were acting as part of a new organization, Dandakaranya Shanti Sangharsh Samiti, the state authorities have claimed that the Salwa Judum “no longer exists” and that the investigations into its violence were hampered by difficult terrain, inaccessibility of villages, inclement weather and hostility from the Maoists. A further hearing in the case is due on 18 November.



ENDS/

Document

International Secretariat, Amnesty International, 1 Easton St., London WC1X 0DW, UK www.amnesty.org

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India must address forced evictions and other human rights abuses

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL


PUBLIC STATEMENT

4 October 2010

AI Index: ASA 20/029/2010

India must address forced evictions and other human rights abuses in Delhi during Commonwealth Games

The Commonwealth Games cannot be used as an excuse to forcibly evict seasonal vendors, street-based workers and beggars, Amnesty International said today.

Thousands of seasonal vendors and street-based workers are facing joblessness as the police prevent them from working on the streets during the Games. The majority of people who have been evicted are being placed in makeshift collective shelters with the residents complaining that these lacked water and sanitation and were not suitable for habitation.

This continues the trend of forced evictions of the poor and marginalized carried out by the local authorities in Delhi in the run up to the start of the Commonwealth Games on 3 October.

Amnesty International received information that the authorities carried out a series of forced evictions in Okhla and neighbouring areas and roads linking the city with its north-eastern parts on the banks of river Yamuna where the Games infrastructure including many stadia, flyovers and bridges were erected in the last few months.

Human rights organisations in India said 2,500 persons and 150-200 families were forcibly evicted from the suburban town of Gurgaon and central Delhi respectively during the last two weeks before the start of the Games.

Amnesty International is concerned that a high number of evictions during August and
September appear to have been carried out without safeguards required under international law. In particular, there was no genuine consultation with the people who were evicted. They were not provided with adequate prior notice. The makeshift collective shelters that the authorities have provided, in several instances, do not meet requirements for adequacy of housing under international standards. Some people have not been provided with any alternative housing.

The Indian authorities have a duty to ensure that alternative housing is provided which
complies with international standards. They must also provide effective remedies to all those who have been forcibly evicted.

Amnesty International therefore urges the Indian authorities to: ·

   - ensure that evictions are carried out only as a last resort, and only in full   
    compliance with requirements under international human rights standards;

    - ensure that those who have been evicted are provided with adequate alternative
      housing and/or land to undertake their livelihoods as a matter of urgency;

    - ensure that any alternative housing that is provided complies with requirements for
      adequacy of housing, under international human rights standards; and

    - provide all victims of forced evictions with access to effective remedies.

Indian authorities must also address the growing number of labour rights abuses and violations of labour laws practised by various state agencies and private firms involved in construction activities, despite the efforts of a four-member committee appointed by a directive of the Delhi High Court to monitor such violations. These violations, documented by India’s human rights organizations, included irregular registration, denial of statutory minimum wages, equal payment of wages to women workers and statutory health benefits, poor safety standards leading to deaths of workers in accidents and occasional use of child labour.

ENDS/

Public Document

International Secretariat, Amnesty International, 1 Easton St., London WC1X 0DW, UK

www.amnesty.org

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India: Authorities should investigate torture, sexual assault and illegal detention of adivasis in Chhattisgarh

Sep 15 2010

The Indian authorities should order a prompt, impartial and independent investigation into reports of torture and ill-treatment, including rape and other sexual violence, against adivasis (indigenous people) illegally detained in Chhattisgarh, Amnesty International said today.

Adivasis from Pachangi and Aloor villages in Kanker district told Amnesty International that paramilitary Border Security Force (BSF) personnel and the Chhattisgarh state police rounded up 40 adivasi men from their villages on 5 and 6 September, stripped them and beat them with sticks. Five men – Narsingh Kumra, Sukram Netam, Premsingh Potayi, Raju Ram and Bidde Potayi were reportedly raped with sticks and are still being treated at the Kanker government hospital.



These violations followed the 29 August ambush of a BSF-police patrol by members of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) in which three BSF personnel and two policemen were killed.



Seventeen people from the two villages were also detained– blindfolded, split into batches and taken to the BSF camp at Durgkondal in closed trucks. Amnesty International has been informed that at least two of those detained - Dhansu Khemra and Sarita Tulavi – were 16 year old girls while another four were women and girls between 16 and 20.

During their detention, security forces beat the detainees in an attempt to force them to confess that they were Maoists involved in the 29 August ambush. The interrogators gave electric shocks to at least 10 detainees and sexually assaulted two female detainees.

Villagers said that on the morning of 7 September the Kanker police released one female detainee Sunita, as she was suffering from malaria, and her father, Punnim Tulavi, a school-teacher, but then arrested two more men.

The five remaining female detainees were taken to a local court along with two of the adivasi men on 8 September, while the remaining ten male detainees were taken to court on 10 September. All of the adivasis were charged with involvement in the 29 August ambush by the banned Maoist armed group and are presently in Kanker and Jagdalpur prisons, after being denied bail.

Indian law requires that arrested persons be produced before a court within 24 hours of the arrest. In an attempt to circumvent this requirement, the police claimed the two groups of detainees were arrested only one day before their respective appearances in court.

Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, including sexual violence, are prohibited in all circumstances, including war or other emergency under international law, and in particular the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Geneva Conventions. India is also a signatory to the United Nations’ Convention Against Torture and the Indian Parliament is currently engaged in passing a new law against torture in accordance with the provisions of the Convention before its ratification.



Amnesty International calls upon the Indian authorities to:

• Ensure a prompt, impartial, independent and effective investigation into the allegations of torture and other ill-treatment, including sexual assault, and the illegal detention of adivasis. Those suspected of involvement in the violations, including persons bearing command responsibility, should immediately be suspended from positions where they may repeat such offences, and brought to justice;

• Award the victims of torture and other ill-treatment full reparations. In particular, immediately ensure that all victims of torture and other ill-treatment, including sexual violence, are provided with proper medical care, both physical and psychological, by professionals trained and sensitised to treat such victims; and

• Ensure that, if – as a measure of last resort – those under the age of 18 are kept in prison, they are held separately from adults and otherwise treated in accordance with India’s juvenile justice legislation and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which India is a state party.

Over the last five years, Chhattisgarh has witnessed an escalation of violence between the banned Maoists who claim to be fighting on behalf of the adivasis and India’s paramilitary forces. At least 600 people have been killed and some 30,000 adivasis continue to be displaced from their homes in the state.



courtesy: Amnesty International

Bhopal Gas Tragedy- Who is accountable?

Dr. S.P. Gautom, Chairman, Central Pollution Control Board, India, answering to the series of questions on Bhopal gas tragedy at a workshop at Amity University, Noida, India,  on June 25, 2010.  He referred June 24, 2010 announcement of Rs 1265.56 crore for Bhopal gas victims. .

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