You are browsing the Blog for Amnesty International.

Brazil: Indigenous Community Faces Eviction

Brazilian authorities have met delays in their process to demarcate ancestral indigenous lands. ©Amnesty International.

The Brazilian authorities must immediately suspend a court order to evict 170 Guarani–Kaiowá indigenous people from a portion of their ancestral lands, Amnesty International said after the community pledged to die together rather than be forced off their territory.

Some 170 people – including 70 children – from the Pyelito Kue/Mbarakay community near Iguatemi in southern Brazil’s Mato Grosso do Sul state are at risk of eviction following the order, which a regional federal court upheld on 17 September.

The community has been occupying a two-hectare tract of forest along the Hovy River for almost a year, after gunmen razed their previous settlement to the ground.

Carrying out the eviction order would force community members to camp by the side of a road, exposing them to extremely dangerous conditions and cutting them off from their ancestral lands and way of life.

“The Pyelito Kue/Mbarakay have made themselves clear that being forced off their ancestral lands again would be tantamount to their very cultural extinction – the eviction order must be suspended immediately,” said Átila Roque, Director of Amnesty International Brazil.

The Pyelito Kue/Mbarakay community reoccupied their ancestral lands – now claimed by soya and sugar cane farmers who moved into the area – in November 2011, after a truckload of gunmen launched an assault on their previous encampment by the side of a dirt track. The attackers fired rubber bullets at community members and burnt their huts and belongings.

Since the reoccupation, local farmers have blocked off entry points to the land, denying community members access to schooling, healthcare and delivery of food supplies. The Pyelito Kue/Mbarakay have complained of dire living conditions and ongoing threats in this virtual state of siege.

“The authorities must immediately ensure the Pyelito Kue/Mbarakay community has access to basic services, including food, water and healthcare. Any allegations of threats against them must be fully investigated,” said Roque.

Federal prosecutors have challenged local farmers’ efforts to use the courts to seek the community’s eviction. They assert the judge failed to take into account a March 2012 technical report by Brazil’s indigenous agency (Fundação Nacional do Índio, FUNAI) which clearly shows that the community are living on lands traditionally occupied by Guarani –Kaiowá Indigenous People.

The community has reaffirmed their rights to their ancestral lands and vowed to resist any attempts to remove them.

Community members sent an open letter to the Brazilian government and judiciary, saying:

“We know that we will be driven out from the side of the river by the courts, but we have decided that we will not leave. As a native, historically indigenous people, we have decided that we will be killed here together.”

Amnesty International urged the Brazilian authorities to live up to their obligations under international agreements and their constitution to complete all outstanding land demarcations to define the extent of territories traditionally occupied by Indigenous Peoples.

The Guarani–Kaiowá

Mato Grosso do Sul state contains some of Brazil’s smallest, poorest and most densely populated indigenous areas.

Some 60,000 Guarani-Kaiowá Indigenous people live a precarious existence – social breakdown has led to high levels of violence, suicide and malnutrition and life is plagued by ill-health and squalid living conditions.

Frustrated at the slowness of the land demarcation process, the Guarani-Kaiowá people have begun reoccupying ancestral lands, but have been subjected to intimidation and violent evictions.

In November 2007 the Ministry of Justice, the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office, FUNAI and 23 indigenous leaders, signed an agreement (Termo de Ajustamento de Conduta, TAC) which committed FUNAI to identify 36 different Guarani-Kaiowá ancestral lands – including Pyelito Kue/Mbarakay land – by April 2010.

The process has still not been completed due to lack of resources and legal challenges.

Meanwhile, several Guarani-Kaiowá communities have ended up living beside highways. They have been exposed to threats from security guards hired to prevent them from trying to reoccupy land, health problems related to living in inadequate temporary shelters and lack of medical assistance. A large number have been killed and injured in traffic accidents.

Tags: , , , ,
Comments Off

USA: Texas Man Due to be Executed Despite Evidence of Mental Disability

By Amnesty International

The Texas authorities should commute the death sentence of a prisoner assessed as having a mental disability but facing execution in under a week, Amnesty International said today.

Marvin Wilson, a 54-year-old African American man, is due to be put to death by lethal injection on 7 August for a murder committed in 1992. A clinical neuropsychologist has concluded that he has “mental retardation”.

A decade ago, in Atkins v. Virginia, the US Supreme Court prohibited the execution of offenders with “mental retardation”, but left it up to the individual states as to how to comply with the ruling.

“While a majority of countries have stopped executing anyone, let alone people with mental disabilities, the USA continues to buck this global trend, with Texas all too often leading the way,” said Rob Freer, Amnesty International’s USA Researcher.

“And leaving it up to Texas how to comply with the Atkins ruling appears to have been something akin to leaving the fox in charge of the henhouse.”

Before the Atkins ruling, Texas executed more inmates diagnosed with “mental retardation” than any other state. A decade on, its legislature has yet to enact a law to comply with Atkins, and there are fears that “temporary” guidelines developed by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) in 2004 are letting the state execute offenders who should be exempted from this punishment under the Constitution.

In 2003, Wilson’s lawyers filed an “Atkins claim” to challenge the constitutionality of his death sentence. They presented the courts with the detailed conclusions of a court-appointed neuropsychologist with 22 years of clinical experience who assessed Wilson as meeting the criteria for mental retardation.

The state of Texas has presented no expert testimony to rebut that evidence, but state courts nonetheless rejected the Atkins claim applying the TCCA’s much-criticized guidelines. The federal courts, required under US law to give a high level of deference to state court rulings, upheld the denial. Wilson’s lawyers are seeking US Supreme Court intervention on his case and to have the Court examine what is going on in Texas on this issue.

The last federal court to rule on the case – the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in 2011 – acknowledged that “other fact-finders might reach a different conclusion as to whether Wilson is mentally retarded on the evidence” that had been presented before the state court.

“Surely that acknowledgement alone should make the Texas clemency authorities pause for thought,” said Freer.

“This is an irrevocable penalty and here is a federal court effectively saying that Wilson’s execution could be assessed as unconstitutional if put to another set of ‘fact-finders’. If nothing else, caution demands commutation.”

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty unconditionally in all cases. This is a cruel, unnecessary and dehumanizing punishment that in the USA is riddled with discrimination, inconsistency and error.

This would be the seventh execution in Texas this year, as the state heads for its 500th execution since resuming judicial killing 30 years ago.

Nationwide, 1,301 people have been executed since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977, including 24 this year. Since resuming executions in December 1982, Texas accounts for 483, or more than a third, of the total.

Original post >

Tags: ,
Comments Off

Chile: Indigenous Children Among the Injured After Violent Eviction

By Amnesty International

The Chilean authorities must initiate a thorough, independent investigation into the police use of force during and after an eviction that resulted in a dozen Indigenous community members – including children – being detained, with many suffering injuries, Amnesty International said.

On 23 July, police officers (carabineros) reportedly moved in to evict a group of Mapuche Indigenous people who a day earlier had occupied a plot of agricultural land in Ercilla – 600 km south of Santiago – as part of an ongoing protest to reclaim their traditional territory in Chile’s Araucanía region.

According to reports, 12 Mapuche Temucuicui community members – including women and children – were taken into custody, with several injured after police fired buckshot and used tear gas during the eviction. At least four other Mapuche children were injured when police fired buckshot at demonstrators who had gathered outside Collipulli Hospital, where their injured friends and family members had been taken.

“The accounts from the forced eviction in Ercilla point to a possible disproportionate use of force by the police, and the reports of children being injured by police firing buckshot into the crowd outside the Collipulli hospital are especially worrying,” said Maria Jose Eva Parada, Researcher in the Americas Programme at Amnesty International.

Following the eviction, Chilean President Sebastián Piñera reportedly said that the incidents would be investigated, and that although his government supported the police force “100 per cent”, they would not be allowed to act outside the framework of the law.

“The investigation into the incidents must be thorough, impartial and independent and, if it finds that police overstepped the boundaries of the law, those responsible must be brought to justice,” said Maria Jose Eva Parada.

Numerous Mapuche Indigenous communities across southern Chile have long protested to have their traditional territories restored to them.

A day after the eviction in Ercilla the authorities responded by publishing a “Special Security Plan for the Araucanía Region” which aimed at combating criminal activity in the course of the protests. However, the Mapuche Indigenous people territorial claims remain unresolved.

“Whatever measures are taken to tackle social conflicts arising from Mapuche ancestral land claims in the Araucanía, human rights must be respected,” said Maria Jose Eva Parada.

Original post >

Tags: , , ,
Comments Off

Syria: Disturbing Reports of Summary Killings by Government and Opposition Forces

By Amnesty International

Reports that government forces and armed opposition groups have been deliberately and unlawfully killing captured opponents in Syria bolster the need for all sides to commit to abiding by international humanitarian law, Amnesty International said today.

Earlier this week, the bodies of 19 unarmed men and one child were found in several locations in the Damascus neighbourhood of al-Mezzeh, after – according to local activists – having been killed by government forces who suspected them of aiding rebels in the area. Activists said that some of the bodies had their hands tied behind their backs and some bore marks indicating they had been tortured before being killed.

Although Amnesty International cannot directly confirm these reports, they mirror a pattern documented by the organization elsewhere in the country.

“Amnesty International has been documenting unlawful killings carried out by state forces and government militias in Syria for months. Our field research in northern Syria found scores of mainly men and boys – most of whom who had not been engaged in hostilities – being summarily killed by government forces, and shabiha militia members, after prolonged shelling of city districts, towns and villages suspected of harbouring opposition fighters and supporters,” said Ann Harrison, Deputy Middle East and North Africa Programme Director at Amnesty International.

“We have also been investigating reports that members of armed opposition groups have been responsible for the killings of captured members of the security forces and other unlawful killings. The leadership of all sides must make it clear that they will not tolerate such abuses by anyone under their command.”

The reports of the al-Mezzeh deaths followed statements attributed to Iraq’s Deputy Interior Minister who told the AFP news agency that Iraqi soldiers on Thursday 19 July had witnessed members of the Free Syria Army kill 22 captured members of the Syrian armed forces after taking control of a border post between the two countries.

If confirmed, these killings would constitute serious violations of international humanitarian law and war crimes.

There have been hundreds of cases, including those documented by Amnesty International itself, of members of the Syrian government’s security forces and pro-government militia deliberately killing captured fighters, suspected opponents, and others.

More recently, Amnesty International has received an increasing number of reports of similar, as well as other, abuses committed by members of the armed opposition groups.

Among other information, the organization has seen video clips purportedly depicting individuals being summarily killed by members of Syrian armed opposition groups.

In a video clip uploaded on 5 July 2012, a man identified as Ahmed Fadhel Ahmed, an Air Force Intelligence official (musa’id awwal), is seen sitting before a hole in a field, identified in a subtitle as in the Aleppo area. He is then shot dead with several bullets to the upper body and head.

Another video clip appears to show the killing of a man named as Abu Wa’el Rashid, who is thrown out of a second- or third-floor window. The narrator – who says that the footage was shot in Nabek, in Damascus governorate, on 15 June 2012 – says “this is the fate of all traitors, of those who collaborate with security and shabiha”.

The description of the clip says the killing was carried out by the al-Nur Battalion, which Amnesty International believes to be a Salafist armed group which is not part of the Free Syria Army.

Information received by Amnesty International, including oral testimony, video clips and media reports indicates that dozens of individuals suspected of working for or aiding the Syrian government’s security forces and pro-government militia may have been killed by armed groups after being captured.

Article 3 Common to the four Geneva Conventions, which applies to all parties to non-international armed conflicts such as the one currently taking place in Syria, prohibits “murder of all kinds” and “the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgement pronounced by a regularly constituted court”.

“In armed conflict, all parties, including armed opposition groups, are legally bound by the rules of international humanitarian law (IHL). Serious violations of IHL are war crimes, and those responsible can expect to be brought to account in the future,” said Ann Harrison.

Original post >

Tags: , ,
Comments Off

Iraq Urged to Halt Executions After 196 Death Sentences Upheld

By Amnesty International

Nearly 200 executions have been given the go-ahead in the Iraqi governorate of Anbar, in what Amnesty International called an alarming move.

The organization urged Iraqi authorities to commute all pending death sentences and impose a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty.

On Monday, the Iraqi Ministry of Interior’s website stated that the chief of police in the western Anbar governorate had announced a Court of Cassation decision to uphold 196 death sentences in the region. It is unclear if the sentences have been ratified by the Iraqi presidency yet.

The announcement gave no timeline for carrying out the executions but expressed a hope that it would be soon.

“After this alarming announcement, Iraqi authorities must move quickly to commute all death sentences and declare a moratorium on executions across the country,” said Philip Luther, Middle East and North Africa Director at Amnesty International.

“If the Iraqi authorities carry out these death sentences, they would nearly quadruple Iraq’s already shocking execution record so far this year.”

In the first half of 2012 alone, Iraq has executed at least 70 people, which is already more than the figure for all of last year. According to Amnesty International’s information, in 2011 a total of at least 68 people were executed in Iraq.

Around the country, hundreds of others are believed to remain on death row.

The death penalty was suspended in Iraq after the US-led invasion in 2003 but restored in August 2004. Since then, hundreds of people have been sentenced to death and many have been executed.

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty – the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment – in all cases without exception, as a violation of the right to life.

Original post >

Tags: , ,
Comments Off

Mexico Must Investigate Enforced Disappearance of Three Farmers

By Amnesty International

The Mexican authorities must launch a full investigation into the alleged enforced disappearance of three members of the same farming family in the western state of Michoacán, Amnesty International said today.

The men, all from the Orozco Medina family in Nuevo Zirosto, were taken away by armed men believed to be members of the security forces - or men acting with their acquiescence - in separate incidents from July 2008 to May 2012. The men have not been seen again. The authorities deny they are in their custody.

Their relatives believe the disappearances are part of a campaign of harassment started by the local police in 2007 to try to force them to abandon their land.

"The authorities must carry out a prompt, thorough and impartial investigation into all three disappearances, provide information on the fate or whereabouts of each man and hold those responsible to account," said Amnesty International's Mexico researcher Rupert Knox.

"They must also protect all members of the Orozco Medina family believed to be at risk of harassment, unlawful detention, abduction or enforced disappearance."

Most recently, Moises Orozco Medina disappeared on 22 May 2012. He sent a text to his sister asking her to get help from the federal judicial police (Policia Federal Ministerial, PFM) because members of the municipal police were trying to take him away. He has not been seen since and his whereabouts remain unknown.

Moises' brother, Leonel Orozco Medina, disappeared in April 2009. Witnesses said they saw him being detained by a group of armed men wearing the uniform of the Federal Investigations Agency (Agencia Federal de Investigacion, AFI).

The family have filed a formal complaint with the Michoacán State Attorney General's Office but say they have been denied information on the case or access to their complaint.

In July 2008, an armed group of six people forced their way into the Orozco Medina house and abducted Leonel Orozco Ortiz, Moises's father. He has not been seen since and a formal complaint has been made to the Michoacán State Attorney General's Office.

Amnesty International believes that, in view of the information received on the involvement of agents of the state or persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the State, the three cases may amount to enforced disappearance, a crime under international law and, sometimes, a crime against humanity.

Tags: , , ,
Comments Off

Palestinian Hunger Striker on Verge of Death Must be Admitted to Hospital or Released | Amnesty International

A Palestinian footballer who is at risk of death after more than 90 days on hunger strike in protest against his detention by Israel should immediately be admitted to a civilian hospital or released so that he can receive life-saving medical care, Amnesty International said.

Mahmoud al-Sarsak is from the Gaza Strip and has been detained by Israel since July 2009. He is the only detainee currently held under the Internment of Unlawful Combatants Law, which allows Israel to hold individuals without charge or trial based on secret information.

Under the law, detainees can be held indefinitely unless they can prove they do not threaten Israeli security.

“After almost three years in detention, the Israeli authorities have had ample opportunity to charge al-Sarsak with a recognizable criminal offence and bring him to trial,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Director.

“They have failed to do so, and instead repeatedly affirmed his detention order on the basis of secret information withheld from him and his lawyer.”

More >

Tags: , , ,
Comments Off

Mexico: Freedom of expression still under attack as six journalists killed

By Amnesty International

Six journalists have been killed in less than a month in Mexico, highlighting the authorities’ ongoing failure to uphold freedom of expression by protecting media workers from threats and violence for carrying out their work.

On Friday, the mutilated body of experienced crime reporter Marco Antonio Ávila García, aged 39, was found stuffed in a garbage bag on a roadside in the north-western state of Sonora. The previous day he had been abducted from a car wash in Ciudad Obregón, where he lived and worked for two newspapers.

Ávila’s death came just days after a former journalist was found dead in the boot of a car in the central Mexican city of Cuernavaca, and two weeks after the mutilated bodies of three journalists were discovered in the eastern state of Veracruz. A correspondent for the weekly news magazine Proceso was also discovered murdered at her home in Xalapa, Veracruz on 28 April.

“This new wave of killings of media workers should serve as a wake-up call to the Mexican authorities, who must do more to protect journalists who are at risk for carrying out their work,” said Rupert Knox, Amnesty International’s Mexico researcher.

“The authorities rarely identify or bring to justice those responsible for attacks on journalists, creating a climate a fear and vulnerability amongst those still brave enough to continue their work. It is vital that full and impartial investigations are carried out immediately, including making use of new federal investigative powers, into each of these cases, to ensure the killers are brought to justice.”

According to a spokesman for the Sonora state Prosecutor, police found a message signed by an organized crime cartel next to Marco Ávila’s body, but its content has not been made public.

On 13 May, just days before Marco Ávila’s abduction and death, the body of former journalist René Orta Salgado was found strangled and stuffed in the boot of his car in Cuernavaca, south of Mexico City. Salgado had left the newspaper El Sol in January.

On 3 May, police found the bodies of three photographers and one newspaper worker in Boca del Río in the eastern Gulf state of Veracruz.

The three photographers – Guillermo Luna, Gabriel Huge and Esteben Rodríguez – had all specialized in coverage of police and organized crime. Their names were all on a blacklist circulated by an organized criminal group last year. Irasema Becerra, an administrative worker at a newspaper who was in a relationship with Luna, was also found dead.

Several days earlier, on 28 April, Proceso magazine correspondent Regina Martínez was killed in the state capital Xalapa. She had also investigated criminal networks and political corruption.

The latest killings are the continuation of an ongoing wave of violence against journalists across Mexico in the context of the government’s fight against organized criminal groups which has resulted in more than 50,000 killings in the last five years.

According to Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission, 81 journalists have been killed in the country since 2000, with a further 14 disappeared. Perpetrators have rarely been brought to justice.

The serious risk to journalists’ lives has led some media organizations to stop covering organized crime altogether – among them is the newspaper El Mañana in the northern border city of Nuevo Laredo, which announced its decision to self-censor after its offices were sprayed with bullets earlier this month.

On 14 May, a group of four experts on freedom of expression from the UN and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued a statement urging Mexican authorities to act swiftly to end the ongoing threat to journalists and human rights defenders.

Amnesty International has also repeatedly urged Mexican authorities to do more to ensure that freedom of expression is protected, including by implementing a new Law for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists, which was approved by Mexico’s federal Parliament in March but has yet to be signed by the President.

Reforms to the Constitution allowing federal investigation of crimes against journalists have also yet to be put into effect.

“Mexican state and federal authorities must redouble their efforts to protect journalists and human rights defenders and stop the targeted killings, which present a grave threat to freedom of expression,” said Knox.

“The new law will not be worth the paper it’s printed on unless it’s accompanied by a serious and concerted effort on the ground to protect Mexico’s media organizations and human rights workers who are increasingly under attack.”

Original post >

Tags: , , ,
Comments Off

Killing of Cambodian Environment Activist Must be Investigated

By Amnesty International

The killing of a prominent Cambodian environment activist must be investigated immediately, Amnesty International said after the activist and a military police officer were shot dead on Thursday in Cambodia’s south-western Koh Kong province.

Other military personnel were apparently present during the shootings, but the details of the incident remain cloudy.

Chut Wutty was an outspoken critic of illegal logging, and has supported other environment and land activists, such as the Prey Lang Network. He had received threats because of his activities.

“This shocking incident will undoubtedly set alarm bells ringing for all activists who have worked with Wutty” said Rupert Abbott, Amnesty International’s Researcher on Cambodia.

“There must be accountability in this case, with an immediate and proper investigation into what happened.”

Two women journalists from the Cambodia Daily newspaper - Cambodian Phorn Bopha and Olesia Plokhii, a Canadian national - were with Wutty when he was shot. Both were initially detained, but have since been released.

“The Cambodian authorities must guarantee the safety of the two journalists caught up in this tragedy while reporting. As the only individuals who may know what happened, they could be at risk,” said Abbott.

Wutty was the Director of the Natural Resource Protection Group (NRPG), a Cambodian NGO that campaigns against the destruction of the country’s forests.

Original post >

Tags: , , , ,
Comments Off

Mexico: Full Investigation Urged Into Killing of Man Who Denounced Police Abuse

By Amnesty International

The killing of a man who took a stand against police kidnapping, torture and extortion in Mexico’s northern border city of Ciudad Juárez must be subjected to an effective, impartial investigation, Amnesty International said.

Over the weekend it came to light that Eligio Ibarra Amador, 62, had been found dead on 12 April after unknown attackers entered his home in the city and stabbed him before setting his body alight.

In September 2011, the businessman had denounced members of the federal police for torture and extortion after they allegedly abducted him from his home – 10 police officers have been detained in connection with the incident.

“Eligio Ibarra Amador’s death is especially regrettable given his courage in going to the authorities to denounce federal police officers’ role in his torture and extortion,” said Rupert Knox, Amnesty International’s Mexico expert.

“Mexico’s authorities must promptly complete an impartial and full investigation to bring to light the facts surrounding his killing and to rule out revenge as a motive.”

Eligio Ibarra Amador’s killing reportedly came just before he was due to attend a court procedure related to the case.

When the businessman filed a complaint with the federal Attorney General’s Office last September, he accused the federal police officers of abducting him from his home and torturing him before threatening to incriminate him as a drug trafficker if he failed to pay them US$5,000.

Although some of the deceased man’s family have relocated to the USA, Amnesty International urges Mexican authorities to ensure full protection to family members remaining in the country and others who may be at risk because of the case.

“In a sensitive case like this, it’s extraordinary that the authorities failed to provide efficient and reliable protection for Emilio Ibarra Amador and his family – this must be remedied immediately to guarantee the safety of anybody else potentially at risk in this case,” said Rupert Knox.

“It should come as no surprise that citizens in Mexico are reluctant to step forward and denounce human rights violations by public officials when there is little or no provision to ensure their security.”

Amnesty International calls on the Mexican authorities to proceed with the kidnapping and extortion case against the federal police and to bring those responsible to justice.

Original post >

Tags: , ,
Comments Off

 
← Previous Entries