Kategorie: Humans

As the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) marks its 55^th anniversary today, Amnesty International urges the regional bloc to acknowledge the failure of its five-point plan published in April 2021 to end the violence and increasing human rights violations in Myanmar.

“ASEAN must prove it is not a toothless body but acts decisively to hold the Myanmar military to account for its atrocious human rights violations. The military has decades of blood on its hands and will continue to trample on the lives and rights of millions of people in Myanmar if it is not made to face the consequences of its crimes,” said Ming Yu Hah, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for Campaigns.

“In the face of the continuing atrocities – including executions following unfair trials, extrajudicial killings and torture committed by the Myanmar military – ASEAN must swiftly adopt a more robust course of action so that military leaders end the escalating violent repression they have unleashed since the February 2021 coup.”

To reinforce this message, Amnesty International projected the words “ASEAN must act now!” onto the building of the ASEAN headquarters in Jakarta on Monday.

Since February 2021, the Myanmar military has systematically cracked down on tens of thousands of peaceful protesters nationwide, forcing 700,000 people from their homes, killing over 2,000 people and arresting almost 15,000 individuals. 

“For ASEAN to retain its credibility, it must change its approach to help end the country-wide bloodshed in Myanmar. ASEAN, collectively as a bloc and as individual member states, must also push for justice and accountability in Myanmar. It is imperative that ASEAN plays a constructive rather than obstructionist role and encourages other members of the international community to maximize pressure on the Myanmar military,” Ming Yu Hah said.

“We urge ASEAN to demand immediate action from the Myanmar military, including the release of all those who are arbitrarily detained. ASEAN must also address other urgent needs, including committing to the non-refoulement of refugees or anybody else fleeing violence in Myanmar, facilitating desperately needed humanitarian assistance, and adding its voice to calls for a global arms embargo.”

Amnesty International’s Indonesia office was joined by a number of Indonesian civil society groups on Monday as the message to ASEAN was projected onto the organization’s Jakarta HQ.

During an ASEAN summit in Jakarta in 2021, Amnesty International reminded Indonesia of its obligation under international law to investigate Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and other Myanmar military officials on credible allegations of responsibility for crimes against humanity in Myanmar.

“Myanmar’s military has made a mockery of ASEAN’s ‘Five-Point Consensus’ to reduce violence following the country’s military coup in 2021,” Ming Yu Hah said.

“Instead of implementing the agreement, Myanmar’s military has continued to perpetrate grave human rights violations against the population of 54 million.”

In the latest example of its abusive treatment of the Myanmar people, the military executed four men in July after grossly unfair trails – the first executions since the 1980s – with more than 70 people on death row post-coup.

In research published in April, Amnesty International recorded increasing state repression in Myanmar, including shootings and beatings against many peaceful protesters. Testimonies indicated that plainclothes police officers are disguising themselves as fruit sellers and trishaw drivers to spy on anyone daring to express dissent. In retaliation against activists, the military has raided their homes and arrested their family members.

A report by Amnesty International published in July showed that the Myanmar military is committing war crimes by laying antipersonnel landmines on a massive scale in and around villages in Kayah (Karenni) State.

A further report published by Amnesty International on 2 August documented the Myanmar military’s use of torture tactics in detention, including inflicting sexual and gender-based violence and psychological torture. Amnesty’s investigation found that the Myanmar military also committed enforced disappearances and subjected detainees to torture and other ill-treatment in detention centres.

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Amnesty International deeply regrets the distress and anger that our press release on the Ukrainian military’s fighting tactics has caused. Since Russian’s invasion began in February 2022, Amnesty International has been rigorously documenting and reporting on war crimes and violations committed in Ukraine, speaking to hundreds of victims and survivors whose stories illuminate the brutal reality of Russia’s war of aggression. We have challenged the world to demonstrate its solidarity with Ukrainians through concrete action, and we will continue to do so.  

Amnesty International’s priority in this and in any conflict is ensuring that civilians are protected; indeed, this was our sole objective when releasing this latest piece of research. While we fully stand by our findings, we regret the pain caused and wish to clarify a few crucial points. 

In our press release, we documented how in all 19 of the towns and villages we visited, we found instances where Ukrainian forces had located themselves right next to where civilians were living, thereby potentially putting them at risk from incoming Russian fire. We made this assessment based on the rules of international humanitarian law (IHL), which require all parties to a conflict to avoid locating, to the maximum extent feasible, military objectives within or near densely populated areas. The laws of war exist in part to protect civilians, and it is for this reason that Amnesty International urges governments to comply with them. 

This does not mean that Amnesty International holds Ukrainian forces responsible for violations committed by Russian forces, nor that the Ukrainian military is not taking adequate precautions elsewhere in the country. 

We must be very clear: Nothing we documented Ukrainian forces doing in any way justifies Russian violations. Russia alone is responsible for the violations it has committed against Ukrainian civilians. Amnesty’s work over the last six months and our multiple briefings and reports on Russia’s violations and war crimes reflect their scale and the gravity of their impact on civilians. 

Amnesty International wrote to the Ukrainian government detailing our findings on 29 July. In our letter, we included GPS coordinates and other sensitive information about the locations, including schools and hospitals, where we had documented Ukrainian forces basing themselves among civilians. We did not make this information public in our press release due to the security risks it would pose to both Ukrainian forces and to the civilians we interviewed. 

Amnesty International is not attempting to give the Ukrainian military detailed instructions regarding how they should operate – but we call on the relevant authorities to abide by their international humanitarian obligations in full. 

Amnesty International’s priority will always be ensuring that civilians’ lives and human rights are protected during conflict.

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• Military bases set up in residential areas including schools and hospitals 
• Attacks launched from populated civilian areas
• Such violations in no way justify Russia’s indiscriminate attacks, which have killed and injured countless civilians

Ukrainian forces have put civilians in harm’s way by establishing bases and operating weapons systems in populated residential areas, including in schools and hospitals, as they repelled the Russian invasion that began in February, Amnesty International said today. 

Such tactics violate international humanitarian law and endanger civilians, as they turn civilian objects into military targets. The ensuing Russian strikes in populated areas have killed civilians and destroyed civilian infrastructure. 

“We have documented a pattern of Ukrainian forces putting civilians at risk and violating the laws of war when they operate in populated areas,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General. 

“Being in a defensive position does not exempt the Ukrainian military from respecting international humanitarian law.”

Not every Russian attack documented by Amnesty International followed this pattern, however. In certain other locations in which Amnesty International concluded that Russia had committed war crimes, including in some areas of the city of Kharkiv, the organization did not find evidence of Ukrainian forces located in the civilian areas unlawfully targeted by the Russian military.

Between April and July, Amnesty International researchers spent several weeks investigating Russian strikes in the Kharkiv, Donbas and Mykolaiv regions. The organization inspected strike sites; interviewed survivors, witnesses and relatives of victims of attacks; and carried out remote-sensing and weapons analysis. 

Throughout these investigations, researchers found evidence of Ukrainian forces launching strikes from within populated residential areas as well as basing themselves in civilian buildings in 19 towns and villages in the regions. The organization’s Crisis Evidence Lab has analyzed satellite imagery to further corroborate some of these incidents.

Most residential areas where soldiers located themselves were kilometres away from front lines. Viable alternatives were available that would not endanger civilians – such as military bases or densely wooded areas nearby, or other structures further away from residential areas. In the cases it documented, Amnesty International is not aware that the Ukrainian military who located themselves in civilian structures in residential areas asked or assisted civilians to evacuate nearby buildings – a failure to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians.

Launching strikes from populated civilian areas 

Survivors and witnesses of Russian strikes in the Donbas, Kharkiv and Mykolaiv regions told Amnesty International researchers that the Ukrainian military had been operating near their homes around the time of the strikes, exposing the areas to retaliatory fire from Russian forces. Amnesty International researchers witnessed such conduct in numerous locations.

International humanitarian law requires all parties to a conflict to avoid locating, to the maximum extent feasible, military objectives within or near densely populated areas. Other obligations to protect civilians from the effects of attacks include removing civilians from the vicinity of military objectives and giving effective warning of attacks that may affect the civilian population. 

The mother of a 50-year-old man killed in a rocket attack on 10 June in a village south of Mykolaiv told Amnesty International: “The military were staying in a house next to our home and my son often took food to the soldiers. I begged him several times to stay away from there because I was afraid for his safety. That afternoon, when the strike happened, my son was in the courtyard of our home and I was in the house. He was killed on the spot. His body was ripped to shreds. Our home was partially destroyed.” Amnesty International researchers found military equipment and uniforms at the house next door.

Mykola, who lives in a tower block in a neighbourhood of Lysychansk (Donbas) that was repeatedly struck by Russian attacks which killed at least one older man, told Amnesty International: “I don’t understand why our military is firing from the cities and not from the field.” Another resident, a 50-year-old man, said: “There is definitely military activity in the neighbourhood. When there is outgoing fire, we hear incoming fire afterwards.” Amnesty International researchers witnessed soldiers using a residential building some 20 metres from the entrance of the underground shelter used by the residents where the older man was killed.

In one town in Donbas on 6 May, Russian forces used widely banned and inherently indiscriminate cluster munitions over a neighbourhood of mostly single or two-storey homes where Ukrainian forces were operating artillery. Shrapnel damaged the walls of the house where Anna, 70, lives with her son and 95-year-old mother. 

Anna said: “Shrapnel flew through the doors. I was inside. The Ukrainian artillery was near my field… The soldiers were behind the field, behind the house… I saw them coming in and out… since the war started… My mother is… paralyzed, so I couldn’t flee.”

In early July, a farm worker was injured when Russian forces struck an agricultural warehouse in the Mykolaiv area. Hours after the strike, Amnesty International researchers witnessed the presence of Ukrainian military personnel and vehicles in the grain storage area, and witnesses confirmed that the military had been using the warehouse, located across the road from a farm where civilians are living and working.

While Amnesty International researchers were examining damage to residential and adjacent public buildings in Kharkiv and in villages in Donbas and east of Mykolaiv, they heard outgoing fire from Ukrainian military positions nearby.

In Bakhmut, several residents told Amnesty International that the Ukrainian military had been using a building barely 20 metres across the street from a residential high-rise building. On 18 May, a Russian missile struck the front of the building, partly destroying five apartments and damaging nearby buildings. Kateryna, a resident who survived the strike, said: “I didn’t understand what happened. [There were] broken windows and a lot of dust in my home… I stayed here because my mother didn’t want to leave. She has health problems.”

Three residents told Amnesty International that before the strike, Ukrainian forces had been using a building across the street from the bombed building, and that two military trucks were parked in front of another house that was damaged when the missile hit. Amnesty International researchers found signs of military presence in and outside the building, including sandbags and black plastic sheeting covering the windows, as well as new US-made trauma first aid equipment.

“We have no say in what the military does, but we pay the price,” a resident whose home was also damaged in the strike told Amnesty International.

Military bases in hospitals

Amnesty International researchers witnessed Ukrainian forces using hospitals as de facto military bases in five locations. In two towns, dozens of soldiers were resting, milling about, and eating meals in hospitals. In another town, soldiers were firing from near the hospital.

A Russian air strike on 28 April injured two employees at a medical laboratory in a suburb of Kharkiv after Ukrainian forces had set up a base in the compound.

Using hospitals for military purposes is a clear violation of international humanitarian law.

Military bases in schools

The Ukrainian military has routinely set up bases in schools in towns and villages in Donbas and in the Mykolaiv area. Schools have been temporarily closed to students since the conflict  began, but in most cases the buildings were located close to populated civilian neighbourhoods 

At 22 out of 29 schools visited, Amnesty International researchers either found soldiers using the premises or found evidence of current or prior military activity – including the presence of military fatigues, discarded munitions, army ration packets and military vehicles. 

Russian forces struck many of the schools used by Ukrainian forces. In at least three towns, after Russian bombardment of the schools, Ukrainian soldiers moved to other schools nearby, putting the surrounding neighbourhoods at risk of similar attacks.

In a town east of Odesa, Amnesty International witnessed a broad pattern of Ukrainian soldiers using civilian areas for lodging and as staging areas, including basing armoured vehicles under trees in purely residential neighbourhoods, and using two schools located in densely populated residential areas. Russian strikes near the schools killed and injured several civilians between April and late June – including a child and an older woman killed in a rocket attack on their home on 28 June. 

In Bakhmut, Ukrainian forces were using a university building as a base when a Russian strike hit on 21 May, reportedly killing seven soldiers. The university is adjacent to a high-rise residential building which was damaged in the strike, alongside other civilian homes roughly 50 metres away. Amnesty International researchers found the remains of a military vehicle in the courtyard of the bombed university building.

International humanitarian law does not specifically ban parties to a conflict from basing themselves in schools that are not in session. However, militaries have an obligation to avoid using schools that are near houses or apartment buildings full of civilians, putting these lives at risk, unless there is a compelling military need. If they do so, they should warn civilians and, if necessary, help them evacuate. This did not appear to have happened in the cases examined by Amnesty International. 

Armed conflicts seriously hamper children’s right to education, and military use of schools can result in destruction that further deprives children of this right once the war ends. Ukraine is one of 114 countries that have endorsed the Safe Schools Declaration, an agreement to protect education amid armed conflict, which allows parties to make use of abandoned or evacuated schools only where there is no viable alternative. 

Indiscriminate attacks by Russian forces 

Many of the Russian strikes that Amnesty International documented in recent months were carried out with inherently indiscriminate weapons, including internationally banned cluster munitions, or with other explosive weapons with wide area effects. Others used guided weapons with varying levels of accuracy; in some cases, the weapons were precise enough to target specific objects.

The Ukrainian military’s practice of locating military objectives within populated areas does not in any way justify indiscriminate Russian attacks. All parties to a conflict must at all times distinguish between military objectives and civilian objects and take all feasible precautions, including in choice of weapons, to minimize civilian harm. Indiscriminate attacks which kill or injure civilians or damage civilian objects are war crimes.

“The Ukrainian government should immediately ensure that it locates its forces away from populated areas, or should evacuate civilians from areas where the military is operating. Militaries should never use hospitals to engage in warfare, and should only use schools or civilian homes as a last resort when there are no viable alternatives,” said Agnès Callamard. 

Amnesty International contacted the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence with the findings of the research on 29 July 2022. At the time of publication, they had not yet responded.

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Responding to today’s decision by the Israeli Prison Service to renew the solitary confinement of Ahmad Manasra, a Palestinian prisoner who has developed serious mental health problems since his arrest as a child seven years ago, Heba Morayef, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, said:

“It is outrageous that the Israeli authorities have renewed Ahmad Manasra’s spell in solitary confinement. Continuing to detain Ahmad Manasra in such inhumane conditions is a callous act of injustice. Ahmad has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and is severely depressed.

“Ahmad Manasra was just 13 years old when he was arrested. The decision to detain him should always have been a measure of last resort and for the shortest possible time. Now, he is said to be a shadow of his former self and has threatened to take his own life. The Israeli authorities must immediately revoke their decision to renew his solitary confinement, and urgently release him from detention.”

On Wednesday the Israeli Prison Service rejected a request to move Manasra out of solitary confinement at Eshel prison. There will be a further hearing regarding his solitary conditions at Beersheba District Court on 16 August. His lawyer Khaled Zabarqa told Amnesty International: “He is in danger for his life, actual danger, and the repeated extensions of his solitary confinement are destroying him.”

Background

Manasra has been held in prolonged solitary confinement since November 2021, aside from a two month stay in hospital, after Israeli authorities claimed he is a danger to other prisoners. This is in breach of the absolute prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Manasra was arrested in October 2015 over the stabbing of two Israelis in Pisgat Zeev, an illegal Israeli settlement in occupied East Jerusalem. He was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to nine years and five months in prison despite being only 13 years old at the time of his arrest and the court finding that he did not take part in the stabbings. He was also questioned with no lawyer or a parent present and subjected to alleged torture or other ill-treatment during the interrogation. Amnesty International is not aware of any investigations into the conduct of security officers.

A request from Manasra’s family calling for his early release was rejected, even though he has already served two-thirds of his sentence. Under Israeli law, those convicted of murder, rape and child abuse are eligible for their sentences to be commuted by a third. Prosecutors say he is ineligible for early release because he was convicted of “terrorist acts” —under a law enacted after he was first detained.

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The international community must hold the Iranian authorities to account for the torrent of violence which their security forces unleashed on protesters in the south-west of Iran in May 2022 with complete impunity, Amnesty International said today. 

The organization’s new research briefing “They are shooting brazenly”: Iran’s militarized response to May 2022 protests documents how Iran’s security forces unlawfully fired live ammunition and birdshot in May 2022 to crush largely peaceful protests over soaring food prices and a deadly building collapse.

Amnesty International verified that four people were killed in connection with the protests and documented a pattern of birdshot injuries amounting to torture amongst protesters and bystanders, including children. The authorities imposed internet shutdowns and mobile network disruptions to block peoples’ ability to communicate with each other and to conceal their crimes. 

“In May, people took to the streets in cities across the south-west of Iran to protest rising food prices and demand justice for the victims of a deadly building collapse. The authorities’ militarized response laid bare once again their utter disregard to the sanctity of human life and international legal standards on the use of force and firearms,” said Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

“Rightful outrage among people in Iran about state corruption, inflation, unemployment, low or unpaid wages, food insecurity, as well as political repression is likely to lead to more protests, and Iran’s security forces will continue to feel emboldened to kill and injure protesters if they are not held accountable. With avenues for justice completely closed domestically, Amnesty International reiterates the urgent need for the UN Human Rights Council to establish an independent investigative and accountability mechanism to collect, consolidate, preserve, and analyse evidence of the most serious crimes under international law committed in Iran to enable future prosecutions.”

To investigate the authorities’ unlawful use of force, Amnesty International reviewed and analysed extensive video footage, official statements and state media reports, and spoke to human rights defenders and journalists in contact with affected individuals and communities.

Unlawful use of force and documented deaths

Amnesty International found that Iran’s security forces demonstrated a total disregard for the principles of legality, necessity and proportionality in crushing widespread protests over soaring food prices that erupted in Khuzestan province in early May and then spread to Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province, both in south-west Iran, between 12 and 17 May. 

Audiovisual evidence examined by the organization’s Crisis Evidence Lab indicates that security forces fired weapons loaded with live ammunition and birdshot on multiple occasions during the protests. 

At least three people, Behrouz Eslami, Jamshid Mokhtari and Sa’adat Hadipour were killed in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province in connection with the protests between 14 and 17 May. Another person, Hamid Ghasempour, was critically injured on 13 May and a local resident reported that he died shortly afterwards, but Amnesty International was unable to obtain corroborating information. A member of parliament also reported on 15 May the death of an unnamed person in Khuzestan province, in connection with the protests over rising food prices. 

The authorities’ militarized response laid bare once again their utter disregard to the sanctity of human life and international legal standards on the use of force and firearms.

Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International

While a minority of protesters engaged in stone-throwing and acts of arson and vandalism, security forces responded with unnecessary or excessive force, preventing the vast majority of protesters who remained peaceful in exercising their right to freedom of peaceful assembly and expression. In all the video footage reviewed by Amnesty International, protesters posed no imminent threat of death or serious injury to security forces or others, which is the threshold required for the use of lethal force under international standards. 

In separate widespread protests between 23 and 31 May 2022 in the city of Abadan, Khuzestan province, following the deadly collapse of an unfinished building that killed dozens of people, the authorities unleashed force, wholly unlawfully as protests were peaceful in nature. This involved security forces firing shotguns at crowds of grieving protesters. In at least one video examined by Amnesty International, audible shots were likely from discharging live ammunition.

Torture and other ill-treatment

Security forces unlawfully fired birdshot in both sets of protests, injuring protesters and bystanders. Videos reviewed by Amnesty International show classic spray patterns of birdshot wounds to the backs, buttocks, legs and/or heads of those injured. 

Birdshot is inherently indiscriminate and designed to cause a level of widespread harm that is always unnecessary and excessive for the achievement of legitimate objectives and their use violates the prohibition on torture and other ill-treatment.  

Reviewed footage also shows security forces beating a woman and a restrained man, and misusing tear gas and water cannon to disperse peaceful protesters.

International action needed for cycles of protest bloodshed

The Iranian authorities’ unlawful use of force during the crackdown on the May 2022 protests reflects increasing militarization of the policing of protests in recent years, which has left hundreds of protesters and bystanders, including children, dead and thousands of others injured since December 2017. 

This is fuelled by the country’s crisis of systemic impunity where crimes under international law and other serious human rights violations, including extrajudicial executions and other unlawful killings by security forces, have gone uninvestigated and unpunished. 

Amnesty International echoes the concerns of the UN Special Rapporteur on Iran that given the absence of conditions for accountability at the domestic level, the international community must respond to the “alarmingly high numbers of injuries and deaths” and fulfil its “important role in ensuring accountability”.

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