Kategorie: Humans

Ahead of the prosecutor’s appeal tomorrow against the decision to acquit three women charged with “offending religious beliefs” for possessing and distributing posters depicting the Virgin Mary with an LGBTI rainbow halo, Amnesty International’s Senior Campaigner for Europe, Catrinel Motoc, said:

“This case is emblematic of a number of disturbing anti-human rights trends in Poland. Not only is space for free expression, activism and peaceful protest shrinking, but the climate of homophobia in the country is worsening amid an increase in hate crimes, the introduction of LGBTI free zones by local councils and attempts to ban Pride Marches.

“It is bitterly ironic that an act of peaceful activism intended to highlight these trends has led to these three women human rights defenders being dragged through the courts with the threat of up to two years in jail hanging over their heads.

“The women have already been acquitted by courts earlier in March however the authorities are continuing this witch-hunt. Instead of prosecuting these activists for making rainbow posters, the Polish authorities should be respecting and protecting the rights of LGBTI people who face an increasingly repressive climate of state-sponsored homophobia. This appeal smacks of harassment and intimidation and the case should be dropped.”

BACKGROUND

In March 2021, Elżbieta, Anna and Joanna were acquitted of “offending religious beliefs” under article 196 of the Criminal Code (C.C.) in relation to the use of posters depicting the Virgin Mary with a rainbow halo symbolic of the LGBTI flag around her head and shoulders.

They were acquitted by the first instance court, but the prosecutor’s appeal brought them to court again, with the hearing scheduled on 8 December 2021.

Article 196 provides overly broad scope for the authorities to prosecute and criminalize individuals, in violation of their right to freedom of expression. As such, it is incompatible with Poland’s international and regional human rights obligations.

The authorities arrested Elżbieta in 2019 after she took a trip abroad with Amnesty International campaigners. The authorities opened an initial investigation against her in May 2019. In July 2020, the authorities officially charged the three activists, alleging that the posters “publicly insulted an object of religious worship in the form of this image which offended the religious feelings of others”.

In November 2020, Amnesty International, Campaign Against Homophobia, Freemuse, Front Line Defenders, Human Rights Watch and ILGA-Europe sent a Joint Public Statement urging the Prosecutor General to drop the charges and ensure that the three women are allowed to carry out their human rights work without harassment and reprisals.

More than 275,000 people have joined Amnesty International’s campaign urging the Polish Prosecutor General to drop the unfounded charges against the three women human rights activists.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL WILL BE AT THE HEARING
For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact: Stefan Simanowitz at press@amnesty.org

Or contact Sarian Jarosz, Amnesty Poland, sarian.jarosz@amnesty.org.pl

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At a recent demonstration outside the White House calling for the closure of the US military prison at the Guantánamo Bay naval base, a teenager approached a colleague to ask what the protest was all about. He told her he had never heard of the detention facility.

It’s been 20 years and four presidential administrations since Guantánamo opened, but for those born since then its terrifying stories sound more like the plot of a fictitious horror film. It is a disgraceful legacy we simply cannot pass on to future generations.

Opened in response to the September 11 attacks, Guantánamo has held almost 780 Muslim men and boys. Before their indefinite detention in Guantanamo, many were abducted, disappeared and brutally tortured in US-run secret prisons or by so-called allies in the “war on terror”. In Guantanamo, they were tortured, very few charged with crimes, and none given a fair trial. Kafkaesque military commissions set up to try them have proven ineffectual and unfair, denying defendants an impartial arbiter and access to critical evidence and victims their right to justice. Meanwhile, families of 9/11 victims have waited in vain for justice.

Amnesty International and many others around the world have doggedly campaigned to close the prison since its inception. President Biden, like Obama before him, has promised to close it, but so far has failed to do so. The Biden administration transferred one detainee out of the facility last July but has yet to reestablish the special envoy office in the State Department dedicated to the prison’s closure. On the contrary, the administration has just announced plans to build a new courtroom at Guantánamo to continue the work by the military commissions – the very opposite of a blueprint to shut the place down.

It is not only about closing Guantanamo. It is also about delivering accountability for the violations committed within its settings. Last year we heard former detainees like Majid Khan, Abu Zubayda, and Mohamedou Salahi describing their abuse at US-operated “black sites” abroad and in Guantánamo. The torture inflicted upon Salahi, who is now a bestselling-author and human rights defender, was portrayed in The Mauritanian, while Khan described enduring stress positions, beatings, force feeding using tubes tipped with hot sauce, and sodomy with a garden hose.

Guantánamo is an indelible stain on the United States’ history, a chapter it must now close and never repeat

Dr. Agnes Callamard

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled in civil cases against Italy, Lithuania, Macedonia, Poland and Romania for their complicity in the torture and enforced disappearance of people in the context of US rendition and secret detention programs, but there has never been any meaningful accountability in the United States. From those who authorized torture at the highest levels of the government to those who carried out the illegal “enhanced interrogation techniques,” no one has ever been held responsible for the crimes committed. This should begin with the declassification and full release of the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s report on CIA torture.

Thirty-nine men remain in Guantánamo. Thirteen are still under indefinite detention, despite having been approved for transfer out – some over a decade ago. Twelve face charges in the military commissions, while the other 14 are living in a hellish limbo: not yet cleared for a transfer, yet never charged with a crime. Their plight is a relic of the overriding principles that have prevailed at Guantánamo since its inception – cruelty and arbitrariness.

The US government must take swift action to right this wrong: commit to the resolution of each detainee’s case, through their transfer and release without further delay and in accordance with international law. Or if there is sufficient admissible evidence under international law to prosecute internationally recognizable criminal offences this must be done through fair judicial resolution before a regularly constituted federal court without recourse to the death penalty.

Guantánamo is an indelible stain on the United States’ history, a chapter it must now close and never repeat. President Biden owes it to all of us – those who have experienced or watched Guantánamo with horror over the years, and new and future generations just now learning about it – to shut it down once and for all.

Agnes Callamard is the Secretary General of Amnesty International

This article was originally published in Al Jazeera

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The military prison at Guantánamo Bay continues to facilitate grave violations of human rights by the US government. Ahead of the 20^th anniversary of the military prison’s opening on January 11, 2002, Daphne Eviatar, Director of the Security with Human Rights Program at Amnesty International USA, said:

“This is an anniversary that should never have been reached. Since the Bush administration, there has been agreement among national security experts and across the political spectrum that the Guantánamo prison – a notorious site of torture and unjustifiable indefinite detention – should be closed.

“President Biden must uphold his commitment to close Guantánamo once and for all. The longer the prison remains in use, the longer it continues to undermine U.S. credibility globally on human rights.”

Background

Twenty years after its establishment at an offshore military base in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, Guantánamo continues to hold 39 Muslim men in blatant perpetuation of Islamophobia and racism. None of the men detained have received a fair trial and they continue to be detained indefinitely in violation of due process of law and other internationally recognized human rights.

The Guantánamo military commissions have failed to bring justice to the victims and survivors of the 9/11 attacks, while denying due process to the accused.

Amnesty International USA is sponsoring a range of public events and actions designed to urge President Biden to close the Guantánamo prison this year.

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Reacting to a televised address this morning (7 January) by Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev calling for security forces to “fire without warning” at any further disturbances following the recent mass protests and violence, Marie Struthers, Amnesty International’s Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, said:

“The Kazakhstani authorities have a duty to maintain order, but giving blanket approval for police officers and troops to fire without warning is unlawful and a recipe for disaster. It could pave the way for knee-jerk reactions that result in unlawful killings. Unless this order is immediately and clearly revoked, Kazakhstan’s already abysmal human rights record and the ongoing crisis which it has produced are set to get worse.

The Kazakhstani authorities have a duty to maintain order, but giving blanket approval for police officers and troops to fire without warning is unlawful and a recipe for disaster. It could pave the way for knee-jerk reactions that result in unlawful killings.

Marie Struthers, Amnesty International’s Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia

“Under international law, police officers should only ever use lethal force as a last resort. It can only be used when it is strictly necessary, either to protect themselves or others from an imminent threat of death or serious injury, and only if all other options to de-escalate the situation have failed.

“When the use of force and firearms are strictly necessary, the relevant UN principles are clear. Security forces must always give clear warning when they are about to open fire – the exception being where doing so would put themselves or others at risk. Not doing so increases the risk of innocent bystanders being seriously injured or killed. This blanket order not to provide warning is extremely dangerous and alludes to a policy of ‘kill first, think later’.

“The presence of violent individuals or groups does not remove the Kazakhstani security forces’ obligation to protect the right to peaceful assembly.”

Background

On 2 January, protests erupted in the Mangystau Region in south-east Kazakhstan over gas price hikes, before spreading into several other major cities, including the biggest city, Almaty.

The protests gradually turned violent, with crowds storming and setting fire to the Almaty city administration’s office, and looting firearms from law enforcement agencies. In response, police fired tear gas and stun grenades at the protesters, and later used firearms. There are videos and eyewitness testimonies that provide evidence of security forces openly firing live ammunition at crowds, including near Almaty’s Republic Square on 6 January.

The authorities have also restricted the internet and other means of communication and warned all media against “violating” Kazakhstan’s unduly restrictive media law. Communication with people in Kazakhstan, and particularly in Almaty, is severely disrupted, and intermittent at best.

The Ministry of the Interior has said that over 3,800 people have been arrested, and confirmed hundreds of injuries and 26 deaths among protesters and officers. The number of protester deaths is likely to be much higher, given that earlier activists and the police were quoted speaking of “tens” of casualties, and President Tokayev spoke of “hundreds”.

Police arbitrarily detained and questioned at least two senior journalists from the RFE/RL’s local Azzattyk radio service on 4 January, and other media workers since.

On 5 January, Kazakhstan’s government requested military assistance from Russia and its other regional allies in the Collective Security Treaty Organization, who promised to provide collectively close to 3,000 troops, purportedly to restore order following the violence and address an unspecified external “threat”.

For years, the authorities have repressed the basic rights of the Kazakhstani people by not only banning peaceful protest but also opposition political parties. Numerous peaceful protest leaders, human rights defenders, bloggers and others have been arrested and imprisoned following unfair trials. In 2011, at least 14 protesters were killed after police cracked down on a demonstration in Zhanaozen. The event has not been fully and effectively investigated.

Under international law and standards law enforcement must only use firearms as a last resort where it is necessary to protect themselves or others from an imminent threat to life or of serious injury.

The UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials provide that: “law enforcement officials shall identify themselves as such and give a clear warning of their intent to use firearms, with sufficient time for the warning to be observed, unless to do so would unduly place the law enforcement officials at risk or would create a risk of death or serious harm to other persons, or would be clearly inappropriate or pointless in the circumstances of the incident.”

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Confirming that Amnesty International has independently confirmed that Pegasus spyware was used to hack Polish senator, Krzysztof Brejza, when he was running the opposition’s 2019 parliamentary election campaign, Amnesty International Poland’s Director Anna Błaszczak, said:

“These findings are shocking but not surprising. They raise serious concerns not only for politicians, but for the whole Poland’s civil society in general, particularly given the context of the government’s record of persistently subverting human rights and the rule of law.

“Activists and protesters, have been targeted through criminal investigations, undermining the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. Meanwhile judges and prosecutors who raised concerns over the lack of independence of the judiciary face disciplinary and even criminal investigations.

“Despite media reports that the Israeli government stopped exports of the NSO software to a group of countries including Poland, this does not seem to have affected existing licences and the use of Pegasus in Poland.

“These revelations demonstrate yet again why there is an urgent need for a commitment from governments to stop any forms of surveillance that breaches human rights and the need for a global moratorium on the export, sale, transfer and use of surveillance equipment, until a robust human rights-compliant regulatory framework is in place.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION – Contact Stefan Simanowitz press@amnesty.org

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