Kategorie: Humans

Leaders have catastrophically betrayed humanity at large by failing to protect people most affected by the climate crisis and instead caving into the interests of fossil fuel and other powerful corporations, Amnesty International said today as the climate conference, COP26, concludes for another year.  Following two weeks of negotiations by world leaders in Glasgow, Amnesty’s Secretary General, Agnès Callamard, said:

The United Nations Climate Change Conference has failed to deliver an outcome that protects the planet or people. Instead it has betrayed the very foundations on which the United Nations was built – a pledge first not to countries, nor states, but to the people. Throughout their negotiations, our leaders have made choices that ignore, chip away or bargain away our rights as human beings, often discarding the most marginalised communities around the world as expendable collateral damage.

Amnesty International's Secretary General Agnès Callamard

“Their failure to commit to maintaining the global temperature rise at 1.5°C will condemn more than half a billion people, mostly in the global south, to insufficient water and hundreds of millions of people to extreme heatwaves. Despite this disastrous scenario, wealthy countries have failed to commit money towards compensating communities suffering loss and damage as a result of climate change. Neither have they committed to providing climate finance to developing countries primarily as grants, a decision that threatens poorer countries – the least equipped to cope with the climate crisis – with unsustainable levels of debt.

“It is bitterly disappointing to see the many loopholes in the COP26 agreement which bow to the interests of fossil fuel corporates rather than our rights. The agreement fails to call for the phasing out of all fossil fuels and all fossil fuel subsidies – demonstrating the lack of ambition and bold action needed at this critical time. In addition, the focus on carbon offsetting by rich countries, without even putting in place adequate environmental and human rights protection measures, ignores the threat to Indigenous peoples and communities who risk being evicted from their land to make way for these schemes. It is a hollow and unacceptable substitute for real zero emissions targets. 

The decisions made by our leaders in Glasgow have grave consequences for all of humanity. As they have clearly forgotten the people they serve, the people must come together to show them what can be achieved. Over the next 12 months, we must stand together to call on our governments to take ambitious action on climate change that puts people and human rights at its centre. If we do not put our hearts and minds into solving this existential threat to humanity, we lose everything.”

Agnes Callamard

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Security forces in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, have targeted Tigrayans, including children and the elderly, with arbitrary arrests and mass detentions as part of an escalating crackdown, Amnesty International said today. Most detainees are being held without charge or access to a lawyer.

These mass arrests have instilled such a climate of fear that Tigrayans that Amnesty International has spoken to are scared they could be rounded up any time in Addis Ababa

Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International's Director for East and Southern Africa

The arrests have intensified since the government declared a state of emergency 10 days ago as fighters from the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) took control of strategic towns in Amhara region some 400 km from Addis Ababa. Arrests are conducted through house-to-house searches by security forces with support from vigilante groups who check the IDs of people on the street. Detainees, including civil servants, Orthodox priests and a lawyer are being held in youth centres and other informal detention centres across Addis Ababa because police stations are overflowing.

“These mass arrests have instilled such a climate of fear that Tigrayans that Amnesty International has spoken to are scared they could be rounded up any time. Those currently locked up have not been charged or brought before a court and many have been targeted purely on the basis of their ethnicity,” said Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International’s Director for East and Sothern Africa.

“The authorities must ensure that families are informed of the whereabouts and status of all detainees and that anyone deprived of their liberty has access to lawyers and family members without delay.”

The government declared a state of emergency on 2 November, which was adopted by parliament on 4 November. The state of emergency allows the authorities to arrest and detain anyone without a warrant if there is “reasonable suspicion” of cooperation with “terrorist groups”, and to detain them without judicial review for as long as the proclamation is in place, currently for six months. Some of the measures violate international human rights law, which prohibits arbitrary detention and discrimination in all circumstances.

Amnesty International has interviewed eight people – families, friends and lawyers of detainees – who have reported seeing hundreds of Tigrayans detained in six different locations. While it is currently impossible to establish the exact number of detainees, they number hundreds and potentially thousands.

Those currently locked up have not been charged or brought before a court and many have been targeted purely on the basis of their ethnicity

Deprose Muchena

A few family members and friends have had limited and irregular access to detainees. However, many have been denied access to a lawyer. Moreover, interviewees told Amnesty International that the police have transferred some of the detainees to places on the outskirts of Addis Ababa. 

Two Tigrayan lawyers interviewed by Amnesty International said that they were expecting a knock at the door at any time by security forces, and had their bags packed with a spare set of clothes.

The United Nations has announced that its staff members are among those arrested in Addis Ababa in addition to 72 UN truck drivers arrested in Semera, Afar.  

The Ethiopian government must immediately end ethnically motivated arbitrary arrests and amend the state of emergency proclamation to bring it in line with international law

Deprose Muchena

Since the conflict started a year ago between the TPLF and federal government forces, thousands of people have been killed and more than 2 million forced from their homes. Parties to the conflict have been responsible for war crimes and horrific human rights abuses including widespread rape and sexual violence and massacres of unarmed civilians.

“The Ethiopian government must immediately end ethnically motivated arbitrary arrests and amend the state of emergency proclamation to bring it in line with international law,” said Deprose Muchena.

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Reacting to news that Russian prosecutors have requested the judicial liquidation of the prominent human rights group International Memorial, and its sister organization Human Rights Centre Memorial, Marie Struthers, Eastern Europe and Central Asia Director at Amnesty International, said:

“The Russian authorities’ move to extinguish one of the oldest and most influential human rights groups in the country demonstrates their relentless determination to end all ongoing human rights work in Russia. By targeting Memorial and its mission to preserve the memory of victims of human rights violations during the Soviet era, the authorities believe they can simply erase the state’s past crimes against its own people from the history books forever.”

The Russian authorities’ move to extinguish one of the oldest and most influential human rights groups in the country demonstrates their relentless determination to end all ongoing human rights work in Russia

Marie Struthers, Eastern Europe and Central Asia Director at Amnesty International

“The Prosecutor General’s Office is claiming that, by not marking its publications with the toxic and stigmatizing ‘foreign agent’ label, International Memorial is in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, among others. This claim is absurd and unfounded as NGOs cannot actually violate international treaties, rather, states do. If the prosecutor’s office—and Russian authorities in general—indeed stood guard over these pillars of international human rights law, Russia would be a vastly different place today.

“The ‘foreign agents’ law is being weaponized to muzzle not only critics of the Kremlin but all independent voices entirely. By accusing Memorial of ‘glorifying terrorism and extremism’, the Prosecutor General’s Office betrays a level of cynicism that is beyond belief.

“The Russian authorities must immediately end the reprisals against Memorial and bring Russia’s legislation regulating associations in line with the international human rights law and standards, including by repealing the ‘foreign agents’ law.”

The Russian authorities must immediately end the reprisals against Memorial and bring Russia’s legislation regulating associations in line with the international human rights law and standards

Marie Struthers, Eastern Europe and Central Asia Director at Amnesty International

Background

On 11 November, it became known that three days earlier the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office had requested the Supreme Court to liquidate Memorial International. The next day, its sister organization, Memorial Human Rights Centre, announced that a similar move had been made against it by the Moscow Prosecutor’s Office.

The Supreme Court will consider the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office on 25 November. The date of the hearing in the Moscow City Court is not yet known.

Among the oldest and most respected human rights groups in Russia, the twin Memorial organizations started operating in 1988 during the wave of perestroika reforms. The Soviet dissident and Nobel Peace Prize winner Andrei Sakharov was the first chair of Memorial until his death in 1989.

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Responding to the sentencing of American journalist Danny Fenster to a combined 11 years in prison, Ming Yu Hah, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for Campaigns, said:

“This is a reprehensible outcome in a case that has been deeply flawed from the start. Danny should have never been arrested in the first place and to sentence him to a combined 11 years shows how far Myanmar authorities are willing to go to signal that they do not respect independent media in the country or the impact on family members of those wrongly imprisoned.” 

“Danny has done nothing wrong, but has somehow been charged with multiple alleged offences that are completely out of touch with reality and his work as an independent journalist. The court also ignored reams of evidence showing where he worked and records of his time in the country. He should be immediately and unconditionally freed and all charges dropped.”

“Danny is a prisoner of conscience. His liberty was taken away from him cruelly and unjustly, solely for doing his work as a journalist and exercising his right to freedom of speech.”

“His case has illustrated the enormous increase in risks and challenges faced by journalists in Myanmar since the military seized power on February 1. But despite internet blackouts, legal threats and detentions, they continue to courageously report on the dire situation in Myanmar.”

Background

A court in Yangon sentenced 37-year-old Danny Fenster to 11 years in prison on Friday, according to his employer Frontier Myanmar, where he is the managing editor.

He was arrested on 24 May as he tried to board a flight out of the country, which has been in turmoil since the military coup earlier this year.

The three charges for which he was sentenced on 12 November relate to an alleged immigration offence, incitement, and unlawful association with an illegal group. He was given the maximum sentence under each charge, according to his employer, which said there was no basis for the allegations.

Since the coup the military authorities have arrested, detained, prosecuted and imprisoned dozens of journalists, stripped media outlets of their licenses, and erased years of press freedom gains. 

Amnesty International calls on the authorities in Myanmar to release journalists imprisoned simply for their work and the peaceful exercise of their human rights.

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A ban on songs deemed to be critical of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s government has highlighted the need to urgently repeal censorship regulations that have been used to curb freedom of expression in the country, Amnesty International said today.

That the DRC authorities have resorted to censorship to clamp down on artistic freedom is a chilling reminder that artists continue to risk being silenced for their dissent

Flavia Mwangovya, Amnesty International's Deputy Director for East Africa, Horn and the Great Lakes

DRC’s National Censorship Commission banned the broadcasting of seven songs on 9 November only to lift the ban on the most popular among them, “Nini To Sali Te” (What Have We Not Done, in Lingala), a day later following public outcry. However, the ban on the six other songs remains in place.

“That the DRC authorities have resorted to censorship to clamp down on artistic freedom is a chilling reminder that artists continue to risk being silenced for their dissent,” said Flavia Mwangovya, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for East Africa, Horn and the Great Lakes.

“The authorities must immediately repeal the 1996 decree which allows banning of any artistic expression that is not to its liking. Authorities must immediately repeal this problematic piece of legislation and ensure that artists can exercise their right to freedom of expression without interference.”

Two of these songs – “Nini Tosali Te” by Kinshasa-based group Musique Populaire de la Révolution (MPR) and “Lettre à Ya Tshitshi” by musician Bob Masudi, aka Bob Elvis, criticized increasing social injustices in the DRC, including unemployment, hunger, killings of civilians, lack of clean water and access to healthcare. Tshitshi is the nickname of President Felix Tshisekedi’s late father Etienne Tshisekedi, a key opposition figure, and the song laments the current political system under his son.

The songs also denounced the government’s failure to ensure people can enjoy their human rights and blamed the political elite for incompetence and corruption. The decision to ban them is a violation of DRC’s international obligations under international and regional standards, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. 

The authorities must immediately repeal the 1996 decree which allows banning of any artistic expression that is not to its liking

Flavia Mwangovya

Although the National Censorship Commission’s was ordered by the Minister of Justice to repeal the decision to ban one of the songs following a public backlash, Amnesty International believes that the 1996 decree will be used again unless it is done away with.

“Artistic freedom is not a crime. Authorities must stop silencing artists and allow free speech to thrive,” said Flavia Mwangovya.

Background

The National Censorship Commission banned the songs on 9 November. The decision was later reversed at the request of the Minister of Justice, Rose Mutombo, on 10 November.

The 1996 decree, which provides for content regulation by the commission before any song is released to the public, or any show is performed in public and imposes a financial burden on artists (of up to $500 per song), does not have a clear framework or clear standards, does not provide remedies and falls short of international standards.

While it is supposed to ensure that songs and shows do not violate the law, security, public order, and morals (with no clear definition), it has often been used to suppress dissenting voices.

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