Kategorie: Humans

Singapore must halt plans to execute a Malaysian man who is due to be hanged next week on drug charges, Amnesty International said today.

Nagaenthran K Dharmalingam is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday 10 November.

“There is still time for Singapore to change course and stop this unlawful execution from taking place. Taking people’s lives is a cruel act in itself but to hang a person convicted merely of carrying drugs, amid chilling testimony that he might not even fully understand what is happening to him, is despicable,” said Rachel Chhoa-Howard, Amnesty International’s Singapore Researcher.

Over the years, medical experts who assessed Nagaenthran have found that he has borderline functioning intelligence and concurrent cognitive deficits. The UN body on the Convention of Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), to which Singapore is a party, has stated that the imposition of the death penalty on people whose mental and intellectual disabilities may have impeded their effective defence is prohibited.

“We urge the authorities to immediately halt plans to execute Nagaenthran. There are grave concerns that there have been multiple violations of international human rights in his case, from the mandatory death penalty to its imposition for drug-related offences and concerns on the fairness of the proceedings, which would render his execution unlawful,” Rachel Chhoa-Howard said. 

“As a petition signed by tens of thousands of people shows, Singapore is once again on the wrong side of history with its draconian drug laws and policies, which have failed to tackle drug dependence in the country. It is high time Singapore halted all executions and abolished this inhumane punishment once and for all.”

Background

Nagaenthran K Dharmalingam was convicted and sentenced to the mandatory death penalty in November 2010 for importing 42.72 grams of diamorphine (heroin) into the island state in April 2009. His conviction and death sentence were upheld on appeal.

Singapore has some of the harshest drug laws in the world. But since 2013 judges have had more sentencing discretion in cases where the role of the defendant was limited to transportation (“courier”) if the public prosecutor issues a certificate of substantive assistance; or for those with mental or intellectual disabilities that substantially impaired their mental responsibility for their acts and omissions in relation to the offence. In 2015, Nagaenthran applied to be resentenced to life imprisonment. But while he qualified as “courier” the prosecutor did not issue him the certificate of substantive assistance, leading to the confirmation of his mandatory death sentence in September 2017.

Medical experts who have assessed Nagaenthran found that his cognitive deficits “may have contributed toward his misdirected loyalty and poor assessment of the risks in agreeing to carry out the offence”. The Court of Appeal dismissed the concern, stating that his “alleged deficiency in assessing risks might have made him more prone to engage in risky behaviour; that, however, does not in any way diminish his culpability.”

Authorities notified Nagaenthran’s family, who live in Malaysia, of the planned execution by a letter dated 26 October. Because of restrictions in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Nagaenthran has not been able to see members of his family for over two years. It is only now that up to five family members are allowed to travel and visit the prison. But activists have highlighted how ongoing Covid-19 related restrictions and quarantine requirements have added financial and logistical challenges to an already inherently cruel and painful process.

On 3 November, Nagaenthran’s youngest brother told activists of his concerns about his brother’s mental state and understanding of his imminent execution when he was able to visit him in prison.

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception. As of today, 108 countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes and more than two-thirds are abolitionist in law or practice.

The post Singapore: Halt ‘despicable’ and unlawful execution of Malaysian national appeared first on Amnesty International.

The virtual world is probably a much-needed escape for Mark Zuckerberg these days given the crisis engulfing Facebook in the real world. However, the noise surrounding the company’s rebrand to Meta must not distract from the actual harms the company continues to cause.

The last week has seen an avalanche of media stories about Facebook, with more revelations from the ‘Facebook Papers’ leaked by whistle-blower Frances Haugen. The latest stories highlight the internal workings of Facebook, including how much the company knows about the harms its products cause and how decisions have been made to put profits over the human rights of users. Many of the stories have made Facebook’s lack of action to prevent and mitigate these harms a focal point.

The media coverage encompasses a huge range of topics – however, they are all linked to the same underlying problem: Facebook’s surveillance-based business model predicated on human rights abuse.

Facebook’s business model, and particularly it’s reliance on surveillance advertising, demands more and more users, more and more engagement (regardless of whether the content is violent or extreme) to gather more and more data, to micro-target users with ads. These demands have been at the core of the company’s repeated decisions to choose growth over human rights and user safety.

A report in the Washington Post alleged that CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally intervened in decisions which had disastrous real world consequences – such as when Facebook complied with the Vietnamese government’s demands to censor anti-government dissidents.  Just months before intervening in Vietnam, Zuckerberg gave a speech at Georgetown university where he said he believed Facebook “must continue to stand for free expression.”

In 2018, Amnesty estimated that Facebook earns more than $1 billion in revenue in Vietnam – protecting Vietnamese users’ right to free speech would have come at a significant cost to the company. A Facebook transparency report showed that after Zuckerberg agreed to the censorship of anti-government posts, more than 2,200 posts by Vietnamese users were blocked between July and December 2020 compared with 834 in the previous 6 months.

Facebook has long known about its platforms’ problems – including the proliferation of hate speech and disinformation which has led to devastating real-life consequences in the US, India, Myanmar and Sri Lanka. What the Facebook Papers appear to show is that the company’s lack of action on platform harms isn’t just the result of a lack of knowledge, but in some instances a deliberate choice to continue to operate in a way that benefits the surveillance-based business model.

These harms are global in scale – and particularly prevalent in the Global South. However, according to the Verge, Facebook has a tier list, in which some countries are given more importance than others. Brazil, India, and the USA are in “tier zero”, the highest priority. Germany, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, and Italy were placed in “tier one”. 22 countries make up “tier two” – the rest of the world was placed in “tier three”, with minimal resources dedicated to them.

This shows that the company only acts where political pressure is the highest and where it is most profitable for them to act, leaving millions of users in the Global South unprotected and exposed to harmful, extreme and hateful content often leading to real world hate and violence, such as in Ethiopia where Facebook has failed to curb the spread of posts inciting violence against ethnic minorities. And to make matters worse, the company knows about all these negative effects of its services on people’s lives but they don’t want to fix these problems because their priority lies in increasing their profits.

Allocating resources in this way means that Facebook is systematically deprioritizing the company’s impacts on human rights in the Global South. Contrary to the claims of Facebook’s human rights director, it is difficult to see how such an approach could be in line with the standards of the UN’s Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which require business to ensure they respect human rights throughout their operations – and address harms wherever they occur in the world.  

The Facebook Papers show us that there are people inside Facebook who have been alarmed by the findings of the internal research and have tried to push the company to do the right thing. However, their concerns – and proposed solutions – have repeatedly been ignored.

Ultimately, we should not need to rely on former and current Facebook employees to push the company to make changes – it is the duty of governments to force Facebook to overhaul its business model and respect human rights, including by moving away from advertising based on pervasive tracking and infinite data-gathering.

 The deluge of stories that make up the Facebook Papers are best understood as a catalogue of the company’s failures to make its platforms safer. They paint a picture of a company with enormous power: to influence how we feel, to change what we think, and to shape the world. But it also shows us a company that cannot be trusted to put the rights and wellbeing of its users before profits. We know that Facebook’s services are vital – that is why we can no longer accept compromising our human rights to access them.

As Frances Haugen pointed out during her US Senate testimony “when we knew tobacco companies were hiding the harms it caused, the government took action. When we figured out cars were safer with seatbelts, the government took action.”

We know that Facebook’s surveillance-based business model is causing harm across the world, even if Mark Zuckerberg continues to deny this reality

The solution is clear: governments must regulate to ban surveillance advertising and hold Big Tech to account.

The post The Facebook Papers: What do they mean from a human rights perspective? appeared first on Amnesty International.

A Chinese citizen journalist jailed for reporting on the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic in Wuhan is at risk of dying if she is not urgently released to receive medical treatment, Amnesty International said today.

Zhang Zhan, who was sentenced to four years in prison in December for posting on social media about China’s handling of the outbreak, has been on hunger strike in protest at her incarceration. Her family say they do not expect her to live through the winter if she is not released on medical grounds.

“Zhang Zhan, who should never have been jailed in the first place, now appears to be at grave risk of dying in prison. The Chinese authorities must release her immediately so that she can end her hunger strike and receive the appropriate medical treatment she desperately needs,” said Gwen Lee, China Campaigner at Amnesty International.

“The Chinese government’s prosecution of Zhang Zhan, simply because she tried to uncover what was happening in Wuhan amid huge government secrecy about the pandemic, is a shameful attack on human rights.”

Zhang Zhan, a former lawyer, travelled to Wuhan in February 2020 to provide on-the-ground information about what was happening there. She posted on social media about how government officials had detained independent reporters and harassed families of Covid-19 patients.

She went missing in Wuhan in May 2020. It later emerged that she had been taken by the Chinese authorities and detained in Shanghai, where she was convicted of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” after a sham trial.

In June 2020, Zhang Zhan began a hunger strike in protest at her detention. By December, her body was so weak she had to attend her trial in a wheelchair.

Prior to the trial, authorities force-fed her and restrained her for days at a time to prevent her from removing a feeding tube. They also forced Zhang to wear shackles and hand restraints 24 hours a day for more than three months as punishment for her hunger strike.

On 31 July 2021, she was admitted to hospital due to severe malnutrition. However, she was returned to prison and remains on a partial hunger strike despite the grave risk to her health, which continues to deteriorate at a dramatic rate.

Since her trial, the authorities have refused to let her speak to her lawyer or meet her family in person. She has been allowed occasional phone or video calls with relatives, under supervision.

In a Twitter post on 30 October, her brother Zhang Ju wrote: “I don’t think she’s going to live much longer. If she doesn’t make it through the coming winter, I hope the world will remember her as she once was.”

Zhang Zhan is featured in Amnesty International’s 2021 Write for Rights campaign calling for her release.

“Zhang Zhan is a victim of the Chinese government’s zero-tolerance approach to criticism and opposing views. She has been imprisoned solely for peacefully exercising her right to freedom of expression, and she must be immediately and unconditionally released,” Gwen Lee said.

“Pending her release, she must have regular, unrestricted access to her family and lawyers of her choice, and not be subjected further to any ill-treatment. If Zhang Zhan dies in prison, her blood will be on the Chinese government’s hands.”

Background

Citizen journalists were a vital source of uncensored, first-hand information about the Covid-19 outbreak in China. Because they work independently of state-controlled media, citizen journalists face constant harassment for exposing information the Chinese government would rather keep quiet.

There is an alarming pattern of deaths of imprisoned Chinese activists, either in detention or after being belatedly released on medical parole.

In July 2017, human rights activist and Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo died in custody after the authorities refused his and his family’s requests to receive treatment abroad for his cancer.

The same year, Chinese writer and government critic Yang Tongyan (pen name Yang Tianshui) died three months after being released on medical parole and undergoing an operation to remove a brain tumour.

Beijing activist and prominent campaigner Cao Shunli died from organ failure after months in custody in March 2014. She was denied appropriate medical treatment while in jail. 

The post China: Release jailed Wuhan activist ‘close to death’ after hunger strike appeared first on Amnesty International.

In the run up to the general elections in Nicaragua, scheduled for 7 November, Amnesty International, the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL), CIVICUS; Human Rights Watch, the International Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights, the Washington Office on Latin American, the World Organisation Against Torture, People in Need, the International Network of Human Rights, and Women’s Link Worldwide, have issued a manifesto setting out five reasons that explain how the coming general elections will be held in the context of serious restrictions on civil and political liberties.

In the joint document, the signatory organizations highlight the intensification of repression and harassment of dissident voices, as part of a context in which the conditions do not exist for holding elections that guarantee the exercise of rights.

The Nicaraguan government has tried to eliminate and discourage electoral competition through arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance and the prosecution of opponents and presidential candidates, as well as by creating obstacles to the candidacy of the main opposition parties. It has also harassed and intimidated the press and violated political rights, all with the collaboration of the legislative and judicial powers. The intensification of harassment, in addition to the repeated abusive use of force and impunity, have increased concerns about human rights violations in the context of social mobilization. 

For these reasons, the organizations, are calling on the international community, multilateral organizations and international human rights organizations to redouble their efforts and endeavours to end the human rights crisis.

For more information or to arrange an interview, contact Duncan Tucker: duncan.tucker@amnesty.org

The post Nicaragua: International organizations set out five reasons why elections do not guarantee the exercise of human rights appeared first on Amnesty International.

This decision sends a strong message to NSO Group that it can no longer profit from human rights abuses without repercussions.

Danna Ingleton

In response to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s  decision to place cyber surveillance company NSO Group on its “entity list” for malicious cyber activity, Danna Ingleton, Deputy Director of Amnesty Tech, said:

“With this move, the US government has acknowledged what Amnesty and other activists have been saying for years: NSO Group’s spyware is a tool of repression, which has been used around the world to violate human rights. This decision sends a strong message to NSO Group that it can no longer profit from human rights abuses without repercussions.

“This is also a day of reckoning for NSO Group’s investors  – will they continue to bankroll a company whose technology has been used to systematically violate human rights?

“The threats posed by surveillance technology are bigger than one company. This dangerous industry is out of control, and this must spell the end of the impunity spyware companies have so far enjoyed. We need an immediate global moratorium on the export, sale, transfer and use of surveillance technology until there is a human rights-compliant regulatory framework in place.”

Background

The Pegasus Project exposed the global scale of abuses using NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware. The investigation was a ground-breaking collaboration by more than 80 journalists from 17 media organizations in 10 countries, coordinated by Forbidden Stories and with technical support from Amnesty International. Amnesty Tech  conducted cutting-edge forensic tests on mobile phones to identify traces of the spyware.

NSO Group said it is dismayed by the decision and would seek to have it reversed.

The post US blacklisting of NSO Group recognizes spyware abuses appeared first on Amnesty International.