Schlagwort: Amnesty International

In response to the conviction of 12 men over the 2018 killing of MacDonald Masambuka, a person with albinism,Amnesty International’s Director for East and Southern Africa, Deprose Muchena, said:

These convictions represent a victory for justice, human rights and the rule of law

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

“These convictions represent a victory for justice, human rights and the rule of law. The fact that 12 people were involved in this appalling crime, including Mark’s biological brother, shows the depths of discrimination that persons with albinism face in Malawi. It’s an ugly, outdated, and dangerous practice that needs to be prevented and eradicated once and for all.

The criminal justice system must be strengthened so that these cases are thoroughly, independently, transparently and effectively  investigated and perpetrators are finally held to account

Deprose Muchena

“Too many innocent people with albinism have lost their lives in terribly cruel circumstances, with many of those suspected to be responsible still roaming free. The criminal justice system must be strengthened so that these cases are thoroughly, independently, transparently and effectively  investigated and perpetrators are finally held to account. Authorities must provide victims and their families with access to justice and effective remedies.”

Background

MacDonald Masambuka, a 22-year-old man from Nakawa village, in Machinga district, southern Malawi, was disappeared on 9 March 2018. He left his home to buy a mat in the company of a friend. His body was found buried in a shallow grave on 1 April.

Of the 12 men convicted, five were found responsible for murder while seven were convicted of offences relating to the murder including playing a role in luring Mark, trafficking his body parts, and other offences.

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Four West African men who have been illegally detained in Equatorial Guinea for more than five months must be immediately released, Amnesty International said today. 

The men are irregular migrants — citizens from other African countries who do not have legal residence papers — and have been held in a police station in Malabo, the capital, since mid-November 2021, largely exceeding the 60 days limit provided by Organic Law 3/2010 which regulates the rights of foreigners in Equatorial Guinea. During this time, they have not had access to administrative or legal procedures to challenge the reasons for their detention, a legal guarantee under Equatorial Guinean law. One of the men is sick and requires medical assistance. 

“The Equatorial Guinean authorities must immediately release these four West African migrant men, who have suffered the confines of detention for almost half a year and put an end to the use of arbitrary arrests and detention,” said Marta Colomer, Amnesty International’s Senior Campaigner for West and Central Africa. 

Abdoulay Ndom and Mouamed Kalouare, from Mali, and Toba Mammed and Lamin Sisoko, from Guinea and Cote d’Ivoire, have been held in detention since November 2021 as a result of mass immigration raids enacted by the police. Kalouare has been suffering from headaches, a fever, a persistent cough and chest pains. Staff at the police station say he has been receiving treatment. As he has shown no signs of improvement, however, his lawyer is calling for him to receive proper medical care. 

In March, the four detainees protested against the conditions of their detention and their legal situation by going on a days-long hunger strike, yet their efforts did not prompt the authorities to make any changes.

A backdrop of discriminatory round ups

Between 30 October 2021 and early December 2021, the Equatorial Guinea government launched a campaign against migrants accompanied by immigration raids that took place in major cities such as Malabo, Bata, Mongomo and Ebibeyin. Security forces stopped people on the street who they believed had “African foreign facial features” and demanded that they produce their identification papers. Those who did not have their documents with them were immediately arrested and detained, often regardless of their immigration status. 

According to government statements, the campaign aimed to combat irregular migration in Equatorial Guinea. Other reliable civil society sources, however, have indicated that the raids were carried out in response to rumours that some of the migrants intended to launch a coup d’etat against President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. 

According to local organizations, in total, more than 500 people — mainly nationals from Cameroon, Nigeria, Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, Central African Republic, Chad and Mali — were detained in several cities around the country. Dozens of those arrested alleged that they were severely beaten and ill-treated during their arrest and detention.

The sudden influx of people being detained in police stations led to severe overcrowding. As a consequence, some people were instead detained in sport facilities, such as the Malabo Sports Complex and the Nkoantoma Sports Stadium in Bata.

Although some embassies, such as the Cameroonian one, provided some support to the migrants, they also reportedly asked the detainees to abstain from sharing information on social media about ill-treatment in the detention facilities or about the existence of deportation flights organized by the Equatorial Guinea army. 

The vast majority of detained individuals did not receive any legal assistance, nor had access to appropriate legal procedures and due process relating to their detention. Some were deported to their home countries without due process and without access to a lawyer prior to deportation orders being carried out. Others were released weeks after their arrest but did not receive any explanation for their detention and were never charged.

Nobody should be arbitrarily arrested and detained on the basis of racial profiling. In Equatorial Guinea, however, arbitrary arrests, and a shocking lack of adherence to legal guarantees provided in national and international laws remain the norm, rather than the exception. 

Marta Colomer, Senior Campaigner for Amnesty International West and Central Africa

“Nobody should be arbitrarily arrested and detained on the basis of racial profiling. In Equatorial Guinea, however, arbitrary arrests, and a shocking lack of adherence to legal guarantees provided in national and international laws remain the norm, rather than the exception,” said Marta Colomer. 

“The Equatorial Guinean authorities must urgently launch a thorough, independent and effective investigation into the allegations of illegal racial profiling and violence during arrests, as well as the failure to ensure access to legal protections and ill-treatment in custody.”

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New Law Includes Obligation to Address Abuses in Battery Supply Chains

The European Union’s proposed batteries regulation should require importers and manufacturers to source the bauxite, copper, and iron used in batteries responsibly, a coalition of 13 organizations said today. The coalition includes Amnesty International, Earthworks, Finnwatch, Germanwatch, Human Rights Watch, Inclusive Development International, INKOTA, PowerShift, RAID, SOMO, and Transport & Environment, as well as human rights and environmental activists from producer countries.

The batteries regulation would create mandatory requirements for all batteries — portable, automotive, electric vehicle, and industrial — placed on the EU market, including rules requiring battery importers and manufacturers to identify and address actual and potential human rights and environmental abuses in the supply of key raw materials. The European Parliament has proposed a list of raw materials that includes bauxite, copper, and iron, as well as cobalt, graphite, lithium, and nickel. National governments in the European Council want to exclude bauxite, copper, and iron from the list. The Council, Parliament, and Commission began negotiations on the final draft regulation on April 20, 2022.

“The European Union’s vital work to ensure that battery supply chains are free from human rights and environmental harms will fall short if it excludes bauxite, copper, and iron,” said Jim Wormington, Senior Corporate Accountability Researcher and Advocate at Human Rights Watch. “The three materials are important to battery production but too often the way they are extracted and processed has been a major contributor to human rights and environmental damage worldwide.”

Bauxite is the ore needed to make aluminum, a key material for electric car batteries. Four tons of bauxite are needed to make a single ton of aluminum. Volkswagen stated in 2021 that aluminum makes up 126 kg of a typical 400 kg electric car battery, more by far than any other metal. The International Aluminum Institute, an industry group, forecasts that aluminum’s usage in batteries and other electric vehicle components means that automobile manufacturers will double their aluminum consumption by 2050.

Copper is used in battery anodes and electric wiring. The International Copper Association, an industry group, projected in 2019 that energy storage applications will raise annual copper demand by 2.3 million tons, approximately 10 percent of global supply, by 2029. Iron, needed for the steel used for battery casings, is also used in several emerging battery technologies.

Although the aluminum, copper, and steel industries promote their sustainability and green credentials, all three materials have been linked to destructive human rights and environmental impacts. The mining of bauxite is the most significant contributor to deforestation within mining leases in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest and has led to widespread loss and destruction of agricultural land and water resources in Guinea, a West African country with the world’s largest deposits. The large amounts of energy needed to refine and smelt aluminum – and the industry’s continued heavy reliance on coal for that energy – also means that aluminum production is responsible for two percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

“I’ve witnessed first-hand the devastation that bauxite mining has caused to dozens of communities’ land, livelihoods, and local environment,” said Mariama Barry, a Guinean activist and Africa Program associate at Inclusive Development International, which is working with Guinean communities seeking redress for the harm caused by bauxite mining. “The increased demand for aluminum for electric vehicle batteries and other energy technologies should be a chance to recognize and respect the rights of workers and communities rather than exacerbate existing abuses.”

Copper mining and processing also comes with significant human rights and environmental risks. In Zambia, copper mining has reportedly resulted in large-scale land loss for farmers, including through forced evictions, as well as water and air pollution. Copper and cobalt are also often mined together, resulting in similar human rights impacts. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, researchers in 2020 found evidence that exposure to toxic pollution is associated with birth defects in the children of cobalt and copper miners. Human rights groups in 2021 released a report documenting labor rights abuses in Congo at five of the world’s largest copper and cobalt mines, including unsafe working conditions, degrading treatment, discrimination, and racism.

“Cobalt may have grabbed the headlines, but for workers and local communities the mining of copper has the same devastating impact on human rights, labor rights, and the environment,” said Josué Kashal, Monitoring and Evaluation Manager at Centre d’Aide juridico-judiciaire, a Congolese legal services organization that cowrote the 2021 report. “Governments should be requiring companies to source both copper and cobalt responsibly.”

Iron ore mining and processing also carries significant environmental and social risks. In January 2019, the collapse of a dam in Brumadinho, Brazil that stored waste from iron ore mining caused a deluge of toxic mud and mining waste to sweep through a nearby town, burying more than 250 people alive. In 2015, the failure of another iron ore dam in Brazil had already killed 19 people and caused widespread environmental damage.

The steel industry’s burning of coke and other forms of coal to process iron ore also releases greenhouse gases and large quantities of contaminants that pollute the air. Following a 2019 visit to Brazil, the world’s second largest iron ore producer, the United Nations special rapporteur on toxics and human rights stated that the pollution and resulting health problems communities had experienced in Piquiá de Baixo, a community in the heartlands of Brazil’s steel industry, “is a clear violation of rights to life, health, information, and many others.”

“Incidents like Brumadinho, one of the worst mining-related disasters of the past decade, demonstrate why battery manufactures and importers should be required to source raw materials responsibly,” said Alejandro González, Researcher at SOMO. “The European Union should include bauxite, copper, and iron in the scope of the battery regulation to protect workers and communities against human rights and environmental abuses.”

For more information, please contact:

In Berlin, Germany, for INKOTA-netzwerk, Lara Louisa Siever (German, English, French): +49-30-420-8202-58; or siever@inkota.de. Twitter: @LaraLouisa16

In Berlin, Germany, for PowerShift, Michael Reckordt (German, English): +49 163 633 63 72 (mobile) or michael.reckordt@power-shift.de. Twitter: @MichaelReckordt

In Conakry, Guinea, for Inclusive Development International, Mariama Barry (French): +224-622-62-25-78 (mobile); or mariama@inclusivedevelopment.net.

In London, for RAID, Anneke Van Woudenberg, Executive Director (English, French): +44-77-11-66-4960 (mobile); or avw@raid-uk.org. Twitter: @raidukorg

In Washington, DC, for Human Rights Watch, Jim Wormington (English, French): +1-917-592-8738 (mobile); or worminj@hrw.org. Twitter: @jwormington

List of signatory organizations:

Amnesty International

Centre d’Aide juridico-judiciaire (Democratic Republic of Congo)

Collectif des organisations de la Société Civile pour la défense des droits des communautés (Guinea)

Earthworks

Finnwatch

Germanwatch

Human Rights Watch

Inclusive Development International

INKOTA

PowerShift

Rights and Accountability in Development (RAID)

SOMO

Transport and Environment

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JOINT STATEMENT

Bangladesh’s government must urgently take steps to support the community-led learning facilities in the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar and strengthen their resources in line with the country’s international commitment to protect children’s right to education, 25 undersigned organizations said in a statement today.

About 30 community-led schools have been shut down or dismantled by the authorities since December 2021. The closure of community learning facilities in the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh is detrimental to the community’s development and a gross violation of children’s right to education which puts them at the risk of becoming a lost generation.

Nearly half a million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh are children, who constitute 52% of the refugees registered in the camps. They have been deprived of access to education in an accredited curriculum since they sought refuge in Bangladesh in August 2017.

In January 2020, Bangladesh’s government made a promise to introduce the Myanmar curriculum for about 10,000 children from grades six to nine. The Rohingya community has been offering education to their children through the community schools due to a delay in the rollout of the program by more than two years since Bangladesh’s government announced its plan.

Rohingya refugees said that some schoolteachers were detained by the Armed Police Battalion (APBn) and released in exchange of signing a paper with the condition that they will stop teaching.

It is not a crime to teach students and show them the right path of life. It is a basic human right

Rohingya community teacher

Rights groups have documented allegations against authorities threatening refugees with confiscating their refugee identification cards and relocation to the remote Bhasan Char island if they violate the ban on operating or attending community-led schools.

Access to education and other human rights of the Rohingya refugees are as critical as the battle is for justice and accountability for the crimes committed against the Rohingya people. It is pivotal for their right to voluntary, safe, dignified and sustainable return to their homes in Myanmar.

“All that the community want is the formal education that will be useful to continue studying in Myanmar,” said a Rohingya youth, whose identity is being withheld for his safety.

Education is one of the most important activities that can keep the Rohingya population away from being exploited by harmful groups including child traffickers, drug smugglers, armed groups, and others who sense opportunity in people’s misery.

It is pivotal to empower the Rohingya refugees to claim their rights and speak for themselves. Loss of critical academic years is not only depriving the community of their educational development but also increasing their dependency on uncertain humanitarian aid.

The existing learning centres authorized by the government and operated by UNICEF and other humanitarian partners offer education to children from four to 14 years of age. The program leaves out the older age groups, some of whom were about to take their matriculation examination at the time of the exodus in 2017.

The undersigned 25 organizations call on Bangladesh’s government to:

• Ensure access to education for all Rohingya children by building capacity for all learning facilities within the refugee camps including by granting legal status to community schools in line with their international commitments;
• Immediately re-open all community schools and put a stop to all harassment, threats and attacks against refugees, avoid any discriminatory policies that affect the right to education of Rohingya children in Bangladesh;
• Put an end to the crackdown on community-led schools and Rohingya refugees for operating them;
• Launch prompt, transparent, impartial and independent investigation into the allegations against members of law enforcement agencies for detaining Rohingya refugees and authorities threatening them with forced relocation to Bhasan Char island for operating schools;
• Establish and strengthen government infrastructure to provide complete access to education to Rohingya population. Ensure that any vacancies are filled by individuals with knowledge and commitment to integrating Rohingya culture and practices into the teaching modules.

The organizations also call on the United Nations and the international community to:

• Urgently engage with Bangladesh’s government to raise concerns about the closure of community-led schools in the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar and provide support to education for all children in the camps and elsewhere;
• Offer assistance to build capacity for all learning facilities within the refugee camps including community schools with regards to access to teaching materials, teachers and learning spaces;
• Allocate adequate and specific funds towards and implement education programmes and projects as part of a comprehensive and long-term commitment to support Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.

Signatories:

1. ActionAid
2. Amnesty International
3. Arakan Rohingya National Organisation
4. Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network
5. Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust
6. Burma Campaign UK
7. Burmese Rohingya Association in Japan
8. Burmese Rohingya Community in Denmark
9. Campaign for a New Myanmar
10. Canadian Rohingya Development Initiative
11. COAST Foundation
12. Drik Picture Library
13. European Rohingya Council
14. Fortify Rights
15. Human Rights Support Society
16. Human Rights Watch
17. International Campaign for the Rohingya
18. Justice4Rohingya UK
19. Manusher Jonno Foundation
20. Map Photo Agency
21. Nagorik
22. Naripokkho
23. Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights
24. Rohingya Action Ireland
25. The Arakan Project

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