Schlagwort: human rights

Bahrain’s parliamentary elections, due to take place on 12 November, are being held in an environment of political repression following a decade in which the authorities have infringed upon human rights, curtailed civil society, banned political opposition parties and shuttered independent media, Amnesty International said today.

From 2016 onwards, the Bahrain authorities ramped up a campaign to eliminate political opposition, banning opposition political parties that had existed legally before the uprising in 2011. The government has outlawed major opposition parties and independent media, and also imprisoned prominent opposition leaders. Consequently, Bahrain today lacks any non-imprisoned political opposition leaders or independent media willing to sharply criticize the government in public.

“Over the past 11 years, the Bahraini authorities have crushed all forms of dissent and severely clamped down on the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association,” said Amna Guellali, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

In Bahrain today, there is no genuine, political opposition and no independent media, while critical human rights organizations are unable to operate freely inside the country.

Amna Guellali, Amnesty International

“In Bahrain today, there is no genuine, political opposition and no independent media, while critical human rights organizations are unable to operate freely inside the country. Holding this general election will not address the atmosphere of repression and the denial of human rights that has gripped Bahrain for years.”

At least 12 prisoners of conscience, including protest leaders from 2011 and Ali Salman, the head of major opposition party al-Wefaq, are currently languishing in prison.

Background

Bahrain will hold parliamentary and municipal elections on 12 November. It is the second time such elections have been held since authorities banned political opposition parties from functioning and blocked the candidacies of their members.

In July 2016, the government outlawed al-Wefaq, a Shia-led political opposition party that has had the most electoral success of any party under Bahrain’s current constitution. Between 2012 and 2017, the authorities also outlawed Amal, an opposition party that had competed with al-Wefaq for Shia voters, and the non-sectarian opposition party Wa‘d. Members of these political parties have also been banned from holding leadership positions in civil society organizations.

Since the authorities shut down the independent newspaper al-Wasat in June 2017, all television, radio and newspaper outlets in the country are either pro-government or directly government controlled.

For further information, take a look at Amnesty International’s full public statement on the elections.

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• Russian forces tortured and deported civilians from Ukraine
• Children separated from families after forcible transfer
• Older people, people with disabilities, and children struggle to leave Russia

Russian authorities forcibly transferred and deported civilians from occupied areas of Ukraine in what amounted to war crimes and likely crimes against humanity, Amnesty International said in a new report published today.

The report, “Like a Prison Convoy”: Russia’s Unlawful Transfer of Civilians in Ukraine and Abuses During ‘Filtration’, details how Russian and Russian-controlled forces forcibly transferred civilians from occupied Ukraine further into Russian-controlled areas or into Russia. Children have been separated from their families during the process, in violation of international humanitarian law.

Civilians told Amnesty International how they were forced through abusive screening processes – known as ‘filtration’ – which sometimes resulted in arbitrary detention, torture, and other ill-treatment.

Russia’s deplorable tactic of forcible transfer and deportation is a war crime

Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General

“Separating children from their families and forcing people hundreds of kilometres from their homes are further proof of the severe suffering Russia’s invasion has inflicted on Ukraine’s civilians,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.

“Since the start of their war of aggression against Ukraine, itself an international crime, Russian forces have indiscriminately attacked and unlawfully killed civilians, destroyed countless lives, and torn families apart. No one has been spared, not even children.

“Russia’s deplorable tactic of forcible transfer and deportation is a war crime. Amnesty International believes this must be investigated as a crime against humanity.

“All those forcibly transferred and still unlawfully detained must be allowed to leave, and everyone responsible for committing these crimes must be held accountable. Children in Russian custody must be reunited with their families, and their return to Ukrainian government-controlled areas must be facilitated.”

Amnesty International documented cases in which members of specific groups – including children, older people and people with disabilities – were forcibly transferred to other Russian-occupied areas or unlawfully deported to Russia. In one case, a woman was separated from her 11-year-old son during filtration, detained, and not reunited with him, in clear violation of international humanitarian law.

People detained during filtration told Amnesty International they had been subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, including being beaten, electroshocked and threatened with execution. Others had been denied food and water, with many held in dangerous and overcrowded conditions.

Amnesty International interviewed 88 people from Ukraine. The majority were civilians from Mariupol, as well as civilians from the Kharkiv, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. Most, especially those from Mariupol, described coercive conditions that meant that they had no meaningful choice but to go to Russia or other Russian-occupied areas.

Amnesty International considers Russia’s annexation of Ukrainian territory, including the so-called ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ (DNR) in the Russian-controlled part of Donetsk Region, to be illegal.

Forcible transfer from Mariupol

In early March 2022, the southeastern city of Mariupol was completely surrounded by Russian forces, making evacuations impossible. The city was subjected to near-constant bombardment, and civilians lacked access to running water, heat or electricity.

Thousands of people were able to evacuate the city towards Ukrainian government-held areas in mid-March, but as Russia gradually occupied the city, it forcibly transferred some civilians in neighbourhoods under its control, cutting them off from other escape routes. Civilians said they felt coerced to go on ‘evacuation’ buses to the DNR.

Milena, 33, told Amnesty International her experience while trying to flee Mariupol: “We started to ask questions about evacuation, where it is possible to go… I was told [by a Russian soldier] that it was only possible to go to the DNR or to Russia. Another girl asked about other possibilities [to evacuate], for instance to Ukraine… The answer came straight away, the soldier interrupted and said, ‘If you don’t go to the DNR or the Russian Federation, you will stay here forever’.”

Milena’s husband, a former marine with the Ukrainian military, was detained soon afterwards while crossing the border into Russia, and has not yet been released.

Forcible transfer of children and other at-risk groups

The laws of armed conflict prohibit the individual or mass forcible transfer of protected persons, including civilians, from occupied territory. In several cases, children fleeing without parents or other guardians towards Ukrainian-held territory were stopped at Russian military checkpoints, and transferred into the custody of Russian-controlled authorities in Donetsk.

As mentioned, an 11-year-old boy was separated from his mother during filtration, which violates international humanitarian law. The boy and his mother were captured and detained from the Illich Steel and Iron Works in Mariupol in mid-April by Russian forces.

They told me I was going to be taken away from my mom… I was shocked…

An 11-year-old boy who was separated from his mother

He told Amnesty International: “They took my mom to another tent. She was being questioned… They told me I was going to be taken away from my mom… I was shocked… They didn’t say anything about where my mom was going… I have not heard from her since.” 

The report also details the forcible transfer to Donetsk of all 92 residents of a state institution for older people and people with disabilities in Mariupol. Amnesty International documented several cases in which older people from Ukraine appeared to have been placed in an institution in Russia or Russian-occupied areas after fleeing their homes. This practice violates the person’s rights, and makes it difficult for them to leave Russia or to reunite with family members in Ukraine or elsewhere.

Once in Russia, several people said that they felt pressured into applying for Russian citizenship, or said their movements were restricted. The process of obtaining Russian citizenship has been simplified for children who are alleged to be either orphans or without parental care, and for some people with disabilities. This was meant to facilitate the adoption of these children by Russian families, in violation of international law.

These actions indicate a deliberate Russian policy related to its deportation from Ukraine to Russia of civilians, including children, suggesting that in addition to the war crime of unlawful deportation and transfer, Russia has likely committed the crime against humanity of deportation or forcible transfer.

Abusive screening processes, detention, and torture

Civilians from Ukraine who fled or were transferred to Russian-occupied areas or to Russia were usually forced through an abusive screening process when entering the DNR, when crossing the border into Russia, and also when leaving Russia for a third country. This process violates their rights to privacy and physical integrity.

At filtration points, officials took photographs of people, collected their fingerprints, searched people’s phones, forced some men to strip to their waists, and interrogated people at length.

Amnesty International documented seven cases where people suffered torture and other ill-treatment during detention. One case involved a 31-year-old woman, another a 17-year-old boy, and five were men in their 20s or 30s.

They bound my hands with tape and put a bag over my head and put tape around my neck…

Vitalii, 31, who was tortured by Russian soldiers while being detained

Vitalii, 31, was detained when he tried to leave Mariupol on an evacuation bus on 28 April. After Russian soldiers declared there was an issue with his documentation, he was forced onto a bus with several other men. He was driven to Dokuchaevsk, a town close to Donetsk, and placed in a cell with 15 men, before being taken for interrogation.

He told Amnesty International: “They bound my hands with tape and put a bag over my head and put tape around my neck… Then they said, ‘Tell us everything… Tell us where you serve, which base?’… [When I said I wasn’t a soldier] they started beating me in the kidneys very hard… I was on my knees, they were mostly kicking me. When they took me back to the garage, they said, ‘Every day, we will do this to you’.”

Amnesty International documented other cases that amount to enforced disappearances under international human rights law, and to the war crimes of unlawful confinement, torture and inhuman treatment. 

Hussein, a 20-year-old student from Azerbaijan, was detained while fleeing Mariupol for Zaporizhzhia in mid-March, and held for almost a month. He was accused of being a member of the Ukrainian military, and beaten while being interrogated.

Hussein told Amnesty International: “One of the soldiers said, ‘He won’t talk like this, bring the electric shocker’… There were two wires, they put them around my big toes and started shocking me repeatedly… They beat me repeatedly… I lost consciousness. They poured a bucket of water on me, and I woke up again. I couldn’t take it anymore, I just said, ‘Yes, I’m a soldier’. They continued beating me, I fell off the chair and they pulled me back up. There was blood coming out of my feet.”

Hussein was threatened with execution, beaten and electroshocked every day, until just a few days before his release on 12 April.

Russia and Russian-controlled forces must immediately stop their violent abuses against detainees

Agnès Callamard

“Russia and Russian-controlled forces must immediately stop their violent abuses against detainees,” said Agnès Callamard.

“The Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and other relevant authorities must investigate these abhorrent crimes, including those against victims from at-risk groups. All those responsible for deportation and forcible transfer, as well as torture and other crimes under international law committed during filtration, must face justice.”

Methodology

Amnesty International interviewed 88 women, men and children from Ukraine for the report. At the time of the interviews, all but one were in Ukrainian government-controlled areas or were in a safe third country in Europe. One person remained in a Russian-occupied area.

Accountability for war crimes

Amnesty International has been documenting war crimes and other violations of international humanitarian law committed during Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine since the conflict began. All of Amnesty International’s outputs are available here. 

Amnesty International has repeatedly called for members of Russian forces and officials responsible for the aggression against Ukraine and for violations to be held to account, and has welcomed the ongoing International Criminal Court investigation in Ukraine. Comprehensive accountability in Ukraine will require the concerted efforts of the UN and its organs, as well as initiatives at the national level pursuant to the principle of universal jurisdiction.

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Responding to continued fears over the fate of detained Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, who has been on hunger strike in prison since April and started refusing water on 6 November, Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General, said:

“The Egyptian authorities have cruelly and stubbornly refused to release Alaa or even to share any information on his well-being or exact location with his family, even though his mother has for the past three days waited at the gates of Wadi al-Natrun prison in the hope of receiving a letter from him. Alaa is now being detained incommunicado after the authorities denied him access to his family and the outside world. This alarmingly increases the risk of enforced disappearance, as well as torture and other ill-treatment.

Alaa is a prisoner of conscience who should never have been detained in the first place. Yet, now, he faces a very real risk of dying in custody while his family waits in agony for news. 

Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International

“Alaa is a prisoner of conscience who should never have been detained in the first place. Yet, now, he faces a very real risk of dying in custody while his family waits in agony for news. With the eyes of the world transfixed on the glittering resort town of Sharm al-Sheikh during COP27, the plight of Alaa and his family has exposed the frightening reality of Egypt’s human rights abuses and the authorities’ total disregard for human life and their obligations under international law.

“World leaders and delegates visiting Egypt for COP27 must do everything in their power to pressure the authorities into immediately releasing Alaa and to speak out publicly that they expect nothing short of his unconditional release. The Egyptian authorities must ensure he receives adequate healthcare in line with medical ethics at a facility of his family’s choice and surrounded by his family and loved ones. The international community cannot continue with this inaction when Alaa is at risk of torture and even death. This would leave a grave reputational stain and illustrate the cost of not putting human rights at the centre of diplomacy.”

Background

Alaa Abdel Fattah, who has spent most of the past nine years unlawfully deprived of his liberty, was last arrested in September 2019. He has been denied access to consular officials since acquiring British citizenship in December 2021. 

On 20 December 2021, Alaa, human rights lawyer Mohamed Baker and blogger Mohamed Radwan “Oxygen” were convicted on bogus charges and sentenced to between four and five years in prison following a grossly unfair trial in reprisal for their activism and human rights work. 

All three are prisoners of conscience, having been solely targeted for their peaceful activism. They are among thousands arbitrarily detained in Egypt for political reasons. 

Amnesty International has consistently documented concerns over the denial of adequate healthcare in prison and interference by prison wardens and security officials in their medical assessment and care, including delays or even refusal to transfer the critically ill to hospital. Amnesty International has previously raised concerns over the independence of medical staff in Egyptian prisons, who report to the Ministry of Interior. As such, there are strong grounds to believe that decisions over his healthcare will not be made by independent medical professionals in compliance with medical ethics and free from coercion or interference by the authorities.

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Nineteen Sahrawi activists languish in prison years after Moroccan courts convicted them in unfair proceedings, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said today.

The convictions of the so-called Gdeim Izik group stemmed from their purported role in lethal violence that erupted on November 8, 2010, when Moroccan police dismantled a protest encampment in Western Sahara. The trials were marred by a heavy reliance on “confessions” that the defendants repudiated as extracted through torture.

“Nineteen men have now spent 12 years in prison, with years still to serve, after trials that leaned heavily on tainted confessions,” said Lama Fakih, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The passage of time has only heightened the injustice in this case.”

The UN expert body on torture during the past year condemned violations of the Convention against Torture in three cases involving the Gdeim Izik defendants and cast doubt on the probative value of the Moroccan judiciary’s tardy investigations into their torture allegations, which were unable to establish whether torture had taken place during the interrogations six years prior.

On November 8, 2010, Moroccan security forces moved to dismantle the Gdeim Izik encampment, which consisted of about 6,500 tents that Sahrawis had erected a month before near El-Ayoun, in Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara to protest their social and economic conditions. The resulting violent confrontations in the camp and in El-Ayoun killed 11 security officers, according to Moroccan officials, as well as three civilians.

The continued imprisonment of the Gdeim Izik group on the basis of tainted evidence shows that when it comes to those who oppose Moroccan rule over Western Sahara, a fair trial is a pipe dream.

Amna Guellali, Amnesty International

Moroccan security forces repeatedly beat and abused people they detained in the immediate aftermath. Twenty-five men, some of whom the police detained before entering the camp, were later charged with forming a criminal gang and participating in or being complicit in violence against security forces “leading to death with intent,” among other charges. The men included several Sahrawi human rights defenders.

With the repudiated confessions serving as the main evidence, a military court in 2013 convicted all 25 defendants, sentencing 23 of them, including one in absentia who had fled abroad, to terms of 20 years or longer, and 2 to time already served.

In 2016, the Court of Cassation voided the military court verdict on the grounds that it was based on inconclusive evidence. The case was referred to a new trial in a civilian court.

In 2017, the Rabat Court of Appeals retried the case and upheld all of the convictions while reducing the sentences for two defendants, who were then freed. Another one of the original 25 had been on provisional release since 2011 for health reasons and died in 2018.

During the trial, the Appeals Court ordered forensic medical examinations of defendants willing to undergo them seven years after their interrogations. The examining doctors concluded in the cases they examined that, given the passage of time, torture could neither be proven nor disproven. The court nevertheless proceeded to admit the disputed confessions into evidence, alongside newly introduced evidence that largely failed to link individual defendants to specific acts of causing death or grievous injury.

In a November 2021 ruling on a complaint brought by one Gdeim Izik defendant, Mohamed Bourial, the UN Committee against Torture criticized the appeals court’s torture investigations, both for their tardiness and their failure to accord with the Istanbul Protocol, a set of guidelines for investigating and documenting torture allegations. The Committee said that “the State party has far exceeded the reasonable length of time for dispensing justice in the complainant’s case …. 11 years after the events and the submission of the first allegations of torture, no investigation in accordance with the Istanbul Protocol has been carried out.”

The committee adopted a similar decision in July 2022 in response to a complaint by another Gdeim Izik prisoner, Abdeljalil Laaroussi, finding that “the appeals court did not duly take into consideration the allegations of torture of [Laaroussi] when convicting him on the basis of his confessions. By not carrying out any verification of the substance of the petitioner’s allegations, apart from the medical examination ordered by the court, which had not been carried out in line with the Istanbul Protocol and using those declarations in the judicial procedure against the petitioner, [Morocco] manifestly violated its obligations under article 15 of the Convention.” Article 15 prohibits admitting evidence obtained through torture in any proceedings, except as evidence against someone accused of torture.

The Committee in 2022 also criticized Morocco in its ruling on a petition filed by a third Gdeim Izik complainant, Sidi Abdallah Abbahah. The main issue was again the failure to investigate promptly his torture allegations. The appeals court had offered in 2017 to investigate Abbahah’s allegations dating to 2010, but Abbahah refused.

Following the 2017 trial, the authorities dispersed the 19 remaining Gdeim Izik defendants, who had been held together, to six prisons inside Morocco. Most are being held in prisons at least 1,000 kilometers from El-Ayoun, the city most of them are from. Several have carried out repeated hunger strikes since then, alleging abuses including denial of medical care or family visits, and abusive solitary confinement. All have also demanded transfers to prisons closer to their families in or near Western Sahara. The U.N. Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners states in article 59, that “Prisoners shall be allocated, to the extent possible, to prisons close to their homes…”

Omar Hilale, Morocco’s ambassador to the United Nations, on October 31 denied any mistreatment of the Gdeim Izik prisoners.

Morocco’s Court of Cassation upheld the verdict on November 25, 2020, leaving no avenues of domestic judicial appeal open.

On July 1, 2022, lawyers on behalf of 18 of the 19 prisoners filed a lengthy petition to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, asking it to declare their detention arbitrary. It has yet to issue a decision.

Most of Western Sahara, a non-self-governing territory according to the United Nations, has been under Morocco’s de facto control since it seized the territory from Spain, its former colonial administrator, in 1975. The government considers it Moroccan territory and rejects demands for a vote on self-determination that would include independence as an option. That option was included in the referendum that Morocco and the Polisario, the liberation movement for Western Sahara, agreed to in a 1991 UN-brokered ceasefire agreement. The United Nations does not recognize Morocco’s de facto annexation.

Moroccan authorities systematically prevent gatherings in Western Sahara supporting Sahrawi self-determination. Morocco obstructs the work of some local human rights nongovernmental organizations, including by harassing their members and blocking legal registration processes, and on occasion beating activists and journalists in their custody and on the streets. 

“The continued imprisonment of the Gdeim Izik group on the basis of tainted evidence shows that when it comes to those who oppose Moroccan rule over Western Sahara, a fair trial is a pipe dream,” said Amna Guellali, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Amnesty International.

Gdeim Izik group prisoners:

Name	Sentence	Prison
Abdallahi Elouali Lakhfaouni	Life in prison	Kenitra
Ahmed Elbachir Sbai	Life in prison	Kenitra
El Houssein Boujmaa Lmahjoub Zaoui	25 years	Kenitra
Mohamed Elbachir Allali Boutanguiza	Life in prison	Kenitra
Naama Abdi Asfari	30 years	Kenitra
Hassan Sidi Raddi Eddah	25 years	Kenitra
Abdeljalil Kamal Laaroussi	Life in prison	TanTan
Elbachir Laabd Lmehdar Khadda	20 years	Tiflet
Mohamed Lamine Abidine Haddi	25 years	Tiflet
Sidi Abdellahi Ahmed Sidi Abbahah	Life in prison	Tiflet
Mohamed Hassana Ahmed Salem Bourial	30 years	Ait Melloul
Mohamed Mbarek Ali Salem Lefkir	25 years	TanTan
Mohamed Ahnini Erouh Bani	Life in prison	Ait Melloul
Sidi Ahmed Faraji Iich Lamjayed	Life in prison	Ait Melloul
Brahim Daddi Ismaili	Life in prison	Ait Melloul
Mohamed Ambito Andela Tahlil	20 years	Ain Bourja
Abdoulah Ahmed Elhafed Toubali	20 years	Bouizakarn
Chaikh Lkaouri Banga	30 years	Bouizakarn
Mohamed Khouna Eddih Bobit	25 years	Bouizakarn

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Responding to the authorities’ decision to refuse some people the ability to disembark in Catania, Sicily, and efforts to push them back to sea, Julia Hall, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director at the Europe Regional Office, said:

Italian authorities must urgently allow all people on ship to disembark as soon as possible

Julia Hall, Amnesty International's Deputy Director at the Europe Regional Office

“The law of the sea is clear; a rescue ends when all those rescued are disembarked in a place of safety. There is no room for creative interpretations of the law when people are suffering and traumatized after risking their lives at sea.

“By forcing 35 people to remain on board the Humanity 1, Italy is not only violating its international obligations to disembark and protect them under both human rights and maritime law but also creating a risky situation which endangers the rescued people and the crew of Humanity 1. We urge the Italian authorities to allow all those still on board to disembark as soon as possible.

“Hundreds of people on board other non-governmental organization rescue ships should also immediately be assigned a place of safety where they can disembark and receive assistance.

It is disgraceful that the Italian government continues to assist Libyan authorities in violating their people’s human rights

Julia Hall

“It is disgraceful that the Italian government continues to assist Libyan authorities in violating their people’s human rights. It adds insult to injury that the Italian government also refuses disembarkation to those who managed to leave that country.

“Italy legitimately expects other EU Member States to share responsibility for people seeking asylum, but this does not justify imposing measures that only increase the suffering of already traumatized people.”

Background

Earlier today, the Italian authorities ordered the German-flagged rescue ship Humanity 1 to leave the port of Catania with 35 exhausted rescued men still on board. Italian authorities allowed the other 144 people rescued by Humanity 1 to disembark after a selection made on the basis of a brief physical examination by health officials sent on board by the authorities.

All the people rescued by Humanity 1 departed from Libya, were refugees and migrants are at constant risk of torture and other ill-treatment, arbitrary detention and other abuses. After attempting to cross the central Mediterranean on unsafe boats, they were rescued by the Humanity 1 and spent up to two weeks on the rescue vessel.

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