Schlagwort: human rights

Responding to reports of at least one boat carrying Rohingya refugees stranded at sea, Amnesty International’s Southeast Asia Researcher Rachel Chhoa-Howard said: 

“Seven years after the Andaman Sea crisis, which saw an extensive loss of lives, Rohingya people continue to risk everything in dangerous journeys to escape persecution at home in military-run Myanmar, and the abysmal conditions in Bangladeshi refugee camps.  

“International humanitarian law requires the rescue of people at sea when they are in distress, and their delivery to a place of safety. Swift action is needed to protect lives. Further delays to alleviate this suffering or any attempts to send Rohingya back to Myanmar where they face persecution are unconscionable.  

“Regional governments must urgently coordinate and cooperate on search and rescue operations. They must attempt to locate any boats in distress and ensure the people on board are allowed to disembark safely and receive proper medical support, food and water.” 

Background: 

UNHCR has reported a six-fold increase of mostly Rohingya people making risky journeys by sea from Myanmar and Bangladesh in 2022, with 119 people reported dead or missing.

Regional authorities have made extensive commitments to improve their coordination of search and rescue operations of boats in distress, after the loss of lives due to delayed response.   

In August 2017, more than 740,000 Rohingya women, men and children fled northern Rakhine State to neighboring Bangladesh after Myanmar security forces launched a widespread and systematic assault on Rohingya villages, including extrajudicial killings, destruction of property and sexual assault. 

More than 130,000 Rohingya people remain in squalid internment camps in Myanmar’s Rakhine State. Rohingya in Myanmar continue to face severe restrictions on freedom of movement, access to education and health services in a system that Amnesty International has called apartheid. 

Myanmar military authorities routinely and arbitrarily detain Rohingyas for travelling outside of Rakhine state. Those detained are sent to prisons without the right to defend themselves or access to legal counsel. Conditions in Myanmar prisons are inhumane and do not meet international human rights standards. 

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Responding to the media reports of killing of at least one person and more than 60 others sustaining injuries following a clash between supporters of the opposition party and the police in Dhaka on Wednesday, Yamini Mishra, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for South Asia, said:

“This incident shows that the Bangladesh authorities have very little regard for the sanctity of human life and sends a chilling message that those who dare to exercise their human rights will face dire consequences. Authorities must put an end to excessive use of force when responding to large-scale demonstrations and only respond in a manner that is consistent with international standards.

This incident shows that the Bangladesh authorities have very little regard for the sanctity of human life and sends a chilling message that those who dare to exercise their human rights will face dire consequences.

Yamini Mishra, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for South Asia

“In recent weeks, we have seen an alarming escalation of repression by the authorities, who are carrying out mass arrests of political activists, raising serious concerns about violence, intimidation and harassment ahead of the parliamentary elections next year. It’s imperative that the government shows the political will to uphold the human rights of everyone, including guaranteeing that people can fully exercise their rights, including the rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly in the country.

“Authorities must end impunity for repression of peaceful protests, and promptly, thoroughly and effectively investigate cases of excessive use of force by the police. They must ensure that suspected perpetrators are brought to justice, and that victims are provided with access to justice and effective remedies.”

BACKGROUND

On 7 December, activists and supporters of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the largest opposition party, and the police clashed outside the party headquarters in Dhaka’s Paltan area after the BNP announced a major political rally on December 10.

As per media reports, 32-year-old Mokbul died from a bullet wound while atleast three of the injured and are undergoing treatment at a hospital in Dhaka. Thousands of BNP activists were standing in front of the party headquarters when the police opened fire with live ammunition, pellets, rubber bullets and tear gas. 

The Bangladesh authorities have also launched a drive to mass arrests political activists leading to the arrest of 1400 activists so far.

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• Women and girls face re-traumatization trying to remove explicit content from internet
• Google’s inadequate reporting system fails to deliver swift and transparent responses

Survivors of online sexual abuse in South Korea have told Amnesty International their suffering has been compounded by Google’s slow and convoluted system for processing content takedown requests.

Women and girls targeted with digital sex crimes said the process for reporting non-consensual explicit content on Google was so difficult to navigate that videos of sexual abuse have ended up proliferating online.

“As a wave of digital sex crimes in South Korea causes severe harm to the women and girls who have been targeted, Google’s inadequate system for reporting non-consensual explicit content is making matters even worse,” said Jihyun Yoon, Director of Amnesty International Korea. 

“Google must do more to prevent the spread of online gender-based violence – not just in Korea, but everywhere. Survivors around the world are forced to use this same flawed reporting system when they try to get harmful content removed, so it is highly likely this issue extends way beyond Korea.”

Amnesty International today launched a global petition calling on Google to address the flaws in its reporting system.

Digital sex crimes rise despite “Nth Room” case

In March 2020, a group of South Korean journalists exposed the existence of eight secret chat rooms on messaging app Telegram where thousands of videos of women and girls containing explicit non-consensual sexual content, were being sold using cryptocurrency without their consent. Korean police said more than 60,000 people participated in the crimes by entering these rooms, collectively known as the “Nth Room” case.

In October 2021, one of the “Nth Room” case chat operators was sentenced to 42 years in jail. However, digital sex crimes are continuing, and what distinguishes them from other instances of sexual violence is the additional harm caused by the ease of repeated sharing and distribution.

Recent criminal cases show that perpetrators habitually threaten survivors with existing video content to force them into producing more sexually abusive content.  This shows that unless the non-consensual content and personal information of survivors is deleted, women and girls are subjected to further harm or crimes even when the original perpetrators are punished.

“Deleting non-consensual explicit content circulated online is essential for restoring the survivors’ daily lives. These women have no choice but to put their faith in removal requests to tech companies, despite the painful process of having to repeatedly search for and collect the non-consensual explicit content they are featured in,” said Jihyun Yoon.

“When these requests are not processed quickly and the abusive content can be re-distributed at any time, survivors are exposed to prolonged physical and mental harm.”

Google’s poorly functioning reporting system

Google says non-consensual explicit content can be removed on request. However, the survivors and activists who spoke with Amnesty International Korea said Google’s reporting categories and procedures were confusing and difficult to follow. The appropriate forms were difficult to find, and they contained ambiguous categories about the type of content being reported.

After a complaint had finally been successfully submitted, users then faced a lack of communication on the progress of their claim – often for months on end.

Google has a lot of advantages – you can easily get the information you want. But to the victims, Google is nothing more than a huge distribution website. It is the worst website in terms of secondary victimization.

Survivor Hyun-jin

Amnesty International Korea carried out a survey of 25 survivors and activists – and all 11 of those who made complaints via Google said it was difficult to confirm whether their requests had been properly processed. This was mainly due to a lack of communication from Google during the reporting process.

Survivor *Hyun-jin waited just over a year between receiving a confirmation receipt from Google and finally being informed of the outcome of a series of removal requests she had sent.

Google also appeared to fail to take into account survivors’ trauma when crafting its takedown procedures. When reporting content, users must tick a box saying they recognize they can be punished if the submission is not true, while Google states it will not process incomplete complaints.

Hyun-jin said these guidelines heightened her anxiety: “I submitted it with difficulty, but rather than being convinced that it would be deleted, I became more anxious because I thought that if it didn’t work, it would be my responsibility.”

She has since prepared a 600-word model response explaining in detail why the content is unlawful, and she has shared it with other survivors to help them make removal requests.

One of the reporting forms provided by Google also requires a “photo ID” to be attached when submitting a report, failing to take into account the fact that survivors who have had explicit material distributed without their consent fear sharing their image online.

“Asking survivors to post photo IDs online, where videos of victims are circulating, is nothing short of traumatic,” said Dan of activist group Team Flame.

Google ‘the worst website in terms of secondary victimization’

Amnesty International interviewed four survivors of online gender-based violence along with six activists who have been supporting them. All survivors reported damage to their physical and mental health, including a need to isolate themselves from society to avoid stigma.

While the sexual abuse and its dissemination online already caused immense harm to these survivors, this was exacerbated when they were confronted with the slow and confusing process of trying to remove the content from the internet.

“It was so easy [for the perpetrator] to upload a video, but it took months to get it removed,” survivor Hyun-jin told Amnesty International.

She had gone to the police after a non-consensual video of her, containing sexually explicit content, was distributed online. She wrongly assumed the video would soon be deleted.

“When you are victimized like this, you have no idea what to do. I was looking at my phone and googling my name the whole day. I could barely sleep an hour a day, spending most of my time searching. I had constant nightmares, but reality itself was more of a nightmare.

“In order to delete videos, images and search keywords, I had to take hundreds of screenshots and report these to Google. I couldn’t ask someone else to do all this for me because I had to attach these harmful images depicting myself when I reported them. I had to face it all alone.

“Google has a lot of advantages – you can easily get the information you want. But to the victims, Google is nothing more than a huge distribution website. It is the worst website in terms of secondary victimization. The other day, I checked the URLs with the distributed content, and [the search results] were over 30 pages long. They weren’t even easily removed on request. [Yet] I can’t help but continue making removal requests.”

Responsibility of tech companies to prevent harm on their services

Google’s inadequate reporting system is difficult to navigate, inconsistent and hard to track, resulting in a failure to deliver swift and transparent responses to survivors.

The responsibility of all companies to respect human rights has been well articulated in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which state that all business enterprises are required to avoid causing or contributing to adverse human rights impacts through their own activities, and to address such impacts when they occur.

Google’s own human rights policy states its commitment to “upholding the standards established in the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights”.

“By responding inconsistently and slowly to removal requests by survivors of digital sex crimes, Google is failing to respect human rights. It must adopt a survivor-centered reporting system that prevents re-traumatization and is easy to access, navigate and check on,” Jihyun Yoon said.

“Google must ensure that online gender-based violence does not occur on its services. Survivors of digital crimes need to be helped by Google’s reporting mechanisms, rather than having their suffering needlessly prolonged by them.”

Amnesty International wrote to Google on 11 November requesting a response to its findings. Google did not provide an official response but stated in a private meeting that this issue is of importance and the company wants to improve how it responds to it.

*All survivors’ real identities have been protected at their request.

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A proposal to commit states to declare 30% of the Earth’s land and sea mass protected for conservation and biodiversity by 2030, the so-called 30 x 30 proposal, will be a major focus of discussions at the 15^th Conference of the Parties (COP15) of the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD), in Montreal from 7-19 December.

Amnesty International stresses the urgent need to address the loss of biodiversity as an essential step towards climate justice and of the realization of the right to live in a safe, clean and sustainable environment for all, as recently recognized by the United Nations General Assembly. Failure to address biodiversity loss will have severe repercussions for future generations that will inherit its irreversible results.

However, Amnesty International insists that any biodiversity commitment, including the so-called 30 x 30 proposal, places the rights of Indigenous peoples at its heart, including by protecting the livelihoods and rights of subsistence land users.

Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General, who will be in Montreal during COP15, said: “The loss and degradation of biodiversity threatens human and non-human life and is a major source of human rights violations, including the right to life. The so-called 30 x 30 proposal could provide the needed action to slow down and stop biodiversity loss, but in its current form it presents a grave risk to the rights of Indigenous peoples.

“Current practice in protected areas often follows a model known as ‘fortress conservation’ which requires the complete removal of human presence from the area, usually by force, so that territory can be thrown open to tourists, conservation researchers and, in some cases, big game hunters.

Current practice in protected areas often follows a model known as ‘fortress conservation’ which requires the complete removal of human presence from the area, usually by force, so that territory can be thrown open to tourists, conservation researchers and, in some cases, big game hunters. 

Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General

“There is an overwhelming weight of research showing that Indigenous peoples are the best conservators of biodiversity, which is reflected in the fact that 80% of the world’s biodiversity is to be found on Indigenous-managed lands.

“Without respect and protection of the rights of Indigenous peoples at the heart of the agreement, coupled with thorough and transparent assessment of the social impacts, the 30 x 30 target is not only bad for human rights, it is bad for conservation too.”

Amnesty International urges parties to ensure that any decision on biodiversity protection places Indigenous peoples’ right to their lands at its heart, requiring states to consult with them to obtain their free, prior and informed consent, as currently enshrined in international human rights law.

The agreement must also guarantee that subsistence land-users have access to land, are protected from forced evictions, enjoy an adequate standard of living, and are consulted on all decisions that impact their rights. Provisions in the proposal which call into question states’ commitments to legally recognized human rights, by making them subject to national legislation, must be removed.

Indigenous peoples are currently unable to effectively take part in the drafting of the 30 x 30 plans. Their representatives at the convention negotiations have only the right to speak and make suggestions. But despite several drafting sessions, states have not yet committed to guaranteeing the human rights safeguards that Indigenous peoples are demanding.

Background

The UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) is the latest meeting to discuss the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity, an agreement adopted in 1992 and ratified by 196 countries that sets out how to safeguard animal and plant species and ensure resources are used sustainably.

The aim of COP15 is to adopt a globally agreed framework (the ‘Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework’) for halting and reversing biodiversity loss and ‘living in harmony with nature’, setting specific goals for 2030 and targets to 2050. Despite previously agreed targets for 2020, biodiversity is declining worldwide and is projected to worsen without remedial action.

The UN Convention on Biological Diversity was adopted following the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, together with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification. COP15 is the biodiversity equivalent of the COP27 climate negotiations, which concluded last month in Egypt.

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The Iranian authorities’ vague and conflicting statements on the supposed disbanding of Iran’s so-called “morality police” must not deceive the international community about the continuing violence against women and girls embedded in compulsory veiling laws and fuelled by ongoing impunity for those violently enforcing them, said Amnesty International today.

During a press conference on 3 December 2022, Iran’s Prosecutor General, Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, said: “The ‘morality police’ (gasht-e ershad) has nothing to do with the judiciary and it was closed by whichever [body] that established it in the past.” He then qualified his statement, adding: “The judiciary will continue to regulate people’s behaviour in society,” indicating that the policing of women’s bodies under compulsory veiling laws will continue. State media outlets reported the next day that “No official authority in the Islamic Republic of Iran has confirmed the closure of the morality police”.

Until the day all these laws and regulations are scrapped, the same violence that resulted in the arrest and death in custody of Mahsa (Zhina) Amini will continue against millions of other women and girls.

Heba Morayef, Amnesty International

“The Prosecutor General’s statement was deliberately vague and failed to mention the legal and policy infrastructure that keeps the practice of compulsory veiling against women and girls firmly in place. To say that the ‘morality police’ has nothing to do with the judiciary distorts the reality that, for decades, the criminalization of women and girls under abusive and discriminatory compulsory veiling laws has been rubber-stamped by judiciary. In the face of outrage in Iran and globally over this extreme form of gender-based discrimination and violence, the Iranian authorities are simply passing the buck to each other to evade responsibility,” said Heba Morayef, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

“The international community and global media must not allow the Iranian authorities to pull the wool over their eyes. Compulsory veiling is entrenched in Iran’s Penal Code and other laws and regulations that enable security and administrative bodies to subject women to arbitrary arrest and detention and deny them access to public institutions including hospitals, schools, government offices and airports if they do not cover their hair. Until the day all these laws and regulations are scrapped, the same violence that resulted in the arrest and death in custody of Mahsa (Zhina) Amini will continue against millions of other women and girls.”

Iran’s “morality police” is a sub-branch of the country’s police force, which falls under the mandate of the Ministry of Interior. Despite the Prosecutor General’s statement attempting to distance the judiciary from the “morality police”, under Iran’s Code of Criminal Procedure, police officials are considered “judicial officials” (zabetan-e qazai) who may carry out arrests and interrogations under the supervision and instruction of the Prosecutor.

The “morality police” place the entire female population under surveillance, but the policing of women’s bodies is not confined to the state. Iran’s abusive, discriminatory and degrading forced veiling laws enable not only state agents but also vigilantes, who are non-state actors, to harass and assault women and girls on a daily basis in public.

Forced veiling laws violate a whole host of rights, including the rights to equality, privacy and freedom of expression and belief. They also degrade women and girls, stripping them of their dignity, bodily autonomy, and self-worth.

Under Article 638 of Iran’s Islamic Penal Code, any act that is deemed “offensive” to public decencies is punished with an imprisonment term of 10 days to two months, or 74 lashes. An explanatory note to the article states that women who are seen in public without veiling are to be punished with an imprisonment term of 10 days to two months or a cash fine. The law applies to girls as young as nine, which is the minimum age of criminal responsibility for girls in Iran. In practice, the authorities have imposed compulsory veiling on girls from the age of seven when they start elementary school.

“It is important to remember that protesters in Iran are not calling just for the dismantling of the ‘morality police’ but for the transition of Iran to a new political and legal system that would respect their basic human rights and freedoms. The popular uprising taking place across Iran reflects nationwide rage over decades of oppression against the people of Iran, many of whom continue to be unlawfully killed on a daily basis simply for wanting freedom, democracy and human rights,” said Heba Morayef. 

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