News & Politics - Human Rights Watch #1 ~ Global Topics Affecting Us All

**sunnykerr** · 04-01-2009, 06:26 PM

This will be a thread about Human Rights Issues. Don't forget to post the links to your stories.

**sunnykerr** · 04-01-2009, 06:32 PM

Quote:

Outrage Over Afghan Law Legalizing Rape in Marriage

A new Afghan law that dramatically inhibits the rights of women, including reportedly legalizing rape within marriage, has raised the ire of Canadian politicians from all parties, who are demanding that President Hamid Karzai clarify his position on the legislation.

The new law, which conflicting reports say has either passed or is still under consideration, would apply to the country's Shia minority. It would reportedly make it illegal for a woman to refuse to have sex with her husband and forbid her from leaving home without her husband's permission.

The law would also reportedly grant custody rights to fathers and grandfathers.

During a heated debate in the House of Commons on Wednesday, NDP Leader Jack Layton expressed his disappointment in the law and asked the Conservative government how it plans to respond.

"Can the government tell us today how it's going to express the disappointment of the Canadian people with regard to these laws that attack women?" Layton asked during question period.

International Trade Minister Stockwell Day reiterated comments he made Tuesday about the law, saying the government has asked for an explanation from Karzai.

"What is very clear, is that we are concerned with the provisions in this law as we see them," he said, "and we are calling unequivocally upon the government in Afghanistan to make sure they live up to their international treaty obligations for human rights, especially human rights for women."

NDP defence critic Dawn Black said news of the legislation would be disheartening to the thousands of Canadian soldiers who have served in Afghanistan.

"The government has said over and over again that the underpinning of this mission was to defend women's rights and to provide education for girls," Black said. "Mr. Speaker, after all the sacrifices, after all that Canadian families have put on the line, could this really end up being what we're fighting for in Afghanistan?"

Earlier Wednesday, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff sharply rebuked the Afghan government upon hearing of the legislation.

Ignatieff said that he is "outraged on behalf of Afghan women. Citizens of that country deserve better."

Karzai has yet to comment on the law. However, reports indicate the legislation has Karzai's support, according to Michael Wodzicki of Rights & Democracy.

"It seems more that it's a question of politicking in the sense that Afghanistan is having elections in August, President Karzai is up for election, and from what we can tell this law is a part of that process, in terms of Mr. Karzai trying to get votes from the Shia population," Wodzicki said Wednesday on CTV Newsnet.

On Tuesday, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, who was attending a conference on Afghanistan in Europe, spoke to two Afghan cabinet ministers about the law. Cannon has yet to comment on what came of those discussions.

In 2001, NATO troops forced out Afghanistan's ruling Taliban regime, which strictly followed sharia law. Under Taliban rule, women could not attend school, hold jobs, go out in public uncovered or see a male doctor without being accompanied by a male relative.

While Afghanistan's current constitution guarantees equal rights for women, it allows the Shia to have a separate family law that is based on religious traditions.

According to Wodzicki, human rights groups work with Afghan politicians and citizens to ensure that laws reflect the Afghan constitution as well as other, more progressive, laws that are passed in other countries.

However, it's work that could take generations.

"Culture is something that takes years, decades, even centuries to develop. And when we're talking about developing a culture of human rights and a culture that protects women's rights in Afghanistan, it's not going to take place in the eight years that has passed since the fall of the Taliban," Wodzicki said. "This is a long-term endeavour."

Jordan's Queen Noor, speaking to CTV Newsnet Wednesday, said that Islam "provides protections and equal rights to men and women."

While noting she hasn't read the entire law, Queen Noor added it likely contravenes both Islamic laws and human rights conventions.

CTV.ca | Outrage over Afghan law legalizing rape in marriage

This is appalling. Not only the fact that such laws are back on the books, but exactly why have we been dying and getting shot at over there? President Karzai is up for re-election and so it's okay that he's selling women's rights up the river?

**Wingster** · 04-03-2009, 07:07 AM

that's horrible and very appalling.
a law like that is regressing the human race back centuries.

**Callace** · 04-05-2009, 02:29 PM

OMG, that's ... shocking. treating people like property like that, and legalizing it

and that it would only apply to the Shia. that's weird enough. Why should they be more entitle to enslave women than the rest of the population?

**sunnykerr** · 04-05-2009, 07:10 PM

I have no idea as to why it would only apply to the Shia population... but, let's face it, the second it's legalized for anyone, it opens the door for everyone. It's the Taliban all over again. It's gross, it's appalling.

And it makes me wonder why, indeed, we're sticking it out in Afghanistan.

**sunnykerr** · 04-06-2009, 04:28 PM

An update:

Quote:

Afghanistan 'Rape' Law Puts Women's Rights Front and Center

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- "In Afghanistan, the sacrifice in the political game is women and children," female Afghan parliamentarian Fawzia Koofi said.

Koofi says that is exactly what happened when the Afghan parliament recently passed a bill intended to give the minority Shiite community their own identity. But critics say the latest draft strips Shiite women of rights as simple as leaving the house without permission from a male relative and as extreme as allowing a man to have sexual intercourse with his wife even when she says, "No."

These critics wonder how what amounts to rape in marriage could be passed by parliament and signed into law by President Hamid Karzai.

Amid blistering criticism from the West, Karzai addressed the law over the weekend, saying that key elements of the bill were misinterpreted by Western news organizations.

"We understand the concerns of our allies and the international community. Those concerns may be due to an inappropriate, not-so-good translation of the law, or misinterpretation," Karzai told reporters in Kabul.

He added that the Minister of Justice will study the "Shiite state law," line by line, to make sure it follows the nation's constitution, which requires equal rights to both sexes.

"If there is anything that is of concern to us, then we will definitely take action in consultation with our [religious clerics] and send it back to the parliament. You be assured of that. This is something that we're also serious about and should not allow," he said.

However, Karzai did not address the most controversial part of the bill, dealing with rape of a wife.

The Shiite state law was debated by 249 members of the lower house, including 68 women, some of whom voted for the bill. It was then sent to the upper house. Even some lawmakers are baffled at the manner in which it passed.

"Most members of the parliament did not know what they were going to vote for," Koofi said. "Even some of my friends, MPs sitting with me, voted in favor without knowing what happened."

U.S. President Obama called the law "abhorrent" and said his administration has made it clear to the Karzai government that it objects to the law. Human rights groups and the international community have condemned the law and say it could undermine efforts to support basic human rights in the war-torn nation.

"We very much hope that the draft piece of legislation is to be withdrawn," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said during a NATO summit on Afghanistan over the weekend. "It is unacceptable if such a law were to be passed in Afghanistan and become a part of Afghan legislation."

According to lawmakers who opposed the bill, conservative legislators are pushing back any progress made for women's rights in Afghanistan after the brutal oppression under the Taliban regime.

From 1996 to 2001, under the Sunni fundamentalist government of the Taliban, women were not allowed to leave their homes without being escorted by a male relative, and girls were not allowed to go to school.

When women did leave their homes, they were required to wear a blue burqa, which covered their bodies from head to toe. The only opening was a small net that provided an eyehole for the women to see through.

Women remember those days with despair.

One female teacher, who asked not to be named, said that during the Taliban regime, she was stopped at the market by the Taliban and beaten with a whip. Her crime: She wore a shawl covering her body instead of a burqa. She says she was too poor to purchase a real burqa.

After that beating, she was stuck in her home for months until someone was able to give her a used burqa. But even then, she didn't know how to function wearing the suffocating fabric.

"I remember stepping out of a taxi with my son, and my foot was caught inside the burqa, making me fall out of the taxi onto mud. And everyone started laughing. It was humiliating," she said.

Women in Afghanistan can still be seen wearing burqas. But Koofi says advances have been made for women's rights in recent years. In some cases, it's as simple as putting on makeup and walking down city streets.

But she fears that the rights of women and children could slowly be eroded, the "victims of political games," as she puts it. "I mean, they don't have a gun to fight [with], they cannot create a mess," Koofi said.

That's a sentiment echoed by rights groups. "The reported new law on women's rights could be about to seriously undermine women's rights for millions of Afghanistan women," Amnesty International said in a statement.

The new law was intended to give the minority Shiite community its own identity within the predominantly Sunni country. Shiites have been practicing their form of Islam for centuries in Afghanistan, but they agree that there needs to be a governing Islamic law for Shiites alone, one recognized by the central government.

Koofi welcomes international support in fighting the new law, telling CNN that international investments in Afghanistan should go beyond financial donations.

"I don't ask that the international community come and make laws for us, but they have to make the government of Afghanistan accountable for their commitment to women and children ... and basically the human rights situation in this country," she said.

Afghanistan 'rape' law puts women's rights front and center - CNN.com

He's blaming it on bad translation?

Does he think we're all morons? Does he think we're all taking someone else's word for it and no one's bothered to look at the text!!!!

**sunnykerr** · 04-07-2009, 07:26 PM

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Rwanda Marks Genocide With Vigil

Rwanda has held a candlelit vigil at the start of a week of national mourning to mark 15 years since the genocide which killed 800,000 people.

Ceremonies were held in the capital Kigali, and in Nyanza, where more than 5,000 people were slaughtered.

At a stadium in Kigali, thousands of candles spelt out the word "hope" in three languages.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said that preventing future genocide was "a collective responsibility".

"Only by meeting this challenge can we match the resolve of the survivors and truly honour the memory of those who died in Rwanda 15 years ago," he said.

"The resounding voices of survivors touch us in ways that no other words could. Yet the silence of the more 800,000 innocent victims still haunts our collective conscience."

US President Barack Obama said the genocide was "so enormous, so daunting, that it runs the risk of becoming a statistic".

He said it was important to remember that each person who died had "their own story, their own family, and their own dreams" and that remembering such events deepened the commitment to prevent "future atrocities".

Mr Obama also praised the "courageous" survivors who he said had "demonstrated remarkable strength and generosity in forgiving those who committed these heinous acts".

"These individuals inspire us daily by working to restore trust and rebuild hope in Rwanda," he said.

'Cowardice'

The BBC's Karen Allen, in the Kigali stadium, said the ceremony was very emotional, with several people overcome by grief and having to be carried out.

Dignitaries and ordinary Rwandans, led by Mr Kagame, queued up to light candles.

"We must remember, but life must go on," Mr Kagame told the crowd.

"We must continue to build a better future."

But Mr Kagame has also used the occasion to accuse the international community of cowardice and of abandoning Rwandans to their deaths.

He laid a wreath and lit a torch at the scene of a massacre in Nyanza, seen by many as a symbol of the UN's failure 15 years ago.

The killings there took place after Belgian troops withdrew following a Rwandan militia attack that claimed the lives of 10 peacekeepers on 7 April that year.

Mr Kagame said the people of Rwanda had been "abandoned in their time of need" by the UN troops sent to protect them.

"They left them to be murdered. Aren't they guilty?", AFP quoted him as saying.

"They left even before any shot was fired."

He said the international community was "part of that history and the root causes of the genocide," but that Rwandans were "not like those who abandoned people they had come to protect".

Tribunals

The genocide in Rwanda began when President Juvenal Habyarimana's plane was shot down on 6 April 1994.

Within 100 days of the president's death, ethnic Hutu militia had killed some 800,000 people across Rwanda.

The killings came to an end when Tutsi-led rebels under the current president took control.

Rwanda has taken many practical steps to build bridges between the Tutsi and Hutu communities, says our correspondent.

Some of the most senior perpetrators of the violence have faced a special tribunal in Tanzania although scores of key suspects remain at large.

Although the younger generation is spear-heading efforts at reconciliation, many older people are finding in harder to forgive, she says.

BBC NEWS | Africa | Rwanda marks genocide with vigil

Yeah, I don't think the lessons of history were learned at all here. Because it's happening right now in Darfur and no one's doing anything about it. Now we know better and we'll prevent future genocide? Please. It's happening right now.

And the world did abandon Rwanda. Lt.-Gen. Dallaire tried to help. He tried to prevent the massacre of innocent people, but he did leave when ordered to. I happen to believe that he did the best he could, but the truth is that no one, whether an organization or a government, back him up. So we abandoned Rwanda.

**Callace** · 04-08-2009, 03:52 PM

Wow, so the rape in marrage law was "misinterpreted"

Then I would really like to know what was the "right" interpretation of it

Quote:

He added that the Minister of Justice will study the "Shiite state law," line by line, to make sure it follows the nation's constitution, which requires equal rights to both sexes.

Lets certainly hope so,

**sunnykerr** · 04-08-2009, 06:47 PM

Well, who knows, maybe we misinterpret what "equality" between the sexes is...

**sunnykerr** · 03-29-2010, 07:43 PM

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China 'must disclose executions'

Rights group Amnesty International has urged China to disclose the number of prisoners it executes.

In its annual report on the use of the death penalty, Amnesty said some 714 people were known to have been executed in 18 countries in 2009.

But the group said the true global figure could be much higher, as thousands of executions were thought to have been carried out in China alone.

At least 366 people were executed in Iran, 120 in Iraq and 52 in the US.

Amnesty praised Burundi and Togo for abolishing the death penalty in 2009 and said that for the first time in modern history, no-one had been executed in Europe or the former Soviet Union over the year.

'Torture'

Beijing says it executes fewer people now than it has in the past, but has always maintained that details of its executions are a state secret.

However, Amnesty said that "evidence from previous years and a number of current sources indicates that the figure remains in the thousands".

Quote:

WORLD EXECUTIONS 2009
# China: thousands suspected executed by injection and shooting
# Iran: more than 366 executions, by hanging or stoning
# Iraq: more than 120 executions by hanging
# Saudi Arabia: at least 69 executions by beheading or crucifixion
# US: 52 executions by lethal injection of electrocution

It said the death penalty could be applied to 68 offences in the country, including non-violent crimes, with executions carried out by lethal injection or firing squad.

Many people were sentenced based on confessions extracted under torture and having had limited access to legal counsel, it said.

"The Chinese authorities claim that fewer executions are taking place," said Amnesty's Interim Secretary General Claudio Cordone.

"If this is true, why won't they tell the world how many people the state put to death?"

Since 2007, all death sentences passed in China have been subject to a mandatory review by a higher court, a process China says has reduced the number of killings carried out.

"However, as long as statistics on the use of the death penalty in China remain a state secret, it will be impossible to verify this claim and to analyse actual trends," said Amnesty.

Of particular concern to Amnesty were cases of those executed after political unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang, people sentenced to death for financial fraud and a British man, Akmal Shaikh, executed for drug smuggling despite his lawyer's claims he was mentally ill.

"The time is long overdue for China to fall into line with international law and standards on the death penalty and be open and transparent regarding its use of capital punishment," it said.

Abolitionist trend

Amnesty said that by the end of 2009, there were 17,118 people on death row around the world, with 2,001 people sentenced that year.

But while 58 countries still had a death penalty in 2009, only 18 countries were known to have carried out executions.

It also said "commutations and pardons of death sentences appear to be more frequent" in countries which still pass death sentences, including more than 4,000 in Kenya in a mass commutation in August.

The group noted a sharp rise in executions in Iran in the eight weeks after political unrest following President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election victory in June 2009.

Iran was also criticised, along with Saudi Arabia, for carrying out executions of people convicted of crimes they committed while under the age of 18.

Saudi Arabia was reported to have carried out executions "at an alarming rate", with at least 69 people publically beheaded in 2009.

The report also highlighted an increasing abolitionist trend around the world in recent years.

Both Burundi and Togo outlawed the death penalty in 2009, becoming the 94th and 95th countries to do so.

"The world is in reach of 100 countries declaring their refusal to put people to death," said Amnesty.

The group repeated its assertion that the death penalty is cruel, an "affront to human dignity" and often used disproportionately against the poor and marginalised.

It said the secrecy surrounding state executions in many countries was "indefensible".

"If capital punishment is a legitimate act of government as these nations claim, there is no reason for its use to be hidden from the public and international scrutiny," it said.

BBC News - Amnesty urges China to disclose execution figures

I applaud Amnesty International for continuing to shed a light on the secrecy surrounding the death penalty in China. Bad enough that human beings a re put to death like chattel, we should at least be aware of the numbers and circumstances involved.

**sunnykerr** · 04-01-2010, 05:27 PM

Quote:

Protest at Saudi sorcery sentence

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri has been urged to intervene to stop the execution of a Lebanese national accused of sorcery in Saudi Arabia.

Amnesty International said TV fortune teller Ali Hussain Sabat seemed to have been convicted for "exercising of his right to freedom of expression".

Mr Sabat's lawyer said she had been informed unofficially that he could be beheaded by the end of this week.

But Beirut's envoy to Riyadh said the case was still being heard.

The condemned man hosted a satellite TV show in which he predicted the future.

He was arrested by the Saudi religious police while on pilgrimage to the country in 2008.

Malcolm Smart, head of Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa programme, said it was "high time the Saudi Arabian government joined the international trend towards a worldwide moratorium on executions".

The Lebanese ambassador to Riyadh, Marwan Zein, said on Thursday that he had not been informed that Mr Sabat's execution was imminent, AFP news agency reports.

His case was "still being considered by the court", the ambassador said.

There has been no official confirmation from Saudi Arabia, but executions there are often carried out with little warning.

Egyptian executed

Human Rights Watch senior researcher Christophe Wilcke said the case had still to go before "the supreme court [in Riyadh] and... the king for ratification."

Mr Sabat's lawyer, May el-Khansa, contacted Lebanese leaders earlier to appeal on his behalf.

Ms Khansa says her client did make a confession but he only did so because he had been told he could go back to Lebanon if he did.

Lebanese Justice Minister Ibrahim Najjar told AFP in Beirut: "I hope that Saudi authorities realise the same offence is not dealt with in the same manner in other countries and that they will be sensitive to all recommendations."

Human rights groups have accused the Saudis of "sanctioning a literal witch hunt by the religious police".

An Egyptian working as a pharmacist in Saudi Arabia was executed in 2007 after having been found guilty of using sorcery to try to separate a married couple.

There is no legal definition of witchcraft in Saudi Arabia, but horoscopes and fortune telling are condemned as un-Islamic.

Nevertheless, there is still a big thirst for such services in a country where widespread superstition survives under the surface of strict religious orthodoxy, the BBC's Sebastian Usher says.

BBC News - Saudi move to execute 'sorcery man' sparks protest

The officials can say that the case is still being heard all they want. Executions in Saudi Arabia do happen with little to no warning, so that really doesn't mean much to anyone wanting to save this man's life.

I hope he can be saved. Some the laws in Saudi Arabia defy logic and common sense.

**Wildfire Girl** · 04-02-2010, 11:15 AM

Quote:

Some the laws in Saudi Arabia defy logic and common sense.

completely agreed

**sunnykerr** · 04-02-2010, 08:19 PM

I hope this gets the proper attention, though it seems pretty hopeless. The Saudis have been at this for decades and we've all turned a blind eye.

**Wildfire Girl** · 04-05-2010, 05:00 PM

It's that way in a lot of countries, though.

**sunnykerr** · 04-05-2010, 07:31 PM

Maybe, but the Saudis are at the top of the list of countries that will put people to death (period) and then at the top of the list of countries that will put people to death for completely mind-boggling reasons.


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