Posts

,

Bahrain Security Forces Accused of Human Rights, Child Abuse

Bahrain Security Forces Beat Children All Day
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has reported that Bahrain security forces are routinely detaining children and subjecting them to cruel treatment that may rise to the level of torture. Information from victims, families, and human rights activists suggests that the authorities are holding children for long periods of time, during which the children are beaten and threatened with torture. Many of the children being detained have participated in anti-government protests that began during the Arab Spring in 2011.

The European Parliament has responded to the situation in Bahrain by issuing a resolution denouncing the government’s actions and urging it, “to respect the rights of juveniles, to refrain from detaining them in adult facilities, and to treat juveniles in accordance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Bahrain is a party.” The Convention on the Rights of the Child requires that participatory nations protect their children from ill treatment and torture and provide prompt access to legal assistance for detained children.

In one account, the brother of a detained child said that police showed up at a pool party on September 5 and arrested 14 people, including nine children between the ages of 15 and 17. His brother was among those arrested. On the day after the arrest, the child was able to contact his family and recount the details of his detention. According to his account, he and the other children were blindfolded and beaten before being taken into custody. While detained, they were intimidated and pressed to admit to a September 1 attack on police officers. On September 11, the boy’s family had yet to see him, and he did not have access to a lawyer or social worker.

Other reports suggest that child victims have been illegally detained, beaten, threatened with rape and even burnt with cigarettes. Joe Stork, Middle East and North Africa director at HRW said, “The Bahraini authorities need to look into these allegations and immediately call a halt to any arbitrary arrests and mistreatment of children.” The HRW report urges Bahraini officials to conduct independent and impartial investigations into all allegations of child torture and illegal detention. For those children that are detained, officials should notify families and allow the children access to legal representation.

The Bahraini security forces’ abuse of children is part of a larger crackdown on protesters that are demanding political reform in the country. The constitutional monarchy does not appear concerned with allegations of human rights abuse. Since July, Bahrain’s parliament has urged King Al Khalifa to toughen punishments prescribed by the country’s 2006 anti-terrorism laws.

– Daniel Bonasso

Sources: Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, RT
Photo: The Guardian

/by
, , , , , , ,

8-Year-Old Yemini Girl Dies from Sexual Lesions

child-marriage
On Sept 9th, The Huffington Post reported the death of an 8-year-old girl in the northwest city of Hardh, Yemen. According to Medical Daily, the little girl, Rawan, “bled severely after suffering vaginal tearing following her forced marriage to a 40-year-old man.” Rawan’s death generated outrage among neighboring Kuwaiti officials, but also in Yemen itself.

Indeed, following her death, social media have been exploding with incriminating comments against Raman’s family who allowed her to marry so young, but also against her ‘husband,’ the 40-year-old man who effectively raped her on her wedding night.

Sadly enough, Raman’s story is not an isolated one. In 2010, the death from internal rupture of a 13-year-old in similar circumstances shocked public opinion.

The plague of child marriage is particularly severe in Yemen, where statistics speak for themselves. According to Human Rights Watch, 14 percent of girls are married before the age of 15 and 82 percent before they turn 18. Al Bawaba’s numbers are even more appalling: they estimate that “a quarter of young girls in Yemen are married before the age of 15.”

The World Health Organization’s 2013 report estimates that, if consistent with current levels of child marriage, more than 140 million girls will marry between 2011 and 2020. As of today, more than 14.2 million marriages with underaged girls occur annually; that’s 39,000 child marriages per day. The extent of child marriage is frightening. Girls as young as three years old are sometimes drawn into arranged marriages by their families.

Despite the Yemeni authorities’ efforts to prohibit child marriage, one step forward is often synonymous with two steps backwards in Yemen. For instance, a law setting the minimum marriage age at 17 was enacted in 2009, only to be later repealed because deemed ‘un-Islamic.’

The shocking circumstances surrounding Raman’s death have hopefully sparked the fire needed for change. The international community ought to live up to its commitments to child freedom by preventing other cases like that of Raman from happening.

– Lauren Yeh

Sources: New York Daily News, The Huffington Post, Medical Daily, WHO

/by
, ,

Charges Against Transgender Youth in Cameroon

Cameroon Transgendered Youth Arrested Gay Rights
In July 2011, two transgender youths—who both identify as women—were arrested in Cameroon. The police, who saw the two women “groping each other’s genitals” in a car, charged them with homosexual conduct; a practice illegal in the socially conservative Cameroon.

However, as the case garnered international attention, the evidence was elucidated as problematic: no eyewitnesses were presented and the confessions seem to be clearly coerced. In November 2011, the two transgender women were convicted. However, local and international criticism caused the appeals court to overturn the conviction on January 7 due to a lack of evidence.

Nevertheless, the case shows the tension surrounding gender identity in Cameroon, and the lack of legal support for individuals that do not fit the traditional gender binary.

The executive director, Yves Yomb, of Alternatives Cameroon said, “As transgender people, Jonas and Franky are guilty of nothing more than having a gender identity that most Cameroonians don’t understand. On the occasion of the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia, we call on our government to accept UPR recommendations to end homophobic and transphobic discrimination, and simply to let people like Jonas and Franky live their lives in peace.”

Clearly, Cameroon needs to enact institutional, legal, and educational support for its citizens, regardless of their gender identity, as the act of homophobia and transphobia is an issue of morality just as much as it is of human rights.

– Anna C Purcell

Sources: Human Rights Watch, United Nations
Photo: Moon of the South

/by
,

Tibetan Atrocities Revealed by Communist Party Official

tibet_opt
An ethnic Tibetan who grew up under the Chinese Communist regime and currently works as a high-ranking Communist Party official has decided to speak out against the Tibetan atrocities currently taking place. Choosing to remain anonymous, the government official claims that the current state of Tibet is “far worse than people in the West suspect.”

When the Chinese military invaded Tibet in 1950, many Tibetans thought the Chinese would modernize the region and bring order to the land that was previously ruled by monks and monasteries. These thoughts were quickly dashed when the Chinese began erasing any signs of Tibetan culture and forcibly removing people from their homes into communes. During the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, Tibetan leaders were sent to Maoist reeducation camps and hundreds of monasteries and relics were destroyed. Many of these injustices are still occurring today.

The streets of Lhasa, Tibet’s capital city, are still patrolled by Chinese security forces that act like occupiers. The Communist official claims that the security forces often take property and beat residents at their own discretion and without cause. During another Lhasa revolt surrounding the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the military arrested 6,000 people. The practice of self-immolation, or the public death by lighting oneself on fire, has gained popularity with monks to raise awareness for their struggle. Since 2011, over 100 people have resorted to self-immolation to protest the Chinese occupation of Tibet.

Another horrifying byproduct of Chinese rule has been the destruction of the Tibetan plateau. The Communist official alleges that the increase in cultivation due to Chinese immigrants coming to Tibet has resulted in diminished grasslands and desertification. The number of rivers that feed into Qinghai Lake decreased from 108 to 8 due to extensive irrigation systems. Furthermore, the area as a whole is said to be a toxic dumping ground for Chinese industries.

Human Rights Watch recently published a 115-page report corroborating many injustices that the Communist official is claiming. Their report focuses on the re-housing project currently underway that has relocated over 2 million Tibetans since 2006. Hundreds of thousands of nomadic herders have been placed into “New Socialist Villages” destroying their livelihoods without adequate compensation.

These obvious and blatant human rights abuses are occurring all across Tibet. The Communist official hopes to publish a book in the West detailing his eyewitness accounts of the current state of Tibet and hopes that the Chinese will someday allow public debate on the matter. He says that a style of democracy tailored to the culture and people of Tibet would be the best solution if such an option were possible.

– Sarah C. Morris 

Sources: Spiegel, Human Rights Watch
Sources: New York Times

/by
, ,

The Voluntary Relocation of Tibetans

The program is known as the New Socialist Countryside, and has provided up to 2.1 million Tibetans with running water, electricity, and access to improved healthcare and education in the past 7 years. Run by planners in Beijing, the program is ostensibly aimed at raising living standards and improving the economy of Tibet, one of the poorest regions within China.

However, a recent report by Human Rights Watch suggests that the program has had a severe effect on the traditional Tibetan way of life. Says Sophie Richardson, China Director for Human Rights Watch, “…while it may be true that some Tibetans have benefitted, the majority have simply been forced to trade poor but stable livelihoods for the uncertainties of a cash economy in which they are often the weakest actors.”

Having observed the income disparity between rural and urban dwellers, the Chinese government has relocated nearly three-quarters of Tibetans to urban areas. However, upon arriving in cities, rural Tibetans can’t compete with immigrants from other regions of China, nor with educated locals who speak Mandarin. As such, large portions of the population are being moved, supposedly voluntarily, but not being given a support structure once resettled that would allow them to survive in a setting wholly foreign to their previous nomadic lifestyle.

There are many claims for the motives of the government, including protecting the ecologically fragile grasslands of the Tibetan plateau, and facilitating improved utility distribution for the population, but at the same time the thought lingers that the relocations have more to do with control of the population and improving rural incomes to avoid unrest.

120 self-immolations have taken place in Tibet in the past five years. Sadly, civil unrest is an ongoing theme in Tibet, and with governmental policies such as New Socialist Countryside, improvement is a double-edged sword.

– David Wilson

Sources: NY Times, Huffington Post

/by
, , , , ,

Chad’s Ex-Dictator Detained in Senegal

Hissene Habre
DAKAR, Senegal — According to reports, Chad’s former dictator — Hissène Habré — was arrested in Dakar, Senegal, on June 30. His presidency between 1982 and 1990 was marked by corruption and mistreatment of Chad’s citizens, and the Human Rights Watch called his detainment “a milestone” in the effort to bring justice for his victims and their families.

While Chad’s economy is severely stunted by both its land-locked location in Central Africa and the fact that the vast majority of its land is unusable for subsistence agriculture, the humanitarian crises caused and perpetuated by political turmoil have done their fair share of classifying the country as a “failed state,” according to the Fund for Peace Failed State Index. Habré was responsible for an estimated 40,000 deaths during his reign. When Habré was deposed by Idriss Déby in 1990, he went into self-imposed exile in Senegal after emptying the national treasury.

Despite mountains of evidence that were brought against Habré in the ensuing years, the government of Senegal did not pursue action against him. In February, 2000, he was arrested and indicted in Senegal, but upon the election of Senegal’s president Abdoulaye Wade that same year, the case was dismissed.

Further attempts of the victims to have Habré extradited to Belgium were stalled, after which Belgium filed a case against Senegal in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Senegal President Wade was voted out of office in favor of Macky Sall last year, shortly before the ICJ ruled that Senegal must prosecute or extradite Habré.

Chadian President Déby’s government is still populated by many of Habré’s former allies. The effort to bring these cases against Habré was hindered by fear of the Déby administration after 1990, which absorbed many of Habré’s DDS — Directorate of Documentation and Security — agents and practices. Senegal’s choice to detain Habré is a step forward, not only in light of the ICJ ruling but also as an affirmation of justice and source of closure for victims of the ex-dictator’s administration.

– Naomi Doraisamy

Source: AllAfrica, Fund For Peace, Human Rights Watch, New York Times, Rural Poverty Portal, USIP
Photo: SeneNews

/by