The issue of impunity is pertinent to the protection of human rights defenders. For that reason I refer to an interesting development that follows the disclosures on torture and abduction by the CIA in the courageous Senate report. If only more countries were willing to investigate so publicly their own records (China, Russia?).
The Federal Prosecutor must investigate former CIA boss Tenet, former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and others – and should not wait until they are on German soil. Read the rest of this entry »
The New York based Center for Constitutional Rights called on US President Barack Obama last week to break his three-year silence over Israel’s 2009 killing of 18-year-old US citizen Furkan Doğan during its siege on the Gaza-bound Mavi Marmara ship in international waters.
Homosexuality is already illegal in the country and punishable by up to 14 years in prison, but the so-called Kill the Gays bill, sponsored by MP David Bahati and first introduced in 2009, would penalize “aggravated homosexuality”— consensual same-sex acts committed by “repeat offenders,” anyone who is in a position of power, is HIV-positive, or uses intoxicating agents in the process — with capital punishment. The lesser “offense of homosexuality,” also criminalized in the bill, encompasses anyone who engages in a same-sex sexual relationship, enters into a same-sex marriage, or conspires to commit “aggravated homosexuality”. And almost the most shocking, the bill also calls for three-year prison sentences for friends, family members and neighbors who do not turn in “known homosexuals” to the police!
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 