Posts Tagged ‘illegal detention’
April 12, 2013
On 10 April 2013 human rights defender and LGBTI activist, Mr Paul Kasonkomona was due to appear in court to challenge his arbitrary detention, three days after being arrested in connection with a live TV interview in which he called for the decriminalization of same-sex relations in Zambia. Despite legal arrangements prohibiting preventive detention without formal charges beyond 48 hours, and contrary to the promise given by Zambian authorities, the human rights defender is yet to appear in court. Paul Kasonkomona is a prominent human rights defender working for Engender Rights Centre for Justice, a local human rights group focusing on the rights of sexual minorities in Zambia, and running campaigns in support of the rights of gay people, sex workers, and people living with HIV/Aids. 
The human rights defender was the evening guest for the program, “The Assignment” run by Muvi TV, an independent TV station operating from Lusaka. During the TV program, Paul Kasonkomona focused on the need for improved access to health care by sex workers, prisoners and sexual minorities. The allegations over which Kasonkomona is being held remain unclear as he has not been formally charged. However, a police official has been quoted as suggesting that the charges against the human rights defender are related to “inciting the public to take part in indecent activities.”
Front Line Defenders believes that Paul Kasonkomona has been detained as a result of his legitimate and non-violent activities in defence of human rights.
Posted in Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Front Line Defenders, hiv aids, Human right, Human rights defender, human rights group, illegal detention, LGBT, LGBT rights, Lusaka, Paul Kasonkomona, sexual minorities, Television station, Zambia
April 11, 2013
In the early hours of 6 April, human rights lawyer Mr Wang Quanzhang was released from detention in the province of eastern Jiangsu, approximately 56 hours after he was detained and placed under a 10-day judicial detention for “disrupting court order”. The human rights defender was detained for photographing a document which he had been asked to submit to the court, as it was his only copy! The Jingjiang People’s Court released Wang Quanzhang on the grounds that the short detention had already served as a punishment and a warning. However, the human rights defender believes that his release is due to public pressure. Wang Quanzhang had been defending Mr Zhu Yanian, who is a member of Falun Gong and was being tried for ‘using a cult organisation to undermine the implementation of the law’.
For more information on this case, please see Front Line Defender’s Urgent Appeal on 5 April 2013 <http://www.frontlinedefenders.org/node/22244> .
Posted in Front Line, human rights | Leave a Comment »
Tags: China, detention, Falun Gong, Front Line Defenders, Human right, Human rights defender, human rights lawyer, illegal detention, Jiangsu, Jingjiang, lawyer, release, threats, Wang Quanzhang
March 27, 2013
In a piece in the Irish Times of 27 March 2013 Mary Lawlor, Director of Front Line Defenders, makes a strong plea for the release of the medical staff arrested and ill-treated in Bahrain:
“Medical ethics is apparently too sensitive an issue to discuss in Bahrain following the cancelling of an international conference that was being organised by the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland RCSI and Médecins Sans Frontières. Hardly surprising given that the Bahraini government jails and tortures medical professionals and human rights defenders……………..
….It is a pity that the RCSI did not feel strongly enough on the issue of medical ethics to speak out publicly when colleagues, some of whom had studied in Dublin, were being tortured in police custody in 2011………But the reality is that the government continues to jail those who raise their voices in defence of human rights. At this moment Dr Ali Al Ekri, Dr Saeed Al Samahiji and Ibrahim Al Demistani, a nurse, remain in prison having been convicted of “trying to overthrow the monarchy”, by treating injured demonstrators and speaking out about killings and torture. At the same time another 20 medics and health professionals will find out today whether the charges of participating in illegal gatherings have been upheld against them. They face the possibility of receiving a three-month prison sentence, although in practice, many of them have already spent that time in prison awaiting trial. Even those medics who have been released or who have had charges against them dropped have been removed from their posts. …. Repression in Bahrain is not a secret. Medical ethics would best be served by releasing the medics from prison together with Nabeel Rajab and all those human rights defenders who have had the courage to speak truth to power.”
via Jailed Bahraini doctors and human rights defenders should be released now – Middle East News | Latest News Headlines | The Irish Times – Wed, Mar 27, 2013.
Posted in Front Line, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | 2 Comments »
Tags: Bahrain, Dublin, Front Line Defenders, illegal detention, Ireland, Irish Times, Mary Lawlor, Médecins Sans Frontières, medical profession, Middle East, Nabeel Rajab, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, royal college of surgeons of ireland, torture
March 19, 2013
On 9 March 2013, police severely beat a number of human rights defenders and members of the
Initiative pour la Résurgence du Mouvement Abolitionniste en Mauritanie – IRA (Initiative for the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement) in Southern Mauritania. Nine of the human rights defenders were arbitrarily arrested and remain in detention in Kaédi police station. (IRA is an organisation which works to eradicate slavery in Mauritania. It has members and supporters in various regions of the country.)
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Tags: abolition, freedom of assembly, Front Line Defenders, Human rights defender, Human Rights Defenders, illegal detention, Initiative pour la Résurgence du Mouvement Abolitionniste en Mauritanie, IRA, islamic fundamentalists, judicial harassment, Kaédi, Mauritania, slavery
March 12, 2013
Last Saturday, two distinguished human rights defenders in Saudi Arabia were sentenced to jail in Riyadh for establishing an unlicensed human rights organization. Mohammed Al-Qahtani and Abdullah Al-Hamad (or Hamid) established the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA) in 2009. The organization’s mission is to promote human rights awareness within the Kingdom. ACPRA called for political representation of Saudi citizens and creation of laws to protect minorities. The organization also worked on documenting human rights abuses within the Kingdom. Despite multiple efforts to license ACPRA, the organization’s petitions were rejected and the group was eventually banned by Saudi authorities. The two men were sentenced to 10 and 11 years in prison on accusations including the rather illiberal sounding “breaking allegiance to the King”, “disseminating false information through foreign entities” and “forming an unlicensed organization“. This trial and the ensuing heavy sentence are clearly linked to them exercising their rights to freedom of opinion and association.
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Tags: Abdullah Al-Hamad, Abdullah Al-Hamid, ACPRA, Alkarama, Civil society, freedom of association, freedom of expression, Freedom of speech, Human right, human rights, Human Rights Defenders, human rights organization, illegal detention, independence of the judiciary, jail, Middle East, Mohammed Al-Qahtani, Muftah, political prisoners, prison, Riyadh, Saudi, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association, Sentence (law)
March 12, 2013
In a case that was followed closely in this blog, a Bahraini human rights defender accused of sending out twitters with ‘false information’, there is finally some good news: a Bahraini court has acquitted Said Yousif Al-Muhafdah of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR – 2012 Final Nominee of the MEA). “It’s a great relief that Said Yousif was acquitted today, bringing an end to three months of judicial harassment. Let’s hope this means the courts are beginning to show a better understanding of what freedom of expression means,” said Human Rights First’s Brian Dooley. Al-Muhafdah was arrested in December 2012 for “spreading false information on Twitter.”
His case is one in a string cases stemming from the Kingdom’s ongoing judicial harassment of human rights defenders. It followed last year’s jailing of Nabeel Rajab, President of the BCHR, and of human rights activist Zainab Al Khawaja in February 2013. “This is a small victory, but unfortunately there are many other cases of judicial harassment that continue to wind their way through Bahrain’s judicial system,” Brian Dooley noted. On March 21, the appeal of 23 medics, each sentenced to three months in prison after treating injured protestors in 2011, will continue. A verdict is expected at a date soon after. Dooley, who has authored four reports about the ongoing crackdown in Bahrain, has been forbidden access to the nation for more than a year. “This is not how a nation that wants to trumpet its human rights record treats monitors” Dooley added.
via Acquittal in Bahrain Twitter Case Comes as Dooley Denied Access Again | Human Rights First.
Posted in HRF, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: acquittal, Bahrain, Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, BCHR, Brian Dooley, HRF, Human right, human rights, human rights activist, Human rights defender, Human Rights First, illegal detention, judicial harassment, MEA 2012 nominee, Middle East, Nabeel Rajab, Said Yousif Al-Muhafdah, trial observation, twitter, Zainab Al-Khawaja
March 10, 2013
On 10 January 2013 I posted something on the largest ever trial of internet dissidents in Viet Nam. On 8 March this issue was continued in the UN:
“We call upon the Council to press Vietnam to put an end to this repression,” said Vo Van Ai, speaking on behalf of Vietnamese campaigners and the International Federation of Human Rights. In a speech to the UN body he said a total of 32 bloggers and other cyber-dissidents were behind bars in Vietnam, either sentenced or awaiting trial. They face prison terms of up to 16 years.
“Such repression does not serve to protect national security, as the Vietnamese authorities claim, but to stifle the voices of an emerging civil society speaking out on corruption, power abuse, the plight of dispossessed peasants and farmers, human rights and democratic reforms,” he said. He condemned Vietnam’s use of Ordinance 44, a 2002 ruling which authorises the detention of suspected national security offenders without due process of the law and which is increasingly deployed against bloggers, sometimes in psychiatric hospitals.
Fellow-campaigner Penelope Faulker, with the French-based group Work Together for Human Rights, noted that after a 2009 United Nations review (UPR), Hanoi had pledged to uphold freedom of information. “However, in the past year alone, scores of bloggers, online journalists and human rights defenders in Vietnam have been harassed, intimated, subjected to police abuse, or condemned to extremely harsh prison sentences simply for expressing their peaceful views on the Internet,” she told the Council. The southeast Asian country has been branded an “enemy of the Internet” by freedom of expression watchdog Reporters Without Borders.
via: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/03/08/human-rights-activists-push-u-n-for-action-over-vietnams-treatment-of-cyber-protesters/
Posted in FIDH, human rights, Human Rights Defenders | Leave a Comment »
Tags: blog, cyber activism, dissidents, Human right, human rights, Human Rights Defenders, illegal detention, International Federation for Human Rights, National security, Penelope Faulker, Reporters without Borders, southeast asian country, United Nations, UPR, Viet Nam, Vietnam, Vo Van Ai
March 4, 2013
Several NGOs continue to follow closely the development in Bahrain, sadly the subject of may posts in this blog. Here HRF’s and Frontline’s recent statements:
Human Rights First (HRF) says that this week will see a series of high profile court hearings in Bahrain, exposing the authorities continued use of judicial harassment against human rights defenders and activists. On Sunday March 3, Halima Abdulaziz al Sabag is due to hear an appeal verdict. She is a dental assistant and was sentenced to a year in prison after she was convicted for allegedly taking first aid material from the hospital where she worked to treat injured protesters. On Monday March 4, the Bahrain government will continue to press a case against leading human rights defender Said Yousif Al Muhafda of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights for information he tweeted about police using birdshot against protesters. On Tuesday March 5, the appeal of 23 medics is due to return to court. They have all been convicted and sentenced to three months in prison after treating injured protesters in 2011. “This continuing crackdown in the courts tells us more about the reality of what’s happening in Bahrain than the speeches its officials are giving to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva this week,” said Human Rights First’s Brian Dooley…….. Other prominent human rights leaders, including President of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights Nabeel Rajab, remain in jail. Please contact Brenda Bowser Soder at bowsersoderb@humanrightsfirst.org or 202-370-3323. 
via Bahrain’s Targeting of Civil Society with Judicial Harassment Continues | Human Rights First.
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Posted in Front Line, HRF, human rights | 2 Comments »
Tags: Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, Bahrain, Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, bahrain government, Brian Dooley, Front Line Defenders, Human right, human rights, Human rights defender, Human Rights Defenders, Human Rights First, illegal detention, judicial harassment, Manama, medical, Middle East, Nabeel Rajab, NGOs, persecution, Said Yousif Al Muhafda, Zainab Al-Khawaja
February 28, 2013
Mutabar Tadjibayeva, one of Uzbekistan’s best known human rights defenders and
Laureate of the Martin Ennals Award 2008, has filed a complaint against Uzbekistan for her brutal torture and forced sterilisation when she was serving an eight-year prison sentence for her human rights activities. The international human rights organisations FIDH and REDRESS recently filed the complaint on her behalf before the UN Human Rights Committee. This is the first known case before the Committee involving a Uzbek human rights defender being forcibly sterilised.
Tadijbayeva has repeatedly sought an investigation from Uzbek authorities into the serious human rights violations that she has suffered since 2002, but her claims have never been investigated and no-one has ever been prosecuted for them. Tadjibayeva is asking the Committee to order Uzbekistan to conduct an effective investigation, punish those found responsible and provide her with reparation, including compensation, as well as her full medical records about the surgery that left her infertile, among other things.
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Posted in human rights | 3 Comments »
Tags: FIDH, Human right, Human rights defender, illegal detention, illtreatment, International Federation for Human Rights, Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, MEA, MEA 2008, Mutabar Tadjibayeva, REDRESS, sexual violence, Souhayr Belhassen, torture, UN, United Nations Human Rights Committee, Uzbekistan
February 25, 2013
The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, joint programme of FIDH and OMCT, has been informed of the arrest and detention of human rights defender Abdi Osman, vice-president of the Ligue djiboutienne des droits humains (LDDH). On 21 February 2013 it seems that Osman has been arrested and brought to the police station. At the time of writing he seems not to be at this station anymore but his place of detention is worryingly unkown. Osman had on 20 February addressed publicly in the framework of an opposition meeting the torture and bad detention conditions of political prisoners. Action suggestions are in:
via Djibouti: Arrestation et détention au secret de M. Abdi Osman / 22 février 2013 / Interventions urgentes / Défenseurs des droits… / OMCT.
Posted in human rights | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Abdi Osman, arbitrary arrest, disappearances, Djibouti, FIDH, Human right, Human rights defender, illegal detention, International Federation for Human Rights, Observatory, OMCT, political prisoner, World Organisation Against Torture
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 