Posts Tagged ‘sentence’

Protest follows sentencing of Adilur Rahman Khan and Nasiruddin Elan in Bangladesh

September 15, 2023

On 14 September 2023 the Cyber Tribunal, Dhaka sentenced to two years imprisonment Odhikar’s Secretary Adilur Rahman Khan and Director ASM Nasiruddin Elan for allegedly breaching Section 57 of the Information and Communication Technology Act 2006. They were charged for releasing a report on extrajudicial killings committed on 5 and 6 May 2013, centering around the Hefazat-e-Islam protests.

Immediately, 39 organizations in a joint call said that Bangladesh should quash their convictions, and end all reprisals against them and other human rights defenders for their legitimate human rights work. The Bangladesh Government has persistently targeted and launched a smear campaign against Khan and Elan, the secretary and director, respectively, of prominent Bangladesh human rights organization Odhikar. Following the 2013 publication of Odhikar’s fact-finding report documenting extrajudicial killings during a protest, both defenders were arbitrarily detained; Khan for 62 and Elan for 25 days. After being released on bail, they continued to face prosecution and judicial harassment on trumped-up allegations that their 2013 report was “fake, distorted, and defamatory.”

After years of stalling, Bangladeshi judicial authorities accelerated the hearings in their case following the designation of US sanctions against the country’s notoriously abusive paramilitary Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and its officials in December 2021, blaming human rights organizations like Odhikar for this outcome. Their case has been marred with due process violations, such as the failure to provide the defense with advance information on the prosecution witnesses or a copy of the Criminal Investigation Department’s further investigation report until the day before a hearing. See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2021/12/21/harassment-of-adilur-rahman-khan-and-other-human-rights-defenders-in-bangladesh/

After the Government reopened the examination of witnesses and presented additional prosecution witnesses in July and August 2023, the judge convicted Khan and Elan to two years in prison and a fine of 10,000 Bangladeshi Taka (equivalent of USD$91.17).

In addition to targeting Odhikar’s leaders, the Government interfered with the organization’s ability to conduct its human rights work by blocking their access to funds and leaving its registration renewal application pending since 2014. Following the US sanction designations, the Government increased surveillance and harassment against those affiliated with Odhikar and ordered the organization to provide sources and proof for its findings of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings. On June 5, 2022, the Government’s NGO Affairs Bureau officially denied Odhikar’s application for renewal, stating that the organization’s publications have “seriously tarnished the image of the state to the world.” See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2023/09/06/ohchr-says-nobel-laureate-yunus-and-other-human-rights-defenders-being-harassed-through-legal-proceedings/

The Government then continued to besmirch the organization publicly, even criticizing and questioning the credibility of the US Department of State’s 2022 Country Report on Human Rights Practices: Bangladesh for relying on Odhikar’s documentation. United Nations human rights experts have expressed their concerns over the Government’s actions, stating that “the defamation of Bangladeshi-based human rights organisations by high-profile public figures is a clear attempt to undermine their credibility, reputation and human rights work in the country.” [see also: https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/foreign-affairs/325311/us-embassy-voices-concern-over-verdict-against]

Human rights defenders should be allowed to conduct their necessary and important work without fear of harassment, intimidation, and reprisals. Instead of prosecuting and punishing those who document and expose human rights violations, the Government should investigate and hold the perpetrators of these violations accountable.

List of signatories: 

  1. Advocacy Forum Nepal 
  2. Amnesty International
  3. Anti-Death Penalty Asian Network (ADPAN)
  4. Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD)
  5. Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA)
  6. Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL)
  7. Association of Family Members of the Disappeared, Sri Lanka
  8. Capital Punishment Justice Project, Australia 
  9. Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights (NKHR)
  10. CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation
  11. Defence for Human Rights Pakistan (DHR)
  12. Desaparecidos – Philippines
  13. Eleos Justice, Monash University, Australia 
  14. Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearance (FIND)
  15. FIDH (International Federation for Human Rights), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
  16. Forum ONG Timor-leste
  17. Free Jonas Burgos Movement
  18. HAK Association, Timor-leste
  19. Human Rights First
  20. Human Rights Hub
  21. Human Rights Watch 
  22. Indonesian Association of Families of the Disappeared Families (IKOHI)
  23. International Coalition Against Enforced Disappearances (ICAED)
  24. International Federation of ACATs (FIACAT)
  25. International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)
  26. Karapatan Alliance Philippines (KARAPATAN) 
  27. KontraS (the Commission of the Disappeared and Victims of Violence) 
  28. Latin American Federation of Associations of Relatives of Disappeared-Detainees (FEDEFAM)
  29. Legal Literacy – Nepal
  30. Liga Guatemalteca de Higiene Mental
  31. Madres de Plaza de Mayo – Linea Fundadora, Argentina
  32. Martin Ennals Foundation
  33. Nonviolence International Canada
  34. Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights 
  35. Sindhi Foundation
  36. The Asian Alliance Against Torture (A3T) 
  37. Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition, Washington DC
  38. We Remember-Belarus
  39. World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders

Odhikar itself denounces the arrest, trial and imprisonment of these two human rights defenders and added that “It believes that justice has not been served. As an organisation Odhikar has drawn the sustained wrath of the establishment for becoming the voice of the victims of human rights violations, including those of enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary detention and against the suppression of free expression and assembly; and for its engagement with the United Nations Human Rights Mechanisms. Earlier the government arbitrarily deregistered the organisation. Today’s judgement is likely to have a chilling effect on human rights defenders and civil society organisations around the country.“

Also: https://www.thedailystar.net/news/bangladesh/news/human-rights-bangladesh-european-parliament-moves-resolution-expressing-concern-3418651

https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/09/14/bangladesh-quash-conviction-and-release-rights-defenders

https://www.newagebd.net/article/212570/switzerland-canada-27-rights-groups-condemn-jailing-adilur-elan

but then on 16 October “Bangladesh rights activists Adilur Rahman Khan and ASM Nasiruddin Elan were released on bail Sunday evening after being in prison since Sept. 14 in a cybercrime case.”: https://www.voanews.com/a/top-bangladesh-rights-activists-released-on-bail-/7313942.html

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Nasta (Anastasia) Loika in Belarus sentenced to 7 years in a penal colony

August 11, 2023
Nasta Loika

Nasta (Anastasia) Loika was sentenced to 7 years in a penal colony for “inciting racial, national, religious or other social enmity or discord” on 20 June 2023. She is a prisoner of conscience, targeted in retaliation for her human rights work.

Nasta (Anastasia) Loika is a prominent human rights defender and educator, focusing her work on human rights violations resulting from the use of the repressive “anti-extremist” legislation in Belarus, the protection of foreign nationals and stateless persons in Belarus, and on human rights education.

Nasta Loika was sentenced for “inciting racial, national, religious or other social enmity or discord” under Part 3 of Article 130 of the Belarusian Criminal Code on 20 June 2023. The Belarusian human rights defender and prisoner of conscience was arbitrarily detained on 28 October 2022, accused of “petty hooliganism”, a violation under Article 19.1 of the Code of Administrative Offences. As the Belarusian authorities repeatedly brought the allegations against her, she served a total of five consecutive 15-day terms in detention for the same purported offence. On 24 December 2022, she was arbitrarily charged under Articles 342.1 (“Organization and preparation of actions that grossly violate public order, or active participation in them”) and 130.3 (“inciting racial, national, religious or other social enmity or discord”) of the Belarusian Criminal Code.

Nasta Loika reported that she had been tortured by electric shock during questioning and that whilst in detention she was left out in the courtyard for eight hours without outerwear in cold weather. She has consistently not been provided with the medical care she requires, which in itself may amount to inhumane and degrading treatment.

https://www.amnesty.org.uk/resources/urgent-action-outcome-human-rights-defender-sentenced-7-years

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Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi, two human rights defenders in China, sentenced

April 11, 2023

The Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders, on 10 April 2023 condemned the Chinese government’s sentencing of Ding Jiaxi and Xu Zhiyong, two of China’s most notable human rights defenders. “Their sentencing once again demonstrates the Chinese government’s hostility to peaceful advocacy of democracy and human rights, and marks a new low in the Chinese government’s human rights record,” said Ramona Li, Senior Researcher and Advocate for the group.

On April 10, the Linshu County Court sentenced Ding Jiaxi to 12 years imprisonment and 3 years deprivation of political rights, and Xu Zhiyong to 14 years imprisonment. The court, located in Shandong province, found both guilty of the crime of subverting state authority following closed-door trials.

The government consistently violated their rights under international and Chinese law throughout their detention and trial. Both Ding Jiaxi and Xu Zhiyong had been held in prolonged pre-trial detention for over three years, including periods in a form of incommunicado detention referred to as “residential surveillance in a designated location” where both were subjected to torture. Ding Jiaxi’s lawyers attempted multiple times to have the court dismiss his “confessions” as illegally obtained evidence because of they had been extracted under torture; the court rejected these motions.

Ding Jiaxi and Xu Zhiyong were refused access to lawyers for the first thirteen months of their detention, and their attorneys were refused copies of the files containing the information on which the charges were based. Witnesses cited by the prosecution, Wang Jiangsong and Dai Zhenya, publicly refuted testimony that the prosecution alleged they had provided. Family members said that authorities charged the two in Linshu county, far away from Beijing, to avoid public scrutiny of the case.

Ding Jiaxi and Xu Zhiyong were active in the New Citizens Movement, which promoted a form of civic engagement through grassroots advocacy for the implementation of the civil and human rights based on China’s laws and constitution. They were both detained amid a crackdown on human rights activists and lawyers following an informal gathering in southern Fujian province in December 2019.

Ding Jiaxi is also a Beijing lawyer who has provided support to many of the most marginalized and underprivileged groups in China, including education rights for the children of migrant workers and grassroots petitioners appealing to central government officials as a last resort to address wrongdoing by local officials. Xu Zhiyong was also a prominent lawyer who was an instrumental figure in pushing through legal reforms defending the rights of China’s internal migrant population. [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2020/03/24/un-experts-alarmed-over-chinas-missing-human-rights-lawyers-victims-of-rsdl/]

In a pre-written statement released before his sentencing, Ding Jiaxiconnected his work to his belief in the possibility of China’s “peaceful, rational, and non-violent” transition from an authoritarian state. He wrote: “No matter the many who have doubted me or the difficulties and setbacks I’ve encountered, including physical torture that I’ve suffered, I will not part from my steadfast convictions.”

In his own statement, Xu Zhiyong described his hopes for a liberal democratic China with free elections, equal access to education and job opportunities, and social support for even the poorest to have “enough to live a dignified life.” He said he had simply “called on Chinese people to become real citizens,” and explained the urgency of doing so, saying “we cannot saddle the next generation with this duty.” [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2014/01/24/xu-zhiyongs-closing-statement-to-the-court-a-remarkable-document/]

Both Ding Jiaxi and Xu Zhiyong should be immediately and unconditionally released per the recommendation of UN human rights experts, who have found that the two have been arbitrarily detained in violation of international law. UN human rights experts have further characterized the crime of “subversion of state authority” as being so broadly worded that charges under the crime fail to provide adequate due process to the extent that they are in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

“The heavy sentencing of Ding Jiaxi and Xu Zhiyong is a travesty of justice. At every step, Chinese authorities have taken the wrong turn: from detaining them in secret, torturing them, falsifying witness testimony, putting them on trial in secret, and now this heavy sentence,” said William Nee, Research and Advocacy Coordinator for CHRD.

“Democracies and international organizations around the world must stop paying only lip service to human rights. They must take concrete and credible measures to gain the release of Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi, as well as the thousands of prisoners of conscience in China, in the Tibetan and Xinjiang regions and Hong Kong,” said Renee Xia, CHRD executive director.

https://www.nchrd.org/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/10/china-jails-two-leading-human-rights-lawyers-after-closed-door-trial

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Citing freedom of expression, UN calls 15-year sentence for Qatari poet Ibn al Dheeb disproportionate

October 23, 2013

On 22 October 2013 the Office of the United Nations High Commissioners for Human Rights called for the immediate release of a well-known Qatari poet who it says was harshly sentenced for a poem considered to be encouraging the overthrow of the ruling system of the country. Mohammed al Ajami – also known as Ibn al Dheeb – was initially sentenced to life in prison on 29 November 2012 for the poem, which was also considered insulting to the nation’s symbols. His sentence was reduced to 15 years last February during a second appeal.  On 20 October, Qatar’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, decided to uphold the 15-year sentence. Mr. al Ajami’s only recourse now is to appeal for clemency to the Emir of Qatar, the home country of Al-Jazeera. “This sentence is clearly disproportionate,” OHCHR spokesperson Cécile Pouilly told reporters in Geneva. “Last January, we already publicly expressed our concerns about the harsh sentencing, the fairness of his trial and about the many months Mr. al Ajami had spent in solitary confinement,” she added.

via United Nations News Centre – Citing freedom of expression, UN calls for release of Qatari poet given 15-year sentence.

 

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