AI report: the human cost of conflict in Mindanao (Philippines)

Amnistía Internacional publicou antonte un informe sobre as violacións dos Direitos Humanos no conflicto armado que enfronta ó Goberno co Frente Moro de Liberación Islámica na illa de Mindanao (Filipinas). O informe leva por título “Shattered Peace in Mindanao: The human cost of conflict in the Philippines”. Copio un extracto da súa introducción:

[...] the renewal of violence between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has been, and continues to be, accompanied by human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law by both sides. While the armed conflict in the Philippines’ south is not new, the number of civilians directly affected by this most recent escalation of hostilities has increased dramatically, with no clear end in sight.

If impunity for perpetrators of violations of human rights and international humanitarian law from both parties to the conflict continues, with a lack of avenues for redress for the victims and the threat of more MILF attacks in the wake of the failure of the peace talks, Mindanao may find itself approaching a human rights crisis.

Two months after the attacks by the MILF on civilians in predominantly Christian and sometimes mixed Christian and Muslim neighbourhoods in August 2008, the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) reported that over 610,000 people have fled their villages to escape the violence. They fled from MILF attacks on their homes; fighting between the MILF and Philippine security forces; and after their relatives had been killed or injured. Around 240,000 of them have subsequently gone back to their homes after the Philippine military declared their villages safe. These people, many of whom found their houses burned and their livestock stolen upon their return, continue to live in fear. The 370,000 who are still displaced, remain in internally displaced person (IDP) sites or with their relatives. With the peace talks indefinitely stalled, skirmishes and military operations against the MILF continue.

Reported cases of civilians killed as a result of the conflict between August and September 2008 have reached at least 104, many of them children. Government data attributed at least 30 deaths to “hack wounds” or “multiple gunshot wounds”. Some were also killed by “mortar shelling”. Given the difficulty in obtaining data from the remote villages where the fighting continues to take place, there could be more civilian casualties than has been reported. Hundreds of civilians have been injured either from getting caught in the crossfire, hit by government air strikes or by mortar attacks by both sides. [...]

Puido haber un masacre en Navarra

Un coche-bomba puido causar un masacre hoxe na Universidade de Navarra, en pleno horario lectivo. O atentado atribúese a ETA. Como xa apuntei cando a acción terrorista contra a casa-cuartel de Legutio, pode non ser fácil discutir se hai obxectivos militares lexítimos, e se os hai, delimitar cales son, pero é incuestionable (desde o Zeitgeist moral do noso século) que os ataques onde pode haber víctimas civís son crimes de guerra, e por tanto non prescriben e deben ser perseguidos aínda en tempos de paz. Iso contando con que ETA aspirase a ser facción belixerante nun conflicto armado… Quizá nin eles mesmos saben a que aspiran.

A noticia na web do diario El Mundo: “Un coche bomba en la Universidad de Navarra provoca 21 heridos leves”

Java Runtime Environment update 1.6.0.10

Nova versión (1.6.0.10) da máquina virtual Java, que necesitan para funcionar moitas aplicacións (entre elas o programa educativo JClic) e algunhas páxinas web.

Podemos esperar polo aviso de actualización ou ir xa á descarga manual: Java Runtime Environment update.

Xa está “na rúa” o Notepad++ 5.1

Xa está disponible unha nova versión estable, a 5.1, do Notepad++, que eu defino como un lixeiro pero completísimo editor de texto e HTML.

Quero dicir: eu úsoo para iso, pero os programadores saberán apreciar que recoñeza a sintaxe de ducias de linguaxes máis, como C, C++, XML, CSS, PHP, Java, Perl, JavaScript, SQL, Python, TeX, etcétera.

E o millor de todo, é totalmente aberto e gratuíto (licencia GPL). Un único inconveniente: so funciona en Windows, aínda que tamén pode funcionar en Linux coa axuda de Wine.

HRW report on Yemen: “disappearances” and arbitrary arrests in the armed conflict with Huthi rebels

Human Rights Watch publicou hoxe un informe de 47 páxinas sobre as “desaparicións”, os arrestos arbitrarios e outras violacións dos Direitos Humanos cometidas polas autoridades de Iemen no conflicto armado que os enfronta cos rebeldes Huthi.

O informe leva por título “Disappearances and Arbitrary Arrests in the Armed Conflict with Huthi Rebels in Yemen”. Copio un extracto da súa introducción:

In the context of recurring armed conflict with Huthi rebels in the northern Sa’da governorate since 2004, Yemen’s security forces have carried out hundreds of arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances of civilians. Since 2007, but especially in the first half of 2008, the extent of arbitrary arrests and “disappearances” expanded, with the government broadening its targets to include persons reporting on the war’s impact on civilians.

After negotiations, on July 17, 2008 hostilities in the latest round of fighting ceased, and on August 17 Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh announced the release of some prisoners. Nevertheless, tens if not hundreds of persons remain in detention, and new arrests have taken place. As documented in this report, the ease and impunity with which security forces arbitrarily arrest and sometimes “disappear” persons warrants a prompt, thorough and independent investigation, and greatly enhanced judicial oversight to prevent such violations from recurring in the future. Those found responsible for arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances, whatever their position or rank, should be held to account.

The armed conflict between Yemeni government forces and Huthi rebels began in 2004. Husain al-Huthi founded the Believing Youth movement in the 1990s, aimed at reviving Zaidi Islam, a branch of Shi’ism found mainly in Yemen, to counter growing fundamentalist Sunni trends in the northern Yemeni governorates where Zaidis dominate. The conflict began as isolated clashes of the Believing Youth movement (Huthis) with the army in Sa’da. Thereafter, anti-Israel and anti-US demonstrations led by Huthis in San’a, Yemen’s capital, which embarrassed the government after it had embraced US counter-terrorism efforts, led to arrests of Huthis and further clashes with them.

Zaidi Hashemites, descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, led the Huthi movement. They had ruled Yemen for a millennium and comprised the state’s religious and governing elite until the army-led revolution in 1962, also supported by some Zaidi tribes, deposed them. Zaidi Hashemites are especially prominent in the Sa’da area, where there has not historically been a significant government law enforcement presence.

Since the clashes of 2004 there have been five periods of sustained fighting, mostly in the countryside, but in June 2008 escalating to the outskirts of San’a. So far an estimated 130,000 persons have been displaced from their homes in the northern governorates, although some may have returned since July 2008.

Over the decade preceding the outbreak of the conflict, Yemen made some advances in the rule of law, especially by setting out rights in the constitution and other legislation, such as the penal code and criminal procedure code. However, these have been eroded by hundreds of enforced disappearances and arbitrary arrests, mainly in the context of the Huthi rebellion but also relating to the government’s domestic counter-terrorism efforts and its crackdown on social unrest in southern Yemen. Estimates of the numbers of persons disappeared or detained vary—Yemeni human rights organizations have documented tens of disappeared, and hundreds arbitrarily arrested at various stages since 2004. In August 2008, officials spoke of approximately 1,200 political prisoners remaining detained, some 130 of whom were gradually being released.

Human Rights Watch investigated 62 cases of disappearance and arbitrary arrest linked to the Huthi rebellion for this report. In nearly all of the cases, arresting officials did not identify themselves or inform the detainee or his family why he was being arrested and where he was being taken. The families of persons forcibly disappeared did not know for weeks or months after their arrest whether their loved ones were alive or not, who their captors were, or where they were being held. Some still do not know.

Most detainees, when they reappeared, did so at the Political Security Organization, the security and intelligence agency directly linked to the office of President Saleh, after having been effectively “disappeared” for weeks or months without acknowledgement of their location. Some remain missing—the earliest unresolved enforced disappearance investigated by Human Rights Watch dates back to June 2007.

Those arbitrarily arrested included a wide range of persons, including many who were not actively participating in hostilities against government forces. They can be grouped into three categories. First are persons effectively held hostage to pressure a wanted family member to surrender or end their human rights activities. Second are Hashemites, adherents of Zaidi Shi’ism who may have been targeted by the security forces on the basis of their religious activism. Third are Zaidis going to or returning from areas of recent fighting between the army and Huthi rebels, or who are otherwise suspected of sympathizing with them.

A new and separate category which has emerged over the past two years is that of persons arbitrarily arrested for publishing information about the armed conflict, including journalists and website writers. [...]

HRW report on the United Kingdom and “diplomatic assurances”

Human Rights Watch publicou onte un informe sobre dous casos de actualidade no Reino Unido. Trátase da deportación de persoas a países onde estarían en risco de sufrir torturas (nestes casos, Xordania e Alxeria). As autoridades pretenden que as “garantías diplomáticas” son suficientes para salvar ese risco, aínda que no pasado xa se demostrou que esas promesas se incumprían impunemente.

O informe leva por título “Not the Way Forward: The UK’s Dangerous Reliance on Diplomatic Assurances”. Copio un extracto da súa introducción:

In recent years the British government has been trying to deport a number of terrorism and national security suspects to countries in which they face a real risk of torture and other ill-treatment. Because the international ban on torture is absolute and the transfer of any person to a risk of such abuse is therefore illegal, the British government has secured diplomatic assurances from the states to which it is trying to deport the persons that they will not be subjected to mistreatment once they are returned. These assurances, the government claims, are sufficient to reduce or even eliminate the risk of abuse.

Not only does the government of the United Kingdom promote the use of such assurances at home, it has also expended a great deal of time and energy at the regional and international levels attempting to legitimize the use of diplomatic assurances against torture. In recent years, British officials have engaged in vigorous lobbying at the European Union, the Council of Europe, and the United Nations to promote acceptance of diplomatic assurances as a counterterrorism tool.

But the fact is that these assurances do not work. In countries where torture is a serious problem, mere diplomatic promises are insufficient to prevent torture. No matter how detailed such agreements are, they cannot eliminate the very real risk faced by people returned to countries that practice such clandestine, brutal abuse.

Because diplomatic assurances are unenforceable promises, a country that breaches them is unlikely to experience any serious consequences if the assurances are violated. In many instances, moreover, it is practically impossible to ascertain whether a breach has occurred. Because torture is carried out in secret, and victims often do not complain for fear of reprisals against them or their families, the practice is hard to investigate, and easy to deny. Notably, neither the sending state nor the receiving state has any incentive to carry out such investigations seriously. To do so might not only reveal human rights violations, but might complicate efforts to rely on assurances in the future. [...]

Informe de Survival: “El progreso puede matar”

A sección española de Survival International publicou estes días a traducción do informe “Progress can kill” sobre o impacto do modelo occidental de desenvolvemento nos pobos indíxenas. Pódese acceder ó texto (completo, PDF de 61 páxinas e 8,52 MB, ou abreviado) na páxina da campaña, baixo o título “El progreso puede matar: cómo el desarrollo impuesto destruye la salud de los pueblos indígenas”. Copio un extracto do seu contido:

Por todo el mundo, desde los países más pobres a los más ricos, los pueblos indígenas experimentan hoy en día una mala salud crónica. No sólo soportan las más graves de las enfermedades que acompañan a la pobreza, sino que muchos también sufren las llamadas “enfermedades de la abundancia” (como el cáncer y la obesidad), a pesar de recibir pocos de los beneficios del “desarrollo”. La diabetes por sí sola amenaza la supervivencia misma de muchas comunidades indígenas en países ricos. Los pueblos indígenas sufren además graves problemas de salud mental y tienen elevados índices de abuso de drogas y suicidio. Los indígenas pikangikum de Ontario, por ejemplo, tienen una tasa de suicidio casi 40 veces mayor que la media canadiense.

Pero los indígenas no siempre han estado tan enfermos; y los que llevan vidas independientes en sus propias tierras, con una dieta tradicional, siguen estando fuertes y sanos. Puede que estos grupos sean pobres en términos monetarios, pero son ricos en muchos otros aspectos. Disfrutan de muchas de las características que, se ha demostrado, provocan la felicidad, tales como relaciones sociales fuertes, sistemas políticos estables, altos niveles de apoyo y confianza, y creencias religiosas o espirituales, las cuales dan significado a sus vidas. Un estudio que analizaba la felicidad y la “satisfacción con la vida” encontró que entre los que puntuaban más alto estaba un grupo tradicional de maasai que se había resistido a los intentos colonizadores de cambiar su modo de vida y que había evitado en gran parte la economía de mercado. Los maasai puntuaban en satisfacción con la vida de forma similar a los miembros de la lista Forbes de los 400 estadounidenses más ricos.

Los pueblos indígenas y tribales que han sufrido colonización, asentamiento forzoso, políticas de asimilación y otras formas de marginación y expulsión de sus tierras ancestrales experimentan casi siempre un empeoramiento dramático de su salud y bienestar. El separarse de sus tierras comporta casi siempre un aumento de las enfermedades. “En general, las situaciones más devastadoras de contacto parecen verse asociadas con la usurpación de tierras” [...]

AI report on death penalty in Nigeria

Amnistía Internacional publicou onte un informe de 78 páxinas sobre a pena de morte en Nixeria. O informe leva por título Nigeria: ‘Waiting for the hangman’. Copio un extracto do seu contido:

The 720-plus men and 11 women “waiting for the hangman” in Nigeria’s prisons have one thing in common, beyond not knowing when they will be put to death. They are poor. From their first contact with the police, through the trial process, to seeking pardon, those with the fewest resources are at a serious disadvantage in Nigeria’s criminal justice system. And some will pay with their life.

Some death row prisoners were arrested when they went to a police station because they knew a suspect or had witnessed a crime. Many said the police rounded them up and then demanded money for their release. Sometimes police asked for money for fuel, without which they could not go and see witnesses or check alibis. Overstretched and under-resourced, the police rely heavily on confessions rather than investigations. And in many cases they use torture to force suspects to sign these statements.

More than half of all the death row prisoners in Nigeria were sentenced to death on the basis of a confessional statement. Some tried to challenge the statement in court, but the trial judge refused to believe them when they said they had been tortured and insisted that the statement should stand. Some death row prisoners had no lawyer at all – others said that their lawyer either did not argue their case, or was silenced by the trial judge. Often, lawyers were not allowed to see documents vital to the case until the trial started. About 80 death row prisoners were convicted by Robbery and Firearms Tribunals with no right of appeal to a higher court. These trials fell far short of international standards of fair trial.

Many other problems beset Nigeria’s justice system, with devastating effects for those accused of capital crimes. The system is riddled with delays — trials can take more than 10 years to conclude. Appeals in some cases have been pending for 14, 17 and even 24 years. At least 130 prisoners have been on death row for longer than 10 years; some have been there for more than 24 years. Tragically, some prisoners on death row cannot have their appeals heard because the case files have been lost. [...]

International law prohibits the use of the death penalty for crimes committed by people under the age of 18, yet at least 40 death row prisoners were juveniles at the time of their alleged offence.

At least seven death row prisoners have been sentenced to death by stoning. At least two of them were reportedly convicted for rape and one for sodomy. [...]

Enlace relacionado:

• Coalición Mundial contra a Pena de Morte