Forum Tackles Digital Rights Abuses Against Palestinians

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( Human Rights Watch ) – Two Bahraini Shi’a men have been executed in Saudi Arabia following what Amnesty International described as a “grossly unfair trial” on terrorism-related charges.

Jaafar Sultan and Sadeq Thamer were arrested in May 2015 and held incommunicado for more than three months, according to Amnesty International. The charges were related to allegations of smuggling explosives inside Saudi Arabia and participating in protests in Bahrain.

The two Bahrainis were tried and sentenced to death in Saudi’s notorious Specialized Criminal Court in October 2021 following protest-related charges that fall within the Saudi counterterrorism law.

Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, as well as other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, continue to use overbroad provisions contained within terrorism laws to suppress dissent and target religious minorities.

Counterterrorism laws in the GCC typically include broad, vague charges and definitions of terrorism used as catch-all provisions to punish peaceful dissidents, political activists, and human rights defenders.

Saudi Arabia’s Shi’a Muslim minority has long suffered systemic discrimination and been targeted by state-funded hate speech. On March 12, 2022, Saudi Arabian authorities executed 81 men, 41 of whom are said to belong to the Shi’a Muslim minority, under its counterterrorism law, despite promises to curtail executions.

Bahrain’s Shi’a majority also suffers from discrimination. Bahraini authorities have systematically targeted Shia clerics and have violently arrested numerous human rights defenders with Shia backgrounds, including Abdulhadi al-Khawaja in April 2011, who they sentenced to life in prison in a mass trial under Bahrain’s terrorism law.

Overly broad terrorism charges have also been exploited by other Gulf states. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) sentenced Khalaf Abdul Rahman al-Romaithi to 15 years in prison on terrorism charges following a grossly unfair trial known as the “UAE94” mass trials of 94 critics of the Emirati government. Al-Romaithi was recently extradited from Jordan to the UAE.

Human Rights Watch has documented longstanding violations of due process and fair trial rights in Saudi Arabia’s criminal justice system, making it unlikely that Sultan and Thamer received a fair trial leading up to their execution. Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all countries and under all circumstances as a cruel and inhumane punishment.

Via Human Rights Watch

Nakba: Anniversary Highlights Continued Israeli Repression

Prominent Leaders Arbitrarily Arrested; Party Headquarters Shut Down

( Human Rights Watch ) – (Tunis) – Tunisian authorities have intensified their attack on opponents of President Kais Saied’s 2021 power grab, moving to neutralize the country’s largest political party, Ennahda, Human Rights Watch said today.

Since December 2022, the Tunisian government has arrested at least 17 current or former members of the party, including its leader, and shut its offices across the country. The authorities should immediately release all those arbitrarily detained and end restrictions on freedom of association and assembly.

The arrests have continued following a wave in mid-February that targeted figures of various political affiliations, bringing the number of public figures deemed critical of Saied behind bars to at least 30. Most have been accused of “conspiring against state security.” The Ennahda-linked detainees include four former ministers and several former parliament members. The party President and former speaker of parliament Rached Ghannouchi and two party vice presidents, Ali Laarayedh and Nourredine Bhiri, are among them. None has been formally charged.

“After demonizing the Ennahda Party and making serious accusations without proof, President Saied’s authorities have moved to effectively dismantle it,” said Salsabil Chellali, Tunisia director at Human Rights Watch. “Tunisian authorities’ latest tactic to muzzle critical voices consists of tossing around conspiracy charges left and right against all those who challenge the president’s increasingly authoritarian bent.”

The authorities have accused most of the detainees of “conspiracy against state security” without clarifying the criminal acts that constitute the alleged conspiracy.

Seven Ennahda-related cases for which Human Rights Watch has been able to get additional information show the political nature of the arrests, the reliance on flimsy evidence, and disregard for due-process rights. At least four of these cases amount to barring peaceful expression.

Founded in 1981, Ennahda – formerly the Islamic Tendency Movement – was legalized only in 2011, after a popular uprising ousted the longtime authoritarian President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali. Ennahda played a central role in all government coalitions until 2019.

Ennahda President Ghannouchi has been a prominent opponent of Saied’s one-man-rule that followed his seizure of extraordinary powers on July 25, 2021. On April 17, plainclothes officers arrested Ghannouchi at his home. They did not show an arrest warrant, one of his lawyers told Human Rights Watch.

On April 20, an investigative judge issued a detention warrant for Ghannouchi on charges of attempting to “change the nature of the state” and “conspiring against internal state security,” crimes for which a death sentence is possible. The accusations are based on a warning by Ghannouchi on April 15 during a meeting that alienating opposition political movements, including Ennahda and “the left,” was a “project for civil war.”

How Tunisia’s democratic revolution turned into autocratic rule | DW News

Over the past 18 months, Ghannouchi, 81, has been questioned in relation to 19 different investigations, his lawyer Mokhtar Jemai said in a radio interview.

The police closed Ennahda’s headquarters in Tunis on April 18, without presenting any court decision or formal document, another lawyer said. Security forces have prevented members from accessing the offices of the party across the country, the lawyer said.

The same day, the authorities shut the Tunis headquarters of a party known as the Tunisia Will Movement, which hosted activities of the National Salvation Front (NSF), an opposition coalition cofounded by Ennahda.

An unverified Interior Ministry memorandum invoking the state of emergency – which has continuously been extended since 2015 – ordering the closure of Ennahda’s offices and banning their meetings across the country, as well as the NSF’s gatherings in Tunis, has circulated online.

The two Ennahda vice presidents, Laarayedh and Bhiri, are being held in Mornaguia prison. Laarayedh, 67, a former interior and prime minister, is facing prosecution for decisions he made in office between 2011 and 2014 that allegedly failed to combat fundamentalism and Islamic extremist violence “in the necessary way.” He has been held since December 19, without being brought before a judge.

Former Justice Minister Bhiri was arrested on February 13 for attempting to “change the nature of the state,” his lawyer, Amine Bouker, told Human Rights Watch, for a Facebook post urging, Tunisians to demonstrate against Saied on January 14, the anniversary of Ben Ali’s ouster. Bhiri’s lawyers said he did not write or post the call.

Said Ferjani, another Ennahda leader who was in the Parliament dissolved by Saied in March 2022, was arrested in Tunis on February 27 as part of an investigation into the digital content production company Instalingo, one of his lawyers said. The state prosecutor has accused the company, whose customers include Arabic-speaking media organizations critical of Saied, of inciting violence and slandering Saied.

Ferjani is accused of “money laundering,” attempting to “change the nature of the state,” “undermining external State security,” and inciting violence, among other charges – including under the 2015 Anti-Terrorist law – some of which are punishable by death. An investigative judge questioned Ferjani on March 1 about his relationships and finances. His family and lawyer told Human Rights Watch that he has no link with the company. He is in Sousse prison and he has not been further questioned by a judge.

At least two other Ennahda members are detained in the Instalingo case: the former Investment Minister Riadh Bettaieb, his lawyer told Human Rights Watch, and Ghannouchi, who was placed under a detention warrant in this case on May 9.

Mohamed Mzoughi, Ennahda’s head of public relations in the city of Beja, was arrested on March 9. The following day, Mohamed Saleh Bouallagui, Ennahda’s general secretary in Beja, was arrested. They remain in detention, accused of “conspiracy against state security” including through “contacts with a foreign power,” “insulting the president” and terrorism-related charges for their alleged role in managing social media pages critical of Saied’s rule, their lawyers said.

Documents filed by the state prosecutor indicate that Bouallagui and Mzoughi are being investigated under the 2015 Anti-Terrorist law for offenses punishable by up to 20 years in prison, including “membership in a terrorist organization,” “using the Tunisian territory to commit terrorist offenses,” “providing weapons” and money laundering. They are also being investigated under articles of the Penal Code and article 86 of the Telecommunications Code. The investigative judge last questioned Mzoughi on March 24 and Bouallagui on March 28.

Mohamed Ben Salem, a former Ennahda leader and former minister of agriculture, was arrested on March 3, without a warrant, in the southeastern town of Bir Lahmar. He is being investigated for “forming an organization aiming to prepare and commit the crime of illegally leaving the Tunisian territory” under article 42 of law 1975-40 on Travel Documents and “holding sums of money in foreign currency,” under articles of the foreign exchange code.

Ben Salem has not been questioned by a judge since his detention. However, the financial crimes police unit interrogated him on April 12 in a separate investigation into alleged corruption.

Four other people are detained in relation to the cases against Ben Salem, including former Ennahda parliament member, Ahmed Laamari, his lawyer told Human Rights Watch.

Ben Salem, detained in Sfax prison, has lost his ability to walk and suffered two strokes since his arrest, his lawyer, Abdelwahhab Maatar, told Human Rights Watch. He has had a heart condition and chronic diseases for years, his family said.

Ruling by decree, Saied has systematically undermined judicial independence, raising fair trial concerns for these and other people accused after they criticized him. In February 2022, Saied dissolved the High Judicial Council, which was mandated to guarantee the independence of the judiciary, and appointed a temporary body over which he has broad control. In June 2022, he granted himself the authority to unilaterally dismiss magistrates and fired 57. The authorities have refused to comply with an administrative court order to reinstate 49 of them.

Under international law, a suspect should be held in pretrial detention only in exceptional circumstances when the court provides reasons for holding them that are compelling, individualized, and subject to periodic review and appeal. Pretrial detention is only to be imposed as “an exception” under article 84 of Tunisia’s Criminal Procedure Code.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Tunisia is a party, protects the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, association, and assembly. Tunisia is also bound under the ICCPR and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights to respect the right to a fair trial.

“The Tunisian authorities should stop their reprisal against Ennahda and other opponents and release all those jailed in the absence of credible evidence of crimes,” Chellali said.

Via Human Rights Watch

Death of Ali Hussein Jaloud Highlights Harm of Fossil Fuels

Antonia Juhasz

Senior Researcher, Environment and Human Rights

 

@AntoniaJuhasz

( Human Rights Watch) – Ali Hussein Jaloud, an Iraqi man barely in his 20s, died April 21 of leukemia, a disease Ali and his family attributed to the pollution from the oil production and constant gas flares that surround their community in the southern Iraqi town of Rumaila, about 50 kilometers from the port city of Basra.

Many of us around the world felt we knew Ali and suffered his death personally, having followed his story in BBC and Unearthed investigations of the human and environmental toll of fossil fuel operations in Iraq, focusing on the devastation caused by flaring.

Flaring occurs when fossil fuel companies burn off excess methane gas from oil operations rather than capturing the gas in pipelines. When burned, the powerful greenhouse gas – more than 80 times more potent at global warming than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period – is released into the atmosphere. After Russia, Iraq accounts for the most flared gas in the world.

Flaring also releases toxic pollutants known to harm human health, including benzene, a human carcinogen that can cause leukemia. An Iraq Health Ministry report leaked to the BBC attributed pollution from the oil industry, among other sources, as the cause of a 20 percent rise in cancer in Basra between 2015 and 2018,  and revealed cancer cases in the region to be  three times higher than publicly disclosed figures.

Iraqi government officials have acknowledged a link between the oil pollution from flaring and cancer. Iraq’s former environment minister, Jassem al-Falahi, told the BBC that pollution from oil production is the main reason for increases in cancer rates in Basra. Similarly, Luay Al-Khateeb, Iraq’s former oil minister, told Unearthed that unregulated oil operations in southern Iraq and “poisonous gases being flared in the air” are the link to rising cancer rates.

Flaring is a global crisis with clear solutions. The Iraqi government should start by moving beyond simply acknowledging the problem to enacting and enforcing tight regulations to restrict flaring, providing proper health services to impacted communities, and making polluters compensate those who have suffered, as required by Iraqi law. To address the full harm to local communities and the global climate, the government should transition away from fossil fuels.

Ali’s was a tragic yet predictable death. “I hope in the future that these companies go away,” Ali says in the film. “That the emissions stop, so children can live in peace.”

Via Human Rights Watch

Rached Ghannouchi’s Arrest and Ali Laarayedh’s Imprisonment Reveal the Extent of Kais Saied’s Attack on Democracy

Eric Goldstein

Deputy Director, Middle East and North Africa Division

 

goldsteinricky

To effectively address Yeminis’ human rights, any new truce would require provisions for the genuine participation of Yemeni civil society in discussions on issues affecting their rights, the release of everyone arbitrarily detained, a plan to survey and clear all landmines and explosive remnants of war, and a commitment to accountability and redress for wartime abuses. The parties to the conflict, as well as the UN and powerful states, have comprehensively failed to hold rights violators accountable since the conflict began in 2014. Their continued abuses have reinforced the need for an independent, international, investigative mechanism to end impunity.

“The real beneficiaries of this truce should be Yemeni civilians, rather than leaders of the parties to the conflict, who have no interest in being held accountable for their grave violations of international law” said Niku Jafarnia, Yemen and Bahrain researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Yemeni civil society and activists have been effectively frozen out of negotiations, leaving people in Yemen with no one to represent their interests.”

Warring parties agreed to a two-month UN-brokered truce in 2022, which included an agreement to cease all offensive military operations, as well to allow fuel ships to enter Hudaydah ports and to restart commercial flights from Sana’a airport. The parties renewed the truce twice, ending on October 2. However, violations continued, and key provisions to protect civilians were not included.

Throughout the conflict, Human Rights Watch and other rights groups have documented widespread violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law. The Saudi- and UAE-led coalition, intervening on behalf of the government, destroyed and damaged civilian infrastructure, including homes, medical facilities, schools, markets, and water and food sources and infrastructure through its air campaign, some of which may amount to war crimes. The Houthis, who control the capital and much of the rest of the country, have fired mortars, rockets, and missiles into densely populated areas both in Yemen and in Saudi Arabia, constituting other possible war crimes, and have laid landmines in civilian areas across the country.

Despite a decrease in civilian casualties and the re-opening of Sana’a airport for commercial flights, civilian harm continued during the truce. Based on data from the Civilian Impact Monitoring Project, there were about 938 civilian casualties in the six months of the truce. The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project’s Yemen Truce Monitor recorded 2,208 incidents of shelling, artillery, and missile attacks – an eightfold increase from the six months prior to the truce, as well as 374 air/drone strikes and 369 armed clashes.

Save the Children found that parties to the conflict killed or injured 38 children in the last week of July – the highest number recorded since early 2020.

Mwatana for Human Rights, a Yemeni civil society organization, recorded at least 14 indiscriminate ground attacks throughout the truce. In one attack, on July 23, 2022, the Houthis shelled a residential neighborhood in Taizz, killing one child and wounding 11 other.

Since the disbanding of the UN Human Rights Council-mandated monitoring body, the Group of Eminent Experts, in 2021, there has been no international monitoring of rights violations in Yemen. While nongovernmental groups and other UN bodies have partly bridged that gap, their work has not replaced an adequately resourced UN-endorsed independent investigative body. It is difficult to assess whether the harm to civilians during the truce constituted violations of international law. However, the significant number of civilian casualties may demonstrate that warring parties were not taking adequate precautionary measures, when they should not have been fighting at all.

Further, the Houthis rejected the UN Special Envoy’s plans for a provision in the truce to reopen roads in Taiz and other places. The main roads in and out of Taiz have been blocked by the Houthis since 2015, severely restricting the freedom of movement of civilians and critical humanitarian aid.

Parties to the conflict, and the Houthis in particular, continued to restrict humanitarian access. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) recorded about 1205 incidents of blocking or interfering with humanitarian access during the truce, including violence against aid workers. In the three months after the start of the truce, violence against aid workers and facilities increased by 40 percent from the previous three months.

For a new truce to uphold the rights of people in Yemen, it is critical to meaningfully include Yemeni civil society actors on key issues, including the rights of women and minority groups. Parties to the conflict should also release everyone arbitrarily detained and reveal what happened to others who had been disappeared, who include human rights activists and journalists.

Parties to the conflict have damaged or destroyed Yemen’s critical infrastructure, severely impairing Yemenis’ rights, such to health, water, sanitation, and education. To recover from the conflict, the parties to the conflict should commit to surveying and clearing the large quantities of landmines and other explosive remnants of war scattered across the country and provide aid to rebuild damaged or destroyed infrastructure. Finally, parties should be held accountable for their serious violations over the course of the conflict, including ending impunity for those who carried out or oversaw likely war crimes.

Civil society has not been formally included in the truce discussions or meaningfully included in broader negotiations led by the UN special envoy.

Human Rights Watch and other groups have documented torture, enforced disappearance, and arbitrary detention by coalition forces, particularly by Saudi Arabia and UAE forces, and as well as Yemeni forces backed by the UAE. While the recent exchange of nearly 900 detainees was a significant move by both sides, many more people remain arbitrarily detained and disappeared by all warring parties. A truce should ensure their release.

Landmines – including internationally-banned anti-personnel landmines – and explosive remnants of war remain scattered across the country. During the truce, explosive remnants were the leading cause of civilian casualties, causing around 300 casualties over the course of 6 months. Children and women are particularly vulnerable, and landmines’ widespread use has led to displacement and the loss of livelihoods. Current clearance efforts are limited and under-resourced, leaving hundreds of thousands more landmines to be cleared.

Finally, warring parties have not been held accountable for their actions throughout the conflict – including for violating the truce. Parties to the conflict have caused at least 20,000 civilian casualties, and over 21 million Yemenis are in need of humanitarian aid. Over 4.5 million people have been displaced, and the conflict has left critical infrastructure – including medical facilities and water and food infrastructure – across the country damaged or destroyed.

Under international law, warring parties are obligated to provide reparations for violating the law. But according to Mwatana for Human Rights and Yale Law School’s Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic, the warring parties have failed to effectively provide reparations. Human Rights Watch research has demonstrated that fair trials, as well as reparations, reconstruction, and other forms of development are needed to move “society forward in a sustainable way.”

“Disbanding the Group of Eminent Experts has left an incredible gap in the ability of Yemeni civilians to achieve accountability and redress,” Jafarnia said. “A new truce should address this gap by including the establishment of an international investigative mechanism, which is the first step toward achieving accountability.”

Via Human Rights Watch

Joint Statement Urges Warring Parties to Reveal Fate of Forcibly Detained

Human Rights Watch – (Beirut) – All parties to the conflict in Yemen should immediately release anyone arbitrarily detained and to reveal what happened to those who have been forcibly disappeared since the conflict began in late 2014, Human Rights Watch, Mwatana for Human Rights, Amnesty International, and International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) said today in a joint statement.

“While the recent release of almost 900 detainees by the Houthis and Saudi Arabia was a significant move by both parties, it is only a start,” said Niku Jafarnia, Yemen and Bahrain researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Many people remain arbitrary detained or forcibly disappeared, when they should be reunited with their families just like those who were recently released.”

The armed conflict in Yemen began in 2014 but escalated militarily in March 2015, when a Saudi- and UAE-led coalition intervened in support of the internationally recognized government forces against the Houthis, the de facto authorities in Sanaa and much of northern Yemen. Throughout the conflict, all parties have carried out enforced disappearances and arbitrary arrests.

Photo by asamw on Unsplash

Men and women have been targeted for their political and religious beliefs or their membership in a religious or political group. Journalists, other media professionals, aid workers, and human rights defenders have also been targeted. All parties to the conflict have committed grave human rights abuses against women, who are often victims of sexual and gender-based violence, and children, including child recruitment and use by armed groups.

Mwatana for Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, FIDH, and Amnesty International have all documented numerous incidents of arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance against civilians by all parties to the conflict in Yemen since 2015 until now.

Despite a lack of evidence of wrongdoing, the warring parties continue to detain and forcibly disappear civilians. Some have been given grossly unfair trials on trumped-up charges and effectively used as bargaining chips in deals to exchange detainees. Many of these individuals have been held incommunicado, tortured, and subjected to cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment.

The detainees have been accused of bogus charges in violation of their right to fair trial and to liberty and security of person. Moreover, detention centers are often overcrowded and unsanitary, with cells lacking adequate ventilation, toilets, and shower facilities.

The international community should use its influence to pressure the parties to the conflict to put an end to the arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance of civilians, the groups said.

The organizations are:
Amnesty International
International Federation for Human Rights
Human Rights Watch
Mwatana for Human Rights

Detention, Harassment, Killings Continue

Sarah Sanbar

Iraq Researcher, Middle East and North Africa Division

 

@SarahSanbar