Tag: Cambodia

News You May Have Missed (1 – 7 February 2015)

On By Jennifer PrestholdtIn Human Rights, Human Rights News You May Have Missed (2015), Women's RightsLeave a comment

Here’s the weekly roundup of the human rights news items that I followed this week that I thought did not get enough attention.  

First, a little bit of good news from the United Nations. 

 The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has been collaborating with businesses and individuals to innovate better solutions to assist refugees.  The collaboration with IKEA to replace tents with flat-pack, solar-powered housing units is providing dramatically improved housing, particularly by providing safe and secure housing for women and children.  One long-term problem for UNHCR has been documentation of refugees, particularly since it involved writing things down on paper.  This week I read about a potential solution. Through a collaboration with UPS, UNHCR recently announced that it has been piloting UPS UNHCR ReliefLink – a new system for storing and transmitting information about refugees based on the technology that UPS uses for tracking packages that holds huge potential.  Check out these and other innovation stories on the UNHCHR Innovation website.

Appeals judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former YUGOSLAVIA upheld genocide convictions of two senior Bosnian Serbs for their roles in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, the first final judgment for genocide by the international tribunal.  Vujadin Popovic and Ljubisa Beara were high-ranking security officers with the Bosnian Serb army that overran Muslim forces and thinly armed U.N. troops in the Srebrenica enclave in July 1995 and subsequently murdered some 8,000 Muslim men and boys, Europe’s worst massacre since World War II.

In late 2013, the United Nations launched an initiative called Human Rights up Front to enhance the role of human rights in all of its work.  Through this initiative, there has been an increasing recognition that  human right violations as the first sign of conflict. This week, UN Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson gave a speech that very much reflects my own views on the integrated nature of development, conflict and human rights.

“There is no peace without development, and there is no development without peace, and none of the above without respect for human rights and the rule of law,” said  Eliasson.

Human rights abuses are often the early indicators of escalating conflict.  The international community usually has the information about what is happening, but is slow to respond.  So it is significant that the United Nations is acknowledging that the world should should learn from past mistakes and take preemptive action BEFORE mass atrocities take place.  I love this quote from Eliasson”

“We should act when we hear the vibrations on the ground.”

February 6 was the third annual International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation.   Female genital mutilation (FGM) comprises all procedures that involve altering or injuring the female genitalia for non-medical reasons.  It reflects deep-rooted inequality between the sexes and is recognized internationally as a violation of the human rights of girls and women. The UN estimates that more than 40 million girls and women alive today have undergone some form of FGM.  If current trends continue, more than 15 million girls will be cut by 2020; more than 86 million additional girls worldwide will be subjected to the practice by 2030. The UN states that, although this harmful traditional practice has persisted for over a thousand years, programmatic evidence suggests that FGM can end in one generation.

This year, the UN is focusing  is on health care workers.  Although the practice of FGM cannot be justified by medical reasons, in many countries it is executed more and more often by medical professionals. This constitutes ones of the greatest threats to the abandonment of the practice. 

For the first time ever, a court in EGYPT has sentenced a doctor to prison for the female genital mutilation (FGM) of a 13-year-old girl that resulted in her death.  Soheir al-Batea died in June 2013 after undergoing an FGM procedure carried out by Dr. Raslan Fadl.  A court in Mansour handed down not guilty verdicts for the doctor as well as the girl’s father for ordering the procedure in November 2014.  But Egypt’s Justice Ministry reportedly contacted the court to say it was “displeased with the judgment”, resulting in a retrial.  Fadl was sentenced at retrial to the maximum sentence of two years’ imprisonment; the father was sentence to three months’ house arrest. A ban on FGM has been in place since 2007 in Egypt,  yet this is the first time the law has been implemented. 

While FGM is most prevalent in Africa and the Middle East, it is also practiced in Asia, Latin America, Western Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand.  This week, a new report from the Population Reference Bureau came out discussing the potential risk of girls and women in the UNITED STATES for undergoing FGM.  In 2013, there were up to 507,000 U.S. women and girls who had undergone FGM or were at risk of the procedure, according to PRB’s preliminary data analysis. This figure is more than twice the number of women and girls estimated to be at risk in 2000 (228,000).

And in the UNITED KINGDOM, the trial of a British doctor accused of performing female genital mutilation recently began in the United Kingdom’s first prosecution of an outlawed practice.  Dr. Dhanuson Dharmasena allegedly performed FGM in November 2012 on a 24-year-old woman soon after she gave birth to her first child at North London’s Whittington Hospital. The woman in the U.K. case, referred to as “AB” in court, reportedly underwent FGM as a 6-year-old in Somalia, when a section of her labia was sewn together, leaving only a small hole for menstrual blood and urine but too small for safely giving birth.  Defibulation, or re-opening the vagina, is commonly needed for FGM survivors about to give birth, and was required in AB’s case during delivery. But AB allegedly underwent re-infibulation, or sewing the labia together again after giving birth. The stitching or re-stitching together of the labia is an offense under section 1 of the United Kingdom’s Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003.

Other human rights news you may have missed this week: 

In THAILAND, more than a dozen government officials are facing prosecution on the charge of human trafficking.  According to Thailand’s junta officials, senior policemen and a navy officer are among the officials, who are detained and being prosecuted for human trafficking.  It is significant that government officials are being prosecuted as it shows the connection between corruption and human trafficking in Thailand, a country well known for it problems with trafficking.  

Single, mostly young women from CAMBODIA are increasingly being trafficked to CHINA as brides. China’s one-child policy has resulted in many more there are more single men than women, and as those men age, they seek marriageable women.  For years, traffickers met that demand with women from Vietnam. But Vietnam has recently tightened its marriage rules and waged an information campaign to combat the problem. For traffickers, Cambodia has emerged as an attractive alternative. With fewer regulations and no awareness among Cambodian women about the risks, business has been easy. The going rate for a foreign bride is between $10,000 and $15,000. 

A court in SPAIN has ruled that a deaf couple can adopt a baby who can hear, after they appealed against the decision by social services to only consider them for the adoption of a deaf child. In their review of the prospective parents’ suitability for adoption, social services said the parents were not “the best option” for a hearing child, as the child’s development would be affected. But in its ruling, the court established that the couple are indeed able to raise a child from a young age regardless of whether he or she is deaf or not, after considering research that shows how hearing children who also know sign language have greater-than-average visuospatial skills, and that “under no circumstances does learning sign language inhibit cognitive development”. Two Spanish organisations, CNSE and Fescan, which uphold the rights of deaf people welcomed “[the] landmark ruling, as it recognises the right of people with disabilities to form a family on an equal footing with other citizens,” and that “being a deaf mother or father does not hinder the education or happiness of a child, be they biological or adopted.”  

Finally, I’ve long been a believer in humor as a tool for human rights change.  So I very much enjoyed the #MugabeFalls viral memes this week.  When ZIMBABWE’s notorious authoritarian “President for Life” Robert Mugabe tripped during a public appearance, he wasn’t hurt but he denied he had fallen.   His security reportedly demanded that photographers delete the images of him falling.  Thanks to social media and the internet, it was already to late.  Internet users responded to the attempted censorship by posting parody pictures of Mugabe in different scenarios – including surfing and dancing – and by using the hashtag #MugabeFalls. The results were pure internet gold!

Humor – A powerful tool against dictatorships!  You can see many more hilarious examples in the articles below:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/05/mugabe-falls-comedy-memes-of-zimbabwes-president-viral

http://www.buzzfeed.com/hayesbrown/mugabe-got-me-straight-tripping#.smqYD2VMz

Human Rights News You May Have Missed (10 – 16 January)

On By Jennifer PrestholdtIn Global Events, Human Rights, Human Rights News You May Have Missed (2015)1 Comment

A roundup of some of the human rights news stories (both good and bad) that I am following this week.

TANZANIA declared a ban on witchcraft in an effort to halt deadly attacks on albinos. The move follows mounting pressure on the government to protect albinos, who lack pigment in their skin and hair, and whose body parts are used by witch doctors in so-called magic potions thought to bring power and wealth.  The U.N. human rights agency says more than 70 people with albinism have been killed for body parts in Tanzania since 2000. Minister for Home Affairs Mathias Chikawe said on January 13 that the government has formed a task force that will investigate killings and review court cases for accused attackers, some of whom have gone free. Ernest Kimayo, chairman of the Tanzania Albino Society, welcomed the government’s actions, saying it will improve life for his community.

Also in TANZANIA, some 800 school girls returned home on Monday, January 12 after escaping female genital mutilation (FGM) by spending three months hiding in safe houses.  FGM is traditionally carried out on girls between October and December. Run by charities and church organisations, the shelters offer protection (including police protection at some) to ensure the girls remain safe. FGM was outlawed in Tanzania in 1998 and carries a punishment of up to 15 years in prison, but is still regularly carried out, especially in northern and central regions of Tanzania.http://allafrica.com/stories/201501050530.html

CANADA:  The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) issued a report on the disappearances and murders of indigenous women in British Columbia, finding it part of a “broader pattern” of violence and discrimination against aboriginal women   Aboriginal women are significantly over-represented as victims of homicide in Canada; The Royal Canadian Mounted Police has reported that about 1,200 aboriginal women and girls were murdered or went missing in Canada between 1980 and 2012.) The IACHR called on the Canadian government to institute a national inquiry into the issue and to develop a coordinated national response that addresses the root causes of the violence, including Canada’s history of colonization, inequality and economic and social marginalization.)

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees issued its Mid-Year Trends 2014 report on global formed displacement in first six months of 2014.  Armed conflicts displaced an estimated 5.5 million people, with 1.4 million of those fleeing to other countries, says a report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Syrians have become the largest group of displaced people within UNHCR’s mandate, overtaking Afghans who held that position for three decades. 

NIGERIA:  International coverage of the tremendous human rights tragedy in Baga, Nigeria has finally picked up, but there has been less coverage of Boko Haram’s use of children as suicide bombers. The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has expressed concern about what it called “escalating violence against children in northern Nigeria.”  The statement came after two explosions ripped through a market in northeastern Nigeria Sunday killing at least five people, including the two bombers. Twenty-one others were wounded.   The attacks were said to be carried out by two young girls. Sunday’s explosions came after a bomb strapped to a girl exploded in Maiduguri killing at least 19 people.  “We are seeing a new trend of using girls and women, and now of children, as suicide bombers. This is something that is new to this conflict. So, this trend is very worrying to us because this is something that is very difficult to find [a] solution to.”

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC:  A spokesman for the Ugandan army announced that on January 14 Lord’s Resistance Army rebel commander Dominic Ongwen was handed over to Ugandan troops that are part of an African Union force in the Central African Republic.  He will be flown to The Hague to stand trial at the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity.   He was indicted by the ICC almost a decade ago, but only surrendered  last week and was taken into the custody of US special forces.   One issue that is sure to come up during the ICC trial: Ongwen is the only one among the five LRA indictees who was abducted as a child and forcibly conscripted into the LRA.

TAJIKISTAN:  Prominent human rights lawyer Shukhrat Kudratov was sentenced on January 13, 2015, to nine years in prison following what Human Rights Watch describes as a “politically motivated trial” that struck a blow to freedom of expression and the independence of the legal profession in Tajikistan.  A court in Dushanbe found Kudratov, who is also deputy head of the opposition Social Democratic party, guilty on criminal charges of fraud and bribery. Kudratov is known for taking on politically sensitive cases, including representing victims of police torture and those accused of “religious extremism.”

EGYPT:  The acquittal in Egypt on January 12, 2015, of 26 men accused of “practicing debauchery” is a rare success in protecting the rights to privacy and nondiscrimination against LGBTI persons. The men were arrested at a hammam or bathhouse in Cairo on December 7, 2014.  Government prosecutors have appealed the decision, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), a nongovernmental group, reported, but authorities released all 26 men. It is the first time since 2011 that a trial court is known to have handed down a total acquittal in a “debauchery” case. Rights activists say 2014 was the worst year in a decade for Egypt’s gay community, with at least 150 men arrested or put on trial.    Because there are no laws criminalizing homosexuality in Egypt, a decades’ old law criminalizing prostitution is often used in penalizing the gay community. The trial opened unusually quickly – only two weeks after the raid on the bathhouse — amidst biased media coverage that “convicted the defendants before they even set foot in court”.

MEXICO: State prosecutors have detained the town of Medellín de Bravo’s entire police force following the disappearance of journalist Moisés Sánchez Cerezo in Mexico’s southern state of Veracruz.    A group of nine armed men took Sánchez from his home earlier this month along with his computer, camera and telephones.  Sánchez publishes a local weekly La Union where he wrote about local government corruption and violent deaths, as well as publishing citizen complaints. Some of his journalism was aimed at Medellín de Bravo’s mayor, Omar Cruz.   Thirty-six members of the  police department were brought in to give statements in the investigation. 

In other news related to Mexico‘s serious problem with local corruption and disappearances and extrajudicial killing, the Mexican attorney general’s office this week obtained arrest warrants for kidnapping against the former mayor José Luis Abarca and 44 others implicated in the case of 43 students who went missing in September 2014 after being attacked by municipal police allegedly working with a local drug cartel.

GERMANY:  Dresden police have launched a murder investigation into the death of Eritrean refugee Khaled Idris Bahray.  On Tuesday morning, Bahray was found stabbed to death in an inner courtyard at the housing complex where he lived.  According to his flatmates, he had left the flat late the night before to go out to a shop but never returned.  Dresden has been making headlines recently for its anti-immigrant rallies, which, on the night of Bahray’s death, attracted a record number of 25,000 supporters. Tensions in the city have been high in the 12 weeks since the rallies began, with a reported increase in racist attacks. While the motive for Bahray’s killing and the identity of his killer remain unknown, a Swastiska was found daubed on the 2nd floor flat where Bahray lived with 7 other Eritrean refugees just three days before he was killed. It was accompanied by the threat, “We’ll get you all”.

CAMBODIA: Self-exiled Cambodian-American dissident Serey Ratha was sentenced in absentia yesterday at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court to seven years’ imprisonment and fined 25 million riel ($6,250) under the charges of treason, obstructing electoral procedures in 2013 and inciting to overthrow Cambodia’s government related to a Facebook post prior to the 2013 election. Three other men (Serey Bunlong, Sen Someng and Oum Phirum) were each sentenced to six years in prison and fined 5 million riel ($1,230) for treason and obstructing electoral procedures after they reportedly distributed T-shirts with slogans admonishing citizens to abstain from voting in the last national election.

Finally, some brilliant teenagers in the UNITED STATES inspired me this week with their spoken word poem Somewhere In America. 

That’s it for this week.  Please feel free to add other human rights news in the comments.

As always, feedback on this new weekly feature is appreciated!

Justice delayed may be justice denied for Minnesota Cambodians

On By Jennifer PrestholdtIn Global Events, Human Rights, JusticeLeave a comment
Skulls of Khmer Rouge victims.
Skulls of Khmer Rouge victims. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Justice delayed may be justice denied for Minnesota Cambodians.

This op-ed was published on March 27,2012 in MinnPost.
By Jennifer Prestholdt and Amy Bergquist | 05:00 am

Monoram Hang was just 9 years old in April 1975, when Khmer Rouge soldiers forced his family from their home in Phnom Penh. His mother, weak from giving birth two days earlier, fell to her knees and begged for permission to wait for her husband to return from work so their family could leave together. The soldiers kicked her to the ground and ordered them out at gunpoint, forcing them to join the swollen river of people leaving Cambodia’s capital. As Hang related, “At that time we walk, we don’t know where we are going, we don’t know where we end up. We just walk and walk. …  And Khmer Rouge soldiers behind us and shoot from behind and force us to go.”

Hang was lucky to survive; as many as 2 million Cambodians died in the “killing fields” of the Khmer Rouge regime. He found refuge in the United States, one of nearly 10,000 Cambodians now living in Minnesota — the country’s sixth-largest home to Cambodians. Like Hang, most witnessed genocide and endured forced migration and labor camps under the Khmer Rouge.

1990: Minnesota puts the Khmer Rouge on trial

In 1990, Hang and other survivors testified at a mock trial of the Khmer Rouge leadershipthat was held at the State Capitol in St. Paul. The Advocates for Human Rights organized the mock trial with Minnesota’s Cambodian community to give voice to the victims of Khmer Rouge atrocities. The panel of public officials serving as judges at the mock trialfound the Khmer Rouge leaders guilty of genocide. The entire Minnesota Congressional Delegation issued a statement formally recognizing members of Minnesota’s Cambodian community for their testimony and joined “the appeal to establish an international inquiry into crimes of genocide perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge between 1975-79. Well-established principles of international law require accountability and punishment for those responsible for genocide, the Khmer Rouge being no exception.”


2012: Actual justice remains elusiveThe mock trial was such a positive experience for the Cambodian community that The Advocates then created the Khmer Oral History Project, enlisting volunteer attorneys to interview Hang and other members of Minnesota’s Cambodian community about their experiences under the Khmer Rouge, their life in refugee camps, and their immigration to the United States. Transcripts and video recordings of those interviews are available through the Minnesota Historical Society.

Yet more than two decades after The Advocates put the Khmer Rouge on trial in Minnesota and Minnesota lawmakers called for accountability, one — and only one — Khmer Rouge leader has actually been brought to justice. In 2010, a hybrid United Nations-Cambodian tribunal, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), found Kaing Guek Eav responsible for the deaths of more than 14,000 people at the notorious S-21 prison and convicted him of crimes against humanity, murder, and torture. An ECCC appeals court last month increased his sentence to life imprisonment.

For survivors like Hang, justice delayed may be justice denied. Thirty-five years after the Khmer Rouge took power, only three additional leaders, all in their 80s, are answering charges in an ECCC “mini-trial.” Additional mini-trials against the same elderly defendants will follow — if their health holds out. Proceedings against a fourth defendant have been stayed as she battles age-related dementia.

Culture of impunity

A recent dispute between U.N. and Cambodian authorities threatens to bring the ECCC’s slow progress to a grinding halt. The Cambodian government, which is bidding for a rotating seat on the U.N. Security Council for 2013–2014, has made plain that it opposesany additional charges against other defendants. International co-investigating judge Siegfried Blunk resigned last October, complaining of government interference. According to the painstakingly negotiated agreement establishing the ECCC, Cambodia’s Supreme Council of the Magistracy was obligated to appoint reserve judge Laurent Kasper-Ansermet to replace Blunk. Kasper-Ansermet took his post in December, paying no heed to government efforts to obstruct justice and launching investigations against new defendants. In January, however,the Supreme Council rejected his appointment and Kasper-Ansermet’s Cambodian co-investigating judge has contested his authority to investigate cases. U.N. Special Expert to the ECCC, David Scheffer has emphasized to Cambodians on the court that Kasper-Ansermet has full authority to serve as the international investigating judge.

On March 19, frustrated with the recalcitrance of his Cambodian colleague and the resulting “dysfunctional situation within the ECCC,” Kasper-Ansermet tendered his resignation. He did so in view of “the victims’ right to have investigations conducted in a proper manner.” The UN has voiced “serious concern” at the developments prompting Kasper-Ansermet’s departure.

Time to get tough

Hang and other victims of the Khmer Rouge have waited too long for justice. For their sake, it is time to ensure that the work of the ECCC goes forward to hold the perpetrators of horrific crimes against humanity accountable. Minnesota’s lawmakers should joinCalifornia Rep. Ed Royce in calling for more trials and an end to the Cambodian government’s culture of impunity. The United States, which has contributed more than $6.7 million to the ECCC, should demand that the Cambodian government cease its interference in the proceedings. Unless the meddling ends, Cambodia has no place at the table on the Security Council.

Jennifer Prestholdt is the deputy director of The Advocates for Human Rights and the director of The Advocates’ International Justice Program. Amy Bergquist is a staff attorney for the International Justice Program.