On May 2, Libya’s NTC enacted a new law that grants a blanket amnesty to those who committed crimes if their actions were aimed at “promoting or protecting the revolution” against Muammar Gaddafi. Human Rights Watch has documented grave violations committed by anti-Gaddafi militias during the armed conflict as well as ongoing killings, torture, and forced displacement.

“The Security Council should make clear to the Libyan government that when it referred the situation to the ICC before the war, it never intended to allow a victors’ justice,” said Richard Dicker, international justice director at Human Rights Watch. “Human Rights Watch has documented horrendous crimes in Libya even after the end of Gaddafi’s rule, and the NTC should know that the ICC can still probe abuses there.”

The new law, Law 38, On Some Procedures for the Transitional Period, says there shall be no penalty for “military, security, or civil actions dictated by the February 17 Revolution that were performed by revolutionaries with the goal of promoting or protecting the revolution.” The imposition of this law appears to be a strong sign that the Libyan authorities are unwilling to investigate crimes committed by all sides, Human Rights Watch said.

Any grant of amnesty by the NTC has no legally-binding effect on other national or international courts, such as the ICC, that have jurisdiction over serious violations of international law, Human Rights Watch said. The ICC has ongoing jurisdiction over war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Libya since February 15, 2011, taking into account, among other factors, whether the Libyan authorities are willing and able to prosecute those responsible for these crimes.

A UN Commission of Inquiry report on March 2 found that anti-Gaddafi militias in the city of Misrata had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during the conflict, and apparently crimes against humanity in the period since. Some militia forces from Misrata have been implicated in serious crimes such as the apparent execution of at least 53 people in October 2011 in Sirte and the forced expulsion of about 30,000 people from the town of Tawergha.

In an April 4 letter to the military and civilian leadership in Misrata, Human Rights Watchalerted the authorities to serious crimes being committed by some Misrata militias, including the mistreatment of detainees in their custody, and said the Misrata leadership could be held accountable for these crimes, also by the ICC.

In an April 11 response, the Misrata Local Council said it had formed a security committee charged with preventing violations in detention facilities. However, three more detainees died on April 13, possibly due to torture, according to the UN. The Misrata Military Council sent Human Rights Watch a reply on May 3, stating that no violations have occurred in prisons under their supervision.

“The Libyan government hasn’t been able to rein in the abuses committed by anti-Gaddafi militias, let alone hold those responsible to account,” said Dicker. “With the NTC now openly trying to shield militia leaders from justice, it falls to the ICC prosecutor to vigorously examine these crimes.”

The ICC judges granted arrest warrants for Muammar Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, and Abdullah Sanussi, his intelligence chief, on June 27, 2011. The three were wanted on charges of crimes against humanity for their roles in attacks on civilians, including peaceful demonstrators, in Tripoli, Benghazi, Misrata, and other locations in Libya.

The ICC prosecutor’s briefing to the Security Council is expected to provide an overview of the investigative activities of the prosecutor’s office to date. In his last briefing, in November 2011, the ICC prosecutor indicated that his office was focused on collecting evidence against Saif al-Islam Gaddafi and Sanussi, in anticipation of their arrest and eventual trial in The Hague. The prosecutor also reported that he would be investigating allegations of sexual violence.

At the time, the prosecutor also took note of allegations of crimes committed by NTC-related forces. He indicated that his office was considering whether additional prosecutions were warranted and would evaluate the possibility of further investigations.

While the ICC’s proceeding against Muammar Gaddafi was terminated following his death on October 20, anti-Gaddafi forces apprehended Saif al-Islam Gaddafi on November 19 in southern Libya and are holding him in the town of Zintan. Sanussi was apprehended on March 17 in Mauritania.

On May 1, Libya challenged the admissibility of the case against Saif al-Islam Gaddafi and requested the postponement of his surrender to the ICC, pending a decision on the challenge. The ICC judges have invited other parties to file submissions in response to Libya’s challenge by June 4, and have yet to rule on the postponement request.

The ICC is a court of last resort. Under existing ICC case law, for the court to find a case inadmissible, there must be national proceedings encompassing both the person and the conduct that are the subject of the ICC case. Furthermore, the state challenging the admissibility of the case must demonstrate its genuine willingness and ability to conduct those proceedings. Ultimately, it is up to the ICC judges to determine whether national proceedings meet the criteria for a successful admissibility challenge.

Following the end of Gaddafi’s rule, Security Council members that initially championed resolution 1970 referring Libya to the ICC have been largely silent on Libya’s obligation to cooperate with the court.

“By using the court’s procedure on challenging admissibility, Libya is operating according to the ICC’s rules and procedure as required by resolution 1970,” Dicker said. “We look to the Security Council to ensure that the NTC continues to abide fully with the judges’ decisions on the issues before the court, no matter the outcome.”

The unanimous Security Council resolution requires the Libyan authorities to cooperate fully with the court. Adhering to the court’s procedures is a key component of Libya’s cooperation with the ICC, Human Rights Watch said.

Because the ICC has no police force of its own, it also depends on the cooperation of national authorities for the arrest and surrender of suspects. States parties to the ICC have a legal obligation to cooperate with the court. Following Sanussi’s apprehension on March 17, a request for his arrest and surrender to the ICC was transmitted to the minister of foreign affairs in Mauritania. While Mauritania is not a party to the court, Security Council resolution 1970 urges all states to cooperate with the ICC.

According to information in Libya’s admissibility challenge, Sanussi is in poor health. Mauritania should allow him immediate access to a lawyer and to medical care, Human Rights Watch said.

Cairo – May 15th, 2012

ANHRI and Dar Assalam youth celebrated the opening of the first public library in this ancient deprived neighborhood in the presence of Egyptian literature and press figures led by Bilal Fadl, journalist and scriptwriter, Ibrahim Abdel-Maguid, writer, Ziad al-Alimi, MP, Sayed Abdel-Rady, member of the Shura Council, and a number of Dar Assalam figures. The celebration was overshadowed by optimism and happiness that Dar Assalaam was not forgotten by the Revolution of Dignity.

 Khatwa (Step) is the beginning of ANHRI’s ambitious project aimed at building five public libraries in deprived neighbourhoods in Cairo and beyond. They will be designed to provide cultural and social services and activities for youth and children. The enormous celebration of Dar Assalaam youth welcoming the library is an evidence of their need and desire for knowledge after being neglected by Mubarak’s regime and the dictatorship of its successive governments, as a result of corruption and blatant bias for the rich at the expense of the poor.

After the library project announcement back in February, huge numbers of offers and voluntary efforts were offered to support the establishment of this library, whether by assistance in the preparation or donating large numbers of books whether by Dar Assalaam residents, publishing houses, leading writers and intellectuals, or Twitter users who took initiative and donated some books to Khatwa.

“I do not think Shafik or Moussa or any of Mubark’s men have ever visited Dar Assaaam, for if they saw how the extent of misery there, they would realize that people will not accept the return of Mubarak’s regime,” said Bilal Fadel who was expressed pleasure for participating in the celebration.

“The opening of Khatwa in this deprived neighbourhood is one of the revolution’s gains that we need to develop and support,” said Ibrahim Abdel-Maguid.

Khatwa and the other libraries will be opened under “Dignity’s Libraries” as a theme. The project will be funded through the international “Defenders of Human Dignity” award that ANHRI received in November 2011 in the city of Berlin, Germany . The award’s revenue will be allocated solely for building the libraries as awareness and knowledge are the foundations of combating ignorance and the defence of human dignity.

Related :

ANHRI receives international award for the defenders of human dignity

Khatwa group on Facebook :

http://www.facebook.com/khatwa.book

Cairo – May 14th, 2012

ANHRI denounces the ongoing systematic crackdown of the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) and Security Services on the freedoms and rights acquired by the Egyptian people after the revolution. ANHRI considers the raid on the office of al-Alam news channel in Cairo on May 13th as a new episode in the series of stifling press freedom and clamping down on media work in Egypt for exposing the violations committed in the transitional phase. The Egyptian military hates freedom.

Three satellite channels experienced a crackdown; al-Alam; al-Hekma, and al-Ummah.

On May 13th morning, police forces of Boulak Aboul-Ela Investigation department, accompanied by forces of the Investigations of Complilations department went to al-Alam office in Cairo and seized all of the broadcast equipment, tapes, records, CDs, and hard disk on the pretext of lack of license.

Tamer Abou-Gamei, al-Alam’s Public Relations Director, was been detained. ANHRI’s lawyers headed to the public prosecution, and the Attorney-General Agent informed them that Abou-Gamea is being interrogated as a witness only. He was released later.

The prosecution issued a warrant to summon Ahmed al-Sweify, head of the Channel Office. In a statement published on the channel’s website, al-Sweify announced that he intendes to go on a hunger strike. He explaiend that he had sent dozens of formal requests to get a permit for his channel and only was met by the intransigence and prevarication of the specialized bodies.

Al-Alam is an Iranian channel broadcasting in Arabic and was based in Egypt for several years. After the raid, Nile Sat administration board cut off the broadcast of the channel.

The attack on al-Alam channel is part of an organized campaign against media in Egypt during the transational phase. An evidence of that is the latest attempt to shut down the Salafist channel of al-Hekma under the pretext of inciting the public against SCAF. Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, the disqualified presidential candidate, was prevented from appearing on both state and privately-owned channels. The military police forces attacked al-Ummah Salafist channel in al-Abassiya and broke their equipment and studios for criticizing the Presidential Elections Committee.

“Egypt’s military hates freedom of the press because it exposes their violations throughout the transitional phase and the fact that they are much worse than Mubarak who never dared to commit such violations all at one time,” said ANHRI.

ANHRI condemns that justifications that claim that these channels do not have licenses. Media work should be by notification and not by prior licensing. Moreover, ANHRI considers the elected parliament and the parliamentary majority responsible for this decline in media press freedoms because they have not amended media laws to codify freedom of the press as acquired after the revolution.

In any case of transgression during the media work, it is the Journalists Syndicate that should be responsible for monitoring and holding transgressors accountable rather than the security apparatus that is used according to the authorities’ whims.

ANHRI calls on the Journalists Syndicate and the elected parliament to bear responsibility for the freedom of press and freedom of opinion and expression. “Media laws should have been amended to prevent the ongoing Carrot and Stick policy and the need to apply for a license that is always met by the intransigence of the official authorities as a means to put pressure on the channels that cross the red lines,” said Anhri.

(Rabat) – The failure of Moroccan authorities to follow through on investigating the beating by police of a Human Rights Watch research assistant is a case study of impunity for police violence, Human Rights Watch said today.

On November 8, 2010, Moroccan police in the city of El-Ayoun, Western Sahara, pulled aside Brahim Elansari and beat him in plain sight of an American journalist. In the 18 months since the beating, Moroccan authorities have provided neither Elansari nor Human Rights Watch with any information about the progress of any investigation, despite written requests from Human Rights Watch.

“If there is impunity for police who beat up a citizen who works for an international organization in broad daylight, in front of witnesses and despite formal complaints, it’s clear how vulnerable ordinary citizens are,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

On November 22, 2010, Human Rights Watch wrote to the Interior Ministry, providing evidence about the beating from Elansari and the journalist who witnessed the beating, and requesting an investigation. The ministry responded two days later with a written pledge to conduct an investigation and to inform Human Rights Watch of the results. On December 22, 2010, Elansari himself filed a written complaint about the beating with the Office of the Prosecutor in El-Ayoun, requesting an investigation.

In the November 22, 2010 letter from Human Rights Watch, both Elansari and the journalist John Thorne, who was based in Rabat at the time for the Abu Dhabi-based daily The National, provided detailed accounts of the attack. A group of policemen surrounded Elansari on a downtown street and beat, slapped, kicked, and insulted him, calling him a “traitor” and a “separatist,” both said. Elansari is of Sahrawi origin and had previously been affiliated with Sahrawi human rights organizations in El-Ayoun. The authorities consider these associations to be hostile to Morocco’s rule over the disputed territory and sympathetic to calls for self-determination or independence for Western Sahara.

Elansari’s and Thorne’s accounts, as communicated to the government, are below.

On November 24, 2010, Mohamed Ouezgane, the director of the Regulations and Public Liberties department at the Interior Ministry, replied by e-mail, saying: “The minister of interior has ordered an administrative investigation into this case. In addition … the justice minister … has instructed the general prosecutor at the El-Ayoun court to open a judicial investigation…. The Moroccan authorities remain ready to handle all allegations that you receive and to respond to them with the necessary promptness.”

Elansari heard nothing until April 4, 2011, when he received a call from a judicial police officer asking him to come to the security prefecture of El-Ayoun the following day. Elansari went and gave an oral statement about the beating, then reviewed and signed a written version of it. The police told Elansari they would submit the statement to the prosecutor, who would inform Elansari of the next steps.

On November 23, 2011, having received no further information, Human Rights Watch wrote again to the Interior Ministry, asking about the results of the investigation. Receiving no response, Human Rights Watch wrote on February 7, 2012, to the Interministerial Delegation for Human Rights, recounting the details of the case and requesting a reply. None was received. The Interministerial Delegation is a government body created by decree in April 2011. Its responsibilities include coordinating government responses to inquiries and requests from international human rights organizations.

On April 20, 2012, Elansari phoned the prosecutor’s office in El-Ayoun and was told that the office had submitted a response to the Justice Ministry after receiving the request from Human Rights Watch to investigate the beating. However, 18 months after Elansari filed the complaint and a year after he provided his testimony to the police, no official has informed Elansari of the status or findings of any investigation.

Before Elansari worked for Human Rights Watch, the police in El-Ayoun had detained him and a friend from December 14 to 16, 2007, beat them while they were in custody, and then released them without charge. At that time, Elansari was a member of the El-Ayoun chapter of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights and of Annahj Addimocrati, the only legal political party in Morocco that advocates self-determination for Western Sahara.

The two men filed formal complaints with the prosecutor, and Human Rights Watch wrote to urge an investigation. The two men heard nothing from Moroccan authorities until five months later, when police informed them that the prosecutor had closed the investigation into their complaints for “lack of evidence.”

In an email sent to Human Rights Watch in February 2008, authorities denied that the police had abused the two men. Authorities instead denounced the complainants as “[pro-Polisario] separatists … seeking to inflame tensions and present the Kingdom as a ‘monster’ that has no respect for human rights.” The authorities maintained, falsely, that the men had filed no complaint.

Human Rights Watch’s December 2008 report on human rights in Western Sahara found a pattern of police beatings of Sahrawi activists and demonstrators who favor self-determination for that disputed territory, and also a pattern of dismissals of citizen complaints of police violence accompanied by official efforts to discredit the complainants’ motives. In preparing that report, Human Rights Watch submitted information to Moroccan authorities about several cases in which Sahrawis – many of whom opposed Moroccan rule over the disputed territory – had filed complaints with the prosecutor’s office in El-Ayoun.

Authorities provided responses in seven of the cases. Except for one that was “still pending,” the authorities said they had closed all the complaint files “for lack of evidence.” In most of the cases they also derided the complainant’s motives with comments such as, “The complaint is baseless and aims at impeding the police from confronting those who seek to disrupt public order.”

When Human Rights Watch later contacted the complainants whose cases had been closed, all said that no authority had ever contacted them to take their testimony about the complaints they filed – a pattern that suggests the lack of political will to investigate impartially allegations of police violence. In some cases authorities claimed they had never received the complaint, although some of these victims showed Human Rights Watch copies of their complaints stamped “received” by the prosecutor’s office.

“As long as citizen complaints are swept under the rug, the problem of police violence against people in El-Ayoun – and elsewhere – will continue,” Whitson said. “Morocco needs an impartial, interactive, and prompt process in place for investigating complaints of police violence.”

Below are the accounts of Brahim Elansari and the journalist John Thorne, as provided to the government of Morocco in its letter of November 22, 2010:

From Brahim Elansari:

At 7:30 a.m., as I was walking along Smara Avenue, I learned that a huge number of people were marching from the eastern part of the city toward the Maâtallah neighborhood. There was a heavy presence of various security forces: the Auxiliary Forces, the GIR [Groupe d'intervention rapide], plainclothes policemen, and police wearing uniforms.

I observed demonstrators throwing stones on the police cars. Cafés and shops … were closed along Smara Avenue. I heard guns firing – I think they were tear gas canisters….There were police cars, GIR and auxiliary forces everywhere.

[American journalist] John Thorne joined me at Mekka Avenue near the Hotel Jodessa. At about 9 a.m., when we saw policemen approaching us we headed away from the avenue and onto a street behind the Negjir Hotel, close to al-Morabitin school. But a uniformed, armed policeman came towards us. He searched John a little and then turned to me, insulting me and threatening me. Then other police came.

Mr. Thorne and I tried to retreat but the police stopped us and then started kicking, slapping and beating me with batons. They took me near their cars parked close to the Hotel Negjir, where other policemen joined them in beating me and insulting me and calling me “a traitor” and “a separatist.” Then other policemen escorted John toward me.

An officer in plainclothes came and asked us our names and what we were doing there. When I told him my name, he exclaimed, “So it’s you, Alansari.” I told him that I work for Human Rights Watch. They asked me to provide a document proving that. I said I had no such document on me but gave them my national ID. Mr. Thorne showed them his press card and passport. Various policemen came, insulted me, and went away. The armed, uniformed officer who had first stopped us near al-Morabitin school returned and said he would shoot me.

The policemen then took my phone and searched it. When they found text messages from Mohamed Ali Ndour, a Sahrawi activist, they commented that I was in touch with “separatists.”

Then they took John somewhere and the other policemen surrounded me and started to kick me and beat me with their sticks and slap me. They asked me my nationality. When I refused to answer, they seemed angered and started to beat me again. Then a higher-ranking officer arrived and ordered me to reply. I said that I cannot talk while being beaten. He did not order the others to stop hitting me.

During this time I was able to hear some agents in uniform telling the others to stop beating me. But those doing the beating told them to leave if they didn’t want to take part in it. Then the higher-ranking officer came again and asked them to stop beating me.

One of the police escorted me to where Mr. Thorne was seated, in a chair. The policeman forced me to sit on the ground next to John, saying that I am a dog and that was my place. After about 10 or 20 minutes some policemen approached and told Mr. Thorne to return to his hotel and not to do any work.

The officer in uniform came with my phone in his hands and told John that he [Brahim] is an extremist and that he receives phone calls from abroad. The policeman in plainclothes who was talking to Mr. Thorne told the uniformed officer that the phone belonged to me. Then the man in plainclothes asked me not to accompany Mr. Thorne or to take him anywhere and that I should instead go home and stay out of trouble. They returned my phone and ID and gave John his passport, and we both left.

John Thorne, correspondent for the Abu Dhabi based English language daily The National, gave the following account:

Around 9 a.m. on November 8, 2010, Brahim Alansari and I went to Place Dchira, in central El-Ayoun, where dozens of policemen and several police vehicles were assembled. At that moment, several more van-loads of police arrived. For reasons I could not discern, police started chasing onlookers.

Mr. Alansari and I ran into a side street. Two policemen caught up to me and apprehended me. I did not see how they caught Mr. Alansari.

Both of us were taken to the edge of Place Dchira, where police were massed, and ordered to sit down. A police officer arrived. He recorded my passport and press card information, and Mr. Alansari’s identity card information. We both identified ourselves and our employers.

I explained that I am accredited by the Communication Ministry as a foreign correspondent in Morocco.

Then the police ordered me to stand, marched me about 15 feet away, and ordered me to sit in a chair. Meanwhile, around a dozen police – some in green jumpsuits, others in blue riot gear – surrounded Mr. Alansari and began beating him.

I could not see how many policemen struck Mr. Alansari. I could see that he was struck with hands and batons at least twenty times during a few minutes. Then the police made Brahim sit next to me.

At this point, two plainclothes policemen took charge of the situation.

After about an hour had passed since Mr. Alansari and I were stopped, the plainclothes policemen told us we could both go. They ordered Brahim to go in one direction and me to go in another. We both left in accordance with their instructions.

(Beirut) – Iraq’s government has been carrying out mass arrests and unlawfully detaining people in the notorious Camp Honor prison facility in Baghdad’s Green Zone, based on numerous interviews with victims, witnesses, family members, and government officials. The government had claimed a year ago that it had closed the prison, where Human Rights Watch had documented rampant torture.

Since October 2011 Iraqi authorities have conducted several waves of detentions, one of which arresting officers and officials termed “precautionary.” Numerous witnesses told Human Rights Watch that security forces have typically surrounded neighborhoods in Baghdad and other provinces and gone door-to-door with long lists of names of people they wanted to detain. The government has held hundreds of detainees for months, refusing to disclose the number of those detained, their identities, any charges against them, and where they are being held.

“Iraqi security forces are grabbing people outside of the law, without trial or known charges, and hiding them away in incommunicado sites,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The Iraqi government should immediately reveal the names and locations of all detainees, promptly free those not charged with crimes, and bring those facing charges before an independent judicial authority.”

The government should appoint an independent judicial commission to investigate continuing allegations of torture and other ill-treatment, disappearances, and arbitrary detention in Camp Honor and elsewhere, Human Rights Watch said.

Multiple witnesses told Human Rights Watch that some detainees arrested since December 2011 have been held in the Camp Honor prison in Baghdad’s International Zone, known as the Green Zone. In March 2011 the government announced it had closed Camp Honor prison, after legislators visited the site in response to evidence Human Rights Watch provided of repeated torture at the facility.

The two most sweeping arrest dragnets occurred in October and November 2011, detaining people alleged to be Baath Party and Saddam Hussein loyalists, and in March 2012, ahead of the Arab summit in Baghdad at the end of that month.

In April two Justice Ministry officials separately told Human Rights Watch that since the roundups began in October, security forces often have not transferred prisoners into the full custody of the justice system, as required by Iraq law. Instead, the officials said, security forces have transported dozens of prisoners at a time in and out of various prison facilities, sometimes without adequate paperwork or explanation, under the authority of the military office of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Fourteen lawyers, detainees, and government officials interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that recent detainees have been held at Camp Honor prison. Some of the officials said that detainees have also been held at two secret detention facilities, also inside Baghdad’s Green Zone. These allegations are consistent with concerns raised in a confidential letter from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) obtained by Human Rights Watch in July 2011 after the letter’s existence was made public by the Los Angeles Times.

Officials, lawyers, and former detainees also told Human Rights Watch that judicial investigators from the Supreme Judicial Council continue to conduct interrogations at the Camp Honor prison. Between December and May, Human Rights Watch interviewed over 35 former detainees, family members, lawyers, legislators, and Iraqi government and security officials from the Defense, Interior, and Justice Ministries. Without exception, they expressed great concern for their own safety and requested that Human Rights Watch withhold all names, dates, and places of interviews to protect their identities.

“It’s a matter of grave concern that Iraqis in so many walks of life, officials included, are afraid for their own well-being and fear great harm if they discuss allegations of serious human rights abuses,” Stork said.

“Precautionary” Detentions ahead of March 2012 Arab Summit

The most recent mass arrests occurred in March as the government dramatically tightened security throughout Baghdad in preparation for the Arab League summit there on March 29. Family members and witnesses told Human Rights Watch that arresting officers characterized the roundups as a “precautionary” measure to prevent terrorist attacks during the summit. Six detainees released in April told Human Rights Watch that while they were in detention, interrogators told them that they were being held to curb criminal activity during the summit and any “embarrassing” public protests.

Legislators from Prime Minister al-Maliki’s State of Law party have denied in the news media that any preemptive arrests took place, claiming that all arrests were of suspected criminals and in response to judicial warrants. All detainees and witnesses interviewed, over 20 in all, said they had not been shown arrest warrants.

In Baghdad neighborhoods where multiple arrests were made, including Adhamiya, Furat, Jihad, Abu Ghraib, and Rathwaniya, residents told Human Rights Watch it appeared that a large proportion of those detained had previously spent time in prisons run by the US military, including Abu Ghraib, Camp Bucca, and Camp Cropper. Some family members and legislators concluded that people were being arrested not because of suspected current criminal activity, but simply because they had been detained before.

In May an Interior Ministry official told Human Rights Watch that “security forces, in the interest of keeping security incidents to a minimum during the summit, while the world was watching, sometimes decided it was easier to just round up people who had been imprisoned years before, regardless of what crime they may have committed.” In April a Justice Ministry official told Human Rights Watch that of the hundreds arrested, “some have been released, about 100 will be officially charged within the justice system, and the rest are somewhere else. We do not know where.”

During an April 9 parliament session, Hassan al-Sinead, head of the parliament’s Security and Defense Committee and a member of Prime Minister al-Maliki’s State of Law Party, held up what he said were official security reports of Baghdad Operation Command and said, in response to allegations of pre-emptive arrests by other legislators, that there were only 532 arrests in all of Baghdad during the month of March, and that none were pre-emptive.

Two other members of the parliamentary committee subsequently told Human Rights Watch that this figure greatly underreported arrests that month. At the April 9 session an investigative committee was formed, made up of members of the Security and Defense and Human Rights committees. Members of the investigative committee told Human Rights Watch that plans to visit detainees never happened. To date, no investigation results have been released.

“Baathist” Arrests

In October and November 2011, security forces arrested hundreds of people in Baghdad and outlying provinces, almost all during nighttime raids on residential neighborhoods. State television reported that Prime Minister al-Maliki ordered these arrests. Government statements, including by the prime minister, claimed that those arrested were Saddam Hussein loyalists plotting against the government. Family members told Human Rights Watch that security forces came to their doors with lists and read off names. Some of those listed were former Baath party members and others were not, including people who had died years ago. Three officials separately told Human Rights Watch that the total number arrested in the campaign approached 1,500.

A man whose 57-year-old father was arrested along with 11 neighbors on October 30 told Human Rights Watch in December, “A week after my father was arrested, some of the same police officers who arrested him came back and found family members to give them belongings [of neighborhood men who had been arrested], like clothes or money or IDs, but they still said they had no information about where they were being held, or what they were being charged with.”

The man’s son showed Human Rights Watch a document the police had given to him that listed the date his father was arrested but left blank the space reserved for the name of the detention facility.

Upon learning that some prisoners were being held in Baghdad’s Rusafa prisons, run by the Justice Ministry, Human Rights Watch asked Justice Minister Hassan al-Shimmari on January 4 for access to the prisoners. The request was refused.

Though not all arrests have been on the same scale as those in October, November, and March, regular arrest campaigns have taken place, often in largely Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad as well as in several outlying provinces, said witnesses, family members and media reports. Strict government secrecy regarding the number of arrests and exact charges makes it difficult to assess the scope.

While some prisoners were released within hours or days and say they were not mistreated, others told Human Rights Watch they were tortured, including with repeated electric shocks. Most said interrogators forced them to sign pledges not to criticize the government publicly or to sign confessions. They said interrogators threatened that unless they signed these documents they would suffer physical violence, female family members would be raped, or they would never be released. Some families told Human Rights Watch that they were told to pay thousands of dollars in bribes to secure their loved ones’ release. In two cases known to Human Rights Watch, detainees were released after the families made such payments.

Camp Honor Prison

Camp Honor is a military base of more than 15 buildings within Baghdad’s fortified International Zone, which Iraqis and others continue to refer to as the Green Zone. The Iraqi Army’s 56^th Brigade, also known as the Baghdad Brigade, which falls under direct command of the Office of the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, controls the Camp Honor complex and is responsible for the security of the Green Zone.

On March 29, 2011, Justice Minister al-Shimmari told Human Rights Watch that the government had closed the camp’s main detention facility, Camp Honor prison (often simply referred to as “Camp Honor”). Al-Shimmari said that authorities had moved all its detainees, whom he alleged were terrorists and Islamist militants, to three other facilities under the control of his ministry.

Contrary to this assurance, Human Rights Watch has received information from government and security officials indicating that some detainees from the “Baathist” and “Summit” roundups were held in Camp Honor prison and that it is still being used at least as a temporary holding site, or as a place to extract confessions before moving detainees into the official correctional system. This use of military prisons outside the control of the Justice Ministry is consistent with known procedures at other publicly acknowledged facilities outside of the ministry’s control, such as Muthanna Airport Prison and a facility in western Baghdad run by the army’s Muthanna Brigade, both of which have also housed hundreds of detainees from the recent arrests, according to government officials and former detainees.

A security official from the Defense Ministry told Human Rights Watch in April that judicial investigators attached to the Supreme Judicial Council go to the Camp Honor prison on a regular basis, where they participate in investigations and interrogations, alongside military investigators from the 56^th Brigade. A lawyer who works for the government but did not want his department identified corroborated this allegation in an April interview with Human Rights Watch.

Three former detainees who spoke with Human Rights Watch between December and April gave credible accounts of what they said were their interactions with judicial investigators in Camp Honor prison. These allegations are consistent with judicial procedures known to have taken place there in the past. One detainee told Human Rights Watch in April that he had been held for over a month in Camp Honor prison, from late October to early December.

In a March interview, another man told Human Rights Watch he had been detained in Baghdad in early November and taken to a prison inside the Green Zone, which guards and other detainees told him was Camp Honor prison. His description and a sketch he made of the layout of the cells and interrogation trailers were consistent with the known layout of the facility.

Another detainee said in early December that he could confirm that he was in Camp Honor prison in May 2011 by the proximity of clearly recognizable surrounding buildings. When he was taken from the main holding facility to adjacent trailers for violent interrogations on three separate occasions, he said, he was not blindfolded. “The Defense Ministry and the old Council of Ministers [Hall] are right there,” he said. “I’m a former military man, and I used to work very close to there, so I knew right where I was.”

In July Human Rights Watch obtained a copy of a May 22,2011 letter written by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which said the ICRC had “collected reliable allegations” of two separate secret detention facilities attached to Camp Honor military base, plus another facility next to the headquarters of the Counter-Terrorism Service, also in the Green Zone, “that are used to this day to hold and conceal detainees when committees visit the primary prison.”

In the letter, the ICRC also documented the methods of torture used inside Camp Honor prison and affiliated facilities, consistent with torture methods Human Rights Watch had previously reported.The ICRC addressed the letter to Prime Minister al-Maliki and copied Farouq al-Araji, head of al-Maliki’s military office, General Mahmoud al-Khazraji, commander of the 56th Brigade, other defense officials, Justice Minister al-Shimmari, and Judge Midhat al-Mahmoud, head of the Supreme Judicial Council.

After the Los Angeles Times made public the letter’s existence on July 14, the ICRC released a statement declining to confirm or deny its authenticity, as per long-standing policy to confine its communications to officials of the government concerned. In July and August, two Iraqi government officials and one former official familiar with the letter assured Human Rights Watch of the letter’s legitimacy.

Two defense lawyers separately told Human Rights Watch in May 2012 that clients of theirs had been held in Camp Honor prison as recently as August 2011. Another lawyer told Human Rights Watch that while working at the Supreme Judicial Council over the past year he encountered frequent references in comments by judges and others, as well as in court paperwork, to prisoners being held in Camp Honor prison and in “two other prisons in the Green Zone also run by the 56^th Brigade.” Four officials from the Defense and Justice ministries, plus two former officials, also told Human Rights Watch of the existence of these secret prisons, one also part of the Camp Honor complex, unofficially called “Five Stars,” and another outside the base, but still within the Green Zone.

Treatment of Detainees

Statements to Human Rights Watch by those captured in the roundups and detained in various prisons, including those run by the Justice Ministry, varied in describing the treatment they received. Some said they were not physically mistreated. Three people detained in the “Summit” dragnet told Human Rights Watch that security officers assured them that they just had to wait until the Arab Summit was over and they would be released – that holding them “was just a precautionary measure.” Others described multiple beatings and threats and some described abuse that amounts to torture.

In May, a 59-year-old man told Human Rights Watch that he was arrested in late October in a southern province of Iraq and transported with more than 60 other prisoners to a detention facility in Baghdad, which he identified but asked Human Rights Watch to keep confidential. “When I first arrived, I was blindfolded and had my hands tied behind my back, and I had to walk down a long line of men, each of whom punched me in the face and hit my head with wire cables as I passed them,” he said. “After that, I was in solitary confinement for some time, and then they brought me before the judicial investigators. I couldn’t believe that they beat so hard and gave me electric shocks for three continuous hours, without even asking me any questions.”

He also said that during other interrogations his captors stripped him naked, hit him with wire cables, boxed his ears, poured cold water over him, and shocked him with electrodes attached to his back.

He was released in March, five months later, after his family paid over US $10,000 in bribes and an influential politician intervened on his behalf. Before leaving custody, he was forced to sign what he said was a confession, though he is not sure of its contents, as well as a pledge to never speak “against the government” and never to talk to the media about his arrest. “They told me that if I break any of these rules, they will bring in my sons and destroy them, and rape my wife,” he said. “As I left, they told me, ‘We will arrest you again, and make sure you’re executed.’”

Family members of detainees who spoke with Human Rights Watch said they had no idea where their loved ones were being held, despite multiple inquiries to the Ministry of Human Rights and the headquarters of the security forces that arrested them. In cases in which the government disclosed where prisoners were being held, security forces hindered or completely blocked detainees’ access to legal and family visits.

“On paper, a defendant can be defended by a lawyer, but in real life, it is next to impossible,” said a defense lawyer who is attempting to represent two men arrested in the “Summit” sweep in March. He told Human Rights Watch that when he is actually informed of the location of a detainee and allowed in, he is kept waiting for hours, and then told to go home because it is the end of the day. “Any lawyer attempting to see his client will be subjected to threats by the security forces holding the detainees,” the lawyer told Human Rights Watch. “Several times in the past few months, they said, ‘So, you want to represent a Baathist and a terrorist? I wonder what is making you do this, why you are on his side.’ This is clearly an attempt to intimidate attorneys from standing up for their victims.”

Families who tried to hire lawyers to defend relatives arrested in the “Baathist” sweep gave strikingly similar accounts. In December, one man told Human Rights Watch that his family went to four separate criminal defense lawyers who were at first cooperative. But when they learned that his father was taken in the “Baathist” arrests, he said, “each immediately told us that they could not interfere in this case because the arrests were by order of the prime minister’s office.” He cited one lawyer as saying: “This case is already decided. It’s a lost case, and I can’t be part of it, because they were arrested by the order of the prime minister.’”

“It is amazing that all four had the same reaction and this made us lose hope,” the family member said. “We did not try to get another lawyer, and have no idea where my father is.”

“Parliament’s newly proposed law will be a significant milestone for protecting the due process rights of detainees in the country,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Ending unlimited judicial renewals of pretrial detention will help eliminate a significant source of the abuse of detainee rights, and serve as a model for the region.”

The new law shortens the period for which a person can be detained by the police without an order from an investigator (prosecutor), from four days to 48 hours, and during that time allows the detainee to contact a lawyer.

After the 48-hour period, the new law would reduce from three weeks to 10 days the period for which an investigator can hold a detainee for investigation and allows the detainee to appeal his detention to a court. The court can renew this investigative pretrial detention for a maximum of 40 days.

If the investigator seeks to lengthen the detention for further investigation, he may do so only pursuant to a judicial order. The law clearly limits any such court-ordered extensions of detentions to a maximum of three 30-day extensions, for a maximum of three months, and allows the detainee to appear before the court to challenge the extension.

International human rights law requires detainees to be brought promptly before a judge. Pretrial detention must be the exception, not the rule, and those held in detention before trial are entitled to a trial within a reasonable time or release.

“This new law will force prosecutors and police to move as quickly as possible to gather any evidence they have on a detainee and ensure that detainees are brought promptly before a judge,” Whitson said. “The Kuwait parliament deserves credit for passing this law, and considering the rights and interests of detainees, who often have no one championing their interests. Every Kuwaiti will be safer and freer from the risk of arbitrary treatment because of this new law.”

 ANHRI calls on the Bahraini authorities to immediately release Nabeel Rajab, activist, and to cease the crackdown and prosecution of human rights activist and opinion makers. ANHRI considers the extension of Rajab’s detention illustrates the repression that characterizes the current stage in Bahrain.

The Bahraini authorities renewed Rajab’s detention for yet another week and announced that he is to be tried on May 16th on charges of “insulting a legal entity” in tweets he had posted on Twitter.

“It is quite surprising that an activist is tried because of 140 characters he posted on the Internet. The absurdity of the charges against Rajab explains the that the ruling regime ambushes activists and opinion makers,” said ANHRI.

“There are also attempts to intimidate opposition activists and impede their use of the Internet after it had proved to be a successful tool to express their opinions and expose the repression and persecution imposed on them by the regime,” added ANHRI.

Rajab is to be tried yet in another case on May 22nd on charged of “participating in a demonstration against the regime” three months ago.

The Bahraini authorities had detained Rajab upon arrival at the airport in Manama from Beirut last week and accused him of the mentioned charges.

ANHRI warns the Bahraini authorities of the consequences of the recurrent violations on human rights and international conventions and treaties that guarantee the right to freedom of expression, demonstration, and assembly.

For more information:

Bahraini:Nabeel Rajab arrested at door of plane

A: The Attorney-General and the military prosecution

Cairo, May 13 2012.

ANHRI said today that the first Egyptian presidential election in the modern era taking place few days ahead may result in the election of Ahmed Shafik, the former Minister of Aviation and Prime Minister, and the second strongest man of Mubarak. Shafik is accused of a squandering public funds in tens of complaints filed to the Attorney-General. Shafik was able to officially run for presidency because of the Attorney-General’s procrastination and slowdown in investigating the complaints filed by employees at the Ministry of Civil Aviation over a year ago. There are mixed news about the complaints being referred to Public Funds Prosecution, or to the military judiciary, just to lose trace of them like the complaints filed against police officers in cases of torture during the rule of the ousted dictator. Justice has not been served thus far.

Shafik’s scenario was repeated with the case filed by ANHRI on the communications blackout in February 2011. Following a year of inaction and misleading by the Public Prosecution, the case was referred to the military justice to just be forgotten in the drawers as the investigations had indicated the involvement of General Omar Suleiman, Mubarak’s strongest man during his rule.

“When complaints are against an official figure or one affiliated with the ousted dictator, they refer them to the different departments of the public prosecution. Only with mounting public pressure, it is referred to the military judiciary. According to many concerned about the affairs of justice in Egypt, it means that no penalty would be issued and the rule of law will not be accomplished, especially with the military justice system being the de facto Judiciary now in Egypt. Similarily, the emergency state is the norm, and impunity is the prevailing system in Egypt,” said ANHRI.

“Is the Attorney-General, who caused the impunity of many officers, going to apply the law on Shafik if he wins the presidency? Is the law, which is standing helpless against a former Prime Minister, going to apply on an elected President of the Republic? We believe not,” added ANHRI.

ANHRI is providing this information to the Egyptian public opinion and shows solidarity to the media outlets and jurists who had alerted to this erroneous situation several times before. ANHRI affirms its firm position that the greatest risk to the Egyptians revolution of dignity is the negligence of the rule of law and the values of justice in Egypt.

Egypt: Defendants escape punishment, and become candidates for presidency!

Investigating the Crime of Cutting down Connections: How They Escaped Punishment

(New York) – Syrian security forces are arbitrarily arresting and holding peaceful activists incommunicado, despite the government’s commitment under Kofi Annan’s six point plan to release everyone who has been arbitrarily detained. People being arrested include peaceful protesters and activists involved in organizing, filming, and reporting on protests and humanitarian assistance providers and doctors, Human Rights Watch said after interviewing dozens of activists, witnesses, and family members.

Human Rights Watch called on the government to order security forces to stop detaining peaceful activists and aid providers. The United Nations Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS), tasked with monitoring the implementation of the Annan plan, should insist on repeat visits of all detention facilities and should make the release of peaceful activists a priority.

“Syria is breaking its promises to Annan left and right, scooping up more people to throw in its jails, and refusing to free the people it promised to release,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Unless Syria’s leaders keep their promises, and quickly, the Security Council needs to show them that there will be consequences.”

Under the Annan plan, the Syrian government committed to “intensify[ing] the pace and scale of release of arbitrarily detained persons, including especially vulnerable categories of persons, and persons involved in peaceful political activities…” and to “respect freedom of association and the right to demonstrate peacefully as legally guaranteed.”

Since the Syrian government promised to carry out the Annan plan on March 25, 2012, Human Rights Watch has received numerous reports of detentions of peaceful protesters and activists involved in organizing protests, filming them, or providing humanitarian assistance to the displaced. The Violations Documentation Center (VDC), a Syrian monitoring group has reported that security forces have detained at least 780 people since the government committed to the plan.

SANA, Syrian state media, reported on May 6, 2012, that 265 men who had been detained in connection with protests but “whose hands are clear of the Syrian blood” had been released. SANA did not publish the names of those released. A large number of political activists remain in incommunicado detention, some for almost a year, while others are facing trial for exercising their right to demonstrate peacefully.

In some instances activists reported that security forces detained their family members, including children, to pressure the activists to turn themselves in. The wife of Mohamad Yassine Hamawi, a 66 year old teacher from Daraya, said a security officer told her that her husband, arrested on May 4, would be released if their sons turned themselves in. He remains in detention.

Security forces detained 15 people who were peacefully protesting in front of the Syrian Parliament on April 9, two participants told Human Rights Watch. While most were released within a few days, Assem Hamcho, one of those arrested, remains in incommunicado detention, two of his friends told Human Rights Watch.

On April 17, Air Force Intelligence detained Mohammad Diab Seireh, Mohammad Zreik, Dr. Muhanad Darkhabani, and Ahmad Zaghloul, in the Kfar Souseh neighborhood of Damascus, for their alleged involvement in distributing humanitarian assistance to people displaced inside Syria. Anwar al-Bunni, a lawyer working on behalf of the detainees, said the four remain in incommunicado detention.

Doctors providing assistance to the wounded have not been spared. Al-Bunni, who is following up on the cases of many detainees, told Human Rights Watch that Air Force Intelligence detained Dr. Ahmed Taleb Kurdi and Dr. Ahmad al Khansa from Salamiya, in the governorate of Hama, on May 5, and that security forces arrested Dr. Jalal Noful, a psychiatrist, at his clinic at the Red Crescent in Damascus on April 22. Both arrests appear to be related to providing help to wounded people. Dr. Kurdi and Dr. al Khansa were released on May 10, while Dr. Noful remains in detention.

Family members of detainees have raised concerns to Human Rights Watch about the health of their relatives in detention, particularly elderly detainees with chronic medical conditions.

Human Rights Watch called on the U.N. Security Council to ensure that the Syrian government fully cooperates with UNSMIS to implement the six-point plan, including the release of arbitrarily detained people.

The UN mission should deploy professional human rights monitors who are trained to organize random and regular visits to all places of detention, including suspected secret detention centers, Human Rights Watch said. These experts should be in a position to recognize people who are arbitrarily detained, protect interviewees from retaliation, ensure the confidentiality and safekeeping of interviews, and interview women who have been sexually abused and children who have been tortured.

“The international community needs to put muscle behind its rhetoric, and impose targeted sanctions on the Assad government until it abides by all its commitments under the Annan plan, including the release of the thousands of prisoners held merely for their peaceful activism,” Whitson said.

Incommunicado Detention and Enforced Disappearances
Some of the worst human rights abuses in Syria take place outside of public view, behind the cell walls of detention facilities, where thousands of Syrians, including many women and children, are arbitrarily detained and often brutally tortured.

On May 14, 2011, Military Intelligence detained Anas al-Shoghari, a 24-year-old university student who was active in organizing peaceful protests in the city of Banias. He had filmed videos of events and appeared on international news channels using his real name. A relative recently told Human Rights Watch:

Anas was first detained at the Military Intelligence branch in Tartous and then transferred to the Palestinian Branch in Damascus but now we don’t know anything about him. The family asked for him several times but with no luck. At the beginning the Syrian government denied their involvement in his arrest but later they admitted they have him in their custody without saying where he is being held. A couple of weeks ago a person I know was released from the central prison in Homs and told me that he saw Anas at Sednaya prison and that he has lost a lot of weight, but we couldn’t verify if it was true or not … Three times the president issued amnesties for prisoners but he was not released.

Islam al-Debbas, an activist from Daraya, was detained on July 22, 2011 by security forces while he was protesting near al-Mustafa mosque in his town. His fate and whereabouts remain unknown. In an interview on May 8, a friend of Islam’s who was at the protest told Human Rights Watch:

The purpose of the protest was to distribute flowers and water to the security forces and soldiers. Islam went to give flowers to one of the soldiers when other security forces attacked him and started beating him before arresting him. Since then we do not know anything about him. His family went to ask about him at the Air Force Intelligence branch at Mezze Airport but the Security Forces refused to cooperate with them and asked them to leave.

Yahya al-Sharabji, his brother Mohammed al-Sharabji (often referred to as Ma`en), and others were arrested on September 6, 2011 by Air Force Intelligence. The al-Sharabjis’ brother Ahmed, a member of the Human Rights Studies Center in Damascus, told Human Rights Watch: “During the revolution Yahya was a member of the Local Coordinating Committee. He was active in organizing peaceful protests and talking to the media and Ma`en was a field activist basically filming incidents on the ground.”

Ahmed al-Sharabji told Human Rights Watch that their family found out after a couple of months from people who were detained and released that Ma`en was being held in the Air Force Intelligence branch near Mezze Airport and Yahya at the Air Force Intelligence branch on Baghdad Street but the family has not been able to reach either one. Osama Ziyadi and Adel Sattar Khoulami, who were detained with the al-Sharabji brothers, also remain in detention but their whereabouts is also unknown.

The exact number of those being held in incommunicado detention is impossible to ascertain given the lack of access to detention facilities. While the International Committee of the Red Cross has had access to `Adra central prison in Damascus and Aleppo central prison, the organization does not have access to all places of detention and does not have the authority conferred on the monitoring mission by a Security Council mandate, Human Rights Watch said.

Human Rights Watch’s research shows that Syrian security forces have conducted a widespread and systematic campaign of torture of detainees across Syria since the beginning of anti-government protests in March 2011. Former detainees and defectors interviewed by Human Rights Watch reported horrific torture including sexual abuse such as rape, forced nudity, and electric shock to the genitalia; beatings with batons and cables, particularly targeting sensitive body areas; and burning and electric shocks.

“The horrors taking place inside Syrian dungeons everyday and the lengthy incommunicado detention of peaceful activists will continue until and unless UN monitors find their way inside these facilities,” Whitson said.

Activists on Trial
In other cases, activists have been charged and are on trial for peaceful activities, such as allegedly reporting or distributing information in opposition to the government. On February 16, Air Force Intelligence raided the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM) and arrested 16 people, including seven women.

On April 22, eight members of the group – Bassam Al-Ahmad, Joan Farso, Ayham Ghazzoul, Yara Bader, Razan Ghazzawi, Mayadah Khaleel, Sana Zetani, and Hanadi Zahlout – were charged with “possessing prohibited materials with the intent to disseminate them”. The charges and detentions appear to be related to SCM’s role in reporting on and advocacy against Syrian government human rights violations.

Five of the men arrested, including Mazen Darwish, the group’s president, and other SCM staff members – Abdel Rahman Hamada, Hussein Ghareer, Mansour al Omari, and Hani Zetan – remain in incommunicado detention.

On March 7, the Military Intelligence Palestine Branch raided Ninar Cafe in Bab Touma, Damascus, detaining nine people including Yara Chammas, the daughter of Michel Chammas, a Syrian attorney recognized for his work with the opposition. On April 25, he released a statement indicating that the general prosecutor had filed nine charges against his daughter including “weakening national sentiment.”

She was released on bail on April 30 and is awaiting trial. Her father told Human Rights Watch that his daughter was detained for her activism, which included “giving humanitarian assistance to displaced families, without sectarianism, without violence.” The father said that a noted journalist, Jihad al Jamal, who was detained with the same group, remains in detention.

Concerns about Health in Detention and Targeting of Family Members
A number of detainees’ relatives have raised concerns regarding the ability of their family members to obtain adequate medical treatment in detention. Bashar al-Issa, the brother of the prominent Kurdish writer Hussein Ali al-Issa, who has been detained since his arrest on September 12, 2011 in Al Hasaka governorate by Air Force Intelligence, explained his concerns to Human Rights Watch. He said his brother “participated in the protests demanding the overthrow of the regime” and that his arrest in September was his second. Bashar al-Issa said:

Three days after he was detained [for the second time since the start of the protests] my sister found out from the Air Force Intelligence branch that he was transferred to Damascus. We think that he is now at the central branch of the Air Force Intelligence managed by Jamil Hassan in Damascus but we don’t know anything about him and I am worried about his health condition. He is 63 years old and has heart problems. I want to know if he is receiving his medication because when he was arrested he didn’t take his medication with him. Three months ago a person who was detained with him informed us that Hussein is suffering from health issues and is unable to stand on his feet by himself. Another source informed me as well that Hussein was admitted to the military hospital for two days escorted by security officers.

The wife of detained teacher Mohamad Yassine Hamawi, said: “My husband is 66 years old and has heart problems, high blood pressure, and a prostate infection. He needs to take his medicine every day.” She also told Human Rights Watch how the circumstances of his detention indicated that he was taken as a hostage, so that their sons would turn themselves in. Describing her husband’s arrest, she said:

On May 4 at around 3 p.m., eight army soldiers wearing military camouflage uniforms knocked on the door. My husband opened the door and as soon as he did the soldiers grabbed him and took him outside. They then entered the house and started searching every single corner. They said they were searching for weapons but of course they didn’t find any. When they didn’t find anything, they broke a cabinet that was locked to open it and took the military service cards of my three sons, Haitham, Muhammad, and Sa`id, and my husband’s passport that he had renewed the day before. They also took Muhammad and Sa`id’s ID cards. One of the soldiers told me “Do not say we robbed the house” and another said: “let the Prince of Qatar pay your expenses. You failed to raise your sons properly.” They also took a computer, two cameras, and the internet router … Before leaving the soldiers told me that they will release my husband if my sons surrender themselves.

An activist, Mustafa Najjar from Aleppo, told Human Rights Watch that his family was detained on May 9, because of his role in organizing protests and distributing flyers and medical supplies. He said:

Yesterday [on May 9] my parents’ neighbor called me to tell me that security forces had entered my parents’ house. I called Baha`, my younger brother, on his mobile but he didn’t answer. After trying several times a security officer answered his phone and ordered me to surrender myself, threatening that if I didn’t they would detain my mother and sisters … I called my neighbor again after that and he told me that they did detain them.

He said that his mother, Munira Safou, 56, and siblings Khadijet Najjar, 27, Mona Najjar, 26, Amal Najjar, 14, and Baha` Najjar, 19, had all been detained.

The 76-page report, “Unacknowledged Deaths: Civilian Casualties in NATO’s Air Campaign in Libya,” examines in detail eight NATO air strikes in Libya that resulted in 72 civilian deaths, including 20 women and 24 children. It is based on one or more field investigations to each of the bombing sites during and after the conflict, including interviews with witnesses and local residents.

“NATO took important steps to minimize civilian casualties during the Libya campaign, but information and investigations are needed to explain why 72 civilians died,” said Fred Abrahams, special adviser at Human Rights Watch and principal author of the report. “Attacks are allowed only on military targets, and serious questions remain in some incidents about what exactly NATO forces were striking.”

NATO’s military campaign in Libya, from March to October 2011, was mandated by the United Nations Security Council to protect civilians from attacks by security forces of then-Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

The number of civilian deaths from NATO air strikes in Libya was low given the extent of the bombing and duration of the campaign, Human Rights Watch said. Nevertheless, the absence of a clear military target at seven of the eight sites Human Rights Watch visited raises concerns of possible laws-of-war violations that should be investigated.

Human Rights Watch called on NATO to investigate all potentially unlawful attacks and to report its findings to the UN Security Council, which authorized the military intervention in Libya.

NATO should also address civilian casualties from its air strikes in Libya at the NATO heads of state summit, taking place in Chicago on May 20 and 21, Human Rights Watch said.

The Human Rights Watch report is the most extensive examination to date of civilian casualties caused by NATO’s air campaign. It looks at all sites known to Human Rights Watch in which NATO strikes killed civilians. Strikes that resulted in no civilian fatalities – though civilians were wounded or property destroyed – were not included.

The most serious incident occurred in the village of Majer, 160 kilometers east of Tripoli, the capital, on August 8, 2011, when NATO air strikes on two family compounds killed 34 civilians and wounded more than 30, Human Rights Watch said. Dozens of displaced people were staying in one of the compounds.

A second strike outside one of the compounds killed and wounded civilians who witnesses said were searching for victims. The infrared system used by the bomb deployed should have indicated to the pilot the presence of many people on the ground. If the pilot was unable to determine that those people were combatants, then the strike should have been canceled or diverted.

Under the laws of war, parties to a conflict may only direct attacks at military targets and must take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians. While civilian casualties do not necessarily mean there has been a violation of the laws of war, governments are obligated to investigate allegations of serious violations and compensate victims of unlawful attacks.

Human Rights Watch said NATO should also consider a program to provide payments to civilian victims of NATO attacks without regard to wrongdoing, as NATO has done in Afghanistan.

At seven sites documented in the report, Human Rights Watch uncovered no – or only possible – indication that Libyan military forces, weapons, hardware, or communications equipment had been present at the time of the attack. The circumstances raise serious questions about whether the buildings struck – all residential – were valid military targets. At the eighth site, at which three women and four children died, the target may have been a Libyan military officer.

NATO officials told Human Rights Watch that all of its targets were military objectives, and thus legitimate targets. But it has not provided specific information to support those claims, mostly saying a targeted site was a “command and control node” or “military staging ground.”

NATO said the Majer compounds were a “staging base and military accommodation” for Gaddafi forces, but it has not provided specific information to support that claim. During four visits to Majer, including one the day after the attack, the only possible evidence of a military presence found by Human Rights Watch was a single military-style shirt – common clothing for many Libyans – in the rubble of one of the three destroyed houses.

Family members and neighbors in Majer independently said there had been no military personnel or activity at the compounds before or at the time of the attack.

“I’m wondering why they did this; why just our houses?” said Muammar al-Jarud, who lost his mother, sister, wife, and 8-month-old daughter. “We’d accept it if we had tanks or military vehicles around, but we were completely civilians, and you can’t just hit civilians.”

To research the eight incidents, Human Rights Watch visited the sites, in some cases multiple times, inspected weapons debris, interviewed witnesses, examined medical reports and death certificates, reviewed satellite imagery, and collected photographs of the wounded and dead. Detailed questions were submitted to NATO and its member states that participated in the campaign, including in an August 2011 meeting with senior NATO officials involved in targeting.

NATO derived its mandate from UN Security Council Resolution 1973, which authorized the use of force to protect civilians in Libya. The relatively few civilian casualties during the seven-month campaign attests to the care NATO took in minimizing civilian harm, Human Rights Watch said.

Countries such as Russia that have made grossly exaggerated claims of civilian deaths from NATO air strikes during the Libyan campaign have done so without basis, Human Rights Watch said.

“The countries that have criticized NATO for so-called massive civilian casualties in Libya are trying to score political points rather than protect civilians,” Abrahams said.

NATO asserts that it cannot conduct post-operation investigations into civilian casualties in Libya because it has no mandate to operate on the ground. But NATO has not requested permission from Libya’s transitional government to look into the incidents of civilian deaths and should promptly do so, Human Rights Watch said.

“The overall care NATO took in the campaign is undermined by its refusal to examine the dozens of civilian deaths,” Abrahams said. “This is needed to provide compensation for victims of wrongful attacks, and to learn from mistakes and minimize civilian casualties in future wars.”

Cairo May 12th, 2012

ANHRI calls for a swift response to the demands of freeing declaration of newspapers and publications from state bureaucracy, and a swift consideration of the demands of Nabil Jridet, editor-in-chief of al-Oula newspaper, regarding the declaration of his newspaper. Jridet’s hunger strike sine May 9th is a warning signal of the ongoing setbacks of press freedoms in post-revolution Tunisia, especially that public declaration is susceptible to political and partisan whims.

Jridet had announced at the beginning of the month of May his intention to go on a hunger strike due to “rampant corruption, nepotism, suspicious transactions in the department of granting public declarations, and ongoing negligence of public institutions to his newspapers’ mailings in contravention of the most basic rules and laws governing public declarations.

Due to his inability to declare it, Jridet’s weekly newspaper is currently threatened with closure and redundancy of employees because of the lack of adequate funding, as 40% of newspapers’ funding depends on the availability of a public declaration.

Like many other journalists, Jridet believes that the government as controlled by a majority of al-Nahda party, which is of an Islamist orientation, favors some newspapers and publications at the expense of other newspapers, in an attempt to politically win journalists over.

“Freedom of the press in Tunisia after the revolutions has become at stake. Jridet’s hunger strike comes in the context of a series of incidents that reveal setback of press freedoms in Tunisia despite the emergence of a large margin of freedom produced by the revolutions,” said ANHRI.

“Despite the review and amendment of many laws restricting freedom of the press, the implementation of these laws remains questionable. The government, presided by Hamadi Jebali, is reluctant to implement the recommendations of the National Commission for Media Reform, including the recommendations on the work of public declarations,” added ANHRI.

ANHRI calls on the government to listen to journalists and their syndicate and to implement the recommendations of the National Commission for Media Reform to avoid decline of the gains of press freedoms. Rather, it is time to move forward to entrench rule of law, citizenship, and freedoms.

(New York) – Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) should immediately amend a new law that protects from prosecution people who committed crimes if their actions were aimed at “promoting or protecting the revolution” against Muammar Gaddafi, Human Rights Watch said today. The law also allows authorities to detain people for up to two months if they are considered “threats to security.”

Law 38, On Some Procedures for the Transitional Period, passed on May 2, 2012, and to go into effect on May 12, says there shall be no penalty for “military, security, or civil actions dictated by the February 17 Revolution that were performed by revolutionaries with the goal of promoting or protecting the revolution.”

“This law allows people who committed serious crimes to walk free based on politics,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “It propagates a culture of selective justice that Libyans fought so hard to overcome.”

Holding accountable all those responsible for serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law is critical for the new Libya to be based on the rule of law, Human Rights Watch said.

The new law does take some measures to addressthe serious problem of bringing the thousands of detainees held by militias under the central government’s control and prosecuting them when there is evidence they committed crimes. Law 38 says the Ministries of Interior and Defense must refer all “supporters of the former regime” currently detained by militias, if there is sufficient evidence against them, to the competent judicial authorities by July 1.

Militias are currently holding thousands of people, most of them accused of having supported or fought for the Gaddafi government. Most of the detainees have not been brought before any judicial authority and are therefore being detained arbitrarily.

Human Rights Watch and others have reported extensively on torture and maltreatment in detention facilities run by militias, sometimes resulting in death. Some militias have been implicated in other serious crimes, such as the apparent execution of at least 53 people in October in Sirte and the forced expulsion of about 30,000 people from the town of Tawergha, which would amount to a crime against humanity.

“Tasking the ministries with processing the militias’ detainees within two months is a positive step to address a serious ongoing problem,” Stork said. “But giving a pass to people responsible for serious crimes will foster a culture of impunity that encourages further abuse.”

The law also states that even if a court acquits a person who was detained by a militia, that person has no right to initiate a criminal or civil complaint against the state or the militia, unless the detention was based on “fabricated or mendacious” allegations. The right of recourse for people who have been wrongly detained and acquitted should not be nullified, Human Rights Watch said.

The law also gives the government powers to restrict a person’s movement, impose a fine, or detain a person up to two months if they are considered a “threat to public security or stability” based on the person’s “previous actions or affiliation with an official or unofficial apparatus or tool of the former regime.” Affected individuals may challenge the measures before a judge.

Human Rights Watch said that such restrictions on people considered a threat to security should be based on concrete evidence of wrongdoing rather than on past affiliations. Such wrongdoing should be prosecuted under the criminal law rather than vague and open-ended powers to detain people as “threats to security.”

The law appears to violate Libya’s Constituent Covenant for the Transitional Period, which states that all Libyans are “equal before the law” and that they enjoy equal “civil and political rights.” It says that all citizens shall have the same opportunities and are subject to the same public duties and obligations, without any distinction based on political beliefs.

The blanket immunity in Law 38 for people seen as having promoted or protected the February 17 Revolution violates Libya’s obligations under international law to investigate and prosecute serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, Human Rights Watch said.

International law opposes amnesty for serious international crimes such as war crimes and crimes against humanity and all cases of torture. Libya is a state party to the Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity, which requires it to remove all such limitations to the prosecution of those two crimes. It is also party to the Convention against Torture which requires it to ensure all acts of torture are criminal offenses, and to investigate and prosecute all those persons on its territory responsible for such torture.

In addition, authorities in other states can prosecute such offenses that have taken place in Libya under universal jurisdiction laws without regard to domestic amnesties. Other states may be required to ensure such universal jurisdiction by treaties they are party to, such as the torture convention. Any grant of immunity by the NTC has no legally binding effect on other national or international courts, such as the International Criminal Court (ICC), that have jurisdiction over serious violations of international law, including those committed in Libya.

The ICC has ongoing jurisdiction over war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Libya since February 15, 2011, taking into account, among other factors, whether the Libyan authorities are willing and able to prosecute the perpetrators of these crimes. This law would be a strong sign of unwillingness to investigate crimes committed by all sides.

Arbitrary detention is strictly prohibited under international law, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Libya is a party. “Administrative” detention on the grounds of security, outside the criminal law, is only permitted under narrow circumstances where there is a genuine and publicly declared state of emergency threatening the life of the nation and the government has complied with various steps set out by the ICCPR and the United Nations Human Rights Committee, including taking such measures to limit rights only as are strictly necessary to meet that emergency (and are not broadly or vaguely drafted), and the government has shown that the existing law, including the criminal law, is insufficient to address the emergency. Libya has taken none of the steps required under the ICCPR to derogate from these rights in order to justify administrative detention.

The ICCPR also specifically requires that anyone subject to unlawful detention shall have an enforceable right to compensation.

Law 38 is not the only problematic new legislation passed by the NTC. On May 2, the NTC also passed law 37, which bans insults against the people of Libya or its institutions. Human Rights Watch called on to the NTC to revoke Law 37.
Human Rights Watch called on the NTC to amend Law 38 to exclude from any amnesty those responsible for serious international crimes such as murder, torture, sexual violence, and forced displacement.

“There can be no substitute for justice and accountability for serious crimes,” Stork said. “Shielding people from justice will encourage future abuse and hinder national reconciliation.”

(Beirut) – United Arab Emirates (UAE) authorities have expanded their crackdown on peaceful political activists with the recent arrests of two more members of a non-violent political association advocating greater adherence to Islamic precepts, Human Rights Watch said today. The new arrests, of Saleh al-Dhufairi and Salem Sahooh, bring to 11 the total number of detained members of the group, the Reform and Social Guidance Association (al-Islah), since late March 2012. Authorities should end this crackdown immediately, and release all activists detained simply for exercising their right to freedoms of expression and association, Human Rights Watch said.

Al-Islah sources and family members told Human Rights Watch that the recent arrests appear to have been motivated solely by the men’s affiliation with the association. Members of the group have been increasingly critical of government policies and the actions of security services over the past year, and several signed a petition submitted in March 2011 to UAE authorities demanding democratic reforms.

“These new arrests are yet another worrying sign of an increased crackdown in the UAE on voices critical of state policies,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Emiratis should be able to talk about reform without fear of being arbitrarily arrested by the security services.”

Witnesses and al-Islah sources told Human Rights Watch that state security officials detained the two men on April 29, 2012, without producing warrants or informing them of the reasons for their arrests, and are holding both in undisclosed locations.

Ten plainclothes security members arrived in two unmarked cars at a mosque in Ras al-Khaima emirate on the morning of April 29. They detained al-Dhufairi, 51, as he left the mosque after morning prayers.

A family member, who was in the mosque and observed the arrest, told Human Rights Watch that the plainclothes officers identified themselves as “police” but would not produce any identification or a warrant. The family member said he believes the men were from the UAE’s Amn al-Dawla (State Security), a federal security service that reports directly to the office of the UAE President under Law 6 of 1976.

The family member told Human Rights Watch that he made inquiries with local police authorities in Ras al-Khaimah as well as the local public prosecutor’s office, trying to find out where al-Dhufairi was being held and whether charges had been filed against him. Both told him that they had no record of al-Dhufairi’s arrest. The police also told him that the license plate numbers of the two cars used by the security officials were not in the police database. A spokesman for the Ras al-Khaimah police told Reuters on April 29: “We have no details on this case. We were not involved.”

Later that day, at approximately 8 p.m., a group of plainclothes officers stormed Sahooh’s home in the emirate of Sharjah and conducted an extensive house search in front of Sahooh and his family, al-Islah sources told Human Rights Watch. The men presented no warrant, the sources said. The officers arrested Sahooh, 55, and took him away at 6 a.m. His whereabouts are unknown, and his family has not been able to contact him.

“UAE security forces are raiding the homes of citizens and carrying them away apparently simply because they belong to an association critical of the government,” Whitson said. “These actions are reflective of a government that does not respect the rights of its citizens to freedom of association and expression.”

Authorities previously arrested al-Dhufairi at his home on March 6, after he made comments on Twitter criticizing UAE authorities. The comments criticized the arrest and deportation of Syrians who had demonstrated peacefully in front of the Syrian consulate in Dubai in February, as well as authorities’ threats to revoke the citizenship of other al-Islah activists. A Dubai police spokesman accused him at the time of “spreading ideas by speech, writing, and any other means that provoke strife, hurt national unity, and social peace.” Authorities had released al-Dhufairi on bail on March 20.

The UAE authorities began their crackdown on al-Islah in December 2011. The government said through its official news agency that it had stripped six al-Islah members – Dr. Ali Hussain al-Hammadi, Dr. Shahin Abdullah al-Hosni, Hussein Munif al-Jabri and his brother Hassan Munif al-Jabri, Ibrahim Hassan al-Marzouqi, and Sheikh Mohammad Abdul Razak al-Sediq– of their UAE citizenship. There is no evidence in official records, however, that authorities followed the steps required to strip a person of citizenship.

The authorities began arresting al-Islah members on March 26, when security forces arrested Dr. Ahmed al-Zaabi, a former judge, and Ahmed Ghaith al-Suwaidi together at a Dubai gas station.

On April 9, the authorities detained the six men they claimed to have stripped of their citizenship after they refused to sign a pledge to search for a new nationality, their families reported.

Authorities detained the chairman of al-Islah, Sheikh Dr. Sultan Bin Kayed al-Qasimi, on April 20.

Human Rights Watch previously called on UAE authorities to release these nine al-Islah activists immediately and unconditionally and to stop threatening to revoke the citizenships of seven al-Islah members.

In addition to al-Dhufairi and Sahooh, al-Suwaidi and al-Zaabi are apparently being held in an undisclosed location, while al-Qasimi is reportedly being held in the palace of the ruler of Ras al-Khaimah, who is his father’s cousin, his relatives were told. Authorities are holding the remaining six at the al-Shihama deportation centre in Abu Dhabi.
Article 14 of the Arab Charter for Human Rights, to which the UAE is a party, prohibits arbitrary arrest. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions says detentions are arbitrary if there is no clear legal basis for the arrest or if the person is arrested for exercising the human rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, among others.
“These arrests show a blatant disregard for international law and human rights standards that the UAE has pledged to uphold,” Whitson said. “The government should immediately halt this campaign of repression and release these activists.”

(Paris) – Algerian authorities have used arrests and other tactics to keep people from demonstrating in the capital in the period leading up to the May 10, 2012 elections, Human Rights Watch said today. Security forces are detaining people who try to demonstrate peacefully in Algiers, including at least one candidate for election, and have prevented people from reaching the city if they suspect them of intending to demonstrate.

The government lifted a state of emergency in February 2011. Security forces justify their actions, however, on the basis of repressive laws on public gatherings, including a ban on gatherings in Algiers, the capital, imposed after a demonstration turned violent in 2001.These laws are contrary to Algeria’s binding human rights obligations under international law. The government should end its unjustified restrictions on freedom of assembly in Algiers, Human Rights Watch said.

“If Algerian authorities are serious about respect for human rights and democratic reform, they should liberalize the laws to show they are not afraid to let Algerians exercise their right of assembly,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

Security forces in the capital have taken pre-emptive measures and used force against groups who have tried to defy the ban on demonstrations in the capital, especially when the purpose of the demonstration was considered politically sensitive. Typically, security forces try to block access to the site of the planned demonstration. They then move in to disperse anyone who has managed to reach the site, arresting some and transporting them to police stations, where they hold them for several hours before releasing them.

In a major speech on April 14, 2011, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced reforms that would include amendments to the constitution and to laws on elections, political parties, and the media.

Parliament has since approved new laws on all of these issues. Nevertheless, the right to freedom of assembly remains severely compromised. Authorities have neither lifted the indefinite 2001 ban nor revised the 1991 law governing assembly, which requires prior authorization for public demonstrations.

An indefinite ban on all demonstrations is not a proportionate response to a march that degenerated into violence 11 years ago but rather the negation of the people’s right of assembly, Human Rights Watch said.

Algeria is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which guarantees the right to peaceful assembly, as well as freedom of association and speech. The United Nations Human Rights Committee, which monitors compliance with the covenant, has advised Algeria that its laws and practices on assembly do not conform with the basic human rights standards required as a party to the treaty.

Arbitrary Arrests in Algiers
There was a high police presence in Algiers on April 20, the anniversary of the 1980 demonstrations. Kabyles (Algerian Amazighs) have gathered each year on that date to call for greater respect for their cultural rights. Abdelwahab Farsaoui, president of the Rassemblement Actions Jeunesse (RAJ), a youth movement founded in 1992 around the themes of human rights and democratization, described to Human Rights Watch an incident in downtown Algiers:

I was with nine other RAJ members heading to a meeting with a French television journalist. The meeting point was in front of the Central Post Office. When we arrived there, we saw a large deployment of security forces checking the identity cards of people and arresting some of them. There had been a call for demonstrations in Algiers on April 20. A group of policemen came and asked to see our identity cards. Then they arrested us, despite our protests that we hadn’t done anything. They took us in a police car to the Cavaignac police station [in downtown Algiers], where we stayed several hours before they released us late in the afternoon.

Farsaoui added that while at the police station, he saw another group, students from outside Algiers, mostly from Tizi-Ouzou [Kabylia], who had been arrested with the RAJ members. A policeman was interrogating them. They said they had come to Algiers to take a French exam at the French cultural center and showed the exam ticket. The policeman replied, Farsaoui said: “But you are supposed to have the exam tomorrow. Tizi-Ouzou is only one hour and a half away from Algiers, you should have come tomorrow.”

Redouane Boudjemâa, a journalism professor at the University of Algiers and member of the Arab Working Group on Media Monitoring, an independent nongovernmental organization, told Human Rights Watch that, on April 20, ten of his students were prevented from reaching Algiers for the school week that began after the Friday holiday:

My students called me to say they could not attend the Saturday classes because the police prevented them from embarking on trains going to Algiers on Friday. They had left the capital for the weekend to go back to their home towns. Most of them are from Tizi-Ouzou. The National Committee of Democratic Amazigh Students had called for a march from Algiers University to the seat of government. I think the government was trying to contain the movement by preventing young men from reaching the capital.

In another recent incident, on April 26, police arrested several prominent activists who were trying to demonstrate in front of the court of Sidi Mohamed in Algiers in solidarity with Abdelkader Kherba, a member of the National Committee to Defend the Rights of the Unemployed (Comité national pour la défense des droits des chômeurs, CNDDC) who had been arrested on April 18 and was on trial.

The security forces arrested Hakim Addad, a former secretary general of RAJ who is a candidate for the Socialist Forces Front party (FFS) in the May 10 legislative elections, as well as Tahar Belabès, spokesman for the CNDDC; Mourad Tchiko, member of the National Independent Union of Public Administration personnel (Syndicat national autonome des personnels de l’administration publique, SNAPAP); Abdou Bendjoudi, activist in the Movement of Independent Youths for Change (Mouvement des jeunes indépendants pour le changement, MJIC); and Yacine Zaïd, member of the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights (Ligue algérienne pour la défense des droits de l’Homme, LADDH).

Addad told Human Rights Watch that the demonstrators behaved peacefully and demanded only Kherba’s release. They did not obstruct the flow of traffic or provoke disorder, he said. After arresting the protesters, the police dispatched them to several commissariats in Algiers and held them for several hours before freeing all of them without charge.

Kherba himself was prosecuted on charges that stemmed from a peaceful protest. Police arrested Kherba in front of the Sidi Mohamed courthouse, where he had come to show solidarity with court clerks, who had been on strike for ten days and were staging a sit-in to demand better work conditions for court personnel. Kherba was carrying a camera and was filming the sit-in when he was arrested, his lawyer, Amine Sidhoum, told Human Rights Watch.

Authorities charged Kherba with “direct incitement to an illegal gathering” and “hindering freedom of work” on the basis of articles 55 and 56 of law no. 90-02 of February 6, 1990, a law governing the “prevention and settlement of work-related conflicts and the exercise of the right to strike.” Article 55 prohibits leading or maintaining a suspension of work activity; and article 56 prohibits using fraud or violence to interfere with the freedom to work.Sidhoum said he contended in court that these charges are not applicable to Kherba’s conduct because the clerks had already been on strike for ten days.

At the first hearing of Kherba’s case, on April 26, the general prosecutor sought a three-year prison sentence. But on May 3, the court handed down a one-year suspended sentence and a fine of 20,000 Algerian Dinars (US$267), and freed him the same day.

Legal framework
Algeria’s law governing assemblies, enacted in 1989 during a period of political and legal liberalization, was modified by parliament in 1991, when the country was experiencing massive demonstrations and occasionally violent clashes between anti-government demonstrators and the security forces.

The 1991 law significantly narrowed the right to freedom of assembly by changing the legal requirements for holding a demonstration, requiring the group planning a gathering to seek authorization from the authorities instead of just notifying them.

Manifestations publiques (public demonstrations) include parades, processions, and, generally speaking, all forms of organized gatherings in public thoroughfares and spaces. Organizers of public demonstrations must request permission eight days before the event.

The wali (provincial governor) must announce his approval or prohibition of the public assembly at least five days before it is scheduled to take place. He or his subordinates can prohibit any gathering by informing its organizers that it constitutes “a real risk of disturbing the public order” or if “it seems clear that the real objective of the meeting constitutes a danger to maintaining the public order.” In addition, the law forbids any activities at gatherings that are contrary to the “constantes nationales [constitutive, immutable characteristics of the nation]” or that “harm the symbols of the revolution of November 1, the public order or public morals.”

Participation in, or inviting others to participate in, an undeclared demonstration is punishable, under the same law, by three months to one year in prison and a fine of 3,000 to 15,000 Algerian DA (US$40 to US$200).

From February 1992 until February 2011, Algeria was under a state of emergency that further restricted the right to freedom of assembly by giving the Interior Ministry sweeping powers, including the right to ban any public gatherings that are “likely to disturb public order and tranquility.”

However, in Algiers, the indefinite ban on all demonstrations remains in force. Authorities imposed that ban on June 18, 2001, four days after a huge pro-Amazigh march in Algiers that drew participants from all over the Amazigh-majority Kabylia region and that degenerated into looting of shops and clashes involving the police, demonstrators, and local youths. Four people were killed and over 300 were injured. Justifying its ban, the government declared its “firm determination to confront the serious degradation of the situation that we have seen during the tragic and unfortunate events that occurred over the last few days.”

ANHRI condemns the detention and threatening of Faisal Mohamed Saleh, Sudanese university professor and journalist, by the Sudanese security services. As the severe decline of freedom of opinion and expression and freedom of the press continue in Sudan, ANHRI considers that freedom of the press in Sudan is nothing but “a mirage”. The detention of this well-known writer puts an end to any remaining glimpses of freedom of expression and press in Sudan.

The Sudanese authorities released the activist Faisal Saleh following long hours of detention on May 8th. The harassments began on April 25th on the grounds of his live remarks to Aljazeera, criticizing the speech of the Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir which he gave on April 19th. Following several visits and phone calls to his house, the security services found him and escorted him to one of their headquarters. The had a video of his remarks to Aljazeera, and went on with an investigation until the early morning of the following day. Saleh was summoned on daily basis by the security services to complement what the investigating officers called “a dialogue” with him on his remarks on TV and other articles he had written. They demanded him to appear daily for 10 days, and threatened him of detention if he failed to appear voluntarily.

Despite the illegality of the summons and the lack of a judicial warrant, Saleh appeared everyday and was put in custody and interrogated for hours. On the eleventh day, they demanded him to appear again, yet Saleh refused. However, he eventually appeared at the security services on consultations of friends. On the twelfth day, he was summoned again, but he refused to attend and undergo more blackmail.

On May 8th, the authorities detained Saleh and released him hours later, in a clear attempt to humiliate and intimidate him.

“The detention of Saleh comes in the context of the ongoing violations against freedom of the press and freedom of opinion in Sudan, such as confiscation, closure, and censorship of newspapers or intimidation and detention of writers and opinion makers,” said ANHRI.

“Freedom of opinion and expression in Sudan has become a mirage. Sudan is going in the opposite direction of the winds of freedom blowing across the Arab world. The remainder of freedom of opinion and expression and freedom of the press has completely vanished,” added ANHRI.

ANHRI calls on the Sudanese authorities to immediately cease harassment of Saleh and all Sudanese journalists, and to reconsider their stringent position on freedom of opinion and expression which contravene international and humanitarian norms and conventions.

The Bahraini authorities arrested yesterday the human rights activist Mr. Nabil Rajab, President of the Bahraini Center for Human Rights, who was arrested at the airport in Bahrain during his return from Lebanon. Although the Bahraini authorities did not disclose reasons of arrest, they noted that the arrest was based on a judicial order from the Public Prosecution.

The Arab Program for Human Rights Activists expresses its deep concern at the continuing deterioration of human rights conditions in Bahrain and the continued targeting of human rights defenders and the security and judiciary prosecution on the backdrop of their peaceful activities in the defense of rights and freedoms, and the exposure of the systematic and continued violations of Bahraini authorities against citizens since the Pearl Square events in the past February and March.

The Program confirms that the arrest of Rajab is a clear and flagrant violation of the provisions of Article 13 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, particularly the right to free movement as well as the provisions of Article 9 of the same Covenant which prohibits arbitrary detention. In the meantime, the detention without informing the charge against him is contrary to the provisions of Article 14 of the same Covenant which forces the authorities to inform the arrested or detained on the charges against him and to enable him to contact his family and his lawyer. The Program sees as if the Bahraini authorities seek to convey a letter to human rights activists that the retrial of Al Khawaja is not a new approach in the treatment of human rights activists within the Kingdom, however, it is just fake response to go with outside pressure. The Bahraini authorities continue to adopt the same repressive policy through the arrest of Nabil Rajab to intimidate activists and to silent their voices, in violation to terms and provisions of the Universal Declaration for Human Rights Defenders.

The Arab Program for Human Rights Activists claims the Bahraini authorities to immediately release the human rights activist Nabil Rajab, without limitation or conditions. Meanwhile, the Program shoulders the Bahraini authorities the full responsibility for his physical and mental health.

Beside, the Program calls on all human rights activists and institutions to stand in solidarity with our colleague Nabil Rajab and address the Bahraini authorities to release him and to hold those responsible for such behavior into accountability.

Furthermore, the Program emphasizes the necessity to pressure on the Bahraini authorities to accept the Arab observers to attend the trial proceedings and sessions of human rights activist Abdul Hadi al-Khawaja.
Together to rescue Bahraini activists and to activate terms and provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Defenders.

Cairo – May 8th 2012

ANHRI denounces the ongoing blockade on Gaza strip by the Egyptian authorities invested in the ruling Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF), which succumbs to the Israeli and Western dictates against an Arab people. ANHRI considers that a perpetuation of Mubarak’s mindset towards the besieged Gaza strip.

Over the past two days, the Egyptian security authorities have prevented Arab and foreign delegations from Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan, Turkey, and other 17 countries from entering Gaza. The delegations include nearly 150 people, mostly businessmen and women and parliamentarians who were planning to participate in an investment forum held in Gaza in partnership with the residents of the West Bank as well.

The Egyptian authorities have explained its action by claiming that the delegations have not obtained the necessary approvals. The participants, however, affirmed that they had notified the Egyptian security services and coordinated with them many days before coming all the way to Egypt.

ANHRI is quite surprised at how the situation exacerbated to the extent of holding the delegations’ members in the hotel they were staying at in the city of Ismailia and preventing them from getting out.

“Apparently, SCAF has reneged on all its promises with regard to the rights of the Palestinians in Gaza. After it had announced the opening of the Rafah crossing to passage from the two sides few days following the ouster of Mubarak, it closed the crossing again or just nominally kept it open by maintaining the same old security and bureaucratic obstacles that collectively torment and stifle the people of Gaza,” said ANHRI.

“The blockade of Gaza is a crime punishable by international law. The participation of Egypt in this crime illustrates SCAF’s submissiveness to the Israeli and Western dictates in this regard, and its unwillingness to fight any battles for the most basic rules of justice and human rights,” added ANHRI.

It is worth noting that the United Nations has been calling for the lifting of the blockade on Gaza strip since June 2010. Legal experts in the United Nations consider this blockade amounts to the classification of “a war crime”.

ANHRI calls on SCAF to adhere to international covenants and conventions on freedom of movement and travel, immediately cease its policy of besieging Gaza, and allow freedom of movement through the Rafah crossing to Palestinians and to those who wish to visit the strip.

Also available in : العربية

Cairo – May 8th, 2012

ANHRI condemns the court ruling upholding the verdict sentencing the activist Asmaa Mahfouz to one year imprisonment with labor in case No. 20994 of 2011 brought before Ain Shams Court of Misdemeanors on charges of “beating” Abdel-Aziz Fahmy, a supporter of the Supreme council of Armed Forces (SCAF) in front of the office of the Attorney-General. ANHRI considers the ruling as a throwback to politicized sentences against opposition activists, a phenomenon that was supposed to disappear in post-revolution Egypt. The politicization of the sentence is clear in the details of the trial and the background of the civil plaintiff.

The incident took place on December 6th, 2011, when Fahmy lodged a report at Ain Shams police station, accusing Mahfouz of “beating” him in front of the office of the Attorney-General, despite the fact that she was no present at all on that day any where in the vicinity of the office.

The case was referred to the Criminal Court which began to deliberate it on March 6th, 2012 without notifying Mahfouz. She was sentenced to one year in prison with labor and a bail of 2000 pounds for stay of execution. ANHRI’s lawyers filed an opposition of the sentence and a session was fixed on April 17th, but it was postponed to May 8th where the in absentia sentence was upheld by the same court presided by judge Mohamed al-Baghdady.

The legal aid unit of ANHRI has proved the invalidity of the medical report due to the lack of timing and official seal in it. Additionally, it contradicted with the statements of the alleged victim in regards to the details of the physical injury. In the police report, Fahmy said that the injury was an incised wound caused by beating with an iron rod, whereas the medical report referred to bruises and abrasions that would take less than a twenty-one days treatment to heal.

The defense team also submitted a CD that contains an audio recording of the civil plaintiff speaking with a journalist and acknowledging that Mahfouz did not assault him, but rather that he was assaulted by someone else with a wooden stick, not an iron rod as he claimed in the police report. Nevertheless, the court did not consider this nor did it assign a sound expert to examine the recording.

“It is surprising that the civil plaintiff failed to bring any witnesses to acknowledge the incident, although it was in front of the Supreme Court House which is a place teeming with pedestrians. It is even more surprising that the court failed to assign experts to examine the defense evidence of the lawyers, although it is the norm that it investigates the defense provided in cases of imprisonment sentences,” said ANHRI.

ANHRI is deeply alarmed over the throwback to politicized sentences against opposition activists to punish them for their activity. “It seems that SCAF has failed to try activists in military courts because of the heavy media criticism of military trials. Hence, it has resorted to cut corners relying on its supporters to threaten and silence activists,” added ANHRI

It is worth noting that Fahmy is used to file complaints against political activists. He had filed a complaint against the activists Esraa Abdel-Fattah and Nawara Negm, and a complaint to the military prosecution against Mahfouz and other 6th of April activists. He was also a prosecution witness against the activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah in the Maspero case.

(New York) – Egypt’s parliament on May 6, 2012, approved amendments to the Code of Military Justice that failed to end the unprecedented expansion of military trials of civilians, despite pleas for reform from the legal and human rights communities, Human Rights Watch said today. In 2011 more than 12,000 civilians, including children, faced unfair military trials which fail to provide the basic due process rights of civilian courts, more than the number of military trials of civilians during 30 years of rule by former president Hosni Mubarak.

The military has continued to try civilians before military tribunals in 2012 despite promises to limit the practice. More than 300 civilians arrested since May 4 in Cairo during the clashes near the ministry of defense in Cairo are now also scheduled for military trials.

“It’s shocking that this elected parliament has failed to take the basic step of protecting Egyptian civilians against an inherently unfair military justice system,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Parliament’s failure to ban a major abuse of the military government betrays campaign promises to deliver justice to all Egyptians.”

International human rights law bans trials of civilians before military courts. Despite this, until now Egypt has maintained its 1966 Code of Military Justice (CMJ), which permits military trials of civilians in various circumstances set out in Articles 5 (civilians present in an area where the military are deployed), 6 (presidential referral) and 7 (if one of the parties is military personnel). In addition, Article 8 (bis) (1) allows military tribunals to try juveniles when accompanied by an adult who is subject to military jurisdiction, while Article 48 gives the military justice system sole competence to determine its jurisdiction.

The amendments parliament passed on May 6 limit only the right of the president to refer civilians to military tribunals and fail to address the broad discretion given to the military in Articles 5 and 7 to try civilians, Human Rights Watch said. Parliament also only changed a few words in Articles 8 and 48, without addressing the extremely problematic substance of the two provisions, which allow children to be tried before military tribunals.

The legislative and constitutional affairs committee of the People’s Assembly, Egypt’s lower house of parliament, had during the past three months discussed reforming the CMJ based on proposed amendments drafted by SCAF General Mamdouh Shaheen, who represented the government in parliament. Two members of the committee, Mohamed al-Omda and Hussein Ibrahim, had submitted proposals with additional suggested amendments that would allow sentences issued by military courts to be appealed before civilian courts. But parliament’s rules of procedure, which date from the Mubarak-era parliament that was dominated by one party, give precedence to government-proposed drafts, and the committee failed to adopt the members’ proposals.

Shaheen’s proposed amendments only limited the right of the president to refer civilians to military tribunals. He told the legislative committee on March 19 that this provision had been “imposed on the military by former president Hosni Mubarak” and that the SCAF “had frequently tried to change it.” Shaheen rejected MPs’ demands to amend Article 48, which states that the military justice system is solely competent to determine its own jurisdiction, saying in a televised debate in parliament that “the provision just needs to be narrowed to guarantee the security of the armed forces against [civilians] who try to blow up a tank or steal ammunition because this would destroy the military justice system.”

Over the past year the SCAF has consistently stated that it has the right to try civilians before military courts on the basis of the Code of Military Justice. In a live television interview on a local station, ON TV, on April 11, General Ismail Etman, the military’s head of Morale Affairs, said that “in cases where it affects the security of the armed forces or the security of the country, such as thuggery, looting, or destruction of property, theft, and especially if one of the parties is a military officer, we transfer it to military trials to be looked into immediately.”

“The SCAF-proposed amendments were the usual half-hearted, cosmetic attempts by the military to respond to criticism without limiting the military’s discretion,” said Whitson. “The failure of MPs who were the primary victims of military trials under Mubarak to end such a system undermines faith in their desire to push for reform.”

In the first eight months of its rule, the SCAF tried 12,000 civilians before military courts, more than the total number of trials of civilians before military courts under Mubarak. Under the Mubarak government, military trials of civilians were reserved for high-profile political cases, such as the 2008 conviction of the former deputy guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Khairat al-Shatir, and 24 others; and these were usually on the basis of referrals by the president.

“The Egyptian people sacrificed their lives and security for a government that would safeguard their rights, but apparently the parliament they elected is interested only in protecting the military,” said Whitson.

Human Rights Watch strongly opposes any trials of civilians before military courts, where proceedings do not protect basic due process rights or satisfy the requirements of independence and impartiality of courts of law. It has called upon Egypt’s new parliament to amend the code of military justice to restrict the jurisdiction of military courts to trials of only military personnel charged with offenses of an exclusively military nature.

Human Rights Watch has also recommended that the CMJ be amended to explicitly state that the public prosecutor shall be competent to investigate complaints regarding military abuse and to allow members of the military to be tried before civilian courts in cases of abuse and ill-treatment. Otherwise, Human Rights Watch said, there will never be full accountability for serious human rights abuses committed by the military over the past year, including torture, virginity tests and the killing of protesters at Maspero.

Human rights violations in the Kingdom of Bahrain have reached unprecedented levels since the crackdown against mass prodemocracy protests started in February of last year. Authorities in Bahrain have engaged in gross human rights violations including lethal attacks on protesters and the excessive use of force against them, reported use of torture, the unfair trials of hundreds in special tribunals during the State of National Safety, targeting of medics, and the dismissal of hundreds of workers and students from their jobs and universities.

While on the surface, the Bahraini government appears to be engaged in reform attempts, starting from appointing the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry to passing some cosmetic constitutional amendments, the human rights situation on the ground is worsening with almost daily attacks on protests and a complete crackdown against human rights defenders in the country. “If you are a Bahraini human rights defender, then you are probably in prison, were detained in the past year, or living in exile “said Ziad Abdel Tawab, Deputy Director of CIHRS. “Bahrain is home to some of the most distinguished human rights defenders in the region. Yet, instead of celebrating them, the government has shown unprecedented intolerance for their work. As the magnitude of the human rights violations against protestors increases, so does the brutality against human rights defenders.”

On Saturday, authorities arrested prominent rights defender Nabeel Ragab, president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and director of the Gulf Center for Human Rights, at Al Manama International airport as he was returning from a trip to Beirut. Ragab was already scheduled to appear in court, on charges of illegal assembly and insult to the statutory bodies, one day following his arrest.

Upon his arrest, Ragab was kept overnight al Al-Hoora police station and was brought the following day before a court which postponed the session until May 22. Later that day, the public prosecution ordered the detention of the human rights defender for 7 days pending investigation. According to statements made by the Senior Attorney, there is “compelling” evidence against the activist that he posted “defamatory and humiliating” views on Twitter, and thus he faces charges of “defaming an official authority.”

Nabeel Ragab, has been subjected to numerous incidents of harassments by the authorities for his human rights and advocacy work in the past. Harassment against Ragab throughout the last year alone varied from brief periods of detention and physical assaults, to media smear campaigns and targeted attacks on his house with teargas.

On the same day, May 6, the trial of Zainab Al-Khawaja, prominent activist and daughter of detained human rights defender Abdaulhadi Al Khawaja was postponed until May 9, and her detention was extended. Zainab, 28 years old, was arrested on April 21 after protesting alone in the street against the continued detention of her father. Zainab is facing charges of illegal gathering, obstructing traffic and assaulting officers. The charges compromise 5 cases against the activist, who was arrested 4 times throughout the last month alone. Zainab has reported to her family members, many of whom have been systematically targeted by authorities, that she was subjected to severe beatings following her arrest in April while at Al-Hoora police station.

Around 13 months have passed since 14 political and human rights activists were imprisoned on politically motivated charges without solid evidence. These charges include conspiring to overthrow the regime, establishing or managing a terrorist group, and other vague accusations. The unfair trial and harsh sentences against the 21 activists, 7 of which were tried in absentia, range from 2 years to reach life imprisonment for exercising their basic human rights to freedom of expression and assembly.

Among the detainees is world renowned defender Abdulhadi Al Khawaja who is currently on the 89^th day of his hunger strike amid wide international calls to release him, as his health situation deteriorates drastically.Other activists, particularly Dr. Abduljalil Al Sigance, spokesman and director of the human rights bureau of Haq Movement for Civil Liberties and Democracy, and Hassan Mashaima, Haq’s Secretary General, who are also serving life sentences and, like Al Khawaja, suffer from severe health problems.

The recent referral of the cases to a civilian criminal appeals court by the Court of Cassation on April 30 can take several months- time which Al Khawaja does not have, given his current heath condition. “In the case of Al Khawaja and the other 13 detained activists, over a year has passed since their detention on fabricated charges. Neither Al Khawaja’s health nor the international human rights standards allow for their continued detention until the newly appointed court issues its final verdict,” said Sohair Riad, CIHRS Researcher.

“The new escalation we see in recent cases against activists in the country is a direct consequence of the atmosphere of almost absolute impunity enjoyed by officials in Bahrain and fostered by the silence of the international community. Even in dealing with ordinary protesters, we have observed alarming developments over the past few months, whether through the continuation of bringing charges against and detaining female protesters and minors, or through the unwarranted use of tear gas in neighborhoods which have resulted in many fatalities.”

CIHRS believes that the continued struggle for democracy of the Bahraini people should be recognized as an important step towards a democratic future for the county. The punitive campaign against the pro-democracy movement, terrorizing of the local population and manipulating the draconian legislation to arrest and detain activists and human rights defenders severely harmed the reputation of the Bahraini government and undermined all possible means for a potential democratic transformation in the country. The only way to ensure stability in Bahrain is through establishing the principles of human rights and democracy;  stopping all violations committed against protesters; bringing the perpetrators of human rights violations to justice; providing remedies to the victims and next of kin ; as well as releasing all political prisoners, human rights defenders and political opposition activists.

The authorities disbursed the sit-in after military forces, supported by persons in civilian clothes, attacked the protestors and used force during the demonstration, which began in Abbasiya Square on April 28. This came against a backdrop of violence that reached its peak on Wednesday when unknown persons wearing civilian clothes shot live ammunition at protestors in the square, leading to dozens of injuries and deaths. The undersigned organizations believe that these acts took place due to the deliberate negligence of the authorities, who failed to fulfill their responsibility to protect the lives of protestors.

Given this context, the undersigned organizations were shocked to see military personnel celebrating after the sit-in was disbursed. This leads us to wonder about the nature of the orders given to officers and soldiers before the sit-in was disbursed and the type of indoctrination they receive that would make them jubilant at the killing and beating of unarmed citizens. The lack of serious investigations into the abuses of security and military forces will only increase their sense that they can act with impunity.

Army forces attacked not only protestors but also field medics who were offering first aid to those injured at the site of the sit-in, after the authorities failed to secure their transport to nearby hospitals. The undersigned organizations also condemn the blatant assaults on several journalists and photographers with al-Masry al-Youm, al-Badil, and the January 25 satellite channel, as a result of which several were seriously injured. Some of them were detained for several hours by the military police and brought before the Military Prosecution, which ordered their release. In addition, cameras, video equipment, and laptops were confiscated from the photographers with January 25 channel.

We condemn the ongoing policy of arbitrarily arresting everyone near the site of the sit-in and referring detainees to the Military Prosecution, which evidences that the SCAF continues to refer civilians to the military court system. Instead of the Public Prosecutor announcing an investigation into the crimes committed, more than 300 people in the environs of the Ministry of Defense were arrested, in addition to 7 more in the governorate of Suez. All of them were referred to the Military Prosecution, and some of them having been injured and admitted to various hospitals. The Military Prosecution ordered them remanded for up to 15 days for participating in the sit-in, after releasing 16 women and some journalists. Ten other individuals who had gone to the Military Prosecution on Saturday to express their solidarity with those who had been detained during the dispersal of the sit-in on Friday were also arrested.

The undersigned organizations emphasize that the referral of civilians to the Military Prosecution means that the SCAF is continuing to act as both a party to and judge in the case, insofar as the Military Prosecution is subordinate to the Defense Ministry. There is also evidence that Defense Ministry personnel committed the crime of assaulting Egyptian citizens while they were exercising their right to free expression, which casts doubt on the impartiality and integrity of the investigating body. Unfortunately, these investigations are taking place as the Egyptian parliament is refusing to immunize Egyptian civilians against referral to unfair military courts, instead accepting only cosmetic changes to the law proposed by a SCAF representative, which preserve certain provisions that empower the SCAF to refer civilians to military trials, most significantly Article 48 of the Code of Military Justice, which permits the military courts to define their own jurisdiction.

The right to peacefully demonstrate and protest is guaranteed by international human rights conventions ratified by the Egyptian government. The exercise of this right obligates the state not only to permit such protests, but to protect and secure them against attacks. The location of sit-ins or demonstrations in front of ministries or bodies pertaining to the state should never be used as a pretext to disburse such protests with violence and is not proof of a breach of the peaceful nature of the protest.

The undersigned organizations note that the Egyptian authorities have preserved a set of repressive laws from the previous era, particularly the law on demonstrations (Law 10/1914), which grants the security authorities absolute prerogatives to prevent public assemblies and marches and which employs ambiguous language that enables the law to be applied arbitrarily. In this tense environment, we are concerned about the apparent inclination of the People’s Assembly to restrict the right to demonstrate, as is clear from the first draft of a law regulating demonstrations currently before the assembly’s Legislative Committee. We thus ask the People’s Assembly to respect international standards for the protection of the right to demonstrate while debating and approving this law. The new law must require the authorities to provide clear, specific justifications for the prohibition or restriction of assemblies and stipulate a means of appealing such rulings.

In addition, the undersigned organizations demand the following:

• The remand orders issued by the Military Prosecution against activists and protestors must be revoked, the detainees released, and their referral to military trials suspended. Investigations of the acts of intimidation and murder seen in Abbasiya Square last week must be conducted, and those involved must be exposed and held accountable before their natural judge.

• Legislation regulating the right to peaceful demonstration and assembly, some of which dates to the era of the British occupation of Egypt, should be overturned. A  democratic law must be adopted to regulate the right to demonstrate that protects demonstrators from attack and prevents the authorities from interfering in the regulation of this right.

• State authorities must assume their responsibilities to protect the right to life and to protect demonstrators from any attack, and refrain from attacking field hospitals and doctors offering first aid to the injured.

• The Public Prosecutor should open an investigation into the deaths of dozens of citizens during the sit-in and into the failure of security forces to protect them.

• The media and press must be free to work, and there must be an end to attacks on and arrests of media professionals and to the confiscation of their equipment. These assaults, especially on the private media, indicate that the authorities seek to hide the truth of events and restrict coverage of events to the state-owned media.

Signatories to the statement:

• Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies.
• Hisham Mubarak Law Center.
• Andalus Institute for Tolerance and Anti-Violence Studies.
• Arab Network for Human Rights Information.
• Arab Penal Reform Organization.
• Association for the Freedom of Thought and Expression.
• Center for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance.
• Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights.
• Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.
• Egyptians Against Religious Discrimination.
• Land Center for Human Rights.
• Nazra for Feminist Studies.
• No Military Trials for Civilians.
• The Human Rights Center for the Assistance of Prisoners.

ANHRI welcomed today the May 6th ruling of Ain Shams Court of Misdemeanors, acquitting the activist Asmaa Mahfouz in the libel and slander over Twitter case filed by Tarek Zidan, head of Masr al-Thawra party. ANHRI considers the ruling as an opportunity to review the severe restrictions of such freedoms in the Egyptian Penal Code.

 According to ANHRI’s lawyers, the Court acquitted Mahfouz of the charges against her, rejected the civil proceedings, and held Zidan accountable for the expenses and attorney’s fees. The case No. 13846 goes back to September 2011 when Zidan, former member of the Youth Coalition of the Revolution, filed a lawsuit against Mahfouz, accusing her of slander, libel, and defamation.

According to the text of the lawsuit, Zidan alleges that she disseminated false news about him over Twitter, aiming at driving a wedge between him and the Egyptian revolution. Zidan also alleges that she stated in her tweets that “some residents of Abbasiya say that al-Ruweiny and Tarek Zidan came in the morning and told them that there was a march of thugs on the way to fight the army”.

ANHRI’s Legal Aid Unit for Freedom of Expression was present for her defense. The first court session of the proceedings took place on September 12th, 2012, followed by some 12 sessions until Mahfouz was eventually acquitted. The sessions were permeated with referrals to technical experts at the request of ANHRI’s lawyers, and their reports were in favor of Mahfouz.

This has been the second slander and libel over Twitter case deliberated in Egyptian courts. Mahfouz was also the defendant in the first case No. 55 of 2011 military judiciary, and she was accused of “offending the members of the Supreme Council of Armed Forces”.

It is worth noting that ANHRI’s lawyers also plead on behalf of Mahfouz in a separate case on charges of “beating” Abdel-Aziz Fahmy before Ain Shams Court of Misdemeanors, in which she has been sentenced in absentia to one year imprisonment. The Court is currently deliberating the opposition of the sentence.

“The acquittal ruling is a new triumph for freedom of opinion and expression in Egypt, and an affirmation on the inalienability and comprehensiveness of freedom. It proves that there are judges who can prioritize freedom of expression over other considerations and over numerous restrictions that exist in the Egyptian Penal Code,” said ANHRI.

“Despite the passage of a year and a half since one of the greatest revolutions of the world, the parliament of the revolution has not considered amending the laws restricting freedom of opinion and expression thus far. It has not reviewed the numerous restrictions that contravene international conventions ratified by Egypt,” added ANHRI.

ANHRI calls on the parliamentary majority to start a comprehensive review of the Penal Code so as not to remain a gateway to gag people and persecute opinion makers following the revolution.

 ANHRI calls on the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) to immediately release all journalists arrested during the dispersion of the Abbassiya sit-in on May 4th, 2012. ANHRI denounces the ongoing detention of journalists despite the military authorities’ awareness of their job and inviolability of their professional exercise, let alone being arrested while performing their duty on the ground. Therefore, ANHRI calls on the disclosure and trial of the officers and soldiers implicated in torture incidents alleged in numerous testimonies documented in the prosecution and forensic reports.

The military police and forces have detained hundreds of activists, journalists and passers-by in Abbasseya Square during the brutal dispersal of the sit-in on May 4th. 18 journalists and photographers were still under investigation and detention until May 6th despite official statements claiming that all journalists had been released.

ANHRI condemns in the strongest possible terms the torture of detainees and journalists, confirmed in Ahmed Ramadan and Islam Aboul-Ezz’s accounts of the events. Ramadan and Aboul-Ezz are two of Elbadil website’s journalists who stated after their release that they had been tortured and humiliated by military officers and recruits. “If this happens with journalists, then it is more likely to happen times more with ordinary citizens who neither have a heard voice nor someone to protect them,” said ANHRI, being shock by the continuation of anti-press policy in the aftermath of the revolution, rather than the regulation of the situation of the press and journalists, expansion of freedoms, and the amendment of the Penal Code laws that violate international conventions.
“The ongoing detention of journalists and obstruction of their work are attempts by SCAF to conceal its crimes, as happened before in the events of Maspero, Mohammed Mahmoud street, and the Ministerial Cabinet. In the aforementioned incidents, TV channels were raided on air, journalists were intimidated and arrested, and their equipment was seized. We are also very worried that the charges against the released journalists have not been relinquished,” said ANHRI.

“SCAF’s failure in protecting freedom of expression and press, amounting to clear hostility to them, and failure to punish those implicated in human rights violations are few of the evidence proving its failure in the transitional period as a whole. SCAF’s strenuous attempts to tarnish the revolution and revolutionaries, conceal the truth, and control public opinion are countless,” added ANHRI.

 In case any of the detained journalists and citizens were found guilty of any charge, they should be tried before the civilian justice system, rather than the military one. This reflects the elected parliament’s failure in restricting the authorities and jurisdiction of military courts which are currently trying nearly 400 civilians, merely because they demonstrated near the Ministry of Defence.

ANHRI strongly agrees with the Journalists Syndicate’s decision to escalate the case to the International Federation of Journalists, and to file a complaint to the Attorney-General against Major General Hamdy Badeen, Military Police Chief. ANHRI also seconds any action that would expose the authoritarian practices of SCAF that have gone way beyond the systematic assaults of Mubarak’s regime on freedoms.

Also available in : العربية

 ANHRI denounces in the strongest terms the ongoing policy of detaining opinion makers and persecuting activists as pursued by the Bahraini authorities. Most recently, Nabeel Rajab, Bahraini rights activist, was arrested in Manama airport as soon as he stepped out of the plane coming from Beirut early Sunday, May 6th. ANHRI considers his detention a revelation of the falsehood of the reform vows in Bahrain.

The Bahraini Ministry of Interior issued a brief statement stating that Rajab was detained on the order of the Attorney-General. On the other hand, Rajab’s lawyers mentioned that the charges against him include “engagement in illegitimate practices” and “incitement to gatherings and unlicensed marches”. They also affirmed that he has been questioned about some of his tweets and has been accused of “insulting a statutory body; being the Ministry of Interior”.

“These alleged accusations are due to Rajab’s activities in relation to human rights in Bahrain and abroad. He is targeted because of his attempts to put an end to the injustice suffered by his people, and to promote human rights in his country which is ruled by a repressive regime. Rajab has done nothing but expressing his opinion,” said ANHRI.

It is worth noting that Rajab is the head of Bahrain Center and Gulf Center for Human Rights who has been an effective rights figure since the political movement that swept through Bahrain in 2011, especially after the entry of Peninsula Shield Forces into the country to crush the people’s upheaval. He had been detained during the popular uprising.

“Rajab was detained a few hours after he had called on Twitter and other websites for marches and demonstrations demanding change. These are political rights guaranteed by international covenants and conventions,” said ANHRI.

It is estimated that there are 700 political prisoners in Bahrain thus far, in an attempt by the ruling regime to stifle the political and social movement in the country.

ANHRI calls on the Bahraini authorities, if it is indeed earnest and sincere about its reform vows, to immediately release all political prisoners, starting with Nabeel Rajab and Abdul-Hady al-Khawaja who is currently on a hunger strike.

Also available in : العربية

In July 2011, the Justice Ministry announced in local newspapers that it would accept applicants for “entry level legal researcher” – a first step to becoming a prosecutor. The advertisement specified that the positions were only open to male candidates, without providing any rationale for the restriction.

“This important ruling reaffirms the principles of equality between men and women that are guaranteed in Kuwait’s constitution and international laws,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The court ruling shows the important role that Kuwaiti courts can play in protecting equality in the face of efforts to restrict it.”

At least six recent female graduates of law schools had applied for the Justice Ministry jobs following the July 2011 advertisement, but ministry officials refused to accept their applications, Marwa al-Seirafi, one of the applicants, told Human Rights Watch.

In August, al-Seirafiand at least five other female applicants separately filed lawsuits at the Administrative Court, contending that the ministry’s decision to consider only male applicants was unconstitutional.

The court, in ruling for the plaintiffs, ordered the ministry to cancel its requirement that candidates be male. The court said that the decision violated the Kuwaiti constitution and international treaties that Kuwait has ratified. The ministry has a month to appeal.

Candidates accepted by the ministry for the positions take a nine-month training course at Kuwait Institution for Legal Studies. If they successfully complete the course, they become prosecutors.

“The issue is not whether I’m accepted or not,” Dhuha al-Azmi, another female applicant, told Human Rights Watch. “What is important is I have a chance to compete with the other applicants for the positions.”

In a similar case in April 2010, an administrative court rejected a lawsuit by a female Kuwaiti law graduate who contended that her application to work for the public prosecution unit was unconstitutionally rejected because of her gender. The judge found that article 2 of Kuwait’s constitution, which cites Islam as the state religion and Islamic Sharia as “a main source of legislation,” prevented women from holding prosecutorial positions.

Article 29 of the Kuwait Constitution says: “All people are equal in human dignity and in public rights and duties before the law, without distinction to race, origin, language, or religion.” The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which Kuwait ratified in 1994, calls for taking measures to “eliminate discrimination against women in the field of employment.”

“This is a great historic achievement for all women in Kuwait,” al-Seirafitold Human Rights Watch following the decision. “We are fighting for the rights of women in this country and if the ministry appeals the ruling we will keep challenging them.”

Women’s rights in Kuwait took a step forward in 2005, when Kuwaiti women won the right to vote and to become candidates for election, paving the way for the election of four women to parliament in May 2009. However Kuwaiti women continue to face discrimination on many legal levels. Kuwait’s nationality law denies Kuwaiti women married to non-Kuwaiti men the right to pass their nationality on to their children and spouses, a right held by Kuwaiti men married to foreign spouses.

In cases of alleged domestic violence or marital rape, under Kuwaiti regulations, courts provide lawyers to the accused but not to the victims. Furthermore, Kuwait’s laws do not specifically prohibit domestic violence or marital rape, and there are no government-run or funded shelters or hotlines specifically for survivors of domestic violence.

In its concluding observation in October 2011 the CEDAW committee expressed concerns about many discriminatory provisions of Kuwait laws and called on Kuwait to “systematically review its laws and regulations … in order to amend or repeal sex- and gender-based discriminatory provisions of its legislation with the aim of ensuring full compliance with the provisions of the Convention.”

The 38-page report, “‘They Burned My Heart’: War Crimes in Northern Idlib during Peace Plan Negotiations,” documents dozens of extrajudicial executions, killings of civilians, and destruction of civilian property that qualify as war crimes, as well as arbitrary detention and torture. The report is based on a field investigation conducted by Human Rights Watch in the towns of Taftanaz, Saraqeb, Sarmeen, Kelly, and Hazano in Idlib governorate in late April.

“While diplomats argued over details of Annan’s peace plan, Syrian tanks and helicopters attacked one town in Idlib after another,” said Anna Neistat, associate director for program and emergencies at Human Rights Watch. “Everywhere we went, we saw burnt and destroyed houses, shops, and cars, and heard from people whose relatives were killed. It was as if the Syrian government forces used every minute before the ceasefire to cause harm.”

Human Rights Watch documented large-scale military operations that government forces conducted between March 22 and April 6, 2012, in opposition strongholds in Idlib governorate, causing the death of at least 95 civilians. In each attack, government security forces used numerous tanks and helicopters, and then moved into the towns and stayed from one to three days before proceeding to the next town. Graffiti left by the soldiers in all of the affected towns indicate that the military operation was led by the 76^th Armored Brigade.

In nine separate incidents documented by Human Rights Watch, government forces executed 35 civilians in their custody. The majority of executions took place during the attack on Taftanaz, a town of about 15,000 inhabitants northeast of Idlib city on April 3 and 4.

A survivor of the security forces’ execution of 19 members of the Ghazal family in Taftanaz described to Human Rights Watch finding the bodies of his relatives:

We first found five bodies in a little shop next to the house. They were almost completely burnt. We could only identify them by a few pieces of clothes that were left. Then we entered the house and in one of the rooms found nine bodies on the floor, next to the wall. There was a lot of blood on the floor. On the wall, there was a row of bullet marks. The nine men had bullet wounds in their backs, and some in their heads. Their hands were not tied, but still folded behind.

Human Rights Watch researchers were able to observe the bullet marks on the wall that formed a row about 50-60 cm above the floor. Two of those executed were under 18 years old.

In several other cases documented by Human Rights Watch, government forces opened fire and killed or injured civilians trying to flee the attacks. The circumstances of these cases indicate that government forces failed to distinguish between civilians and combatants and to take necessary precautionary measures to protect civilians. Government forces did not provide any warning to the civilian population about the attacks. For example, 76-year-old Ali Ma’assos and his 66-year-old wife, Badrah, were killed by machine-gun fire shortly after the army launched its attack on Taftanaz in the morning on April 3 as they tried to flee the town in a pick-up truck with more than 15 friends and family members.

Upon entering the towns, government forces and shabeeha (pro-government militias) also burned and destroyed a large number of houses, stores, cars, tractors, and other property. Local activists have recorded the partial or complete burning and destruction of hundreds of houses and stores. In Sarmeen, for example, local activists have recorded the burning of 437 rooms and 16 stores, and the complete destruction of 22 houses. In Taftanaz, activists said that about 500 houses were partially or completely burned and that 150 houses had been partially or completely destroyed by tank fire or other explosions. Human Rights Watch examined many of the burned or destroyed houses in the affected towns.

In most cases, the burning and destruction appeared to be deliberate. The majority of houses that were burned had no external damage, excluding the possibility that shelling ignited the fire. In addition, many of the ruined houses were completely destroyed, in contrast to those which appeared to have been hit by tank shells, where the damage was only partial.

During the military operations, the security forces also arbitrarily detained dozens of people, holding them without any legal basis. About two-thirds of the detainees remain in detention to date, despite promises by President Bashar al-Assad’s government to release political detainees. In most cases, the fate and whereabouts of the detainees remains unknown, raising fears that they had been subjected to enforced disappearances. Those who have been released, many of them elderly or disabled, told Human Rights Watch that during their detention in various branches of the mukhabarat (intelligence agencies) in Idlib city they had been subjected to torture and ill-treatment.

Opposition fighters were present in all of the towns prior to the attacks and in some cases tried to prevent the army from entering the towns. In most cases, according to local residents, opposition fighters withdrew quickly when they realized that they were significantly outnumbered and had no means to resist tanks and artillery. In other towns, opposition fighters left without putting up any resistance; residents said this was in order to avoid endangering the civilian population.

The fighting in Idlib appeared to reach the level of an armed conflict under international law, given the intensity of the fighting and the level of organization on both sides, including the armed opposition, who ordered and conducted retreats. This would mean that international humanitarian law (the law of armed conflict) would apply in addition to human rights law. Serious violations of international humanitarian law are classified as war crimes.

Human Rights Watch has previously documented and condemned serious abuses by opposition fighters in Syria, including abuses in Taftanaz. These abuses should be investigated and those responsible brought to justice. These abuses by no means justify, however, the violations committed by the government forces, including summary executions of villagers and the large-scale destruction of villages.

Human Rights Watch called on the United Nations Security Council to ensure that the UN supervisory mission deployed to Syria includes a properly staffed and equipped human rights section that is able safely and independently to interview victims of human rights abuses such as those documented in this report, while protecting them from retaliation. Human Rights Watch also called on the UN Security Council to ensure accountability for these crimes by referring the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court, and for the ongoing UN Commission of Inquiry to support this.

“The United Nations – through the Commission of Inquiry and the Security Council – should make sure that the crimes committed by Syrian security forces do not go unpunished,” said Neistat. “The peace plan efforts will be seriously undermined if abuses continue behind the observers’ backs.”

Eyewitness Accounts From “‘They Burned My Heart’: War Crimes in Northern Idlib during Peace Plan Negotiations”

The soldiers had handcuffed him behind his back. They didn’t hit him in front of me, but I saw that his eye was bruised. I tried to be quiet and nice to the soldiers so that they would release him.

They spent about 15 minutes in the house, asking him about weapons and searching everywhere. I think they were looking for money. I didn’t say good-bye so as to not make him sad. He didn’t say anything either. When they left, the soldiers said that I should forget him.

–Mother of Mohammad Saleh Shamrukh, chant-leader from Saraqeb, who was summarily executed by the Syrian security forces on March 25, 2012

The soldiers placed the four of us facing a wall. They first asked Awad where his armed sons were. When Awad said that he was an old man and that he didn’t have any armed sons, they just shot him three times from a Kalashnikov. They then said to Ahmed that apparently 25 years in prison had not been enough for him. When he didn’t say anything, they shot him. They then shot Iyad without any questions and he fell on my shoulder. I realized that it was my turn. I said there is no God but Allah and Muhammed is his prophet and then I don’t remember anything else.

–Mohammed Aiman Ezz, 43-year-old man shot three times in the back of the head and neck by government forces in an attempted execution of four men in Taftanaz on April 4. He was the only survivor

I knew in my heart it was my boys [my son and my brother], that they were killed. I ran out, and about 50 meters from the house there were nine bodies, next to the wall. There were still snipers on the roofs, and we had to move very slowly, using flashlights. I pointed my flashlight at the first body, then the second – it wasn’t Uday or Saed. Then I asked the neighbors to help, and we found them both. Saed still had his hands tied behind. People later told me that Uday and Saed were executed there, and the other seven were FSA fighters brought from other places. Uday had a bullet wound in the neck and the back of his head; Saed in his chest and neck.

–“Heba” (not her real name), mother of 15-year-old Uday Mohammed al-Omar and 21-year-old Saeed Mustafa Barish, both executed by the Syrian security forces in Saraqeb on March 26, 2012

The tank was on the main road, just 10 meters away from the house. Suddenly, they fired four shells, one after the other, into the house. I was in the house next door, with my mother and six children. We were all thrown into the air by the blast, and for 15 minutes I couldn’t see or hear anything. Then we went into the room that was hit by the shells. One of the walls had a huge hole, some 1.5 meters in diameter, and the opposite wall was completely destroyed. We found Ezzat in the rubble; we could only see his fingers and part of his shoe. It is a miracle that his wife and child were not hurt. They were in the same house, but went to the kitchen when the shells hit. We took Ezzat out, but couldn’t save him. His chest was crushed, and blood was coming out of his mouth and ears.

–“Rashida” (not her real name), a relative of 50-year-old Ezzat Ali Sheikh Dib who died when the army shelled his house in Saraqeb on March 27, 2012

They put a Kalashnikov [assault rifle] to my head and threatened to kill us all if my husband did not come home. The children started crying. Then an officer told a soldier to get petrol and told the children that he would burn them like he would burn their father because he is a terrorist. When the soldier came back with some sort of liquid – it didn’t seem to be petrol – they poured it out in three of the rooms while we were staying in the living room. We wanted to get out of the house, but the soldiers prevented us. My young daughters were crying and begging them to let us go. We were all terrified. Finally, they allowed us to leave the house, but I became even more afraid when I saw all the soldiers and tanks in the street.

–“Salma” (not her real name), whose house in Taftanaz was burnt by the soldiers on April 4, along with the houses of her five brothers-in-law

They put me in the car, handcuffed, and kept there all day, until seven in the evening. I told them, ‘I am an old man, let me go to the bathroom,’ but they just beat me on the face. Then they brought me to State Security in Idlib, and put me in a 30-square-meter cell with about 100 other detainees. I had to sleep squatting on the floor. There was just one toilet for all of us. They took me to an interrogation four times, each time asking why some of my family members joined the FSA. I didn’t deny it, but said there was nothing I could do to control what my relatives do. They slapped me on the face a lot.

– “Abu Ghassan” (not his real name), 73-year-old man who was detained in one of the towns in northern Idlib and held in detention for 18 days

Beirut, 05 May, 2012 –

Nabeel Rajab, director of the Gulf Centre for Human Rights, and president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, was arrested upon arrival at the Bahrain airport. Prior to his arrest he stated: “Given that Bahrain in essence lacks a judiciary system that is independent and/or fair, and is far from being in line with international standards of a fair trial, I have decided to boycott the trial against myself. The judiciary system in Bahrain, today, is a tool used against human rights defenders and people calling for democracy and justice.”

Rajab’s trial is due to begin its first hearing tomorrow, Sunday 6^th May, 2012. The charges leveled against him are:   “participating in illegal assembly and calling others to join”. In addition, it seems that Nabeel could face more charges as he was summoned for interrogation on charges of “insulting the statuary bodies”.

In other cases of attacks on human rights defenders, independent activist Zainab Al-Khawaja remains detained with five cases in court. Al-Khawaja is due to have three hearings on the 6^th of May, one hearing on the 9^th and another on the 15^th of May. The charges leveled against Al-Khawaja are:

1.      Illegal gathering

2.      Obstructing traffic

3.      Two charges of assaulting an officer

4.       Swearing at an officer

Said Yousif Al-Muhafdhah, head of the Documentation Committee at the BCHR, was arrested twice while observing protests, and released after several hours. Al-Muhafdhah, who originally worked in bank, was fired after having to go into hiding for several weeks during the state of national safety last year. Al-Muhafdhah is a husband and father of two little girls.

Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, former president of the BCHR, main founder of the Gulf Centre for Human Rights, and former regional director for the MENA region at Frontline Defenders, was arrested on the 9^th of April 2011. He was beaten unconscious in front of his family, then subjected to severe torture during his detention as documented in case nr. 8 of the BICI report. Al-Khawaja was sentenced to life imprisonment in a military court, in a case that was fabricated and on trumped up charges. His appeal in a military court was rejected in September 2011. On the 30^th of April 2012 the Court of Cassation issued a decision to subject the case to another appeal in a civilian court. Al-Khawaja is today on his 87^th day of a hunger strike, after he was reportedly held in solitary confinement, drugged and force fed in a very painful process he told his wife when she was allowed to see him last Sunday, 29^th February 2012.

It is important to note that the cases provided in this statement are only an example of some of the human rights defenders targeted by the authorities in Bahrain. It appears that the Bahraini authorities are not only attempting to limit the work of human rights defenders in Bahrain, but also to bring the work of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights to a halt.

To ensure the continuity of the center and its work, Maryam Al-Khawaja, Head of International Office based in Copenhagen Denmark, will be named as of today the vice-president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, and acting president during periods of Rajab’s arrest and/or detention.

As per the information provided above, the GCHR and BCHR call on the government of Bahrain to:

1.      Immediately and unconditionally release all human rights defenders and drop all false charges.

2.      Hold accountable those responsible for the torture of Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja and those responsible for the physical assault of Zainab Al-Khawaja.

3.      Respect and adhere to the Universal Declaration for Human Rights and the international standards of a fair trial.

4.      Immediately start a process of rehabilitation for those subjected to torture and ill treatment in Bahraini prisons.

5.      End the targeting and harassment of human rights defenders.

6.      Guarantee in all circumstances that all human rights defenders in Bahrain are able to carry out their legitimate human rights activities without fear of reprisals and free of all restrictions including judicial harassment.

The Gulf Centre for Human Rights is an independent centre and has been registered in Ireland. The Centre works to strengthen support for human rights defenders and independent journalists in Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

The 5^th of May 2012,

Cairo.The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) and the Tunisian Center for the Freedom of the Press (CTPJ) launched the “Internet and Freedom of Expression” guide on May 4^th, 2012 in Tunisia on the occasion of the International Day for the freedom of the press.

The guide is the first Arabic one containing six social networking websites and online blogs with an explanation of organizing Internet campaigns. It contains 130 pages with images explaining how to make use of the new media tools such as “Youtube” for posting and exchanging videos, “Bambuser” for live broadcast, “Facebook” for social networking, “Flickr” for posting and exchanging pictures, and “Twitter” for short blogging. It also includes a detailed illustrated explanation on how to create and use blogs on “WordPress”. Moreover, a special chapter was included to explain how to launch and manage online campaigns, as well as the Article regulating freedom of expression in international conventions and their relationship with the Internet, in addition to a specialized section on  the development of the internet and the web.

The guide was prepared and overseen by the Egyptian blogger Mohamed Eltaher, Programs Coordinator at ANHRI, the rights activist Karim Abdel-Rady, laywer at ANHRI, the lawyer Rawda Ahmed, Deputy Director of ANHRI, Mina Mamdouh, researcher.

“This is the first guide of its kind in the Arab region, as it explains the usage of six of the most important new media and social networking websites in a single book that allows more effective online usage for novices and activists. Despite its simplicity, it was designed to make them benefit from its content regardless of the extent of their knowledge about these tools” said Gamal Eid, Executive Director of ANHRI.

The guide was launched on May 4th in a special celebration in Tunisia on the occasion of the celebrations taking place there in collaboration with UNESCO. This is the harvest of cooperation between ANHRI and CTPJ with the support of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX), the European Union, and Oxfam Novib.

The law violates Libya’s provisional constitutional covenant and international human rights law, both of which guarantee free speech, Human Rights Watch said.

“This legislation punishes Libyans for what they say, reminiscent of the dictatorship that was just overthrown,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “It will restrict free speech, stifle dissent, and undermine the principles on which the Libyan revolution was based.”

Under Law 37, passed on May 2, 2012, spreading “false or vicious news” or “propaganda” that harms “military efforts to defend the country, terrorizes people, or weakens the morale of citizens” is a criminal offense, punishable with imprisonment for an unspecified amount of time. Included in “propaganda” is glorification of Gaddafi, his regime, and his sons. If the offensive statements damage the country, the law says, the offender can be sentenced to life in prison.

Anyone who does anything to “damage the February 17 Revolution” can be charged with a crime under the law and sent to prison. February 17 refers to the start of the popular uprising that overthrew Gaddafi in 2011.

Charges can also be brought against anyone who “insults Islam, or the prestige of the state or its institutions or judiciary, and every person who publicly insults the Libyan people, slogan or flag.”

The ban on damaging the February 17 Revolution is apparently based on article 195 of Libya’s current penal code, drafted and implemented under Gaddafi’s rule, which bans any “damage to the great al-Fateh Revolution or its leader.” The al-Fateh Revolution brought Gaddafi to power in 1969.

Under the previous government, criticizing Gaddafi or the al-Fateh Revolution was punishable by death. Individuals were regularly imprisoned for criticizing the government, some of them under article 195 of the Libyan penal code.

“It seems the NTC has done a ‘cut and paste’ job with the Gaddafi-era laws,” Whitson said.

A group of Libyan human rights lawyers told Human Rights Watch that they will challenge Law 37 before the country’s supreme court.

Libya’s constitutional covenant, passed on August 3, 2011, includes a chapter on human rights and freedoms. Article 14 ensures freedom of opinion and speech, as well as assembly.

Under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR), governments may only restrict the right to freedom of expression to protect public morals if the restriction conforms to strict tests of necessity and proportionality and is non-discriminatory, including on the grounds of religion or belief. The newly enacted law fails to meet that test, Human Rights Watch said. Libya is a party to both the ICCPR and the African Charter.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee, in its 2011 General Comment on the ICCPR’s article 19, held that the right to freedom of expression protects speech that might be deemed offensive or hurtful to followers of a particular religion, unless the speech in question amounts to “advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.” It also said that “States Parties [to the ICCPR] should not prohibit criticism of institutions.” The Human Rights Committee is considered the authoritative interpreter of the ICCPR.

Human Rights Watch called on governments supporting Libya’s transition, as well as the UN mission in Libya, to condemn the newest law strongly, and other unlawful attempts to restrict free speech, expression, and assembly.

“This law is a slap in the face for all those who were imprisoned under Gaddafi’s laws criminalizing political speech, and who fought for a new Libya where human rights are respected,” Whitson said. “Libya’s new leaders should know that laws restricting what people can say can lead to a new tyranny.”

Masked officers used batons and armoured vehicles to disperse and arrest the protesters, participants and Kuwaiti activists told Human Rights Watch.On May 2 the Interior issued a statement confirming the arrests of 14 people. The ministry alleged that demonstrators ignored its “repeated warnings” that demonstrations by “illegal residents” are not allowed and that the protesters had committed “shameful acts that are punishable by law,” such as trying to “burn tires and block roads.” Local rights activists challenged the statement and told Human Rights Watch that the gathering was peaceful.

“The Bidun have a right like anyone else to peaceful protest, which the Kuwaiti authorities are obligated to respect,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The government needs to realize that suppressing peaceful demonstrations isn’t going to make Bidun grievances go away.”

On May 3 the authorities transferred 16 detained Bidun protesters to the Public Prosecutor’s Office for investigation and possible prosecution, Mohamed al-Humaidi, director of the Kuwait Society for Human Rights, told Human Rights Watch.

On May 1 between 200 and 300 Bidun gatherednear al-Sha’bi mosque in Taima’a to demand government action on their citizenship claims and resolution of their stateless status. Witnesses and family members told Human Rights Watch that Abdul Hakeem al-Fadhli, a prominent Bidun activist, was among those arrested. They said plainclothes security forces took him into custody after he emerged from al-Sha’bi mosque before the demonstration started.

The Kuwait government has designated the more than 106,000 stateless Bidun illegal residents and denied them citizenship for decades, even though many were born in Kuwait or are longtime residents. The Bidun have organized numerous demonstrations since February 2011 calling on authorities to address their citizenship claims.

The government has repeatedly promised to address citizenship claims of stateless residents, but has taken little action to resolve the issues of Bidun. In 2010 the government announced that it had set up a new committee to address the citizenship claims and promised to resolve them within five years. In November 2012 authorities admitted that 34,000 Bidun claimants are eligible for citizenship, but authorities have not made public the number of citizenships they have granted to Bidun since 2010.

Human Rights Watch has repeatedly called on the government to expedite its review of Bidun claims and to take into account longstanding Bidun ties to Kuwait when reviewing the claims. Many Bidun have no access to identification documents, such as birth certificates or passports, and are barred from legal employment as “illegal residents.”

Three participants in the demonstration told Human Rights Watch that within minutes after the protesters had gathered near the mosque, security forces warned that “non-Kuwaitis have no right to demonstrate” and that they should end the protest.

The Kuwait Society for Human Rights issued a statement saying that three of its staff had observed the gathering and that security forces briefly detained Fayez al-Sultani, vice chairman of the organization.

“It raises concern that the forces of the Ministry of Interior used excessive force in dealing with peaceful demonstrators,” the group said.

According to local activists and lawyers, nearly 180 Bidun and Kuwaitis are currently on trial on charges such as “participating in an illegal gathering,” “resisting, insulting, and threatening police officers,” and “destroying police property,” stemming from their participation in demonstrations in 2011 and 2012.

The Kuwaiti government has issued repeated warnings that Bidun should not gather in public, despite the country’s obligation under international law to protect the right to peaceful assembly. Article 12 of the 1979 Public Gathering law bars non-Kuwaitis from participating in public gatherings. However Kuwait’s constitution guarantees “all individuals” the right to peaceful assembly.

Kuwait ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in 1996. Article 21 of the ICCPR states that “the right of peaceful assembly shall be recognized,” and that “no restrictions may be placed on the exercise of this right other than those imposed in conformity with the law and which are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety, public order, the protection of public health or morals or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.”

(Tunis) – Tunisia’s first torture case to go to trial following the ouster of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali highlights the need to address inadequacies in the legal framework for trying torture crimes, Human Rights Watch said today. Many other cases of torture are likely to be filed against former President Ben Ali and his associates, as other victims step forward to file complaints.

Human Rights Watch studied the first torture case and the country’s current legal structure and procedures. The research identified a series of issues that Tunisia must address to bring justice to victims of crimes during the Ben Ali era and beyond, Human Rights Watch said.

“Torture was rampant in Tunisian prisons during the 23-year Ben Ali presidency, and blighted the lives of thousands,” said Eric Goldstein, Middle East and North Africa deputy director at Human Rights Watch. “Effective prosecution of torture requires an adequate legal framework as well as political will to end impunity.”

On April 12, 2012, a military appeals court reduced the prison sentences imposed on former Interior Minister Abdallah Kallel and three other former security officials for the offense of “violence against others.” The court upheld prison sentences handed down to Ben Ali and four other officials who were tried and convicted in absentia for the same offense.

The case displayed the Tunisian authorities’ lack of political will to demand the extradition of Ben Ali from Saudi Arabia, to stand trial for human rights abuses, Human Rights Watch said. Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia on January 14, 2011.

During the Ben Ali presidency, authorities practiced torture in a systematic manner and at all stages of criminal justice proceedings, from arrest and police interrogation to post-conviction incarceration, extensive documentation by Tunisian and international human rights organizations has shown.

The crime of torture was incorporated into Tunisian law in 1999 pursuant to Law no. 89 of August 2, 1999. Tunisia’s National Constituent Assembly should harmonize Tunisian law with the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) by incorporating crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide into existing Tunisian law. This should be done either by revising the penal code or passing implementing legislation, Human Rights Watch said. The Assembly should also incorporate the various forms of criminal responsibility set out in international criminal law into Tunisian law.

On April 12, the Court of Appeal of the Military Tribunal of Tunisia reduced by half the four-year sentences issued on November 29, 2011, by the Permanent Military Court of Tunis for Kallel, the interior minister under Ben Ali from 1991 to 1995; Mohamed Ali Ganzoui, the ministry’s director of special services from 1990 to 1995; and security officials Abderrahmen Kassmi and Mohamed Ennacer Alibi. The appeals court also confirmed five-year prison terms for Ben Ali and the four other defendants convicted in absentia.

All the defendants were convicted of “using violence against others either directly or through others” in 1991 against 17 high-ranking military officers who were detained and accused of plotting with the Islamist Party, Ennahdha, against President Ben Ali. The 17 were among the suspects in the “Barraket Essahel” case, named for the town where the plotters were accused of holding secret meetings. The interrogators of these officers allegedly subjected them intentionally to severe physical pain, amounting to torture under international law. However, charges of torture were abandoned by the military prosecutor at an earlier stage of the proceedings.

The Tunisian government should formally request the extradition of the former president from Saudi Arabia so that he can face accountability for the serious human rights abuses committed under his rule, Human Rights Watch said. In addition to the Barraket Essahel case, Ben Ali is also facing trials before military courts for the killing of protesters during the Tunisian uprising. He has already been convicted in absentia for various financial crimes. Authorities should also search for the four other officials who were convicted for using violence in the Barraket Essahel trial and whose whereabouts are unknown.

Human Rights Watch’s research identified five areas in which action is needed by the government to bring justice for the Ben Ali-era crimes and to prevent future crimes. Mustering the political will to extradite Ben Ali is the first.

The second involves holding these trials in civilian rather than in military courts, in conformity with international standards. Tunisia should not grant military tribunals jurisdiction over human rights violations committed by security forces against civilians, as occurred in the case against Kallel and his codefendants, Human Rights Watch said. All trials must also meet international standards of fairness, which includes giving the defendants adequate opportunity to prepare their case and challenge the evidence and witnesses against them.

The three other issues concern the application of the law:

• Command Responsibility – that is, when a superior knew or should have known of the crime but failed to prevent it or, after the fact, failed to hand over the perpetrators for criminal investigation and prosecution. As in the Kallel trial, the defendants in future torture trials are likely to include senior officials who did not torture defendants with their own hands but may have been in a position to prevent acts of torture. The criminal law needs to reflect, and the courts need to apply, for acts of torture, a clear concept of command responsibility that meets international standards.
• Non-retroactivity – that is, the need to clarify that when an act, even though it was not punishable under national criminal law at the time when it was committed, was nevertheless criminalized either under international law, or according to the general principles of law recognized by the community of nations. Lacking a Tunisian law criminalizing torture that was in effect when the deeds took place, the court convicted Kallel and his co-defendants of “violence to others,” a less serious offense that does not convey the gravity of the abuse.
• Statute of limitations – that is, the need to clarify that no statute of limitations applies to the gravest crimes such as torture. The court did recognize this in the Kallel case, but this rule should be made explicit in Tunisian law.

“The lessons learned from this case, and the substantive flaws, should be used to reform the framework for all the torture cases yet to come from the Ben Ali era,” Goldstein said. “It is crucial for the sake of accountability that the courts have in place a system for prosecuting this crime that ensures justice for victims and fair trials for the accused.”

Human Rights Watch in the paper that follows details the flaws in the legal framework for trying torture cases. It is not in a position to comment on the fairness of the trial of Abdallah Kallel and his co-defendants, which is a separate issue.

Background on the Case
The Barraket Essahel case goes back to 1991, when authorities said they had uncovered a plan orchestrated by officers to topple President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and establish an Islamist regime. Between May and July 1991, 244 army officers were arrested. Many of them were tortured by state security agents in the Tunis headquarters of the Interior Ministry, Mohsen Kaâbi, president of the organization Justice for Former Political Prisoners, told Human Rights Watch.

In July 1992, 171 of the officers were tried by the military tribunal of Tunis on charges of conspiring against the security of the state. Thirty-five were sentenced to life in prison and the others were sentenced to terms of from one year to 24 years.

Before the trial, in August 1991, authorities freed some of those who had been arrested after months of torture. Although these officers had never been put on trial or convicted, the authorities summarily dismissed some of them from their posts and subjected them to years of police harassment, Kaâbi said.

In April 2011, after the revolution, 17 of the Barraket Essahel defendants filed a complaint for the crime of torture before a civilian court. The original complaint accused Ben Ali and Interior Ministry officials, along with the defense minister during that time, of complicity in torture. The civilian investigating judge transferred the case to the military tribunal, on the grounds that military courts have jurisdiction over crimes committed by military officers, in accordance with article 22 of Law no. 70 regulating the Basic Law of Internal Security Forces.

The civilian investigating judge had initiated investigations on the basis of article 101(2) of the penal code, which provides for up to eight years in prison for the crime of torture. However, the military investigating judge decided to abandon those charges on the grounds that article 101(2) had taken effect only in 1999 (as Law no. 89 of August 2, 1999) and that applying it would contravene the principle of the non-retroactivity of penal law, since the facts of the case go back to 1991.

The first instance military court convicted the defendants on the basis of article 101 of the penal code, which provides a five-year prison term for any public agent who “uses or causes to be used, without legitimate purpose, violence against persons, while on duty.” Following the appeals court verdict of two years imprisonment, lawyers for all the defendants announced that they would apply to the Court of Cassation to quash the verdict, mainly on the grounds that the limitation period for prosecution had run out.

Lessons Learned and Issues to Be Addressed for Future Trials Involving Torture:

Try Human Rights Violations before Civil Courts
After Ben Ali was ousted, the interim government overhauled the military judicial system. The Decree-Law no. 69 of July 29, 2011, introduced three main reforms:

• Improving fair-trial guarantees by creating an appeals-level jurisdiction; previously, the first-instance court verdict was not reviewable;
• Increasing the independence of the military justice system from the Defense Ministry by including representatives from the civilian judiciary on military tribunals, andensuring that the decisions of the military investigative judge are reviewable by the appeals court of the civil judiciary; and
• Giving the military prosecutor the right to file charges without permission from the Defense Ministry.

Although these reforms may enhance the fairness and independence of trials before military courts, they do not address the international norm that the jurisdiction of military courts should be restricted to trying purely military offenses, Human Rights Watch said.

The UN Human Rights Committee urges states parties to the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment to try military personnel who are charged with human rights violations in civilian courts. The “wide jurisdiction of the military courts to deal with all the cases involving prosecution of military personnel … contribute[s] to the impunity which such personnel enjoy against punishment for serious human rights violations,” the committee wrote in its concluding observations from 1999 on a report by Chile.

In Suleiman v. Sudan, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights affirmed that military tribunals should only “determine offences of a purely military nature committed by military staff” and “should not deal with offences which are under the purview of ordinary courts.” In addition, the principles and guidelines on the right to a fair trial and legal assistance in Africa proclaimed by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights states, “the only purpose of Military Courts shall be to determine offences of a purely military nature committed by military personnel.”

Clarify Liability Emanating from Command Responsibility
The prosecution of Kallel and Ganzoui was based on their alleged responsibility for the conduct of security forces under their command at the time of the events. During the trial, the defense lawyers contended that the prosecution provided no evidence that Kallel and Ganzaoui either gave orders or were in any other way involved in the torture. They argued that the prosecution was imputing guilt to the defendants merely on the basis of their political responsibility, without proving that they exercised effective control over their subordinates, who, the lawyers said, received direct orders from President Ben Ali.

Regardless of the exact role played by Kallel and Ganzoui in these events, Tunisian legislators should revise the penal code to fully incorporate the principle of command responsibility for international crimes in accordance with international law, Human Rights Watch said. The jurisprudence of international criminal tribunals concurs that command responsibility “is a well-established principle of conventional and customary law,” as stated by the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia. Additionally, it is set out in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which Tunisia ratified in 2011.

Tunisian law is not well-equipped to address command or superior responsibility. It states that persons can be held criminally accountable only for the direct commission of a crime or for complicity in it. Article 32 of the penal code sets out the meaning of complicity, which can take the form of either facilitating the commission of the crime by aiding, abetting or assisting, giving instructions to commit it, or conspiring with others to fulfill the criminal purpose.

Such forms of criminal responsibility do not cover the liability known in international law as command or superior responsibility, in which the superior did not order the crime nor facilitate its commission, but knew or should have known of the crime but failed either to prevent it or submit it for investigation and prosecution.

To ensure fair trials for the accused as well as justice for victims, legislators should revise the laws to spell out in a more precise way the conditions under which a superior will be criminally responsible for the conduct of his subordinates, Human Rights Watch said. Tunisian judges should apply the criteria laid down in the Convention against Torture and by the UN Committee against Torture in providing the definitive interpretation of that convention for the crime of torture.

The UN Committee against Torture, in its general comment on the Convention against Torture, stated that, “[t]hose exercising superior authority – including public officials – cannot avoid accountability or escape criminal responsibility for torture or ill-treatment committed by subordinates where they knew or should have known that such impermissible conduct was occurring, or was likely to occur, and they failed to take reasonable and necessary preventive measures.”

In addition, international law, and Tunisia’s membership in the ICC, requires it to adopt the principle of criminalizing command responsibility for torture in instances in which the torture in question is so widespread and systematic in nature that it meets the criteria of a crime against humanity. The Rome Statute, which created the ICC, sets out that command responsibility imputes liability to the military commanders or civilian superiors for crimes committed by subordinate members of armed forces or other persons under their effective control.

Appropriate conceptions of criminal responsibility are necessary for accountability at all levels, including for those whose responsibility extends beyond physical commission of the crime, Human Rights Watch said.

Remove Retroactivity Barriers to Prosecuting Torture
Although Tunisia ratified the Convention against Torture on September 23, 1988, it did not sign into law any legislation designed to harmonize its laws with this international convention until 1999. Judges in the Barraket Essahel case ruled that to charge the defendants under the 1999 law defining and prohibiting the crime of torture would violate the principle that forbids retrospective application of criminal law. According to this principle, no person can be convicted for conduct that did not constitute a crime at the time it was committed (nullum crimen nulla poena sine lege). This principle purports to safeguard individuals against arbitrary decisions of the authorities.

The judges characterized the facts of the case based on article 101 of the penal code, which criminalizes acts of “violence” but does not refer to torture. Article 101 provides for a maximum sentence of five years in prison and considers the offense as a minor crime, which carries a lighter punishment than the crime of torture. The crime of torture, set out in international law as the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering, is not the same as a simple act of violence. Article 4 of the Convention against Torture includes these requirements for Tunisia and the other member states:

1. Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law. The same shall apply to an attempt to commit torture and to an act by any person which constitutes complicity or participation in torture. 2. Each State Party shall make these offences punishable by appropriate penalties which take into account their grave nature.

Under Article 14 of the Convention against Torture:

Each State Party shall ensure in its legal system that the victim of an act of torture obtains redress and has an enforceable right to adequate compensation.

A prerequisite for the victim’s right to redress is the existence of a legal framework that allows for the recognition of the violations as torture. The Committee against Torture’s current draft comment on article 14 says, “[s]tates parties must enact legislation and establish complaints mechanisms, investigation bodies and institutions capable of determining the right to and awarding redress for a victim of torture and ill-treatment.” Inadequate national legislation interferes with this right to redress.

The conclusion of this trial highlights the need to make it clear in Tunisian law that the crime of torture was prohibited at least from 1988, Human Rights Watch said. A growing body of international jurisprudence and scholarship holds that the principle of non-retroactivity of criminal law does not apply when an act, even though it was not punishable under national criminal law at the time when it was committed, was nevertheless criminalized either (i) under international law, or (ii) according to the general principles of law recognized by the community of nations.

Article 15.2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights affirms the principle of non-retroactivity but also asserts, “[n]othing in this article shall prejudice the trial and punishment of any person for any act or omission which, at the time when it was committed, was criminal according to the general principles of law recognized by the community of nations.”

Torture has long been recognized as a crime in international law, codified by the Convention against Torture. Tunisia ratified the convention in 1988. Thus this crime can be considered as having been criminalized in Tunisia at least since that time, regardless of whether it was explicitly incorporated in the Tunisian penal code.

Remove the Statute of Limitations for Serious Rights Violations
Tunisia’s law specifying the prescription period that applies to the crime of torture represents another challenge to ensuring accountability. On October 22, 2011, the eve of elections, the interim government promulgated an amendment to the penal code provisions on torture that introduced a statute of limitations of 15 years from the time of the commission of the offense. After this time, prosecutions cannot be brought. Before this amendment, torture as a crime under Tunisian law had a statutory limitation of 10 years, as for all other crimes. However, international customary law has long recognized that a statute of limitations should not apply to serious violations of human rights.

In the Barraket Essahel trial, lawyers for the defense contended that because 20 years had passed since the alleged crimes, the defendants should benefit from the statute of limitations spelled out in article five of the Code of Penal Procedure. However, the first instance military court, in its November 29 ruling, rejected this argument, noting that paragraph two of article five states, “The statute of limitations is suspended when prosecution is impossible due to a legal or factual obstacle.”

The court concluded that the statute of limitations did not apply in this case because the victims could not file complaints during the 20 years because the alleged perpetrators controlled the security apparatus and the judiciary. Such reasoning, although it overcame in this case the hurdle of the statute of limitations, highlights the need to review the laws on such statutes, and to align Tunisian legislation with international customary law by clarifying that there is no statute of limitations for the crime of torture.

In its annual reports, the UN Committee against Torture has consistently criticized the existence of statutes of limitations on torture in domestic legislation of states parties and called on them to amend their penal codes to ensure that acts of torture are not subject to any statute of limitations. In its report for 2009-2010, the committee reiterated that, “bearing in mind the long-established jus cogens (a peremptory norm of general international law accepted and recognized by the international community of states as a whole as a norm from which no derogation is permitted)prohibition of torture, the prosecution of acts of torture should not be constrained by the principle of legality or the statute of limitation.”

In addition, international human rights monitoring bodies have held that statutes of limitations do not apply to serious human rights violations. For example, in 2001, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, in the Barrios Altos case, held that:

This Court considers inadmissible the provisions for amnesty or statutory limitation periods and the establishment of exemptions from responsibility that attempt to impede the investigation and punishment of those responsible for serious human rights violations such as torture, summary, extrajudicial or arbitrary executions and forced disappearances, all prohibited because they contravene inalienable rights recognized in international human rights law.

Demonstrate Political Will to Pursue the Extradition of Ben Ali
The Kallel trial displayed the lack of political will on the part of Tunisia’s interim authorities to press for the extradition of former president Ben Ali, who has other pending cases at the military courts for the killing of protesters during the Tunisia uprising.

While there is an international arrest warrant pending against him, Tunisia has yet to implement the request for his extradition from Saudi Arabia, which has granted Ben Ali refuge since January 2011.

Although no bilateral extradition agreement exists between Tunisia and Saudi Arabia, both countries are bound by the Convention against Torture, which Saudi Arabia has also ratified, in 1997. Article eight paragraph two stipulates that if a state party that makes extradition conditional on the existence of a treaty receives a request for extradition from another state party with which it has no extradition treaty, it may consider this convention the legal basis for extradition in respect to such offenses.

Ben Ali has been convicted of various crimes, ranging from embezzlement of public funds to possession of illegal drugs. He has also been charged with the murder of protesters in the days before his ouster. But because Tunisian interim authorities have not asked Saudi Arabia to extradite Ben Ali, the courts trying these cases have tried him in absentia, sentencing him to a total of 60 years in prison.

Since his appointment as new head of government, Hamadi Jebali has said several times that the extradition of Ben Ali is not a priority of the interim authorities. On February 17, 2012, on the eve of an official visit to Saudi Arabia, Jebadi said on Radio SAWA that he would not discuss Ben Ali’s extradition with the Saudis, calling the case “Minor, not a priority.”

The refusal to undertake an effort to extradite Ben Ali denies Tunisians the possibility of seeing the person whom many consider to be the one most responsible for grave human rights violations answer in court for his actions, Human Rights Watch said.

A special military court convicted the 14 protest leaders, along with seven others tried in absentia, of offenses related to peaceful political activities – speeches they made, meetings they attended, documents found on their computers, as well as calling for and participating in street protests between February 14 and March 15, 2011. The trial also violated numerous international fair trial standards and relied on apparently coerced confessions. Al-Khawaja and seven others were sentenced to life in prison; the others were sentenced to between 2 and 15 years.

Al-Khawaja has been on a hunger strike since February 8, 2012, demanding freedom for himself and his co-defendants.

“The military court’s original verdict was absolutely mind-boggling – it did not mention a single actual criminal offense beyond acts relating to their basic human rights,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Abdulhadi al-Khawaja and his co-defendants should not have to spend even one more day in prison for so-called crimes of speech and peaceful assembly.”

On April 13, 2012, four United Nations human rights experts – the special rapporteurs on human rights defenders, on independence of judges and lawyers, on torture, and on freedom of assembly and association – called on Bahraini authorities to immediately release al-Khawaja.

A military appeals court confirmed the convictions and sentences on September 29, 2011. On April 30 the Court of Cassation, Bahrain’s highest court, referred the case to the civilian criminal appeals court for retrial, which Bahraini lawyers told Human Rights Watch would probably take many months. The Court of Cassation made no reference, however, to the fact that the defendants had merely been exercising their basic human rights.

Between April and October 2011, special military courts, called National Safety Courts, convicted hundreds of Bahrainis caught up in the “national safety” dragnet that began in mid-March. In a report published on February 28, Human Rights Watch documented extensive and serious fair trial violations in the special military courts as well as in key security-related trials before civilian courts. The report also documented the extensive use of politically motivated charges that violated the rights to free expression and association, and it documented the torture and ill-treatment of detainees.

One of the co-defendants, Ibrahim Sharif, is leader of the National Democratic Action Society, an opposition party that brought together Sunnis and Shia to protest for democratic reforms. Sharif, himself a Sunni, was sentenced to five years for what the trial verdict said was meeting with co-defendants “to discuss the demand for a republic,” for participating in meetings at “unlicensed demonstrations,” and for asserting that “the system of government had lost its legitimacy.”

The Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI), appointed by King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifain June 2011 and consisting of five international human rights experts, issued its 489-page report on November 23. It confirmed systematic and egregious rights violations by the government in suppressing protests and concluded that a lack of accountability had led to a “culture of impunity.” The commissioners called for judicial review of military court verdicts and said that the government should void convictions of people convicted for peacefully exercising internationally recognized rights of freedom of expression and assembly, and release them.

Human Rights Watch called on Bahraini authorities also to drop all charges against the seven co-defendants not in custody and tried in absentia, for the same reasons.

ANHRI denounced today the statement of the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) in the press conference held today to comment on the massacre of Abbasiya square in Cairo. ANHRI believes that the statement comes in the context of intimidation and incitement against peaceful protesters in Egypt, and the failure of security services in carrying out their duty to protect protesters and citizens while expressing their opinions or practising their constitutional rights to sit-in. The events of Abbasiya have already resulted in tens of martyrs and injured citizens.

Assaults against some political groups sitting-in at Abbasiya square have continued over the past few days by groups of thugs under the nose of the police and army which interfered after it was too late. Thus far, their neutrality and protection of the sit-in are not guaranteed.

ANHRI expressed its deep disturbance over the inconsiderate tone of the statement that did not show the slightest concern or sympathy over the blood and souls of the Egyptian protesters. Rather than apologizing for failing to protect the protesters’ lives, or even showing solidarity, everyone was surprised that the members of SCAF were engrossed by defending themselves and the armed forces. Despite their recurrent attempts to emphasize that the armed forced are part of the people, they seemed to talk about the armed forces as if it were a separate entity from the Egyptian people.

“How are peaceful protesters supposed to protect themselves under clearly organized attacks by groups and gangs of thugs armed with various kinds of knives and firearms? What is the role of the police and security services, then? If the armed forces have the right to protect the Ministry of Defence and all vital installations and facilities in the country, it is also their duty and priority to protect the lives and security of the Egyptian citizens,” said ANHRI showing its surprise that SCAF justifies the failure of the security services by noting that securing the sit-in was left to the protesters.

“SCAF has always always emphasized that the armed forces is the property of the people and its mission is to ensure the security and territorial integrity of the country. However, that essentially include the protection of the Egyptian citizens’ souls, something that has not been invoked in SCAF’s statement. On the contrary, it blamed the events on the protesters and demanded them to stay away from the Ministry of Defence, in an implicit reference to the continuity of incitement against them,” added ANHRI.

It is worth noting that SCAF’s statement contained sophistries to belittle the crime and the number of the martyrs and injured protesters, despite the fact that media and official reports provide that the numbers are much larger that what was mentioned in the statement.

The practices of SCAF and security services perpetuate the mentality of Mubarak’s state. Thus, ANHRI holds SCAF, the government, and the elected parliament responsible for the protection of the Egyptians’ right to protest and free expression. ANHRI also calls on all the mentioned entities to immediately intervene to prevent a repeat of brutal attacks on protesters.

ANHRI condemns the arrest of Aziz Amami, Tunisia activist and blogger, upon his arrival to Cairo airport to participate in several seminars in Egypt on the grounds of his participation in protests calling for the overthrow of military rule in Egypt in front of the Egyptian embassy in Tunisia.

Upon arrival at Cairo airport on Wednesday, May 2nd, Amami’s passport was seized and he was escorted to one of the state security headquarters in Cairo for interrogation and investigation for several hours. He was released early next morning.

ANHRI expressed its surprise over the continuation of the police state policies in the arrest, interrogation, and deportation of activists. Cairo airport has recently witnessed the arrest and deportation of a number of Arab activists, especially from Bahrain, in violation of international norms and conventions on freedom of movement and travel. These incidents take place without a legal basis or a judicial warrant and in a way that is worse than that under the rule of Mubarak.

“We condemn the arrest and interrogation of Amami by the State Security in the strongest possible terms. We believe that the incident is part of the ongoing policies of the police state following the revolution. It seems that the authorities have not learned the lesson thus far,” said ANHRI.

ANHRI warns that the continuation of these policies will have dire consequences on the reputation of Egypt among its Arab neighbours and in the world as a whole.

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) and the Tunisian Centre for Freedom of the Press (CTPJ) concluded the fourth session held in Tunis from 1-2 May 2012 under the title “Internet serving freedom of expression”.

The workshop included theoretical, technical, and practical training on blogging, social networks, photography, and filming in support of freedom of expression. It also included a specialized session on the management and design of mobilization, support, and advocacy campaigns on the Internet. Finally, the workshop provided a session on the most important local and international legal frameworks that protect freedom of opinion and expression.

Over 25 trainees from Tunis, including civil society activists, bloggers, and journalism students between 18 and 30 years of age participated in the workshop. The workshop was conducted by the trainers Wael Abbas, Egyptian journalist and blogger, Mina Mamdouh, Egyptian researcher at ANHRI, Ghias al-Jundi, official of mobilization and advocacy campaigns in International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX), and AbdulKarim al-Hizawi, Director of the African Centre for Training Journalists and Communicators in Tunisia.

This was the last of a series of workshops held in various parts of Tunisia. The workshops had been held in the cities of Gafsa, Sidi Bouzid, and Tunis in the framework of activities launched by the International Freedom of Expression Exchange – Tunisia Monitoring Group (IFEX-TMG).

“The conclusion of the training sessions coincides with the International Day for the Freedom of the Press. We hope that we have contributed to put the trainees on the right track of the defence of freedom of expression through modern media and technology on the basis of the international treaties and laws guaranteeing the right to freedom of expression and to have different opinions without restrictions or boundaries,” said Fahem Boukadous, coordinator of the training program in (CTPJ).

“These training workshops were vitally important to build the capacities of the Tunisian youth that greatly suffered under the rule of the dictator Ben-Ali who oppressed freedom of expression. In the upcoming period, we will be seeking to deepen and repeat the experience on a larger scaled to reach the largest possible number of young Tunisians,” said Rawda Ahmed, lawyer and deputy executive director of ANHRI.

Both ANHRI and the Tunisian Center for Freedom of the Press concluded the third training session held in Sousse city in Tunisia during the period from 27-28 April 2012 under the title “Internet serving freedom of expression”.
The workshop which was held over two  days in Sousse, included practical training on new media and social networks (face book, Twitter, Flicker and bambuser) and techniques of live broadcasts using the mobile in addition to using internet to design campaigns. The last part of the workshop was on international conventions and treaties and the most important laws that protect the freedom of opinion expression. The workshop comes within the framework of a series of workshops to be in the coming period in cities outside the capital of Tunisia as part of the project IFEX Tunisia Monitoring Group (IFEX-TMG): web site http://ifex.org/tunisia/tmg/ facebook https://www.facebook.com/IFEXTMG

15 trainees between 18 and 30 years old from Sousse participated in the workshop that was facilitated by Wael Abbas, Egyptian Journalist Blogger, Mina Mamdouh, Egyptian Researcher at ANHRI, Ghayyath El Gendi, Supporting Campaigns Manager in IFEX, and AbdulKarim El Hizawi, Director of African Centre for Training Journalists and Communicators in Tunisia.
Mr. Fahem Boukadous, the training program coordinator at Tunisian Centre for Freedom of the Press  said: ” Freedom of expression was and will continue to be whether under dictatorship or during the democratic transition between containment and confiscation, which makes communication techniques and modern technologies  one of the ports for truth and the most available source of information to the widest ranges of population, that is why the training of Sousse and others before  or will be after are to encourage the engagement in this path and the devotion to the role of internet in supporting new democracy in Tunisia ”

Sarah Sabry the training program coordinator from ANHRI said: “The successive sessions in different parts of Tunisia are a real opportunity to build the capacity of young people eager to learn new media tools because it represent a free space for a real expression of their opinions.”

Tunisian Center for Freedom of the Press

Cairo, 30 April 2012

ANHRI said today that the case of Ahmed al-Gizawy, Egyptian lawyer detained in Saudi Arabia, has triggered a crisis that already existed for several reasons. It is a consequence of a long history of abuse and injustice suffered by many Egyptians in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, especially the unprivileged workers who complain of the Saudi Ministry of Interior or the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs which fails to protect their rights and dignity.

The Case of al-Gizawy was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Angry protests rejecting the bad conditions of a large number of Egyptians in Saudi Arabia took to streets. Recently, the Saudi ambassador has left Egypt and all the Saudi consulates in Egypt have been closed.

“There is no problem of any kind with the Saudi people. However, there are many problems with the Saudi regime and its ongoing repressive practices against foreign workers in general, and the workers of the poor countries in particular. With regard to Egyptian workers, no so long ago did ANHRI file a lawsuit to expel Ahmed Aboul-Ghait, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the Egyptian ambassador in Saudi Arabia during the rule of the dictator Mubarak due to their negligence and inaction in the protection of Egyptian detained for years in Saudi Arabia with no investigations or trial, such as Youssef Ashmawy who has been detained since 2008,” said ANHRI. For more information on Ashmawy’s case: http://www.anhri.net/en/?p=3381

“It is time to reconsider the extremely harsh situation of Egyptian workers in Saudi Arabia. Law and values of human rights must govern their conditions. It is not fair to consider the case of al-Gizawy apart from the reasons that led to the loss of confidence in the values of justice and rule of law in Saudi Arabia because that would mean ongoing anger under the surface. If the Saudi government is appalled that some angry young men in Egypt have “crossed the line”, then it should understand that the revolution of dignity in Egypt did not exclude the Egyptians abroad. It also has to remember that the Egyptian revolution had backed the release of several Saudis charged with criminal offences from Egyptian prisons. Rather than recalling the Saudi ambassador in an action that might be misinterpreted into political blackmail and enforcement of status quo, the Saudi government should have taken the initiative of reciprocity, or at least codified the conditions of many Egyptians unjustly detained without investigations or trial for years,” added ANHRI.

Related:

Saudi Arabia continues to waste the dignity of Egyptian citizens

The Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights (BYSHR) learned today via family members, that Human Rights Defender Mr.Abdulhadi Alkhawaja was drugged, tied to the hospital bed and forcibly fed through a nasoenteric tube this week.

After a brief visit to the activist, family members informed the BYSHR that according to the activist, last Monday after his final call to his wife, he was approached by a nurse who claimed that she wanted to “flush” his IV tube. She inserted a liquid into his IV tube that made him loose consciousness for over 5 hours. When the activist woke up, his room had been changed, his hands and legs were tied to the hospital bed , a tube was stuffed down his nose and he was wearing an oxygen mask. The tube was only removed on Friday when it was blocked resulting in the liquid spilling on Mr. Alkhawaja a number of times.

Mr. Alkhawaja repetitively told the Doctor in charge that he refused the force-feeding and considered it as torture and the doctor refused to end the abuse. The doctor informed Mr. Alkhawaja that if they had not used the force-feeding, the activist would be brain dead. Mr. Alkhawaja advised the doctor that even if they wished to justify the force-feeding, nothing could explain keeping him tied and incommunicado with no contact whatsoever with his family or lawyer. The combination of the force-feeding and the incommunicado detention was considered torture, and Alkhawaja informed the doctor that he will hold him, the hospital as well as the Ministry of Interior responsible.

Mr. Alkhawaja has informed his family that he has agreed to voluntarily take liquids and IV fluids when necessary until his cassation court tomorrow Monday the 30th of April, 2012, but is adamant that he is to continue on his hungerstrike until freedom or death.

The BYSHR considers force-feeding a type of torture in accordance to international human rights norm and is very disturbed that Mr. Alkhawaja was drugged and tied in order to force feed him. It also finds it disturbing that Mr. Alkhawaja’s family were kept in the dark regarding his fate for over 5 days. There was no reason to severe contact with Mr.Alkhawaja’s family or lawyer.

The BYSHR is also very concerned that the Bahraini authorities would find it appropriate to tell the international community that he was in good health while they were force-feeding him and his life was in danger according to their own physicians.

The BYSHR considers Mr. Alkhawaja a prisoner of conscience, a torture victim (BICI report case number 8 ) and a prominent human rights defender who is in jail solely for exercising his right to free speech and calls for his immediate and unconditional release.

The BYSHR also calls on the Bahrain authorities to be transparent when it comes toMr. Alkhawaja’s health condition and to refrain from making inaccurate and incorrect statements that are meant to misguide international observers and NGO’s.

(Beirut) – Bahrain’s police are beating and torturing detainees, including minors, despite public commitments to end torture and police impunity, Human Rights Watch said today following a five day visit to the country.

While in Bahrain, from April 15 to 19, 2012, Human Rights Watch interviewed 14 young males, including 7 children, who said police had beaten them severely while arresting them for participating in public protests and while taking them to a police station. The beatings took place after the release of the report of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) in November 2011 and subsequent pledges by government officials, including King Hamad, to end ill-treatment and torture. Five of the incidents occurred in April.

While treatment inside police stations and formal detention facilities appears to have significantly improved since the release of the BICI report, Human Rights Watch found that police still regularly resorted to beating protesters, in some cases severely, at the time of arrest and during their transfer to police stations.

“Bahrain has displaced the problem of torture and police brutality from inside police stations to the point of arrest and transfer to police stations,” said Nadim Houry, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, who was on the five-day visit. “This abuse contradicts one of the most important recommendations of the independent commission and shows why investigations and prosecutions of abusers to the highest level are essential to stopping these practices.”

Human Rights Watch heard numerous consistent accounts from victims that the police were taking detained protesters to informal detention facilities or isolated outdoor areas for between 30 minutes and two hours and beating them before transferring them to police stations. Human Rights Watch collected detailed information about two such informal facilities: a youth hostel in Sanabis and an equestrian school for police members, locally referred to as Khayyala, near the police station in Budaiya.

Human Rights Watch also interviewed two 16-year-olds who said riot police had picked them up off the streets in al-Deir, a village northeast of Manama on April 17, and took them to an empty lot near the village. There, they said, police beat them severely and threatened one with rape if they did not give information about where the village youths were allegedly hiding Molotov cocktails. The police left them in the empty lot after it became clear that the youths had no such information. Injury marks consistent with their account of beatings on their backs, arms, and faces were still clearly visible when Human Rights Watch interviewed them on April 18.

While many anti-government demonstrations in Bahrain have remained peaceful, some protesters have used rocks and Molotov cocktails to confront police. Police officials and officers, many of whom are recruited from countries such as Pakistan, Yemen, and Syria, told Human Rights Watch that they feel besieged in the predominantly Shi`a neighborhoods where most protests take place. At the same time, during Human Rights Watch’s time in Bahrain, activists and political analysts repeatedly suggested that the use of excessive force by police is not deterring protests, but rather leading to greater anger and eagerness to confront them.

“Violence by some protesters is wrong, but in no way justifies brutal police beatings of those detained by police,” Houry said. “This unlawful police behavior may well make the young protesters even more desperate and determined to confront the government.”

Human Rights Watch has previously documented frequent use of torture by Bahraini authorities, usually in the context of interrogations and for the apparent purpose of securing confessions. The BICI also documented routine torture and said that the failure of authorities to investigate and punish those responsible had led to a “climate of impunity” in the country.

Human Rights Watch raised the issue of police brutality and torture during arrest and at informal facilities with Bahrain’s chief of public security, Major General Tariq al-Hasan, and his two senior international advisers, John Yates and John Timoney, on April 17. Timoney and Yates said they had visited some of the facilities identified by Human Rights Watch but found no evidence at the time of their visits of detainees being taken there and mistreated. Major General al-Hasan told Human Rights Watch that the police authorities were considering issuing instructions to order immediate transfer of detained protesters to police stations.

Major General al-Hasan also stressed that the government’s priority was improved police training as a long-term solution to the problem of abuse. But the country has apparently made rapid progress in eliminating torture inside police stations, where video cameras are being installed at the recommendation of the BICI. And police have shown relative restraint when confronting protests in the presence of international media and human rights observers.

These changes demonstrate that the police can behave professionally when they are being watched, indicating that additional training is not the key factor, Human Rights Watch said. Bahrain’s leaders need to make clear that they will investigate and punish those responsible for abuses when the cameras are off.

Victims who reported being beaten by the police consistently told Human Rights Watch that because they did not trust the police or the public prosecutor, they had not filed complaints against police officers who beat them. Three protesters who were severely beaten by police on December 16 after they sought shelter on a rooftop in the village of Shakhura told Human Rights Watch that they feared being arrested for holding an “illegal gathering” if they filed a complaint. The beating incident was captured on camera and widely disseminated on YouTube.

Human Rights Watch raised the case of the December 16 Shakhura beating with Interior Ministry officials as well as members of the Public Prosecutor’s Office. The officials were aware of the case and of the video but said that a criminal investigation was hindered by the fact that no protester had filed a complaint. They added that some police officers had been suspended for their conduct, but acknowledged that they have not publicly announced who was suspended or why.

“Bahrain’s public prosecutor as well as the commanders of security forces need to prove they are willing to hold officers at all levels accountable for beating and humiliating protesters,” Houry said.

Clashes between police and protesters occur almost every night. During Human Rights Watch’s brief visit, protesters demanded the release of political prisoners, including Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, who are serving lengthy prison sentences after leading last year’s massive peaceful street protests demanding serious political reforms. Tensions have also risen because of stalled implementation of key BICI recommendations.

Police often use force to disperse non-violent protests, on the grounds that they are unauthorized. In one case observed by Human Rights Watch, in the village of Diraz on the night of April 15, riot police used tear gas and pepper spray to disperse and then detain participants in a march who were chanting anti-government slogans and trying to reach a main road, but who had not acted violently. An officer at the scene told Human Rights Watch that police used force preemptively, saying, “if we didn’t attack the protesters, they would have attacked us.”

Later that evening, Human Rights Watch also observed police using tear gas to disperse a group of mothers who had come to the nearby police station in Budaiya to protest the detention of their sons following the Diraz protest.

“Instead of using force reflexively, Bahraini police should work with community leaders to establish ground rules that would allow opposition supporters to protest peacefully and visibly, even if protests are technically unauthorized, so long as they are non-violent,” Houry said.

Beating and Arrest of at Least 18 Youths in Bani Jamra, Evening of April 13

Human Rights Watch documented the beating by Interior Ministry riot police of a group of young protesters, many of them minors, who gathered on the evening of April 13 in the village of Bani Jamra. Some protesters who had evaded arrest and neighboring residents who spoke with Human Rights Watch said that riot police charged a group of protesters who had gathered on the outskirts of the village. The protesters, some of whom had thrown rocks, ran into a house to escape the police.

The riot police chased at least 18 youths to the house and cornered them on the rooftop. Multiple witnesses told Human Rights Watch that police beat the protesters on the rooftop and pushed some off the rooftop and onto the roof of a neighboring house. Human Rights Watch visited the house where the protesters had sought shelter and found some bloodstains on the rooftop. The difference in elevation between the rooftop where the protesters had hidden and where some were allegedly pushed was about three meters. Human Rights Watch also found evidence that riot police had forcibly entered the house where the protesters had sought shelter as well as the neighboring house onto which the protesters had allegedly been thrown.

Witnesses said the police then beat the protesters and dragged them through the main Bani Jamra cemetery to a waiting police bus on the main road. A number of residents in neighboring Bani Jamra homes told Human Rights Watch they heard screams from the young men as they were being dragged. The protesters were taken initially to the Budaiya police station. A number of them were sent from there to a hospital. Human Rights Watch received information that at least two of the protesters were still in the hospital as of April 21. Human Rights Watch visited one of the hospitalized detainees, Sadeq Riad Abbas Khamdan, at Salmaniya hospital; he had a broken arm and a skull fracture.

Human Rights Watch wrote to the Ministry of Human Rights as well as officials in the Interior Ministry on April 18 to inquire about the case. No response has been received.

Ill-Treatment and Torture at Informal Detention Facilities

Mohammed and Ali, both 20, who are not identified by their real names for their security, described their ordeal when riot police detained them and three others at a protest in Sanabis on February 11 and transferred them to a youth hostel that had been transformed into an informal police facility. They said police beat them at the moment of arrest and again after placing them in jeeps, slapping them and insulting their Shi`a faith. Mohammed said that after they arrived at the youth hostel, police officers sprinkled water on his stomach and threatened him and other detainees with electric shock. Ali described what happened after he was taken outdoors:

I had lost my shoes and could feel grass beneath my feet. With my hands cuffed behind my back, they made me kneel and bend over and they started kicking me and beating me with sticks. Someone said: “Finished.” Another voice said: “Too early, continue.” They then removed all my clothes, apart from the tee shirt that they had turned on my head, and laughed at me. They then put my pants back on and asked me to pray. As I leaned forward, I and the other prisoner were kicked from behind and we fell forward into a swimming pool, still with hands cuffed. The pool was shallow, so I was able to stand but the water was cold – it was a particularly chilly evening. When I fell into the pool, my tee shirt hood came down and I could see policemen standing around the pool.

Ali said police pulled him out of the pool by his hair and beat him again, on his forearms and knees, with sticks. Human Rights Watch reviewed satellite imagery of the Youth Hostel facility and can confirm that there is a pool in its confines.

A 19-year old protester from Sar village, who asked that his name not be used, described the beating he endured on April 5 at the police force equestrian school, locally referred to as Khayyala, near the police station in Budaiya:

I ran away as the police came to disperse the protest in Sar. The police found me in the house I had taken shelter in and beat me. Then they put me in their jeep. While driving, they would beat me, insult me, and hit me with their helmets. They had taken three of us from the protest. One they simply beat and released immediately, but they took me and the other to the horse stable facing the police station in Budaiya. Once we entered the horse stable, they put us in the square and three or four of them started beating me. Later in the evening, they transferred me to the police station in Budaiya where an officer on the first floor interrogated me. During the interrogation, the officer asked me to work with them and tell them where they can find the Molotov cocktails in the village. If I did not cooperate, he said that “I will see.” I told them that I am a student and did not want to work for them.

The police later released him.

Human Rights Watch interviewed two other former detainees who said they had been beaten in October 2011 at the Khayyala facility. One of them, Ibrahim (not his real name), 17, said that riot police drove him to the Khayyala facility on October 29, 2011 and held him there for about two hours until they transferred him to Budaiya police station:

When we got there [Khayyala], they made us stand on a wall. A police officer asked me if I wanted water. I told him yes. And he threw water on my back. Four or five men then started beating me. After around 15 minutes, they let three others who were with me go, but kept kicking me. They said they were playing Barcelona against Real Madrid, and would kick me as if I was the ball. When I was taken to police station, they told me I must confess and threatened to beat me again. I confessed to throwing rocks and blocking roads.

Khaled and Ahmad (not their real names), both 16, told Human Rights Watch riot police picked them up from a street in their village of Deir at around 5:30 p.m. on April 17. They were taken to an empty lot where they were both severely beaten and threatened, they said. Ali recounted his experience:

There was no protest, nothing going on in the village. Three of us were just walking on the street. Suddenly we saw eight police cars driving on the street in our direction. We panicked and started running away. I had been beaten twice before by the police. One of us managed to escape but the riot police caught up with Ibrahim and me. They threw a sound bomb next to us and told us to stop or they would use a pellet shotgun against us.

As soon as they caught up with us, they started beating us. They then took us to their cars, while beating us along the way. When I tried to explain that we did nothing, one of the policemen slapped me hard. Once inside the jeep, one of the policemen loaded his rubber ball riot shot gun and put it to my head. He threatened to use it if I didn’t tell him where the Molotov cocktails were. He then pulled out his pistol and asked the same question. An officer told him to stop it. They threatened to take us to the Youth Hostel and to beat us there. But in fact, they took us to an empty lot near the village. In the car, they beat us with some sort of metal stick. They kept saying, tell us where the Molotov cocktails are and we will stop. We did not know, but they would not stop.

When they got to the empty lot, Khaled said, both he and Ahmad were beaten severely. Ahmad said one policeman held his head, while the other kicked him on his face. The metal tip of the boot cut his forehead just above his eye. The policemen then made them lie on the ground and left them in the empty lot. The wounds on their backs and on Ahmad’s face were clearly visible when Human Rights Watch interviewed them on April 18.

Cairo 29 April 2012

Nineteen lawyers interested in issues of freedom of opinion and expression enjoyed the fourth training organized by ANHRI in the context of its series of workshops for activists, bloggers, journalists and lawyers to raise their professional awareness and legal experience supporting them to act more efficient and safe. The fourth training aimed lawyers and consisted of four sessions:

The first session dealt with “guarantees of the lawyer’s rights during investigations and trials,” lectured by Professor Ali Soliman, the lawyer who address the most important points for a lawyer to be aware of during his presence in the investigations or trials.

The second session was titled “human rights movement, the origin and the application of international conventions on local ones” and lectured by the lawyer and human rights activist, Mahmoud Qandil who addressed to the history of Arab human rights movements and how much it is connected to and influenced by international conventions explaining also how much applicable and powerful are local legislations concerning human rights agreements signed by Arab countries.

The third session entitled “Issues of freedom of expression and defense based on international conventions and local laws” was lectured by the lawyer and human rights activist Taher Abu El Nasr who explained a wide practical view on how the process of defense in freedom of opinion and expression and publication cases can be based on and backed by both international conventions and local laws.

The fourth and last session which was entitled “Observing trials and fair trial standards” was lectured by the lawyer at ANHRI Mohamed Mahmoud who addressed the conditions must be followed in a fair trial and how the lawyer can monitor any violation of the standards of fair trials.

By the conclusion of this training ANHRI ended its series of workshops started on 25 February 2012.

• ANHRI ends its training “Freedom of expression between local and international conventions”
• The Arabic Network ends its third training for the media workers
• ANHRI finishes training course on “Law and Freedom of Expression on the Internet”

 Also available in : العربية

Last year, a lawyer filed two religious Hesba cases against Imam, accusing him of contempt for Islam. Imam was the only defendant in one of the two cases, and Al-Haram Misdemeanors Court sentenced him to three months in prison and a bail of 200 pounds.

Agouza Misdemeanors Court deliberated the second case filed against Imam and the directors and writers of his films and acts. On 26 April, the Court declined the lawsuit and obliged the litigator to pay the expensses and attorney’s fees.

“One of the fundamentals of any democratic society is to provide its own creative citizens with the freedom to critisize their society and highlight the cons they see from their prespective, without being exposed to any legal threats. This Court’s ruling is a victory for freedom of expression and creativity which shuts the door against such religious and political fame seekers who wish to impose their censorship on opinions and the artistic creativity,” said ANHRI.

“The Egyptian state with all its institutions should stand up against Hesba Cases and their threat to freedom of expression and creativity by amending the relevant laws and legislations which allow a room for the manipulation of “the right to litigate” to sue artists and writers before criminal courts on the grounds of their artistic works in cases filed in good or bad faith,” added ANHRI.

ANHRI affirms that this ruling increases our confidence in winning an acquittal before Al-Haram Appealed Misdemeanors Court and repealing the primary sentence of imprisonment and a fine against Adel Imam.

 For more information :

Egypt: Imprisonment sentence against actor upheld

In a hearing on Monday lasting just a few minutes, the Court of Cassation in Manama, Bahrain postponed the appeal until 30 April, apparently without giving any reason for the decision. This is the second postponement since the court started considering the case on 2 April.

The postponement comes after a protester died over the weekend during mass street demonstrations as the island kingdom hosted the Formula 1 Grand Prix – an investigation into his death has been opened.

“The Bahrain authorities’ delay tactics are toying with the life of Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, who is on death’s doorstep as he enters his 75th day on hunger strike,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Middle East and North Africa Director at Amnesty International.

“He and the 13 other defendants in this case are prisoners of conscience, held solely for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of expression amid anti-government protests last year.”

The activist has said he intends to continue his hunger strike until he is released, yet no prospect of release is expected before 30 April, further heightening concerns for his life.

During Monday’s hearing the court was fenced off and surrounded by security, and each defendant could only have their lawyers and one family member present.

None of the 14 defendants were in the court room.

Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, 52, is serving a life sentence for his role in anti-government protests last year. When his family last spoke to him on Sunday night he told them he is happy with his decision to remain on hunger strike and if it kills him, he “will at least be free”.

The hunger striker’s daughter, Zainab Al-Khawaja, was again arrested on Saturday night  during a protest at her father’s ongoing imprisonment. She has been charged with disrupting traffic and insulting an officer and remains in detention.

Her lawyer informed her family that a decision in her case should be reached by Monday night. She has been able to speak to her family while in detention but the phone call was limited to one minute.

“The Grand Prix has come and gone but for the people of Bahrain, the media spotlight has moved on while Bahrain’s authorities have yet to turn the corner on the human rights situation in the country,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui.

Fighting broke out in Kufra on Friday between armed militias after a Tabu man was killed by unidentified assailants. There have been 10 fatalities and more than 30 people injured, say local residents and medical professionals.

“The NTC must step up its efforts to put an end to these clashes which are taking a toll on residents of Kufra,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahroui, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

“It must ensure that the wounded can access medical care without discrimination. If local hospitals are unable to absorb the rising numbers of injured, the most critical cases must be immediately evacuated to facilities where they can receive necessary treatment.”

Residents told Amnesty International that the predominantly Tabu neighbourhood of Qurdufai has been shelled by Arab militias, using anti-aircraft machine guns and mortars. Some also complained about disruptions to the electricity and water supplies.

Aisha Mohamed was killed on Saturday when her home in Qurdufai was shelled, according to local residents.

Medical professionals working at a makeshift clinic in the affected Qurdufai neighbourhood told Amnesty International that they were treating at least eight women and 10 children since the beginning of the violence, mostly for gunshot and shrapnel-related injuries.

A six-year-old girl from the Jaballah Ali family was brought into the clinic on Monday with shrapnel injuries all over her body, after her home in the Qurdufai area had been shelled.

Another clinic in a Tabu neighbourhood, Clinic Libya, is also struggling to cope with rising numbers of wounded, included an elderly woman suffering from shrapnel wounds.

Medical professionals and volunteers in both clinics have complained about severe shortages of medical supplies and trained medical staff, noting that injured Tabus avoided going to the main hospital in Kufra, fearing attacks from Arab militias.

In February, clashes between militias left more than 100 people dead in Kufra before reconciliation efforts and the involvement of the Libyan National Army temporarily put a halt to the violence.

Militias also clashed in the southern city of Sabha in March, leading to more than 150 deaths and 350 injuries according to humanitarian organizations.

During Mu’ammar al-Gaddafi’s rule, members of Libya’s black Tabu community faced state-sanctioned discrimination.

Tabu people have been subjected to forced evictions, arbitrary arrest and detentions. They have often been refused the renewal of their identification documents, driving licences and passports.

Some Tabus say they are still suffering discrimination from Arab communities.

Arab communities in the area have meanwhile accused non-Libyan Tabus from other counties like Chad and Sudan of meddling in the country’s affairs and taking part in the fighting.

(New York) – Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) should amend regulations to eliminate vague and broad prohibitions on who may serve as a government official or become a candidate for election, Human Rights Watch said today. Libya’s first national elections since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi are scheduled for June 2012.

The current regulations prohibit people from holding senior government posts or running for office if they were “known for glorifying” the previous government or they “stood against the February 17 revolution” that overthrew Gaddafi. The standards and procedures to determine whether an individual meets these and a host of other criteria are unclear, Human Rights Watch said.

“After decades of corrupt dictatorship, public officials should meet high standards of integrity,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “But exclusion from public office should be based on concrete and provable claims of wrongdoing, rather than poorly defined connections with the previous government.”

Anyone the NTC or transitional government wishes to bar from public office should be presented with evidence of specific wrongdoing that warrants the exclusion, and given the chance to rebut the charges before a neutral body, Human Rights Watch said.

The government body mandated to vet senior officials and candidates is called the High Commission for the Implementation of the Integrity and Patriotism Standard, created on April 4 by NTC Regulation No. 26. The NTC appoints the commission’s chair – currently Hilal Ezzedin Sanussi – and its members.

The Integrity and Patriotism Commission, as it is known, vets candidates for the elections as well as NTC and transitional government members, senior security officials, ambassadors, heads of government institutions and companies, heads of universities, and heads of unions.

The commission is required to vet people seeking top government posts within 21 days of receiving a filled-out questionnaire, curriculum vitae, and financial disclosure statement.  What happens if the commission does not complete a review within that time is unclear. Under the regulation, the commission may conduct investigations, but the parameters of those investigations are not specified.

It is also unclear if the vetting applies retroactively to people currently holding senior positions in the NTC or transitional government.

People rejected by the vetting commission may appeal to an appeals court within 10 days, and a judge must issue a final ruling within 21 days after the appeal has been filed.

The commission has an expedited procedure for people wishing to run in the June elections. The commission has five days to review these applications and, under an amendment to the electoral law passed on April 17, the court must review an appeal within five days of its submission.

NTC Regulation 26 says the commission will have procedural rules, but those rules have not been made public. Without clear operating guidelines for the commission, the process of vetting and reviewing appeals remains disturbingly vague, Human Rights Watch said.

“It is terribly unclear how the vetting commission will decide who can and cannot participate in the new Libya’s political life,” Whitson said. “Clear criteria and transparency are needed to make sure the process is democratic and based on principles of law.”

NTC Regulation 26 also presents the criteria that individuals must meet to hold public office. It says that people may hold senior posts – including ministers, ambassadors, heads of security and military agencies, and officials in the Interior and Foreign Ministries – if proven without doubt that they “joined the February 17 Revolution before March 20, 2011.” The definition of “joined” is not specified.

According to the regulation, under no circumstances may people in the following categories, among others, hold public office in Libya:

• Members or commanders of the Revolutionary Guards;
• Members of the Revolutionary Committees;
• Student association directors after 1976;
• Those who were “known for glorifying the regime of Muammar Gaddafi or his call for the ideas of the Green Book [Gaddafi’s political philosophy], whether through various media or public speeches;”
• Those who “stood against the February 17 Revolution” by means of incitement, aid, or collusion;
• Those who were convicted of corruption or stealing public funds;
• Those who participated in any capacity in the imprisonment and torture of Libyans during the rule of the former regime;
• Those who committed or participated in hostile acts against Libyans in the opposition, whether abroad or in Libya;
• Those who seized private property or participated in seizing property during the previous regime;
• Those who were involved in stealing public funds or enriched themselves on behalf of the Libyan population, or who accumulated wealth in Libya or abroad in an illegal manner;
• Those who had commercial dealings with the sons of Muammar Gaddafi or his close associates;
• Those who formerly held positions of leadership that directly related to the sons of Muammar Gaddafi, and their institutions;
• Recipients of awards or money from the former regime by illegal means;
• Those who obtained an academic degree on a subject related to the Gaddafi’s Green Book or Third Universal Theory.

Excluding candidates for elections on vague and overbroad grounds violates international standards for free and fair election, Human Rights Watch said.

As a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Libya is obligated to allow its citizens equal opportunity to compete as candidates in an election, without being subject to “unreasonable restrictions.” The covenant requires that elections guarantee the “free expression of the will of the electors.”

The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, also ratified by Libya, requires states to ensure that every citizen has the right to participate freely in the government of the country.

In determining eligibility to hold positions of political authority, Human Rights Watch called on the Libyan government to:

• Refrain from basing judgments on eligibility solely on past or present associations. In the case of affiliations with government bodies or organizations considered to have acted in a criminal, corrupt, or repressive manner, the authorities should require clear and convincing evidence that the person knowingly and actively furthered criminal practices of the government body or organization;
• Provide anyone facing such charges with the evidence against them and a fair hearing before an impartial tribunal, and the right to appeal the tribunal’s decision to the regularly constituted courts;
• Establish accountability measures for past crimes of corruption or involvement in human rights abuses through a transitional justice process that comprehensively addresses longstanding abusive practices transparently and fairly.

On April 16, 2012, Evin prison authorities informed Yazdi through his bail bondsman that he had 20 days to surrender to serve the sentence, imposed on December 11, 2011, by a revolutionary court in Tehran on national security charges. Authorities had arrested Yazdi three times after the disputed 2009 presidential election and held him in pretrial detention for months, which included solitary confinement. They later released him for medical treatment.

“Yazdi’s prosecution is emblematic of the government’s utter lack of tolerance toward any opposition,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Authorities haven’t provided any evidence that Yazdi, one of the country’s most prominent political leaders, has done anything but run an opposition party and speak out against the government – actions that should never subject him to prosecution in Iran or anywhere else.”

Human Rights Watch called on Iran’s judiciary to quash Yazdi’s sentence and immediately free all members of his Freedom Movement party who are serving prison terms because of their exercise of their right to freedom of association, or of other political rights.

Yazdi was one of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s closest confidantes during the country’s Islamic revolution and accompanied him during his triumphant return to Tehran in February 1979. Yazdi briefly served as deputy prime minister and foreign minister, and was one of the earliest members of the Islamic Revolutionary Council set up by Khomeini to run Iran’s internal affairs after the revolution and prior to the establishment of a permanent government. He was one of the earliest members of the Freedom Movement party, which was founded by former Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan and several others in 1961.

Yazdi’s conviction in Branch 15 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court was on charges including “assembly and collusion against national security,” “propaganda against the regime,” and “establishing and leading the Freedom Movement party.” The court also barred him from participating in any political activities for five years.

Yazdi refused to acknowledge the validity of the charges against him and did not offer a defense in court, his son told Human Rights Watch. Yazdi’s son said that authorities had summoned his father to prison despite earlier assurances to his father’s lawyer, Mohammad Ali-Dadkhah, that the judiciary had not yet reached a final ruling on the case. Yazdi’s family believes that the appellate court affirmed the lower court’s ruling in recent days, but had not properly informed Yazdi or his lawyer of the decision.

The Freedom Movement party, of which Yazdi was secretary-general, has been increasingly critical of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Security and intelligence forces intensified their targeting of the party and its members following the 2009 presidential election by summoning and arresting several of its members, including Yazdi. As a result of mounting pressures, the party decided to suspend its activities. In March 2011, simultaneous with his release from jail on bail, the authorities announced that Yazdi was stepping down as secretary-general of the party. According to his son, authorities forced Yazdi to do so under extreme pressure.

According to information received by Human Rights Watch, five Freedom Movement members are currently serving prison terms. They are Amir Khorram, a central committee member serving a six-year sentence; Emad Bahavar, head of the youth branch, serving a 10-year sentence; Mohsen Mohagheghi, central committee member, serving a four-year sentence; Mohammad Farid Taheri-Ghazvini, serving a three-year sentence; and Mohammad Tavassoli, head of the political office, currently in pretrial detention. Yazdi’s son told Human Rights Watch that Tavassoli is in poor health and his family is worried about his continued detention under isolation and harsh conditions.

In addition to Yadzi, seven other members of the party are free on bail and are either awaiting appeal verdicts or orders to surrender for prison terms. They are Mehdi Motamedi-Mehr, head of the educational committee, sentenced to five years’ imprisonment; Solmaz Alimoradi, education committee member, sentenced to 18 months in prison; Sara Tavassoli, sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment; Hashem Sabaghian; Mohammad Bani-Asadi; Khosro Ghashghaei; and Mahmoud Naimpour.

Yazdi is one of several dozen opposition members and political activists who have been tried, convicted, and sentenced, or detained by Iranian authorities since the 2009 presidential election. The Interior Ministry’s Article 10 Commission, which registers and oversees the activities of political parties, has brought a series of complaints against opposition parties, many of which are aligned with Iran’s reformist movement, in an effort to disband them. On September 27, 2010, for example, the general prosecutor and judiciary spokesman announced a court order dissolving the reformist Islamic Iran Participation Front and the Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution.

Iran’s current political parties law allows the Interior Ministry and the judiciary great discretion to regulate the activities of registered parties. Article 14 of the law requires groups applying for permits to “directly express their allegiance to the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” and article 16 allows officials to revoke a party’s registration if members engage in actions that “damag[e] national unity,” “damag[e] Islamic principles and the fundamentals of the Islamic Republic,” or promote “anti-Islamic propaganda.” The law requires, however, that courts issue final verdicts regarding registration disputes pursuant to article 168 of the Iranian Constitution, which calls for all political and press offenses to be tried by a jury.

Human Rights Watch is not aware of any cases, including Yazdi’s, which have been tried in the presence of juries.

Authorities have held the opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Zahra Rahnavard, as well as Mehdi Karroubi, under house arrest since they called for demonstrations in February 2011 in support of the wide-scale protests following the 2009 election. On April 24, 2012, the reformist and anti-government website Kalame.com reported that for more than two weeks “the families of Mr. Mousavi and Zahra Rahnavard have absolutely no information regarding their condition.”

“Trying Saudi political activists as terrorists merely because they question abuses of government power demonstrates the lengths the Saudi government will go to suppress dissent,” said Christoph Wilcke, senior Middle East researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The trial of peaceful reformers in a terrorism court underlines the political nature of this court.”

The charges against the rights activist and the dissident do not allege that they used or propagated violence.

On April 10, 2012, Judge Abd al-Latif al-Abd al-Latif sentenced Muhammad al-Bajadi to four years in prison and banned him from foreign travel for another five years. The court charged al-Bajadi, who has been on a hunger strike since March 11, with unlawfully establishing a human rights organization; distorting the state’s reputation in media; impugning judicial independence; instigating relatives of political detainees to demonstrate and protest; and possessing censored books.

On April 11, 2012, the court also sentenced Yusuf al-Ahmad, an academic and cleric, to five months in prison for “incitement against the ruler, stoking divisions, harming the national fabric, diminishing the prestige of the state and its security and judicial institutions, and producing, storing, and publishing on the internet things that can disturb public order.”

On July 7, al-Ahmad published a video on his Twitter account in which he called on King Abdullah to release arbitrarily detained persons. Security forces arrested him the next day. Domestic intelligence agents arrested al-Bajadi on March 20, when several dozen families of detainees had gathered in front of the Interior Ministry in Riyadh to press officials for the release of their relatives, some of whom had been detained for seven or more years without trial. Al-Bajadi is a founding member of the Saudi Association for Civil and Political Rights (ACPRA), which the government has not licensed.

On February 22, 2012, the Specialized Criminal Court began the trial of Khalid al-Juhani, who spoke to international journalists on the designated Saudi Day of Rage of March 11, 2011, to which only a handful of protesters showed up, in part because of heavy police presence. The Interior Ministry, on March 5, 2011, reiterated its ban on public protests. Al-Juhani demanded democracy and freedom of speech in his interview with the BBC, and was immediately arrested and has been detained ever since. He is charged with being present at the place of a prohibited demonstration; distorting the kingdom’s reputation; and being in touch with Sa’d al-Faqih, a Saudi dissident abroad, according to a person familiar with the case who said officials designated the charge sheet “secret.” His second trial session is due to be held at the end of April.

“Given their experience with the real harm caused by terrorist attacks, one would expect Saudi authorities to know the difference between peaceful political speech and acts of violence,” Wilcke said.

Also in February, the court stopped the trial of Sa’id bin Zu’air, a former university professor arrested in 2007, begun about two months earlier, for a long list of charges related to the religious and political positions he had supposedly publicly adopted. A relative of bin Zu’air told Human Rights Watch that the prosecution could not substantiate its claims, which he said were based on statements by fellow prisoners. This is the only time to Human Rights Watch’s knowledge that the court has not convicted a defendant accused before it of crimes related to peaceful expression. Bin Zu’air was released in February.

In December 2011, the court began the trial of Mubarak bin Zu’air, a lawyer and Sa’id’s son, for “encumbering” the affairs of the ruler, not complying with rules and regulations, attending an unlicensed gathering, spreading sedition, and not obeying religious scholars. Mubarak’s arrest came on March 20, 2011, as he was driving to the Interior Ministry to persuade a small crowd gathered there to meet officials to disperse. Mubarak, as the leader of a group of relatives of long-term detainees, had met Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, assistant minister of interior for security affairs, one day earlier to discuss the release or speedy and fair trial of their relatives, and was on his way to deliver Prince bin Nayef’s promises of releases and trials.

Mubarak was released on bail in February 2012, but his trial continues. The same relative told Human Rights Watch, however, that a royal decree had ordered trials of peaceful dissidents to be transferred to regular Sharia (Islamic law) courts away from the Specialized Criminal Court, and that this had occurred with Mubarak’s case.

This order, if it exists, is not being consistently followed, Human Rights Watch said. For example, in March and April, three trials of peaceful dissidents began before the Specialized Criminal Court. Mikhlif al-Shammari is being tried on seven charges: attempting to distort the reputation of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia in foreign public opinion and belonging to suspicious organizations; producing and sending things that can disturb public order and religious values through the internet; stoking divisions and inciting public opinion against various public institutions of the country; doubting and impugning the fairness and integrity of officials in government agencies without sound proof; defaming instructions of religious scholars and describing them as calling for fragmentation, hatred, and takfir (declaring a Muslim an unbeliever) in international television; using his writings, which he claims to be nationalistic, for gain for himself and his tribe and using them to put pressure on the rulers of the country; and lying about belonging to the Human Rights Commission in the Eastern Province. The evidence the prosecution listed for these charges consisted entirely of al-Shammari’s published articles or media interviews, and no claim was made that they incited violence, according to a copy of the charge sheet on file with Human Rights Watch.

Security forces arrested al-Shammari in June 2010, and held him in pretrial detention, initially on the charge of “annoying others,” before his release on bail in February 2012. He received the new charges at his first trial date in March.

In April 2012, the trials against Fadhil al-Manasif, a human rights activist, and Fadhil al-Sulaiman, a religious activist, also began before the Specialized Criminal Court. Al-Sulaiman was arrested in March 2011, for participating in two protests in the Eastern Province’s city of Hofuf where he spoke to the assembled crowd (his defense lawyers claim the prosecution confused the protests – they say he protested at the first, for which the local governor issued an amnesty, and tried to prevent the second).

Continued protests, since February 2011, in the heavily Shia Muslim-inhabited Eastern Province, have called for an end to religious discrimination and equal rights with the Sunni Muslim majority. Al-Sulaiman is now also charged with resisting arrest and breaking the camera of a member of the security forces at one of the protests, which he denies. Shia protesters on several occasions have tried to prevent intelligence forces in the protest crowd from filming protesters, leading a suspected member of the intelligence forces to draw a gun, shoot, and injure three protesters in a peaceful march in Qatif, another Eastern Province city, in March 2011, according to eyewitnesses Human Rights Watch spoke to at the time. Shia activists in Qatif told Human Rights Watch that security forces had made arrests of protesters based on their identification through film material.

Al-Manasif is charged with a long string of nonviolent political offenses, including withdrawing allegiance to the rule, stoking divisions (among the people), inciting public opinion against the state, and disturbing public order by participating in marches. Al-Manasif is also accused of supporting a person on a government-issued list of persons in the Eastern Province wanted for their alleged involvement in riots.

Al-Manasif was arrested on October 2, 2011, but the Interior Ministry published its list of 23 Shia men wanted for alleged acts of violence in relation to the protests only in January 2012. In response, several of the wanted men published detailed accounts online denying the Interior Ministry’s allegations against them.

Al-Manasif’s arrest came after he attempted to speak with the police in Qatif about their detention of two elderly persons, whose sons were wanted for participation in protests. When one of the elderly men collapsed, al-Manasif followed by car the ambulance taking the man to the hospital, and was stopped and arrested at a checkpoint.

“The charges against these peaceful critics are vague, overbroad, and of a political nature,” Wilcke said. “By putting the rulers beyond any form of criticism the charges only serve to underline the lack of tolerance of political dissent.”

Proceedings at the Specialized Criminal Court also violated the right to a fair trial, Human Rights Watch said. The Specialized Criminal Court was established in 2008 by the Supreme Judicial Council to try thousands of terrorism suspects, many of whom had languished in the kingdom’s domestic intelligence jails for years without charge, trial, or prospect of release. It has no statute or other law setting up the court or specifying its jurisdiction that has been made public. Judges are individually selected to sit on a panel constituting the court, housed on one floor of the central Riyadh General Court, but sometimes also travel to other destinations such as Jeddah for hearings.

Saudi Arabia has no written criminal law and prosecutors and judges are free to criminalize any act in accordance with their own interpretation of precepts of Islamic law. The lack of clear and predictable criminal law violates international human rights principles prohibiting arbitrary arrest and guaranteeing fair trials, Human Rights Watch said. Article 11 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “No one shall be held guilty of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed.” International human rights standards also prohibit the criminalization of speech that does not directly incite violence.

Furthermore, defendants do not have adequate means to defend themselves. All defendants were initially kept in incommunicado detention and were unable to meet with their lawyers before the start of a trial. Al-Bajadi wrote in a signed letter, which ACPRA said it received from him in prison, that Judge Abd al-Latif al-Abd al-Latif repeatedly prevented him from appointing a lawyer of his choice.

In August 2011, ACPRA members tried to attend the SCC trial of al-Bajadi, but they initially did not find the court, which was located in an unmarked villa in the Ubhur suburb north of Jeddah. When they arrived, the ACPRA members showed the court their legal power of attorney for the defense of al-Bajadi, but a clerk informed them that the judge refused to recognize their notarized document, claiming instead that al-Bajadi wanted to defend himself. In a telephone call the next day from prison, al-Bajadi informed ACPRA co-founder Muhammad al-Qahtani that he had been sitting blindfolded in a windowless truck outside the court and was not informed that his defense lawyers had come 1,000 kilometers from Riyadh to represent him.

Mubarak bin Zu’air, speaking to Human Rights Watch from his prison cell, said that he was not informed in advance of the start of his trial in December 2011 or of the charges he faced. In court, he said the judge also prevented him from appointing his defense counsel.

The trial of Abd al-‘Aziz al-Wuhaibi, another ACPRA member arrested in February 2011, was held entirely behind closed doors, with the judge denying al-Wuhaibi the right to seek legal assistance to defend himself against politicized charges of disobeying the ruler for attempting to set up the first political party in the kingdom, in February 2011. The court did not supply al-Wuhaibi with a written verdict when he was sentenced to eight years in prison in September 2011. Al-Wuhaibi suffered a mental breakdown and is currently in a military hospital, according to a relative and two persons close to the family.

“If the trials were fair, there would be no reason to close them to the public,” Wilcke said. “But it seems like the authorities are trying to obscure their injustices by hiding the courts, trial dates, and defendants from public vie(Beirut) – Saudi Arabia should abolish the Specialized Criminal Court, set up in 2008 to try terrorism cases, but increasingly used to try peaceful dissidents and rights activists on politicized charges and in proceedings that violate the right to a fair trial, Human Rights Watch said today. In April, it sentenced two people to prison for their peaceful activism, and the trials of at least four others are ongoing, in violation of their rights to freedom of expression.

“Trying Saudi political activists as terrorists merely because they question abuses of government power demonstrates the lengths the Saudi government will go to suppress dissent,” said Christoph Wilcke, senior Middle East researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The trial of peaceful reformers in a terrorism court underlines the political nature of this court.”

The charges against the rights activist and the dissident do not allege that they used or propagated violence.

On April 10, 2012, Judge Abd al-Latif al-Abd al-Latif sentenced Muhammad al-Bajadi to four years in prison and banned him from foreign travel for another five years. The court charged al-Bajadi, who has been on a hunger strike since March 11, with unlawfully establishing a human rights organization; distorting the state’s reputation in media; impugning judicial independence; instigating relatives of political detainees to demonstrate and protest; and possessing censored books.

On April 11, 2012, the court also sentenced Yusuf al-Ahmad, an academic and cleric, to five months in prison for “incitement against the ruler, stoking divisions, harming the national fabric, diminishing the prestige of the state and its security and judicial institutions, and producing, storing, and publishing on the internet things that can disturb public order.”

On July 7, al-Ahmad published a video on his Twitter account in which he called on King Abdullah to release arbitrarily detained persons. Security forces arrested him the next day. Domestic intelligence agents arrested al-Bajadi on March 20, when several dozen families of detainees had gathered in front of the Interior Ministry in Riyadh to press officials for the release of their relatives, some of whom had been detained for seven or more years without trial. Al-Bajadi is a founding member of the Saudi Association for Civil and Political Rights (ACPRA), which the government has not licensed.

On February 22, 2012, the Specialized Criminal Court began the trial of Khalid al-Juhani, who spoke to international journalists on the designated Saudi Day of Rage of March 11, 2011, to which only a handful of protesters showed up, in part because of heavy police presence. The Interior Ministry, on March 5, 2011, reiterated its ban on public protests. Al-Juhani demanded democracy and freedom of speech in his interview with the BBC, and was immediately arrested and has been detained ever since. He is charged with being present at the place of a prohibited demonstration; distorting the kingdom’s reputation; and being in touch with Sa’d al-Faqih, a Saudi dissident abroad, according to a person familiar with the case who said officials designated the charge sheet “secret.” His second trial session is due to be held at the end of April.

“Given their experience with the real harm caused by terrorist attacks, one would expect Saudi authorities to know the difference between peaceful political speech and acts of violence,” Wilcke said.

Also in February, the court stopped the trial of Sa’id bin Zu’air, a former university professor arrested in 2007, begun about two months earlier, for a long list of charges related to the religious and political positions he had supposedly publicly adopted. A relative of bin Zu’air told Human Rights Watch that the prosecution could not substantiate its claims, which he said were based on statements by fellow prisoners. This is the only time to Human Rights Watch’s knowledge that the court has not convicted a defendant accused before it of crimes related to peaceful expression. Bin Zu’air was released in February.

In December 2011, the court began the trial of Mubarak bin Zu’air, a lawyer and Sa’id’s son, for “encumbering” the affairs of the ruler, not complying with rules and regulations, attending an unlicensed gathering, spreading sedition, and not obeying religious scholars. Mubarak’s arrest came on March 20, 2011, as he was driving to the Interior Ministry to persuade a small crowd gathered there to meet officials to disperse. Mubarak, as the leader of a group of relatives of long-term detainees, had met Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, assistant minister of interior for security affairs, one day earlier to discuss the release or speedy and fair trial of their relatives, and was on his way to deliver Prince bin Nayef’s promises of releases and trials.

Mubarak was released on bail in February 2012, but his trial continues. The same relative told Human Rights Watch, however, that a royal decree had ordered trials of peaceful dissidents to be transferred to regular Sharia (Islamic law) courts away from the Specialized Criminal Court, and that this had occurred with Mubarak’s case.

This order, if it exists, is not being consistently followed, Human Rights Watch said. For example, in March and April, three trials of peaceful dissidents began before the Specialized Criminal Court. Mikhlif al-Shammari is being tried on seven charges: attempting to distort the reputation of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia in foreign public opinion and belonging to suspicious organizations; producing and sending things that can disturb public order and religious values through the internet; stoking divisions and inciting public opinion against various public institutions of the country; doubting and impugning the fairness and integrity of officials in government agencies without sound proof; defaming instructions of religious scholars and describing them as calling for fragmentation, hatred, and takfir (declaring a Muslim an unbeliever) in international television; using his writings, which he claims to be nationalistic, for gain for himself and his tribe and using them to put pressure on the rulers of the country; and lying about belonging to the Human Rights Commission in the Eastern Province. The evidence the prosecution listed for these charges consisted entirely of al-Shammari’s published articles or media interviews, and no claim was made that they incited violence, according to a copy of the charge sheet on file with Human Rights Watch.

Security forces arrested al-Shammari in June 2010, and held him in pretrial detention, initially on the charge of “annoying others,” before his release on bail in February 2012. He received the new charges at his first trial date in March.

In April 2012, the trials against Fadhil al-Manasif, a human rights activist, and Fadhil al-Sulaiman, a religious activist, also began before the Specialized Criminal Court. Al-Sulaiman was arrested in March 2011, for participating in two protests in the Eastern Province’s city of Hofuf where he spoke to the assembled crowd (his defense lawyers claim the prosecution confused the protests – they say he protested at the first, for which the local governor issued an amnesty, and tried to prevent the second).

Continued protests, since February 2011, in the heavily Shia Muslim-inhabited Eastern Province, have called for an end to religious discrimination and equal rights with the Sunni Muslim majority. Al-Sulaiman is now also charged with resisting arrest and breaking the camera of a member of the security forces at one of the protests, which he denies. Shia protesters on several occasions have tried to prevent intelligence forces in the protest crowd from filming protesters, leading a suspected member of the intelligence forces to draw a gun, shoot, and injure three protesters in a peaceful march in Qatif, another Eastern Province city, in March 2011, according to eyewitnesses Human Rights Watch spoke to at the time. Shia activists in Qatif told Human Rights Watch that security forces had made arrests of protesters based on their identification through film material.

Al-Manasif is charged with a long string of nonviolent political offenses, including withdrawing allegiance to the rule, stoking divisions (among the people), inciting public opinion against the state, and disturbing public order by participating in marches. Al-Manasif is also accused of supporting a person on a government-issued list of persons in the Eastern Province wanted for their alleged involvement in riots.

Al-Manasif was arrested on October 2, 2011, but the Interior Ministry published its list of 23 Shia men wanted for alleged acts of violence in relation to the protests only in January 2012. In response, several of the wanted men published detailed accounts online denying the Interior Ministry’s allegations against them.

Al-Manasif’s arrest came after he attempted to speak with the police in Qatif about their detention of two elderly persons, whose sons were wanted for participation in protests. When one of the elderly men collapsed, al-Manasif followed by car the ambulance taking the man to the hospital, and was stopped and arrested at a checkpoint.

“The charges against these peaceful critics are vague, overbroad, and of a political nature,” Wilcke said. “By putting the rulers beyond any form of criticism the charges only serve to underline the lack of tolerance of political dissent.”

Proceedings at the Specialized Criminal Court also violated the right to a fair trial, Human Rights Watch said. The Specialized Criminal Court was established in 2008 by the Supreme Judicial Council to try thousands of terrorism suspects, many of whom had languished in the kingdom’s domestic intelligence jails for years without charge, trial, or prospect of release. It has no statute or other law setting up the court or specifying its jurisdiction that has been made public. Judges are individually selected to sit on a panel constituting the court, housed on one floor of the central Riyadh General Court, but sometimes also travel to other destinations such as Jeddah for hearings.

Saudi Arabia has no written criminal law and prosecutors and judges are free to criminalize any act in accordance with their own interpretation of precepts of Islamic law. The lack of clear and predictable criminal law violates international human rights principles prohibiting arbitrary arrest and guaranteeing fair trials, Human Rights Watch said. Article 11 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “No one shall be held guilty of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed.” International human rights standards also prohibit the criminalization of speech that does not directly incite violence.

Furthermore, defendants do not have adequate means to defend themselves. All defendants were initially kept in incommunicado detention and were unable to meet with their lawyers before the start of a trial. Al-Bajadi wrote in a signed letter, which ACPRA said it received from him in prison, that Judge Abd al-Latif al-Abd al-Latif repeatedly prevented him from appointing a lawyer of his choice.

In August 2011, ACPRA members tried to attend the SCC trial of al-Bajadi, but they initially did not find the court, which was located in an unmarked villa in the Ubhur suburb north of Jeddah. When they arrived, the ACPRA members showed the court their legal power of attorney for the defense of al-Bajadi, but a clerk informed them that the judge refused to recognize their notarized document, claiming instead that al-Bajadi wanted to defend himself. In a telephone call the next day from prison, al-Bajadi informed ACPRA co-founder Muhammad al-Qahtani that he had been sitting blindfolded in a windowless truck outside the court and was not informed that his defense lawyers had come 1,000 kilometers from Riyadh to represent him.

Mubarak bin Zu’air, speaking to Human Rights Watch from his prison cell, said that he was not informed in advance of the start of his trial in December 2011 or of the charges he faced. In court, he said the judge also prevented him from appointing his defense counsel.

The trial of Abd al-‘Aziz al-Wuhaibi, another ACPRA member arrested in February 2011, was held entirely behind closed doors, with the judge denying al-Wuhaibi the right to seek legal assistance to defend himself against politicized charges of disobeying the ruler for attempting to set up the first political party in the kingdom, in February 2011. The court did not supply al-Wuhaibi with a written verdict when he was sentenced to eight years in prison in September 2011. Al-Wuhaibi suffered a mental breakdown and is currently in a military hospital, according to a relative and two persons close to the family.

“If the trials were fair, there would be no reason to close them to the public,” Wilcke said. “But it seems like the authorities are trying to obscure their injustices by hiding the courts, trial dates, and defendants from public view.”

Lawyers were in attendance for the initial trial sessions of Fadhil al-Sulaiman and Khalid al-Juhani, lawyers and relatives told Human Rights Watch.

Articles 4 and 70 of the Saudi Law of Criminal Procedure guarantee the accused the right to seek a lawyer at all stages of investigation and trial, and prohibit officials from restricting access to the lawyer. Saudi Arabia is a party to the Arab Charter of Human Rights whose article 16(d) also guarantees that right. Article 13 of the Charter guarantees the right to a fair trial. The Charter furthermore guarantees the right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly (articles 26, 27, and 29).

Human Rights Watch opposes all special courts for so-called national security crimes because they frequently try peaceful dissidents on politicized charges and in unfair proceedings.

A number of other dissidents have remained in detention for prolonged periods without referral to court, in violation of article 114 of the Law of Criminal Procedure, which mandates the release of a defendant unless the trial begins within six months of detention.

Tawfiq al-‘Amir, a Shia activist, was arrested in August 2011 for calling for a constitutional monarchy. On April 17, 2012, Nadhir al-Majid completed one year in pretrial detention on charges of corresponding with a foreign journalist, taking part in demonstrations, and vague charges related to his published writings critical of Shia religious doctrine over the past seven years, according to al-Majid’s wife. His trial has not yet begun.

On March 4, security forces arrested Muhammad al-Wad’ani as he protested silently, holding up a placard at a Riyadh mosque. In a late February YouTube video, al-Wad’ani had spoken about his demands for democracy and an end to the rule of the Saud family. No further information about his fate was available.

“It is time Saudi Arabia stopped politicized persecution of peaceful dissidents through the courts and respected its own laws on court proceedings and international human rights obligations,” Wilcke said.
w.”

Lawyers were in attendance for the initial trial sessions of Fadhil al-Sulaiman and Khalid al-Juhani, lawyers and relatives told Human Rights Watch.

Articles 4 and 70 of the Saudi Law of Criminal Procedure guarantee the accused the right to seek a lawyer at all stages of investigation and trial, and prohibit officials from restricting access to the lawyer. Saudi Arabia is a party to the Arab Charter of Human Rights whose article 16(d) also guarantees that right. Article 13 of the Charter guarantees the right to a fair trial. The Charter furthermore guarantees the right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly (articles 26, 27, and 29).

Human Rights Watch opposes all special courts for so-called national security crimes because they frequently try peaceful dissidents on politicized charges and in unfair proceedings.

A number of other dissidents have remained in detention for prolonged periods without referral to court, in violation of article 114 of the Law of Criminal Procedure, which mandates the release of a defendant unless the trial begins within six months of detention.

Tawfiq al-‘Amir, a Shia activist, was arrested in August 2011 for calling for a constitutional monarchy. On April 17, 2012, Nadhir al-Majid completed one year in pretrial detention on charges of corresponding with a foreign journalist, taking part in demonstrations, and vague charges related to his published writings critical of Shia religious doctrine over the past seven years, according to al-Majid’s wife. His trial has not yet begun.

On March 4, security forces arrested Muhammad al-Wad’ani as he protested silently, holding up a placard at a Riyadh mosque. In a late February YouTube video, al-Wad’ani had spoken about his demands for democracy and an end to the rule of the Saud family. No further information about his fate was available.

“It is time Saudi Arabia stopped politicized persecution of peaceful dissidents through the courts and respected its own laws on court proceedings and international human rights obligations,” Wilcke said.

(Beirut) – The charges by Jordan’s military prosecutor against a journalist and publisher of a news website apparently violate their free speech rights, Human Rights Watch said today. The two were charged on April 23, 2012, with “subverting the system of government” for an article concerning the king’s supposed intervention in a corruption investigation.

The case is the fifth time in 2012 that peaceful critics have faced charges for speech offenses, a pattern that undermines the credibility of Jordan’s reform efforts, Human Rights Watch said.

“Jordan cannot claim to be making democratic reforms while prosecutors hunt down journalists doing their job,” said Christoph Wilcke, senior Middle East researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Jordan’s parliament should eliminate penal code articles that punish nonviolent speech offenses, and in the meantime, authorities should instruct prosecutors to stop bringing charges under those articles.”

In an April 23 article, the Gerasa News website cited one member of parliament as saying that King Abdullah issued instructions to members of a parliamentary committee not to refer a former minister to court on corruption charges. The committee is investigating possible corruption in relation to a public housing development on the part of Sahl al-Majali, housing minister in the 2007-2009 cabinet of Prime Minister Nader al-Dhahabi. The committee’s decision would be the first step in bringing charges against al-Majali.

Late on April 23, Ali al-Mubaidhin, military prosecutor at the State Security Court, summoned Sahar al-Muhtasab, the article’s author and the website’s parliamentary affairs correspondent, and her brother Jamal al-Muhtasab, Gerasa News’s publisher, for investigation, Sahar al-Muhtasab told Human Rights Watch.

She told Human Rights Watch that the prosecutor interviewed her and her brother separately, focusing exclusively on her article, “Parliamentarian Claims There Are Royal Instructions To Find al-Majali Not Guilty over Decent Housing Case.” The prosecutor told them that King Abdullah was at the forefront of the fight against corruption and that it was forbidden to imply otherwise, she said.

The prosecutor then charged both of them with “subverting the system of government in the kingdom,” a crime that article 149 of Jordan’s penal code punishes with hard labor. The August 29, 2010 Law on Information System Crimes extends provisions of the penal code to online publications.

The news article makes no mention of Jordan’s system of government and does not advocate violence.

Sahar al-Muhtasab was released on 5,000 jordanian dinars’ (roughly US$ 7,000) bail, but the prosecutor ordered her brother detained without bail for 14 days at Balqa’ Correction and Rehabilitation Center, a prison in the city of Salt, west of Amman, where he remains.

Sahar al-Muhtasab said that neither she nor her brother  were able to have lawyers present during the interrogation, but that the Center for Defending Freedom of Journalists, a Jordanian nongovernmental organization, had arranged on April 24 for legal counsel to represent her and her brother free of charge.

The State Security Court is a special court that is not independent. The prime minister appoints its military and civilian judges, who have traditionally sat in panels of two military judges and one civilian judge. The court has jurisdiction over penal code crimes that are deemed to harm Jordan’s internal and external security – including offenses related to peaceful speech – in addition to crimes involving drugs, explosives, weapons, espionage, and high treason.

In 2007, the government issued a Press and Publications Law that cancelled prison sentences but increased fines for content violations of that law such as not adhering to “Islamic values” or failing to be “objective.” However, successive Jordanian governments have made no attempt to reform articles of the penal code that criminalize free speech and that also apply to journalists, Human Rights Watch said. In 2010, a reform of the penal code increased penalties for some speech offenses.

The al-Muhtasab case is the latest in a series in which people have faced charges for speech or demonstrations deemed critical of the government.

On April 1, the State Security Court prosecutor charged 13 people who took part in a March 31 demonstration in Amman with subverting the system of government, insulting the king, and unlawful assembly. The State Security Court prosecutor also charged six protesters over demonstrations in March in Tafila, a southern town, with subverting the system of government, insulting the king, and unlawful assembly. King Abdullah pardoned both groups on April 15, after the first group began a hunger strike.

On February 2, the State Security Court prosecutor charged Ahmad Oweidi al-‘Abbadi, a former member of parliament and head of the Jordan National Movement, with subverting the system of government over televised comments he made on January 18 advocating a republican form of government. He was released on bail later in February. The Jordan National Movement is a political opposition group.

On January 12, the State Security Court prosecutor charged Uday Abu Issa with “undermining his majesty’s dignity” for burning a poster of King Abdullah a day earlier in Madaba, south of Amman. The court convicted Abu Issa, but King Abdullah pardoned him in February after he began a hunger strike.

“Jordan’s talk of reform is meaningless as long as the law deprives citizens of meeting and speaking freely, especially about politics and their leaders,” Wilcke said. “With five prosecutions for nonviolent speech in 2012, the kingdom risks earning a reputation for repression and intolerance.”

Cairo, 24 April 2012

ANHRI denounces the ruling of Haram Misdemeanors Court upholding the in absentia imprisonment sentence against the actor Adel Imam. This is a new Hesba case (litigation filed by private parties in the name of protecting state interests) which was filed by a lawyer accusing Imam of contempt for Islam in some of his works that allegedly ridicule Islamists and the Islamic religion, such as the films al-Irhab wal Kabab (Terrorism and Kebabs), Toyour al-Zalam (Birds of darkness), and Morgan Ahmed Morgan.

Earlier this year, Haram Misdemeanor Court had sentenced Imam in absentia to three months imprisonment and labour, as well as a bail of one hundred pounds and a civil reparation of fifty one pounds. Misdemeanour case No. 24215 of 2011 was filed by Esran Mansour, lawyer, against Imam without having any capacity or interest in this litigation. Hence, it is another case added to the list of political and religious Hesba litigation. On 24 April, the same court upheld the in absentia sentence.

“This sentence is a regrettable setback of freedom of expression and freedom of creativity. It leaves the door wide open for fame seekers who have no capacity or interest to file more religious and political Hesba cases and impose a new kind of censorship on creativity, other than that laid out in the law. We were hoping that the Egyptian judiciary would be the protector of freedoms that repels this kind of censorship,” said ANHRI.

“The Egyptian law and regulations governing the film industry identify the channels through which a film has to go before being screened to the public. These works had already been approved by the Control Board which allowed their filming. The Egyptian TV has screened them for over 15 years. It is illogical that the judiciary penalizes those who made them now, despite passing through all these stages,” added ANHRI.

ANHRI affirms that it will take part in the defense team of Imam and appeal the sentence before the Appealed Misdemeanours Court and will get him acquitted, especially that there is a great deal of sentences that are issued in primary levelled courts are repealed due to legal errors.

 9/  4/ 2012 –  16/ 4 / 2012
8^th year

Egypt

Deportation of Bahraini activist Nabeel Rajab from Cairo Airport

ANHRI denounced today what was done by the security authorities of the Cairo International Airport on Wednesday 11 April when in a repressive not justified act security prevented the Bahraini human rights activist Nabeel Rajab from entering Egypt and deported him back to Bahrain claiming his name to be in a list of banned persons from entering Egypt.

Rajab, the Director of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights traveled to Cairo invited by the Cairo Center for Human Rights Studies to attend a number of events and activities about the ongoing violations of human rights in Bahrain in the presence of a number of representatives of international human rights organizations, however, he was surprised after his arrival at Cairo airport that he is prohibited from entering, and on this base was deported back to Bahrain, after the failure of many attempts by lawyers and activists.

Source: ANHRI

For more information about Egypt: http://www.anhri.net/en/?s=egypt

Bahrain

Jailed Bahraini activist Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja’s life in danger
The Bahraini authorities must immediately and unconditionally release a prominent human rights activist whose health is rapidly deteriorating as he passes his 60th day of hunger strike, Amnesty International said today.

Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, 52, who is serving a life sentence for his role in anti-government protests last year, has been denied visits by his family and lawyer in the past four days. He has been on hunger strike for 62 days in protest at his unfair imprisonment.

Amnesty International considers Al-Khawaja and 13 other prominent opposition activists held with him to be prisoners of conscience, held solely for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and assembly, and who have not advocated violence.

“These 14 men should all be immediately and unconditionally released – but instead the Court of Cassation has adjourned their appeal and denied them bail,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Middle East and North Africa Programme Director at Amnesty International.

“In the case of Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, this delay will have potentially disastrous consequences for his health, which continues to deteriorate as a result of his hunger strike. We hold the Bahraini authorities responsible for his situation.”

“Their single-minded determination to persecute him seems to override any consideration for justice or humanity.”

“At the very least, the authorities must immediately allow Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja’s family and lawyer to visit him.”

Source: AMNESTY

For more information about Sudan: http://www.anhri.net/en/?s=bahrain

Emirates

A call upon UAE: Release the seven reformers

ANHRI denounces the arrest of six activists, who have had their citizenship revoked by the UAE authorities. The arrests followed their refusal to sign an undertaking to take on another nationality.

An officer of the Immigration and Nationality Service of the Emirates called the six activists on the morning of 9 April to ask them to amend their citizenship status within two weeks and to sign a pledge to adopt another nationality. He went on to state that their presence in the country is now illegal, following the revoking of their citizenship four months ago. Authorities have demanded the six reformists present nationality documents from another country in order to obtain permission to remain in the UAE legally. The six activists refused to sign the undertaking, particularly since there has yet to be an official decision publicly stating that their citizenship has been revoked.

The activists are now detained in Al Shahama prison in Abu Dhabi, after being accused of treason following their signing of a reform petition presented to the ruler of the UAE demanding legislative reforms.

Source: ANHRI

For more information about Jordan: http://www.anhri.net/en/?s=emirates

Sudan

A New strategy to censor the press

Sudanese authorities have a long history of closing newspapers and silencing journalists. But the government security agents who carry out official censorship have launched a new strategy this year that focuses on economic impoverishment–leaving newspapers more vulnerable than ever.

Agents of the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) now raid printing presses and confiscate newspapers on grounds that publications are covering topics barred by the NISS. The agency’s red lines are numerous, changeable, and ungoverned by law or judicial order. The NISS demands, for example, that newspapers abstain from covering the International Criminal Court, government corruption, human rights violations, Darfur, the war in South Kordofan and Blue Nile, armed movements, and many other subjects.

Source: Committee to Protect Journalists

For more information about Jordan: http://www.anhri.net/en/?s=sudan

Kuwait

Writer sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment

ANHRI condemns the sentencing of Kuwaiti writer Mohamed al-Melify to 7 years’ imprisonment and a fine of 18 thousand dollars, on charges of spreading false statements via Twitter. He was arrested by the authorities last February.

The Kuwait Criminal Court on Monday found the writer guilty of spreading false news through his personal Twitter page about sectarian divisions in the country and publishing insults against Shiism in addition to charges of libel and defamation of the MP Ahmed Lari. Al-Melify was arrested in February and was detained for 40 days and then released on bail.

Source: ANHRI

For more information about Emirates: http://www.anhri.net/en/?s=kuwait

Saudi Arabia

7 citizens including two Egyptians charged of incitement against the rulers

ANHRI denounced the judgment issued yesterday by the SCC Arabia by imprisonment and a fine against a cell of the “7″ among which the Saudi preacher Sheikh Yusuf Al-Ahmed,” and six others, two of them are Egyptians all accused of using the Internet to incite against the rulers, and sedition among the citizens.
Saudi Court of Criminal announced on Wednesday, a judge may be appealed against Yusuf Al-Ahmed the academic preacher and faculty member in Jurisprudence Department of “Imam Muhammad bin Saud University in Riyadh of five years in prison and travel bans plus a fine of $ 100 thousand Dollars.
Yusuf was arrested last July after posting a video on “YouTube”, criticizing the policy of a Saudi Arabia detective system, which is spreading terror among people, and sent a letter to the king of Saudi Arabia and his interior minister holding them the responsible of the thousands of detainees in prisons without trials, and warning them of the injustice and its effects, and demanding that the Saudi king would devote some time to these issues as the time he devoted to attend a sports match.

That was what annoyed authorities to arrest Yusuf on charges of violating public order, and dissemination of what raises sedition and incitement to the guardians

Source: ANHRI

For more information about Saudi Arabia: http://www.anhri.net/en/?s=saudi+arabia

Yemen

Gunmen attack a Yemenis press in Sanaa

New York 12 April 2012 – Mohammed Maqaleh the Yemeni senior journalist was attacked by armed men linked to a tribal group on his way to visit a governmental official’s home, according to the journalist statement to CPJ today. Al Maqaleh has published several articles on the activities of the tribal groups in Yemen before.
Al Maqaleh works as the editor of the news web site Al Eshteraki of the Yemeni Socialist Party. He went to visit the home of Defense Minister Mohammed Nasser Ahmed in the capital Sanaa on Saturday, to question about the justification for the high prevalence of armed elements wearing military uniforms in his neighborhood, according to the journalist statement to CPJ.

When the press began to speak with the men outside the home that were linked to the Red tribe, the most influential tribal group, they attacked him with their guns and threatened him by many threats, according to news reports. The press was not hurt by any surgeon, but militants broken the glass of his car as stated by Al Maqaleh to the Committee to Protect  Journalists. And “although the defense minister was present during the assault, he did not stop the aggressors because he does not have authority over them” said AL Maqaleh.

Source: Committee to Protect Journalists

For more information about Morocco: http://www.anhri.net/en/?s=yemen

Tunisia

IFEX-TMG alarmed by ongoing attacks targeting demonstrators, media, performers and academics

(IFEX-TMG) – The International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX) Tunisia Monitoring Group (IFEX-TMG), a coalition of 21 IFEX members, is alarmed by ongoing attacks targeting journalists, artists, performers and women for the “crime” of freely expressing their opinion as well as by the Tunisian security forces’ alleged inaction during most of these instances in the past year. Furthermore, the IFEX-TMG condemns the use of force by police or other parties against journalists covering demonstrations, as well as long sentences for Facebook users on religious morality charges.

In an extremely alarming development, on 28 March, Ghazi Beji and Jabeur Mejri were sentenced to over seven years in prison for posting online manuscripts critical of Islam which included caricatures of a naked Prophet Mohammed. This comes just a fortnight after authorities announced 13 March would be marked as the national day for internet freedom.

Source: IFEX Tunisia Monitoring Group

For more information about Yemen:  http://www.anhri.net/en/?s=tunisia

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 

ANHRI issued ten statements about freedom status in the Middle East and North Africa this week as followed:

Egypt Deportation of Bahraini activist Nabeel Rajab from Cairo Airport

http://www.anhri.net/en/?p=7897

Emieates A call upon UAE: Release the seven reformers

http://www.anhri.net/?p=51809

Kuwait Writer sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment

http://www.anhri.net/en/?p=7864

Saudia 7 citizens including two Egyptians charged of incitement against the rulers

http://www.anhri.net/en/?p=7906

Tunis Suppression of a peaceful demonstration and attacks on journalists

http://www.anhri.net/en/?p=7817

Saudia Saudi Arabia banned human rights activist “Mukhlif Shammari” from travelling

http://www.anhri.net/en/?p=7887

Tunisia Freedom of expression status Monitoring Group (TMG) in Tunisia is concerned about continuing the attacks targetting protesters and journalists, artists and academics

http://www.anhri.net/?p=51902

Kuwait ANHRI is concerned that Kuwait approved Death penalty as a punishment for those who dare to Godself and the divine messenger

http://www.anhri.net/en/?p=7864

Egypt Draft Law for the Nationalization of Civil Society and Transforming it into a Government Institution

http://www.anhri.net/en/?p=7921

Egypt Press conference to announce the Documentary Book of names of the martyrs and accused of murder cases with the details of the martyrs

http://www.anhri.net/?p=52024

For more of ANHRI press releases:

http://www.anhri.net/en/?cat=1