Leaders and members of the Afro-descendant Garífuna community in the village of San Juan Tela, Atlantida department, northern Honduras have been subjected to a campaign of harassment. This is an apparent attempt to force them to hand over land that they have owned for generations to a real estate company, which has proposed building a tourist resort in the area. The lives and physical and mental integrity of the members of the community are in danger.
Month: February 2009
Ma Khin Khin Leh released from prison
Ma Khin Khin Leh was released from prison on Saturday, February 21. Her release follows an announcement by the Myanmar government that it would release 24 political prisoners. Ma Khin Khin Leh’s case was a focus of the AIUSA Global Write-a-thon last December. Over 7,000 AIUSA members wrote letters to the Burmese government on her behalf. In addition, AIUSA Group 48 has been collecting signatures to petition for Ma Khin Khin Leh’s release. Volunteers collected over 600 signatures at local concerts in Portland. The letters and petitions truly make a difference for the lives of individuals around the world.
A school teacher and young mother, Ma Khin Khin Leh, was serving a life sentence because her husband Kyaw Wunna tried to organize a peaceful demonstration in support of the National League for Democracy (NLD). Days before the demonstration was to take place, authorities moved to prevent it. The authorities could not find Kyaw Wunna so security agents arrested Ma Khin Khin Leh and the couple’s three-year-old daughter. Although her daughter was released after spending five days in detention, Ma Khin Khin Leh was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1999 under vaguely-worded security legislation.
AI research finds US weapons in Gaza
A new Amnesty International report reveals that U.S.-made white phosphorus artillery shells among other U.S. weapons were found throughout Gaza. When white phosphorus munitions are used in densely-populated civilian areas as Israel has, it violates international humanitarian law’s prohibition on indiscriminate attacks and amounts to a war crime.
Samia Salman Al-Manay’a, 16 years old, was asleep in her home in the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza, when a phosphorus shell landed on the first floor of the house on January 10th. Ten days later, from her hospital bed, she spoke to the AI delegation.
“The pain is piercing. It’s as though a fire is burning in my body. It’s too much for me to bear. In spite of all the medicine they are giving me the pain is still so strong.”
Tell Secretary Clinton to leverage US influence for peace in the DRC
The ten-year tangle of alliances, invasions and proxy warfare centered in the Democratic Republic of Congo has made the region the world’s deadliest killing ground since WWII.
Rape is systematically used as a weapon of war and children are forced to fight for armed groups. Peace in the DRC means putting an end to the institutionalized violence against women and children. The video below shows Congolese children speaking about their experiences as child soldiers.
Urgent Action – Gao Zhisheng (China)
02 February 2009
UA 24/09 – Arbitrary detention/Fear of torture and other ill-treatment (PDF)
CHINA – Gao Zhisheng (m), aged 48
Beijing-based human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, who has been under house arrest since November 2007, was taken into custody on or shortly after 19 January. He is being held incommunicado at an unknown location. In the light of the harsh treatment he received earlier, he is considered to be at high risk of torture and other ill-treatment. While under house arrest, he was often humiliated by his guards: this included being forced to eat food thrown on the ground.
Gao Zhisheng is one of the best-known human rights lawyers in China, and ran his own law firm until 2005, when the authorities revoked his lawyer’s license and suspended the operations of the firm. He has represented human rights defenders and Falun Gong practitioners, and worked on death penalty cases. The Ministry of Justice named him “one of the nation’s top 10 lawyers” in 2001 for work he had done voluntarily and without payment as a public service.
In 2005, Gao Zhisheng wrote several open letters addressed to President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao urging them to end persecution of religious practitioners and pro-democracy activists. In February 2006, he organized a hunger strike campaign to draw further attention to persecution of peaceful activists in China. For this, he was convicted of “inciting subversion” in December 2006. Unusually, his three-year-sentence was suspended for five years. He was allowed to return home, but he and his family have been under surveillance ever since.
AIUSA Group 48 