Month: June 2009

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Human rights activist Abdolfattah Soltani arrested in Iran

The world has watched with shock and a profound sense of dismay the scenes of bloody, rampant violence that have filled the streets of Tehran and other cities in the wake of Iran’s hotly contested presidential elections.

But behind the scenes, Iranian authorities are conducting a simultaneous effort aimed at silencing dissident voices through arbitrary arrests and detention.

Plain clothes Iranian security officials have arrested leading human rights activist Abdolfattah Soltani and have rounded up countless other students, opposition politicians, journalists and rights activists and sent them to prison.

Soltani has for years stood by individuals who have suffered repression in Iran. And by putting himself in the line of fire, he too has become a target of the Iranian government’s brutal repression.

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Urgent Action – Excessive use of force against demonstrators (Iran)

15 June 2009
UA 150/09 – Fear of excessive use of force/torture (PDF)

IRAN – Demonstrators against announcement of re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad

Thousands of people, mainly supporters of presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has challenged the announcement that current President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had won the 12 June presidential election have been demonstrating, sometimes violently, in the streets in Tehran and other cities. They are at risk of injury or death at the hands of the security forces. Dozens have been arrested, and up to five students are reported to have been killed on Sunday and one person in a demonstration on Monday. Amnesty International believes the security forces are likely to use excessive force if, as expected, there are further demonstrations, and that those arrested are at risk of torture or other ill-treatment. The organization also believes the authorities are unlawfully restricting freedom of expression and information by blocking access to phone services, including SMS messages, foreign media and various internet sites.

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AI’s response to Uighur detainees transferred to Bermuda

Amnesty International
15 June 2009
AI Index: AMR 51/076/2009

USA: Human rights must transcend party politics

On 11 June 2009 four Uighur detainees held without charge or trial in the US Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba since 2002 were transferred to Bermuda. Their transfer came more than eight months after a US federal judge ruled their detention unlawful and ordered their immediate release into the USA. The USA accepted that the detainees could not be returned to China, their country of origin, because of the risk of torture and execution that they would face there, but failed to release them into the USA as even a temporary measure while it sought a third country solution.

Amnesty International welcomes Bermuda’s acceptance of these four men, as it brings an end to their unlawful detention and offers them the chance to begin to rebuild their lives. It calls on all parties with interest or influence over this situation not to jeopardize the human rights of these men or their ability to get on with their future, until now put on hold.

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Palau’s offer to accept Guantánamo detainees would not excuse USA

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
PRESS RELEASE
10 June 2009

Guantánamo: Palau’s offer to accept detainees would not excuse USA

Reports that the government of Palau has offered to temporarily accept up to 17 Guantánamo detainees leave many questions unanswered and even if the offer is taken up it would not relieve the US authorities of their responsibility to the men, Amnesty International said today.

The President of Palau, Johnson Toribiong, said today that the Pacific island nation had agreed to accept on a temporary basis 17 Uighur men who have been held without charge or trial in Guantánamo since 2002 “as a humanitarian gesture”, subject to periodic review. In subsequent reports, an unidentified US official is quoted as saying that there has been “no final decision, no details arranged. We will continue talks with Palau.”

“Although Amnesty International has been calling on other countries to offer humanitarian protection to Guantánamo detainees, this announcement raises more questions than it answers and in no way absolves the US authorities of their responsibility towards these men,” Daniel Gorevan, of Amnesty International’s Counter Terror with Justice Campaign, said today.

Reports of Palau’s offer do not specify whether the men would face any further detention in Palau.

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Update on Urgent Action – Huang Qi (China)

4 June 2009

Further Information on UA 172/08 (18 June 2008) – Incommunicado detention/fear of torture and other ill-treatment and new concern: medical concern

CHINA – Huang Qi (m), aged 46, human rights activist

During a 26 May visit by his lawyer, Sichuan human rights activist Huang Qi claimed that he had been questioned for long hours and sometimes deprived of sleep: he had once been interrogated continuously for three days without rest. Huang Qi said he had two tumors, diagnosed by the doctor in the detention center, on his stomach and chest that had developed since March. He also said that he was suffering from frequent headaches, an irregular heartbeat and insomnia. The authorities have turned down repeated requests by his family to release Huang Qi on bail to await trial. Amnesty International is concerned that Huang Qi may not be receiving adequate medical treatment.

Huang Qi is awaiting trial for “unlawfully holding documents classified as highly secret.” He was detained by plainclothes police on 10 June 2008. He had no access to lawyers or his family, on the grounds that the charges against him involved state secrets, and was only allowed a first meeting with a lawyer on 23 September after more than three months held incommunicado. On 3 February, the court forbade Huang Qi’s lawyer to make photocopies of the case documents assembled by the police in their investigation, to prepare his defense, again on the grounds that they contained state secrets. By law the court should have made a public announcement of Huang Qi’s trial three days before it began, but in fact it gave only one day’s notice to his family and lawyers, on 2 February. Later that day, after objections by Huang Qi’s lawyers, the court postponed his trial to a date that has not been announced.

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