No amount of tinkering with the government’s proposal for deporting asylum seekers can make it compatible with human rights, says Sacha Deshmukh of Amnesty International UK
The joint committee on human rights was right to be so strident in its assessment that the government’s Rwanda bill is fundamentally incompatible with human rights (UK’s Rwanda bill ‘incompatible with human rights obligations’, 12 February). No tinkering with this bill can make it fit basic tenets of the UN refugee convention, Human Rights Act and European convention on human rights, and judicial independence.
This government is attempting to declare Rwanda safe as a matter of law simply because it says so – an abuse of law that one would expect from an authoritarian regime. Human rights are not fair-weather concepts for a government to simply abandon at its convenience, and if our government pursues that course, then others will feel more licensed to do the same, threatening the entire global system of rights and protections and making us all significantly less safe.
This week on CounterSpin: There’s an announcement on the New York City subway where a voice chirps: “Attention, everyone! There are 150 accessible subway stations!” One can imagine an alternate world where we’d hear, “Only 150 of New York City’s 472 subway stations are accessible, and that’s a problem!”
But people with disabilities are meant to be grateful, excited even, for whatever access or accommodation is made available for them to participate in daily life. There’s often an implied corollary suggestion that any violation of the rights of disabled people is an individual matter, to be fought over in the courts, rather than something to be acknowledged and addressed societally.
The overarching law we have, the Americans with Disabilities Act, is meant to be proactive; it is, the government website tells us, a law, “not a benefits program.” In reality, though, the ADA still meets resistance, confusion and various combinations thereof, 33 years after its passage. And news media, as a rule, don’t help.
The Supreme Court recently dismissed, but did not do away with, a case that gets at the heart of enforcement of civil rights laws for people with disabilities—though not them alone. Acheson v. Laufer is an under-the-radar case that, our guest says, is “part of a pattern of far-right reactionaries weaponizing the courts to dismantle labor protections, housing rights and health guidelines.”
Ariel Adelman is a disability rights advocate and policy analyst. Her piece, with Hayley Brown, appeared recently on CEPR.net, the website of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. She’ll tell us what’s going on and what’s at stake.
CounterSpin240216Adelman.mp3
Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look back at coverage of the racist Charles Stuart murder hoax.
Pro-junta militias in northern Myanmar’s Kachin state are grabbing anyone they can find and forcing them to take up arms against resistance fighters after the military regime announced it would begin enforcing a conscription law over the weekend, residents said.
Junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing announced on Feb. 10 that the People’s Military Service Law, enacted in 2010 by a previous military regime though it had never been enforced, would go into effect immediately.
The move comes as anti-junta forces and ethnic armies have scored significant victories against the military in Myanmar’s three-year civil war. The conflict appeared to reach a turning point in late October when the groups jointly launched offensives that overran dozens of military camps and resulted in hundreds of soldiers surrendering.
In Kachin state, the Lisu militia in Waingmaw township, the Khaunglanhpu militia in Puta-O township, and the Shanni Nationalities Army, or SNA, in Mohnyin township, began forcibly recruiting civilians as early as the end of last month, and have been emboldened by the new directive, sources in the region told RFA Burmese.
SNA fighters have been rounding up pedestrians and gathering people through village administrators for recruitment, said a resident of Nam Mun village in Mohnyin’s Indawgyi sub-township who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.
“The administrators are being told to grab passers-by,” he said. “Everyone who is seen on the roads is apprehended.”
People have fled the area and “dare not live in Nam Mun village anymore,” he said.
Another resident reported similar actions in Mohnyin’s towns of Hopin and Nam Mar, adding that those who refused to join the militia were being made to pay hundreds of thousands of kyats (100,000 kyats = US$48).
“After stopping all passers-by, they recruited the people they wanted,” he said. “Among those who were released, some said that they had to pay about 1 million kyats (US$477). They said they were asking for 30 million kyats (US$14,000) [altogether].”
Using family members as leverage
In Puta-O, the Khaunglanhpu militia led by Tang Gu Tan has been forcibly recruiting members of every household to serve for around two weeks, a resident told RFA.
“[But now], the militia is recruiting [people] more than ever,” he said. “Now, whenever they enter villages, they gather young people to join the militia.”
Shwe Min, former chair of the Lisu National Development Party (LNDP) or Dulay Party, central executives and members of the Lisu militia are seen on Jan. 6, 2023. (Courtesy Lisu National Development Party)
So far, the resident said, Khaunglanhpu fighters are mostly targeting civilians who had previously attended militia training.
The recruitment drive comes after junta troops and militias retreated from Puta-O’s Hkar Gar village in December and the anti-junta ethnic Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, seized the Kha Ran Hti Dam pro-junta militia camp in Khaunglanhpu township the following month.
In Waingmaw township, the Lisu militia, led by Shwe Min, is also recruiting soldiers, said a resident.
“When they carry out recruitment drives, they round up ethnic Lisu people at [three] checkpoints” in the township, he said.
The militia has also been detaining female and elderly family members to force the return of men of fighting age who have fled the drives, he added.
RFA calls to SNA spokesman Col. Sai Aung Mein, Lisu militia leader Shwe Min, and junta spokesperson for Kachin state Thant Zin Ko Ko seeking comment on the forced recruitment drives went unanswered Tuesday.
Win Naing, a lawmaker from nearby Mogaung township, told RFA that forced recruitment is a tactic used by pro-junta groups to undermine public opposition.
“The militias will recruit our people whether they want to join their groups or not, and they will train them whether they are willing or not. Then, they will arm them,” he said. “Ultimately, it’s part of a plan to force the people to fight one another.”
In Bago, too
To the south, a junta recruitment drive that kicked off in Bago region’s Htantabin township on Feb. 12 has led to the conscription of nearly all of the youths in the town of Za Yat Gyi, residents told RFA on Tuesday.
Most of Za Yat Gyi’s residents had already fled fighting that broke out between the military and anti-junta forces on Jan. 7, they said, but junta troops stationed at the town’s hospital have now rounded up those who remained from their homes and nearby villages.
They have also drafted youths displaced by the earlier fighting, residents said, adding that the number of detainees and other information about the recruitment drive is still unknown.
Displaced people from Htantabin township’s Za Yat Gyi in Bago region (East) are seen on Feb. 9, 2024. (Photo by Badan Sai)
Men and women over the age of 18 have fled to avoid conscription, an elderly resident said.
“Everyone from the town is on the run,” she said, adding that she and her family members are in hiding. “The army enters the villages and arrests people … They arrest girls aged 18 or 19 years. Men of that age are also apprehended and brought to be forced to serve in the military.”
Residents said the villages surrounding Za Yat Gyi are “nearly empty” because people are trying to avoid being drafted into military service.
RFA has been unable to independently verify the claims of forced recruitment in Za Yat Gyi.
Tin Oo, the junta’s spokesperson and minister of economic affairs for Bago region, dismissed reports of civilian recruitment, saying that the military has only targeted people with ties to the People’s Defense Force, or PDF, of ordinary citizens who have taken up arms against the junta’s military forces.
“There have been arrests of members of organizations related to the PDF and that support terrorism, in accordance with the law,” he said. “We have no authorization to arrest innocent citizens.”
Tin Oo added that there have been “no mass arrests,” and “only three or four people were arrested for interrogation.”
Four youths missing
The threat of forced recruitment is increasingly real for youth in Myanmar’s urban areas, as well.
On Tuesday, junta troops arrested four young passengers on a commuter bus from Yangon to Mandalay at a checkpoint near Tada-U township, located around 24 kilometers (15 miles) southwest of downtown Mandalay, sources close to the detainees told RFA.
A street view of downtown Mandalay Dec. 2022. (RFA)
The whereabouts of the young men are unknown and they are believed to have been conscripted, the sources said.
Those detained were Zaw Zaw Aung, 23, Kaung Htet Soe, 24, Thwin Soe Tun, 23, and Tin Htut Win, 24, they said.
“They were returning from Yangon after taking a test to go [work in] Korea,” one of the sources said. “They were arrested at a toll gate before reaching Tada-U.”
RFA calls to Thein Htay, the junta’s spokesman and economic minister for Mandalay region, seeking comment on the apprehension of the four youths went unanswered Tuesday.
According to Myanmar’s compulsory military service law, men aged 18-35 and women aged 18-27 face up to five years in prison if they refuse to serve for two years.
Professionals – such as doctors, engineers and technicians – aged 18-45 for men and 18-35 for women must also serve, but up to five years, given the country’s current state of emergency, extended by the junta on Feb. 1 for another six months.
Burmese of fighting age have told RFA they would team up with resistance fighters or leave Myanmar rather than serve as soldiers for the junta, which seized power in a coup d’état three years ago.
Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.
Pro-junta militias in northern Myanmar’s Kachin state are grabbing anyone they can find and forcing them to take up arms against resistance fighters after the military regime announced it would begin enforcing a conscription law over the weekend, residents said.
Junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing announced on Feb. 10 that the People’s Military Service Law, enacted in 2010 by a previous military regime though it had never been enforced, would go into effect immediately.
The move comes as anti-junta forces and ethnic armies have scored significant victories against the military in Myanmar’s three-year civil war. The conflict appeared to reach a turning point in late October when the groups jointly launched offensives that overran dozens of military camps and resulted in hundreds of soldiers surrendering.
In Kachin state, the Lisu militia in Waingmaw township, the Khaunglanhpu militia in Puta-O township, and the Shanni Nationalities Army, or SNA, in Mohnyin township, began forcibly recruiting civilians as early as the end of last month, and have been emboldened by the new directive, sources in the region told RFA Burmese.
SNA fighters have been rounding up pedestrians and gathering people through village administrators for recruitment, said a resident of Nam Mun village in Mohnyin’s Indawgyi sub-township who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.
“The administrators are being told to grab passers-by,” he said. “Everyone who is seen on the roads is apprehended.”
People have fled the area and “dare not live in Nam Mun village anymore,” he said.
Another resident reported similar actions in Mohnyin’s towns of Hopin and Nam Mar, adding that those who refused to join the militia were being made to pay hundreds of thousands of kyats (100,000 kyats = US$48).
“After stopping all passers-by, they recruited the people they wanted,” he said. “Among those who were released, some said that they had to pay about 1 million kyats (US$477). They said they were asking for 30 million kyats (US$14,000) [altogether].”
Using family members as leverage
In Puta-O, the Khaunglanhpu militia led by Tang Gu Tan has been forcibly recruiting members of every household to serve for around two weeks, a resident told RFA.
“[But now], the militia is recruiting [people] more than ever,” he said. “Now, whenever they enter villages, they gather young people to join the militia.”
Shwe Min, former chair of the Lisu National Development Party (LNDP) or Dulay Party, central executives and members of the Lisu militia are seen on Jan. 6, 2023. (Courtesy Lisu National Development Party)
So far, the resident said, Khaunglanhpu fighters are mostly targeting civilians who had previously attended militia training.
The recruitment drive comes after junta troops and militias retreated from Puta-O’s Hkar Gar village in December and the anti-junta ethnic Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, seized the Kha Ran Hti Dam pro-junta militia camp in Khaunglanhpu township the following month.
In Waingmaw township, the Lisu militia, led by Shwe Min, is also recruiting soldiers, said a resident.
“When they carry out recruitment drives, they round up ethnic Lisu people at [three] checkpoints” in the township, he said.
The militia has also been detaining female and elderly family members to force the return of men of fighting age who have fled the drives, he added.
RFA calls to SNA spokesman Col. Sai Aung Mein, Lisu militia leader Shwe Min, and junta spokesperson for Kachin state Thant Zin Ko Ko seeking comment on the forced recruitment drives went unanswered Tuesday.
Win Naing, a lawmaker from nearby Mogaung township, told RFA that forced recruitment is a tactic used by pro-junta groups to undermine public opposition.
“The militias will recruit our people whether they want to join their groups or not, and they will train them whether they are willing or not. Then, they will arm them,” he said. “Ultimately, it’s part of a plan to force the people to fight one another.”
In Bago, too
To the south, a junta recruitment drive that kicked off in Bago region’s Htantabin township on Feb. 12 has led to the conscription of nearly all of the youths in the town of Za Yat Gyi, residents told RFA on Tuesday.
Most of Za Yat Gyi’s residents had already fled fighting that broke out between the military and anti-junta forces on Jan. 7, they said, but junta troops stationed at the town’s hospital have now rounded up those who remained from their homes and nearby villages.
They have also drafted youths displaced by the earlier fighting, residents said, adding that the number of detainees and other information about the recruitment drive is still unknown.
Displaced people from Htantabin township’s Za Yat Gyi in Bago region (East) are seen on Feb. 9, 2024. (Photo by Badan Sai)
Men and women over the age of 18 have fled to avoid conscription, an elderly resident said.
“Everyone from the town is on the run,” she said, adding that she and her family members are in hiding. “The army enters the villages and arrests people … They arrest girls aged 18 or 19 years. Men of that age are also apprehended and brought to be forced to serve in the military.”
Residents said the villages surrounding Za Yat Gyi are “nearly empty” because people are trying to avoid being drafted into military service.
RFA has been unable to independently verify the claims of forced recruitment in Za Yat Gyi.
Tin Oo, the junta’s spokesperson and minister of economic affairs for Bago region, dismissed reports of civilian recruitment, saying that the military has only targeted people with ties to the People’s Defense Force, or PDF, of ordinary citizens who have taken up arms against the junta’s military forces.
“There have been arrests of members of organizations related to the PDF and that support terrorism, in accordance with the law,” he said. “We have no authorization to arrest innocent citizens.”
Tin Oo added that there have been “no mass arrests,” and “only three or four people were arrested for interrogation.”
Four youths missing
The threat of forced recruitment is increasingly real for youth in Myanmar’s urban areas, as well.
On Tuesday, junta troops arrested four young passengers on a commuter bus from Yangon to Mandalay at a checkpoint near Tada-U township, located around 24 kilometers (15 miles) southwest of downtown Mandalay, sources close to the detainees told RFA.
A street view of downtown Mandalay Dec. 2022. (RFA)
The whereabouts of the young men are unknown and they are believed to have been conscripted, the sources said.
Those detained were Zaw Zaw Aung, 23, Kaung Htet Soe, 24, Thwin Soe Tun, 23, and Tin Htut Win, 24, they said.
“They were returning from Yangon after taking a test to go [work in] Korea,” one of the sources said. “They were arrested at a toll gate before reaching Tada-U.”
RFA calls to Thein Htay, the junta’s spokesman and economic minister for Mandalay region, seeking comment on the apprehension of the four youths went unanswered Tuesday.
According to Myanmar’s compulsory military service law, men aged 18-35 and women aged 18-27 face up to five years in prison if they refuse to serve for two years.
Professionals – such as doctors, engineers and technicians – aged 18-45 for men and 18-35 for women must also serve, but up to five years, given the country’s current state of emergency, extended by the junta on Feb. 1 for another six months.
Burmese of fighting age have told RFA they would team up with resistance fighters or leave Myanmar rather than serve as soldiers for the junta, which seized power in a coup d’état three years ago.
Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.
The University of the South Pacific journalism programme is hosting a cohort student journalists from Australia’s Queensland University of Technology this week.
Led by Professor Angela Romano, the 12 students are covering news assignments in Fiji as part of their working trip.
The visitors were given a briefing by USP journalism teaching staff — Associate Professor in Pacific journalism and programme head Dr Shailendra Singh, and student training newspaper supervising editor-in-chief Monika Singh.
The students held lively discussions about the form and state of the media in Fiji and the Pacific, the historic influence of Australian and Western news media and its pros and cons, and the impact of the emergence of China on the Pacific media scene.
Dr Singh said the small and micro-Pacific media systems were “still reeling” from revenue loss due to digital disruption and the covid-19 pandemic.
As elsewhere in the world, the “rivers of gold” (classified advertising revenue) had virtually dried up and media in the Pacific were apparently struggling like never before.
Dr Singh said that this was evident from the reduced size of some newspapers in the Pacific, in both classified and display advertising, which had migrated to social media platforms.
Repeal of draconian law
He praised Fiji’s coalition government for repealing the country’s draconian Media Industry Development Act last year, and reviving media self-regulation under the revamped Fiji Media Council.
However, Dr Singh added that there was still some way to go to further improve the media landscape, including focus on training and development and working conditions.
“There are major, longstanding challenges in small and micro-Pacific media systems due to small audiences, and marginal profits,” he said. “This makes capital investment and staff development difficult to achieve.”
The QUT students are in Suva this month on a working trip in which students will engage in meetings, interviews and production of journalism. They will meet non-government organisations that have a strong focus on women/gender in development, democracy or peace work.
The students will also visit different media organisations based in Suva and talk to their female journalists on their experiences and their stories.
The USP journalism programme started in Suva in 1988 and it has produced more than 200 graduates serving the Pacific and beyond in various media and communication roles.
The programme has forged partnerships with leading media players in the Pacific and our graduates are shining examples in the fields of journalism, public relations and government/NGO communication.
Asia Pacific Report publishes in partnership with The University of the South Pacific’s newspaper and online Wansolwara News.
Witnesses claim victims shot ‘execution style’ during house raids after clashes between government forces and Fano rebels
Ethiopian government troops went door-to-door killing dozens of civilians last month in a town in the country’s Amhara region, according to residents, who said the bloodshed took place after clashes with local militia.
The killings in Merawi appear to be one of the deadliest episodes in Amhara since a rebellion by Fano, an armed Amhara group, erupted last year over a disputed plan to disarm regional forces.
People may be exposed to abuses such as torture and degrading treatment in Rwanda, says watchdog
Europe’s leading anti-torture watchdog has called on the government to process asylum claims in the UK rather than sending people to Rwanda because of the risk they may be exposed to human rights abuses there.
In a report published on Thursday, the Council of Europe’s committee for the prevention of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment raises a litany of concerns after an 11-day visit to the UK in March and April last year.
Investigator who uncovered collusion between Europe and the US in a network of secret prisons
The Swiss lawyer and politician Dick Marty, who has died aged 78 from pancreatic cancer, played a key role in the human rights work of the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe. As its rapporteur, he uncovered how European countries had colluded in a “global spider’s web” of illegal US detentions and human rights abuses, secret jails and flight transfers of terrorist suspects stretching from Asia to Guantánamo Bay.
The existence of a network of secret prisons was identified in his reports in 2006 and 2007 to the Council of Europe (the 46-member organisation set up in 1949 to uphold the rule of law in Europe), and was later acknowledged by the US authorities. The European court of human rights subsequently found that several states, including Italy, Lithuania, North Macedonia, Poland and Romania, had been complicit in the CIA secret detainee programme and thus had violated the European human rights convention.
New national security legislation will make it harder for detained suspects to meet with their lawyers and could target journalists and media organizations for interviewing them, Hong Kong officials have revealed in recent comments aired by a pro-China broadcaster.
Suspects in national security cases, who are typically people who have opposed the government via their public speech or peaceful actions, could be seeking to stay in touch with “accomplices,” by requesting to see their lawyer, who might also be a member of their “group,” Secretary for Justice Paul Lam told TVB’s “Speak Clearly” talk show at the weekend.
“As a result, they could continue with activities that endanger national security under the guise of seeing a lawyer,” said Lam, whose government launched a public consultation on the new law, which the city is obliged to enact under Article 23 of its Basic Law, its mini-constitution since the 1997 handover to Chinese rule.
The Article 23 legislation was recently rebooted following a 20-year hiatus in the wake of mass popular protests, and is being billed by the government as a way to close “loopholes” in the already stringent 2020 National Security Law, which was imposed on the city by Beijing in response to the 2019 protest movement.
The Safeguarding National Security Ordinance – which will criminalize “treason,” “insurrection,” the theft of “state secrets,” “sabotage” and “external interference,” among other national security offenses – is highly likely to be passed by the Legislative Council now that electoral rules have been changed to allow only “patriots” to run for election.
Lam also warned of tougher penalties for media organizations that interview people wanted by the Hong Kong government.
“They could be seen as providing a platform and aiding and abetting them,” he warned, calling on the media to be “careful.”
Hong Kong democracy activist Agnes Chow, who is now on the city’s wanted list, speaks from Toronto during an online interview with AFP on Dec. 5, 2023. Secretary for Justice Lam has warned of tougher penalties for media organizations that interview people wanted by the government. (Su Xinqi/AFPTV/AFP)
The new legislation could also target people deemed to be using too confrontational a “tone” to criticize the government in public life, Secretary for Security Chris Tang told the show.
“You can criticize the government, but if you keep repeating yourself and spicing it up, using your tone of voice for example to deliberately stir up people’s emotions, that could be regarded as inciting hatred [of the authorities],” Tang warned, but said that would only happen in cases where there was “criminal intent.”
‘Intimidation on a huge scale’
Current affairs commentator Sang Pu, who is also a lawyer, said that such assurances can’t be trusted, however.
“The Hong Kong government, the national security police and the Department of Justice have very loose criteria for determining criminal intent,” Sang said. “Basically, there is criminal intent if they say there is.”
“A lot of people will come under that definition, which will be extended [under this legislation],” he said.
He said the new law could spell the end of independent political commentary about the city, even beyond its borders, as overseas commentators still have friends and family back home who could be put under greater pressure as a result of their comments.
“This is intimidation on a huge scale, and is totally designed to eliminate any voice that tries to provide oversight of the government.”
Secretary for Justice Paul Lam attends a ceremony to mark the beginning of the new legal year in Hong Kong on Jan. 16, 2023. (Tyrone Siu/Reuters)
To Yiu-ming, a former assistant journalism professor at Hong Kong’s Baptist University, agreed, saying that officials are clearly targeting political commentators, exiled and wanted Hong Kong activists, media organizations and journalists.
“This is clearly about political law enforcement,” To said. “The Hong Kong government doesn’t want the voices of exiles and wanted activists to be heard back in Hong Kong.”
“It’s being done so as to allow law enforcement agencies to have the option, if needed, to cause trouble for certain reporters they don’t like and prevent them from doing their jobs,” he said.
Eric Lai, research fellow at the Asian Law Center at Georgetown University, said that while the consultation document isn’t a final draft, the details revealed so far suggest that the media is a major target of the law.
“The Article 23 legislation incorporates some elements of the [planned] fake news law into its text,” Lai said.
“According to the consultation document, if you interview people wanted [by the authorities], or publish some remarks that are considered to endanger national security, you could be prosecuted,” he said.
“The devil is in the details,” he said. “If all of these provisions are included [in the final draft], it will certainly have a huge impact on press freedom.”
‘More stringent’ than the mainland
Patrick Poon, human rights researcher currently at the University of Tokyo, said that even mainland Chinese law hasn’t banned overseas news organizations from interviewing its dissidents overseas.
“People inside China face the biggest pressures and the highest risks if they give interviews to foreign journalists,” Poon said. “[Now], it could be risky for foreign journalists to interview people in exile, which is even more stringent than some of the practices in mainland China.”
He said the potential restrictions on allowing meetings with a national security detainee’s lawyer is a violation of international law and human rights standards.
He said the Hong Kong authorities wouldn’t be able to guarantee a fair trial to suspects under such an arrangement.
State news agency Xinhua hit out at the criticism of the Article 23 legislation in a Feb. 3 commentary, describing critics of the law as “ants on a hotpot.”
“They’re falling over each other to attack and smear [this] legislation,” the article said. “People who love China and Hong Kong won’t feel the slightest bit worried … [but] will support its completion as soon as possible.”
It accused “anti-China and disruptive elements in Hong Kong” of “seriously undermining Hong Kong’s stability and endangering national security,” warning that they will face prosecution and prison as a result.
“These anti-China disruptors in Hong Kong do not want to be upright Chinese people, but want to be slave-dogs driven by the enemy,” the article said, warning that the new law will make them into “homeless dogs” without “foreign masters” to rely on.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Chen Zifei for RFA Mandarin, Tim Lee for RFA Cantonese.
A federal court in California has ruled that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza “plausibly” amounts to genocide, but dismissed a case aimed at stopping US military support for Israel as being outside the court’s jurisdiction.
“There are rare cases in which the preferred outcome is inaccessible to the court. This is one of those cases,” the US district court in the northern district of California ruled. “The court is bound by precedent and the division of our coordinate branches of government to abstain from exercising jurisdiction in this matter.
Country accused of violating torture convention in hope of finding justice decade after incident in which at least 15 people died
A 25-year-old from Cameroon has filed a complaint to the UN against Spain, accusing the country of multiple violations of the convention against torture in hope of seeking justice after an incident in 2014 during which at least 15 people died while trying to enter Spanish territory from Morocco.
“A decade has passed and still not a single person has been held accountable for the death and injury of so many,” said the man, who asked to be identified by the pseudonym Ludovic.
Gaza is on the brink of famine. If the US and UK fail to use every possible lever to stop the catastrophe, they will be complicit
Gaza is experiencing mass starvation like no other in recent history. Before the outbreak of fighting in October, food security in Gaza was precarious, but very few children – less than 1% – suffered severe acute malnutrition, the most dangerous kind. Today, almost all Gazans, of any age, anywhere in the territory, are at risk.
There is no instance since the second world war in which an entire population has been reduced to extreme hunger and destitution with such speed. And there’s no case in which the international obligation to stop it has been so clear.
Alex de Waal is the executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University and the author of Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine
American and Australian law enforcement can now more easily access data stored in each other’s jurisdiction after a landmark bilateral agreement came into effect more than two years after it was signed. The Agreement on Access to Electronic Data for the Purpose of Countering Serious Crime allows authorities in Australia and the United States to…
Hong Kong on Tuesday revealed details of fresh national security legislation aimed at wiping out “undercurrents” of dissent and support for democracy among the city’s own population, as well as espionage by the CIA and British intelligence services, officials said.
More than 20 years after similar legislation was stalled following mass protests, the government introduced its Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, which will criminalize “treason,” “insurrection,” the theft of “state secrets,” “sabotage” and “external interference,” among other national security offenses.
“While the society as a whole may appear calm and very safe, we still have to watch out for potential sabotage and undercurrents that try to create trouble,” Chief Executive John Lee told a news conference launching a public consultation process on Tuesday.
“Some of the independent Hong Kong ideas are still … embedded in some people’s minds, and some foreign agents may still be active in Hong Kong, and they may be conducting their activities in a deceptive way,” he said.
“Everyone knows that there are Western countries that target our country’s security development and also target China for personal political reasons,” Lee said, adding that “foreign agents and Hong Kong independence are still lurking in Hong Kong.”
While the city is still in the throes of a crackdown on dissent sparked by the imposition of Beijing’s National Security Law in 2020, it has a duty under its own Basic Law to enact its own national security legislation, which has been shelved since 2003.
Riot in Hong Kong police detain a protester during a demonstration against Beijing’s national security legislation, May 24, 2020. (Vincent Yu/AP)
Legal experts said many of the concepts, such as what constitutes “treason” or a “state secret” are vague, but that they basically mirror similar concepts in China’s own National Security Law.
Eric Lai, a researcher at the Asian Law Center at Georgetown University said the draft law essentially transfers a number of concepts previously only used in a Chinese legal context to Hong Kong.
“The Hong Kong government has officially incorporated mainland China’s National Security Law and its overall national security concepts into local law,” Li told RFA.
“The content about counterintelligence crimes is in line with the mainland’s counter-intelligence law, and the definition of a state secret is in line with that of the mainland,” he said.
More danger than protection
Benedict Rogers, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of the London-based rights group Hong Kong Watch, said Beijing is continuing to “blur the lines” between the legal systems of mainland China and Hong Kong.
“This legislation would be a further death knell to Hong Kong’s fundamental freedoms and human rights which are guaranteed under international law,” he said in a statement on the group’s website.
“Article 23 [legislation] would not protect, but gravely endanger, Hong Kongers, including those who now live outside Hong Kong, in the UK, US, Canada and across the EU,” Rogers warned, calling on the British government to impose sanctions on John Lee.
“The law … has the potential to harm millions of Hong Kongers in the city and abroad,” he said.
Georgetown’s Eric Lai also noted that information relating to “economic and social development” will be regarded as a state secret under the new law, not just confidential government information. Authorities in China have recently targeted foreign consultancies and alleged spies under a newly amended Counterespionage Law that has been criticized by foreign investors.
He said that the law, which looks almost certain to be passed amid a lack of political opposition in the Legislative Council, will likely affect business confidence in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee, center, Secretary for Justice Paul Lam, left, and Secretary for Security Chris Tang hold a press conference at government headquarters in Hong Kong on Jan. 30, 2024. (Peter Parks/AFP)
Edward Chin, a senior hedge fund manager in Hong Kong, warned that the business community may “vote with their feet.”
“[They might be] looking for locations with a reasonable business environment and sound rule of law, as opposed to common law with Chinese characteristics, which is what they’ve turned Hong Kong’s original system into,” Chin told the RFA Cantonese talk show “Financial Freedom.”
“I think everyone has a bottom line, and I think there is a good chance of foreign capital divesting again,” he said.
Po Kong Ngan, former assistant controller at i-CABLE News, told the show that the consultation document mentions a number of “computer” crimes, which could encompass even such actions as leaving a comment on YouTube or Facebook.
“Will they be prosecuted or targeted for this?” Ngan said, citing a potential scenario in which the government gets nervous over large numbers of critical comments on YouTube or Facebook, which it is unable to have taken down.
“I think these organizations will be very worried about the safety of their employees in Hong Kong.”
‘External forces’
Meanwhile, Eric Lai said the law in particular lists activities by foreign political entities, including human rights groups and non-government organizations, as “interference,” without defining what “external forces” actually means.
The effect will be to cut the city off from ties with international organizations and groups, he said.
Chief Executive Lee said the law was a necessary “defensive” measure, however.
“The new law aims to create a stable and safe environment so that when people attack us, we will be protected,” he told reporters. “This is a law to tell people not to attack us. It is, in a way, a defensive law. I hope people will see the law and know that they may try somewhere else rather than Hong Kong.”
Rwei-ren Wu, an associate research fellow and history professor at Taiwan’s Academia Sinica, said the law doesn’t appear to be very necessary at all, however.
“It’s a bit like taking off your pants to fart, if I may use a crude expression,” Wu told RFA. “Isn’t the current legislation tight enough?”
Wu said the Chinese Communist Party feels it has to clamp down even harder on any potential threats to its rule, as it feels threatened by the current economic downturn.
“They are getting more and more suspicious, and have to control everything,” he said. “I don’t think Beijing cares very much about what happens to Hong Kong, but it needs Hong Kong to maintain some kind of role outside of China.”
A public consultation period on the new law will run until Feb. 28, while the government has said it aims to pass the legislation before the legislature’s summer recess.
Exiled former pro-democracy lawmaker and lawyer Ted Hui said there are many “dangerous areas” for people who support democracy in Hong Kong, citing the retroactive use of the existing National Security Law to prosecute people.
“There are dangerous areas, for example, treason, and there are gray areas,” Hui told RFA. “For example, Taiwan is a fairly sensitive issue, because many Hong Kongers support Taiwan, but the current document doesn’t talk about retroactive effect.”
“If war or conflict breaks out in the Taiwan Strait, will people who once visited Taiwan to observe the elections or expressed support for Taiwan in the past be regarded as having committed treason?” he said. “It could be very easy to fall into such a trap.”
He said that while the 2003 draft legislation referred to “enemy” forces, the current draft refers instead to “foreign forces,” a much vaguer term.
“The scope has expanded a great deal,” Hui said. “People like me who engage in overseas lobbying, groups set up by emigre Hong Kongers around the world, could all be termed foreign forces.”
“Hong Kong groups have organized many activities and many Hong Kong people participated,” he said. “It’s possible that all of that will become illegal.”
Translated by Luisetta Mudie.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Gigi Lee and Alice Yam for RFA Cantonese, Chen Zifei and Amelia Loi for RFA Mandarin.
To mark the Day of the Endangered Lawyer, the Law Society of England and Wales issued a press release on 24 January honouring legal professionals who are targeted for upholding the rule of law and defending a strong justice system.
The Law Society has published its annual intervention tracker which shows that the Society took 40 actions relating to 17 countries in 2023. Most of these actions were initiated by concerns relating to arbitrary arrest or detention (58%) followed by harassment, threats and violence (27%).
Law Society president Nick Emmerson said: “Across the world, lawyers continue to face harassment, surveillance, detention, torture, enforced disappearance and arbitrary arrest and conviction...
We use this day to draw attention to the plight faced by countless lawyers across the globe, as they fight for their right to freely exercise their profession and uphold the rule of law.
A recent example comes from Amnesty International on 25 January 2024: On 31 October 2023, human rights lawyer, Hoda Abdelmoniem, was due to be released after serving her unjust five-year prison sentence stemming solely from the exercise of her human rights. Instead, the Supreme State Security Prosecution (SSSP) ordered her pretrial detention pending investigations into similar bogus terrorism-related charges in a separate case No. 730 of 2020. During a rare visit to 10th of Ramadan prison on 4 January, her family learned that her health continues to deteriorate and that she developed an ear infection, affecting her balance and sight. She must be immediately and unconditionally released. [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2020/11/29/2020-award-of-european-bars-associations-ccbe-goes-to-seven-egyptian-lawyers-who-are-in-prison/]
The UN’s international court of justice has ordered Israel to ensure its forces do not commit acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, in a historic decision.
In an interim judgment delivered on Friday, the president of the court, Joan Donoghue, said Israel must “take all measures within its its power” to prevent acts that fell within the scope of the genocide convention and must ensure “with immediate effect” that its forces do not commit any of the acts covered by the convention.
The UK would break international law if it ignored emergency orders from the European court of human rights to stop asylum seekers being flown to Rwanda, the head of the court has said.
Síofra O’Leary, the ECHR president, told a press conference there was a “clear obligation” for member states to take account of rule 39 orders, interim injunctions issued by the Strasbourg-based court.
The Home Office has performed a U-turn on a policy to deprive some modern slavery victims of protection from traffickers.
Human rights campaigners and lawyers representing trafficking victims have welcomed the government’s change of heart, which they say reinstates vital protections to vulnerable people.
A bill to confiscate property and valuables from Ukraine war critics convicted of, among other crimes, “discrediting the Russian army” or calling for foreign sanctions has been drawn up by the Kremlin.
The draft legislation to the criminal code was registered in Russia’s State Duma on Monday, where it has been backed by the main political parties and appears likely to pass into law.
Dr Alice Donald and Prof Philip Leach on cases where ‘pyjama injunctions’ have ensured British prisoners of war were not executed. Plus letters from Michael Meadowcroft, Jol Miskin and John Weightman
In a story about the Rwanda bill, you refer to Rishi Sunak toughening up his rhetoric on “pyjama injunctions” (Sunak faces Tory meltdown as deputy chairs back Rwanda bill rebellionReport, 15 January), meaning interim measures issued by the European court of human rights in exceptional circumstances. We should be careful about buying into this characterisation, as it trivialises the court’s urgent and legally binding injunctions, which are issued – sometimes out of hours – to avert an imminent risk of irreparable harm, such as death or torture.
Both the Illegal Migration Act 2023 and the safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill give ministers discretion to disregard interim measures in cases relating to the removal of a person from the UK. Rightwing Tory MPs would like to go further and block interim measures entirely.
Human rights worker Ayman Lubbad is among the Palestinian prisoners claiming abuse in Israeli custody, where six have died
The Gaza-based human rights activist Ayman Lubbad has not seen his wife and three children for more than a month, since he was ordered to strip to his underwear in the street outside his home, then driven away with other Palestinian men for a week of abuse and detention.
He was tortured and humiliated, he said, giving one of various accounts of recent Israeli abuse of Palestinians in detention; at least six have died, and one autopsy report showed serious injuries, Haaretz newspaper reported.
Exclusive: rare photo and staff testimonies paint bleak picture of Queensland lockup where situation is said to have reached ‘a tipping point’
The “padded cells” at the Cairns police watch house have walls like concrete. The floor slopes down to a grate at the front that, an officer says, collects “urine, blood, whatever, that goes slowly towards the drain”. A CCTV image obtained by Guardian Australia offers a rare glimpse into the sorts of rooms being used to hold children in Queensland watch houses, where they are kept indefinitely – sometimes for several weeks – waiting for a bed in the overcrowded youth detention system.
The violent detention cell in Cairns has no toilet or running water. Sources say it has been used to hold some of the most vulnerable children in the lockup, including those with intellectual disabilities or exhibiting mental illness, who become distressed and violent during long periods inside.
Please note the date on the photo below of Australia’s First Prime Minister, Edmund Barton. He was sworn in by Queen Victoria’s Representative, Lord Hopetoun, on 1 JANUARY 1901. This is the day Australia was founded. There was no nation of Australia before that date, just 6 independent colonies who did not trust one another …
Death row prisoner Kenneth Smith, 58, to be killed via nitrogen-gas procedure animal scientists have ruled out for ethical reasons
Alabama is preparing to execute a death row inmate using nitrogen gas, an experimental method that veterinarians in the US and across Europe have deemed unacceptable as a form of euthanasia for most animals.
Barring last-minute appeals, Kenneth Smith, 58, is scheduled to be judicially killed on 25 January using a previously untested technique. Alabama’s department of corrections is proposing to strap him to a gurney, apply a respirator mask to his face, then force him to breathe pure nitrogen which would cause oxygen deprivation and death.
European court of human rights orders Athens to pay €80,000 to family of Belal Tello, who died after 2014 incident
The European court of human rights has ruled that Greece violated a Syrian refugee’s right to life when coastguards fired more than a dozen rounds at the people smugglers’ boat he was on nearly a decade ago.
The Strasbourg-based court ordered Greece to pay €80,000 (about £68,000) in damages to the wife and two children of Belal Tello, who was shot in the head as Greek coastguards attempted to halt the boat he was travelling in. Tello died in 2015, after months in hospital.
Jane Stevenson joins Conservative party’s deputy chairs in resigning on a bruising night for Rishi Sunak
More than 60 Tory MPs have signed at least one of the various rebel amendments to the Rwanda bill tabled by hardliners. But very few of them have said publicly that, if the amendments are not passed, they will definitely vote against the bill at third reading. Suella Braverman and Miriam Cates are among the diehards in this category. But Simon Clarke, in his ConservativeHome, only says, that, if the bill is not changed, he will not vote for the bill at third reading, implying he would abstain.
In an interview with Sky News, Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister who has tabled the rebel amendments attracting most support, said he was “prepared” to vote against the bill at third reading. He said:
I am prepared to vote against the bill … because this bill doesn’t work, and I do believe that a better bill is possible.
So the government has a choice. It can either accept my amendments … or it can bring back a new and improved bill, and it could do that within a matter of days because we know the shape of that bill.
