Tag Archives: Amnesty International

Trump slaps travel restrictions on North Korea, Venezuela in sweeping new ban

International passengers wait for their rides outside the international arrivals exit at Washington Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Virginia, U.S. September 24, 2017.

By Jeff Mason and Phil Stewart

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Sunday slapped new travel restrictions on citizens from North Korea, Venezuela and Chad, expanding to eight the list of countries covered by his original travel bans that have been derided by critics and challenged in court.

Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Somalia were left on the list of affected countries in a new proclamation issued by the president. Restrictions on citizens from Sudan were lifted.

The measures help fulfill a campaign promise Trump made to tighten U.S. immigration procedures and align with his “America First” foreign policy vision. Unlike the president’s original bans, which had time limits, this one is open-ended.

“Making America Safe is my number one priority. We will not admit those into our country we cannot safely vet,” the president said in a tweet shortly after the proclamation was released.

Iraqi citizens will not be subject to travel prohibitions but will face enhanced scrutiny or vetting.

The current ban, enacted in March, was set to expire on Sunday evening. The new restrictions are slated to take effect on Oct. 18 and resulted from a review after Trump’s original travel bans sparked international outrage and legal challenges.

The addition of North Korea and Venezuela broadens the restrictions from the original, mostly Muslim-majority list.

An administration official, briefing reporters on a conference call, acknowledged that the number of North Koreans now traveling to the United States was very low.

Rights group Amnesty International USA condemned the measures.

“Just because the original ban was especially outrageous does not mean we should stand for yet another version of government-sanctioned discrimination,” it said in a statement.

“It is senseless and cruel to ban whole nationalities of people who are often fleeing the very same violence that the U.S. government wishes to keep out. This must not be normalized.”

The American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement the addition of North Korea and Venezuela “doesn’t obfuscate the real fact that the administration’s order is still a Muslim ban.”

The White House portrayed the restrictions as consequences for countries that did not meet new requirements for vetting of immigrants and issuing of visas. Those requirements were shared in July with foreign governments, which had 50 days to make improvements if needed, the White House said.

A number of countries made improvements by enhancing the security of travel documents or the reporting of passports that were lost or stolen. Others did not, sparking the restrictions.

The announcement came as the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to hear oral arguments on Oct. 10 over the legality of Trump’s previous travel ban, including whether it discriminated against Muslims.

 

NORTH KOREA, VENEZUELA ADDED

Trump has threatened to “destroy” North Korea if it attacks the United States or its allies. Pyongyang earlier this month conducted its most powerful nuclear bomb test. The president has also directed harsh criticism at Venezuela, once hinting at

a potential military option to deal with Caracas.

But the officials described the addition of the two countries to Trump’s travel restrictions as the result of a purely objective review.

In the case of North Korea, where the suspension was sweeping and applied to both immigrants and non-immigrants, officials said it was hard for the United States to validate the identity of someone coming from North Korea or to find out if that person was a threat.

“North Korea, quite bluntly, does not cooperate whatsoever,” one official said.

The restrictions on Venezuela focused on Socialist government officials that the Trump administration blamed for the country’s slide into economic disarray, including officials from the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service and their immediate families.

Trump received a set of policy recommendations on Friday from acting Secretary of Homeland Security Elaine Duke and was briefed on the matter by other administration officials, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, a White House aide said.

The rollout on Sunday was decidedly more organized than Trump’s first stab at a travel ban, which was unveiled with little warning and sparked protests at airports worldwide.

Earlier on Sunday, Trump told reporters about the ban: “The tougher, the better.”

Rather than a total ban on entry to the United States, the proposed restrictions differ by nation, based on cooperation with American security mandates, the threat the United States believes each country presents and other variables, officials said.

Somalis, for example, are barred from entering the United States as immigrants and subjected to greater screening for visits.

After the Sept. 15 bombing attack on a London train, Trump wrote on Twitter that the new ban “should be far larger, tougher and more specific – but stupidly, that would not be politically correct.”

The expiring ban blocked entry into the United States by people from the six countries for 90 days and locked out most aspiring refugees for 120 days to give Trump’s administration time to conduct a worldwide review of U.S. vetting procedures for foreign visitors.

Critics have accused the Republican president of discriminating against Muslims in violation of constitutional guarantees of religious liberty and equal protection under the law, breaking existing U.S. immigration law and stoking religious hatred.

Some federal courts blocked the ban, but the U.S. Supreme Court allowed it to take effect in June with some restrictions.

 

(Additional reporting by James Oliphant, Yeganeh Torbati, and Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Peter Cooney)

 

U.S., European weapons used to commit war crimes in Iraq: Amnesty

Shi'ite fighters gather to fight ISIS

ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – Militias fighting alongside Iraqi troops against Islamic State are committing war crimes using weapons provided to the Iraqi military by the United States, Europe, Russia and Iran, Amnesty International said on Thursday.

The rights group said that the predominantly Shi’ite Muslim militias, known collective as the Hashid Shaabi, were using weapons from Iraqi military stockpiles to commit war crimes including enforced disappearances, torture and summary killings.

Hashid Shaabi rejected Amnesty’s accusation as “lies”.

Parliament voted for the Hashid to formally become part of Iraq’s armed forces in November but the session was boycotted by Sunni Muslim representatives, who worry the move will entrench Shi’ite majority rule as well as Iran’s regional influence.

Iraqi and Western officials have expressed serious concern about the government’s ability to bring the Shi’ite militias under greater control.

“International arms suppliers, including the USA, European countries, Russia and Iran, must wake up to the fact that all arms transfers to Iraq carry a real risk of ending up in the hands of militia groups with long histories of human rights violations,” Amnesty researcher Patrick Wilcken said.

States wishing to sell arms to Iraq should ensure strict measures to ensure weapons will not be used by militias to violate human rights, he added in a statement.

Hashid spokesman Ahmed al-Assadi denied Amnesty’s report.

“These lies falsify truths and contribute directly or indirectly to the continuation of struggles that the Iraqi people and the people of neighbouring countries suffer from,” he told a news conference aired by state television.

“This is very clear in this report when it is purposefully slandering an official government institution,” he added, calling for an inquiry into Amnesty’s sources.

Amnesty cited nearly 2-1/2 years of its own field research, including interviews with dozens of former detainees, witnesses, survivors, and relatives of those killed, detained or missing.

Its report focused on four powerful militia groups, most of which receive backing from Iran: the Badr Organisation, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Kataib Hezbollah and Saraya al-Salam.

The Hashid deny having sectarian aims or committing widespread abuses. They say they saved the nation by pushing Islamic State back from Baghdad’s borders after the army crumbled before the jihadists’ lightning advance in 2014.

There have been few accusations of serious abuses by the Hashid since the start of a major offensive on Oct. 17 to retake the northern city of Mosul from Islamic State. Various Hashid groups have joined in that battle, and a top U.S. general told The Daily Beast last week they had been “remarkably disciplined”.

(Reporting by Girish Gupta and Saif Hameed; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Moscow office of Amnesty International sealed off

The office door of rights group Amnesty International is sealed off in Moscow, Russia,

MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Moscow office of rights group Amnesty International has been sealed off by municipal officials without warning and staff cannot get inside, the group said on Wednesday.

Alexander Artemyev, a staff member, told Reuters that official seals had been placed on the entrances to the office, the locks had been changed, and that power to the office had been cut off.

An official notice left behind said the building was city property and that nobody was allowed to enter without being accompanied by a municipal official.

John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International’s Europe Director, said he did not know what had prompted Moscow authorities to seal off the office, calling it “an unwelcome surprise.”

“Given the current climate for civil society work in Russia, there are clearly any number of plausible explanations, but it’s too early to draw any conclusions,” Dalhuisen said in a statement.

“We are working to resolve the situation as swiftly as possible and very much hope there is a simple administrative explanation for this setback to our work.”

Amnesty, which was founded in London, frequently criticizes the Russian authorities over what it says are human rights violations. It said it was confident it had fulfilled all its obligations as a tenant.

A representative of the Moscow state property department, from which Amnesty rents the office, said they had no immediate comment.

Rights groups that receive foreign funding and are critical of the Kremlin have come under pressure from the authorities in the past few years. Some have been designated as “foreign agents” which makes them subject to intense scrutiny from officials.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he was unaware of Amnesty’s office problems.

(Reporting by Svetlana Reiter; Writing by Christian Lowe/Andrew Osborn; Editing by Christian Lowe)

Refugees being driven to suicide on Nauru says Amnesty International

Anna Neistat, Senior Director for Research with Amnesty International, talks to journalists as she holds a copy of a report she co-authored titled 'Island of Despair - Australia's "Processing" of Refugees on Nauru' in Sydney, Australia

By Colin Packham

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Many of the 410 asylum seekers held on a tiny Pacific Island are being driven to attempt suicide to escape the prison-like conditions they face in indefinite detention on behalf of Australia, rights group Amnesty International said on Monday.

Under Australia’s tough immigration policy, asylum seekers intercepted trying to reach the country by boat are sent for processing at a camp in Nauru or to Manus Island in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and are not eligible for resettlement in Australia.

“I met children as young as nine who had already tried to kill themselves and were talking openly about ending their lives,” said Anna Keistat, an Amnesty official, who is one of a handful of international observers to have visited Nauru.

An undated supplied image from Amnesty International claiming to show children playing near a fence at the country's Australian-run detention centre on the Pacific island nation of Nauru

An undated supplied image from Amnesty International claiming to show children playing near a fence at the country’s Australian-run detention centre on the Pacific island nation of Nauru. Amnesty International/Handout via REUTERS

“Their parents were talking about hiding everything, sharp objects, pills, and not allowing them to leave the house, because they were so worried their children would end their lives,” said Keistat, who spent six days in Nauru in August.

Amnesty said that 58 detainees, or about 15 percent of the total on Nauru, to whom it spoke for its report, had either attempted suicide or have had thoughts about harming themselves.

A spokesman for Australia’s immigration minister did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.

Many of the 410 men, women and children Australian figures show to have been in detention on Nauru by August 31 have been confirmed as refugees and have been there for several years.

Despite the refugee status, they continue to be confined to poor accommodation with little access to medical care, Amnesty said, adding that children, who make up little more than a tenth of the number of detainees, suffer disproportionately.

Amnesty joins a chorus of criticism of Australia’s immigration policy from human rights groups, and comes just weeks after the United Nations said Nauru was failing to protect children.

International condemnation of Australia was stoked after more than 2,000 incidents, including sexual abuse, assault and attempted self-harm, were reported in about two years at an Australian detention center in Nauru, more than half involving children, the Guardian said.

Australia seeks to organize resettlement of the asylum seekers, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has said. But with Australia unable to convince a third party to take them, the future of the detainees remains in question.

Australia’s detention center in Papua New Guinea (PNG) faces greater pressure, after PNG’s Supreme Court in April ordered its closure. The 823 men held on Manus Island have been given limited freedom, but they remain detained.

(Reporting by Colin Packham; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

Human rights in danger across the globe, Amnesty warns

Basic human rights and freedoms are being threatened by governments across the globe, a watchdog warned Wednesday, saying seven decades of progress is at risk of coming undone.

Amnesty International’s annual report on the global state of human rights offered a scathing analysis of the situation, saying human rights are the victim of a “wholesale assault” from governments, some of them looking to boost their security in the face of evolving threats.

That has led to undue crackdowns on rights like privacy and free speech, the group claimed.

“Millions of people are suffering enormously at the hands of states and armed groups, while governments are shamelessly painting the protection of human rights as a threat to security, law and order or national ‘values,’” Salil Shetty, Amnesty’s secretary general, said in a statement.

The watchdog said it found many instances in which governments broke either their own or international laws, outlining several in the report. It claimed that 122 countries tortured or otherwise mistreated individuals, while the “laws of war” were violated in 19 countries.

It also reported that governments have been “increasingly targeting and attacking” human rights advocates such as lawyers, activists and other workers, calling it a “worrying trend.”

Perhaps more troubling was that Amnesty found “an insidious and creeping trend undermining human rights,” as governments have underfunded, attacked or neglected bodies who help preserve the freedoms, such the International Criminal Court and United Nations agencies.

“Not only are our rights under threat, so are the laws and the system that protect them,” Shetty said in a statement. “More than 70 years of hard work and human progress lies at risk.”

The 409-page report includes information on 160 countries, including the United States.

It mentioned the country continues to operate the Guantanamo Bay prison, held about 80,000 prisoners “in conditions of physical and social deprivation” nationwide and executed 27 inmates last year.

Amnesty highlighted what it called an “excessive use of force” by U.S. law enforcement, saying that 43 people were killed after police used stun guns on them.

It also mentioned issues with women’s health rights and the country’s treatment of migrants.

Amnesty went on to list some human rights threats that weren’t exclusive to any one nation.

Namely, it said 113 countries “arbitrarily restricted” freedom of the press, 61 nations imprisoned people who were just exercising their rights, 55 percent of the countries staged unfair trials and 30 governments illegally returned refugees to dangerous countries, calling for sweeping reform.

“It is within world leaders’ power to prevent these crises from spiralling further out of control. Governments must halt their assault on our rights and strengthen the defences the world has put in place to protect them,” Shetty said in a statement. “Human rights are a necessity, not an accessory; and the stakes for humankind have never been higher.”

Amnesty: Russian Airstrikes in Syria ‘May Amount to War Crimes’

Russian airstrikes in Syria killed at least 200 civilians and the Russian government might have lied to cover up the deaths and widespread damage to residential areas, according to a new Amnesty International report.

The human rights organization said Tuesday that some of the strikes seemed to be directly launched at civilian areas, with no clear military target to be found, and “show evidence of violations of international humanitarian law.” In a statement, Philip Luther, who directs Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa program, said the strikes “may amount to war crimes.”

The Russian Defense Ministry disputes the allegations in the report, which it says includes “fake information” and “trite clichés,” a ministry spokesman told Reuters.

Russia has been performing airstrikes in Syria since Sept. 30, independent of the United States-led coalition that is dedicated to destroying Islamic State interests. Russian government authorities have publicly stated that the airstrikes are only aimed at terrorist targets.

However, the Amnesty report cites interviews with witnesses and survivors of those attacks, as well as analysis from weapons experts, as evidence that some of the airstrikes occurred in areas where “there were no military targets or fighters in the immediate vicinity.”

The report references six specific attacks in Homes, Idleb and Aleppo between September and November. Amnesty alleges five of those strikes targeted residential areas, while the sixth occurred very close to a hospital.

Amnesty referenced a Nov. 29 incident in which three missiles hit a busy public market in Idleb, killing 49 civilians. One man told the group that he spoke to a woman who was “crying beside a line of dead bodies” after her husband and three children died in the attack. In researching the report, Amnesty said it determined that there were no apparent military targets in the area.

Amnesty’s report also references an Oct. 1 airstrike against a mosque in Idleb, which caused the deaths of two civilians. A witness told Amnesty there weren’t any military targets within 500 meters of the mosque. But the report cites comments Russian officials publicly made about the airstrike, which the officials said targeted Islamic State interests and destroyed a command post.

Weeks later, after reports surfaced that the mosque had been destroyed, Russian officials said the claims were fabricated and showed a satellite picture of the mosque supposedly still intact. However, Amnesty reported the picture showed a different mosque than the one destroyed in the attack.

Amnesty called for independent investigations into the alleged transgressions, saying Russian leaders “failed to take feasible precautions to avoid, or at least minimize, harm to civilians and damage to civilian objects.”

Amnesty said it also has evidence Russia used unguided bombs in civilian areas, as well as widely criticized cluster bombs. Reuters reported Russia’s Defense Ministry denied using any cluster bombs in Syria.

Amnesty reported that it is also “researching and documenting its concerns” about the airstrikes conducted by the United States-led coalition.

Witnesses Describe Horrors of Boko Haram Massacre

Survivors of the Boko Haram conducted massacre in northern Nigeria last week are starting to arrive in the southern part of the country and are sharing horrific stories.

Witnesses say that a pregnant woman who was in the middle of delivering a baby boy was killed by the terrorists.  The survivors say that women and children were killed indiscriminately by the terrorists who never stopped to ask if the people were Muslim or of other faiths.

“They killed so many people. I saw maybe around 100 killed at that time in Baga. I ran to the bush. As we were running, they were shooting and killing,” one witness said.

Amnesty International has released satellite photos of the region showing the devastation left in the wake of the terrorists.  Actual ground footage has been unavailable as the Islamists still control the area.

“These detailed images show devastation of catastrophic proportions in two towns, one of which was almost wiped off the map in the space of four days,” Daniel Eyre, Nigeria researcher for Amnesty International, told the Christian Post.

“Of all Boko Haram assaults analyzed by Amnesty International, this is the largest and most destructive yet. It represents a deliberate attack on civilians whose homes, clinics and schools are now burnt out ruins.”

“The numbers are adding up fast and it is becoming clearer and clearer that the Nigerian governments, both federal and states, are failing resoundingly in their responsibility to protect innocent lives and prevent this mass atrocities from going forward. These atrocities are increasingly becoming worse and worse as the times go by,” said Pastor Laolu Akande, the executive director of the Christian Association of Nigerian Americans.