Amnesty International

Rights Groups Slam ‘Malicious Crackdown’ on Migrants and Civil Society in Tunisia

Spread the love

Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Lawyers shout slogans against Tunisian President Kais Saied during a May 16, 2024 protest in Tunis.
 (Photo: Fethi Belaid/AFP via Getty Images)

“The clampdown on migration-related work at the same time as the increasing arrest of government critics and journalists sends a chilling message,” said one campaigner.

Human rights defenders on Friday decried what Amnesty International called “an unprecedented repressive clampdown” by Tunisia’s increasingly authoritarian government on migrants, their civil society advocates, and journalists over the past two weeks.

Hundreds of Tunisian attorneys led a strike in the capital Tunis on Thursday to protest rising arrests of lawyers, one of whom, Mahdi Zagrouba, said he was tortured during interrogation—an allegation denied by Tunisian officials. Demonstrators chanted “No fear, no terror! Power belongs to the people!” as they marched on the Palace of Justice.

Sub-Saharan African migrants—recently described by Tunisian President Kais Saied as “hordes of illegal immigrants” who bring “violence, crime, and unacceptable practices” to Tunisia and threaten its “Arab and Islamic” character—have been particularly targeted, as have those who help them.

“On May 11, security officers stormed the Tunisian Bar Association’s headquarters during a live television broadcast, arresting a media commentator and lawyer, Sonia Dahmani, for sarcastic comments made on May 7 questioning the claim that Black African migrants were seeking to settle in Tunisia,” Human Rights Watch said Friday.

“Based on media reports, Dahmani’s arrest and subsequent detention was based on Decree-Law 54 on cybercrime, which imposes heavy prison sentences for spreading ‘fake news’ and ‘rumors’ online and in the media, after she refused to respond to a summons for questioning,” the group added.

Other recent arrestees include Saadia Mosbah, a Black Tunisian woman who heads the anti-racism group Mnemty (My Dream); and journalists Mourad Zeghidi and Borhen Bsaies

“The clampdown on migration-related work at the same time as the increasing arrest of government critics and journalists sends a chilling message that anyone who doesn’t fall in line may end up in the authorities’ crosshairs,” Lama Fakih, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “By targeting these civil society groups, Tunisian authorities jeopardize the vital support they provide migrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers living in extremely vulnerable situations.”

According to Amnesty International:

Tunisian authorities have since May 3 arrested, summoned, and investigated the heads, former staff, or members of at least 12 organizations over unclear accusations including “financial crimes” for providing aid to migrants, including a Tunisian organization that works in partnership with the [United Nations] Refugee Agency, UNHCR, on supporting asylum-seekers through the refugee status determination process in the country. They have also arrested at least two journalists and referred them to trial for their independent reporting and comments in the media.

In parallel, security forces have escalated their collective unlawful deportations of refugees and migrants, as well as multiple forced evictions and have arrested and convicted landlords for renting apartments to migrants without permits.

“Tunisia’s authorities have stepped up their malicious crackdown against civil society organizations working on migrants and refugee rights using misleading claims about their work and harassing and prosecuting NGO workers, lawyers, and journalists,” said Heba Morayef, Amnesty’s regional director for Middle East and North Africa.

“A smear campaign online and in the media, supported by the Tunisian president himself, has put refugees and migrants in the country at risk,” she continued. “It also undermines the work of civil society groups and sends a chilling message to all critical voices.”

“Tunisia’s authorities must immediately end this vicious campaign and halt all reprisals against NGO workers providing essential support, including shelter, to migrants and refugees,” Morayef added. “The European Union should be urgently reviewing its cooperation agreements with Tunisia to ensure that it is not complicit in human rights violations against migrants and refugees nor in the clampdown on media, lawyers, migrants, and activists.”

Last July, the E.U. and Tunisia signed a memorandum of understanding that included up to €1 billion ($1.09 billion) in funding for the North African nation. Around 10% of that aid is meant to be spent on stopping migrants from reaching Europe.

“The European Union should be urgently reviewing its cooperation agreements with Tunisia to ensure that it is not complicit in human rights violations.”

Romdhane Ben Amor of the Tunisian League for the Defense of Human Rights toldAl Jazeera Friday that “the regime’s machinery is operating very efficiently, meaning it devours anyone who has a critical perspective on the situation… lawyers, journalists, bloggers, citizens, or associations.”

“So, of course, Kais Saied from now until the elections has a long list of individuals, associations, parties, and journalists whom he will gradually criminalize to always maintain the sympathy of his electoral base,” Ben Amor added, referring to this fall’s expected presidential contest.

Over the past three years, Saied—who was initially supported by both leftists and Islamists when elected on an anti-corruption platform in 2019—has dissolved Parliament and suspended most of Tunisia’s 2014 Constitution, allowing him to rule by decree. He has consolidated power by pushing through a new constitution, eroding the judiciary’s independence, repressing civil liberties, undermining workers’ rights, weakening democratic institutions, and other methods.

“Tunisian authorities must urgently reverse this significant backsliding on human rights,” Morayef asserted. “They must cease this judicial harassment and release all those detained solely for the exercise of their freedom of expression and freedom of association. People should have the freedom to express themselves without fear of reprisal.”

Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue ReadingRights Groups Slam ‘Malicious Crackdown’ on Migrants and Civil Society in Tunisia

‘Most Thorough Legal Analysis’ Yet Concludes Israel Committing Genocide in Gaza

Spread the love

Original article by JESSICA CORBETT republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

A Palestinian boy observes the site of an Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced people in the central Gaza Strip on May 14, 2024.
 (Photo” Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

The University Network for Human Rights report also stresses that other nations are legally obligated to “refrain from recognizing Israel’s breaches as legal or taking any actions that may amount to complicity.”

The University Network for Human Rights on Wednesday released and sent to United Nations offices a 105-page report that it called “the most thorough legal analysis” yet to find “Israel is committing genocide” against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The network partnered with the International Human Rights Clinic at Boston University School of Law, the International Human Rights Clinic at Cornell Law School, the Center for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria, and the Lowenstein Human Rights Project at Yale Law School for the analysis, which draws from “a diverse range of credible sources” and the territory’s history.

“After reviewing the facts established by independent human rights monitors, journalists, and United Nations agencies, we conclude that Israel’s actions in and regarding Gaza since October 7, 2023, violate the Genocide Convention,” the report states. “Israel has committed genocidal acts of killing, causing serious harm to, and inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza, a protected group that forms a substantial part of the Palestinian people.”

As of May 1, Israel’s assault had killed “more than 5% of Gaza’s population, with over 2% of Gaza’s children killed or injured,” the analysis notes. In recent days, Israeli forces have ramped up their attack on Rafah—where over a million people from other parts of the besieged enclave sought refuge—and the total death toll has risen to 35,233, according to Gaza health officials, with another 79,141 Palestinians injured.

“Israel’s military operation has destroyed up to 70% of homes in Gaza, and has decimated civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, universities, U.N. facilities, and cultural and religious heritage sites,” the document says, noting the “staggering” number of forced displacements. “Civilians in Gaza face catastrophic levels of hunger and deprivation due to Israel’s restriction on, and failure to ensure adequate access to, basic essentials of life, including food, water, medicine, and fuel.”

“Israel’s genocidal acts in Gaza have been motivated by the requisite genocidal intent, as evidenced in this report by the statements of Israeli leaders, the character of the state and its military forces’ conduct against and relating to Palestinians in Gaza, and the direct nexus between them,” the publication continues, pointing to comments from “officials at all levels of Israeli government, up to and including” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israel has faced mounting allegations of genocide since launching its retaliation for the Hamas-led October 7 attack—including an ongoing South Africa-led case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which found in January that the country is “plausibly” committing genocide.

Bolstering the ICJ’s conclusion, the Wednesday report declares that “Israel’s violations of the international legal prohibition of genocide amount to grave breaches of peremptory norms of international law that must cease immediately.”

“These violations give rise to obligations by all other states: to refrain from recognizing Israel’s breaches as legal or taking any actions that may amount to complicity in these breaches; and to take positive steps to suppress, prevent, and punish the commission by Israel of further genocidal acts against the Palestinian people in Gaza,” the document adds.

The United States has long provided Israel with billions of dollars in military aid and diplomatic support—which have soared since October 7, despite growing pressure on U.S. President Joe Biden to cut off such assistance. The Democrat has incrementally increased his criticism of the Israeli assault in recent weeks, angering far-right leaders in both countries.

The new legal analysis—which was sent to the U.N.’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect, and the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel—came on the same day that 20 human rights groups issued a joint statement.

The rights organizations—including Amnesty International, Mercy Corps, and Oxfam—called on world leaders “to urgently act in bringing to an end, and pursue accountability for,” Israel’s grave breaches of international humanitarian law in Gaza.

Both documents were released on Nakba Day, which commemorates the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. Some experts and campaigners contend that the Nakba—Arabic for catastrophe—continues today.

Original article by JESSICA CORBETT republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue Reading‘Most Thorough Legal Analysis’ Yet Concludes Israel Committing Genocide in Gaza

Biden Moves Forward With ‘Immoral’ $1 Billion Arms Shipment to Israel

Spread the love

Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

U.S. President Joe Biden speaks in the South Court Auditorium at the White House on February 16, 2023 in Washington, DC.
 (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

The new shipment was announced “right after the State Department admits Israel has ‘likely’ used U.S.-supplied weapons in violation of humanitarian law,” said one journalist.

Less than a week after U.S. President Joe Biden said he was pausing a shipment of thousands of bombs to Israel, citing concerns over the safety of civilians in Rafah and other “population centers” in Gaza, the White House informed Congress Tuesday that it will soon send over $1 billion more in arms and ammunition to the Israel Defense Forces.

The package includes about $700 million for tank ammunition, $500 million in tactical vehicles, and $60 million in mortar rounds, congressional aides told TheAssociated Press.

Despite the Biden administration’s repeated claims that it believes U.S. bombs should not “be dropped in densely populated cities,” Intercept reporter Prem Thakker pointed out that the arms shipment was announced days after the State Department admitted in a report that it was “reasonable” to conclude Israel has used U.S. weapons to violate international humanitarian law in its relentless bombing of Gaza.

It was unclear whether the $1 billion shipment was part of an existing arms sale or a new transaction with Israel. The weapons are not among those included in the $17 billion in military aid for the IDF included in a foreign aid package passed last month.

At Al Jazeera, Shihab Rattansi reported that the weapons shipment is “being presented as the long-term U.S. commitment to supplying Israel with weaponry” and “has been under consideration since mid-spring,” with some of the weapons potentially not reaching the IDF for months or even up to three years.

But foreign policy analyst Rula Jebreal suggested that regardless of whether the weapons are used in Rafah, where Israel is currently expanding its assault, the shipment goes “against U.S. national security interest and global standing” and will aid Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “on his lawless path of colonization.”

The shipment was announced ahead of a statement released by Amnesty International and other humanitarian groups condemning international governments—including that of the U.S.—for standing by as Israel has killed at least 35,173 Palestinians in Gaza since October while also blocking nearly all humanitarian aid, pushing part of the enclave into famine that is expected to spread.

The U.S. and other suppliers of weapons to Israel must respect last month’s United Nations Human Rights Council resolution demanding an end to weapons sales to the IDF, said the groups.

“As the main weapon provider for Israel’s military effort, the United States bears a significant responsibility for Israel’s international humanitarian law violations. In addition to halting the transfer of high payload bombs, the U.S. should also use all its leverage to halt the ongoing military operation in Rafah,” said the organizations, including Relief International and Oxfam. “All states must act now to ensure an immediate and sustained cease-fire.”

Amnesty released an analysis late last month showing that U.S. bombs were used in attacks on Gaza that likely fit the definition of war crimes.

Al Jazeera‘s Tareq Abu Azzoum reported Wednesday from Deir el-Balah, Gaza that Israel has intensified its attacks on Rafah as well as in cities in northern Gaza.

“Over the past couple of hours, we have recorded more victims in central areas of Gaza City,” reported Abu Azzoum. “Ten Palestinians have been killed in the city’s Sabra neighborhood after a U.N.-run clinic was targeted by Israeli jets.”

The IDF said Tuesday that it had hit more than 100 targets across the Gaza Strip in a 24-hour period and was continuing to carry out attacks in Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians have been forcibly displaced since October.

Nearly 450,000 people have now been forced to flee the southern city once again, and Al Jazeerareported Tuesday that at least one family that escaped Israel’s Rafah incursion was killed days later in an attack on a refugee camp.

Moving forward with another weapons shipment to Israel, said U.S. economic justice group Debt Collective, was “murderous” and “immoral.”

Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue ReadingBiden Moves Forward With ‘Immoral’ $1 Billion Arms Shipment to Israel

Israel’s War on Gaza Has Helped Fuel ‘Near Breakdown of International Law’: Amnesty

Spread the love

Original article by OLIVIA ROSANE republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Body bags are laid in front of the White House as part of a protest calling for a Gaza cease-fire.  (Photo: Lauren Murphy/Amnesty International USA)

“What we saw in 2023 confirms that many powerful states are abandoning the founding values of humanity and universality enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” Amnesty’s secretary-general said.

Government aggression and the rise of Big Tech are threatening the rules-based international order and global human rights, Amnesty International warned in its annual State of the World’s Human Rights report, released Wednesday.

The organization expressed particular alarm over Israel’s war on Gaza and the inability or unwillingness of its allies to rein in the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from bombing civilian populations, displacing more than 1.9 million people, and restricting the flow of aid into the besieged Gaza Strip. This and other conflicts, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, had led to a “near breakdown of international law,” Amnesty said.

“For millions the world over, Gaza now symbolizes utter moral failure by many of the architects of the post-World War Two system; their failure to uphold the absolute commitment to universality, our common humanity, and to our ‘never again’ commitment,” Amnesty International’s secretary-general Agnès Callamard wrote in the preface to the report.

“One country, one government is allowed to annihilate international law, to put its middle finger in the eye of international law.”

Amnesty wrote that Israel had made a “mockery” of some of the key tenants of international humanitarian law such as proportionality and distinction by targeting civilization populations and infrastructure such as refugee camps, hospitals, bakeries, and United Nations schools. As of the end of 2023, Israel had killed 21,600 Palestinians, a third of them children. At present, the death toll has surpassed 34,200, though that is likely an undercount as many remain buried beneath rubble.

Amnesty International researcher Budour Hassan toldDeutsche Welle that it was “utterly disappointing” that “one country, one government is allowed to annihilate international law, to put its middle finger in the eye of international law, and go on as if nothing has happened, normalizing the abnormal, normalizing the atrocities that have been happening, so that the crime that was an atrocity two days ago would become normal.”

Hassan said there were things that the international community could do to try to stop the violence, such as cutting off weapons sales to Israel and Palestinian armed groups.

“It’s just that the international community has proven desperately unwilling and incapable of upholding these norms,” Hassan added, saying that, by failing to act, it could be “signing a death sentence to the whole international order.”

In particular, Amnesty criticized the U.S. for spending months vetoing U.N. Security Council resolutions calling for a cease-fire, as well as European Union countries like Germany and the U.K. that called out their opponents’ human rights abuses but continued to back Israel.

“What we saw in 2023 confirms that many powerful states are abandoning the founding values of humanity and universality enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” Callamard said.

In addition to Israel and its Western allies, Amnesty also pointed to Russia and its ongoing invasion of Ukraine, as well as China’s human rights abuses against the Uyghur and financial backing of the Myanmar military, which killed at least 1,000 civilians in 2023.

“We have here three very large countries, superpowers in many ways, sitting on the Security Council that have emptied out the Security Council of its potentials, and that have emptied out international law of its ability to protect people,” Callamard toldThe Associated Press of the U.S., Russia, and China.

In addition to state actors, Amnesty International sounded the alarm about the growing power of large technology companies, and, in particular, the rollout of artificial intelligence. The human rights group said that both new and existing technologies were making it easier for governments to target vulnerable groups like women, minorities, and members of the LGBTQ community. For example, the New York City Police Department informed Amnesty that it used facial recognition technology to keep tabs on Black Lives Matter activists, while Israel used it in the West Bank to help control Palestinian movement. The organization warned of how under-regulated technologies could exacerbate the scapegoating of marginalized groups as many countries hold elections in 2024.

“Big Tech’s surveillance business model is pouring fuel on this fire of hate, enabling those with malintent to hound, dehumanize, and amplify dangerous narratives to consolidate power or polling,” Callarmard said. “It’s a chilling specter of what’s to come as technological advances rapaciously outpace accountability.”

Callarmard called for reforms to the U.N. Security Council so that no country could use its veto power to obstruct action and for better governmental regulation of developing technologies.

The silver lining is that ordinary people around the world continue to demonstrate for human rights, both their own and others. Amnesty cited the international movement for a cease-fire in Gaza; abortion rights protests in the U.S., El Salvador, and Poland; and the Fridays for Future youth movement to phase out fossil fuels and address the climate emergency.

“People have made it abundantly clear that they want human rights; the onus is on governments to show that they are listening,” Callamard said.

Original article by OLIVIA ROSANE republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue ReadingIsrael’s War on Gaza Has Helped Fuel ‘Near Breakdown of International Law’: Amnesty

Amnesty condemns UK for ‘appalling’ domestic policies in damning report

Spread the love

https://leftfootforward.org/2024/04/amnesty-condemns-uk-for-appalling-domestic-policies-in-damning-report/

‘The UK is deliberately destabilising the entire concept of universal human rights’

The world’s leading human rights organisation has issued a damning condemnation of the UK government’s domestic policies and failure in Gaza, accusing the UK of “deliberately destabilising” global human rights.

In a truly bleak assessment, Amnesty International said Britain had breached international human rights commitments at a “perilous” time in global history, as a result of the UK government’s policies targeting asylum seekers and protesters. 

Amnesty’s 2024 annual global report notes Britain’s weakening global and domestic human rights protections for the sake of the government’s own political gain, and at a time when the global community is failing to uphold international law.

Amnesty also accused the UK Government of ‘grotesque double-standards’ for bolstering the actions of Israel and the US in Gaza, as the UK continues to arm Israel while failing to condemn Israel’s actions in the region which ‘likely amounts to war crimes’. 

The UK’s weak support for the international criminal court (ICC) investigation into human rights violations in Israel and Palestine was also condemned, along with its failure to stand up as a strong voice in the UN to stop human rights violations in Gaza. 

…

https://leftfootforward.org/2024/04/amnesty-condemns-uk-for-appalling-domestic-policies-in-damning-report/

Continue ReadingAmnesty condemns UK for ‘appalling’ domestic policies in damning report