The cancellation of Mr. Amsterdam’s talk in Malaysia

Open split over whether the organization is aggressive enough on Thai repression.

An open split has divided the Asian operations Amnesty International, one of the world's most prestigious human rights groups, over its operations in Thailand.

Some 70 members of Amnesty International and other human rights organizations have sent an open letter to Salil Shetty, Amnesty International's Secretary General at the organization's London headquarters complaining about the actions of Benjamin Zawacki, AI's Southeast Asia researcher, and Donna Guest, the Asia-Pacific deputy director, in blocking a dialogue to be held by the Malaysia wing of the organization on the issue of human rights violations in Thailand.

Zawacki, in a brief telephone interview referred Asia Sentinel to a written statement saying it was self-explanatory. The statement said that "Amnesty International globally has avoided partisan entanglement in the Thai political crisis. Despite allegations from both sides that the organization supports the Yellow or Red positions and groups, Amnesty has limited itself to the human rights issues and has avoided politics."

The cancellation of Mr. Amsterdam’s talk in Malaysia due to:

1. Amnesty International globally has avoided partisan entanglement in the Thai political crisis. Despite allegations from both sides that the organization supports the Yellow or Red positions and groups, Amnesty has limited itself to the human rights issues and has avoided politics. Amnesty has been in touch with Mr. Amsterdam over the past year and is aware of the substance of his claims, as well as his political strategy, for which he is compensated. In this context, Mr. Amsterdam is a paid advocate of former Thai PM Thaksin, and is thus very clearly a partisan of one side of the political crisis. This is not a value judgment on Mr. Amsterdam’s position, it is simply a factual observation that implicates a rule that Amnesty applies in its work everywhere: remain neutral, objective, and impartial. Sharing a platform with Mr. Amsterdam would place Amnesty in breach of that rule.

2. Moreover, the substance of Mr. Amsterdam’s talk would have been particularly ill-advised for an Amnesty platform. Amnesty International understands that Mr. Amsterdam has presented a petition to the International Criminal Court (ICC) on the alleged commission of crimes against humanity by Thai authorities in April and May 2010. Thailand, however, has not acceded to the Rome Statute establising the ICC, meaning that the only possible way a case based on events involving Thai citizens in Thailand could reach the ICC would be through a referral by the UN Security Council. It is true that following the referral of Libya’s Colonel Qaddafi by the UN Security Council to the ICC, this avenue of seeking accountability has new life. That the international community struggles, however, to get the Security Council to respond to the massacres in the Sri Lankan civil war–in which 20,000 to 40,000 civilians were killed over a few months–is a sobering counterpoint. Thus, while Amnesty would not totally rule out the possibility of international accountability for various events in Thailand, the organization would clearly refrain from publicly taking a position that suggests that referral to the ICC is a feasible, or even desirable, method of seeking accountability in Thailand.

3. Finally, in addressing any situation that involves accountability in Thailand, Amnesty again must maintain its neutrality and avoid political partisanship. Thus, alongside discussion of the allegations raised by Mr. Amsterdam, considerable reference would also need to be made, among other events, to the thousands of extrajudicial executions as part of Mr. Taksin’s “war on drugs” and during counter-insurgency operations in southern Thailand. Mr. Thaksin strenuously combated Amnesty’s efforts to seek accountability for these serious violations. While these infractions of international human rights law do not in any way justify the present Thai government’s unlawful use of lethal force against demonstrators who may be generally labelled pro-Thaksin, they are crucial elements of any discussion of the Yellow-Red dynamic in Thailand, and in particular, of any discussion of justice and accountability in the country. Amnesty was not confident that a talk by Mr. Amsterdam, on an Amnesty platform, would refer to this context adequately.

Other human rights organizations in Thailand have been critical of Amnesty International's Thai operations, saying they often have not been aggressive in defending opponents of the Thai regime and the military as the government has slid deeper into repression. Human rights campaigners have charged that the government is using lèse majesté not to protect King Bumibhol Adulyadej and the royal family but to quell legitimate dissent.

"Amnesty International enjoys the support of many rich, elite, overseas-educated Thais, many of whom bear Royal decorations," said CJ Hinke, the head of Freedom Against Censorship Thailand and one of the signatories to the open letter. "AI is considered to be just liberal enough to provide the rich a halo of concern. That support will only continue as long as AI does not investigate Thailand's own human rights violations in any great depth. Lèse majesté in particular.

For its part, Amnesty International Bangkok has repeatedly issued press releases and campaigned publicly for the release of Chiranuch Premchaiporn, an online news editor for lèse majesté charges, and demanded the repeal of emergency powers that were ultimately withdrawn in December.

The open letter complains that Amnesty International Malaysia had planned to meet on April 23 with Robert Amsterdam, the lawyer representing the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship – Thailand's Red Shirt opposition -- who had filed a case at the International Criminal Court against the government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva government for ordering the military crackdown in April-May 2010 which resulted in the deaths of 92 people, mostly civilians, and 2,000 people injured.

However, the letter says, the Malaysia wing "received strong instructions from the International Secretariat demanding them to cancel the dialogue session. The action is a clear violation on the very principle central to human rights for which is on freedom of expression and opinion, toleration of different opinions and ideas, and fighting against culture of impunity."

Amnesty International, the letter said, "is taking the same approach by the Thai government in banning Mr. Amsterdam from entering Thailand, and thus violating Mr. Amsterdam the right to exercise his freedom of expression."

In the statement, however, Zawacki called Amsterdam over the past year "a paid advocate of former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin (Shinawatra) and is thus very clearly a partisan of one side of the political crisis. This is not a value judgment on Mr. Amsterdam's position, it is simply a factual observation that implicates a rule that Amnesty applies in its work everywhere: remain neutral, objective, and impartial. Sharing a platform with Mr. Amsterdam would place Amnesty in breach of that rule."

Read more here.

Amnesty urges Malaysia to stop caning immigrants

Rights watchdog Amnesty has urged Malaysia to abolish caning, saying that tens of thousands of migrants had received the "inhuman and degrading" punishment in recent years.

Amnesty cited a statement in Malaysian parliament last week that said local authorities had caned at least 34,923 migrants between 2002 and 2008, 60 percent of them from neighbouring Indonesia.

"Amnesty International urges the Malaysian government to rid the country of this cruel punishment," the London-based group said in a statement.

"Whipping someone with a cane is cruel, inhuman and degrading, and international standards make clear that such treatment constitutes torture."

Apart from Indonesians, those caned were also from Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Nepal, the Philippines and Thailand.

Malaysia, Southeast Asia's third largest economy, has 2.2 million migrant workers in Malaysia, who are the mainstay of the plantation and manufacturing sectors.

The caning sentence was added to Malaysian immigration laws since 2002, amid concern over the ramifications of having a large migrant workforce.

Under the laws, those staying in Malaysia illegally are subject to a mandatory whipping of up to six strokes of the cane, fines and up to five years in jail.

Caning is also carried out for serious offenses including rape and drug trafficking.

"The practice is humiliating, and causes such pain that people have reportedly fainted. Those caned often carry scars, psychological as well as physical, for years," Amnesty said.

( Source:"Amnesty urges Malaysia to stop caning immigrants" )

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL OPEN LETTER to the Government of Malaysia , Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

OPEN LETTER

Date 29 January 2009

AI Index: ASA 01/001/2009


To the governments of Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand


Your Excellencies,

We write to you to raise our serious concern about the plight of the Rohingyas, a Muslim minority from Rakhine State, western Myanmar. Thousands of Rohingyas have fled in recent months on boats sailing for Thailand and Malaysia, and hundreds are missing, feared drowned. Their situation has reached a critical stage over the last two months, as the Thai military have forcibly expelled approximately 1,000 Rohingyas arriving in southwest Thailand by boat, while the Indian and Indonesian authorities have rescued hundreds of them.

In order to address this crisis, Amnesty International makes the following recommendations to the governments of Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand as a matter of urgency:

Myanmar must immediately stop the systematic persecution of the Rohingya minority, which is the root cause of the crisis;

• All governments should provide immediate access to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to all Rohingyas in their territory;
• All governments should ratify the UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, its 1967 Protocol, and the UN Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons.
• All governments should meet their obligations under the law of the sea and provide assistance to those in distress at sea, including search and rescue service;

With lives still at risk, Amnesty International reminds regional governments of their specific obligations under the law of the sea which are applicable to situations of migrants found or intercepted at sea. In addition to the UN International Convention on Maritime Search and Rescue (SAR), both the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), to which Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Myanmar, Thailand and India are parties, include obligations to provide assistance to those found in distress at sea. These obligations exist concurrently to human rights obligations.

Specifically, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) obliges state parties to require the master of a ship flying its flag to render assistance to any person found at sea in danger of being lost and rescue persons in distress. The obligation to provide assistance applies regardless of the nationality, status or circumstances of the individuals. Moreover, all coastal states are obliged to establish and maintain search and rescue services for this purpose, including through regional cooperation arrangements.

Ensuring the safety and dignity of those rescued and of the crew must be the immediate consideration in determining where individuals rescued at sea are taken. Under international law, the state responsible for the search and rescue region in which survivors were recovered is responsible for providing a place of safety or ensuring that such a place of safety is provided. However, each state must ensure that individuals are not returned or transferred to a place where they may be at risk of serious human rights violations. Where individuals may be seeking or be in need of international protection, the rescuing state must transfer them to territory where access to a fair and satisfactory asylum process with full procedural safeguards is guaranteed.

Amnesty International calls on regional governments to cooperate in providing follow-up care for Rohingya survivors, deliver persons rescued at sea promptly to a place of safety, and ensure that they have access to a fair and satisfactory asylum process to assess their protection needs.

Amnesty International welcomes Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's stated commitment to convene a regional forum on the Rohingyas. Flows of Rohingyas from Myanmar to neighbouring countries present an enormous challenge which can only be addressed regionally. Any regional solution must ensure that those Rohingyas who have a well-founded fear of persecution in Myanmar are not returned there, and that those found not to be in need of protection are returned in a humane manner. Specifically, the Thai government must stop forcibly expelling Rohingyas and provide them with immediate humanitarian assistance and cease any plans to proceed with more expulsions, as has been credibly reported. Hundreds of Rohingyas are missing or have died after the Thai security forces set them adrift in unseaworthy boats with little or no food and water. Some of the Rohingyas reported being beaten by the Thai security forces, which the Thai government has categorically denied. On 29 January Indonesia announced it was still determining the fate of almost 200 Rohingyas and Bangladeshis, who had landed in Weh Island, Aceh province on 7 January. The Indian navy have rescued hundreds of Rohingyas on or near the Andaman Islands.

Amnesty International is encouraged by reports on 27 January that Prime Minister Abhisit invited UNHCR to participate in the proposed regional forum. This move is crucial given that the Thai authorities have not yet granted UNHCR access to all Rohingyas held in detention, so that their protection needs can be assessed. Most notably, UNHCR had requested access to a group of 126 Rohingyas reportedly detained by the Thai authorities. According to subsequent reports, the group may have been collectively expelled by the Thai military on 23 January. Amnesty International urges the governments of India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand not to return these individuals, to grant UNHCR immediate access to the Rohingyas in their countries in order to determine their protection needs, and to ensure that no one who would face serious human rights violations in any country be returned there.

It is only through a regional initiative, involving Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand, and with the participation of UNHCR, that a durable solution can be found to the plight of the Rohingyas. For the last three decades hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas have fled systematic persecution to neighbouring countries in Asia, the vast majority to Bangladesh. Moreover, within Myanmar, the Rohingyas suffer from specific deeply discriminatory policies targeting them. They are denied citizenship and are thus effectively stateless. Rohingyas who are returned to Myanmar continue to be at serious risk of human rights violations, including forced labour, forced eviction, land confiscation, and severe restrictions on freedom of movement. Such violations have had a severe impact on the group's livelihood and food security. It is imperative that the Myanmar authorities immediately stop subjecting the Rohingyas to these violations and change discriminatory policies aimed at denying them their fundamental rights. Until these root causes are addressed by the Myanmar government, Rohingyas will continue to flee to neighbouring countries.

Until the human rights situation in Myanmar improves, Rohingyas and others facing persecution in Myanmar will continue to flee their homes and seek safety elsewhere. In this context, Amnesty International also urges the governments of Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand to ratify the UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, its 1967 Protocol, and the UN Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons. Ratification of these Conventions will provide a suitable legal framework for a consistent, coherent regional approach necessary to address this growing problem.

We thank you for your immediate attention to this urgent matter.

Yours very truly,

Sam Zarifi

Asia-Pacific Director

Amnesty International

Sudan accused of arms violations

This photo shows containers being offloaded by Sudanese army soldiers from an Antonov aircraft onto military trucks at the military apron of El Geneina airport.

New photo evidence shows that the Sudanese government is continuing to deploy offensive military equipment in Darfur, despite the UN arms embargo and peace agreements.

Amnesty International (AI) today released new photographs that show Sudan's breathtaking defiance of the arms embargo and the Darfur peace deals.

"Once again Amnesty International calls on the UN Security Council to act decisively to ensure the embargo is effectively enforced, including by the placement of UN observers at all ports of entry in Sudan and Darfur," said Brian Wood, Amnesty International’s Arms Control Research Manager.

The photographs, sent to AI and the International Peace Information Service by eyewitnesses in Darfur, reinforce evidence provided in AI's May 2007 report: “Sudan: Arms continuing to fuel serious human rights violations in Darfur”. The photos were taken in July at El Geneina airport in Darfur.

AI has received reports of helicopters delivering arms to militias allied to the government, and of the continued deployment of attack helicopters. Russia signed a deal to supply at least 15 general military helicopters (Mi-17s) during 2005 and 2006 and also supplied 12 attack helicopters (Mi-24s) in 2005.

The Sudanese government continues to launch aerial attacks on civilians in Darfur. China supplied Fantan jets, carrying air-to-ground missiles, to Sudan until 2006.

In South Darfur, a Sudanese government Antonov aircraft carried out bombing raids in August after an attack by one armed opposition movement on the town of Adila. They targeted villages and water points. There have been a number of Antonov raids on Ta’alba, while the villages of Habib Suleiman and Fataha were also bombed. An Antonov capable of such raids was reportedly transferred from Russia to Sudan in September 2006.

A Russian-supplied Mi-24 attack helicopter (registration number 928) redeployed to El Geneina airport from Nyala, Darfur. Russia supplied 12 such attack helicopters to Sudan in 2005.

Thousands of displaced villagers have fled the Jebel Moon/Sirba area in West Darfur after attacks byJanjawid-supported government forces on areas under control of armed opposition groups. Local people said the forces were supplied by helicopters.

A Russian-supplied Mi-17 military helicopter (registration number 534) belonging to the Sudanese Air Force at El Geneina. Russia signed a deal to supply at least 15 such helicopters for delivery in 2005 and 2006.

There is further concern at reports that armed Sudanese border intelligence guards at El Geneina are using militarized vehicles in civilian settlements. Many in the border intelligence have come from the Janjawid militia, with little done to exclude those responsible for serious human rights violations.

The proliferation of small arms and militarized vehicles in Darfur has led to an increase in armed attacks on aid convoys and other devastating attacks against civilians. The government has consistently failed to stop such attacks by ethnic groups using government arms and vehicles.

On 31 July, the northern Rizeigat group -- armed with rocket propelled grenades and machine guns and using scores of militarized vehicles -- mounted an attack on the Tarjem group which left at least 68 people dead. Both groups identify themselves as Arabs and have been members of the Janjawid and various Sudanese government-backed paramilitary forces such as the Popular Defence Force (PDF).

On the same day, the UN Security Council agreed to send a newly strengthened African Union-United Nations hybrid force to Darfur, but further action is needed.

"If weapons continue to flow into Darfur and peacekeepers are not given the power to disarm and demobilize all armed opposition groups and Janjawid militia, the ability of the new peacekeeping force to protect civilians will be severely impeded," said Erwin van der Borght, Director of Amnesty International's Africa Program

"The UN Security Council must ensure that the arms embargo on Darfur is fully and effectively enforced and that peacekeepers are mandated to disarm or demobilize such groups."

Read Also :

Sudan accused of arms violations - Al Jazeera English

Khartoum 'defying Darfur embargo'- BBC

The death penalty - it ?s not dead and it?s killing thousands every year...

So, did you think the death penalty is a thing of the past? Maybe that it died out with witch burning (or at least after major miscarriages of justice showed how fallible capital punishment is)?

Think again !

A global survey of executions in 2006, shows that at least 1,591 people were executed in 25 countries last year - the majority in China (1,010), Iran (177), Pakistan (82), Iraq (65), Sudan (65) and USA (53) - but that these are only minimum figures. China, for example, refuses to even publish execution statistics and it secretly executes 7,000-8,000 each year.

Do they get what they deserve? Well, this is what it can involve:

• A man in Somalia was publicly stabbed to death after being hooded and tied to a stake
• A Sri Lankan man was found to be still alive and moving by morgue staff after being hanged in Kuwait - he died five hours after the hanging
• In Japan a man was taken to the gallows in a wheelchair
• In Iran, two people (a man and a woman) were stoned to death - stoning was made the punishment because they were accused of adultery

Worldwide: New report shows world executions down, but 'disturbing revival' amongst minority of countries

Pakistan has world's biggest death row - appeal for 'death row families' from Amjad Hussain, brother of Briton released from Pakistan, details here.

Two weeks after his 18th birthday in 2006, Sina Paymard was taken to the gallows to be executed in Iran.

As he stood there with a noose around his neck, he was asked for his final request. He said that he would like to play the ney – a Middle Eastern flute.

Relatives of the murder victim, who were there to witness the execution, were so moved by his music that they agreed to accept the payment of diyeh (blood money) instead of retribution by death, as is allowed under Iranian law. The noose was removed and he was taken down from the gallows.

Sina Paymard was granted a stay of execution while his family and his victim’s family negotiated payment of diyeh.

Although Sina Paymard remains today under sentence of death in Reja’i Shahr prison in Karaj, his story offers a rare glimmer of humanity in the brutal world of state killings.Details here.

One of the latest shocking cases we’ve come across involves a 17-year-old Kurdish girl called Du’a Khalil Aswad who was stoned to death in Iraq last month. This was a so-called ‘honour killing’ because she and a boy had supposedly brought shame on their community. Horrifically, local security people reportedly stood by and let the stoning happen.


Amnesty International is appalled by the killing of Du’a Khalil Aswad, aged about 17, who was stoned to death on or around 7 April 2007 for a so-called honour crime. A member of Iraq’s Yezidi religious minority from the village of Bahzan in northern Iraq, she was killed by a group of eight or nine men and in the presence of a large crowd in the town of Bashika, near the city of Mosul. Some of her relatives are said to have participated in the killing. Full story, check out here.








And, there’s a disturbing set of photos of Du'a Khalil after she’d been stoned here.

There is a way in which you can take action on other cases to help prevent further executions. One such case is the case of Delara Darabi, the 19-year-old woman in Iran who could be executed within weeks . We are asking people to go to the link and send appeals to the Iranian government to urgently stop this execution. Please check out Delara’s case and spread the word to as many people as possible here.


Youtube censors the stoning video, you can still watch the uncensored video here.

(WARNING - EXTREMELY GRUESOME *** Viewer’s Discretion Advised!!)

Related links :

Official web page of the Save Delara!™ campaign.
International Campaign against killings and stoning of women in Kurdistan- Petition
STOP honour killings.
SAVE DELARA DARABI FROM EXECUTION! - Blog

Kurdistan: Demonstration against public stoning - Images

Malaysian Government Cannot Ignore its Commitment to Refugee Protection

Amnesty International Malaysia is concerned about the recent discussions on refugees in Parliament and the comments by Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar on the rationale for not recognising refugees. This position clearly reflects the government’s lack of respect for human dignity and human rights.

As a member of international community and particularly the United Nations Human Rights Council the government must show a strong commitment in upholding the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights.

Malaysia is also a signatory to two United Nations treaties namely the Convention on the Rights of a Child (CRC) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). The spirit of both the conventions is rooted in the goals of the United Nations to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights and in the dignity and worth of the human person.

The South East Asian region has its share of political and humanitarian crises and Malaysia, as a member state of Asean and as the proponent of the Asean Charte, cannot close its eyes to this reality and ignore its human rights and humanitarian commitments.

AI Malaysia is also concerned with the attitude of the Foreign Minister on the role of United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) in Malaysia. We reiterate our position that the UNHCR is a United Nations body here to assist the government in providing assistance and protection to asylum seekers and refugees in the spirit of international solidarity and burden sharing. The UNHCR is also an important partner for the government to work with since we have yet to ratify the 1951 Refugee Convention.

Refugees in Malaysia go through stringent test and screening before they qualify for protection. Such high standards are maintained by the UNHCR to ensure protection for genuine refugees. The protection accorded by UNHCR is termed as International Protection, in line with the function and mandate given to this body.

AI Malaysia would also like to remind the Malaysian government that refugee concerns are not merely a national concern but an international concern and therefore requires a more consolidated approach. Malaysia must therefore abide with the concept of international solidarity and burden-sharing in relation to refugees, that has been present since the inception of UNHCR in 1950.

It is therefore vital for the Malaysian government to support the work of UNHCR and other multilateral organizations in meeting the needs of the world’s most vulnerable people. This multilateral approach is a matter of principle that refugee assistance should be a shared, international responsibility.

It is also ironic that the government has blamed the UNHCR for the “flood” of refugees when it is known widely that Myanmar asylum seekers and refugees, who consist of a large portion of the refugees in this country, continue to flee human rights violations and persecution in their home country. Amnesty International has continued to document the detention of over 1,000 political prisoners and serious human rights violations against ethnic minority civilians, including forced labour by the military.

Until the Malaysian government works with ASEAN countries to resolve the political and human rights crisis in Myanmar, we will continue to see refugee flows into our country.


Background

The concept of burden-sharing and international solidarity can be found in the preamble to UN 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees which states that the granting of asylum may place unduly heavy burdens on certain countries, and that a satisfactory solution of a problem of which the United Nations has recognized the international- scope and nature cannot therefore be achieved without international co-operation. Even though Malaysia is not a signatory to the 1951 Convention, the preamble contained in the Convention is an important guiding principle for states when addressing the concerns of refugees and places a duty on the state to make multi party arrangement both internationally and nationally with various stakeholders.

98 years of International Women's Day

"As Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, we know there is a direct relationship between peace, justice and respect for human rights. As long as women are denied human rights, anywhere in the world, there can be no justice and no peace. Recognizing women's equal rights, therefore, is an essential requirement for the creation of strong, sustainable and stable societies and ensuring that women enjoy equality with men in all areas of life is a key step to making human rights a universal reality." -- Shirin Ebadi, 2003 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate & Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International, which was awarded the 1977 Nobel Peace Prize.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

Open Letter

AI Index: MDE 13/023/2007 (Public)
News Service No: 045
7 March 2007

International Women's Day: Irene Khan and Shirin Ebadi call for end to discrimination against women in Iran
On the 98th annual celebration of International Women's Day, we call on the Government of Iran to abolish urgently laws that discriminate against women.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which recognizes human rights as being fundamental to the dignity and development of every human being, denounces discrimination on grounds of sex.

Yet in Iran, women face serious and widespread discrimination under the law, which excludes women from critical areas of political participation, treating women as if they were second-class citizens. The women of Iran are entitled to equal status with men under the Iranian legal system. The time is long overdue to make this a reality.

Iranian women's rights activists have launched the "Million signatures campaign" which aims to gather widespread support for their demand for equality before the law. The time has come for the Government of Iran to pay heed to these voices and put an end to legal discrimination against women in Iran.

As Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, we know there is a direct relationship between peace, justice and respect for human rights. As long as women are denied human rights, anywhere in the world, there can be no justice and no peace. Recognizing women's equal rights, therefore, is an essential requirement for the creation of strong, sustainable and stable societies and ensuring that women enjoy equality with men in all areas of life is a key step to making human rights a universal reality.

( Shirin Ebadi, 2003 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International, which was awarded the 1977 Nobel Peace Prize )

Discrimination in law, social practice and attitude, impunity and indifference are the underlying causes of violence against women. In many countries, laws, policies and practices discriminate against women, denying them equality with men - politically, economically and socially.

In many parts of the world women still do not have the vote, or equal access to property or family rights. In many societies, law, tradition and custom subjugate women and open them up to violence.

Violence against women takes many forms. Darfur presents one of the most extreme examples in the world currently - rape is used systematically against women in this region of Sudan. While it is impossible to know exactly how many women have been victims of violence since the armed conflict began, it is certain that thousands of women have been raped.

Rape is not only used as a weapon of war in open conflicts. Inés Fernández Ortega and Valentina Rosendo Cantú, from Mexico's Tlapaneca Indigenous community, were raped by members of the Mexican army in February and March 2002. Five years later, they are still waiting for justice.

The single most important factor that allows violence against women to persist, whether in times of peace or war, is the fact that those who attack and rape women know that they can get away with it.

And, when women stand up for themselves and try to end the inequality, they are often further victimised. Only four days before International Women's Day, over 30 women activists were arrested while staging a peaceful demonstration in Tehran, Iran. The women were arrested outside Tehran's Revolutionary Court. They had gathered to protest at the trial of five women charged in connection with a demonstration held on 12 June 2006.

The June demonstration, to demand that women be given equal rights with men under the law in Iran, was violently dispersed by security forces who arrested at least 70 people.

This latest event highlights the reasons why Amnesty International is supporting Iranian women's rights activists' "Campaign for Equality". It aims to collect a million signatures from Iranians in support of changes to the law to end legalised discrimination against women.

On the 98th annual celebration of International Women's Day, Amnesty International, together with women’s organisations and groups around the world, calls for:

* the end of violence against women;
* the end of impunity for violence against women;
* the end of discriminatory laws;
* implementation of international standards for women’s human rights; and
* a change of social attitudes that tolerate and promote violence against women.

Related News :

Iran: Release Women’s Rights Advocates. Mass Arrest Signals New Level of Repression.

Malaysia: Freedom -- the Human Imperative

"Freedom has no history." This seminal statement by a teacher of enlightenment, Andrew Cohen, left me stunned when I first read it. It gripped my heart with a sense of profoundness. In these four words freedom stood as the essence of human existence. These words awoke me to the reality that freedom is timeless: You cannot hold human freedom within the confines of time and space. You can talk of freedom neither in the past nor in the future context. Freedom was, is, and will be, eternal.

That is why freedom has no history. But, looking deeper, I come to understand that freedom does have a story. And nobody tells that story better than J. Krishnamurti: "What man has done to man has no limit. He has tortured him, he has burned him, he has killed him, he has exploited him in every possible way-religious, political, economic. This has been the story of man to man." Thus, the denial of freedom has a history, a bloodied history.

- Dr Munawar A. Anees

When Malaysia’s autocratic former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed sent his police in September 1998 to kidnap me from my home in front of my wife, I was totally unaware of the consequences of loss of one's freedom. For the next 126 days, I remained in the hands of my cruel captors who inflicted every pain upon me that Krishnamurti talked above save death.

For the first time in my life, I realized what it meant to be a "prisoner of conscience". The internment, when motivated by ulterior ends, brings a brutal deprivation upon the victim. It acts like a double-edged sword. One’s freedom of movement is taken away by one’s tormentors, while one’s conscience suffocates in a dungeon. A poignant grief sets in once there is a cognizance that both the body and the conscience have fallen victim to the act of tyranny.

That is what distinguishes incarceration resulting out of a crime from that emanating from the crimes of those who persecute innocent others. My kidnapping and detention by the infamous Malaysian Special Branch taught me how it feels to be forcibly separated from one's wife and children.

How it feels to be searched and seized, disallowed to make phone calls, handcuffed, blindfolded, stripped naked, driven in an animal cage, shaven bald, endlessly interrogated, humiliated, drugged, deprived of sleep, physically abused. What it's like to be threatened, blackmailed, tormented by police lawyers, brutalized to make a totally false confession, hospitalized for a consequent heart ailment, and treated as a psychiatric patient with symptoms of Stockholm syndrome.

Barely surviving on a meagre diet of rancid rice and chicken along with 12 medicines a day, I spent nearly four months handcuffed around the clock to my hospital bed, under the watchful eyes of the prison guards. Slowly but painfully, the wounds of physical torture may heal. In time, the psychological anguish may subside. But the freedom that is lost is never regained.

The time of one’s life spent in trammels turns into a coffin of one’s conscience. One physically lives on, but only with the burden of a mutilated and muted conscience. That, to me, is the ultimate human agony. This leads me to think of freedom as a value and not as an instrument for freedom is not a commodity that can be traded at will. It can neither be granted nor taken away by a decree for it is an innate human trait.

Freedom, meshed into human conscience, is not a physical entity for which a replacement has a redemptive value. Therefore, restitution of freedom remains a stark reminder of the diabolic act played at strangulating the human conscience.

The loss of freedom is more than a physical loss. It is the extinction of the light of conscience. The incarceration of innocents for nefarious political ends is a crime that strikes at the root of human dignity. And freedom without dignity is worthless. Freedom is the engine of human evolution. It is the catalyst that drives human imagination. It is the inspiration behind human achievement. No human progress is thinkable without freedom.

In a world gravitating towards liberty and democracy, there is no room for political ideologues who fail to recognize and respect human freedom. The global marching of democratic spirit has taught us that freedom is an immutable condition for the sustenance of democracy. Only a free flowering of human conscience, dignity, and freedom can vouch for democracy and, ultimately, world peace.

Those who are free must make a pledge to remain free and work for the freedom of those who are not. The sordid story of freedom must be effaced because freedom has no history.


( This article was written by an outside contributor and does not necessarily reflect Amnesty International policy.)



Dr Munawar Anees is a biologist who was born in Pakistan. A married man with two children, he is a respected Muslim writer and intellectual who has founded several journals on Islamic studies. In 2002, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

From 1991 to 1998, he served as an advisor to the then Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim. He now works as a consultant for the John Templeton Foundation. He is an American citizen currently living in Paris with his wife and their two children.

On 14 September 1998, he was arrested under the Internal Security Act in Malaysia and subjected to severe physical and psychological pressure during incommunicado detention to confess to sexual acts with Anwar Ibrahim. On 19 September, he was convicted of "unnatural offences" under s377D of the Penal Code, after he pleaded guilty to having "allowed himself to be sodomized" by Anwar Ibrahim. Anwar’s adopted brother Sukma Darmawan also pleaded guility to the same offence, but later testified his "confession" had been forced.

Dr Anees served four months in prison before leaving Malaysia. He later appealed his conviction and sentence, stating that his "confession" had been coerced. He described his arrest and interrogation in a sworn statement that detailed aggressive, disorientating and prolonged interrogation, threats of indefinite detention and, degrading treatment including being stripped, and being ordered to mimic homosexual acts. His appeals have yet to be heard.