Indonesia: Excessive Force - Impunity For Police Violence
Despite moves towards reform, Indonesia's police continue to be implicated in beatings, shootings and killings. Over the last decade significant steps have
been taken to reform the Indonesian National Police. The government has put in place legislative and structural reforms to strengthen their effectiveness in preventing and detecting crime, maintaining public order and promoting the rule of law. The police have also introduced internal regulations to ensure that international human rights standards are upheld during policing operations.
Despite these positive moves, credible reports of human rights violations committed by the police continue to emerge, with police routinely using unnecessary and excessive force and firearms to quell peaceful protests. Police have been implicated in beatings, shootings and killings of people during mass demonstrations, land disputes or even routine arrests.
Amnesty International, 25 April 2012
ARC: Commentary on the UKBA April 2012 Zimbabwe OGN
Identifies the main inconsistencies and omissions between the available country of origin information and case law and the conclusions reached in the current Zimbabwe OGN (issued in April 2012). The commentary is intended as a tool to assist legal practitioners and to help ensure that all relevant material is considered by decision-makers.
This commentary and previous commentaries on Jamaica, Occupied Palestinian Territories,Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, OPT, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan can be accessed @:
http://stillhumanstillhere.wordpress.com/resources/
Best wishes, Stephanie and Liz Consultants
Stop the Deportation of Transplant Patient, Roseline Akhalu
Background (Preamble):
Roseline arrived in the UK in September 2004 from Nigeria on a student visa, to study for a Masters Degree at Leeds University.
She unexpectedly developed end stage renal failure in 2005 and remained on dialysis until she was fortunate enough to receive a kidney transplant at St. James Hospital, Leeds in July 2009.
Roseline has applied for leave to remain in the UK but has been refused. Roseline's consultant has stated that unless Roseline is able to continue taking immunosuppressant drugs which are costly and unavailable in parts of Nigeria, her transplanted kidney will fail and she would have to resort to dialysis again –a treatment she could not afford. Without this she will die.
Roseline has never been allowed to work and has been supported since 2007 by parishioners from St Augustine's RC Church, Harehills and the St Vincent de Paul Society.
Roseline is loved and respected by her fellow parishioners and many people in the wider community who have formed close friendships with her over the past four years. In spite of her health problems, Roseline has volunteered tirelessly in the parish and is actively involved in a number of community based groups.
Online Petition:
We, the undersigned, are asking that Roseline Akhalu (Home Office Reference Number A1344782) be granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK.
You can sign the petition here . . . .
Please fax/Email, Secretary of State for the Home Office, Rt. Hon Theresa May, MP. Ask her to exercise her discretionary powers to stop the flight, and grant Roseline Akhalu protection in the UK. Download model letter RoselineAkhaluTM.doc or alternatively write your own one. Please remember to quote Home Office Reference number A1344782 in any correspondence:
Rt. Hon Theresa May, MP
Secretary of State for the Home Office,
2 Marsham St
London SW1 4DF
Fax: 020 7035 4745
Emails:
mayt@parliament.uk
pscorrespondence@cabinet-office.x.gsi.gov.uk
CITTO@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
Privateoffice.external@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
Please let the campaign know of any actions taken:
Mary McCormack <ma_mccormack@yahoo.co.uk>
Sudan-South Sudan: Southerners in Khartoum increasingly fearful
The weekend ransacking of a church compound in Khartoum illustrates the increasing hostility faced by some of the hundreds of thousands of residents of the Sudanese capital whose origins lie in what is now the independent state of South Sudan.
Seven years after southern rebels and Khartoum signed a deal to end decades of civil war and nine months after the country split in two, recent borderland clashes have given rise to fears of a return to all-out conflict.
Read more: IRIN, 23 April 2012
European Court of Human Rights - Subsidiarity
The principle of subsidiarity essentially means that the prime responsibility for ensuring respect for the rights enshrined in the Convention lies first and foremost with the national authorities rather than with the Court. It is thus about effective implementation of the Convention at national level, but also about effectiveness of domestic remedies and the need to swiftly and fully execute the judgments of the Court.
For this principle to function in practice, effective and independent national human rights structures and courts, as well as effective remedies must be in place - so that each individual can find justice at national level. Whether human rights are implemented and interpreted correctly at the national level will lastly be examined by the Court, as an instance of last recourse.
The main message brought by the massive inflow of cases in Strasbourg is that the European Court of Human Rights is essential to many individuals who feel that their rights have not been protected in a European state.
Shortcomings within the judicial system are a significant source of violations of the European Convention, including for instance violations of the right to liberty, and many of the complaints to the Court relate to excessively slow procedures and to failure of member states to enforce domestic court decisions. In several European countries, these decisions are often enforced only partly, after long delays, or sometimes not at all.
David Moyo has Left the UK
Despite campaign/legal efforts David has been returned to Zimbabwe. Hopefully a relative and friends would have been at the airport to meet the plane. Once we hear from them and David we will let you know how David is faring.
Despite this setback we are not defeated or downhearted and will continue to fight all deportations.
"Zimvigil Co-ordinator" <co-ordinator@zimvigil.co.uk>
Why Organise an Anti-Deportation Campaign or any Other Campaign?
You organise because it helps you build strong, effective Campaigns capable of gathering Support from community and beyond
When it comes to campaigning, organising gives you a chance to turn what you have Your Resources, into what you need Power, to get what you want.
1 Always keep in mind the following
Who you are organising / Why you are organising.
2 Organising means:
Building a Campaign that draws its strength not just from its immediate supporters but also from the wider/national community
Campaigning on the values and issues that members and potential supporters care about and involving them in campaign activity
Take your campaign into unionized work places, your community, your local faith groups
Nigeria: School attendance down after Boko Haram attacks
- So far this year 14 schools have been burnt down in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, northern Nigeria, forcing over 7,000 children out of formal education and pushing down enrolment rates in an already ill-educated region. In a video posted on YouTube in February, Boko Haram, the Islamic jihadist group based in Nigeria, called on their followers to destroy schools providing Western education. School enrolment is already lower in Borno - 28 percent - than in any other state in Nigeria, according to the Nigeria Education Data Survey 2010. The recent attacks are making it even harder for teachers and aid groups to persuade parents to let their children stay on at school.
Borno State, 20 April 2012 (IRIN)
Patrice Ndjonssy awaits next move from UKBA
Removal directions were cancelled for the 15th time. Patrice only found out at 19.00 hrs yesterday evening 19th April 2012 that he would not be flying but not told why. We don't yet know if it was the result of submissions put in by his solicitor.
Patrice really wants to thank everyone for all the support, including someone who came to visit him yesterday, and who could only talk without seeing him. Keeping him without his phone all day today was particularly cruel as it was impossible to get through on the landline of Colnbrook all day. Being without his phone also meant he did not know the time.
Many people rang Virgin Atlantic and got a stock reply 'The Home office makes flight arrangements for all deportee passengers. It is not for an airline to refuse to carry a deportee passenger on grounds of their immigration as the airline has no knowledge of individual cases.' but maybe because of the number of calls to the airline, they are having to think a little harder about this important ethical issue.
DR Congo [ Repression of Trade Unions ]
Tom Blenkinsop: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assessment he has made of the human rights situation for trade unionists in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Mr Bellingham: According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) there are 420 officially recognised trade unions active in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The DRC has ratified a number of ILO conventions protecting the rights of trade unions.
However, we are aware that members of civil society in the DRC, including trade unionists, suffer abuses of their human rights, including threats to their freedom of expression. Britain provides funding to help strengthen civil society, for example to support capacity building of human rights defenders. British officials will continue to raise our concerns about reported repression of trade unionists with the DRC Ministry of Justice. We will also continue to press the DRC Government to meet its responsibility to protect the right to freedom of expression for civil society.
House of Commons / 19 Apr 2012 : Column 493W
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Two-fifths of UK trafficking victims are male, survey reveals
Men account for more than two-fifths (41%) of adult victims of human trafficking in England and Wales helped by the Salvation Army, contrary to the public perception that the crime almost exclusively affects women. The finding comes in a survey by the charity, which provides specialist support for the adult victims of trafficking on behalf of the Ministry of Justice.
The Salvation Army, which began the support service six months ago, also dealt with the first recorded case of an individual being trafficked to Britain to have their organs harvested. The case, involving an unnamed woman brought to the UK by an organised gang, is understood to be the subject of a police investigation, the Telegraph reports.
The charity's survey found that 45% of those it supported had been forced into sexual exploitation, 43% were involved in labour exploitation and 8% were trafficked into domestic servitude.
Read more: guardian.co.uk, Thursday 26 April 2012
Uganda (Human Rights)
A quiet village on the Ugandan plains at night. There are lots of shacks, and the peaceful silence is interrupted only by the odd bleating of an animal. The children are asleep; all is at rest. The silence is suddenly destroyed by the noise of trucks, shouts and guns being fired. Families are literally dragged out of their homes. Children watch as their fathers are shot and their mothers are taken.
A little boy is pulled from his brother to stand in front of a man who points a gun at his head and tells him to shoot his mother. If he does not shoot her, he and his brother will be shot. He looks into his mother's eyes as she slowly nods her head urging him to do it. He pulls the trigger, turns to his captor who says, "You are on my side now. You are my comrade in arms. You are a soldier in the Lord's Resistance Army." All that little boy knows is that he has killed his own mother. All that he believes is that he is evil and worthless, and all that he hopes for is that he never comes back to this place. Some people say that such events happen only in the movies and that it is not real life, but the fact is it is real life for far too many in Uganda
Read more: House of Commons / 24 Apr 2012 : Column 214WH
Irrational/inhuman/degrading/unlawful: detention of asylum-seeker
The detention of a mentally ill person in an Immigration Removal Centre (IRC) amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment and false imprisonment, and was irrational, the High Court has ruled. Mr Justice Singh heard a judicial review application by a Nigerian National against decisions to continue to detain him under the UK Borders Act 2007 and the conditions of that detention. From August 2009, HA, an overstaying visitor and asylum seeker, was detained at various IRCs following his release from prison for a drug-related offence which triggered the automatic deportation provisions of the 2007 Act. His behaviour during detention became increasingly disturbed and strange. In January 2010, he was seen by a psychiatrist who recommended HA's transfer to a mental hospital for assessment and treatment.
However, the transfer did not occur until July 2010. At the hospital, HA was diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia and given compulsory treatment. In November that year, he was returned to an IRC despite medical advice that it was likely to cause significant deterioration in his condition and that he could instead be safely discharged into the community. HA remained at an IRC until he was granted bail by the Court in December 2010 following medical evidence that HA's condition had deteriorated following his return to the IRC.
Read more: Karwan Eskerie UK Human Rights Blog, 23rd April 2012
New approach needed to end Afghanistan's insurgency
The current effort to negotiate with the insurgency in Afghanistan is not working. Nor is it ever likely to work as long as Washington continues to dominate the process while President Hamid Karzai and the Taliban are dragged along without enthusiasm.
The signs are about as grim as they can be. The Taliban suspended talks in March with US officials in Qatar. There is ever more speculation about an accelerated drawdown of US and NATO forces. The differing parties — from the Afghan government to the Taliban leadership, to key regional and wider international actors — are looking ahead to the intense political competition sure to follow in the wake of NATO's withdrawal.
In short, Afghanistan is on course for another civil war unless we see a major shift in policy. The only solution, itself a long-shot, is for the UN Security Council to mandate UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to appoint a dedicated team of negotiators to help lead the way toward a political settlement.
Louise Arbour, GlobalPost | 20 Apr 2012
Southern Sudan stronghold seized as border clashes escalate
Officials in Khartoum are claiming to have seized an area sympathetic to South Sudan as clashes spread along the border yesterday. A South Sudan military official said the clashes were a "terrible escalation" of the conflict that stretched back to before it split from Sudan last year. Fighting along the north-south border has been near constant over the past two weeks. The Sudan Media Centre reported yesterday that Sudan's army took control of Mugum, a stronghold of the southern forces.
Independent, Tuesday 17 April 201
AX (family planning scheme) China v SSHD
216. The First-tier Tribunal Judge's determination contains a material error of law. We remake the decision.
217. The appellant's appeal is dismissed on Refugee Convention and humanitarian protection grounds but allowed under Article 8 ECHR.
(2) It is unhelpful (and a mistranslation of the Chinese term) to describe the Chinese family planning scheme as a 'one-child policy', given the current vast range of exceptions to the 'one couple, one child' principle. Special provision is made for 'double-single' couples, where both are only children supporting their parents and their grandparents. The number of children authorised for a married couple, ('authorised children') depends on the provincial regulations and the individual circumstances of the couple. Additional children are referred as 'unauthorised children'.
Read more: Refworld, 13/04/12
EDM 2941: Violence Against the Nuba People
That this House condemns the continued violenceagainst the people of the Nuba Mountains by the Sudanese government; is concerned over the continuation of military offensives in the region, the denial of access for humanitarian aid and journalists and the killing of citizens directly through bombing campaigns; considers the death of many others because of lack of access to medical care, malnutrition, dehydration and displacement as deplorable; and urges the Government to act urgently to increase pressure on the Sudanese government to halt violence against its own people and to allow accessfor foreign aid to bring an end to these gross violations of human rights.
Primary sponsor: Mike Hancock, date tabled: 16/04/2012
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