Natalia Estemirova, Champion of Ordinary Chechens

Natalia Estemirova’s burial took place just minutes before sunset on July 16. The Muslim burial took place in the Koshkildy village of Gudermes district of Chechnya where her relatives live.

A heavy, stifling heat envelops the Caucasus in midsummer. During the day the sun fries your brain, your throat itches from the hot dust, and the night brings no relief, only hordes of maddened mosquitoes.

After hurtling along Chechen roads from dawn till dusk in a tiny, overheated car, rattling through villages, trudging around in the pounding heat looking for the right house, you long only to dive into cool water. You gaze wistfully at every creek and even at the ditches. When you see boys splashing in the muddy puddles you are filled with envy. If only you could do just that - take off your sticky clothes and dive in... But that's just not possible - damn these modesty laws!

By the evening of one of those days, I'd returned to Natasha's place, completely exhausted. As usual, the lift wasn't working. The walk up to the tenth floor was just what I needed at that moment. And of course, buying that watermelon that gleamed alluringly from the stall by the house was out of the question - when you're climbing Everest you just can't manage an extra 14-kilos.

I got up the stairs, opened the door, took off that wretched headscarf and went to the kitchen, where it was very stuffy, despite the open windows. Natasha was sitting at the table, talking excitedly to her journalist friend sitting opposite. Where had he dropped from - he wasn't here yesterday. It was hardly surprising to see him, though. Everyone went straight to Natasha, she always had guests... "Hi! I'm as filthy as a pig. Will just take a quick shower". "You should take a seat. There's no water yet anyway..." And indeed, for my sins, the tap was dry, and the bucket almost empty.

It was the seventh year I'd been staying with Natasha Estermirova when I was in Grozny. Lots of people did. Russians and foreigners. Correspondents, photographers, researchers, human rights advocates, all sorts... I guess the only thing that distinguished me from the others was that over the years it had come to feel like home for me. I had my own keys, I knew the neighbours, had my own sheets that were put away in a box between visits (there's no point in washing sheets that are a week old if I'd be back in a month or two!). I knew where to find everything, which shops had the best groceries, and where to take the rubbish. In fact, it was my second home: the only thing I didn't have was registration of residence.

Once, this apartment had just been a crude bombed out box, with bare concrete walls peppered with holes from shells. Then, slowly but surely, it got wallpaper, whitewash, and wooden flooring. The balcony became a sunroom. A pleasant ceiling light with a rotating fan was fitted in the kitchen, and attractive furniture began to appear. Natasha did the renovations herself, and they went on for years - she had neither time nor money. But she was touchingly proud that she'd mastered the art of putty and whitewash, and that her apartment had gradually begun to look like a well-maintained home - with blinds, paintings, flowers, framed photographs, delicate porcelain cups in a sideboard and exquisite crystal glasses proudly displayed for all to see.

By this July, these painstaking efforts at home-building were finally complete. Natasha beamed as she showed off her new fold-out sofa in the living room, and boasted of the coloured beakers that she had bought cheaply from a street stall. "You probably think I'm bourgeois," she laughed. "But I'm not ashamed at all. I like comfort... And I even like lace napkins."

It was a pleasure to see how life was coming together for Natasha. To see that the terrible years of the war were becoming a thing of the past - and that she had survived them. That the buildings in Grozny were being rebuilt, that there was running water, if not all the time, and that in the evening you could sit in a pleasant café, watching the brightly-lit streets through the window. And now, you can also go and look at the enormous mosque in the centre of town too - the main monument to come out of President Kadyrov's rebuilding programme. I'd walked past it so many times, but had never been inside. Apparently, Natasha's daughter hadn't been there either. I thought I'd take her along with me. These days, one does not have to stay behind locked doors at night. Indeed, lots of people are out on the streets.

15-year-old Lana was getting herself ready with typical teenage care. I got busy typing up my notes from the day onto the computer in the hope that the Internet café in the centre of town would be open until late, and I'd be able to send the information today. While working I listened to Natasha talking to the correspondent, butted into the conversation, snatched thin pieces of salty suluguni cheese from a plate, sipped some tea and smoked cigarette after cigarette. A fluffy cat rubbed against my legs, begging for a piece of sausage. The two tiny kittens that were born just ten days earlier - white and striped - squeaked in the corner. The only thing that spoiled the idyll was the new, absolutely revolting stories that my fingers were typing on the keyboard almost automatically.

In 2007-2008, it seemed that the violence had died down. But since this spring, the armed underground had stepped up its activities. And in response, the punitive measures of the Chechen law-enforcement structures against the relatives of rebels, their possible supporters and sympathisers had taken increasingly savage forms. By July things had escalated out of proportion.

In the mountain village of Akkinchu-Borzoi, a bunch of law-enforcement officers shot a man in front of local teenagers for allegedly "feeding a sheep to rebels". They kicked the body, and explained to the horrified boys: this is what will happen to everyone who even gives the rebels a crust of bread.

This man had lived in Stavropol for 26 years, and returned to Chechnya less than a year ago to look after his seriously ill mother. His house was on the outskirts of the village, on the edge of the forest. Needless to say, there are insurgents in the forest. And if bearded militants in dirty camouflage knock on your door at night, waving their weapons and asking for food, are you going to turn them down? You could, of course, try explaining to them that their activities are unlawful, but it's hardly likely they're going to listen to your legal arguments...

The relatives who collected the man's body after his public execution complained to the prosecutor's office. But officers from the Kurchaloy district police department soon came to inform them that the man must have died from a stroke. All very sad, but what can you do - a "person is mortal, and death is sudden". The relatives had to agree - they wanted to live a bit longer.

And in Shali, law enforcement officers arrested one man for allegedly picking someone up on the highway and giving him a lift. The passenger supposedly turned out to be a rebel. So, police officials rounded up the unfortunate driver, and burnt down his house for good measure. There were three closely related families living all together in the same yard, with 12 children between them, and the house was burnt down as the children watched... Maybe someone should raise the issue with the authorities? Or is this out of the question, considering that the burning was done by police officials? Will this just make things worse?

Natasha and I had counted 27 of these punitive house-burnings over the last year - this was the 28th. Since then another house in Argun had become the 29th case. A 19-year-old girl who'd allegedly married a rebel used to live there with her parents. Some say it was her choice to marry, others that she'd been kidnapped and forced into it. Who can tell now? In any case, at the end of June, the girl vanished from the house. She left in the morning and didn't return. In the evening, she rang her parents, told them not to look for her because she was now a married woman.

But one week later, her husband was killed in a special operation on the outskirts of Grozny - it seems he shot back at the officers, and according to official information, he was no less than a "representative of Al-Qaeda in the north Caucasus". The officers brought the girl to the 9th Grozny hospital, wounded, needing an operation. For a couple of days she was kept there under guard. The nurses said that she was recovering, eating, asking to see her mother, just for a minute...

Then at dawn, officers in camouflage put her on a stretcher, carried her out of the hospital, put her in a car and took her away somewhere. Literally an hour later, the girl's body, carefully wrapped in a shroud, was thrown out of the car by the parents' house, which had been burnt down the night before. She was buried quickly and quietly, without anyone daring to do so much as peek in theshroud. The parents took their two other young daughters away with them, and haven't set foot in Argun since.

The sickening brutality that leaped from the pages of my notebook seemed particularly absurd there in Natasha's cozy kitchen as we prepared to take a walk through Grozny at night. But this all just happened, here and now. These are notes from yesterday and today. They describe what I was coming across on my trips around Chechnya. Things that Natasha encountered every day.

The summer nights in Chechnya are extremely dark, but the central street - Putin Avenue - literally blazes with light. It could be Broadway. The illuminated minarets of the enormous mosque -: "the largest mosque in Russia," the local authorities declare proudly - cut through the sky. Around it there's a promenade with coloured fountains - red, green and blue jets of water shoot up into the air, some higher, some lower. Lana (who just this year, not without regret, exchanged her "children's" jeans for an "adult" skirt) prances around happily. We enter the mosque, walk around, raising our heads, admiring the paintings, vaults, and crystal clusters of the enormous chandelier. And then we go out to look at the fountains again.

Lana had not seen this square in all its magnificence properly, because since Victory Avenue was renamed Putin Avenue, Natasha stopped walking on it as a sign of protest. She didn't make a big deal out of it. She simply kept away from Putin Avenue with remarkable stubbornness. She walked through courtyards, made detours, did everything she could to avoid setting foot on a street whose name she found insulting.

But with all due respect for Natasha's principles, the city centre is wonderful. It may be garish and tacky, but what does that matter, when until recently this place was a heap of ruins that seemed as if they would be there forever, frozen in time. And the mosque is a miracle in itself. One simply has to admit, Kadyrov has done it up beautifully. If you can only stop thinking about everything else, forget the gruesome findings of the day for a minute, and just splash the laughing girl with water from the fountain...

At around midnight Natasha starts nodding off. She's an early bird, and I'm a night-owl. She's about to go off to bed, while I'll sit at the computer until four. Soon after I go to bed for my well-deserved four hours' sleep, Natasha will be up and sitting at the same computer. I pause before going on with my writing and keep the conversation going : "Don't go to bed just yet. Listen to me for a moment. It's really time you left. Yes, if you walk around the city centre, it's all beautiful and it looks peaceful. But you understand the situation all too well. Your daughter's nearly grown up. She can't stay here with all this savagery, fear and lies. And you shouldn't either. You've done enough, over all these years... There's only so much a person can do." Natasha rubs her red eyes and mumbles that she can't stay forever, of course, but if she leaves, then who'll do this work, who will these people who need help be able to turn to? "The work on social rights issues, housing and so on, can be managed without you!" I insist. "As for the rest... These people are just too scared to talk. They're not coming to you, you're going to them. You're the one begging them to talk, to give you a chance to help them. But they're absolutely terrified. Of course I don't blame them. They're right to be scared, as we all know. But why should you be taking this risk for everyone?"

Natasha takes a last sip of tea: "Yes, it would be good to leave - for a year, say. I so want to write a book. But there is always so much to do and no time left for anything. But if I did go somewhere... Not now, of course, I just can't at the moment..." She gets up from the kitchen sofa, and staggering from tiredness, heads for the bedroom. "Come on, do it now!" I laugh as she leaves. "Just think how awful it'll be if you get bumped off, and haven't even written the book which your friends and colleagues can bring out with great fanfare after your death. You're not going to have a book, like proper people, just a pathetic posthumous collection of articles. The shame of it! Those posthumous collections of articles are the pits. If you've got a shred of conscience and self-respect left, you'll get out of here and not come back ‘til you've written the book!" I move the mouse to wake the sleeping computer, and hear Natasha chuckling sleepily as she pulls the blanket over herself.

She was killed two days later, on 15 July. She was pushed into a car while running to catch a shuttle taxi early in the morning. They took her from Chechnya into Ingushetia, and shot her by the forest. At the funeral Lana tagged at my sleeve: "You will publish a collection of Mum's articles now, won't you? Mum didn't write a book... You said that if a person is killed and hasn't written a book, then they publish a collection of articles..." We like to think that children sleep at night, but they listen to our midnight conversations with great attention. Natasha's articles have already been collected. There are so few of them that they are not enough for a collection. Just a slim booklet. She spent all her time helping other people, from a boy thrown in a pit to an old woman who'd become homeless, and didn't have time to do her own writing.

There will be no memorial meeting in Grozny to mark the 40 days since Natasha's death. People believe that coming out onto the street and standing quietly with a portrait of their deceased friend is an act of suicide. There were not many people at the funeral either. In Chechnya these days, it's a risky business mourning the "undesirable" deceased.

I flew to the Caucasus for the 40-day anniversary of Natasha's death. I found my seat on the plane and put my bag under the seat. The plane was already taxiing on to the runway when my mobile rang. In Makhachkala, the office of "Mothers of Dagestan," the only local organization that investigates kidnapping, killing and torture, had been set on fire. It was crucial to find out the details and talk to the press, but my plane had already taken off... As I frantically tried to think who could take on this urgent job, I scrolled through the contacts on my mobile, and automatically dialed a familiar number, before I suddenly realized I was dialing Natasha.

By Tanya Lokshina

For Afghan Women, Rights Again at Risk

(Kabul) - When the United States and its allies went to war against the Taliban after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, "liberating the women of Afghanistan" was often cited as one of the reasons to seek "regime change." More than seven years later, however, the situation for Afghan women remains dire.

There have been some bright spots: Women now hold seats in the Afghan parliament, and millions of girls have been able to attend primary school. But educational gains plummet when girls hit secondary school, with just 4 percent of female students reaching 10th grade. Violence against women is endemic; women in public life are regularly threatened, and several have been assassinated.

Things got much worse recently when President Hamid Karzai officially promulgated legislation that would make the Taliban proud. Unfortunately, this is part of a pattern: As Karzai's government has grown weaker he has increasingly turned to some of society's most conservative elements for support.

The Shia Personal Status Law, the most egregious of a series of deals to appease fundamentalist religious leaders and former warlords, contains many provisions that are offensive to women. Custody rights are granted exclusively to fathers and grandfathers. A woman can leave the house without her husband's permission only if she has "reasonable legal reasons," which are unspecified. Yet the law does stipulate financial compensation to be paid by a man who rapes a child or a mentally ill woman, for her loss of virginity, while omitting any reference to a criminal punishment.

Karzai issued the law on July 27 with no public announcement. It came as little surprise that he tried to keep things quiet after the hammering his popularity took in April, when it first emerged that he had signed on to an earlier version of the legislation. President Obama and other world leaders denounced the law then. Even NATO's secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, warned that public reaction in NATO member countries would be to withdraw support for sending their troops to fight in a country that treated women in such ways. Karzai responded by claiming that he had never seen the offending document -- the same excuse he gave last summer after he pardoned two well-connected gang rapists who had served just a fraction of their 11-year prison terms.

Under pressure, Karzai promised to review the legislation. This review led to some improvements, including the removal of an article that gave a man the right to have sex with his wife once every four nights. But many of the most repressive provisions remain. By enacting the law, the president has dashed hopes that official discrimination and the oppression of women by their own government was a thing of the past in Afghanistan.

To guarantee his reelection this week, Karzai has not only made deals with hard-line Shiite leaders but also has held out the prospect of cabinet seats to former warlords and abusive military commanders from all the main ethnic groups. Many of these aging warlords' attitudes toward women are little different from those of the Taliban.

Perhaps of more concern for women and girls is that Karzai is positioning himself as someone who can bring the Taliban and other fundamentalist factions back into the fold. Scant regard is being paid to what this would mean for Afghan women, who have worked courageously for the precious few freedoms they have won in recent years.

When I ask diplomats here what deals with the Taliban will mean for women, I get platitudes and assurances that officials are "only talking to those who sign up to the Afghan constitution." But if the president does not feel bound by the constitution's promise to make men and women equal before the law, should anyone believe it would constrain a former insurgent? As one female activist told me: "Deals with the Taliban will mean everything we have achieved in the last eight years could be lost. It will have been only a dream."

The Kabul government and its backers are supposed to be different from the people they are fighting. Yet with regard to women's rights, Afghans might conclude that there isn't as much difference between the two as they had hoped.

Western governments that expressed horror at Taliban misogyny only a few years ago should not fall silent. Many -- including the U.S. administration -- are uneasy about speaking out about this law so close to the presidential election. But that is just the response that Karzai hoped for. Afghan women want to participate in elections and have peace and security. The price for this should not be their rights.

by Rachel Reid

August 18, 2009

The writer is the Afghanistan researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Iraq: Stop Killings for Homosexual Conduct

The 67-page report, "‘They Want Us Exterminated': Murder, Torture, Sexual Orientation and Gender in Iraq," documents a wide-reaching campaign of extrajudicial executions, kidnappings, and torture of gay men that began in early 2009. The killings began in the vast Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, a stronghold of Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia, and spread to many cities across Iraq. Mahdi Army spokesmen have promoted fears about the "third sex" and the "feminization" of Iraq men, and suggested that militia action was the remedy. Some people told Human Rights Watch that Iraqi security forces have colluded and joined in the killing.
"Iraq's leaders are supposed to defend all Iraqis, not abandon them to armed agents of hate," said Scott Long, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. "Turning a blind eye to torture and murder threatens the rights and life of every Iraqi."

Silence and stigma surrounding sexuality and gender in Iraq make placing a precise figure on the number killed almost impossible, but indications are that hundreds of men may have died.
One man told Human Rights Watch that militiamen kidnapped and killed his partner of 10 years in April: "It was late one night, and they came to take my partner at his parents' home. Four armed men barged into the house, masked and wearing black. They asked for him by name; they insulted him and took him in front of his parents. ... He was found in the neighborhood the day after. They had thrown his corpse in the garbage. His genitals were cut off and a piece of his throat was ripped out."

The killers invade homes and pick people up in the street, witnesses and survivors said, interrogating them before murdering them to extract names of other potential victims. They practice grotesque tortures, including gluing men's anuses shut as punishment. Human Rights Watch spoke to doctors who said that hospitals and morgues have received dozens of mutilated bodies, living and dead.

"Murder and torture are no way to enforce morality," said Rasha Moumneh, Middle East and North Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. "These killings point to the continuing and lethal failure of Iraq's post-occupation authorities to establish the rule of law and protect their citizens."

Consensual homosexual conduct between adults is not a criminal offense under Iraqi law. Although many militias in Iraq claim to be enforcers of Islamic law, the Human Rights Watch report also shows how the killings - committed without evidence or trial, on the basis of prejudice and whim - violate standards in Sharia law for legality, proof, and privacy.
International human rights law forbids all forms of torture and inhuman treatment and guarantees the right to life, including the right to effective state protection. In its 1994 decision in the landmark case of Toonen v. Australia, the United Nations Human Rights Committee held that the protections against unequal treatment in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) extend to sexual orientation as a protected status.

The report also documents how fears that Iraqi men's masculinity is under threat propel the killings as much as prejudices about sexuality. Many men told Human Rights Watch that their parents or brothers have threatened them with honor killings because their "unmanly" behavior threatens the reputation of the family or tribe. In a provision left over from the Saddam Hussein era, Iraqi law allows mitigated penalties for crimes committed "with honorable motives." This exception encourages gender-based violence.

Many Iraqis who fear being attacked have sought safety in surrounding countries, but those countries are no safe haven, the report says. Consensual homosexual conduct is criminalized in most of these countries, and prejudice based on sexual orientation and gender identity fosters violence and discrimination in all of them. Human Rights Watch urges the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), as well as governments that accept Iraqi refugees, to offer rapid resettlement to these endangered people.
Accounts from the report (all names are aliases, to protect the speakers)

"[The killers'] measuring rod to judge people is who they have sex with. It is not by their conscience, it is not by their conduct or their values, it is who they have sex with. The cheapest thing in Iraq is a human being, a human life. It is cheaper than an animal, than a pair of used-up batteries you buy on the street. Especially people like us. ... I can't believe I'm here talking to you because it's all just been repressed, repressed, repressed. For years it's been like that - if I walk down the street, I would feel everyone pointing at me. I feel as if I'm dying all the time. And now this, in the last month - I don't understand what we did to deserve this. They want us exterminated. All the violence and all this hatred: the people who are suffering from it don't deserve it."- Hamid, in Iraq, April 24, 2009

"We've been hearing about this, about gay men being killed, for more than a month. It's like background noise now, every day. The stories started spreading in February about this campaign against gay people by the Mahdi Army: everyone was talking about it, I was hearing about it from my straight friends. In a coffee shop in Karada, on the streets in Harithiya [Baghdad neighborhoods], they were talking about it. I didn't worry at first. My friends and I, we look extremely masculine, there is nothing visibly "feminine" about us. None of us ever, ever believed this would happen to us. But then at the end of March we heard on the street that 30 men had been killed already."- Idris, in Iraq, April 24, 2009

"They did many things to us, the Mahdi Army. ... They kidnapped [my partner] for six days. He will not talk about what they did to him. There were bruises on his side as if he was dragged on the street. They did things to him he can't describe, even to me. They wrote in the dust on the windshield of his car: ‘Death to the people of Lot and to collaborators.' They sent us veiled threats in text messages: ‘You are on the list.' They sent him a piece of paper in an envelope, to his home: there were three bullets wrapped in plastic, of different size. The note said, ‘Which one do you want in your heart?' ... I want to be a regular person, lead a normal life, walk around the city, drink coffee on the street. But because of who I am, I can't. There is no way out."- Mohammad, in Iraq, April 21, 2009

"At 10 a.m., [Ministry of Interior officers] cuffed my hands behind my back. Then they tied a rope around my legs, and they hung me upside down from a hook in the ceiling, from morning till sunset. I passed out. I was stripped down to my underwear while I hung upside down. They cut me down that night, but they gave me no water or food. Next day, they told me to put my clothes back on and they took me to the investigating officer. He said, ‘You like that? We're going to do that to you more and more, until you confess.' Confess to what? I asked. ‘To the work you do, to the organization you belong to, and that you are a tanta' [queen]. For days, there were severe beatings, and constant humiliation and insults. ... It was the same form of abuse every day. They beat me all over my body; when they had me hanging upside down, they used me like a punching bag. ... They used electric prods all over my body. Then they raped me. Over three days. The first day, 15 of them raped me; the second day, six; the third day, four. There was a bag on my head every time."- Nuri, on April 15 and 27, 2009

Human Rights Watch Weekly Digest

Israel: Investigate 'White Flag' Shootings of Gaza Civilians Internal Israeli Military Investigations Inadequate During Israel's recent Gaza offensive, Israeli soldiers unlawfully shot and killed 11 Palestinian civilians, including five women and four children, who were in groups waving white flags to convey their civilian status.

US: Students With Disabilities Face Corporal Punishment at Higher Rates ACLU and Human Rights Watch Seek Ban on Physical Discipline at School. Students with disabilities face corporal punishment in public schools at disproportionately high rates. The physical discipline, which often includes beatings, can worsen these students' medical conditions and undermine their education.

UN Security Council: Create Senior Post on Women and War. The UN Security Council should urgently establish a high-level post to fill a leadership gap relating to women and armed conflict. A special representative of the secretary-general assigned to this issue would be able to push for protection against sexual violence and to promote equal participation by women in peace talks.

Karzai has made an unthinkable deal to sell Afghan women out in return for the support of fundamentalists in the August 20 election. So much for any credentials he claimed as a moderate on women's issues.

Burma: Aung San Suu Kyi Verdict 'Reprehensible' This trial was a farce, a brutal distortion of the legal process. By silencing prominent opponents through bogus trials, the generals are clearly showing why the elections they have been touting for next year won't bring change.

DRC: Clinton Should Highlight Rape and Justice IssuesKillings and brutal sexual violence against women, girls and also men have massively increased in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo since the start of military operations in January 2009.

Russia: Ensure Independent Inquiry Into Activists' KillingsThis is a ghastly crime, and its authors must be brought to justice. These killings, less than a month after the murder of Natalia Estemirova, make it absolutely clear that anyone trying to help the people of Chechnya is in mortal danger.

Mexico: Calderon Denies Military Impunity. The claim by President Felipe Calderón of Mexico today that army abuse cases are effectively prosecuted in Mexico flies in the face of all available evidence.

UK/Iraq: UK War Inquiry Should Cover Rights Investigate Allegations of Serious Abuses Committed Against Civilians, DetaineesThe British Government's Inquiry into its Iraq War policies should include human rights abuses as part of its investigation.

Saudi Arabia: Counterterrorism Efforts Violate RightsIndefinite Detention, Inappropriate Reeducation, and Flawed Trials Saudi Arabia's response to terrorism for years has been to lock up thousands of suspects and throw away the key. The authorities made believe that religious counseling could replace trials, and now they are pretending that convictions after secret trials can legitimize continued detention.

Gaza/Israel: Hamas Rocket Attacks on Civilians Unlawful

Launches from Populated Areas Endanger Israelis and Palestinians

(Jerusalem) - Hamas should repudiate unlawful rocket attacks against Israeli population centers and hold those responsible for them to account, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups have over several years launched thousands of rockets at Israeli cities and towns, including hundreds during Israel's three-week military offensive in Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009. A UN fact-finding investigation into serious violations of the laws of war by both sides in the Gaza conflict, led by Judge Richard Goldstone, is due to report back to the UN Human Rights Council in September.

The 31-page report, "Rockets from Gaza: Harm to Civilians from Palestinian Armed Groups' Rocket Attacks," documents attacks by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups since November 2008 that killed three Israeli civilians and seriously injured dozens of others, damaged property and forced residents to leave their homes. The rockets unlawfully struck populated areas up to 40 kilometers inside Israel, placing roughly 800,000 Israeli civilians at risk. Rockets that fell short of their intended targets in Israel killed two girls and wounded others in Gaza during this period. Palestinian armed groups that launched rockets from densely populated areas also unlawfully put Gaza civilians at risk of Israeli counterstrikes.

"Hamas rocket attacks targeting Israeli civilians are unlawful and unjustifiable, and amount to war crimes," said Iain Levine, program director at Human Rights Watch. "As the governing authority in Gaza, Hamas should publicly renounce rocket attacks on Israeli civilian centers and punish those responsible, including members of its own armed wing."

"Rockets from Gaza" focuses on events after November 4, 2008, when Palestinian armed groups resumed rocket fire after an Israeli military incursion into Gaza. Based on interviews with witnesses to rocket attacks and launches, field investigations of strike sites in Israel and Gaza, and media and other reports, the report details the cases of Israeli and Palestinian civilians killed or wounded by rocket attacks in December 2008 and January 2009. While Human Rights Watch found no clear practice by Palestinian armed groups to deliberately use civilians to shield rocket launches from counterattack, it found they frequently violated the separate duty under the laws of war to take all feasible precautions to avoid endangering civilians when they launched rockets from densely populated areas.

"Hamas forces violated the laws of war both by firing rockets deliberately or indiscriminately at Israeli cities and by launching them from populated areas and endangering Gazan civilians," said Levine.

Hamas has significantly limited rocket attacks in recent months, but has not renounced attacks that deliberately or indiscriminately target civilians - serious violations of the laws of war - or brought to justice those responsible for initiating such attacks, or for endangering Palestinian civilians by launching rockets from densely populated areas in Gaza. Hamas's armed wing claimed responsibility for the three Israeli civilian deaths documented in the report. During the Israeli offensive in December and January, the armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad claimed to have fired 820 rockets at Israel.

The locally made Qassam rockets and Soviet-designed Grad rockets used by Hamas and other armed groups cannot be aimed with any reliability. Under the laws of war, such weapons are indiscriminate when used against targets in densely populated areas. The absence of Israeli military forces in the areas struck by the rockets, as well as statements from the leaders of the Palestinian armed groups, indicate that the armed groups deliberately intended to strike Israeli civilians and civilian structures. For example, Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas's Qassam Brigades, said in a video released on January 5, 2009 that "continuing the incursion will only make us increase our rocket range [...]. We will double the number of Israelis under fire."

Under the laws of war, individuals who willfully authorize or carry out deliberate or indiscriminate attacks against civilians are committing war crimes.

An Israeli early warning siren system, which gives civilians roughly 10 to 45 seconds to find cover in prepared shelters, depending on their distance from the launch site in Gaza, has undoubtedly limited the number of civilian casualties in Israel. However, the repeated attacks have, over months and even years, taken a psychological toll on the population in areas close to Gaza. The laws of war prohibit attacks the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population. Because of the rocket attacks, thousands of people have moved away from frequently targeted areas such as Sderot municipality.

Palestinian armed groups have argued that the rocket attacks are appropriate reprisals for Israeli military operations and the ongoing economic blockade of Gaza, and are a lawful response to Israel's control over Gaza. Human Rights Watch has also documented numerous laws of war violations by Israeli forces in Gaza, but violations by one party to a conflict never justify violations by the other. Attacks targeting civilians are never permitted under the laws of war, which require armed forces to target only military objectives, and to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians from harm, regardless of the reasons for resorting to armed conflict.

Similarly, although Israeli military operations caused far greater total harm to civilian lives - killing several hundred civilians with air strikes, artillery, tank shelling, and other attacks - and property than operations by Palestinian armed groups, violations of the laws of war are not determined by the number of civilian casualties, but by whether each side is refraining from conducting deliberate or indiscriminate attacks against civilians and is taking all feasible precautions to minimize civilian loss.

"Human Rights Watch is committed to documenting the worst violations of the laws of war committed by all sides in armed conflicts throughout the world," Levine said. "We published this report because civilians must never be the object of attack, regardless of the relative strength of the attacker."

Using unsophisticated weapons does not justify failure to respect the laws of war, just as an adversary's use of sophisticated weapons does not provide a pass to its opponents to ignore those laws, Human Rights Watch said. Such disparities exist in many wars, and if they provided a justification for ignoring the laws of war the civilian toll in armed conflicts would rise dramatically. The loss of civilian life from armed conflict can be minimized only if each party recognizes its legal obligations to abide by the laws of war, regardless of the weaponry at its disposal.

"Rockets from Gaza" is the fifth in a series of reports Human Rights Watch has issued on the Israeli offensive launched on December 27, 2008. Two reports are forthcoming.

EU: China Summit Needs Rights Focus

May 19, 2009

(New York) - As the European Union (EU) and China prepare for their semi-annual summit in Prague on May 20, Human Rights Watch called on European leaders to press China to respect its international human rights obligations.

The summit, the first since Beijing abruptly called off the planned December 2008 gathering in France as part of an offensive to dissuade European leaders from meeting with the Dalai Lama, will be held under the framework of the Czech presidency of the Council of the European Union. The delegation of the People's Republic of China will be led by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao.

"The EU would be mistaken to let business and trade interests trump human rights," said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. "Without the rule of law and respect for fundamental rights China simply cannot become a better partner for the EU."

Although the EU holds regular human rights dialogues with China, including one in Prague on May 14, those discussions have consistently failed to deliver any concrete result since they began over a decade ago.

"The human rights dialogues increasingly serve as a pretext to segregate human rights concerns away from high level talks such as the present summit," said Richardson. (For more information on Human Rights Watch's view of EU-China relations, please click here).

Human Rights Watch pointed out that since the last EU-China summit the human rights situation in China has markedly worsened in several key respects, including:

• In Tibet, where hundreds of detainees are still unaccounted for, and which is still not freely accessible to media and visitors;
• The ongoing detention of one of China's most prominent dissidents, Liu Xiaobo, for his role in drafting an appeal for human rights and democracy, Charter 08; and
• The harassment of the families of school children who died during the Sichuan earthquake in May 2008, many of whom are demanding an official inquiry into the buildings' deficiencies.

As the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre nears, Human Rights Watch also called on the EU to stand firm on the arms embargo put in place shortly after the bold crackdown on students and demonstrators during the night of June 3 to 4, 1989.

"China still refuses to acknowledge that it did anything wrong by turning the army against its own people in 1989," said Richardson. "Until this happens, the embargo should stay."

Biden Should Press Bosnia on Human Rights

By Wanda Troszczynska-van Genderen

May 19, 2009

As U.S. Vice President, Joe Biden, and EU foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, visit Sarajevo this week, they will usher in a new chapter in Bosnia and Herzegovina's relations with the West. But there is one legacy of the Bush administration they should repudiate: the erosion of human rights and the rule of law in the name of fighting terrorism.

In recent years, Bosnia has stripped the citizenship of around 300 people, most of them men of Middle Eastern origin. Many were granted citizenship after coming to Bosnia to fight during the war, and some are now said to pose a threat to national security. The Bosnian government has seized 6 of these men, all Arabs, and placed them in its new Lukavica detention centre pending deportation, including to countries such as Syria, where they face the risk of serious human rights abuses, including torture.

While the stripping of citizenship and deportations are said to be motivated solely by concerns over irregularities in naturalisation decisions, these initiatives appear to be linked to concerns about the presence in Bosnia of alleged Islamist radicals who it is claimed, are either members of or communicate with radical Islamic organizations. (The measures also appear to enjoy support from Western governments, who so far have been silent about the risk of torture on return.

One of the men in Lukavica, Imad al Husin, is being held pending an appeal even though the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina cancelled the deportation order against him and noted that he does not present a threat to the security of the state. Another detainee, Benkhira Aissa, has twice been sentenced to death in Algeria for his role in an alleged terrorist conspiracy.

The Bosnian government is no stranger to controversy over forced deportations having rendered Lakhdar Boumediene and a group of other men of Algerian origin into US custody despite a Bosnian court order for their release. Boumediene was finally freed without charge from Guantanamo Bay last week, seven years after his imprisonment.

The Bosnian government's willingness to ignore the courts when it comes to national security raises serious questions: - about their willingness to circumvent the law - the Bosnian State Commission, a body in charge of reviewing the post-war naturalisations of foreigners, lacks transparency and denies applicants the right to a fair hearing. The citizenship review procedure takes place behind close doors and persons involved are not present to hear their cases being discussed. The final decisions do not contain detailed justifications or even the reasons why the citizenship was revoked. The recent arrest in Croatia of its chairman, Vjekoslav Vukovic, on suspicion of involvement in an organized crime killing, also raises concerns about the Commission's credibility.

Mr. Biden and Mr. Solana, with their long experience in Balkan policy-making, should understand the need to support strong institutions to protect the rule of law and human rights.

Bosnia looks to the US and EU for leadership. But when it comes to expelling Arabs suspected of links to terrorism, the West has, at best, been silent and at worst complicit in abuse. Reform will only come with help from Washington and Brussels.

Biden and Solana should use their visit to send a clear signal to Bosnia that the West expects to see the following basic steps to bring its security policies in line with human rights law:

First, Bosnia and Herzegovina should freeze the work of the State Commission and conduct a transparent and independent review of its work, including giving those who have been stripped of their citizenship, a right to a fair appeal to an independent court.

Second, appeals by foreigners challenging their deportation should remain in the country whilst their cases are decided, in accordance with a recent Gebremedhin ruling (which condemned France for the absence of an effective right to appeal for undocumented asylum-seekers) of the European Court of Human Rights. This is necessary to ensure Bosnia and Herzegovina's complies with its obligation not to return anyone to a place where he or she risks torture.

Third, the Bosnian authorities should stop using their immigration policy to expel people who are merely suspected of links to violent groups.

Bosnian criminal courts have prosecuted both terrorism and war crimes cases, including those where the alleged perpetrators were naturalised citizens and so have the skills to take charge of such cases and the use of citizenship and immigration laws raises suspicions that the evidence against these men is insufficient and that the state wishes to avoid having to justify its concerns before independent judges.

The Obama administration has announced its desire to turn the page on its predecessor's encouragement and tolerance of human rights abuses in the name of the fight against terrorism. The Lukavica detainees and the hundreds of other individuals at risk of deportation from Bosnia need more than words to protect their human rights; they need action.

US: LA Vote on Rape Evidence Backlog a ‘Major Step’

More City Council Oversight Needed to Ensure Progress in Testing

May 19, 2009

(Los Angeles) - The Los Angeles City Council's approval on May 18 of funds for testing the physical evidence in rape cases is a major step toward reducing a huge backlog of "rape kits," Human Rights Watch said.

Human Rights Watch urged the City Council to use its oversight function to ensure the effective use of the new funding.

"The thousands of rape victims who went through the ordeal of providing the evidence, and then found out it was sitting in a freezer, will finally have a chance to see justice," said Sarah Tofte, US researcher at Human Rights Watch and author of Testing Justice: The Rape Kit Backlog in Los Angeles City and County. "The City Council funding should have real and immediate effects."

As part of the city's budget for the upcoming fiscal year, the council approved money for an additional 26 employees for the city's crime lab DNA section and for using private crime laboratories for outsourcing. The budget now goes to the mayor for signature or veto within 10 days of approval by the City Council. The city has a backlog of more than 5,000 "rape kits," as the collected evidence is called, which have not been tested to try to identify a suspect through matching DNA.

Human Rights Watch said that the failure to test rape kits in a timely manner prolongs rape victims' physical and emotional trauma, and may allow some rapists to assault more women.

The new funding, while very positive, only addresses one element of the problem. The City Council's allocations only affect the testing of rape kits under the Los Angeles Police Department's jurisdiction, but will not help reduce the backlog of about 7,000 more rape kits stored by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and independent police departments in the 47 other cities in Los Angeles County.

An increased DNA testing capacity is essential for the Los Angeles Police Department to meet its stated goal of eliminating its rape kit backlog in the next 18 to 24 months, Human Rights Watch said.

The backlog of rape kits in the City of Los Angeles results from several factors. In the past, the decision about whether to submit a case for testing was made at the discretion of the detective handling the case. Testing the kits is also an expensive and time-consuming process, and the police department neither committed adequate funds to the process nor acknowledged the nature and extent of the backlog as the problem grew.

The new funding enables the Los Angeles Police Department to allocate more resources and expedite testing. New York City was able to eliminate its backlog of over 17,000 rape kits through similar means within three years.

"Eliminating rape kit backlogs is not an easy task," said Tofte. "But it is an achievable one."

The funding alone is not a guarantee that the rape kit backlog will be eliminated for good - that will require regularly scheduled oversight hearings from the full City Council to ensure that the Los Angeles Police Department is spending the funds efficiently and effectively.

"While the new money is a critical step toward eliminating the backlog of rape kits, it is certainly not the last step," said Tofte. "We urge the City Council to use its oversight function to ensure that these funds translate into results, and monitor the speedy elimination of this problem."

Philippine Death Squads: A Murderous Plague

by Kenneth Roth

May 19, 2009

Published in the Far Eastern Economic Review

When does closing one’s eyes to mass murder become encouragement? The Philippines present that question head-on. An electoral democracy with a vibrant press and competing political parties, the country has moved beyond most aspects of the Marcos dictatorship. But at least one legacy of that dark time remains—a dangerous willingness to use execution as a clandestine tool of government.

Until recently, the victims tended to be leftist party members and activists as well as sympathetic journalists and clergy. International condemnation led the government to curtail these extrajudicial killings, although the failure to prosecute the perpetrators remains worrying. Today, attention is turning to new categories of victims, mostly poor and marginalized, such as alleged petty criminals, drug dealers, gang members and street children.

The death squad capital of the Philippines is Davao City, the nation’s third largest city, located on the southern island of Mindanao. The city’s long-time mayor, Rodrigo Duterte, is famous for projecting an image of being tough on crime. Yet despite his hands-on approach to governance, Mr. Duterte claims ignorance about the so-called Davao Death Squad, denying that it even exists.

A recent Human Rights Watch investigation made a mockery of his denials. Nine insiders described the machinery of death. Current and former Davao police officers and local officials select the targets and equip local thugs with handguns or knives. Riding a motorcycle without license plates, the death squad members approach their victim in broad daylight, often in busy markets, and with no attempt to hide their identities, kill him in cold blood. The killers then nonchalantly drive off, confident that the police, who had been warned of the murder and thus conveniently absented themselves, will take their time to return, and will then perform at best a perfunctory investigation. Witnesses are too terrified to identify the death squad members for fear of becoming their next victim.

More than 800 Davao City residents have fallen victim to the Davao Death Squad over the last decade, and the trend is accelerating; 33 were killed this past January alone. Moreover, death squads have now sprung up elsewhere in Mindanao and beyond.

Mr. Duterte’s response to this epidemic of murder in his city has been cagey. While denying any connection to death squads, he announced this past February that if you’re a criminal, “you are a legitimate target of assassination.” No translator was needed to understand his drift. President Arroyo, who once appointed Mr. Duterte her adviser on peace and order, only recently began to confront the ugly reality of the death squads.

Mr. Duterte’s denials would be one thing if there were serious questions about the existence of the Davao Death Squad. The lack of evidence that Mr. Duterte is personally directing the killing is beside the point. Rather, his denial of the undeniable signals to death squad members and those directing them that he is willing to cover up for their murderous activities. The death squad members are not stupid; they can read between the lines. Mr. Duterte’s blinking at reality suggests a nod and a wink.

Sadly, given the continuing inadequacy of the Philippine justice system, many Filipinos seem to accept the need for such brutality in approaching the nation’s crime problem. But it’s not only wrong to summarily take someone’s life; it’s also extraordinarily dangerous.

Contrary to expectations, the Davao Death Squad has not reduced crime. In the decade since it began operating, crime in Davao City has mushroomed ten times faster than the population. That’s not surprising, since contempt for the law breeds further lawlessness.

Moreover, once the police start playing God, the temptation becomes enormous for them to expand the class of victims. Today, the city’s supposed low-life; tomorrow, political or personal enemies. As Latin America of the 1980s showed, the business of death squads can consume a country, creating an environment where no one is safe.

So it is time for the Philippine government to move beyond unconvincing denials. President Arroyo took a first step this month by ordering the police to “get to the bottom” of vigilante killings. Her powerful executive secretary, Eduardo Ermita, added that “criminality is a social malaise that can never be remedied by such executions,” which he called “illegal” and “immoral.” The test now will be whether the Philippine government takes these strong statements to heart and launches vigorous investigations and prosecutions of those behind this murderous plague.

They killed Audette Salem twice

Op-ed originally published in Now Lebanon

by

Nadim Houry

May 19, 2009

Audette Salem was killed twice. The first time was when "they" kidnapped her children, Richard and Marie Christine, on September 17, 1985. The kidnappers were never identified, and the fate of her children never elucidated. Audette's life was put on hold that day.

The second time was on Saturday, May 16, when a speeding car accidentally hit her while she crossed the road to get to the tent that she and other families of the disappeared had erected in 2005 to remind Lebanon's government and society that they were still waiting for answers regarding the fate of their loved ones. Audette, 77, was the main resident of the tent; the "rock"-- a term her friends liked to use -- who sustained the sit-in for the last four years amid wars, rain storms and heat waves.

I met Audette many times over the last few years. Like many other human rights activists and journalists, I would go to the tent to interview the families of the disappeared, and would invariably see her there. She always answered my questions patiently, even though she had answered such questions many times before. "I get tired of telling the story again and again," she said. But she would oblige. I would listen.

The story of the disappearance of her children was simple; a testament to the folly and random violence of the civil war. Richard, 22, and Marie-Christine, 19, were going from the offices of their family enterprise in Hamra to their home in Sayyet al-Janzir for lunch. They were with their uncle Georges, 75, in an orange Volkswagen Golf. They left around 2:00 p.m. and were kidnapped along the way. No one ever saw them or Georges again. It was the perfect crime, like so many other crimes during those days. No witnesses, no evidence.

Audette did what most families of the disappeared used to do at the time. She went to see the local commanders of the various militias in West Beirut. One of Walid Jumblatt's people told her, "They are not with us." Amal had a similar answer and laid the blame on Hezbollah - this was before the two parties became inseparable allies. Hezbollah also denied any knowledge.

The truth is we don't know who kidnapped Audette's children. There was no clear motive for the kidnapping. Audette's family was not involved in politics and no ransom was ever demanded. Audette had obtained some leads from militia members, but most of this information was unreliable and contradictory. Audette had her own theory. She thought that the kidnapping was to get her family to abandon their apartment which a militiaman had wanted for himself. If so, the kidnappers failed.

Audette never left her house. She kept the room of her children exactly as it was on the day of their kidnapping, re-arranging Richard's razor and Christine's make-up for when they would come back. Audette still had hope.

Her hope increased in 2005. A few months after she and others set up the tent outside the offices of the United Nations in downtown Beirut, a former Iraqi intelligence officer released from a Syrian prison visited them, gazed at the yellowing pictures of the disappeared on the wall and stopped at a photo of Richard. He said that had seen him in 1992 in Tadmur, one of Syria's most notorious and secretive jails.

The Iraqi's testimony raised more questions than answers. How reliable was his testimony? Would Richard have looked the same as on the photo after seven years of detention? Why would Syria hold on to Richard? And, most importantly, what could be done with the information?

Audette presented whatever information she had to the three official commissions formed by the government to shed light on the fate of the estimated 17,000 that were said to have disappeared. "The files remained in the drawer," she told me. "They never gave me one bit of information." She had gotten used to the lies of the Lebanese authorities who frequently promised to investigate cases of disappearances but never did. Her presence at the tent was a constant reminder of their failure. What did she hope would happen, I asked her during our last lengthy interview. Her answer was simple: "I want to know what happened to my children."

Audette died before finding out. However, her efforts contributed to pushing Lebanese decision-makers closer toward accepting the need to unearth the civil war's mass graves by making it clear that this issue will not go away. She also succeeded in emphasizing the need to reveal the fate of the disappeared in Syria before Lebanese-Syrian relations can truly improve.

The road ahead remains arduous, and Audette's quest continues. Following her death, her friends at the tent took a sample of her DNA so that it could be used to identify any future remains - when (not if) such remains are unearthed.

DR Congo: Hold Army to Account for War Crimes

UN Security Council Should Demand Government Hold Soldiers Responsible

May 19, 2009

(New York) - The United Nations Security Council, visiting the Democratic Republic of Congo today, should vigorously condemn war crimes by Congolese army soldiers in the eastern part of the country, Human Rights Watch said.

Human Rights Watch urged the Security Council to condition UN support for Congolese military operations on the removal of known human rights abusers from command positions.

"The Congolese army is responsible for widespread and vicious abuses against its own people that amount to war crimes," said Anneke Van Woudenberg, senior researcher in the Africa division at Human Rights Watch. "The government should take urgent action to end these abuses. A military operation that targets the very people the government claims to be protecting can only lead to disaster."

Since late January 2009, soldiers from the Congolese armed forces, the FARDC, on military operations in eastern Congo, have attacked villages and killed at least 19 civilians in North Kivu province, including two women and two elderly men. Army soldiers have also raped more than 143 women and girls in the same period, more than half of the 250 cases of rape documented by Human Rights Watch. Some women were taken as sex slaves by soldiers and held within military positions.

In at least 12 villages in North Kivu province, including Miriki, Bushalingwa, and Kishonja in Lubero and Walikale territories, soldiers burned to the ground hundreds of homes and numerous schools and health centers. They pillaged and looted homes, and arbitrarily arrested at least 85 persons whom they accused of supporting rebel forces. Many of these people have been held without charge, subjected to beatings, and often released only after significant sums were paid. Civilians told Human Rights Watch researchers that they feared army soldiers as much as the Rwandan militias the army is supposed to be neutralizing.

In mid-January, the Congolese army began a joint military operation with the Rwandan armed forces against Rwandan militia groups, the Rally for Unity and Democracy (RUD) and the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), some of whose leadership participated in the Rwandan genocide in 1994. The operation "Umojo Wetu" ("Our Unity") followed a rapprochement between the two countries and the demise of a Rwandan-backed Congolese rebel group, the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP), which gave up its struggle against the Congolese government and joined the operation.

During a rapid integration process, at least 12,000 combatants from the CNDP and other rebel groups who agreed to join the military operations entered the Congolese army ranks. The integration has swollen the army's numbers in eastern Congo to an estimated 60,000 soldiers, exacerbating problems of discipline, pay, and command control that have plagued it for many years.

Operation Umojo Wetu ended in late February, when Rwandan soldiers left eastern Congo following an agreement that the Congolese army would continue military operations against the Rwandan militias with support from the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo (MONUC). This second phase, known as Kimia II, began in North Kivu in mid-April and is expanding to South Kivu province.

Since the start of military operations against them, the FDLR and RUD militias have committed war crimes in brutal "reprisal" attacks in North and South Kivu, deliberately attacking and killing at least 200 civilians. In an attack on May 9 and 10, an estimated 60 civilians were reportedly killed and many others wounded in Busurungi, in Walikale territory. Reports from local officials and witnesses indicate the FDLR were the attackers and that Congolese army soldiers based in Busurungi retreated, or were killed, leaving the civilian population unprotected.

During both phases of military operations, Congolese army soldiers have killed, raped, and looted. After Rwandan militias attacked the Congolese army at Miriki (Lubero territory) on March 7-8, killing at least 12 soldiers, including an officer, the Congolese army sent in reinforcements. According to local authorities and Miriki residents, Congolese army soldiers then summarily executed the local police commander, who had reportedly been arrested along with 39 other civilians accused of collaborating with the FDLR militia. Congolese army soldiers then proceeded to pillage and burn 155 houses. Witnesses told Human Rights Watch they saw two truckloads of well-armed soldiers returning to Kirumba later that day with the pillaged goods from Miriki.

In Bwavinyo, also in southern Lubero territory, Congolese army soldiers arrested the village chief on March 8, accusing him of having been aware of an FDLR attack on Bwavinyo earlier that day and not informing the Congolese army. He was released days later, after payment of over US$1,000 to Congolese army authorities. Soldiers then pillaged the village, saying that all the goods had belonged to the FDLR. On March 12, following a warning that the FDLR were close by, army soldiers began shooting randomly, killing four civilians who were on their way back to Bwavinyo from their fields nearby.

Congolese army soldiers repeatedly committed rape during operations, often accusing women of being supporters or wives of the FDLR. Many women and girls have been gang raped. In Kihonga (South Kivu), a woman was raped in her home by two soldiers, who then abducted her husband and forced him to transport their looted goods. He still has not returned. Days later, a 15-year-old girl was raped in the same village by two soldiers, while four other soldiers looted the house and then abducted her mother, who is still missing. Other women were abducted by soldiers to be sex slaves in their camps; they were told that if they ever tried to resist when soldiers wanted to have sex with them, they would be killed.

UN peacekeepers who support the Congolese army in these military operations have tried to minimize some of the abuses by army soldiers, but have been unable to do so in many circumstances. In at least one incident recently, UN peacekeepers fired warning shots over the heads of Congolese army soldiers to try to minimize their abusive behavior.

The 3,000 additional peacekeepers authorized by the UN Security Council in November 2008 have still not arrived in eastern Congo, despite promises from council members that they would urge a rapid deployment. Helicopters and intelligence support, desperately needed by the mission, have also not materialized. On April 9 in New York, Alan Doss, the head of the UN peacekeeping force, warned the Security Council that without such assets, MONUC's "capacity to respond quickly to emerging threats and protect civilians would be curtailed."

"Civilians are trapped, targeted by all sides in this conflict," said Van Woudenberg. "During their visit to Congo, Security Council members should tell President Joseph Kabila that UN peacekeepers cannot support military operations in which war crimes are being committed and that ongoing support will be conditional on concrete action by the Congolese government to bring such crimes to an end."

Human Rights Watch again raised concerns about the role played by known human rights abusers in the military operations supported by UN peacekeepers, including Bosco Ntaganda, who has been given a leadership role in the Congolese army despite an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC), and Jean-Pierre Biyoyo, appointed a colonel in the Congolese army despite being found guilty by a Congolese military court of recruiting children into a militia group in March 2006.

Human Rights Watch also urged the council to ensure that Ntaganda is immediately removed from military duties, and to condition future MONUC operational support on his arrest.

"MONUC and the Security Council cannot turn a blind eye when known human rights abusers are in senior positions in military operations they support," said Van Woudenberg. "Congolese civilians urgently need protection from militia groups and abusers in their own army. If the council fails to act, it too will be complicit in putting civilians at risk."

Selected Witness Accounts

27-year-old woman from Bitonga (Masisi territory, North Kivu) who was abducted in late March 2009 by Congolese army soldiers and held as a sex slave in their camp for one month:

"I was in my farm with nine other women when the soldiers came and took us by force. I was with them in their camp near Bitonga for one month, and throughout this time, whoever wanted to would come and force me to have sex with them. They told me that if I ever tried to resist, they would kill me. There were about 18 soldiers in the camp, a mix of Tutsi and Hutu. I finally managed to escape when the soldiers sent me on my own to look for firewood. I was four-months pregnant when they abducted me, and I'm now in constant pain and am unable to walk. I don't think the baby is going to make it. The people in my village had all fled while I was gone because of abuses committed by the same FARDC soldiers who had abducted me."

40-year-old woman raped by four Congolese army soldiers in her house in Chebumba (Kalehe territory, South Kivu) on April 15:

"They came at night when I was asleep. We heard a banging on the door, and then they forced the door open, took my husband out of bed and tied him up. Four soldiers then started to rape me, one after the other, while three other soldiers looted all the goods in our house. I was four-months pregnant, but lots of blood started to flow while they were raping me and I've now lost the baby. The soldiers spoke Lingala, and I didn't understand what they were saying. Three other houses were visited the same night in my village. The soldiers who raped me have since been deployed further south, past Numbi."

15-year-old girl from Kihonga (Kalehe territory, South Kivu) who was raped last year by FARDC soldiers who made her pregnant. After giving birth in late March, she was raped again on May 5 by two FARDC soldiers:

"There were six soldiers who came into my house. They first raped my three-year-old sister, and then two of them raped me while the others looted our house. They threw my newborn baby onto the ground, and because of the shock he is in a lot of pain whenever anyone touches his legs. The soldiers were wearing military uniforms and they spoke Kinyarwanda. There were Hutus and Tutsis and other tribes as well. After they raped me, they took my mother away with them. She hasn't come back yet, and I think she must be dead. Five other houses in Kihonga were visited the same night by the soldiers."

25-year-old woman from Kihonga (Kalehe territory, South Kivu) who was raped in her house by two FARDC soldiers on April 25:

"It happened at night when I was in the house with my husband. We heard people knocking on the door, and they demanded that we open it. We refused, and then two soldiers forced the door open, came in the house, and tied up my husband. They then took me by force and started to rape me. They were both armed, in military uniform, and they spoke Kinyarwanda. One was Hutu and the other was Tutsi. Afterward, they took my husband with them to transport all the goods they looted from our house. I thought my husband would come back, but he never did. His family has since rejected me once they found out what happened, and I now have nowhere to go."

Man from Oninga (Walikale territory, North Kivu) who fled to Kirumba (Lubero territory, North Kivu) after the FDLR began attacking civilians:

"As we fled toward the government-controlled area, we were stopped by FARDC soldiers who looted all our money and goods, and they beat us badly, saying, ‘You came from where the enemies are, and you must be their collaborator.' Now that we've made it to Kirumba, we're constantly subject to ‘Opération Fenêtre' with our host families here: The soldiers come to the houses at night, stick the rifle of their guns through the window, and force us to hand over all the money, food, and objects in the house."

Displaced man from Katoyi (Masisi territory) in Lushebere:

"When I went home to look for food, I was stopped by FARDC soldiers, who forced me to transport their baggage all the way to Kalonge, where they were going for operations against the FDLR. When we got there, they made me give them my clothes and shoes. I was then left almost naked, as they whipped me, calling me an Interhamwe."

Local chief from Masisi territory:

"The FDLR say we are the ones who told the FARDC to come and chase them out of eastern Congo, while our soldiers blame us for having lived with the FDLR and say we're their brothers. We've become the enemies of all sides and don't understand anymore what to think."

UAE: Exploited Workers Building 'Island of Happiness'

Guggenheim, Louvre, New York University, Other Projects Should Protect Workers from Abuses by Labor Agencies, Construction Firms

May 19, 2009

(Abu Dhabi) - Thousands of South Asian migrant workers building a US$27 billion island development in the United Arab Emirates face severe exploitation and abuse, in some cases amounting to forced labor, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Labor-supply agencies, construction companies, and repressive laws are responsible for the abuse.

The 80-page report, "‘The Island of Happiness': Exploitation of Migrant Workers on Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi," found that while the UAE government has moved to improve housing conditions and ensure the timely payment of wages in recent years, many labor abuses remain commonplace. International institutions planning to open branches on the island - including the Guggenheim, New York University (NYU), and the French Museum Agency (responsible for the Louvre Abu Dhabi) - should urgently obtain enforceable contractual guarantees that construction companies will protect workers' fundamental rights on their projects, Human Rights Watch said.

"These international institutions need to show that they will not tolerate or benefit from the gross exploitation of these migrant workers," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "The vague assurances they've received from their development partners are hollow substitutes for firm contractual agreements that their projects will be different from business as usual in Abu Dhabi."

Abu Dhabi, the capital of the UAE, hopes to turn Saadiyat Island (the "island of happiness") into an international tourist destination. The low-lying island will have four museums and a performing arts center designed by world-renowned architectural firms - including Ateliers Jean Nouvel, Foster and Partners, and Gehry Partners - as well as a campus of New York University, golf courses, hotels, and expensive residences.

Workers from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and other South Asian countries have been building the island's infrastructure since Abu Dhabi formed the Tourism Development and Investment Company (TDIC) to oversee the project in 2005. On May 27, 2009, French President Nicolas Sarkozy is scheduled to lay the foundation stone of the Louvre Abu Dhabi. The museum is expected to open in 2013.

Based on interviews with migrant workers, and meetings with UAE and French government officials, as well as officers of international institutions and corporations with projects on the island, the Human Rights Watch report documents a cycle of abuse that leaves migrant workers deeply indebted, badly paid, and unable to stand up for their rights or even quit their jobs.

The UAE government and the authorities responsible for developing Saadiyat Island have failed to tackle the root causes of worker abuse: unlawful recruiting fees, broken promises of wages, and a sponsorship system that gives an employer virtually complete power over his workers.

To obtain the visas needed to work in the UAE, nearly all workers Human Rights Watch interviewed on Saadiyat Island paid hefty fees to "labor-supply agencies" in their home countries that are contracted to supply workers to construction companies in the UAE. Because the agencies promised good terms of employment in the UAE, many workers sold their homes or land or borrowed money at high rates of interest to pay the agencies' fees. Upon arrival in the UAE, the indebted workers - many of whom are illiterate - are required to sign contracts with the construction companies on much worse terms than they had been promised back home. Workers have virtually no recourse against the agencies that cheated them with false promises of good wages and exploitative recruiting fees.

UAE laws prohibit agencies from charging workers such fees. The agencies are supposed to charge the companies, but the law is not enforced. Further, there are no penalties if companies, pursuing their own financial interests, knowingly work with agencies that make workers pay the fees.

Workers face the choice of quitting their jobs while still owing thousands of dollars for the unlawful recruiting fees, or continuing to work in exploitative conditions. Virtually all complained of low pay and poor-quality healthcare. Nor can workers effectively demand better pay or living conditions, because UAE laws do not protect the basic rights to form unions, bargain collectively, or strike. Instead, the UAE's "sponsorship" system gives employers nearly absolute control over the workers' lawful employment and presence in the country, with visas tied to individual employers. All workers said that when they arrived in the UAE, their employers had confiscated their passports. Employers can move to revoke the visa of a worker who quits, leading to deportation.

Some workers reported conditions that amount to forced labor: their employer threatened to fine them heavily if they tried to quit before they had worked for two years, which effectively confined them to the "island of happiness." Workers are generally not aware of their rights and are afraid of expressing grievances, and independent and effective monitoring is lacking.

"The museums and NYU should insist that their local development partners guarantee workers' basic rights, which at minimum should include reimbursement for unlawful recruiting fees, official contracts in their native language signed prior to their arrival, and the right to strike and bargain collectively," said Whitson. "And they should insist on independent third-party monitoring of their projects, and impose meaningful penalties for violations."

Research on Saadiyat Island did show that authorities have taken some positive steps. Although workers' accommodations were still under construction when Human Rights Watch visited the island, they appeared to be relatively hygienic and not overcrowded. TDIC, the government-owned company overseeing the island's development, has sought contractual guarantees from construction companies that they will not confiscate workers' passports, use forced labor, or commit other abuses.

Human Rights Watch contacted the construction companies, architectural firms, and international institutions working on the island to alert them to the need to take steps to ensure workers on their projects are not abused. Many did not reply to our letters. Among the Guggenheim, New York University, and the French Museum Agency (responsible for the Louvre Abu Dhabi project), only the Agency has taken any steps to seek meaningful contractual guarantees from TDIC to allow independent monitoring of workers' rights, but even the Agency's contract lacks guarantees or provisions allowing it to enforce workers' rights.