Human Rights Action Update Feb. 21-27

Miriam, human rights defender, 1947-2012

     

CHINA
 We start with three items from China. The crackdown on human rights defenders there is intensifying as the regime becomes aware of the tensions building up because of social inequities. These are all updates on previous cases whose situation has worsened. Action is called for.

Please open the UA on Liu Xia that we issued on 17 February.   It's also available here on Amnesty's website:  There were more updates last Friday. Liu Xia was allowed to be admitted to a hospital in Beijing last Friday. However, she was warned not to disclose any more information in relation to the name and location of the hospital and her health conditions. So, we are not sure if she has actually been given any proper medical examination or treatment. Her lawyer also wouldn't want to talk in more details. We will see if we will have enough information to issue an update this week or next week.


Please open an updated UA for Ilham Tohti. This Uighur intellectual is now in severe danger.

Here is a UA update on Cao Shunli. She is now in hospital and there is serious concern for her health.

SPAIN

Coca-Cola Iberian Partners (CCIP) is imposing a restructuring plan that will affect nearly 1,200 workers and result in the closure of four of 11 Coca-Cola bottling plants in Spain.

Coca Cola is trying to close bottling plants despite its high profitability in Spain. Please support the defense of jobs around the country.

GOOD NEWS FROM BRAZIL
Survival International reports on major steps taken by the Brazilian government to drive illegal loggers out of the homeland of the Awa tribe.

The Awá are one of the last nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes in the Amazon. They depend on the forest for their survival.

© Domenico Pugliese/Survival

Over 50,000 people responded to the call for an outcry and it worked. Thanks to all of you who helped. Cheers also for the celebrities who supported the campaign.

Human Rights Action Update Feb. 14-20

Miriam, human rights defender, 1947-2012

  

ABUSE OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES

BRAZIL

Illegal gold-mining is destroying the Indians' forest, and polluting their rivers with mercury.

© Colin Jones/Survival

The Brazilian authorities have launched an operation to combat illegal gold-mining on the land of the Yanomami tribe. ‘Operation Korekore’ is set to last 30 days and aims to arrest approximately 200 illegal miners who are operating in one part of the tribe’s territory. The operation’s ground squad has reportedly destroyed at least 20 illegal mining rafts and one airplane landing strip so far. On the other hand there is a bill pending in Congress that would permit large-scale mining on indigenous land and bring further destruction. There over 650 requests from mining corporations to mine in the Yanomami territory. Please click on the link and send a pre-written letter to the Brazilian government.

INDIA

The Jawara tribe who live in the jungle on the Indian island of Andaman have long suffered abuse at the hands of so-called civilized people. That includes tourist safaris to spot them as though they were animals. The Indian government has even paved a road across the island to facilitate this "tourism." Now a journalist who exposed sexual exploitation of Jawara women is being harassed by the police. Please open this site and write to the Indian government to protest.

Jarawa women are being lured with alcohol and drugs and sexually exploited by poachers on their land.

© Survival

As Survival International says in response to frequently asked questions:
Will my letter make a difference?
Yes. Time and again, letters from Survival supporters have called governments and organizations to account. Policies have changed and lives have been saved.
Should I post, fax or e-mail?
The most powerful way is to print and post your letter. We will e-mail you a ready-to-print PDF of your letter, together with postage information.

We sometimes also publish e-mail addresses or fax numbers where there is a realistic chance of these being read. However, e-mail addresses change and fax machines get unplugged. If you can, please post your letter.
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC 
Ethnic cleansing and massacres are being perpetrated against the Muslim population of this country.

Fati, an 11-year-old girl who was injured with deep machete wounds to her head and arm in an attack by anti-balaka militia in Boali (north of Bangui) on 17 January 2014. © Amnesty International

Peacekeeping forces are trying to protect them, but there is not enough force available. Call on the African Union to provide peacekeeping force MISCA ( Mission internationale de soutien à la Centrafrique sous conduite africaine) with the support needed to end ethnic cleansing and sectarian killings in the Central African Republic. Please act on this atrocity and call for protection of the victims.

Burning and looting of Muslim property and a mosque in PK 26 area, north of the capital Bangui in late January. © Amnesty International

NORTH KOREA
The UN has broken its silence on the brutality of the regime in North Korea. A new report accuses the government of Kim Jong Un of crimes against humanity.

A drawing by a former prisoner shows a practice known as pigeon torture

 Please join the worldwide outcry and call for action on the part of the international community. 

CANADA
 
A bit of good news has come our way.  Our campaign on behalf of the striking workers of the Labatt brewery in St. John's, Newfoundland has been successful The workers are back on the job. They thank all the people around the world, 12,007 of you -- more than two-thirds of whom  came from outside Canada. Again it is shown that the protests of individuals are effective in making changes in policy and actions.   

Human Rights Action Update Feb. 7-13

Miriam, human rights defender, 1947-2012

           

We start again with some good news. The governor of the state of Washington in the US has announced a moratorium on executions that will hold as long as he is in office. This is short of an initiative  for abolition or even commutation of the sentences of those now on Death Row. Nonetheless, it is a small step forward and we commend the governor for his action and his strong criticism of the application of the death penalty.

RUSSIA
The Winter Olympic Games are under way in Sochi and the Russian authorities are doing whatever they can to silence dissent.

Yevgeny Vitishko was detained this week and charged with ‘swearing at a bus stop’ and hooliganism. He’s a prisoner of conscience. Ask for his release. We believe Yevgeny has been gagged by officials keen to stop him from protesting during the Sochi Winter Olympics. His 15 day sentence coincides conveniently for the government with the period of the games.

BOLIVIA
For the past two years victims of abuses by past military regimes in Bolivia have been encamped in protest in from of the Justice Ministry, demanding reparations and justice. Their campsite outside the Ministry of Justice was set on fire on 9 February. No casualties have been reported but files and other important documents have been destroyed. Please join the protest and the demand for an investigation as well as the demand for justice for victims of human rights violations.


THE NETHERLANDS








Workers at the big flower auction FloraHolland have been engaged in futile negotiations with their management. After the failure of a warning strike on Feb. 6, they had no choice but to start an indefinite strike on Feb. 9. Workers at the company have been fighting in vain since last year for a new Collective Bargaining Agreement and a social plan that addresses the needs of hundreds of workers who are losing their jobs and others who will be transferred to new locations in a major restructuring. Please click and send a message in support of the workers.

Human Rights Action Update Jan.31-Feb. 6

Miriam, human rights defender, 1947-2012

We start with some good news. Dmitrii Bulatov, the Ukrainian EuroMaydan activist who was abducted, beaten and ‘crucified’, has been given permission to leave the country to obtain treatment for the severe injuries he received at the hands of unknown assailants. We are also informed that charges against union leaders in Fiji have been dropped. Cheers to all of you for your appeals and support.  It proves again, as if proof were needed, that appeals and protests on human rights issues are effective and important.


PERU
During the 1990s around 2,000 mainly peasant and indigenous women were sterilized as part of a demographic control policy targeted at those living in poverty. There is strong evidence that health professionals implementing family planning programs were pressured into meeting sterilization quotas and that in most cases, women did not give their free and informed consent. Women and their families were allegedly threatened with fines, prison sentences, or the withdrawal of food subsidies if they refused to undergo the operation. Many did not receive adequate aftercare and suffered health problems as a result, and 18 died.  All of these women  have been denied justice after the Public Prosecutor’s office closed their cases. The failure to investigate their claims highlights the persistent discrimination against peasant and Indigenous peoples in Peru, including women. Please write to the Public Prosecutor to protest this grave injustice.


CHINA 
Ilham Tohti, prominent Uighur scholar and founder of the website “Uighur Online”, was taken from his home in Beijing by authorities on 15 January. His whereabouts are currently unknown. He is at risk of torture and other ill-treatment. Please join the action on his behalf.

CAMBODIA
Global unions are mobilizing workers around the world to protest at Cambodian embassies on Monday 10 February, to demand the release of 23 activists seized during demonstrations in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh in January. The call to action to “Free the 23” comes on the eve of a Cambodian court hearing for the workers on 11 February. Please open the site and click on on the petition link at the bottom of the page.

Human Rights Action update Jan.24-30

Miriam, human rights defender, 1947-2012

MYANMAR
Human rights defender Kyaw Hla Aung is in poor health in Sittwe prison, in Myanmar’s Rakhine state. He is suffering from arthritis and high blood pressure; moreover there are concerns he is not receiving adequate medical treatment in detention. He has been detained arbitrarily for over six months despite the so-called democratization of the country. Kyaw Hla Aung was arrested on 15 July 2013, the same day that Myanmar’s President Thein Sein promised that there would be no more prisoners of conscience in the country by the end of the year. Despite this promise, many prisoners of conscience – including Kyaw Hla Aung – are believed to be behind bars in Myanmar. Please act on his behalf.

COLOMBIA 
Human rights defenders in the city of Barrancabermeja, in the Magdalena Medio region in north-eastern Colombia, have received death threats.  Please act to call upon   the Colombian authorities to fulfil their obligations regarding the protections of human rights defenders as specified in the 1998 UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, to which Colombia is a state party.

RUSSIA 
Leaders of the Aeroflot airline pilots association have been arrested as part of a union busting action on the part of the government. Please click to protest.  If the form comes up with my details,just replace with yours.

UKRAINE
Amnesty International is gravely concerned for the well-being of Dmitrii Bulatov, a prominent activist in the Euromaydan demonstrations in Kyiv, Ukraine. His family have not heard from him since the evening of 22 January and believe he has been abducted. He is one of the main organizers and participants of the Automaydan rallies whereby convoys of cars participate in the Euromaydan demonstrations which have been ongoing in Kyiv since November 2013. He would be well known to the Ukrainian authorities for his activism. Please act on his behalf.

Human Rights Action Update Jan. 17-23

Miriam, human rights defender, 1947-2012

For once, let us start off with some good news.

GOOD NEWS ON ANTI-GAY BILL IN UGANDA
Uganda’s president has refused to sign a bill that would impose harsh sentences for gay people, including life imprisonment, temporarily sidestepping a clash with foreign donors who have condemned the legislative push for years.

Some gay Ugandans have fled the country, saying they are being persecuted

 
Details can be found in the NYTimes or the BBC  web site. WE can only hope that the international pressure will continue to work and  that this issue can be put behind us and the gay people of Uganda.

BELARUS DEATH SENTENCE 
Belarus is the last country in Europe still carrying out executions: in 2012 it executed three men. Four death sentences, including Eduard Lykau’s, were pronounced in 2013: Rygor Yuzepchuk was sentenced on 24 April, Pavel Selyun on 12 June and Alyaksandr Haryunou was sentenced to death by a court in the city of Homel on 14 June. On 22 October, the Supreme Court of the Republic of Belarus overturned the death sentence passed by the Homel Regional Court against Alyaksandr Harunou and returned the case for reconsideration. We have just been informed of a death sentence passed on a 53 year-old man, Eduard Lykau. Whatever heinous crimes he committed, we are still adamant in our opposition to capital punishment. Please act on this case to call for the commutation of the sentence.

INDONESIA 
Prisoners of conscience are being abused and may be tortured.. This is an Amnesty International case brought to our attention by Guy and Tilly. Thank you. All cases of abuse of prisoners and detainees must be dealt with firmly and quickly. It is indeed ironic that the prison director is named Liberty...

LABOR ISSUES

COLOMBIA TRADE UNION LEADERS BEATEN AND KILLED 
Óscar Arturo Orozco, a trade unionist in Colombia, is President of the Caldas branch of the Confederación Unitaria de Trabajadores (CUT). He was recently brutally attacked while attending a peaceful demonstration, and is currently in hospital in a very serious condition. IndustriALL global union have launched a major global online protest campaign demanding an end to the attacks against trade unionists.  Please take a moment to send your message. Also trade union leaders have been killed. Most recently we've learned about Ever Luis Marín Rolong, a regional leader of the SINALTRACEBA brewery workers union who was murdered on January 4 by unknown gunmen who fired six times at him, as he was waiting for a bus in the town of Soledad.


The IUF has just launched an online protest campaign demanding an end to the murders and for the government to ensure the security of trade unionists at risk

Please open the link and act on these two campaigns.

RUSSIA
Leaders of the Aeroflot airline pilots association have been arrested as part of a union busting action on the part of the government. Please click to protest.

Human Rights Action update Jan. 10-16

Miriam, human rights defender, 1947-2012

Advice for use of letter templates: if you download them from the cloud via the link, you  must further click on the download menu to chose an editable format such as rtf or docx. 

 
KAZAKHSTANI MAN RISKS TORTURE IF EXTRADITED
The Spanish Council of Ministers is due to take a decision on the extradition request by Kazakhstan regarding asylum-seeker Aleksandr Pavlov. Credible evidence indicates that Aleksandr Pavlov, an associate of Kazakhstani opposition figure Mukhtar Ablyazov, would risk torture if returned to Kazakhstan. The Spanish Council of Ministers has the power to stop the extradition and should do so. Please open the file and act as requested.



CHINA
TIBETAN MONK AND SUPPORTERS DETAINED IN CHINA
Prominent Tibetan monk, Karma Tsewang, was detained on 6 December in Chengdu, south-west China, on suspicion of "endangering state security". Sixteen of his supporters were also detained after they demanded his release. They have not been allowed access to lawyers and are at risk of torture.  Please act on his behalf.

UGANDA 
LGBT LAW MUST BE VETOED
The infamous bill mandating life imprisonment for LGBT activity is on the President's desk. He has the power to veto it until the end of the month. Again, please join the outcry against this monstrous violation of human rights.