Pax Gaea Human Rights World Post

Maura J. Casey

NEW YORK: 'Well-behaved women rarely make history," my favorite bumper sticker says. It surely applies to Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian lawyer and 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner whose relentless campaign against discrimination has enraged the mullahs for more than 25 years. In a country where the law values a woman's life at only half the price of a man's, Ebadi will not be quiet, and she is urging other women to find their voices. Her newest effort is to help collect the signatures of one million Iranian women on a petition protesting their lack of legal rights. The concept is simple and revolutionary, melding education, consciousness-raising and peaceful protest. Starting last year, women armed with petitions began to go to wherever other women gathered: schools, hair salons, doctors' offices and private homes.Every woman is asked to sign. But whatever a woman decides, she receives a leaflet explaining how Iran's interpretation of Islamic law denies women full rights. The material explains how Iran's divorce law makes it easy for men, and incredibly difficult for women, to leave a marriage, and how custody laws give divorced fathers sole rights to children above the age of 7. Ebadi says the petition drive has already trained "400 young women to educate others" about these injustices. The movement, made up of a network of women's organizations and publications, has no formal leadership, in part to lessen the chances of retaliation. That didn't help three female journalists who were arrested late last month after they wrote articles for feminist publications backing the drive. They have since been released but will face a hearing in two months. Ebadi will defend them. It's only natural to wonder how many more women will be arrested as they rebel, one signature at a time. And only natural to marvel about the courage of the 30,000 women who have already signed. International Herald Tribune (2/9)

SWAZILAND: AIDS orphans locked out of schools

MBABANE, 7 Feb 2007 (IRIN/PLUSNEWS) - Thousands of Swazi AIDS orphans risk being locked out of school at the start of the new term this week, after the government failed to make good on a promise to provide scholarships for all those unable to afford school fees. "I don't know where to turn. The school said I must find someone to pay my fees, because the government money that was promised never arrived," said Anne, a secondary school student at St. Mark's High School, in the capital, Mbabane. She comes from the impoverished Msunduza Township, in the mountains overlooking the city. Her mother, a former domestic worker, and her father, who made ends meet with odd jobs, left little behind when they died of AIDS-related illnesses, and she now lives with relatives who cannot afford her school fees. Another AIDS orphan at the same school, who asked not to be named, said he was confident he could find sponsors to allow him into Form III, but only if he could prove he had passed the previous academic year. His dilemma is that "The school told me to go home at fetch the money owed from last year," before they will release his results, and the government has not paid his outstanding fees. For the past four years the government has tried to make good on its assurance that the 80,000 pupils who had lost their parents to AIDS would have their fees covered, but each term thousands are overlooked. Acting Minister of Education Mtiti Fakudze urged a meeting of headmasters on Wednesday to hold off expelling students and give the government a chance to sort out the mess. IRIN News (United Nations) (2/9)

ALMATY, 8 Feb 2007 (IRIN) - As the Turkmen people go to the polls on 11 February to vote in their first presidential elections in 15 years, there are hopes for urgently needed reforms in healthcare and education. Most presidential candidates acknowledge that something needs to be done about the parlous state of Turkmenistan’s health and education systems, which suffered years of decline under President Saparmyrat Niyazov, who died in December. “There’s a lot to do and nothing has been done yet," Michael Denison of the University of Leeds, a specialist on the area, said. The 20-year rule of Niyazov – known as Turkmenbashy (leader of the Turkmens) - was marked by eccentricities that grabbed headlines in the West, ranging from a ban on ballet and gold teeth, to building a lake in the middle of the desert. Such reports often distracted the outside world from more serious social problems in this country of five million people, such as failing healthcare and a huge drop in education standards. Niyazov - Turkmenistan’s Soviet-era leader, who won 99.5 percent of the vote in presidential elections in 1992 and was named president for life in 1999 - ruled with an iron fist. He quashed dissent, forcing opponents into jail or exile, allowing only one political party - his own. IRIN News (United Nations) (2/9)

UN calls for DR Congo death probe

United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon has called on the Democratic Republic of Congo to investigate last week's violence in which 134 people died. The government says 87 people died but a UN spokesman in DR Congo told the BBC they estimated the true figure was 134. The violence broke out after demonstrators, alleging fraud in recent elections, rampaged through several towns in the province of Bas Congo. The disturbances were quelled by government troops. The deaths followed protests by the Bundu dia Kongo group, which correspondents say has an ethnic-based following and campaigns for the secession of parts of western DR Congo. They held protests in DR Congo's main port, Matadi, and the towns of Mwanda and Boma. Police say a gun fight began when they raided the home of the sect's leader Nemwanda Seni in Matadi. In Mwanda, members of the sect took control of the police station and freed prisoners. During street protests, Bundu dia Kongo members chanted: "The Congo can't be rebuilt on corruption." They are unhappy that the opposition-dominated provincial assemblies in Kinshasa and Bas Congo elected members of the ruling party as state governors. They say the MPs must have been paid to do so. President Joseph Kabila became DR Congo's first freely elected leader in 40 years after winning October's run-off presidential poll. The local elections complete a peace process begun in 2002 when a five-year war that had drawn in much of the region ended. Defeated presidential candidate Jean-Pierre Bemba and his Union for the Nation party did well in western DR Congo, while Mr Kabila owed his majority to a landslide in the east. The UN has its largest peacekeeping force - 17,000 troops - in DR Congo. BBC (2/9

By MICHAEL MELIA, The Associated Press

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- An Army officer who investigated possible abuse at Guantanamo Bay after some guards purportedly bragged about beating detainees found no evidence they mistreated the prisoners _ although he did not interview any of the alleged victims, the U.S. military said Wednesday. Col. Richard Bassett, the chief investigator, recommended no disciplinary action against the Navy guards named by Marine Sgt. Heather Cerveny, who had said that during a conversation in September they described beating detainees as common practice.In an affidavit filed to the Pentagon's inspector general, Cerveny _ a member of a detainee's legal defense team _ said a group of more than five men who identified themselves as guards had recounted hitting prisoners. The conversation allegedly took place at a bar inside the base. "The evidence did not support any of the allegations of mistreatment or harassment," the Miami-based Southern Command, which oversees Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in southeastern Cuba, said in a statement. Investigators conducted 20 interviews with "suspects and witnesses," the Southern Command said. Bassett did not interview any detainees, said Jose Ruiz, a Miami-based command spokesman. "He talked to all the parties he felt he needed to get information about the allegations that were made," Ruiz said by telephone from Miami.Bassett's findings were approved by Adm. James Stavridis, the head of the Southern Command. The investigation began on Oct. 13 and was expanded ten days later to include a similar allegation from a civilian employee who recounted a conversation between a female guard and a male interrogator, according to the statement. Following Bassett's recommendations, Stavridis said a "letter of counseling" should be sent to the female guard who allegedly initiated a "fictitious account" of detainee abuse. Human Rights First/Washington Post (2/9)

By Faiza Saleh Ambah, Washington Post Foreign Service

JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia, Feb. 6 -- Saudi police have arrested 10 men and accused them of collecting donations to fund terrorist acts outside the kingdom, the Interior Ministry said. But a lawyer and a prominent dissident said that at least seven of the men were Saudi democracy activists whose arrest was a government attempt to abort their civic rights work. Matrouk al-Faleh, who was jailed in 2004 for calling for more democracy in the kingdom, said the seven men, most of them lawyers and professors, had been waiting for government approval to set up a civic rights group. They also had planned to present authorities this week with a list of more than 40 prisoners without legal representation whom they intended to defend. "The terrorist allegation is a coverup," Faleh said. "It was used against me as well when I was arrested. . . . This is an attempt to abort the civic rights work they were planning."Police went to the Jiddah beach house of lawyer Essam Basrawi on Friday night and arrested him and five other Saudi men. Saudi businessman Abdul-Aziz al-Khereiji was arrested at a checkpoint as he drove to Jiddah with his wife, said Bassim Alim, an attorney who represents four of the detainees. Basrawi's Moroccan personal assistant also was detained. There was no information on the identities of the two other men. An Interior Ministry spokesman told local newspapers that the arrested men had been involved in financing recruiters who sign up young Saudis to go into "turbulent areas," which is generally a reference to Iraq. The spokesman said sizable amounts of cash had been found during searches of the men's homes. Human Rights First/Washington Post (2/9)

(New York, February 8, 2007) – The Iranian government should immediately lift foreign travel bans used to prevent human rights activists and journalists from attending international forums, Human Rights Watch said today. In recent months, Iranian security forces have repeatedly confiscated passports of activists as they prepared to leave for international conferences. In some cases, the authorities detained and interrogated activists upon their return to Iran. “The Iranian government is effectively putting the country’s civil society leaders under national house arrest,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “After silencing activists inside Iran, the government is preventing them from expressing their views outside the country as well.” On February 4, representatives of the Information Ministry prevented two prominent activists, Hashim Aghajari and Abdullah Momeni, from departing on a plane to attend an international conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on political reform in Iran. Aghajari is a history professor at Tehran’s Tarbiat Modares University, and Momeni is a spokesman for an organization of former student activists. Both Aghajari and Momeni had their passports processed and stamped with an exit permit in Tehran’s Imam Khomeini airport. While they waited to board the plane, however, plainclothes officials confiscated their passports and notified them that the Passport Services division of the Presidential Executive Office, under the order of the Revolutionary Court, has imposed a travel ban on them. Human Rights Watch (2/9)

(New York, February 8, 2007) – A new dictatorship will be consolidated in Turkmenistan by the pro forma presidential election on February 11 unless strong international voices insist on real human rights reform, Human Rights Watch said today. The election is for the successor to Saparmurad Niazov, who died in December after two decades of increasingly tyrannical rule. “The February 11 presidential election will be neither free nor fair, and the result is a foregone conclusion,” said Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The international community has strangely failed to criticize the upcoming Turkmen election. It may be polite for outsiders to restrain their criticism to avoid accusations of prejudging the poll, but it’s clear the Turkmen authorities themselves have already prejudged the outcome.” Sunday’s poll will be the first multi-candidate presidential election in gas-rich Turkmenistan. But all six candidates are from the only permitted political party, and were pre-selected by the country’s supreme legislature. Candidates must have held state office and been resident in Turkmenistan for at least the past 15 years. These conditions made it impossible for opposition candidates to participate, since most opposition leaders are in exile and barred even from entering the country. The only potential independent candidate inside Turkmenistan, Nurberdy Nurmamedov, was reportedly abducted and beaten shortly after Niazov’s death was announced; he is now believed to be under house arrest. Human Rights Watch (2/9)

Accord Is Signed by Palestinians to Stop Feuding

By HASSAN M. FATTAH

MECCA, Saudi Arabia, Feb. 8 — The main rival Palestinian factions agreed late Thursday to form a government of national unity aimed at ending a wave of violence between them and an international boycott. The agreement, signed here in Islam’s holiest city under Saudi auspices, appeared likely to end, at least for now, weeks of fighting that had ravaged the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Still, it seemed to stop short of meeting the demands of the international community for resuming relations and support for the Palestinian Authority. The accord, signed by Khaled Meshal of Hamas and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president and leader of Fatah, its main rival, is the first time that the two parties have agreed to share authority. It sets out principles for a coalition government, like the distribution of ministerial portfolios, but leaves many of the details for later. Israel and international powers have said that they would lift their boycott of the Palestinian government imposed after the victory by the militant group Hamas a year ago only if it agreed to three conditions: recognize Israel, renounce violence against Israel and abide by previous agreements between Israel and the Palestinians. The Mecca accord addresses only the last of those and does so rather imprecisely, promising “respect” for previous agreements between the Palestinians and Israel. In Washington, a State Department spokesman, Tom Casey, said, “The international community has made it clear that in order to be able to have a broader relationship with the Palestinian Authority government, that those principles are going to have to be met.” He added that officials were still studying the accord. New York Times (2/9)

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- A hospital van dropped off a paraplegic man on Skid Row, allegedly leaving him crawling in the street with nothing more than a soiled gown and a broken colostomy bag, police said. Witnesses who said they saw the incident Thursday wrote down a phone number on the van and took down its license-plate number, which helped detectives connect the vehicle to Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, the Los Angeles Times reported on its Web site. Police said the incident was a case of "homeless dumping" and were questioning officials from the hospital. "I can't think of anything colder than that," said Detective Russ Long. "There was no mission around, no services. It's the worst area of Skid Row." The case comes three months after the L.A. city attorney's office filed its first indictment for homeless dumping against Kaiser Permanente for an incident earlier last year. In that case, a 63-year-old patient from the hospital's Bellflower medical center was videotaped wandering the streets of Skid Row in a hospital gown and socks.An after-hours call Thursday to Hollywood Presbyterian seeking comment was not immediately returned. Kaylor Shemberger, the hospital's executive vice president, told the Times the incident was under investigation. "Obviously we are very concerned about the information that has been presented to us," Shemberger said. "If some of the facts are correct, it is clearly not in line with our policy of handling these types of patients." City officials have accused more than a dozen hospitals of dumping patients and criminals on Skid Row. Hospital officials have denied the allegations, but some said they had taken homeless patients to Skid Row service providers. In 2005, Hollywood Presbyterian was accused of homeless dumping. CNN Associated Press (2/9)