Leseraum (RSS)

A land deal finalized this week between Paraguayan authorities and a land owner in the country’s central region will allow a long-displaced indigenous community to rebuild in safety and dignity, Amnesty International said today.

For almost two decades, the Yakye Axa indigenous community have fought a legal battle to return to their ancestral lands while around 90 families were forced to live in destitute conditions alongside a nearby highway.

Years ago, private landowners moved in and took over their lands. Indigenous families were dispersed among privately owned cattle ranches, where many were mistreated and exploited.

A lawyer representing the Yakye Axa yesterday told Amnesty International that the families in the community will soon move to the newly acquired land, comprising more than 12,000 hectares within the ancestral lands of the Enxet ethnic group

“The community is very happy. The young people, who can now build a new future, and the elderly, who fought for so many years, are in high spirits,” said Julia Cabello, a lawyer and director of the Paraguayan NGO Tierraviva, which works with the Yakye Axa and other communities of the Enxet ethnic group.

In 1993, the Yakye Axa community started the legal process to reclaim a portion of their ancestral lands.

In 2005, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordered Paraguay to restore the Yakye Axa’s lands.

Meanwhile the conditions in the roadside encampments remained dire, with the lack of access to basic services contributing to illness and a series of preventable deaths in the community.

Once the Yakye Axa community is resettled, under the terms of the Inter-American Court ruling, the Paraguayan authorities must also set up a US$950,000 fund aimed at community development.

The fund is destined towards educational, housing, agricultural and health projects, as well as the provision of drinking water and sanitation.

“The Yakye Axa can now rebuild a secure and stable community and live in accordance with their culture, free from the dangers they have faced for too long in the precarious roadside camps,” said Guadalupe Marengo, Deputy Americas Programme Director at Amnesty International.

This latest indigenous land deal comes several months after another Enxet indigenous community, the Sawhoyamaxa, negotiated an agreement in September 2011 to return to their ancestral lands. The negotiations are still ongoing.

For more than two decades, Tierraviva has been supporting indigenous communities like the Yakye Axa and the Sawhoyamaxa to return to their ancestral lands, which are vital to their cultural identity and way of life.

“We hope the Yakye Axa case becomes a positive example of the direction the Paraguayan authorities intend to take with all the unresolved indigenous land claims in the country and that the authorities will establish an effective mechanism to process such claims and make indigenous rights a key priority,” said Guadalupe Marengo.

After a two-decade legal battle, the Yakye Axa indigenous community in Paraguay can finally move away from a precarious roadside camp.

Rethinking the Future of Learning Institutions....

• Literary Kinds 2012

Skoro czytam, że "Kancelaria Sejmu sprawdziła, jak wygląda udział posłów w głosowaniach", a do tego, że pisze o tym "Newsweek", to mógłbym sobie pomyśleć, że jest to jakaś tajna wiedza, do której trzeba było aż zaangażowania Kancelarii Sejmu i pośrednictwa popularnego tygodnika oraz serwisu internetowego Polskiego Radia. Tymczasem frekwencja posłów w trakcie głosowań jest dziś jednym z prostszych narzędzi serwisu Sejmometr.pl, które to narzędzie każdy z internautów może sobie wykorzystywać na bieżąco. Jeśli powstaną moduły sejmometrowe do popularnych CMS-ów, to taka frekwencja na głosowaniach może wisieć na wszystkich stronach, które zechcą wykorzystać dane Sejmometru i informować czytelników tych stron o aktywności przedstawicieli Narodu.

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Ministerstwo Kultury i Dziedzictwa Narodowego opublikowało na swojej stronie instrukcje negocjacyjne związane z negocjacjami ACTA. Wśród nich tą, która zawiera te trzy zdania: "Zgodnie z dotychczasowymi ustaleniami negocjujących stron, projekty poszczególnych rozdziałów nie powinny być udostępniane poza kręgi administracji publicznej. Uniemożliwia to przeprowadzenie konsultacji społecznych tych dokumentów. Może także spowodować niejasności w przypadku ewentualnego pojawienia się wniosku o ich udostępnienie w trybie ustawy o dostępie do informacji publicznej". Generalnie serwery padły. Co oczywiście tłumaczę nie atakiem hackerów, tylko wielkim zainteresowaniem obywateli, którzy pobierając PDF-y wyczerpali limity hostingu ministerstwa. Ale pewnie znów zostanę uznany za "reżimowca". Mniejsza z tym. Dostępność infrastruktury, sposób tworzenia "stron własnych" ministerstw, umowy hostingu administracji publicznej - to istotne sprawy, które Ministerstwo Administracji i Cyfryzacji mogłoby poprawić. W ramach Rady Informatyzacji będę starał się prezentować pogląd w tej sprawie. A co do materiałów na temat ACTA - nie wszystkie jeszcze informacje publiczne na ten temat udostępniono.

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The new authorities in the Maldives must avoid persecuting members of outgoing president Mohammed Nasheed’s political party, Amnesty International said today, after Mr Nasheed resigned following a police mutiny in the country.

The former leader said in a televised statement on Tuesday that he was resigning “to prevent violence”, after a group of police officers joined opposition-led protests and took control of the state broadcaster in the capital Male.

At least three senior members of the ex-president’s Maldives Democratic Party (MDP) were reportedly detained after being beaten by police and opposition supporters on Monday night.

“The events of the last days follow weeks of political paralysis and a breakdown of accountability and the rule of law,” said Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific director.

“The new government must ensure that it will protect the rights of all Maldivians equally, without regard to their political affiliation.”

“The authorities should also launch an independent and impartial investigation into the attacks on three MDP members yesterday,” he added.
There are conflicting reports on Mr Nasheed’s current whereabouts.

The outgoing president was reportedly being held against his will by security forces at the presidential palace earlier today, but has now been released, according to some media reports.

“Mohammed Nasheed’s exact whereabouts must be clarified immediately,” said Sam Zarifi.

A Maldives opposition leader has told AFP he asked the military to detain Mr Nasheed so he could face charges of corruption and misuse of power.
The MDP says the resignation of Mr Nasheed is a “coup d’etat” orchestrated by “rogue elements” from the Maldives police service aided by supporters of former President Mamoon Abdul Gayoom.

Mr Nasheed’s former ally and vice-president Waheed Hassan was sworn as president on Tuesday afternoon.

MDP members Mariya Didi, Eva Abdulla and Alham Fahmy sustained serious injuries after being attacked by police and opposition supporters on Monday and were taken to Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital for treatment.

Protests began last month after Mr Nasheed ordered the military to arrest top criminal court judge Abdulla Mohamed on charges of corruption and political bias. Abdulla Mohamed is said to be close to former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. Government said the judiciary was unwilling to allow investigation of judicial misconduct against Abdulla Mohamed.

Mohamed Nasheed was elected president in the Maldives’ first multi-party elections in October 2008, ending the 30-year rule of authoritarian leader Maumoon Abdul Gayoom.

The Maldivian president has resigned following a police mutiny after a group of police officers joined opposition-led protests.

The Egyptian authorities should scrap a Mubarak-era law used to prosecute civil society and ensure its planned replacement upholds the right to freedom of association, Amnesty International said today.

The call follows yesterday’s announcement that 43 people have been referred to a criminal court for trial as part of an investigation into the funding and registration of NGOs.

Amnesty International has called for the charges against them, based on Egypt’s repressive laws on civil society registration and foreign funding, to be dropped.

“These international associations have become the latest scapegoats as the authorities desperately spin their story of foreign conspiracies,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.

“Egyptian human rights organizations have been left to wait in fear for their turn to come.”

Those named on Monday include 14 Egyptians, in addition to US, German and Serbian nationals reported to be staff members of five organizations – the US-based National Democratic Institute (NDI); the International Republican Institute (IRI); the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ); Freedom House (FH) and the Germany-based Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung.

Anyone found guilty of breaking Egypt’s draconian Law on Associations (Law 84 of 2002) faces up to a year’s imprisonment and/or a heavy fine. In January the authorities announced a draft law to replace it which would place even more restrictions on civil society.

The current law requires NGOs to register with the Ministry of Solidarity and Social Justice and to seek permission for receiving and using foreign funding. It gives the Ministry of Solidarity and Social Justice the power to refuse to register organizations.

Organizations wanting to conduct political or trade union activities are not allowed to register. Once an organization is registered, the Ministry of Solidarity and Social Justice then has wide-ranging powers over it, including the power of dissolution. The practice for international NGOs seems to have required registration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

On 29 December, the authorities launched surprise raids on 17 Egyptian offices used by NGOs, including the NDI, the IRI and FH, as well as a number of Egyptian organizations. During the raids, prosecutors accompanied by army and police officers conducted a search and took papers, computers, equipments, books and money, then sealed their entrances.

A number of Egyptian NGOs were also raided the same day, including the Arab Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and Legal Profession (ACIJLP) and the Budgetary and Human Rights Observatory (BHRO).

On 30 January, Nasser Amin, head of the ACIJLP was interrogated for seven hours on charges of establishing a branch of a foreign NGO and receiving foreign funds without permission. A BHRO member is also said to have been interrogated about the organization’s foreign funding.

The decision to refer to trial was made on 5 February 2012 by two judges, appointed by the Ministry of Justice to investigate a number of NGOs for establishing and operating branches of international organizations without registration and for receiving foreign funding without permission from the Egyptian authorities.

Both the NDI and IRI had been witnessing the parliamentary elections with the authorization of the Egyptian authorities and applied for registration with the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2005 and 2006 respectively. Freedom House had submitted its registration request under Egyptian law just three days before the raid.

In November 2011, the authorities had welcomed foreign organizations to witness the elections.

The investigating judges said their examination into the case has not been closed. It is expected that more NGO staff members will be sent to trial. In September 2011, an Egyptian newspaper leaked the findings of a government probe that said 39 NGOs lacked the right registration, and 28 had received foreign funding without permission.

The list named Egyptian human rights organizations working on issues including torture, women’s rights and housing, as well as the NDI, IRI and FH. Since the investigation began, many NGOs have also reported receiving inquiries about their foreign funding from banks.

Many believe the crackdown to be led by the Minister of Planning and International Co-operation, Fayza Abul-Naga. The minister today appeared before parliament’s sub-committee on human rights, again criticising the work of NGOs. On 1 January she and the Minister of Justice held a joint press conference where they lashed out at Egyptian and international human rights organizations that operate in Egypt or receive funds without government permission, in breach of the Law on Associations.

The Law on Associations has been repeatedly criticized over many years by UN treaty bodies monitoring Egypt’s international human rights record.

In January, the authorities announced that the Law on Associations will be replaced by new legislation and gave NGOs 15 days to comment on the draft, stating that foreign funding was a “red line” that they would not compromise on.

“At a stroke, Egypt’s parliament could end the authorities’ long war against civil society,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui.

“If they struck down this law, Egypt would take one more step out of the shadow of Hosni Mubarak.”

Egyptian NGOs have rejected the law. The draft would give the authorities more powers, and to decide whether an organization's activities are acceptable on the basis of threatening “national unity, violating public order or morality or calling for discrimination”.

The draft also eliminates associations’ ability to escape restrictions by registering as companies, maintains tight restrictions on foreign funding, and further limits the freedom of foreign organizations in Egypt. Anyone found to have broken the law faces up to a year’s imprisonment and fines running to thousands of Egyptian pounds.

Egyptian civil society has rejected the draft legislation, and a coalition of organizations has proposed their own law.

The Egyptian authorities are using a Mubarak-era law to prosecute civil society.

Uganda’s Parliament today re-introduced a proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill which Amnesty International considers a “grave assault on human rights” that must be rejected.

Under the bill, gay and lesbian people in Uganda could face the death penalty for so-called “aggravated homosexuality” – a definition which includes consensual sexual conduct.

“It’s alarming and disappointing that Uganda’s Parliament will once again consider the Anti-Homosexuality Bill,” said Michelle Kagari, Deputy Africa Programme Director at Amnesty International.

“If passed, it would represent a grave assault on the human rights of all Ugandans, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.”

The bill introduces draconian provisions on top of Uganda’s existing prohibition on consensual same-sex relations, which already violates international norms.

It aims to criminalize the “promotion” of homosexuality, compels HIV testing in some circumstances, and imposes life sentences for entering into a same-sex marriage. It would also be an offence for a person who is aware of any violations of the bill's wide-ranging provisions not to report them to the authorities within 24 hours.

The bill would significantly hamper the work of human rights defenders and others who find themselves in conflict with the law merely by carrying out their legitimate activities.

“The knock-on effect of passing this bill would reach far beyond gay and lesbian people in Uganda, impeding the legitimate work of civil society, public health professionals, and community leaders,” said Michelle Kagari.

At the bill’s reintroduction, the Speaker informed the House that the bill would not need to be considered again by the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, raising fears that it could be passed into law imminently. 

“This deplorable bill would not only violate the rights of Ugandans to life, to non-discrimination, to equality before the law, and to privacy, but would sanction hatred, violence and the persecution of a group of people based on whom they love alone,’ said Michelle Kagari.

Ugandan and international human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, have repeatedly called for the bill to be scrapped since it was first introduced in October 2009.

“We strongly urge the Ugandan Parliament to reject this bill in its entirety. It must not legislate hate,” said Michelle Kagari.

Uganda's Parliament is urged to scrap the draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill that has been re-introduced.