Urgent Action News February 2010, nsw, Amnesty International Australia

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Urgent Action News February 2010

Published on 1/02/2010

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Some Good News

Brazil (225/09)

The families who suffered a violent forced eviction in August from the Olga Benário settlement in the south of São Paulo, have won a major victory in their long fight for housing rights.

Under local and international pressure, São Paulo state authorities have agreed to repossess the land from which they were evicted, along with an adjacent lot in Capão Redondo. The land will be used for the construction of social housing for the evicted families. The council has guaranteed emergency measures, such as rent assistance, while the construction takes place. Local NGOs have stated that the state government’s radical change of tack was related in part to international pressure generated by Amnesty International’s urgent action campaign.

After riot police forcibly evicted the families, in an operation that spread panic through the community and ended in a series of fires and widespread destruction, 500 or the original 800 families camped opposite the site in protest. There they endured horrendous conditions, without access to running water, food, toilets or electricity. Local health centres refused to treat the families and the children were excluded from their schools.

Municipal authorities first offered the families places in council hostels, which the families rejected because it was short-term and would break up the families, separating women and children from their husbands. Following national and international protest at the situation, the municipal government provided the families with emergency assistance, registering the families in the bolsa aluguel (rent grant) scheme. Continued pressure from the families and local NGOs for a long-term solution to the problem, culminated in the State government’s recent decision. The families have set up the Olga Benário Association on a site near where the eviction took place, to monitor progress. Local NGOs are now pressing the Federal Government to inject funds to ensure that the families are adequately housed throughout the construction process.

São Paulo has a chronic shortage of housing for low-income families. A well organised homeless movement has been squatting empty buildings and derelict plots of land to meet the need of some poorest families in the city. These occupations have often been met with violence on the part of the police.

The Olga Benário eviction came following the failure of the government to provide adequate solutions after over a year of negotiations and several appeals against the eviction order. The state government’s recent decision, if implemented, will finally give the families a long-term solution to their chronic problems.

Some Fair News

China (011/10)

Zhao Shiying, independent writer and detained signatory of Charter 08, was released and returned home on 25 January 2010. He remains under surveillance by police.

Zhao Shiying (better known by his pen name Zhao Dagong) had been taken from his home in the city of Shenzhen, near Hong Kong, by police on 11 January. He has signed Charter 08, a proposal for fundamental legal and political reform in China that aims to achieve a democratic system that respects human rights.

During the two weeks detention he was kept in a guesthouse in Huizhou, a small city in Guangdong province near Shenzhen. He was deprived of sleep and regular food and water. Approximately 10 police officers took turns questioning him continuously for 12 days about the creation and circulation of Charter 08, other articles he wrote and activities he participated in online.

Zhao Shiying said police released him but still did not give any papers to document his detention as is required by Chinese Criminal Procedure law.

Police warned him before releasing him that he would still be under surveillance, and could be detained again if he continued to cause trouble. At the time of Zhao Shiying’s detention, police also briefly detained his wife and adult son. They were both released later the same night, but were told by police to not talk about what happened to them or discuss the questions they were asked.

Venezuela (013/10)

Farmer Franklin Brito Rodríguez has now been returned to his bed on a regular ward of the military hospital in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, where he is being treated for the effects of a hunger strike. His family are able to visit him.

Franklin Brito Rodríguez had been sedated and taken from his hospital bed on 9 January. His family did not know where he was taken. However, it is now known that hospital staff transferred him to the intensive care department of the military hospital, where he has been receiving treatment since December. On 19 January he was taken back to his previous hospital bed. He is now able to receive visits from his family.

And Some Bad News

Sudan (010/07)

Six of seven men sentenced to death in 2006 for their alleged involvement in riots at a camp for internally displaced people (IDP) in Sudan were executed on 14 January 2010. A seventh man had his conviction for murder overturned on appeal.

Paul John Kaw, Abdelrahim Ali Rahama Mohamed, Idris Adam Elias, Naser El Din Mohamed Ali Kadaka, Suleiman Juma’a Awad Kambal and Badawi Hassan Ibrahim were sentenced to death on 23 November 2006 after 13 police officers were killed during riots which took place in May 2005 at a camp for IDPs in Khartoum.

The six men were arrested along with Fathi Adam Mohammed Ahmad Dahab after violent clashes at the Soba Aradi IDP camp in Khartoum on 18 May 2005. The Court of Appeal rejected the murder conviction of one of the accused, Fathi Adam Mohammed Ahmad Dahab. He was convicted of involuntary homicide and sentenced to five years' imprisonment.

The death sentences of the six men named above was confirmed by the Supreme Court on 18 July 2007 and the Supreme Court Review Panel on 27 February 2008, rejecting allegations by the defence lawyers that the defendants’ confessions had been extracted under torture. A stay of execution that was granted by the Supreme Court expired on 6 January 2010.

Saudi Arabia (164/09)

A 22-year-old man, Muhammad Basheer bin Sa'oud al-Ramaly al-Shammari, was beheaded in the Saudi Arabian city of Hail on 7 December. His body was later crucified.

Crucifixions in Saudi Arabia take place after the beheading; the body along with the separated head are placed on a pole in a public square to act as a deterrent.

Muhammad Basheer bin Sa'oud al-Ramaly al-Shammari was convicted by the General Court in Hail of the kidnapping and rape of four people, which took place in February 2009. An appeal court upheld the sentence of death and crucifixion of the body in November as did the Supreme Court subsequently.

Very little is known about Muhammad al-Shammari’s trial, but death sentences in Saudi Arabia are invariably imposed and carried out after unfair trials carried out in secret. He did not have access to a lawyer during his trial, and there were reports that he may have suffered from a psychological disorder. If this was the case, his execution would have violated Resolution 2004/67 of the UN Commission on Human Rights, which urges states still using the death penalty “not to impose the death penalty on a person suffering from any form of mental disorder or to execute any such person”.

USA (240/09)

Kenneth Mosley was executed on the evening of 7 January in Texas. Mosley, a 51-year-old African American man, had spent 12 years on death row for the murder of a white police officer, David Moore, during an attempted bank robbery in the Dallas suburb of Garland.

Kenneth Mosley made no final statement before being put to death by lethal injection shortly after 6pm local time in the Texas execution chamber. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles had rejected clemency earlier in the week and Governor Rick Perry declined to intervene to stop the execution.

There have been three executions in the USA this year, following the 52 executions carried out there in 2009. Texas carried out 24 executions last year. The execution of Kenneth Mosley is the first in Texas in 2010.

The USA has carried out 1,191 executions since resuming judicial killing 1977. Texas accounts for 448 of these executions.

USA (253/09)

Kenneth Biros was executed in the US state of Ohio on 8 December. He was sentenced to death for the murder of Tami Engstrom in 1991.

Kenneth Biros received a single-drug lethal injection shortly after the US Supreme Court denied a request from his lawyers to stay his execution. His lawyers had sought a stay on the grounds that the new untested method had never been used in “any other civilized country” and would amount to an “impermissible human experimentation”.

According to press reports, Kenneth Biros’s last words were: “I’m sorry from the bottom of my heart… Now I’m being paroled to my father in Heaven and get to spend all my holidays with my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Peace be with you all."

On 3 December, Ohio’s Governor, Ted Strickland, rejected Kenneth Biros’s clemency petition. His decision concurred with the Ohio Parole Board’s recommendation to deny it.

Kenneth Biros becomes the 51st prisoner to be put to death in the USA this year and the 1,187th since executions resumed in 1977. Ohio accounts for 33 of these executions.

China (284/09)

Akmal Shaikh was put to death by lethal injection on 29 December, in a prison in Urumqi.

Akmal Shaikh's execution highlights the injustice and inhumanity of the death penalty, particularly as it is implemented in China. Much information about the death penalty is considered a state secret, but what is known of Akmal Shaikh's treatment is consistent with what is known from other cases: he received a short, almost perfunctory trial, where not all the evidence was presented and investigated.

Under international human rights law, and also Chinese law, a defendant's mental health can and should be taken into account; it seems that in this case the Chinese authorities did not do so.

USA (317/09)

Bobby Wayne Woods was executed in the US state of Texas on the evening of 3 December. He was sentenced to death in 1998 for the murder of an 11-year-old girl in 1997.

Bobby Woods received a lethal injection shortly after the US Supreme Court denied a request from his lawyer to stay his execution. His lawyer had sought a stay on the grounds that Bobby Woods had mental retardation. His last words were: “Bye, I’m ready.”

On 1 December, the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole rejected Bobby Woods’s clemency petition. The petition cited evidence of his mental impairment. It also raised questions about his legal representation during the appeal process, and in the initial legal challenges under the 2002 US Supreme Court decision which outlawed the death penalty for people with mental retardation.

Bobby Woods becomes the 50th prisoner to be put to death in the USA this year and the 1,186th since executions resumed in 1977. Texas accounts for 447 of these executions.

Ukraine (318/09)

Eight Afghan nationals were deported to Dubai, United Arab Emirates on 28 November. The group had been held in the departure lounge of Boryspil airport in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, since they were detained on 16 November. They are at risk of being forcibly returned to Afghanistan.

According to the most recent information, the group consists of a 33-year-old woman, her five children aged between three and 15, her mother and another family member. Members of the group had stated that they were afraid of returning to Afghanistan because they feared persecution, and they said they wanted to claim asylum in Ukraine.

Representatives of the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, were denied access to the group detained at Boryspil airport, until the asylum-seeker’s lawyer successfully contacted the European Court for Human Rights on 19 November, resulting in the Court asking Ukraine not to return the asylum-seekers until it had considered the case. As a consequence, the deportation, scheduled for 19 November, was cancelled and UNHCR representatives were able to interview the group and assist them in filing asylum applications. However, on 27 November, the European Court for Human Rights withdrew its “interim measures”, arguing that Ukraine intended to return them to the United Arab Emirates. The asylum applications of the group are believed to have been rejected by the Ukraine State Migration Service shortly before they were deported.

The whereabouts of the eight asylum-seekers are currently unknown and Amnesty International remains seriously concerned as requests for asylum are not acknowledged by the border guards in the United Arab Emirates and that the group may be deported to Afghanistan. The United Arab Emirates have neither ratified the UN Refugee Convention nor the Convention against Torture.

A Reminder

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Using email can save at least a couple of days and often longer, so it’s our preferred method of delivery to our writers, wherever possible.

Stop Action Summary

What follows is a complete list of Stop Actions received over the past two months, together with an indication of the outcome. If there are any here of interest to you, which have not been covered in the current Newsletter, please contact the Service Centre on 1300 300 920 or send an email to uansw@amnesty.org.au, requesting details on the specific Stop Action.

010-07  Sudan           (DP)    Bad
164-09  Saudi Arabia    (DP)    Bad
225-09  Brazil                  Good
240-09  USA             (DP)    Bad
253-09  USA             (DP)    Bad
284-09  China           (DP)    Bad
317-09  USA             (DP)    Bad
318-09  Ukraine                 Bad
011-10  China                   Fair
013-10  Venezuela               Fair
017-10  Iran                    Fair
018-10  Tunisia                 Good

Unfortunately, the year has not started off very well, with six of our Stop Actions over the last two months being for executions under the death penalty. These were for a range of countries.

The UA Team