Feb 19, 2021 | News
The Egyptian authorities’ targeting of families in Egypt of activists and human rights defenders living abroad has been escalating, demonstrating a clear pattern of intimidation and harassment, 22 Egyptian, regional, and international organizations said today.
Since August 2020, the authorities have targeted the families of four critics who live in the United States, as well as one in Turkey, one in Germany, and one in the United Kingdom.
These cases are among dozens reported in recent years. The authorities try to intimidate critics with unlawful home raids, arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, and prolonged detention of family members without trial or charges.
“The Egyptian families of dissidents abroad have been increasingly caught in President al-Sisi’s government web of oppression,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “President al-Sisi should immediately rein in his security forces and end these hostage-like arrests.”
On February 13, 2021, the authorities raided the homes of six members of the extended family of Mohamed Soltan, a US-based human rights advocate. Soltan, the director of the Freedom Initiative, an independent human rights group, and two other sources with direct knowledge of the arrests told Human Rights Watch that security agents arrested two of his cousins, Mostafa Soltan and Khairi Soltan, at their homes in the Menoufiya governorate. The two sources also said security authorities arrested a third relative of Soltan’s, Mahmoud Yousri al-Naggar.
Officers told another cousin to turn himself in once a cast on his broken leg was removed. Three of Soltan’s other cousins whom officers wanted to arrest were not at home during the raids; their families were told that the cousins were wanted by the National Security Agency. Those detained were interrogated mainly about Mohamed Soltan and his activities. On the evening of February 17, authorities released Mostafa and Khairi, following their detention and interrogation by National Security officers, the two sources said.
Security agents had previously arrested five of the six targeted cousins in June 2020 and detained them without trial until shortly before Joe Biden won the US presidential election in November. Soltan has been a prominent target of Egyptian government and pro-government media defamation campaigns because of his human rights work, most recently because of his organization’s support for the establishment of the Egypt Human Rights Caucus in the US House of Representatives.
The authorities disappeared Soltan’s already-jailed father, Salah Soltan, on June 15, 2020, when officers escorted him from Wadi al-Natrun prison to an unknown destination. Since that time, the authorities have refused to provide his family and lawyers information about his whereabouts. Soltan said that Egyptian intelligence agents in Washington, DC have harassed him with “bump-ins” at the local mall, at a Freedom Initiative’s Egypt advocacy event, which Human Rights Watch and the Project on Middle East Democracy co-sponsored in March 2019, and with threatening phone calls, telling him that he should “be careful” for his father’s sake. Soltan said he reported all incidents to the US authorities and his lawyers immediately.
Aly Hussein Mahdy, a University of Illinois at Chicago graduate student and video blogger with over 400,000 followers on Facebook, was ridiculed by a pro-government TV outlet on January 17. Between January 28 and February 2, National Security officers raided the homes of several of his family members in Alexandria and arrested his father, uncle, and cousin because of his videos, Mahdy told Human Rights Watch.
“They raided the home at dawn,” Mahdy said in a Facebook video on February 11. “They took my father from his wife and my younger siblings, terrifying them. They messed up the whole house and stole everything they found.” He told Human Rights Watch that his family has not been able to learn the whereabouts of the three family members arrested.
Download
Egypt-Arrests-Joint-Press-Release-2021-ENG (full statement in English)
Egypt-Arrests-Joint-Press-Release-2021-ARA (full statement in Arabic)
Contact
Asser Khattab, Research and Communications’ Officer, ICJ Middle East and North Africa Programme, e: asser.khattab(a)icj.org
Feb 19, 2021 | Advocacy, News, Open letters
In a letter of 17 February, the ICJ and ZimRights called on the Chairperson of the African’s Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights Working Group on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to address Zimbabwe’s failure to meet its obligations to protect the rights of life and health of its population in respect of its COVID-19 vaccine policies.
Zimbabwe had failed to produce, publish and widely disseminate a comprehensive plan on vaccine acquisition and distribution. These are also necessary measures to secure the life and health of those living in neighbouring countries of Zimbabwe and therefore of broader concern within the Southern African Development Community in particular.
The ICJ and ZimRights called for an intervention of the Working Group and the wider African Commission with a view to ensure that vital information is made available by the Government of Zimbabwe about its national plan for COVID-19 vaccine procurement, distribution and roll-out including any resources it has set aside for these efforts.
To read the full letter, click
here.
Feb 18, 2021 | News
The ICJ and more than 70 other non-governmental organisations, faith-based groups, and academic institutions urge the Biden Administration to engage constructively with the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The statement reads:
The undersigned organizations urge the Biden Administration to engage constructively with the International Criminal Court (ICC). The U.S. government’s support for the ICC could help secure justice for victims in situations from Myanmar to Darfur, just as it helped facilitate the February 4 historic conviction of a former leader of an armed rebel group for war crimes and crimes against humanity in northern Uganda.
There is an immediate need to act to reset U.S. policy regarding the ICC. Most urgently, we are alarmed by recent calls for the U.S. government to maintain or even expand the sanctions put into place by the Trump administration in June 2020 currently targeting the court’s work.
These actions were an unprecedented attack on the court’s mandate to deliver justice and the rule of law globally, an abuse of the U.S. government’s financial powers, and a betrayal of the U.S. legacy in establishing institutions of international justice. They were also an attack on those who engage with the court, including human rights defenders and victims. These extraordinary measures have put the U.S. at odds with many of its closest allies. They also have been challenged on constitutional grounds domestically.
Keeping in place the executive order authorizing sanctions would be inconsistent with the new administration’s laudable commitments to respecting the rule of law and pursuing multilateral cooperation in support of U.S. interests. It would also transform a shameful but temporary action into a standing license for other governments to attack multilateral institutions when they disagree with those bodies’ actions.
We call upon the U.S. government to rescind Executive Order 13928 and all sanctions measures against ICC officials at the earliest possible opportunity. We appeal for constructive engagement with the ICC and we urge the Biden administration and members of Congress to support that approach.
Download
USA-Biden-Joint-Statement-2021-ENG (Full statement with list of organizations)
Contact
Kingsley Abbott, ICJ Director, Global Redress and Accountability; e: kingsley.abbott(a)icj.org
Feb 18, 2021 | Advocacy, News, Publications
In a memorandum released today, the ICJ published guidance and recommendations aimed at assisting Lebanon’s criminal justice actors in addressing significant gaps in evidentiary rules, practice and procedures undermining the investigation, prosecution and adjudication of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) crimes in the country.
The 42-page memorandum, Sexual and Gender-based Violence Offences in Lebanon: Principles and Recommended Practices on Evidence (available in English and Arabic), aims to advance accountability and justice for SGBV, and is especially designed for investigators, prosecutors, judges and forensic practitioners.
“Criminal justice actors are indispensable to eradicating harmful practices and curbing entrenched impunity for SGBV in Lebanon,” said Said Benarbia, Director of the ICJ’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.
“Rather than buying into false, stereotyped narratives that impugn survivors’ credibility and call into question their sexual history, the criminal justice system must adopt and enforce gender-sensitive, victim-centric evidence-gathering procedures that put the well-being of SGBV survivors at the forefront.”
The memorandum provides criminal justice actors with guidance and recommendations on the identification, gathering, storing, admissibility, exclusion and evaluation of evidence in SGBV cases, as well as on their immediate applicability in practice, pending consolidation and reform of Lebanon’s existing legal framework and procedures for the investigation, prosecution and adjudication of SGBV offences.
“Lebanon’s legal framework fosters and perpetuates a systematic denial of effective legal protection and access to justice for women survivors of SGBV,” said Benarbia. “The justice system must counter harmful gender stereotypes and attitudes rooted in patriarchy, which continue to undermine survivors’ right to effective remedies.”
The memorandum’s release is particularly timely given the escalation of SGBV witnessed since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The memorandum builds on previous research undertaken by the ICJ in this area, including Gender-based violence in Lebanon: Inadequate Framework, Ineffective Remedies and Accountability for Sexual and Gender-based Violence in Lebanon: Guidance and Recommendations for Criminal Justice Actors.
Download
Lebanon-GBV-Memorandum-2021-ENG (Memorandum in English)
Lebanon-GBV-Memorandum-2021-ARA (Memorandum in Arabic)
Lebanon-GBV-Web-Story-2021-ARA (Web story in Arabic)
Lebanon-GBV-Web-Story-2021-ENG (Web story in English)
Contact:
Said Benarbia, Director, ICJ Middle East and North Africa Programme, t: +41-22-979-3817; e: said.benarbia(a)icj.org
Asser Khattab, Research and Communications’ Officer, ICJ Middle East and North Africa Programme, e: asser.khattab(a)icj.org
Feb 17, 2021 | News
17 February 2021 marks the tenth anniversary of the Libyan revolution.
Back then, protestors had taken to the streets calling for an end to Gadhafi’s authoritarian rule: a regime beset by the commission of widespread and systematic gross human rights violations, including arbitrary arrest and detention; enforced disappearances; torture and other ill-treatment; the oppression of women, minority groups, political dissidents and government critics; and the curtailment of freedom of expression, association and assembly.
Libyans who supported the 2011 revolution hoped it would usher in a nascent democracy and present an opportunity to address the country’s bleak legacy. A decade on, however, the pursuit of justice and accountability remains unfulfilled, and the cycle of impunity unbroken, as a multitude of State actors and armed groups continue to perpetrate crimes under international law, including against thousands of migrants, refugees, asylum seekers and stateless persons.
Attacks against human rights defenders, lawyers and activists, including extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances and torture, are pervasive, particularly so against women. The post-2011 period has also witnessed an increasingly brutal crackdown on civil society, journalists and bloggers, in addition to the violent suppression of peaceful protests through excessive use of force and arbitrary arrests.
Against a backdrop in which domestic accountability efforts are hindered by cycles of violence, weak and ineffective law enforcement agencies, and by the arbitrary exercise of policing and detention powers by armed groups, international efforts to fight impunity in the country are underway. The Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is currently investigating some of the crimes under international law committed after 2011, including war crimes committed in the context of armed conflicts. However, certain individuals against whom ICC arrest warrants have been issued, including Mahmoud Al-Werfalli, remain at large.
In June 2020, the UN Human Rights Council established an International Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) tasked with investigating violations and abuses of international human rights law and international humanitarian law committed by both State and non-State actors in Libya since 2016. The FFM’s work will be key in addressing impunity in the country and will complement national efforts to address the accountability vacuum.
The country’s interim executive, selected by the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum on 5 February 2020, and any future elected government must put the peoples’ demands for justice and accountability at the forefront. In particular, the Libyan authorities must commit to implementing a transitional justice process, neglected so far, that could genuinely pursue accountability, and guarantee full participation of victims and the public in the process, and thereby realize the right to truth and reparations of the victims of past and ongoing human rights violations and abuses.
To this end, the International Commission of Jurists and the Defender Center for Human Rights call on the Libyan authorities to:
- Guarantee freedom of assembly, association and expression of all persons, and protect human rights defenders, activists and journalists from reprisals and unwarranted prosecutions;
- Protect all persons from arbitrary arrest and detention, extrajudicial executions, torture and other ill-treatment, and enforced disappearances;
- Effectively investigate and prosecute crimes under international law, and ensure that no amnesty, immunity or statute of limitations apply to such crimes;
- Reform the security sector to ensure effective civilian oversight over security and armed forces;
- Set up a concrete plan to disband and disarm all militias and armed groups;
- Guarantee the independence of the judiciary, the respect of international fair trial standards, and refrain from trying civilians before military tribunals;
- Protect refugees, asylum seekers, stateless persons and migrants in line with international law;
- Ensure that the right to an effective remedy and adequate reparations are granted to victims of human rights violations;
- Cooperate fully with the ICC and support their efforts to obtain custody of any suspects;
- Provide the FFM with full support and access to victims, witnesses and any other interested persons throughout Libya’s territory.
Download
Libya-Impunity-Joint-Statement-2021-ENG (English)
Libya-Impunity-Joint-Statement-2021-ARA (Arabic)
Contact
Said Benarbia, Director, ICJ Middle East and North Africa Programme, t: +41-22-979-3817; e: said.benarbia(a)icj.org
Asser Khattab, Research and Communications’ Officer, ICJ Middle East and North Africa Programme; e: Asser.Khattab(a)icj.org
Feb 17, 2021 | News
On 17 February 2021, the International Commission of Jurists condemned former South African President Jacob Zuma’s refusal to abide by an order of the Constitutional Court to appear before a commission investigating allegations of corruption during his tenure.
As a former President, Mr Zuma must be regarded as a private citizen and is subject to the same laws as all other private citizens. If found to have committed an offence he must face the required penalties.
ICJ’s Africa Director, Kaajal Ramjathan-Keogh said,
“Zuma’s failure to follow the decision of the Constitutional Court and to refuse the summons of a proper judicial commission disrespects the rule of law and erodes public confidence in the administration of justice.”
She added that,
“Zuma is facing credible allegations of engaging in corruption and misconduct that demand to be investigated properly. His conduct in rejecting to appear before the investigative commission is an afront to the rule of law and the administration of justice and is unbecoming of a former President who took an oath to uphold the Constitution.”
Zuma has refused to appear before the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture, Corruption and Fraud in the Public Sector including Organs of State, despite being called to testify, since November 2020. He appeared before the Commission in July 2019 but refused to answer certain questions and effectively withdrew his participation.
On 28th January 2021, the South African Constitutional Court held that Zuma was obliged to attend and participate in the Judicial Commission’s proceedings and could not claim a right to remain silent in order to avoid doing so, though he retained a privilege against self-incrimination. Rejecting this ruling, Zuma refused a summons to appear before the Commission as a witness and instead issued a statement on 15th February accusing the Commission Chair of “propagating political propaganda” against him. He further accuses the Commission Chair of “misleading the nation” and of “not following due process to the prejudice of himself and his family”. The statement also accuses the Commission of “being unable to conduct an independent, fair, and impartial investigation into state capture”. Zuma’s statement also lambasts the South African judiciary, alleging without evidence that many judges, including specific named judges are “captured” and have over years been conspiring against him.
Ramjathan-Keogh added,
“Zuma’s groundless attacks on the South African judiciary are an affront to the court’s standing and weaken the principle of the judiciary as an independent and equal branch of government with the responsibility to investigate the actions of a president, or in this case, ex-president.”
The ICJ pointed out that a witness’s failure to appear before the Judicial Commission could constitute an offence under section 6 of the Commissions Act. A witnesses’ failure to attend an inquiry or to remain in attendance until its conclusion could mean that they would be guilty of an offence, the penalty for which is imprisonment or a fine or both.
Contact:
Kaajal Ramjathan-Keogh, Africa Director, Kaajal.Keogh@icj.org, +27845148039
Tanveer Jeewa, Legal and Communications Consultant, Tanveer.Jeewa@icj.org
