Apr 17, 2020 | News
On the sixth anniversary of the apparent enforced disappearance of Karen activist, Pholachi “Billy” Rakchongcharoen, the ICJ repeated its calls for Thailand to bring those responsible to justice and apply appropriate penalties that take into account the extreme seriousness of the crime.
On 23 December 2019, after the Thai Ministry of Justice’s Department of Special Investigation (DSI) in September had located bone fragments which they identified as likely belonging to Billy, eight charges, including premeditated murder and concealing the body, were brought against four officials of Kaeng Krachan National Park, with whom Billy was last seen. However, in January 2020, public prosecutors suddenly dropped seven murder-related charges against the four accused on the basis that there was insufficient evidence to take the cases to trial.
“It is disturbing that after six years the prosecutors could not move forward with the prosecution because the authorities failed to gather evidence to identify the perpetrator for Billy’s murder despite the discovery of bone fragments,” said Frederick Rawski, Asia Regional Director of the ICJ. “Thai authorities should, pursuant to its international legal obligations, continue to gather other direct and circumstantial evidence to prosecute and punish perpetrator with appropriate penalties.”
The four suspects are now facing only a minor charge for failing to exercise their official functions because they released Billy instead of handing him over to the police after they took him into custody in April 2014 for collecting wild honey in the park.
“Thailand needs to implement legislation criminalizing enforced disappearance without delay so that prosecutors have the appropriate tools to prosecute those responsible, and are not forced to bring charges for crimes of lesser gravity,” he added.
Download the statement with detailed background information in English and Thai.
Contact
Frederick Rawski, ICJ Asia-Pacific Director, t: +66 64 478 1121; e: frederick.rawski(a)icj.org
Further reading
Thailand: discovery of “Billy’s” remains should reinvigorate efforts to identify perpetrator(s)
Thailand: continuing delay in the enactment of the draft law on torture and enforced disappearance undermines access to justice and accountability
Apr 16, 2020 | News
The ICJ today called on the Indian Government to take effective measures to mitigate the disproportionate impact of the lockdown on internal migrant workers and guarantee the right to a minimum adequate standard of living to all, in line with India’s international obligations and Indian law.
The call comes just as India announced its second lockdown period starting April 15, 2020, extending the prior 21-day lockdown period, 2020, to 40 days. On March 29, 2020, the Government had also issued a circular prohibiting movement of migrant workers and an order stating that migrant workers be given food and shelter. It banned evictions of all migrant workers for a month.
“While the measures taken by the Government so far are important, they have proved inadequate. The Government’s efforts need to be targeted towards internal migrant workers and respond to the multiple layers of discrimination and risks they face,” said Maitreyi Gupta, ICJ India International Legal Advisor.
The announcement of the second lockdown has led to thousands of migrant workers in Mumbai and Surat protesting this decision and demanding the right to return home. It came soon after more than 500,000 migrant workers and their families attempted to travel distances of hundreds of kilometers on foot to return to their homes after the first lockdown period was announced on March 24, 2020. This massive internal displacement has led to the deaths of 22 internal migrant workers and their family members, including seven children.
The ICJ called on the Indian authorities to ensure that any restrictions on freedom of movement of migrant workers, protected under international law, is strictly necessary and proportionate and does not result in other human rights violations.
The ICJ is particularly concerned by civil society and media reports indicating that some internal migrants have not eaten for several days and are at the brink of starvation, while others have started rationing their meals to one meal a day.
“The situation of internal migrant workers in India is wholly unacceptable. If their urgent needs are not addressed in a way that respects their human rights, it will only serve to compound the current crisis,” said Frederick Rawski, ICJ Asia-Pacific Director. “We call on the Indian Government to take all necessary measures to bring an end to this deplorable situation.”
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet on April 2, 2020 also expressed concern at the “plight of India’s internal migrants” and said “more needs to be done as the human tragedy continues to unfold before our eyes”.”
The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has already called on States to implement “targeted programmes to protect the jobs, wages and benefits of all workers,” and take measures to ensure the “extraordinary mobilization of resources to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic”.
The ICJ urged India to take to all necessary measures to fulfill its obligations to protect the right to adequate standard of living of all internal migrant workers and other vulnerable populations. This includes ensuring access to quality health systems and facilities; minimum essential food; adequate shelter; sanitation and potable water; and timely information.
To download the statement with background information, click here.
Contact
Maitreyi Gupta, ICJ India Legal Adviser, t: +91 77 560 28369 e: maitreyi.gupta(a)icj.org
Frederick Rawski, ICJ Asia-Pacific Director, t: +66 64 478 1121; e: frederick.rawski(a)icj.org
Apr 14, 2020 | Advocacy, News
The ICJ and 108 other organizations are deeply concerned by relentless attempts to roll back sexual and reproductive rights in Poland.
On 15 and 16 April Poland’s Parliament will again debate two draft bills that would severely limit access to safe abortion care and would criminalize the provision of sexuality education.
If enacted into law these bills would place women’s and adolescents’ health and well-being at risk and violate Poland’s international human rights obligations.
Full statement, in PDF: Poland-COVID-19 Abortion bill-Advocacy-2020-ENG)
Apr 10, 2020 | News
The ICJ today called upon the Myanmar government to ensure that everyone in the country, particularly those from communities affected by conflict, has access to critical information about COVID-19. This call includes putting an immediate end to restrictions on internet access in Rakhine and Chin States.
The ICJ said that there must not be undue restrictions on the right of people to seek and impart such information, in line with international law and standards protecting the right to freedom of expression and information.
“Access to information is absolutely essential for the protection of communities, especially their right to health during the COVID-19 outbreak,” said Frederick Rawski, ICJ Director for Asia and the Pacific. “This is especially true in areas of Myanmar affected by conflict. The wholesale blocking of internet access in Rakhine and Chin States, including access to websites of popular ethnic media outlets, has no justifiable basis in international law and will only serve to undermine efforts to mitigate the spread of the virus.”
On 26 March 2020, the Minister of Transport and Communications stated in a media interview that despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the internet shutdown in Rakhine and Chin States would not be lifted until hate speech, misinformation and the conflict with the Arakan Army are addressed. The Minister’s statement appears to defy the UN Secretary-General’s appeal for a global ceasefire as well as the respective statements of members of Myanmar’s diplomatic community and of several ethnic armed organizations, including the Arakan Army, to cease hostilities in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. On 9 April 2020, the UN Special Rapporteur on Myanmar called for the same.
Instead, on 30 March 2020, pursuant to section 77 of the Telecommunications Law, the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MoTC) ordered major telecommunications networks to take down hundreds of websites on the dubious ground of containing misinformation. The MoTC did not disclose the full list of websites ordered to be blocked as well as the factual and legal basis that justified issuing the order. Under Section 77, the MoTC can direct a telecommunications provider to suspend services in the event of an “emergency situation.” It is not clear whether the misinformation relates to COVID-19 or if the pandemic is the pretext for the order.
As of 1 April 2020, media outlets of the Rakhine and Karen ethnic communities were among the websites to which access was blocked from major telecommunications providers. Access to Voice of Myanmar’s website, whose editor-in-chief had faced charges under Myanmar’s Counter-Terrorism Law until 9 April 2020 for publishing an interview with the Arakan Army, was also blocked.
The ICJ has previously expressed concern at the Myanmar Government’s use of the Telecommunications Act to justify an internet shutdown in the context of the conflict in Rakhine State. This practice does not comply with human rights law and standards. The Act itself is fundamentally flawed and must be amended. Among other defects, the Act does not define the scope of an “emergency situation.”
“Keeping these overbroad restrictions in place in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic puts the government in violation of international law. It is also counterproductive to the goal of stopping the spread of the virus and minimizing its impact on the country’s most vulnerable populations,” said Rawski.
Download the statement in Burmese here.
Contact:
Frederick Rawski, ICJ Asia-Pacific Regional Director, e: Frederick.rawski(a)icj.org
Related work:
Event: ICJ hosts workshop on fair trial rights for Myanmar’s ethnic media
Report: Curtailing the Right to Freedom of Expression and Information in Myanmar
Statement: States must respect and protect rights in fighting COVID-19 misinformation
Apr 9, 2020 | Advocacy, News
A joint statement signed by the ICJ and 102 other organizations.
The COVID-19 pandemic and public health crisis is presenting grave challenges for health care systems across Europe.
As European countries work to address the pandemic, protect their populations, and meet the increased demand on health care workers and health care facilities it is vital that they adopt measures to safeguard the health, human dignity, physical and mental integrity, and reproductive autonomy of women and girls in the region.
In many countries the lack of government measures to guarantee individuals’ safe and timely access to essential sexual and reproductive health services, goods, and information during the pandemic is of particular concern.
Women and girls – this statement refers to women and girls, as the majority of individuals who are needing abortion care identify as such but it equally applies to all individuals who may become pregnant and need abortion care or other sexual and reproductive health care – are facing significant restrictions in safely accessing essential sexual and reproductive health services, particularly timely abortion care, post abortion care, and emergency contraception.
Such restrictions disproportionately impact individuals belonging to marginalized groups, including women living in poverty, women with disabilities, Roma women, undocumented migrant women, adolescents, and women at risk or who are survivors of domestic and sexual violence.
These restrictions also create unnecessary risks of exposure to COVID-19 for women and girls and their families as well as for health care providers.
Particularly grave barriers are arising for women and girls living in European countries where abortion care is illegal or severely restricted, and where as a result they must travel to other countries to access legal care or must obtain abortion medication from outside their own jurisdiction.
These issues can also arise in those European countries where individuals are forced to go through burdensome or harmful administrative processes to access abortion care or where they may have difficulty finding doctors in their country willing to provide care.
We applaud those governments that have moved swiftly to safeguard access to essential time- sensitive sexual and reproductive health care during this time, in particular through ensuring access to telehealth and early medical abortion from home.
We call on all other European governments to follow suit and to follow the guidance of medical and public health experts.
We call on the six European countries (Andorra, Liechtenstein, Malta, Monaco, Poland and San Marino) where abortion is illegal or severely restricted to urgently reform these laws, which place women’s health and lives at risk.
Limitations on travel and transport now compound the impact of these highly restrictive laws. Individuals in these countries may no longer be able to travel abroad or to obtain medication for abortion sent by post from medical providers in other countries. As a result, they face heightened risks to their health and wellbeing.
We call on those countries where abortion is legal but where clinical services are unavailable or difficult to access due to a range of barriers, including medically unnecessary requirements that oblige individuals to take multiple or unneeded trips to health care facilities or undergo mandatory hospitalization, to urgently eradicate those barriers and ensure access to services.
Urgent steps should also be taken to ensure that refusals of care because of private beliefs by doctors do not jeopardize timely access to legal abortion care.
In accordance with human rights obligations3 and the recommendations of medical experts4 the following measures should be adopted, and at a minimum remain in place for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic:
- Ensure that abortion is treated as essential and time-sensitive health care and guarantee access to care in a timely manner.
- Authorize and make available in a timely manner telehealth consultations for anyone who is seeking abortion care or information. Specific measures should be adopted to ensure that telehealth consultations are free or low cost and easily accessible for marginalized groups.
- Guarantee timely access to early medical abortion throughout each jurisdiction and allow doctors to prescribe the necessary medication via telehealth consultation.
- Allow individuals to take all abortion medication at home. Requirements in some European countries that one pill must be taken in the physical presence of a doctor or in a health care facility should be removed.
- Remove mandatory waiting periods prior to abortion as well as mandatory counselling requirements or ensure counselling can be conducted through telehealth consultation.
- Authorize primary care doctors and midwives to provide early medical abortion.
- Adopt health system safeguards to guarantee access to care in cases where early medical abortion is not possible or is contraindicated, for individuals who need abortion care later in pregnancy or post-abortion care, or who may need to visit a health care facility for other reasons. Travel in such cases should be deemed essential and permitted even where governments have otherwise restricted free movement.
- Where a doctor’s authorization is required, this should be limited to one doctor. Requirements for multiple doctors’ approval of an abortion should be removed.
- Guarantee timely access to prenatal testing and psychosocial support where requested.
- Guarantee an adequate number of providers willing and able to provide abortion care throughout the country and widely publicize information on how women can identify health care professionals willing and available to provide abortion care. Urgently ensure that refusals of care by doctors do not jeopardize access to abortion care in a time of crisis.
- Widely disseminate information on those changes to SRHR policies and health care services that are being made in the context of COVID-19 responses.
- Ensure access to contraception including emergency contraception, including through authorizing telehealth consultations and provision of emergency contraception over the counter in pharmacies without a prescription.
Finally, we call on all policy makers across the European region to reject proposals that purport to restrict access to safe abortion care during the COVID-19 pandemic. These disingenuous proposals simply serve to exacerbate the current public health crisis and have negative effects on the health, lives, and wellbeing of women and girls.
Download the full statement with additional information and the list of signatories
Apr 9, 2020 | Events, News
Various States in the Latin American region have adopted exceptional measures to address the pandemic and manage the health crisis. These measures impact peoples’ human rights and freedoms. A series of webinars will cover this topic. The third one takes place today.
Access to justice and the right to an effective remedy are particularly at risk. In that regard, it is worth analyzing: How are justice systems reacting to the pandemic? What is required to continue guaranteeing access to justice, especially for those people and groups most vulnerable? How does this pandemic affect the provision of services in the justice sector? How can justice systems innovate to respond to this situation?
In order to address these questions, the ICJ together with DPLF, Fundación Construir, Fundación Tribuna Constitucional, Observatorio de Derechos y Justicia, and Fundación para la Justicia y el Estado Democrático del Derecho, supports an initiative of webinars led by a group of women human rights defenders in Latin America.
The webinars will be held in Spanish and through the Zoom platform. Registrations for each webinar can be made by sending an email to info@dplf.org Registered persons will receive the zoom link where the activity can be followed.
The first three conversations are as follows:
- Essential justice services in times of emergency: Thursday 02 of April
At: 14.00 México-Central America/ 15 hours Colombia-Perú-Ecuador/ 16.00 Washington-Bolivia/ 17.00 Chile -Argentina/ 22.00 Geneva
- Working from home and being a judge: challenges for women that are judges: Tuesday 07 of April
At 14.00 México-Central America/ 15.00 Colombia-Perú-Ecuador / 16.00 Washington-Bolivia / 17.00 Chile -Argentina/ 22.00 Geneva
- Innovating in the justice system during times of emergency: Thursday 09 of April
At 14.00 México-Central America/15.00 Colombia-Perú-Ecuador/ 16.00 Washington-Bolivia/ 17.00 Chile -Argentina/ 22.00 Geneva
