Sep 10, 2019 | News
ICJ expressed concern over the decision given on 27 August 2019 by the Malaysian High Court that a fatwa issued against the women’s organization, Sisters in Islam, should be referred to the Syariah Court.
The High Court used as a basis Article 121 (1A) of the Federal Constitution, which states that secular courts do not have jurisdiction over matters pertaining to Islam.
The ICJ called on the Malaysian authorities to ensure that custom, tradition, and religion should not be used as a justification to undermine human rights, including women’s human rights.
In 2014, the Selangor Fatwa Council issued a fatwa declaring the Sisters in Islam a “deviant organization.” For many years, Sisters in Islam has been promoting more egalitarian interpretations of Islamic laws with the aim of ending discrimination against women and achieving equality in the Muslim family.
“For women to fully exercise their religious freedom, they must be able to retain or adopt the religion of their choice, and they must be able to continue belonging to this religion without being discriminated against within the religion,” said Emerlynne Gil, ICJ’s Senior International Legal Adviser.
The ICJ stressed that under international law, States have an obligation to protect people who are prevented from exercising their religious freedom by private actors, such as their own religious communities.
“The Malaysian government, including the judiciary, has the obligation to protect groups like Sisters in Islam when they face persecution from within their religious communities for propounding alternative views about their religion,” said Emerlynne Gil.
Furthermore, the ICJ had previously underscored in a 2019 briefing paper on the challenges to Freedom of Religion or Belief in Malaysia, the tensions emerging from jurisdictional disputes between civil courts, which apply federal and state laws, and Syariah courts, which apply Islamic laws.
In 2018, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, in reviewing the performance of Malaysia, voiced its own concern over “the existence of a parallel legal system of civil law and multiple versions of Syariah law, which have not been harmonized in accordance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).” The CEDAW Committee concluded that this “leads to a gap in the protection of women against discrimination, including on the basis of their religion.
Contact:
Emerlynne Gil, Senior International Legal Advisor, ICJ, e: emerlynne.gil(a)icj.org
Sep 9, 2019 | News
The ICJ today called on the South African government to take immediate measures to prevent, investigate and bring to justice those responsible for all discriminatory violence that has occurred in the country, particularly against people based on nationality or national origin.
The authorities should make clear that the rights in the South African Constitution’s Bill of Rights and under international law apply to everyone in South Africa and to take demonstrable measures to protect everyone in South Africa from violence, including discriminatory violence, such as targeted xenophobic violence.
“The hard-fought rights in the Bill of Rights of our Constitution apply to everyone who lives in South Africa without exception. Whatever concerns people have must be resolved through listening and through dialogue. The prevailing violent attacks which seem to target people because they are not South African are cruel and inhuman. They can never be justified and must be condemned in the strongest terms possible”, said ICJ Commissioner Justice Yvonne Mokgoro, a former judge of the South African Constitutional Court.
The ICJ further called on the African Union Member States to take immediate measures to stop the retaliatory attacks against South Africans and South African groups and businesses in those countries where they have taken place, including the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria.
“The current xenophobic attacks in South Africa targeting African immigrants as well as retaliatory violence against South Africans living in the affected African countries is highly regrettable. We call upon the leadership of the affected countries to exercise maximum restraint. We further urge them to take urgent measures to guarantee the security and rights of all immigrants and minorities within their borders, as they are duty bound to do so, under their constitutions and instruments against all forms of discrimination and xenophobia”, said ICJ Commissioner Justice Kathurima M’Inoti of the Kenyan High Court and Director of the Kenyan Judicial Education Institute.
The call by the ICJ comes after South Africa experienced a week of widespread looting and attacking of businesses, perceived to be owned by foreign nationals that saw at least 10 killings and many others injured and displaced from homes. The violence began in Jeppestown, a Johannesburg suburb, on Sunday evening and spread to other parts of Johannesburg including the Johannesburg CBD, Malvern, Tembisa, Alexandra and Katlehong.
The ICJ recalls that the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political (ICCPR) and other universal and African regional human rights treaties to which South Africa is party, require that the rights be guaranteed equally to all persons without regard to citizenship or other status.
This is not the first time that South Africa has been gripped with xenophobic attacks. They have occurred periodically and with impunity over the past decade, with spikes in 2008 and in 2015. In 2008 more than 60 people were killed in a wave of violence against foreign nationals. Another significant flare of xenophobic violence also occurred in 2015 receiving widespread civil society condemnation and response though the perpetrators of such violence operated with some degree of impunity. Civil society will once again proceed with a mass protest on the 14th of September in strong opposition to the increasing climate of fear and xenophobia.
“Impunity for acts of violence, particularly xenophobic violence, is a matter of extreme concern. As a Zambian professor teaching at a leading university in South Africa, I am fearful of the lasting impact that continued xenophobia in South Africa has on the human rights of everyone especially non-nationals living in the country. These xenophobic attacks have the potential to destabilize the unity of Africa around human rights values and create a spiral of violence and impunity across the continent. Xenophobic violence is a threat to the observance of human rights on the continent.” said ICJ Commissioner and Professor Michelo Hansungule, of the Centre for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria.
A number of African countries, including Tanzania, Mozambique, Zambia and Nigeria have responded strongly to such xenophobia, including by suspending flights to South Africa and boycotting South African based events, illustrating the seriousness of the xenophobia. Though the South African government has previously presented such incidents to the world as isolated instances of naked criminality without discriminatory intent, in this instance South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor has said that “Afrophobia” can no longer be denied.
In responses to violence in South Africa, in Nigeria, protesters in Lagos and Abuja have targeted South African businesses, some hurling rocks and burning tyres outside their premises, with some explicitly indicating that the acts are retribution for violence against Nigerians in South Africa. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, protesters also attacked and looted South African-owned businesses, some going on to attack the South African consulate in Lubumbashi. Read the full story here: South Africa-surge in xenophobia-news-webstory-2019-ENG
Contact Details:
Arnold Tsunga (Director): c: +26 37 7728 3249 e: arnold.tsunga(a)icj.org
Solomon Ebobrah (Senior Legal Adviser): c: +23 48 0349 27549 e: solomon.ebobrah(a)icj.org
Tim Fish Hodgson (Legal Adviser): c: +27 82 871 9905 e: timothy.hodgson(a)icj.org
Sep 8, 2019 | News
At a training event for senior prosecutors hosted by the Union Attorney General’s Office (UAGO) on 7 September 2019 in Yangon, Nay Pyi Taw, the ICJ made presentations on the international standards and legal obligation on unlawful killings.
Representing each of Myanmar’s 14 states and regions, some 30 law officers attended the activity, which was a capacity-building training hosted by the UAGO. This is part of the ICJ’s ongoing engagement with authorities in Myanmar as well as in neighboring countries on the Minnesota Protocol on the investigation of potentially unlawful death (the Minnesota Protocol).
The Minnesota Protocol provides guidance on the State’s implementation of its duty under international law to investigate potentially unlawful killings, including when State actors may have been involved. It applies to deaths under custody, suspicious deaths, and enforced disappearances. Myanmar has experienced widespread incidents of such deaths, including in recent years those constituting serious crimes under international law.
ICJ Associate Legal Adviser, Jenny Domino, introduced salient points of the Minnesota Protocol and shared relevant examples from experience promoting and protecting human rights in the Philippines. She highlighted the significance of the State’s duty to investigate potentially unlawful killings in upholding the right to life under international human rights law.
ICJ Legal Researcher, Ja Seng Ing, shared the case of Laotian activist Sombath Somphone, who was subjected to enforced disappearance on 15 December 2012 with the apparent consent or acquiescence of State agents. To date, Laotian authorities have failed to conduct effective investigations with a view to revealing the fate or whereabouts of Somphone. ICJ has repeatedly called for accountability on the issue.
Participants discussed these cases in relation to the comparative remedies and practical challenges related to the conduct of investigations in Myanmar, where police and prosecutors both have roles to play in the conduct of investigations.
First published in 1991 and subsequently revised in 2016 under the auspices of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Minnesota Protocol includes guidelines on conducting investigations to ensure that they are prompt; effective and thorough; impartial and independent; and transparent.
Since December 2017, the ICJ has co-hosted several regional workshops in Asia focused on this topic, with lawyers, academics, and State authorities from Thailand, Cambodia, Nepal, India, and Myanmar attending the events.
See also:
https://www.icj.org/thailand-launch-of-the-revised-minnesota-protocol/
https://www.icj.org/myanmar-reverse-laws-and-practices-that-perpetuate-military-impunity-new-icj-report/
Sep 6, 2019 | News
The ICJ, along with 124 other international and domestic civil society groups from around the world have condemned the actions of Indian government in publishing an incomplete and discriminatory Assam National Register of Citizens (NRC) on 31 August, 2019.
The NRC excludes some 1.9 million people – nearly 6 percent of the population of Assam – thereby rendering them at risk of statelessness. The statement points to violations of rights to equality and non-discrimination, as the process has disproportionately affected Muslims of Bengali descent, undocumented women and children as well as other minorities.
The groups call on India to take measures to redress the situation in a non- discriminatory and non-arbitrary manner, with full regard to due process rights and a commitment to protect the right to a nationality and to avoid statelessness of all long-term residents and their children.
Arbitrary deprivation of nationality is a human rights violation, which undermines the enjoyment of the human rights of those affected and their ability to participate fully in society. International law prohibits the arbitrary deprivation of nationality and obliges States to avoid statelessness, while guaranteeing the right of every child to acquire and preserve their nationality and to be protected from statelessness.
In 2015, the Assam state government, pursuant to a Supreme Court decision, announced it would initiate a process of updating the NRC, requiring every person in Assam who recognized themselves as an Indian citizen, to submit proof of their ancestry (or birth) in the country pre-dating 1971, the year that Bangladesh was formed. The act of requiring individuals to prove their citizenship by providing documentary evidence dating back over 50 years, and excluding applicants on the basis of their inability to fulfill this evidentiary burden, has led to arbitrary deprivation of nationality, contrary to Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Further, poor birth registration rates, despite an obligation under Article 7 of the Convention of the Rights of the Child to immediately register every birth has denied numerous applicants of a critical piece of evidence to establish their citizenship. Similarly, many people who possessed the required documents, have nonetheless been penalized due to administrative errors.
Despite repeated calls to action by UN human rights authorities, India has refused to reverse the process and other States have done little to press the Indian government to reverse course.
Those excluded from the list must appeal within 120 days to Foreigners Tribunals (FT), a quasi-judicial institution mandated to determine citizenship. In essence, this implies that the government already considers those excluded from the NRC to be foreigners, and not Indian citizens.
Find the full statement, endorsed by the ICJ and 124 other international and domestic civil society groups from around the world here: https://files.institutesi.org/cso-joint-statement-on-assam-nrc.pdf
Contact:
Maitreyi Gupta (Delhi), ICJ International Legal Adviser for India, t: +91 7756028369 e: maitreyi.gupta(a)icj.org
Frederick Rawski, ICJ Asia-Pacific Director, t: +66 64 478 1121; e: frederick.rawski(a)icj.org
Sep 4, 2019 | News
From 2 to 3 September 2019, the ICJ co-hosted a workshop in Bangkok for justice sector authorities from Thailand on ‘Human Rights Compliant Criminal Investigation and Investigative Interviewing’. The event focused on international law and standards regarding investigative interviewing of victims, witnesses and suspects in criminal cases.
The workshop was co-hosted with Thailand’s Ministry of Justice and the Norwegian Centre of Human Rights, University of Oslo.
The participants included 50 criminal investigators, public prosecutors, representatives of the Ministry of Justice’s Department of Special Investigation (DSI), the Internal Security Operations Command, Ministry of Defense’s Judge Advocate General’s Office, the National Anti-Corruption Commission, the Office of the Narcotics Control Board and the Royal Police Cadet Academy.
A primary objective of the workshop was to promote and explain the principle that interviews which are conducted in compliance with human rights standards produce much more effective results without resort to torture, ill-treatment or coercion. The workshop also addressed the problem of a ‘confession culture’ and looked into how unlawful interrogations threatened the quality and legitimacy of justice sector officials and bodies in meting criminal justice. Participants also conducted discussions and participated in group activities on human memory, investigative management and the conducting of interviews grounded in fundamental principles of international human rights law.
Speakers at the Workshop included:
- Aim-orn Siangyai, Deputy Director General of Thailand’s Rights and Liberties Protection Department, Ministry of Justice;
- Frederick Rawski, Asia Pacific Regional Director, ICJ;
- Gisle Kvanvig, Programme Director for ASEAN/Vietnam, Norwegian Center for Human Rights;
- Asbjørn Rachlew and Dr. Ivar A. Fahsing, experienced investigators from the Norwegian Police Department;
- Lilian M. Stein, Professor at the Psychology Postgraduate Department, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul; and
- Mary Schollum, a criminologist and lead drafter of the Universal Guidelines on Investigative Interviewing.
Background
This workshop is part of the ICJ’s ongoing efforts to ensure the domestic implementation of international law and standards in crime investigation.
Previous ICJ workshops on the above topic have included:
Regional Workshops
National Workshops
