The ICJ today urged the Government of Nepal to reverse its decision to extend the tenure of Colonel Raju Basnet, alleged to have been involved in systematic enforced disappearance and torture and ill-treatment.
The ICJ today urged the Government of Nepal to take swift action to enforce pending judicial orders regarding serious crimes allegedly committed by members of both the Nepal Army and the Maoist Party.
These include the 2004 murder of 13-year-old Maina Sunuwar while detained at the Army’s Peacekeeping Training Centre and the 1998 murder of Ujjan Kumar Shrestha by Constituent Assembly (CA) Member Balkrishna Dhungel.
Nepal-cease obstruction justice-press release-2010 (full text in English, PDF)
Nepal-cease obstruction justice-press release-2010 (full text in Nepali, PDF)
The side event, held during the 15th session of the UN Human Rights Council, will look into the human rights situation in Sri Lanka, in the aftermath of May 2009.
The post-conflict phase in Sri Lanka is failing to meet minimal expectations on rule of law, democratic participation, investigation of, and accountability, for human rights violations, and ending impunity; not to mention social rehabilitation and political reconciliation after war. The side event will particularly focus on three issues: alleged war crimes, the fate of surrendered Tamil combatants and the governance on human rights and impunity.
Sri Lanka-rights challenges-event-2010 (full text in English, PDF)
The ICJ and Amnesty International welcome the initiative of the Committee of Ministers to prepare guidelines on the obligations of Council of Europe Member States to prevent and counter impunity.
The ICJ today deplored the decision of the US Justice Department to clear the legal architects of the US torture policy from any professional misconduct.
The decision by Associate Deputy Attorney General (ADAG) David Margolis reversed the July 2009 findings of the Office of Professional Conduct (OPR) that Bush administration legal advisers John Yoo and Jay Bybee had engaged in professional misconduct by giving advice which approved as lawful the program of “enhanced interrogation”. This program consisted in clear acts of torture and ill treatment.
The OPR had been poised to refer Yoo and Bybee, who is presently a US federal judge, for disciplinary action by the state regulatory authorities. The ADAG report, while affirming that the legal advisers had exercised ‘poor judgement’, determined that they had not breached rules of misconduct because it could not be established that they had intended to give misleading advise.
USA-torture serious crime-press release-2010 (full text, PDF)
Photo by acameronhuff
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