Amnesty International Group 22 Pasadena/Caltech News
Volume XV Number 8, August 2008
UPCOMING EVENTS
Thursday, August 28, 7:30 PM. Monthly
Meeting Caltech Y is located off San Pasqual
between Hill and Holliston, south side. You will
see two curving walls forming a gate to a path--
our building is just beyond. Help us plan future
actions on Sudan, the 'War on Terror', death
penalty and more.
Tuesday, September 9, 7:30 PM. Letter writing
meeting at Caltech Athenaeum, corner of Hill
and California in Pasadena. This informal
gathering is a great way for newcomers to get
acquainted with Amnesty!
Sunday, September 21, 6:30 PM. Rights
Readers Human Rights Book Discussion Group.
Vroman's Book Bookstore, 695 E. Colorado
Blvd., Pasadena. This month we read "Selling
Olga" by Louisa Waugh.
COORDINATOR'S CORNER
Hi everyone,
This is a long newsletter this month so I'll try to
make my column short!
We enjoyed watching portions of the Olympics,
especially women's gymnastics, but evidently
there are still unresolved human rights issues.
This section is taken from the AIUSA webpage:
Just as the Olympics began, a new Amnesty
International report
http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?lan
g=e&id=ENGASA170892008 found that the
Chinese authorities have broken their promise to
improve the country's human rights situation and
betrayed the core values of the Olympics.
In addition, it has just emerged that the
International Olympic Committee has caved in to
China's demands on Internet censorship at
Olympic media venues. Urge Chinese and US
Internet companies to stop colluding with the
Chinese authorities in censoring the Internet. You
can take action by going to this link:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/internet-censorship/action-ideas-and-
resources/page.do?id=1101632&n1=3&n2=26&n3=1035
China promised that it would improve its human
rights record if awarded the honor of hosting the
2008 Olympic Games. Urge China to deliver a
positive human rights legacy for the Beijing
Olympics.
In September we read a book written by a prize
winning journalist on the topic of human
trafficking. For more information, see the AI fact
sheet on trafficking in this newsletter.
The AIUSA Western Regional Conference will be
in Pasadena November 7-9, 2008 at the Hilton
hotel. See this link for more info:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/regional-conferences/west/page.do?id=1091479&n1=5&n2=48&n3=788.
Con cari–o,
Kathy aigp22@caltech.edu
ERITREA UPDATE
Our June newsletter included an action for 900
Eritrean asylum-seekers in Egypt. They were at
risk of being forcibly returned to Eritrea. At that
time Egypt initially announced that the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees would be allowed to
assess the asylum claims of the Eritreans, but
then Egypt went ahead and carried out the mass
deportation.
Please participate in the current AIUSA urgent
action for 740 of these Eritrean asylum-seekers
who were forcibly returned to Eritrea. They are
now held without charge and may be subject to
torture and ill treatment.
September 18 will mark the 7th anniversary of the
arrest of Group 22's adopted Eritrean prisoner of
conscience, Estifanos Seyoum. He has been held
incommunicado in secret prisons since 2001 and
has never been charged or brought to trial. Many
of the Eritrean government officials and
journalists arrested in the 2001 crackdown are
reported to have died in prison as a result of
torture and denial of medical treatment. Next
month we hope to join other AIUSA local groups
in actions to observe this sad milestone.
13 August 2008
UA 225/08 Arbitrary detention/ Fear of torture
and other ill treatment
ERITREA/ EGYPT Up to 1,200 forcibly returned
asylum seekers
Between 12 and 19 June, up to 1,200 Eritrean
asylum-seekers were forcibly returned from Egypt
to Eritrea. While almost all of the returned women
with children and those who were pregnant were
released after some weeks in detention, the
majority of the male and single female Eritreans
that were returned are held without charge.
Those in detention have been transferred to
military camps and prisons, including 740
reportedly at the Halhal camp within Wia
military camp, approximately 40 km south of
Massawa. Wia military camp is in a desert
location where temperatures reach up to 40
degrees Celsius during the day. Amnesty
International is seriously concerned with the well-
being and detention conditions of at least 740
Eritreans still in arbitrary detention in Eritrea
following their forcible return from Egypt in June
2008.
Amnesty International is also concerned that
those who remain in arbitrary detention are at
grave risk of torture, and other ill-treatment.
Torture is regularly used against detainees in
Eritrea, including at military camps such as Wia.
Methods of torture Amnesty International has
previously documented in Eritrea include
prolonged beatings with whips and kicking, tying
detainees in stress positions such as the
helicopter position and the figure eight position,
and leaving them in the sun for periods of hours.
RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send
appeals to arrive as quickly as possible:
To the Eritrean authorities:
- urging the authorities to disclose the names and
whereabouts of all the Eritreans who have been
forcibly returned from Egypt since 11 June;
- urging the authorities not to detain, torture or ill-
treat those who have been returned;
- reminding the authorities that enforced
disappearances, torture and other ill-treatment
are prohibited under international law.
To the Egyptian authorities:
- calling on the authorities to disclose the names
of all the Eritreans they recently forcibly returned
to Eritrea;
- calling on the Egyptian government to take all
possible diplomatic measures to ensure the
Eritreans they returned to Eritrea are released
from arbitrary detention, and are not tortured or
otherwise ill-treated;
- urging them to respect Egypt's international
obligations under the 1951 Refugee Convention
and the UN Convention against Torture not to
forcibly return asylum-seekers to Eritrea, where
they would be at risk of torture and other serious
human rights violations.
APPEALS TO:
To the Eritrean authorities:
President
His Excellency President Issayas Afewerki
Office of the President
P O Box 257, Asmara, ERITREA
Fax: 011 2911 123 788
(via Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
Salutation: Your Excellency
Minister of Justice
Ms Fawzia Hashim
Ministry of Justice
P O Box 241, Asmara, ERITREA
Fax: 011 2911 126 422
Salutation: Dear Minister
To the Egyptian authorities:
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Minister Ahmed Ali Aboul Gheit
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Corniche al-Nil, Maspiro
Cairo, EGYPT
Fax: 011 20 22 574 8822 OR
011 20 22 390 8159 OR
011 20 22 574 9533
E-mail: minexter@idsc1.gov.eg
Salutation: Dear Minister
COPIES TO:
Ambassador Ghirmai Ghebremariam
Embassy of the State of Eritrea
1708 New Hampshire Ave NW
Washington DC 20009
Fax: 1 202 319 1304
Email: embassyeritrea@embassyeritrea.org
Ambassador Samuel Assefa Lemma
Embassy of Ethiopia
3506 International Dr NW
Washington DC 20008
Fax: 1 202 587 0195
PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY.
Check with the AIUSA Urgent Action office if
sending appeals after 24 September 2008.
TRAFFICKING OF PERSONS:
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL FACT SHEET
Human trade, slave markets, the buying and
selling of people - these are words and phrases
that to many people echo a brutal and distant
time in our past. But to the countless women,
men, and children trafficked every year these
words coldly define the horror of their lives.
Trafficking is a worldwide phenomenon. Victims
are trafficked into a range of hazardous labor
including farm work, sweatshops, domestic
servants, forced prostitution and subjected to
sexual abuse and other forms of violence. Each
year, an estimated 600,000-800,000 men, women,
and children are trafficked across international
borders according to the US Department of State.
As part of Amnesty International's Stop Violence
Against Women campaign, we are examining one
type of human trafficking, the trafficking of
women and girls into forced prostitution - one of
the most widespread and pervasive forms of
violence against women.
The Amnesty International report, "Kosovo (Serbia
and Montenegro) 'So does that mean I have rights?'
Protecting the human rights of women and girls
trafficked for forced prostitution in Kosovo",
documents the widespread and systematic
abuses of women and girls trafficked into and
internally within Kosovo for sexual exploitation.
Kosovo has become a major destination for
women and girls trafficked into forced
prostitution since the deployment of an
international peacekeeping force and the
establishment of a UN civilian administration.
"Eventually I arrived in a bar in Kosovo, [and was]
locked inside and forced into prostitution. In the bar I
was never paid, I could not go out by myself, the
owner became more and more violent as the weeks
went by; he was beating me and raping me and the
other girls. We were his 'property', he said. By buying
us, he had bought the right to beat us, rape us, starve
us, force us to have sex with clients." - 21 year old
Moldovan woman
What is trafficking?
"It's something to do with cars isn't it?" - trafficked
girl, interviewed by an NGO in Kosovo.
Trafficking is modern day slave trading. It
involves transporting people away from the
communities they live in by the threat or use of
violence, deception or coercion so they can be
exploited as forced or enslaved workers. When
children are trafficked, no violence, deception or
coercion needs to be involved: simply
transporting them into exploitative conditions
constitutes trafficking.
Trafficking is a fundamental abuse of human
rights. It results in the abuse of the rights to:
- physical and mental integrity;
- life;
- liberty;
- security of the person;
- dignity;
- freedom from slavery, slave-like practices,
torture and other inhuman or degrading
treatment;
- family life;
- freedom of movement;
- privacy;
- the highest attainable standard of health; and
- safe and secure housing.
Deception and lies
Although in some cases, women and girls are
abducted or coerced by traffickers, many start
their journeys from their home countries
voluntarily.
They see an ad in a local paper, an employment
website on the internet, or a flyer on a community
billboard: each offering attractive employment as
nannies, waitresses, secretaries, models or
dancers. All carry the promise of desperately
needed money.
"I was desperate, and not because I was having
problems with my parents as I heard from other girls,
but because we were so poor... My grandmother had a
very small allowance, and my mother has only the
state allowance for my three brothers. I couldn't live
any longer on my grandmother's pension, so I said
that I'd better go somewhere else where I could work
hard and earn some money to help my family and my
brothers." - Woman trafficked into Kosovo
Sometimes it's a boyfriend who promises to help
them find work in the 'glittering' west. A friend
who offers to help escape a desperate situation.
A promise of marriage betrayed. Or a desperate
economic exchange by a parent. This is how
countless thousands of women and girls are
trapped in the chilling world of trafficking.
Violence and threats
For most of these women and girls, as soon as
their journey begins, so does the systematic abuse
of their rights, in a strategy that reduces them to
dependency on their trafficker, and later their
"owner". The realization grows that the work they
have been offered is not what was promised; their
documents are taken away from them; they may
be beaten; they will - almost certainly if they start
to protest - be raped.
Although some women are not aware until they
reach their destination that they have been sold,
other have seen money change hands, or have
been raped by buyers when they "try the
merchandise". Women are often sold several
times before reaching their destination.
Escape is almost impossible. Without her travel
documents, a woman is likely to be arrested for
immigration or other offences. But probably more
pertinently, trafficked women are usually trapped
by threats, coercion, or literally being locked
inside.
"We worked from 9am to 11pm. After that he said,
'You do what you like', but we were locked. When we
asked to go out he said no, that we had to be here. We
slept in a room together, me and another girl. All the
windows had bars." - Romanian girl trafficked into
Kosovo
At a trial in Gnjilane/Gjilan in 2002, a trafficked
woman testified tat she had been kept in a cellar,
where she slept at night and serviced clients
during the day. Food, drink and a bucket for use
as a lavatory were brought down to her. She only
left the cellar when she was driven by her
trafficker to meet clients.
Trafficked women are repeatedly subjected to
psychological abuse, including intimidation and
threats, lies and deception, emotional
manipulation and blackmail in order to keep them
trapped.
"If I refused [to have sex with clients] I was
threatened. He was pointing the gun to my head, and
he was saying.. 'If you don't do this in the next
minute, you will be dead'. He has the gun, he was
just saying do this or you will be dead."
Many trafficked girls and women report being
told that their families and their children would
be harmed or murdered if they tried to escape or
tell anyone. Others report being told that their
families have found out what they're doing and
that they don't want anything more to do with
them.
What you can do
Trafficking is a crime under international law
under the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and
Punish Trafficking in Persons. For more
information on trafficking, the Stop Violence
Against Women campaign, or women's human
rights, visit AIUSA's Stop Violence Against
Women website at:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/stopviolence
or contact Amnesty International at 5 Penn
Plaza-16th floor, New York, NY 10001 or at
(212) 633-4292.
STOP HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN MONTENEGRO
SAMPLE LETTER:
Dear Ministar Pravde Miras Radovic,
I welcome the signature by Montenegro on the
Council of Europe Convention on Action against
Trafficking in Human Beings. Montenegro is a
source, transit, and destination country for
women and girls trafficked internally and
internationally for the purpose of sexual
exploitation. I urge you to ensure that
Montenegro's legal framework is in accordance
with the Convention and to fully implement the
Convention.
According to the Explanatory Report to
accompany the Council of Europe Convention,
"when trafficking in human beings is concerned,
special protected shelters are especially suitable
and have already been introduced in various
countries." I urge you to foster financial support
for shelters for women and girls, in close
cooperation with independent non-governmental
women's groups, either by providing funding from
your budget, by providing housing for a shelter, or
by providing land on which a shelter may be built.
I also urge you to ensure that adequate financial
resources are made available for the development
and support of independent non-governmental
organizations opposing domestic violence and
human trafficking.
Furthermore, in implementing the Convention,
legislation should prohibit the forcible return and
detention of trafficked persons. Also, I urge you
to add "abduction" to the definition of trafficking
as set out in article 3 (a) of the Palermo Protocol.
Finally, I urge you to codify the measures of
witness protection in the statute on criminal
procedure, by implementing the UN Convention
on Transnational Organized Crime (Article 24) in
the Statute on Criminal Procedure (Article 8), so
that the safety of the witness is guaranteed.
Thank you for your attention.
Sincerely, (your name and address)
RIGHTS READERS
Human Rights Book Discussion Group
Keep up with Rights Readers at
http://rightsreaders.blogspot.com
Next Rights Readers meeting:
Sunday, September 21, 6:30 PM
Vroman's Bookstore
695 E. Colorado Boulevard
in Pasadena
"Selling Olga"
By Louisa Waugh
Review
Louise Waugh spent three years researching and
writing this unflinching investigation into human
trafficking across Europe. She traveled to places
most infested with trafficking, talked to the
women who had been trafficked and to those who
support them at considerable personal risk to
their own safety. Bosnia, Kosovo, northern
Albania, Moldova and Sicily all had ugly stories
to tell: women sold in bars, confined inside
private apartments, raped to ensure obedience,
beaten and degraded.
Through a particular victim, Olga, whom she
meets in Moldova, we see the realities of such
women's situations and it is Olga who can explain
how tied such women become to their "owners".
"He warned me. He said that the two men who
wanted to buy me would take me to Pec or to
Ferizye. Pec is a terrible place, up in the
mountains. The other girls told me that if you
cause trouble there, you are just shot like an
animal and your body dumped outside."
Olga had been beaten so badly that she was
almost blind. Her need to sustain her young son
drove her to accept bestial treatment from many
men. Her hope is that she will gain a job in the
Moldovan Institute for the Blind.
The great strength of this terrifying report is that
the author has made contact not only with the
female victims of traffickers themselves, but has
also with the organizations which help them and
fight for them, the police and officials from the
forces (for example, UN and NATO officials
dealing with the ugly complicity of their own
peacekeepers). She has gone to great lengths to
follow her stories through.
A particularly grim case she covers is that of the
trafficker Luan Plakici, an Albanian operating in
London from 1995 to 2003 before he was
convicted of trafficking and sentenced to 23 years.
Most shocking about Plakici's story was how easy
it was for him to carry out these acts in Britain. He
was able to bind the girls to him through fear and
threats (for example, to kill a young sister in
another country).
Human trafficking for the sex industry and for
forced labour is the world's fastest-growing
organized crime.
-Margaret Laird (from Society Today online, a
British magazine)
Author Biography
Louisa Waugh was born in Berlin and has lived in
Liverpool, London, and Edinburgh. She is
currently living in Gaza City, in Palestine. Whilst
in London she worked with street homeless young
people, before packing her bags and taking the
Trans-Siberian train to Mongolia in 1996, where
she set up home for several years, learnt fluent
Mongolian and worked as a freelance journalist.
Her book Hearing Birds Fly tells about her life
amongst the Tsengel villagers in Mongolia and
won the inaugural Ondaatje prize, the 10,000-pound
award for the best book to evoke the spirit of a
place, and is named after businessman and
philanthropist Christopher Ondaatje.
DEATH PENALTY
THE WRONG MAN: RAY KRONE
Ray Krone was sentenced to death for a crime he
didn't commit and was the 100th man exonerated
from death row in the U.S.
To watch his testimony, go to
http://www.amnestyusa.org/Our_Issues/Death
_Penalty/page.do?id=1011005&n1=3&n2=28
DEATH PENALTY
URGENT ACTION IRAN
19 August 2008
Further Information on UA 71/08
(13 March 2008) - Fear of Execution
IRAN
Naser Qasemi (m), aged 23
Mohammad Reza Haddadi (m), aged 18
Reza Hejazi (m), aged 19
Iman Hashemi (m), aged 18
[juvenile offenders]
Reza Hejazi was hanged in Esfahan prison on 19
August. His lawyer was not informed that his
execution was to be carried out, though under
Iranian law a 48-hour notification period is
required.
On 18 August Reza Hejazi's family were notified
that he had been transferred to a cell for those to
be executed within 24 hours, and they informed
his lawyer, Mohammad Mostafaie.
On 19 August 2008, the lawyer reached Esfahan
prison at 4.30am, and attempted to find out
when the execution was to be carried out. Prison
guards informed him that executions normally
took place between 7 and 8am. After attempting
for several hours to secure a stay of execution, at
around 10am Mohammad Mostafaie was told by
the officer supervising executions that Reza
Hejazi's execution had been halted. He set off
back to his office in the capital, Tehran, a five-
hour journey away. While he was traveling, he
was informed that Reza Hejazi had been hanged
at 11am.
Reza Hejazi - then aged 15 - was among a group
of people involved in a dispute with a man on 18
September 2004, which resulted in the man being
fatally stabbed. Reza Hejazi was arrested and
tried for murder, and on 14 November 2005 he
was sentenced to qesas (retribution) by Branch
106 of the Esfahan General Court. The sentence
was approved by Branch 28 of the Supreme
Court in Mashhad on 6 June 2006, although under
Iranian law he should have been tried in a juvenile
court.
There is no further news on Naser Qasemi,
Mohammad Reza Haddadi and Iman Hashemi,
all of whom have been sentenced to death for
crimes committed when they were under the age
of 18, in violation of international law.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Since 1990 Iran has executed at least 36 juvenile
offenders, eight of them in 2007 and five in 2008.
The execution of juvenile offenders is prohibited
under international law, as stated in Article 6 (5)
of the ICCPR and the Convention on the Rights of
the Child (CRC), of which Iran is a state party to
and so has undertaken not to execute anyone for
crimes committed when they were under 18.
For more information about executions of child
offenders in Iran, please see: Iran: The last
executioner of children (MDE 13/059/2007, June 2007),
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engmde130592007
And also a joint press release with over 20 other
organizations, please see: Iran: Spare four youths
from execution, immediately enforce international
prohibition on death penalty for juvenile
offenders, available at:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/for-media/press-
releases/iran-spare-four-youths-execution-
immediately-enforce-international-prohibition
RECOMMENDED ACTION:
Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as
possible:
- calling for an immediate halt to the executions of
Naser Qasemi, Mohammad Reza Haddadi and
Iman Hashemi, all convicted of crimes allegedly
committed when they were under the age of 18;
- reminding the authorities that Iran is a state
party to the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention on
the Rights of the Child (CRC), which prohibit the
use of the death penalty against people convicted
of crimes committed when they were under 18;
- expressing dismay at the execution of Reza
Hejazi in Esfahan prison on 19 August, in
violation of Iran's obligations under the ICCPR
and the CRC;
- calling on the authorities to explain the reasons
for his execution, and for their failure to inform
his lawyer of his imminent execution, in breach of
Iranian law;
- calling on the authorities to commute the death
sentences passed on Naser Qasemi, Mohammad
Reza Haddadi and Iman Hashemi.
APPEALS TO:
Head of the Judiciary
Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi
Howzeh Riyasat-e Qoveh Qazaiyeh /
Office of the Head of the Judiciary
Pasteur St., Vali Asr Ave., south of Serah-e
Jomhouri,
Tehran 1316814737,
ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN
Email: info@dadgostary-tehran.ir
(In subject line: FAO Ayatollah
Shahroudi)
Salutation: Your Excellency
Leader of the Islamic Republic
His Excellency Ayatollah Sayed 'Ali Khamenei,
The Office of the Supreme Leader
Islamic Republic Street - Shahid Keshvar Doust
Street
Tehran, ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN
Email: info@leader.ir
Salutation: Your Excellency
COPIES TO:
President
His Excellency Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
The Presidency
Palestine Avenue, Azerbaijan Intersection
Tehran, ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN
Fax: 011 98 21 6 649 5880
Email: dr-ahmadinejad@president.ir
(via website)
http://www.president.ir/email/
Director, Human Rights Headquarters of Iran
His Excellency Mohammad Javad Larijani
Howzeh Riassat-e Ghoveh Ghazaiyeh
(Office of the Head of the Judiciary)
Pasteur St, Vali Asr Ave., south of Serah-e
Jomhuri, Tehran
1316814737,
ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN
Fax: 011 98 21 3390 4986
(please keep trying)
Email: fsharafi@bia-judiciary.ir
(In subject line: FAO Mohammad
Javad Larijani) int_aff@judiciary.ir (In subject
line: FAO Mohammad Javad Larijani)
Iran does not presently have an embassy in the
United States. Instead, please send copies to:
Iranian Interests Section
Embassy of Pakistan
2209 Wisconsin Ave NW
Washington DC 20007
Phone: 202 965 4990
Fax: 202 965 1073
Email: requests@daftar.org
PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY.
Check with the AIUSA Urgent Action office if
sending appeals after 30 September 2008.
MONTHLY LETTER COUNT
UAs 22
Total: 22
To add your letters to the total contact
lwkamp@gmail.com.
Amnesty International Group 22
The Caltech Y
Mail Code 5-62
Pasadena, CA 91125
www.its.caltech.edu/~aigp22/
http://rightsreaders.blogspot.com
Amnesty International's mission is to undertake research and action focused on preventing and ending
grave abuses of the rights to physical and mental integrity, freedom of conscience and expression,
and freedom from discrimination, within the context of its work to promote all human rights.