Saudi Arabia - rise in executions and crucifixions

Saudi Arabia must halt a “disturbing” rise in its use of the death penalty, Amnesty International said this after six people were executed in the country yesterday.

Five Yemeni men were beheaded and “crucified” yesterday in the city of Jizan, while a Saudi Arabian man was executed in the south-western city of Abha.

The beheadings and “crucifixions” took place in front of the University of Jizan where students are taking exams. Pictures emerged on social media appearing to show five decapitated bodies hanging from a horizontal pole with their heads wrapped in bags. In Saudi Arabia, the practice of “crucifixion” refers to the court-ordered public display of the body after execution, along with the separated head if beheaded. It takes place in a public square to allegedly act as a deterrent.

Saudi Arabia’s Interior Ministry said the five men executed in Jizan were found guilty of forming an armed gang, armed robbery and the murder of a Saudi Arabian man. It is unclear if all five were convicted of the murder. Meanwhile, the sixth execution was carried out in Abha, where the Interior Ministry reported that a Saudi Arabian man was executed for murder.

"By the grace of God, the security authorities were able to apprehend the perpetrators. Investigation resulted in charging them with committing their crimes," the ministry's statement said, according to Reuters news agency. "A sharia verdict was issued against them affirming their indictment," it said. Their crimes were classified as among the most serious, according to sharia law.

   

Yesterday's executions take the figure of state killings in Saudi Arabia so far this year to at least 47 - an increase of 18 compared to this time last year, and a rise of 29 compared to the same period in 2011, according to Amnesty Inernational. There has also been an increase in executions for drug-related offences, with at least 12 executed for such offences so far this year.  Rates of executions in the Saudi Arabia are feared to be even higher than declared, as secret and unannounced executions have been reported.

Amnesty International Middle East and North Africa Director Philip Luther said: “Saudi Arabia’s increased use of this cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment is deeply disturbing and the authorities must halt what is a horrifying trend. The Kingdom must immediately establish a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing capital punishment.”

Saudi Arabia applies the death penalty for a wide range of crimes including “adultery”, armed robbery, “apostasy”, drug smuggling, kidnapping, rape, “witchcraft” and “sorcery”. Authorities  routinely flout international standards for fair trial and safeguards for defendants, who are often denied representation by lawyers and not informed of the progress of legal proceedings against them. They may be convicted solely on the basis of “confessions” obtained under torture or other ill-treatment.

Share: the cookbook from women in war-torn countries

Food that makes us feel at home, food to share and celebrate, food to sustain and nourish, food prepared in spite of war – food to celebrate our common humanity.  Next week, Women for Women International is launching “Share”, a cookbook that covers all of the above.  The book, edited by Alison Oakervee with the foreword by Meryl Streep, is a collection of recipes and stories from women living in war-torn countries in which Women for Women International (WFWI) work.

Women for Women International is an international charity founded by Zainab Salbi in 1993. Dedicated to working with survivors of conflict, the charity's core belief is that stronger women build stronger nations and that with adequate access to information and resources, socially excluded women can lead change toward stable societies.  WfWI supports women with financial and emotional aid, job-skills training, rights education and small business assistance in Afghanistan, Bosnia & Herzegovina, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Kosovo, Nigeria, Rwanda and South Sudan.

The uplifting book also has recipes from renowned international chefs such as Alice Waters, Maggie Beer, Rene Redzepi and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, and humanitarians such as Aung San Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela, Christine Amanpour, Desmond Tutu, Emma Thompson, Judi Dench, Richard Branson, Annie Lennox, Paul McCartney and Mia Farrow. Illustrated with stunning photography of the countries as well as the food, the book features  everyday dishes, family meals, and recipes perfect for sharing and celebrating. They range from traditional Afghani bichak pastries and Congolese sticky doughnuts, to spicy cashew and tomato soup, beef rendang and orange-scented almond cake. Interspersed throughout are inspiring stories from the women whose lives have been changed through the intervention of WfWI. All the royalties from the book will support WfWI's farming and food training initiatives, as well as provide micro-financing in the eight countries in which WfWI operates. The book officially launches on 16 May 2013, but is already on Amazon.

Afghanistan: young woman killed in front of 300 - Stop Violence against Women

Members of Afghan activist group Young Women for Change/copyright AP

Enough!  Stop violence against women in Afghanistan.


Afghanistan has been called the most dangerous place to be born a girl. Violence against girls and women is endemic.   From beatings behind closed doors to targeted attacks on brave women human rights defenders speaking out in public, anything goes. The majority of these crimes go unpunished. Instead, victims are often punished for committing 'moral crimes' like running from abusive relationships, attempting to protect their children from a violent father.

"I work mostly on cases where women have been accused of 'moral crimes', like running away from home after being abused, or where women want to free their children from an abusive father…,” says Masiha Faiz of Medica Mondiale.  “The police and courts don’t want us to defend these victims. They will hide the cases and try to send the women back without investigating. A woman’s word isn’t worth anything to them." 

The killing of a young Afghan woman by her father in front of a large crowd last week - on the grounds that she had “dishonoured” the family - is yet another example of the shocking violence against women and further proof that the authorities are failing to tackle it. 

The woman, who has two children, was shot dead last Monday (22 April) by her father in front of a crowd of about 300 people in the village of Kookchaheel, in the Aabkamari district of Badghis province in north-western Afghanistan, according to an Amnesty International report issued today.

The woman, named Halima, who was believed to be between 18 and 20 years old, was accused of running away with a cousin while her husband was in Iran. Her cousin returned Halima to her relatives ten days after running away with her. His whereabouts are unknown.

The killing came after three of the village’s religious leaders, allegedly linked to the Taliban, issued a fatwa (religious edict) that Halima should be killed publicly, after her father sought their advice about his daughter’s elopement. Halima’s father and the three religious council members who issued the fatwa have reportedly gone into hiding. The local police say they are investigating the case, but no one has yet been arrested in connection with the killing.

Amnesty International’s Afghanistan researcher Horia Mosadiq said:  “The deeply shocking practice of women being subjected to violent ‘punishments’, including killing, publicly or privately, must end. The authorities across Afghanistan must ensure that perpetrators of violence against women are brought to justice."

The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) documented more than 4,000 cases of violence against women in a six-month period last year (21 March-21 October 2012) - a rise of 28% compared with the same period in the previous year. The AIHRC has also criticised the Afghan police in Baghdis for recruiting suspected perpetrators of such violence, including a Taliban commander and his 20 men implicated in the stoning to death of 45-year-old widow Bibi Sanuber for alleged adultery in 2010.

In August 2009, Afghanistan passed the Elimination of Violence againstWomen Law, which criminalises forced marriage, rape, beatings and other acts of violence against women.

“Afghanistan’s law for the elimination of violence against women is a very positive step, but it will not be useful unless it is properly enforced - something we haven’t seen so far,” said AI's Mosadiq.

Amnesty is calling for people to ask their MPs to stand up with women in Afghanistan and pressure the UK Government to support practical steps to tackle the abuse – steps like supporting women’s shelters or facilitating specially trained domestic abuse representatives in the police force. 

With international troops leaving next year, peace negotiations with the Taliban and upcoming Presidential elections, it is a critical time for Afghanistan. “We need our Government to act now to ensure gains made since the fall of the Taliban are not lost, and that women are protected from violence in all its forms,” says Amnesty.

Sign the petition here.

Video Games: real racism in a virtual world

A fascinating new study in the current issue of the New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia uncovers blatant racism in video games.

I hadn’t thought of race in gaming, but considering video games’ widespread use and impact, it's an issue well worth addressing. And we should look at sexism in gaming, as well.

Researcher Kishonna L. Gray writes that in video-game culture, the default gamer is a white male. Those outside that privileged group are often marginalised, labelled ‘deviant’ and punished for their ‘deviance’. Women, ethnic minorities and people of colour are portrayed in a stereotypical manner, reinforcing notions of whiteness, blackness, racial hierarchies, masculinity and sexuality. 

As part of her research Gray observed, interacted with and interviewed African-American gamers playing Halo Reach®, Gears of War 2®, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2®, and Call of Duty: Black Ops® on Xbox Live over a period of eight months. She uncovered disturbing patterns of behaviour and a space racialised by the profiling of non-white or non-male gamers by their speech. In particular, she found that some gamers picked up on linguistic cues from others that suggested they might be black. The black gamer would then be confronted about his colour and provoked by the use of racist slurs. Other gamers would often join in with the insults. The episode would end with one of the gamers leaving or being kicked out of the game, or the offended gamer retaliating with his own volleys of profanity and racist language.

Most worryingly, such racism appears to be ‘normalised’ in the Xbox Live sessions she observed, with offended users rarely complaining. When Gray confronted the gamers who used racist language, they categorically denied being racist. They further defended themselves by claiming it was ‘just a game’, that the words they used were meaningless or that they would use the same offensive terms to refer to white people.
 
Gray observes that ‘the overt racism that used to permeate our society has been introduced in this virtual community.’ Although it is difficult to quantify, and may not be the norm across all of Xbox Live, the gamers of colour she interviewed were racially abused daily. They were also adamant that they did not experience similar treatment elsewhere.

Gray concludes that much of this abuse occurs and is allowed to continue because of the mistaken belief that black people, women and minorities are not gamers (in fact, I recently read that 42% of gamers are women); the games themselves continue to be created by and for white males. Until gaming changes considerably, it would appear that only white males can leave their real-world identities behind when they enter the virtual world of Xbox Live.

Black and women game creators, we need you!  Where are you?

International Roma Day - EU must end discrimination against Roma

A girl stands behind the foundations of a 2m-high wall separating her community from a non-Roma neighbourhood in Horea Street, Baia Mare, Romania, July 201/photo credits:Mugur Vărzariu

April 8 is International Roma Day – an occasion to celebrate Roma culture, but also to push European governments to guarantee basic rights to Roma.  The estimated six million Roma living in the European Union countries are one of Europe’s largest and most marginalized minorities. Across Europe, they are blatantly discriminated against and are victims of violent attacks while European Union’s governments are turning a blind eye and the EU is not forcing them to protect Roma.

To mark International Roma Day, Amnesty International is releasing a new briefing on discriminationagainst Roma. It says that Roma living in EU countries fall far below the national average on almost all human development indicators: disproportionately at risk of poverty, eviction and violent attack. Education levels are also far below average, only one out of seven young Roma adults has completed upper-secondary education. Education is actually segregated in the Czech Republic, Greece and Slovakia, a practice at odds with both national and EU laws prohibiting racial discrimination.

Forced evictions of Roma communities is regular practice in a range of European countries such as Romania, Italy, and France. Policies promoting or resulting in ethnic segregation of Romani communities have been also pursued.

More than 120 serious violent attacks against Roma occurred in Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Bulgaria between January 2008 and July 2012, including shootings, stabbings and arson attacks. State authorities, including the police, have in many instances failed to prevent or thoroughly investigate these attacks.

More than a decade ago, in 2000, the EU adopted the Race Equality Directive that prohibits discrimination based on race or ethnicity in the workplace, in education, and in access to goods and services, housing and health care. As the EU’s executive body, the European Commission is empowered to act against EU member states when they fail to comply with EU law. However, so far this has never happened.

Amnesty’s briefing “Human Rights here. Roma Rights Now. A wake-up call for the European Union" insists that the EU take decisive action to tackle discrimination against Roma in Europe.

 “The EU must implement immediately the considerable measures at its disposal to sanction governments that are failing to tackle discrimination and violence against Roma. Such practices run counter to EU law and the principles of liberty, democracy and respect for human rights it was founded on,” says AI Europe and Central Asia Programme Director John Dalhuisen

 “What we see is the Commission sanctioning countries on technical issues in areas of transport and taxation, for example, but failing to grapple with issues which are of vital importance to millions of people, such as forced evictions, segregation and hate-motivated attacks.

The Nobel Peace Prize winning EU has the power to end discriminatory practices that are rife in many of its member States. It must use these now.”

Rwanda's Tea of Hope

On the road to Kitabi/Veronique Mistiaen

Etienne, the young agronomist who drives me around Rwanda is full of hope.  I am in the country to look at how the tea industry is helping rebuild the economy and healing genocidal wounds, and Etienne is one of the experts accompanying me on the trip.

I love this assignment because Rwanda is one of the most exhilaratingly beautiful countries I know, and also because the mood is so much more positive than when I was last there some ten years ago.  At the time, the country was still in shock and deeply scarred by the 1994 genocide in which nearly 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were butchered by Hutu soldiers and militia. Now the country has one of Africa’s fastest growing economies, a Parliament with a majority of women and a strong focus on health and education.

“Not just in Kigali (the capital), but also in the rural areas, life has started again. We would never have thought it could be possible,” Etienne says. “We used to be the country of a thousand problems; now we are the country of a thousand solutions.”  

 

Kitabi tea gardens/Veronique Mistiaen

We have now reached the Kitabi tea gardens – the highest in Rwanda and perhaps in the world.  Hills after hills are covered in a dense carpet of tender green and the breeze smells of fresh apples. Bordering the gardens is the vast Nyungwe National Park, one of Africa’s largest and oldest virgin equatorial forests –a refuge for chimpanzees, hundreds of species of birds and trees and myriad exotic flowers. And beyond the impenetrable forest lies an immense inland sea - Lake Kivu.

On the roller-coast road from Butare (the second city in Rwanda) to Kitabi, which tumbled through lush banana fields, patches of silvery eucalyptus and red earth, Etienne kept pointing excitedly: “Look, all the huts now have tin roofs. You won’t see thatched roofs in Rwanda any longer.”  Or  “Look, everyone is wearing shoes. No one is walking barefoot any longer.”  And he says that every family in the countryside has received a cow so that its milk can feed the children and its droppings can fertilize the soil. These policies were devised by president Kagame to help lift the countryside out of poverty and foster peace and reconciliation, he explains.

 I know that not everyone shares Etienne’s enthusiasm for Kagame’s governing style, which some call dictatorial. And the sprawling refugee camp we passed on the way reminds us of the savage conflicts at the border, which Kagame has been accused of inflaming.  But I am in Rwanda to look at tea and there, the government’s work with tea owners, NGOs and even the British company Taylors of Harrogate, has been successful. 

Tea is vital in this hilly, densely populated country where about 90% of the inhabitants live in the countryside. Rwandan tea is cultivated on steep slopes at high altitude on an acidic soil where little else grows, so it is the only source of revenues for many farmers and their families.   The crop is now the country’s fourth biggest export after tourism, minerals and coffee. Last year, it earned the country $59m and provided jobs for some 100,000 families, according to the agriculture department. And prosperity helps maintain peace.

 

With Etienne at the Kitabi tea gardens

One of the causes of war is poverty – on top of social inequalities, says Ndambe Nzaramba of the National Agricultural Export Development Board.  “The government cannot help someone with a head full of images - that is the job of doctors and psychologists - but it can help you put food on the table, give you an education and give you hope. Orphans and victims are more likely to forgive if they are not hurting financially.” 

But even more important than boosting people’s income, the tea gardens are helping people to learn to live alongside one another again, explains Dr Nzaramba.  “Farmers are organized in cooperatives, so innocent and guilty, victim and killer work alongside each others all day long in the fields and in the factories. They to talk, they share the same problems, they plan together, they work for the good of the cooperative – and that’s how the healing happens.”

Read my story about tea and hope in the April issue of Reader’s Digest here.

Peace-building course in Rwanda helps next generation learn from the past

Ceremony at the Kigali's Genocide Memorial/courtesy of the Aegis Trust

On a recent reporting trip to Rwanda, I spent a day at the Kigali’s Genocide Memorial Centre. It is a harrowing and moving place of remembrance and learning for Rwandans and international visitors, built on the mass graves of 250,000 people killed there during the genocide.

I had first visited the Genocide Memorial in April 2004 for its inauguration and events marking the 10^th anniversary of the 1994 genocide during which Hutus soldiers and militias killed nearly one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

The country was still in ruins and the scars of the genocide were visible everywhere. Survivors told me horrific stories and I was wondering how they would ever manage to heal and go on living. I thought the country would never recover from something like that.

But 19 after the genocide, the country is recovering. Rwanda's is the fastest-growing economy in Africa. Its infrastructure is rapidly expanding and so is access to health and education. The government has adopted policies of peace and reconciliation, encouraging people to leave behind their divisive ethnic identities and think themselves simply as Rwandans. The perpetrators have been tried at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania, and in the Gacaca courts, the traditional village courts in Rwanda.  You can see convicts in pink jumpsuits all over the country, toiling in the fields and on the roadsides, working for the public good, and that helps the nation to mend.

On the surface, Rwanda is healing and has moved on from its terrible past.  But at the Genocide Memorial, I was told there are worrying signs that children who were not even born during the genocide are perpetuating the ethnic prejudices of their parents.

Over 60% of the Rwanda’s population is under the age of 24, so their understanding of the genocide is shaped by their families and communities. “There are resentments and ideologies that children learn from their parents and wider communities, and these feelings pose a threat to long-term stability,” says Dr. James Smith, CEO of the Aegis Trust, the British charity which runs the Genocide Memorial with the Rwandan government.

The organization believes that the next five to ten years are crucial to reach this generation to help safeguard Rwanda against internal strife.  It has designed, alongside the local organization “Institute of Research and Dialogue for Peace” (IRDP), a peace-building course where young people who were not born during the genocide or were very young can learn how hatred and prejudice can lead to mass violence and why peace and reconciliation – even when it may seem difficult and at times impossible – is vital for their personal future and that of their country. 

Peace-building course at the Kigali Genocide Memorial/Veronique Mistiaen

This is very important, says Mona Weissmark, Associate Professor of Psychology at Northwestern University Feinberg Medical School and an expert in the inter-generational impact of injustice.  “If left unresolved, the trauma of any atrocity inflicted on an ethnic group is then passed along to the next generation and those in turn lead to entrenched ethnic tensions and group conflicts.”   She is the author of  “Justice Matters: Legacies of the Holocaust and World War II”, which explores the psychology of hatred and ethnic resentments passed from generation to generation.  In the face of unjust treatment, says Weissmark, herself the daughter of Holocaust survivors, the natural response is resentment and deep anger - and a desire for revenge. While legal systems offer a structured means for redressing injustice, it often does not redress the emotional pain, which, left unresolved, is then passed along to the next generation - leading to entrenched ethnic tension and group conflict.

I’ve written a piece for the Guardian on the Genocide Memorial’s peace-building programme.  You can read it here.