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Izyan
05-30-2008, 01:45 PM
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Head of state and government George W. Bush
Death penalty retentionist
Population 303.9 million
Life expectancy 77.9 years
Under-5 mortality (m/f) 8/8 per 1,000

The US authorities continued to hold hundreds of foreign nationals at the US Naval Base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, although more than 100 were transferred out of the facility during the year. Detainees in Guantánamo were held indefinitely, the vast majority of them without charge, and effectively without recourse to the US courts to challenge the legality of their detention. Most detainees in Guantánamo were held in isolation in maximum security facilities, heightening concerns for their physical and mental health. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) programme of secret detention and interrogation was re-authorized by President Bush in July. In December, the Director of the CIA revealed that the agency had destroyed videotapes of detainee interrogations.

Soldiers refusing to serve in Iraq on grounds of conscience were imprisoned. Prisoners continued to experience ill-treatment at the hands of police officers and prison guards. Dozens of people died after police used tasers (electro-shock weapons) against them. There were serious failings in state, local and federal measures to address sexual violence against Native American women. Discrimination remained a concern in a variety of areas, including policing practices, the operation of the criminal justice system and housing rights. There were 42 executions during the year. In late September, the decision of the Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of lethal injections led to a de facto moratorium on executions by this method. In December, New Jersey became the first US state in more than four decades to legislate to abolish the death penalty.

‘War on terror’
For the sixth year running, the US authorities continued to hold foreign nationals they had designated “enemy combatants” in indefinite military detention without charge at Guantánamo Bay. At the end of 2007, there were approximately 275 detainees held in Guantánamo. During the year, more than 100 detainees were transferred to their home countries for release or continued detention. Four detainees, described by the Pentagon as “dangerous terror suspects”, were transferred to Guantánamo. One person described by the Pentagon as a “high-level member of al-Qa’ida” was transferred to the base from CIA custody.

Fourteen men described by the US authorities as “high value” detainees and transferred to Guantánamo in September 2006 for the stated purpose of standing trial had yet to be charged by the end of 2007. The men had spent up to four and half years in secret CIA custody prior to the transfer and their cases had been used by the administration to obtain the Military Commissions Act of 2006 (MCA). On 9 August, the Pentagon announced that all 14 had been affirmed as “enemy combatants” by the Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs), panels of military officers able to rely on secret and coerced information in making their decisions. The CSRTs for the 14 men were held behind closed doors on the grounds that the detainees had classified information about the CIA secret detention programme, including interrogation techniques, conditions of detention and the location of CIA detention facilities. Allegations made by some of the men of torture in CIA custody were censored from the CSRT transcripts. By the end of 2007, only one of the 14 had had access to legal counsel for the narrow judicial review of the CSRT decisions provided for in the Detainee Treatment Act (2005). No such review of any of the Guantánamo detentions had been conducted by the end of the year.

On 20 February, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that provisions of the MCA stripping the courts of the jurisdiction to consider habeas corpus petitions applied to all detainees held in Guantánamo “without exception”. On 2 April, the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal against this ruling. However, on 29 June, the Supreme Court took the historically unusual step of vacating its 2 April order and agreeing to hear the case after lawyers for detainees filed new information about the inadequacy of the CSRT scheme. The new information was provided by a military officer who had been involved in CSRT reviews. The Court’s ruling was pending at the end of 2007.

Ali al-Marri, a Qatari national resident in the USA who was designated an “enemy combatant” in June 2003 by President Bush, remained in indefinite military detention on the US mainland at the end of the year. In June, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled that the MCA did not apply to Ali al-Marri’s case and ruled that his military detention “must cease”. However, the government successfully sought a rehearing in front of the full Fourth Circuit court; a ruling was pending at the end of the year. Military commission proceedings resumed at Guantánamo.
In March, Australian national David Hicks became the first – and by the end of the year, only – Guantánamo detainee to be convicted by the USA. He pleaded guilty under the MCA to one charge of “providing material support for terrorism”. A panel of military officers recommended seven years in prison, but six years and three months of the sentence was suspended under the terms of a pre-trial agreement. David Hicks was transferred out of Guantánamo in May to serve the remainder of his nine-month sentence in Australia. He was released from Yatala prison in Adelaide on 29 December.
Three other Guantánamo detainees were facing charges at the end of the year, including two who were under 18 years old when they were taken into custody.

Conditions of detention in Guantánamo and their impact on the health of detainees already distressed by the indefinite nature of their detention continued to cause serious concern. One detainee, a Saudi Arabian national, was reported to have committed suicide on 30 May. By mid-January, 165 detainees had been transferred to Camp 6 where they were confined in individual steel cells with no external windows for at least 22 hours a day. Contrary to international standards, the cells have no access to natural light or air, and are lit 24 hours a day by fluorescent lighting. Around 100 other detainees were held in Camp 5, where detainees have been confined for up to 24 hours a day in small cells with some access to natural light, although with no view to the outside. Some 20 more detainees were believed to be held in Camp Echo, where detainees are held for between 23 and 24 hours a day in windowless cells with no natural light.

On 20 July, President Bush issued an executive order that the programme of secret detention and interrogation operated by the CIA would comply with Article 3 common to the four Geneva Conventions of 1949. Amnesty International wrote to President Bush emphasizing that if the CIA programme received detainees as it had before, he would have re-authorized the international crime of enforced disappearance. No reply had been received by the end of the year.

One detainee, ‘Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, was reported to have been transferred from CIA custody to Guantánamo during the year. The Pentagon announced the transfer on 27 April, but gave no details about when he was detained or where he had been held before the transfer. In June, Amnesty International and five other human rights organizations published a list of more than 36 individuals believed to have been detained in the CIA programme whose fate and whereabouts remained unknown.

In December, the Director of the CIA revealed that in 2005 the agency had destroyed videotapes of interrogations conducted in 2002 of detainees held in secret custody. It was reported that the tapes depicted hundreds of hours of interrogations of Abu Zubaydah and ‘Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, two of the “high-value” detainees transferred to Guantánamo in September 2006. Both alleged at their CSRTs in 2007 that they had been tortured in CIA custody. Abu Zubaydah was among those reported to have been subjected to “waterboarding” (simulated drowning).

Hundreds of people remained in US custody in Afghanistan and Iraq. There were also concerns about killings in Iraq by private US contractors (see Afghanistan and Iraq entries).

Torture and other ill-treatment
There were reports of ill-treatment in jails and police custody on the US mainland, often involving cruel use of restraints or electro-shock weapons.

Sixty-nine people died after being shocked with tasers, bringing to nearly 300 the number of such deaths since 2001. Many of those who died were subjected to multiple shocks or had health problems which could have made them more susceptible to the adverse effects of tasers. Although such deaths are commonly attributed to factors such as drug intoxication, medical examiners have concluded that taser shocks caused or contributed to a number of deaths. The vast majority of those who died were unarmed and did not pose a serious threat when they were electro-shocked. Many police departments continued to authorize the use of tasers in a wide range of situations, including against unarmed resisters or people who refused to comply with police commands. Amnesty International presented its concerns to a Justice Department inquiry into taser deaths and reiterated its call on the US authorities to suspend the use of tasers and other stun weapons, pending the results of a rigorous, independent inquiry, or to limit their use to situations where officers would otherwise be justified in using deadly force.

Thousands of prisoners continued to be confined in long-term isolation, in high-security units where conditions sometimes amounted to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox, both inmates of the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, remained in extended isolation. For more than 30 years, they had been confined alone to small cells for 23 hours a day with only three hours of outdoor exercise a week. Both men were reportedly suffering from serious health problems as a result of their conditions. A lawsuit claiming the prisoners’ treatment was unconstitutional remained pending at the end of the year.
The two men had originally been placed in “lockdown” after being accused of involvement in the killing of a guard during a prison riot in 1972, charges they have always denied. Amnesty International remained concerned that their long-term isolation was based, at least in part, on their past political activism in prison, including membership of the Black Panther Party (a black radical organization).

Prisoners of conscience
Army Specialist Mark Lee Wilkerson served three and a half months in jail after being sentenced to seven months’ imprisonment for refusing to serve in Iraq on conscientious grounds. Another conscientious objector to the Iraq war, US Army Medic Agustín Aguayo, was sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment on similar grounds. He was released after one month as time spent in custody awaiting trial was taken into consideration. Several other soldiers refusing to serve in Iraq because of their opposition to the war faced possible prosecution at the end of the year.

Justice system
Jose Padilla, a US citizen previously held for more than three years without charge or trial in US military custody as an “enemy combatant”, was convicted in a federal civilian court in August of conspiracy to provide material support for terrorism. His sentencing was pending at the end of the year. The court dismissed his lawyers’ claims that torture and other ill-treatment in military custody had left him unfit to stand trial. The government declined to introduce information obtained during his military detention, which may have been open to challenge on the grounds that it was coerced. Amnesty International remained concerned about the lack of accountability for his three years of unlawful treatment, and the damage done to his right to be presumed innocent by the government repeatedly and publicly branding him a “dangerous terrorist”.

Gary Tyler, an African American, remained in prison in Louisana for the murder of a white schoolboy during a racially charged incident in 1974. During his 33 years in prison, Gary Tyler, who was 16 at the time of the killing, has consistently maintained his innocence. He was convicted by an all-white jury following a trial which was seriously flawed. Appeals to the outgoing state governor to grant him a pardon were unsuccessful.

In August an oral hearing took place in the case of five Cuban nationals convicted in Miami in June 2001 of conspiring to act as agents of the Republic of Cuba and other charges (USA v Gerardo Hernandez et al). Grounds for the appeal included insufficient evidence and alleged improper statements by the prosecution during the trial. The appeal court’s decision was pending at the end of 2007. The US government continued to refuse to grant the wives of two of the prisoners visas to visit them in prison.

Discrimination
Continuing concerns about discrimination in the USA included racial disparities in police stops and searches and other areas of the criminal justice system, and the treatment of non-US nationals held in the context of the “war on terror” (see above).

Mychal Bell was tried in July – on charges of attempted second-degree murder – in an adult court, despite being a minor at the time of the alleged offence. The case raised concerns about disparities in the treatment of black and white teenagers. He was one of six black high school students in Jena, Louisiana, who were charged with assaulting a white student in December 2006 during a period of racial tension triggered when white students hung three nooses from a tree in the high school grounds. The black students were originally charged with attempted second-degree murder, which could have put them in prison for decades. Charges against the defendants were later reduced and Mychal Bell was transferred to a juvenile court, following civil rights demonstrations.

Death penalty
A total of 42 prisoners were put to death in the USA during the year, bringing to 1,099 the total number of executions carried out since the US Supreme Court lifted a moratorium on the death penalty in 1976. This represented the lowest annual judicial death toll in the USA since 1994 and was in part due to the halt in executions that followed the Supreme Court’s announcement on 25 September that it would consider a challenge to the three-chemical lethal injection process used in Kentucky, and in most other states that use this method.

In June, the Supreme Court blocked the execution of Scott Panetti, a Texas death row inmate suffering from severe delusions. The ruling found that the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit had employed a “flawed” and “too restrictive” interpretation of the Supreme Court’s 1986 ruling affirming that the execution of an insane prisoner is unconstitutional. The ruling had the potential to provide additional protection for condemned prisoners suffering from serious mental illness.

South Dakota carried out its first execution since April 1947. Elijah Page was executed for a murder committed in 2000 when he was 18 years old and emerging from a childhood of deprivation and abuse. He had given up his appeals. His execution meant that 34 states and the federal government had conducted at least one execution since 1976.

On 2 January, the New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission – set up by the state legislature in 2006 to study all aspects of capital punishment in New Jersey – released its final report in which it recommended abolition of the death penalty. In December New Jersey became the first US state since 1965 to legislate to abolish the death penalty when the legislature passed, and the governor signed, legislation replacing capital punishment with life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

New York effectively became the 13th abolitionist state in the USA in October when its highest court refused to make an exception to its 2004 ruling finding the state’s death penalty statute unconstitutional. The challenge to that ruling had been brought by the state in the case of the last person left on New York’s death row.

More than 120 people have been released from death rows in the USA since 1975 on the grounds of innocence.

Curtis Edward McCarty, who had spent 21 years in prison, 16 of them on Oklahoma’s death row, was released in May after a federal judge ordered that the charges against him be dismissed. DNA evidence helped to exonerate him, and the judge ruled that the case against him had been tainted by the questionable testimony of a discredited former police chemist.
In December, Michael McCormick was acquitted at his retrial for a murder for which he had spent 16 years on death row in Tennessee.
In December, prosecutors dismissed all charges against Johnathan Hoffman in the crime for which he had served nearly a decade on death row in North Carolina.
Joseph Nichols was executed in Texas on 7 March for the murder of Claude Shaffer in 1980. His co-defendant, Willie Williams, who had been tried first, had pleaded guilty and been executed in 1995. At the trial of Joseph Nichols, the state argued that regardless of the fact that Willie Williams fired the fatal shot, Joseph Nichols was guilty under Texas’ “law of parties”, under which the distinction between principal actor and accomplice in a crime is abolished and each may be held equally culpable. The jury was unable to reach a sentencing verdict and Joseph Nichols was retried. This time the prosecution argued that Joseph Nichols had fired the fatal shot and the jury voted for a death sentence.
Philip Workman was executed in Tennessee on 9 May despite compelling evidence that a key state witness lied at the trial and that the police officer he was convicted of killing may have been accidentally shot by a fellow officer. Philip Workman had been on death row for 25 years.
On 16 July, less than 24 hours before he was due to be put to death, Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis received a stay of execution from the state Board of Pardons and Paroles. He had been on death row for more than 15 years for the murder of a police officer. There was no physical evidence against him and the weapon used in the crime was never found. The case against him consisted entirely of witness testimony, most of which had subsequently been recanted. On 3 August, the Georgia Supreme Court granted an extraordinary appeal and agreed to hear his case for a new trial. A decision was pending at the end of 2007.
Violence against women
Native American and Alaska Native American women continued to suffer disproportionately high levels of rape and sexual violence, but faced barriers accessing justice. This was due to the complex maze of tribal, state and federal jurisdictions, which allowed perpetrators to escape justice; underfunding by the government of key services; and failure at state and federal level to pursue cases. Recommendations by Congress for increased funding to tackle some of these concerns were pending government approval at the end of the year.

Housing rights – Hurricane Katrina
Thousands of evacuees from Gulf Coast areas affected by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 remained displaced with little prospect of returning to their homes. Many continued to live in precarious situations in temporary accommodation throughout the USA, without work or access to their former support networks.

Civil rights and community groups expressed concern about proposals to demolish a large proportion of the public housing units in New Orleans even though they suffered only minor flood damage and could reportedly be repaired and rehabilitated. It was feared that the absence of affordable housing had created a demographic shift in which poor, largely African American, communities were unable to return to their homes.
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Izyan
05-30-2008, 02:21 PM
ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN
Head of State Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran: Ayatollah Sayed ‘Ali Khamenei
Head of government President: Dr Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Death penalty retentionist
Population 71.2 million
Life expectancy 70.2 years
Under-5 mortality (m/f) 32/31 per 1,000
Adult literacy 82.4 per cent

The authorities continued to suppress dissent. Journalists, writers, scholars, and women’s rights and community activists were subject to arbitrary arrest, travel bans, closure of their NGOs and harassment. Armed opposition, mainly by Kurdish and Baluchi groups, continued, as did state repression of Iran’s minority communities. Discrimination against women remained entrenched in law and practice. Torture and other ill-treatment were widespread in prisons and detention centres. A security clampdown announced in April was marked by a sharp rise in executions; at least 335 people were executed, among them seven child offenders. Sentences of stoning to death, amputation and flogging continued to be passed and carried out.

Background
Iran’s uranium enrichment programme continued to be a focus of international tension. Israeli and US authorities refused to rule out the possibility of military action against Iran. In March, the UN Security Council imposed further sanctions. In September, the US government designated Iran’s Revolutionary Guards a “terrorist organization” for allegedly supporting insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. In December, US intelligence agencies published a report stating that Iran had ended any nuclear weapons programme in 2003. The same month the UN General Assembly condemned the human rights situation in Iran.

Ayatollah Meshkini, Head of the Assembly of Experts that oversees the appointment of the Supreme Leader, died in July. He was replaced by former President Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Increasing numbers of Iranians faced poverty as the economic situation deteriorated. In June rioting followed the introduction of petrol rationing. A three-month strike by workers at the Haft Tapeh Sugar Plant in Khuzestan Province over unpaid wages and benefits was forcibly broken up by security forces in October. Haft Tapeh and other workers and teachers staged large demonstrations, and arrests were made.

Freedom of expression
Vaguely worded laws and harsh practices resulted in widespread repression of peaceful dissent. Demonstrations frequently led to mass arrests and unfair trials. The authorities maintained tight restrictions on internet access. Journalists, academics and webloggers, including some dual nationals, were detained and sentenced to prison or flogging and several publications were closed down. In April, the Minister of Intelligence, Gholam Hossein Eje’i, publicly accused students and the women’s movement of being part of an attempt to bring about the “soft overthrow” of the Iranian government.

Ali Farahbakhsh, a journalist, was granted an early conditional release in October after 11 months in detention. He was convicted of “espionage” and “receiving money from foreigners” in connection with his attendance at a media conference in Thailand.
Human rights defenders
Independent human rights groups and other NGOs continued to face long delays, often lasting years, in obtaining official registration, leaving them at risk of closure for carrying out illegal activities. Students campaigning for greater respect for human rights faced reprisals, including arbitrary arrest and torture. Individual human rights defenders were persecuted for their work; some were prisoners of conscience.

Emaddedin Baghi, Head of the Association for the Defence of Prisoners and a leading campaigner against the death penalty, was detained in October following a summons relating to accusations of “endangering national security”. While the family was posting bail, they were told that he now had to serve a suspended sentence imposed in 2003, including for “printing lies”. Another three-year prison term imposed on him in July 2007 for “propaganda in favour of opponents”, arising from his work on behalf of Iranian Ahwazi Arabs sentenced to death after unfair trials, was pending appeal. His wife, Fatemeh Kamali Ahmad Sarahi, and daughter, Maryam Baghi, were given three-year suspended prison sentences in October for “meeting and colluding with the aim of disrupting national security” after attending a human rights workshop in Dubai in 2004. In December he suffered a seizure while in custody.
Mansour Ossanlu, head of the Union of Workers of the Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company, was detained in July after visiting Europe to gather support for the independent trade union movement in Iran. Following international protests he received medical treatment for an eye injury reportedly sustained during a dispute with prison officials during an earlier detention. In October an appeals court upheld a five-year prison sentence imposed in February.
Discrimination against women
Women continued to face widespread discrimination in law and practice. Thousands were arrested for non-compliance with the obligatory dress code.

Activists working with the Campaign for Equality, which aims to collect a million signatures in Iran calling for an end to legalized discrimination against women, faced harassment and arrest. In August, Nasim Sarabandi and Fatemeh Dehdashti were sentenced to six months’ imprisonment, suspended for two years, for “acting against national security through the spread of propaganda against the system”. They were the first people to be tried and sentenced for collecting signatures. At the end of the year, four campaign activists remained in detention without charge or trial – Ronak Safarzadeh and Hana Abdi, Kurdish women who were detained in Sanandaj in October and November respectively; and Maryam Hosseinkhah and Jelveh Javaheri, who were detained in Tehran in connection with their work editing the campaign’s website. The authorities persistently filtered the website, making access difficult.

Women’s rights defender Delaram Ali, who had been arrested in June 2006 following a peaceful demonstration demanding greater respect for women’s rights, had her 30-month prison sentence temporarily postponed following local and international campaigning. In March, 33 women activists were arrested outside Tehran’s Revolutionary Court during a protest against the trial of five women charged in connection with the June 2006 demonstration. All were released, but some faced trial.

Repression of minorities
Repression continued of Iran’s ethnic minorities, who maintained their campaigning for greater recognition of their cultural and political rights.

Arabs
At least eight Iranian Ahwazi Arabs were executed after being convicted in connection with bomb explosions in Khuzestan in 2005. At least 17 other Iranian Arabs were believed to be facing execution after unfair trials related to the bombings. Scores, possibly hundreds, of Ahwazi Arabs were reportedly arrested in April, in advance of the anniversary of riots in 2005 protesting against a letter allegedly written by a presidential adviser, who denied its authenticity, which set out policies for the reduction of the Arab population of Khuzestan.

In April, journalist Mohammad Hassan Fallahiya was sentenced to three years in prison with hard labour for writing articles critical of the government and for allegedly contacting opposition groups based outside Iran. He was detained in November 2006 and denied access to a lawyer throughout the judicial process. His family said the Evin Prison authorities refused to allow them to take him medicines required to treat heart and blood disorders, endangering his life.
Azerbaijanis
Hundreds of Iranian Azerbaijani activists were arrested in connection with a peaceful demonstration on International Mother Language Day, 21 February. The demonstrators called for their own language to be used in schools and other education institutions in the areas of north-west Iran where most Iranian Azerbaijanis reside.

Prisoner of conscience Saleh Kamrani, a lawyer and human rights defender, was detained in Evin Prison between August and December. In September 2006 he had been sentenced to a year in prison – suspended for five years – for “spreading propaganda against the system”. It was unclear whether his arrest was connected to this sentence.
Baluchis
Jondallah, a Baluchi armed group, carried out attacks on Iranian officials, including bombing a bus carrying Revolutionary Guards in February. It also took hostages, at least one of whom was killed.

Nasrollah Shanbeh-zehi was arrested following the bus bombing. Five days later he was publicly executed following a summary trial.
Ya’qub Mehrnehad, head of the Voice of Justice Young People’s Society, a recognized NGO, was detained in April in Zahedan, initially by the Ministry of Intelligence, following a meeting in the Provincial Office of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance that the Governor of Zahedan reportedly attended. He remained in Zahedan Prison at the end of the year, without access to a lawyer. He may have been tortured.
In May police shot dead Roya Sarani, an 11-year-old Baluchi girl, while she was being driven home from school by her father in Zahedan. The authorities reportedly put pressure on her family to hold a small funeral. No official investigation was believed to have been held into her killing.
Kurds
Members of the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (Partiya Jiyana Azadîya Kurdistanê, PJAK) attacked Iranian forces, who shelled parts of northern Iraq where they believed PJAK forces were hiding. Numerous Kurds were arrested, many accused of membership of, or contact with, proscribed groups. Kurdish journalists and human rights defenders were particularly at risk of harassment and detention.

Mohammad Sadiq Kabudvand, head of the Human Rights Organization of Kurdistan (HROK) and editor of the banned weekly newspaper Payam-e Mardom, was detained in July apparently for “acting against national security”, “propaganda against the system” and “co-operating with groups opposed to the system”, although he was not formally charged. He complained of poor prison conditions and ill-treatment, including denial of access to the toilet, which was apparently intended to force other leading HROK members to turn themselves in to security officials for questioning.
Religious minorities
Baha’is throughout the country continued to face persecution on account of their religion. At least 13 Baha’is were arrested in at least 10 cities and were subject to harassment and discriminatory practices, such as denial of access to higher education, bank loans and pension payments. Nine Baha’i cemeteries were desecrated.

In August and November, clashes involving Sufis resulted in scores of injuries and, in November, more than 100 arrests. In September, a couple – a Christian convert who married a Christian woman in an Islamic ceremony – were reportedly flogged in Gohar Dasht in connection with their faith.

Torture and other ill-treatment
Torture and other ill-treatment were common in many prisons and detention centres, facilitated by prolonged pre-charge detention and denial of access to lawyers and family. At least two people died in custody, possibly as a result of torture. Torturers were rarely if ever held to account for their crimes.

In May, four students and editors-in-chief of student publications arrested in May at Amir Kabir Polytechnic were tortured, according to their families. The abuse allegedly included 24-hour interrogation sessions, sleep deprivation, beatings with cables and fists, and threats to prisoners and their families. The detainees were arrested in connection with articles deemed by university officials to “insult Islamic sanctities”. In July, the families of the detained students sent an open letter to Ayatollah Shahroudi, Head of the Judiciary, describing the alleged torture.
Zahra Bani Yaghoub, a medical graduate, died in custody in Hamadan in October. She was arrested for walking in a park with her fiancé and died in detention the next day. The authorities said she had hanged herself. Her family said that she was in good spirits when they spoke to her on the phone half an hour before she was found dead. A report in November indicated that the head of the detention centre had been detained, but was then released on bail and remained in office.
In November, a retrial was ordered in the case of the 2003 death in custody of Zahra Kazemi, a Canadian-Iranian photojournalist. She was tortured to death, but the only person prosecuted was acquitted in 2004, a decision upheld in 2005. She had been arrested for taking photographs outside Evin Prison.
Death penalty
The number of executions rose sharply in 2007. Amnesty International received reports that at least 335 people were executed, although the true figure was almost certainly higher. Some people were executed in public, often in multiple hangings. Death sentences were imposed for a wide range of crimes, including drug smuggling, armed robbery, murder, espionage, political violence and sexual offences. A “special” court in eastern Iran established in May 2006 to reduce the time between the crime and the punishment led to a marked rise in the number of Baluchis executed.

Child offenders
At least seven people aged under 18 at the time of the crime were executed and at least 75 other child offenders remained on death row. Following domestic and international protests, the death sentences of at least two child offenders – Sina Paymard and Nazanin Fatehi – were commuted.

Makwan Moloudzadeh, an Iranian Kurdish child offender, was executed in December following a grossly flawed trial for three rapes he allegedly committed at the age of 13, eight years earlier. In sentencing him to death, the judge relied on his “knowledge” that the offence had occurred and that Makwan Moloudzadeh had reached puberty at the time of the crime and so could be tried and sentenced as an adult.
Execution by stoning
Ja’far Kiani was stoned to death in Takestan in July, despite an order from the Head of the Judiciary granting a temporary stay of execution. The judge in the case was later said by officials to have been “mistaken”. At least nine women, including Ja’far Kiani’s co-defendant, and two men remained at risk of stoning. In November, judicial officials said that a new version of the Penal Code had been sent to the Majles for approval and that, if approved, it would provide for the possibility of commuting stoning sentences.

Cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments
Sentences of flogging and amputation continued to be passed and implemented.

In November, Soghra Mola’i was flogged 80 times for “illicit relations” after her sentence of death by stoning was overturned following a retrial. She remained in prison to serve a sentence for involvement in the murder of her husband.
At least eight people had their fingers or hand amputated after conviction of theft.
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Izyan
05-30-2008, 02:24 PM
FRENCH REPUBLIC
Head of State Nicolas Sarkozy (replaced Jacques Chirac in May)
Head of government François Fillon (replaced Dominique de Villepin in May)
Death penalty abolitionist for all crimes
Population 60.9 million
Life expectancy 80.2 years
Under-5 mortality (m/f) 6/5 per 1,000

The rights of asylum-seekers and refugees were violated and undermined. Allegations of police ill-treatment continued. The authorities took steps to ensure that the right to adequate housing was legally enforceable.

Migration, refugees and asylum-seekers
Following the election in May of a new government, responsibility for refugee protection, including the oversight of the government agency that determines the status of refugees (OFPRA), was transferred to the newly created Ministry for Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Co-Development. The move could lead to violations of the rights of asylum-seekers and refugees by blurring the distinction between immigration policy and asylum obligations.

A new law on immigration, integration and asylum entered into force on 21 November. It restricts the right to family reunification and introduces DNA testing to verify family relationships. It was widely criticized on human rights grounds, including by the National Ethics Advisory Committee.

On 26 April the European Court of Human Rights found that France had violated the principle of non-refoulement and the right to an effective national remedy by ruling to return Asebeha Gebremedhin, an Eritrean asylum-seeker, to Eritrea from the French border in 2005 before his asylum appeal had been heard. The Court noted the obligation under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to provide a right of appeal with suspensive effect before returning someone to a country where they may be at risk of torture or other serious ill-treatment. The new immigration bill introduces a suspensive right of appeal (ie that prevents the individual from being returned until the appeal decision is made) but includes substantial restrictions, including a 48-hour time limit on lodging an appeal and the possibility for the judge to reject the appeal without interviewing the asylum-seeker in person if the appeal is considered manifestly ill-founded.
On 11 May, the UN Committee against Torture (CAT) found that France had violated the Convention against Torture when it expelled an asylum-seeker to Tunisia under an accelerated asylum procedure. Adel Tebourski had been forcibly returned from France to Tunisia in August 2006 after his release from prison. He had made a claim for asylum after he was stripped of his dual French-Tunisian nationality, but his claim was rejected under the accelerated procedure. He was returned to Tunisia before his appeal had been heard and despite a request from the CAT for France to suspend his expulsion while the Committee examined his case.
On 3 June Tunisian asylum-seeker Houssine Tarkhani was forcibly returned from France to Tunisia. In May, he had been questioned by a judge in relation to suspected terrorism-related activities, but was never charged with any criminal offence. When he discovered the nature of the suspicions against him, he applied for asylum. His application was rejected under the accelerated procedure. He lodged an appeal with the Refugee Appeals Commission, but was forcibly returned to Tunisia before a decision was made. On arrival in Tunisia, Houssine Tarkhani was detained and, according to reports, taken to the State Security Department in Tunis where he was held incommunicado and tortured before being charged with several broadly defined terrorism offences.

Ill-treatment by police
Allegations of police ill-treatment were made throughout the year. Internal investigatory bodies and criminal courts failed to deal with complaints of human rights violations perpetrated by law enforcement officials with the thoroughness, promptness or impartiality that international law requires.

In August, Albertine Sow lodged a complaint with the National Commission on Ethics and Security relating to an incident in August 2006 when she was allegedly ill-treated by police officers while six months pregnant. A criminal complaint by her against the police officers had been closed without investigation by the public prosecutor in November 2006, despite numerous witness testimonies and medical reports supporting her complaint. Charges against Albertine Sow and her brother Jean-Pierre Yenga Fele for assaulting police officers were still under investigation.
In September the investigating judge closed the investigation into the complaint of police ill-treatment submitted by Gwenaël Rihet in January 2005, on the grounds of lack of evidence. Gwenaël Rihet, a journalist, was allegedly assaulted by a police officer on 15 May 2004 while filming a demonstration at the Cannes Film Festival. The incident was recorded on video but the judge refused to view it, stating that she had read a transcript of the video written by the National Police Service Inspectorate. The transcript stated that the video showed no evidence of wrongdoing by the accused police officer. A video containing footage from a town security camera, also believed to have recorded the incident, was lost in the investigating judge’s office. Gwenaël Rihet’s lawyer submitted an appeal against the closure of the investigation, which was pending at the end of the year.

‘War on terror’
On 19 December, five French citizens previously detained in US custody at Guantánamo Bay before being returned to France in 2004 and 2005 were convicted of criminal association in relation to a terrorist enterprise. They were sentenced to a year’s imprisonment (taken as time served) plus a suspended sentence of between three and four years. One man was acquitted. The defendants had appeared before the Criminal Court of Paris in July 2006 but the case was suspended when the judge ordered additional information to be provided concerning visits of officers from the French secret services and Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Guantánamo in 2002 and 2004, where they allegedly interviewed the six detainees. Previously classified documents received by the judge reportedly confirmed that the detainees were indeed interviewed by French officers. The defendants’ lawyers argued that their clients were appearing in the French court on the basis of testimony extracted from them in Guantánamo, outside any legal jurisdiction and while they were illegally detained, and that, as a result, the French criminal proceedings must be declared void. Four of the men had submitted appeals at the end of the year.

Legal developments
A new law was passed on 30 October creating an independent body to inspect places of detention, as required by the UN Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture. The body can visit all places of detention on French territory, including prisons, migration detention centres, border detention facilities, and secure psychiatric hospital wards. However, the law does not grant the body power to visit places of detention under French jurisdiction that are not on French territory, and allows detention centre authorities to refuse and postpone visits on numerous grounds.

Death penalty
On 2 October France acceded to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty. On 10 October France ratified Protocol 13 of the ECHR, concerning the abolition of the death penalty in all circumstances.

Housing
In February the National Assembly adopted a bill presented by the Minister for Housing and Social Cohesion with the stated aim of creating a legally enforceable right to housing to all legal residents in the country who are unable to access such accommodation, or to remain in it, by their own means. The bill creates “arbitration commissions” that will assess complaints from individuals who allege that their right to adequate housing is not being fulfilled or is threatened. People designated as “priority cases” by these commissions will be entitled to appeal to the administrative court. Irregular migrants are specifically excluded from benefiting from the new provisions.
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Izyan
05-30-2008, 02:28 PM
MALAYSIA
Head of State Yang di-Pertuan Agong, Tuanku Mizan Zainal
Head of government Abdullah Ahmad Badawi
Death penalty retentionist
Population 26.2 million
Life expectancy 73.7 years
Under-5 mortality (m/f) 12/10 per 1,000
Adult literacy 88.7 per cent

At least 10 people died in police custody in 2007. Despite continuing reports of such deaths and of excessive use of force against peaceful demonstrations, the Malaysian government failed to implement key recommendations for police reform. Scores of people were detained without trial under various emergency laws. Restrictions on freedom of religion continued. Grievances felt by many among the ethnic Indian Malaysian minority community, including discrimination and economic marginalization, were aggravated by the destruction of reportedly unauthorized Hindu temples. Mandatory death sentences continued to be issued. Refugees and migrant workers were arbitrarily detained and assaulted during immigration raids.

Police reform
A Bill to establish a Special Complaints Commission (SCC) to monitor and investigate complaints of misconduct by police and other law enforcement officers was introduced. The Bill prompted concerns that the recommendations of a 2005 Royal Commission of Inquiry were not adequately reflected, particularly as regards the proposed SCC’s independence and investigative powers. Not only did the Bill grant the Prime Minister broad powers to appoint and dismiss Commissioners, but it also included the Inspector-General of Police as a permanent SCC member. The SCC also did not have the power to oversee police investigation of complaints.

The Criminal Procedure Code was amended to provide increased protection to people under arrest. It required the police to inform detainees arrested without a warrant of the circumstances of their arrest and, in most cases, to allow detainees to contact a family member or a lawyer.

Deaths in custody and excessive use of force
At least 10 people died in custody in 2007 including at least two reported suicides, and police reportedly continued to use excessive force on peaceful demonstrators.

On 10 and 25 November, police sprayed peaceful protesters with tear gas and irritant-laced water cannons during two mass demonstrations, the first calling for free and fair elections and the second highlighting the discrimination and other grievances felt by ethnic Indian Malaysians.

Detention without trial
The use or threatened use of the Internal Security Act (ISA) continued to be employed to suppress perceived critics of the government, with a specific threat to bloggers. Following the November demonstrations, the Prime Minister warned that the ISA could be used to prevent “illegal” protests. The ISA allows for detention without trial for up to two years, renewable indefinitely.

At least 83 people were detained under the ISA.
Most were alleged members of Islamist groups, including Jemaah Islamiah. At least four suspected Jemaah Islamiah members were arrested in 2007, and at least 16 were released during the year, having all been detained for over four years. Many were given restricted residence orders.
Others arrested under the ISA included five leaders of the Hindu Rights Action Force, a group campaigning for the rights of ethnic Indian Malaysians, who were sent directly to Kamunting Detention Camp. Five others, arrested for allegedly spreading rumours of racial riots, were subsequently released.
In October 2007, Abdul Malek Hussain, an ex-ISA detainee, was awarded damages of 2.5 million ringgit (approximately US$746,000). The judge ruled that he was unlawfully detained in 1998 and that he had been assaulted and tortured in custody.
Suspected criminals continued to be detained under the Emergency Ordinance (EO) (Public Order and Prevention of Crime) and the Dangerous Drugs (Special Preventive Measures) Act (DDA). Under both, suspects could be detained for up to 60 days for investigation after which a two-year detention order, renewable indefinitely, could be applied. Between January and August, 550 people were detained under the DDA. Both the EO and the DDA put suspects at risk of arbitrary detention and torture or other ill-treatment.

Migrant workers, refugees and asylum-seekers
Mass arrests of migrant workers, refugees and asylum-seekers by the People’s Volunteer Corps (Rela) continued. According to a government news agency, 24,770 migrants had been detained by Rela as of August 2007. Rela officials continued to be accused of using excessive force and arbitrary detention when conducting raids.

Migrant workers were also subjected to psychological and physical abuse by agencies and employers. They were often denied equal access to benefits and protections guaranteed to Malaysian workers, including maternity provisions, limits on working hours and holidays.

Cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments
Caning continued to be used for many offences, including immigration offences. Irregular migrants (those lacking proper documentation) and refugees were reported to have received canings.

Death penalty
In March, the government passed amendments to the Penal Code introducing mandatory death sentences for acts of terrorism that result in death. Anyone found guilty of providing funds for terrorist acts that result in death would also receive a mandatory death sentence. Death sentences continued to be passed during 2007, with mandatory death sentences for drugs trafficking. The authorities did not disclose details of executions.

Freedom of expression
On 13 July, People’s Justice party staff member and internet blogger Nathanial Tan was arrested at his office and detained under the Official Secrets Act. He was arrested on suspicion of having access to state secrets, namely official documents relating to corruption allegations, posted on his blog.

Discrimination
Freedom of religion
Restrictions on the right to religious freedom remained. People wishing to convert out of Islam continued to face barriers to having their conversion recognized by the civil courts.

In January, Revathi, a Muslim by birth, was detained at the Malacca Syariah High Court while applying to have her religious status recognized as Hindu. She was taken to a religious rehabilitation camp in Selangor and held there for six months. In March, the Islamic authorities removed Revathi’s daughter from her husband, and placed her in the custody of Revathi’s Muslim mother.
A 100-year-old Hindu temple was destroyed in Shah Alam in November, on the eve of the Hindu festival Deepavali. Several people were injured and 14 were arrested as devotees tried to stop the demolition. Other reportedly unauthorized Hindu temples were demolished to make way for development projects in 2007 despite petitions by local Hindu communities.
Rights of transsexuals
On 30 July, Ayu, a transsexual, was seriously beaten by officials from the Melaka Islamic Religious Affairs Department (JAIM). They reportedly punched and kicked her, rupturing a pre-existing hernia. A JAIM official stated that Ayu was detained for committing the “offence” of “men dressing as women in a public space”, which is punishable by a fine of 1,000 ringgit (US$300), a six-month prison sentence or both under the Melak Syariah Offences Act.
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