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Tag: HRW

  • LNA-linked groups appear responsible for E/Libya killings – HRW

    LNA-linked groups appear responsible for E/Libya killings – HRW

    Human Rights Watch ( HRW ) said the bodies of 36 men found near the eastern Libyan town of al-Abyar in October appear to have been summarily executed by armed groups loyal to Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA).

    Local police found the bodies on a main road about 50 km east of Benghazi in an area controlled by the LNA.
    Shortly afterwards, the LNA said it was launching an investigation.

    Libya is divided between rival governments and armed factions.

    The LNA controls most of the east, where Haftar has expanded his power over the past three years, waging a long campaign against Islamists and other opponents for control of Benghazi.

    Haftar’s buy-in is seen as crucial for any effective political deal to unify the oil-rich North African country, and he has been increasingly courted by Western powers.

    The bodies found near al-Abyar were the latest in a number of such cases in eastern Libya.

    Relatives of six of the victims told HRW they had been seized from their homes on different dates by armed groups loyal to the LNA in Benghazi or other locations, the U.S.-based group said in statement.

    HRW said all the relatives said that the victims bore gunshot wounds and had their hands tied behind their backs.

    The human rights group said that families had been prevented from putting up tents outside their houses in Benghazi to receive guests during a traditional three-day mourning period.

    It cited a forensic investigator who reviewed pictures of 23 of the bodies as saying the injuries were consistent with executions at point-blank range.

    “The Libyan National Army’s pledges to conduct inquiries into repeated unlawful killings in areas under their control in eastern Libya have so far led nowhere,” said Eric Goldstein, HRW’s deputy Middle East and North Africa director.

    “The LNA will be condoning apparent war crimes if their pledge to investigate the gruesome discovery in al-Abyar proves to be another empty promise.”

    An LNA spokesman gave no immediate comment.

    The LNA has said it is investigating the commander of an elite forces unit who is sought by the International Criminal Court for allegedly executing dozens of prisoners, though his exact whereabouts remain unclear.

    NAN

  • Dozens killed, missing in Kenya crackdown – Rights watchdog

    Dozens of people have died or disappeared without a trace after being detained by Kenyan security forces during operations against Islamist militants in the capital and on the border with Somalia, Human Rights Watch said.

    Kenya launched a crackdown on jihadist groups last year after Islamist militants, including the Somalia-based al Shabaab, stepped up attacks in the East African country.

    In one of the worst, gunmen killed 148 people at a university in the north eastern town of Garissa.

    New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report late on Tuesday that it had documented 34 cases in which people suspected of having ties to al Shabaab went missing after their homes were raided and they were detained by security forces.

    “Months, and in some cases over a year, later, suspects have not been charged with any crimes and families cannot locate them,” Reuters quoted HRW as saying in a statement.

    There were also at least 11 cases in the last two years in which the bodies of people previously arrested by state agents had turned up, sometimes far away from the location of their arrest, HRW said.

    Mwenda Njoka, the spokesman for Kenya’s interior ministry, rejected the allegations and said the report should be forwarded to the country’s Independent Policing Oversight Authority for investigation to determine any culpability.

    “These are just claims,” he told Reuters on phone.

    HRW said Kenyan security forces should stop carrying out abuse in the communities lying close to the northeast border with Somalia.

    “Rounding people up and refusing to disclose their whereabouts is a serious crime and only compounds fears and mistrust in the security forces,” said Ken Roth, the group’s executive director.

  • ‘AU troops killed Somali wedding guests’

    African Union soldiers allegedly killed six people at a wedding in Somalia’s port town of Merca, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said.

    The AU has already said it is investigating allegations that its soldiers were involved in killing civilians in the town in July.

    But this is the first detailed account of this alleged incident, the BBC reports.

    Witnesses told the United States-based campaign group that troops from Uganda allegedly carried out the killings on July 31.

    Neither the AU nor the Ugandan government has commented yet on the details of latest allegations.

    Witnesses said that following a bomb attack on an AU convoy in Merca, which is some 70km (45 miles) south of the capital, Mogadishu, Ugandan forces entered several nearby houses.

    “At one house, where the Moalim Iidey family was celebrating a wedding, the soldiers separated the men from the women and shot the six adult men – four brothers, their father, and an uncle,” HRW said in a statement.

    “Four died immediately, one brother hid under a bed after being shot but later died, and the father died during the night after the soldiers allegedly refused to allow the family to take him to the hospital,” it said.

    One witness told HRW that before the alleged killings, most people in the area had fled, fearing reprisals after AU convoy attack.

    Those who had stayed behind expected that they would be protected because they were celebrating a wedding, the witness added.

  • Baga: Boko Haram killed woman in labour – Amnesty

    Boko Haram fighters killed a woman as she was in labour during what is feared to be the deadliest attack in the sect’s six-year insurgency, Amnesty International claimed on Thursday.

    The human rights group said one witness to the assault on Baga, on the shores of Lake Chad in northeast Nigeria, told them the woman was killed by indiscriminate fire that also cut down small children.

    “Half of the baby boy (was) out and she died like this,” the unnamed witness was quoted as saying.

    Amnesty said this week that hundreds of people, if not more, may have been killed in the attack, which began on January 3 and is thought to have targeted civilian vigilantes helping the military.

    “They killed so many people. I saw maybe around 100 killed at that time in Baga. I ran to the bush. As we were running, they were shooting and killing,” a man in his 50s said.

    Another woman added: “I don’t know how many but there were bodies everywhere we looked.”

    The testimony tallies with claims from local officials that huge numbers were killed and that of witnesses spoken to by AFP, who described seeing decomposing bodies littering the streets.

    One man who escaped from Baga after hiding for three days said he was “stepping on bodies” for five kilometres (three miles) as he fled through the bush.

    Nigeria’s military, which often downplays death tolls, said this week that 150 people died, dismissing as “sensational” claims that 2,000 may have lost their lives.

    Human Rights Watch said the exact death toll was unknown and in a statement published on Thursday quoted one local resident as saying: “No one stayed back to count the bodies.

    “We were all running to get out of town ahead of Boko Haram fighters who have since taken over the area.”

    Both Amnesty and HRW published separate satellite images of Baga and Doron Baga, 2.5 kilometres away, which it said showed the scale of the attack.

    Aerial shots of the two towns — which have been hit previously by fighting — were shown the day before insurgents moved in and four days later, after they had razed homes and businesses.

    Amnesty said that the images showed “devastation of catastrophic proportions,” with more than 3,700 structures — 620 in Baga and 3,100 in Doron Baga — damaged or completely destroyed.

    HRW said 11 percent of Baga and 57 percent of Doron Baga was destroyed, most likely by arson, attributing the greater damage in the latter to the fact that it houses a military base.

  • Congo police executed 51 in anti-gang operation – HRW

    The United States campaign group Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused police in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday of summarily executing at least 51 people in an anti-gang operation, and being responsible for the disappearance of at least 33 more.

    The report, based on witness testimony, is the second high-profile inquiry into Operation Likofi, or “punch” in the Lingala language, launched last November to tackle criminal gangs in the capital Kinshasa, Reuters reports.

    The government could not immediately be reached for comment, but Interior Minister Richard Muyej in October rejected a United Nations report that produced similar findings and accused its authors of trying to destabilise the government.

    HRW accused police involved in Operation Likofi of executing unarmed young men at home in front of family members and in markets in an attempt to intimidate the local population.

    The mother of one man shot dead by police recounted how an officer told onlookers: “Come look. We killed a ‘kuluna’ (gang member) who made you suffer.”

    HRW said there were likely to have been more killings than the 51 it managed to document. One police officer in the operation told HRW that well over 100 had been killed.

    The U.N Joint Human Rights Office (UNJHRO) in Congo accused the Congolese National Police in October of executing at least nine people in the operation, which ended in February.

    The government expelled the head of the office, angering the U.N Security Council, which has reported threats against UNJHRO staff.

    In an effort to reassure international critics, Muyej convened ambassadors in Kinshasa on Friday and said the government would work with UNJHRO.

  • ‘Iraq forces killed 255 Sunni prisoners’

    Iraqi security forces and government-affiliated militias appear to have executed at least 255 prisoners since 9 June, a human rights group said.

    The killings appeared to be retaliation for attacks by the jihadist Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), Human Rights Watch (HRW) said.

    The prisoners were all Sunni Muslims, while the majority of security forces and militia were Shia, they added.

    The BBC reports that an Iraqi military official denied that prisoners had been executed.

    However, some prisoners may have died “as a result of terrorist acts,” Lt Gen. Qassim Atta, the military spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri Maliki, said.

    The number of those killed was lower than that cited in the report, he added, saying that a committee had been formed to look into the deaths.

    Most of the executions took place as Iraqi forces fled advancing ISIS fighters, HRW said in a statement.

    The killings were reported in six Iraqi villages – Mosul, Tal Afar, Baquba, Jumarkhe, Rawa and Hilla.

    “The mass extrajudicial killings may be evidence of war crimes or crimes against humanity, and appear to be revenge killings for atrocities by ISIS,” the statement said.

    Last month, ISIS insurgents seized huge swathes of north-western Iraq. The group has gained a reputation for brutal rule in the areas that it controls.

    Joe Stork, HRW’s deputy Middle East director, said: “While the world rightly denounces the atrocious acts of ISIS, it should not turn a blind eye to sectarian killing sprees by government and pro-government forces.”

    The HRW statement added that the executions, which it documented based primarily on interviews with eyewitnesses and officials, “may be evidence of war crimes or crimes against humanity.”

  • Rights group to govt: don’t use Sri Lankan model against Boko Haram

    The Human Rights Watch (HRW) has cautioned the Federal Government against using the Sri Lankan model to crush Boko Haram terrorists.

    Responding to the declaration by Defence Headquarters that it would employ the “Sri Lankan method” to crush the insurgents, the New York-based right organisation said:  “It is hard to imagine a worse idea.”

    Acknowledging the pressure on the government to deal with the Boko Haram terrorists, who abducted over 200 schoolgirls in April and are still holding 217 of them, the HRW stressed that before opting for “the Sri-Lankan method” to deal with an insurgency, Nigeria should examine what that actually meant.

    HRW noted that Sri Lanka’s war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) which, like Boko Haram, was responsible for various rights abuses, caused tremendous and unnecessary human suffering, particularly in its final stages in 2009.

    “In the last months of the conflict, as many as 40,000 civilians died, according to the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General’s Panel of Experts report. And since the defeat of the LTTE in May 2009, serious abuses against ethnic Tamils by the military, including systematic rape of suspected LTTE supporters, have continued to the present,” the HRW said in a statement.

     

     

    The group said those responsible for the numerous wartime abuses on both sides had not been  investigated, let alone brought to justice.

    The organisation asked whether or not it is really the model for Nigeria to follow.

    “Replicating Sri Lanka’s lawless approach to counter-insurgency would further endanger a civilian population already brutalised both by Boko Haram and the military,” the HRW said.

    It added that the Federal Government needed to work with the population at risk and not treat them – as Sri Lanka’s government did – as the enemy.

     

  • HRW to committee: Reject amnesty over ‘atrocities’

    Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Tuesday called on the Presidential Committee on Dialogue and Peaceful Resolution of Security Challenges in the North to exclude serious crimes that violate international human rights law from the proposed amnesty arrangement.

    In a letter to the committee, the rights group urged it to demand accountability for these crimes.

    The group noted that Boko Haram had carried out a brutal campaign of violence across northern Nigeria, citing its October 2012 report that indicted the sect for murder of civilians and the persecution of Christians.

    The group said these crimes would likely amount to crimes against humanity under international law.

    “HRW has documented serious human rights abuses carried out by government security forces in response to Boko Haram attacks, including dozens of extrajudicial killings, burning of civilian property, and detention-related abuses.

    “Those responsible for these crimes should also be held to account,” the group said.

    Specifically, the Africa Director at Human Rights Watch, Mr. Daniel Bekele, said “Justice for the gravest abuses, whether by Boko Haram or security forces, is essential for victims and building long-term peace in Nigeria.”

    Bekele recalled that the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) had announced in 2010 that it had opened a preliminary examination of the situation in Nigeria.

    He said in November 2012, the office concluded that there was “reasonable basis to believe” that Boko Haram had committed crimes against humanity.

    He, however, noted that the preliminary examination may or may not lead to an ICC investigation.

    “The ICC – of which Nigeria is a member – has the authority to intervene when the domestic authorities are unable or unwilling to investigate or prosecute serious crimes in violation of international law.

    “International law more generally provides that such crimes should be prosecuted, and rejects amnesty for the gravest crimes,’’ the News Agency of Nigeria quoted HRW as saying on the matter.

     

  • Human Rights Watch indicts Boko Haram, JTF

    Human Rights Watch indicts Boko Haram, JTF

    The Boko Haram sect and the Joint Task Force might well have committed crimes against humanity during three years of conflict that has killed at least 2,800 people, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday.

    Crimes against humanity are offences that can lead to prosecution by the International Criminal Court.

    Boko Haram said it is fighting to create an Islamic state in Nigeria, and its fighters have killed hundreds in bomb and gun attacks since launching an uprising in 2009.

    Reuters says the sect has become the No. 1 security threat to Nigeria.

    The report documents multiple cases of abuses by Islamists, including brutal killings of Christian civilians and the assassination of Muslim clerics who criticised them.

    Some of these attacks were “deliberate acts leading to population ‘cleansing’ based on religion or ethnicity”.

    The ICC defines crimes against humanity as grave offences that are “widespread or systematic.”

    There was no immediate reaction from Boko Haram.

    The report also accused the JTF of “physical abuse, secret detentions, extortion, burning of houses, stealing of money during raids, and extrajudicial killings of suspects.”

    “Despite allegations of widespread security force abuses, the Nigerian authorities have rarely held anyone accountable … further solidifying the culture of impunity for violence.”

    The study came as the JTF tried to fend off accusations of a shooting spree in the insurgent stronghold of Maiduguri on Monday that residents said killed at least 30 civilians.

    Asked about the report, the JTF spokesman for Borno State, Lieutenant Colonel Sagir Musa, reiterated a statement on Wednesday that there was no evidence of such abuses.

    “There is no established or recorded case of extrajudicial killings, torture, arson or arbitrary arrests by the JTF in Borno State”, where most of the violence has occurred, he said.

    “It is important to state that terrorists killed were during gun battles with the JTF troops”, not executions,” he said.

    The military campaign against Boko Haram has had some success – limiting Boko Haram’s ability to carry out large scale attacks, but the heavy-handedness has angered locals.

    “These killings, and clashes with the group, have raised the death toll of those killed by Boko Haram or security forces to more than 2,800 people since 2009,” the report said.