The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Human Rights Watch

  • Cameroon: Dabiri-Erewa condemns deportation of Nigerians

    Cameroon: Dabiri-Erewa condemns deportation of Nigerians

    The Senior Special Assistant to the President on  Foreign Affairs and Diaspora, Mrs Abike Dabiri-Erewa, says alleged forced deportation of over 100,000 Nigerians by Cameroonian military is worrisome.

    In a statement by her Media Assistant, Abdul-Rahman Balogun, she decried the “inhuman treatment’’ meted to Nigerian asylum seekers, who were affected by Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East.

    Dabiri-Erewa noted that in spite of the friendly disposition between both countries, Cameroon allegedly forced Nigerians to leave.

    She said that Cameroon should heed the UN’s call on all countries to protect refugees fleeing the carnage in the North-East of Nigeria and not to return them there.

    “This unfriendly attitude of the Cameroonian soldiers to Nigerian asylum seekers is really worrisome,’’ Dabiri-Erewa stressed.

    She appealed to Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and other West African regional groups to prevail on Cameroon to be “their brothers’ keeper in a situation like this’.’

    She said that deportations, according to Human Rights Watch, defied UN refugee agency’s plea not to return anyone to North-East of Nigeria until the security and human rights situation had improved considerably.

    The presidential aide said that a 55-page Human Rights report entitled “They Forced Us onto Trucks like Animals: Cameroon’s Mass Forced Return and Abuse of Nigerian Refugees,” condemned the act.

    The report, according to her, states that since early 2015, Cameroonian soldiers had tortured, assaulted, and sexually exploited Nigerian asylum seekers in remote border areas.

    She said that the report added that the soldiers also denied the Nigerians access to the UN refugee agency, and summarily deported, often violently, tens of thousands to Nigeria.

    “It also documents violence, poor conditions and unlawful movement restrictions in Cameroon’s only official camp for Nigerian refugees as well as conditions recent returnees face in Nigeria,’’ she said.

    Dabiri-Erewa said that Cameroon’s forced returns breached UN principles, which prohibited the forceful return of refugees and asylum seekers to persecution and, under regional standards in Africa, to situations of generalised violence such as in Nigeria’s North-East.

  • W/Cup : HRW battle Qatar over heat related deaths

    W/Cup : HRW battle Qatar over heat related deaths

     

    Human Rights Watch (HWR) have demanded explanation from 2022 world Cup hosts Qatar, following reports that scorching temperatures may have caused the death of some workers at some of the venues.

    The New York based organisation demanded that investigation be conducted into workers deaths and findings made public.  It further noted that such information was last provided in 2012 even as world cup organisers reported that there had been 10 deaths between October 2015 and July 2017, with eight classified as “non-work related”.

    In the figures made available in 2012 according to NRW, Out of the 520 deaths then for workers from Bangladesh, India and Nepal, 385, or 74 percent, were “neither explained nor investigated.

    “The Qatari authorities’ failure to put in place the most basic protection from the heat, their decision to ignore recommendations that they investigate worker deaths, and their refusal to release data on these deaths, constitutes a willful abdication of responsibility,” said report author Nicholas McGeehan.

    Qatar has introduced laws to stop people working outside between 11:30 am and 3:00 pm annually from June 15 to August 31, when temperatures can reach around 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit).

    But HRW says these measures do not go far enough.

    Temperatures in Qatar are currently in the high 30s Celsius and humidity levels are above 50 percent. `

    The HRW says medical research suggests heat stress is a genuine risk to those working outside, and it has called for greater flexibility by Qatari authorities.

    About 800,000 migrant constructions workers are engaged in various sites ahead of the 2022 world cup to be hosted by Qatar after the 2018 edition to be hosted by Russia.

    48,000 capacity Khalifa International Stadium in Doha is one of the venues refurbished ahead of the Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup.

    The Stadium which is currently the ground of Qatar national football team, will host the 17th IAAF World Championships in Athletics in autumn 2019.

  • Corruption: Nationwide protests rock Russian cities

    Corruption: Nationwide protests rock Russian cities

    • Police arrest opposition leader, use heavy-handed tactics against protestors

    Anti-corruption protests took place in several cities across Russia on Sunday, the most significant outpouring of public discontent since the 2011-2012 anti-Kremlin protests.

    The protests were called by opposition leader Alexei Navalny, whose anti-corruption organisation recently released a video alleging unseemly wealth of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.  In Moscow, organisers refused to limit their protest to venues proposed by  municipal authorities—outside the city center—and urged people to simply come out in the city for a “public promenade.”

    According to Human Rights Watch, an estimated 7,000 took to the streets in Moscow, many of them on Pushkin Square and Tverskaya Street. Police arrested Navalny early in the afternoon, raided his organisation’s office, and detained some of his staffers.

    By the time I got to Pushkin Square, police had already cleared it. But hundreds, if not more, were still squeezed into an adjacent pedestrian mall.  A line of police would advance on the crowd, as a policeman said on a loudspeaker, “Citizens, respect each other, move away,” driving us off the mall and down Tverskaya. A crowd of mostly young people stood fast on an elevated flower bed where they displayed a cartoon with a duck and the words “Corruption is stealing the future.”

    Police eventually charged the flower bed and the crowd moved, grumbling, mostly without incident. After police returned to their formation, those in the crowd—now thinning– would return to their places. At various stages police grabbed young men, roughly, pinning their arms behind their backs, kicking and using their clubs on people who tried to get close, then dragging them away, presumably to be placed in detention. I wasn’t able to see what, if anything, these men had done before the police grabbed them.

    One independent group estimated police detained more than 900 – many of whom seemed to do no more than hold posters or shout slogans. This video shows police violently beating someone already on the ground and offering no resistance, and there are numerous other similar reports.

    About a half mile from Pushkin Square, police beat the 17-year-old son of an acquaintance before he could even get to the protest. The acquaintance told me they asked for his identity documents, and when he said he wasn’t obligated to carry them, they beat him on the ribs, legs, and face, leaving many bruises.

    Police used excessive violence to shut down the massive Bolotnaya Square demonstration, one of the last of the 2012 protests, on the eve of Vladimir Putin’s inauguration and detained hundreds, leading to long prison sentences for 13 people and a warped official narrative casting the protests as part of a broad conspiracy to destabilise Russia. The stakes are high for the Kremlin again now, with presidential elections a year away. I can only hope authorities won’t repeat the violence, unfair trials, and myths of the past.

     

  • Boko Haram: Military carried out extra-judicial killings, torture – Watchdog

    Boko Haram: Military carried out extra-judicial killings, torture – Watchdog

    A Nigerian government rights watchdog said it had credible reports that the special military force carried out extra-judicial killings, torture, rape and arbitrary detention in efforts to quell the Boko Haram insurgency in the northeastern part of the country.

    In an interim study compiled over June and seen by Reuters on Monday, Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission also said the violence had forced thousands of farmers to flee their land and warned the exodus could trigger a food crisis.

    Reuters says the military authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other campaign groups have made similar allegations over the past three years, but it was unusual to see them in a report compiled by a government organization.

    In May the military began its most concerted effort yet to end a four-year-old insurgency by Boko Haram, a shadowy sect that has killed thousands in a campaign to revive an ancient Islamic caliphate in the northeast.

    The commission’s report said it had received credible “allegations of gross violations by officials of the JTF (Joint Task Force) … summary executions, torture, arbitrary detention … rape,” without saying exactly where or when the atrocities took place.

    The military says its offensive – which started when President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe States has driven Boko Haram fighters out of camps near the border with Chad, Niger and Cameroon.

    But the rights commission said that since it began, “thousands have been forcibly displaced both within Nigeria and beyond; a farming season has been lost, threatening the region with a food security crisis.”

    “These consequences threaten a foreseeable humanitarian crisis on the region,” it added.

     

  • ‘Syrian forces targeting school children’

    Syrian forces have been accused of shelling schools and interrogating students in a report released by Human Rights Watch.

    Sky News reports that the 33-page document, Safe No More, is based on interviews with dozens of Syrians who have fled the country since the uprising began in March 2011.

    The report says students have been beaten for alleged anti-government activity and had their classrooms turned into military bases, detention centres and sniper posts by both Syrian armed forces and opposition fighters.

    Footage released by the group appears to show terrified students in Dael caught up in an artillery barrage. Many of the youngsters scream as loud explosions are heard in the background.

    Another video appears to show damage caused by tanks at a school elsewhere in the town. One room is on fire and huge holes can be seen in walls throughout the building.

    “Syrian children have had to face things in the horrors of war that no child should have to bear – (they have been) interrogated, targeted and attacked,” said Priyanka Motaparthy, children’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch and author of the report.

    “Schools should be havens but in a country that once valued schooling, many Syrian children aren’t even getting basic education and are losing out on their future.”

    According to the children’s charity UNICEF, at least one in five schools in Syria no longer function, with thousands destroyed, damaged or turned into shelters for people left homeless by the fighting.

     

  • Baga witnessed massive destruction – HRW

    The Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Wednesday said satellite images have revealed massive destruction of civilian property in Baga on April 16 and 17 contrary to the claim by the Defence Headquarters that only 30 houses were destroyed.

    It asked the Federal Government to thoroughly and impartially investigate allegations that soldiers carried out widespread destruction and killing in the town, alleging an attempt to cover up the military operation.

    The HRW, which made the disclosures in a statement by its Africa Director, Daniel Bekele, said a community leader, who was involved in the burial of victims, admitted that he counted 183 corpses.

    The group expressed concern that access to Baga is still difficult.
  • QUOTES OF THE DAY

    QUOTES OF THE DAY

    QUOTES OF THE DAY, OCTOBER 12, 2012

    Everybody has gone on training. It has never happened in five years. The mood here is very sad, and those at the board meeting are running away from everybody, so we don’t really know what went wrong.

    Anonymous Keynote Bank staff on the resignation of the Managing Director of the bank, Oti Ikomi.

    At the risk of sounding like a broken record, may I re-emphasise that we must pursue attitudinal change concomitantly with constitution review.

    Senate President David Mark on the 1999 Constitution review at a public hearing in Abuja.

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

    Human Right Watch on the state of insecurity in Nigeria.

    Since I was born, I have witnessed ocean surge once but nothing can be compared to what we are seeing today…

    Pa Rufus Ignatius, a 70 year old man on the flood that recently ravaged Oguta Lake in Imo State.

    I must say that I was embarrassed by the entire scenario, because my wife does not deserve it. She should not have been abducted for any reason, because she chose to stay with my children in my home town  doing her legitimate business to support me at the home front. So, if she was kidnapped to get at me, she does not deserve it.

    -Najeem Salaam, Osun State House of Assembly Speaker on his wife’s abduction in Ejigbo, Osun State.