[headlines] Cambodia: Hun Sen promoting, rewarding killers

Obama Should Make Ending 20 Years of Impunity Central Goal of Upcoming Visit
(New York) November 13, 2012 – Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s violent and authoritarian rule over more than two decades has resulted in countless killings and other serious abuses that have gone unpunished, Human Rights Watch said in a new report today. President Barack Obama should use his November trip to Cambodia, the first ever by a United States president, to publicly demand systematic reforms and an end to impunity for abusive officials.

The 68-page report, “‘Tell Them That I Want to Kill Them’: Two Decades of Impunity in Hun Sen’s Cambodia,” documents key cases of unsolved killings of political activists, journalists, opposition politicians, and others by Cambodian security forces since the 1991 Paris Agreements, which were signed by 18 countries, including the five permanent United Nations Security Council members. The Paris Agreements and the subsequent United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission were supposed to usher in a new era of democracy, human rights, and accountability in Cambodia. More than 300 people have been killed in politically motivated attacks since then, yet not one case has resulted in a credible investigation and conviction.

The involvement of senior Cambodian government officials and military, police, gendarmerie, and intelligence personnel in serious abuses since the Paris Agreements has been repeatedly documented by the UN, the US State Department, domestic and international human rights organizations, and the media. Human Rights Watch identifies many of these officials and their current positions.

“Instead of prosecuting officials responsible for killings and other serious abuses, Prime Minister Hun Sen has promoted and rewarded them,” said Brad Adams, Asia director and co-author of the report. “The message to Cambodians is that even well-known killers are above the law if they have protection from the country’s political and military leaders. Donor governments, instead of pressing for accountability, have adopted a business-as-usual approach.”

“Tell Them That I Want to Kill Them,” is based on hundreds of interviews over many years with current and former government officials, members of the armed forces, the police, the judiciary, parliament and other state institutions, and representatives of political parties, labor unions, the media, and human rights organizations. It is also based on information from UN documents, reports of UN special representatives and rapporteurs and the Cambodia Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, reports by Human Rights Watch and other international and local nongovernmental human rights organizations, and media accounts.

The report’s title is a quote from Hing Bun Heang, then deputy chief of Hun Sen’s bodyguard unit, in response to a journalist’s question about his alleged role in the killing of at least 16 people in a coordinated grenade attack on opposition leader Sam Rainsy in March 1997. The UN and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) implicated the bodyguard unit in the attack and identified Hing Bun Heang as being in operational control. Hing Bun Heang was later promoted to the rank of lieutenant general and is now deputy commander-in-chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces.

Often the perpetrators of killings are not only known, but have been promoted. This was the case with members of the brutal “A-team” death squads during the 1992-93 UN peacekeeping mission and security officials who carried out a campaign of killings of opposition members after Hun Sen’s 1997 coup. More recent killings, including that of labor leader Chea Vichea, opposition politician Om Radsady, and environmental activist Chut Wutty, remain unsolved. Even in cases where there was no apparent political motivation, abuses almost never result in successful criminal prosecutions and commensurate prison terms if the perpetrator is in the military or police, or is politically connected.

Human Rights Watch’s report details a number of cases of extrajudicial killings and other abuses that have not been genuinely investigated or prosecuted by the authorities:

* The killing of dozens of opposition politicians and activists during the UN peacekeeping period in 1992-93;
* The murder of opposition newspaper editor Thun Bun Ly on the streets of Phnom Penh in May 1996;
* The campaign of extrajudicial executions of almost 100 royalist-affiliated officials after Hun Sen’s July 1997 coup, including Deputy Interior Minister Ho Sok in the Ministry of Interior compound;
* The 1999 acid attack that disfigured 16-year-old Tat Marina by the wife of Svay Sitha, a senior government official;
* The 2003 execution-style killing of Om Radsady, a well-respected opposition member of parliament, in a crowded Phnom Penh restaurant;
* The 2004 killing of popular labor leader Chea Vichea;
* The 2008 killing of investigative journalist Khim Sambo and his son while the two exercised in a public park; and
* The 2012 killing of environmental activist Chut Wutty in Koh Kong province.

“The list of political killings over the past 20 years is bone-chilling,” Adams said. “While there is a public uproar after each case, officials do nothing and there are no consequences for the perpetrators or the government that protects them.”

To address Cambodia’s scourge of impunity, Human Rights Watch urges the government to:

* Create a professional and independent police service whose leadership is appointed by an independent police commission, which also has the power to audit the police, investigate complaints, and dismiss officers who violate a professional code of conduct;
* Create a professional and independent judiciary and prosecution service. Judges and prosecutors should be appointed by an independent judicial commission, which also has the power to investigate complaints and discipline judges and prosecutors who violate a professional code of conduct;
* Ban senior police officials, judges, and prosecutors holding official or unofficial positions of leadership in political parties; and to
* Respond in a professional and impartial manner to allegations of human rights abuses by victims and their families, human rights organizations and other civil society groups, the UN human rights office and other UN agencies, the media, and others who bring concerns to the government’s attention.

“Recommendations to find justice for victims will not be implemented without sustained and coordinated pressure from powerful governments working alongside the many brave Cambodians who document abuses,” Adams said. “Many governments talk about the ‘culture of impunity’ in Cambodia, but they should also address their own culture of indifference.”

Cambodia’s past two decades have been a story of missed opportunities. Year after year, donors have proposed – and the Cambodian government has agreed to – significant reforms, such as measures to promote the professionalization of the police and independence of prosecutors and judges. Yet the justice system remains a deeply and unwaveringly politicized institution, whose top officials are political appointees with primary allegiance to the prime minister and the ruling Cambodian People’s Party. Foreign governments, the UN, and donors have not taken the time to learn about past abuses and abusers, and have not put sustained and coordinated pressure on senior officials and government institutions responsible for serious human rights violations.

“The lack of accountability in Cambodia needs to be addressed head-on, not ignored or downplayed, as so many foreign governments and donors have done over the past 20 years,” Adams said. “Without memory, justice is impossible. Governments and donors should stop talking in generalities about rights and start confronting senior government and ruling party officials about the failure of justice.”

While the United States has been one of the most outspoken critics of the Cambodian government’s human rights record in recent years, its actions toward officials implicated in serious abuses often undercut its words. In March 2006, the FBI awarded a medal to the then-Cambodian chief of national police, Hok Lundy, for his support of the US global campaign against terrorism. Hok Lundy, who died in a helicopter crash in 2008, was a notorious human rights abuser and perhaps the most feared person in Cambodia. The medal from the US was used as a major propaganda tool by the Cambodian government, while human rights activists called into question the true intentions of the US.

In September 2009, then-US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates hosted a meeting at the Pentagon in Washington with Cambodian Defense Minister Tea Banh. Tea Banh has presided over the Cambodian military for the past two decades, during which it has committed widespread abuses with impunity. Unsurprisingly, Tea Banh was greeted as a hero by the ruling party-controlled media upon his return from the United States.

“Hun Sen has been in power for 27 years and says he wants to rule for another 30, yet victims of abuses cannot wait that long for justice,” Adams said. “On his historic first visit to Cambodia, President Obama is uniquely placed to publicly demand that Hun Sen make genuine reforms so the Cambodian people can enjoy the same rights and freedoms that Americans take for granted.”
Human Rights Watch Press release

[headlines] Zimbabwe: Police raid threatens broader crackdown

Drop Charges Against Staff of Torture Victims’ Center
(Johannesburg) November 9, 2012 – The Zimbabwe government’s raid on a civil society group raises fears of a broader crackdown on perceived opposition activists ahead of elections due in 2013, Human Rights Watch said today.

On November 5, 2012, a dozen uniformed and plain-clothes police officers with a search warrant raided the Harare office of the Counseling Services Unit (CSU), which provides medical and psychological care for victims of political violence and torture. Before they entered, armed riot police surrounded the office and threatened to fire tear gas into the building, which contained other tenants. The police arrested five of the group’s employees and confiscated confidential medical records, including by removing a computer.

“The police raid on a torture victims’ center sends a chilling message to Zimbabwean civil society ahead of next year’s elections,” said Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “If a medical group is at risk, then everyone is.”

Patients at the office at the time were unable to receive treatment.

The warrant produced by the police indicated a search for material that “defaces any house, building, wall, fence, lamppost, gate, elevator without the consent of the owner or occupier thereof,” in violation of section 46 of the criminal code.

Two of the arrested employees, James Zidzimu and Penn Bruno, were taken to Harare Central Police Station and soon released. On November 7, the remaining three, Fidelis Mudimu, Zachariah Godi, and Tafadzwa Gesa, were transferred to Bulawayo Police Station and the following day charged under section 46. A magistrate granted them US$100 bail each and ordered them to surrender their passports and to report once a week at Harare Central Police Station.

State security forces aligned with the former ruling party ZANU-PF have conducted many raids in the past year against nongovernmental organizations, including CSU, the counseling service. Several human rights activists have been arrested in the process.

In August, police twice raided the offices of the Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe. During a raid on August 11, police briefly detained 44 members of the group, assaulting them with batons, slaps and punches.

Police have also repeatedly harassed Abel Chikomo, director of the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum. Chikomo was arrested and released on bail in 2011 after being charged with running an unregistered organization. He was summoned to stand trial on July 3, 2012. The government withdrew the summons on July 25 but reiterated its intention to summon him again at a future date. Despite the withdrawal of the summons, police have continued to visit the offices of the NGO Forum and harass Chikomo.

Zimbabwe is due to hold a referendum on a new constitution and elections in 2013. The Global Political Agreement that established the current power-sharing government in 2009 requires Zimbabwe to undertake a series of legislative and other reforms before it holds new elections. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) appointed the government of South Africa to help facilitate the constitutional process and pave the way for the elections.

Human Rights Watch has repeatedly expressed concern at the slow pace of human rights reforms in Zimbabwe, including only minimal changes to repressive laws, a lack of security sector reform, and ongoing repression of civic and political activity.

“Civil society organizations are a crucial component of next year’s elections in Zimbabwe,” Bekele said. “African governments involved in the reform effort need to strongly condemn government actions against these important groups.”
Human Rights Watch Press release

Deltawomen’s Concerns

 We are concerned that the 2013 budget would be drafted and passed only in May, and we are unsure of when it will be executed.

Following that, a tender and subsequent approval of a contractor is required. Our concerns are that the establishment of the school may be lost in a pile of bureaucratic work, and may not even begin to work until October next year. Therefore, it remains that while all this is going on, the children of Okuijorogu, in  Delta State, Nigeria will still be forced to cross the dangerous and unattended Benin/Sapele express road. This will also deprive many children from five year old of educational rights; since many of them rely on transportation by their mother’s backs – as mothers cannot participate in this owing to their status as breadwinners of their families. Should they leave that responsibilities and take their children to school, their families might have to go without a meal. The school that is situated 4 kilometers away from their community does not have chairs, the buildings are dilapidated

If they continue without the assistance of the government, a child might lose his life while crossing the express road.

We wish that the authorities would consider the need for the safety of the children a top priority!

POLITICS AND CHILDREN's FUTURE

POLITICS AND CHILDREN's FUTURE

Honourable Julius Okpoko is the member
representing Okpe constituency in the Delta
State House of Assembly. This Democratic

Peoples' Party (DPP) member is currently the
minority leader of the House.

A reliable source informed Delta Decides 2015
that this honourable member is seriously
trying to sabotage all efforts in putting a
school in Okuijorogu community in Okpe LGA
which he represents at the State House.
According to him, "Okuijorogu people did not
vote for him during the last general election."

A request letter was sent by DeltaWomen NGO
to the state governor, the speaker of the State
House of
Assembly, Hon. Julius Okpoko (himself) and
the commissioner for Basic and Secondary
Education.

However, the state governor sent his
delegation to visit the said community
without a school, upon seeing the letter. The
speaker, Rt. Hon. Victor Ochei on his part
minuted on the letter and sent it to Hon.
Okpoko but he never acted on it.

When contacted on phone by our messenger,
one of his PAs acknowledged receiving the
minuted letter from Rt. Hon. Ochei and the
one brought by DeltaWomen NGO, but said he
has handed them over to his boss(Hon.
Okpoko) and wondered
why he has not acted on it.

Our messenger tried calling Hon. Okpoko on
phone for clarification, he declined, refusing
to speak with us.

[headlines] India: Government, Maoists target civil society activists

Prosecute Threats, Torture, and Killings
(Ranchi) July 30, 2012 – Indian authorities and Maoist insurgents have threatened and attacked civil society activists, undermining basic freedoms and interfering with aid delivery in embattled areas of central and eastern India, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

The 60-page report, “Between Two Sets of Guns: Attacks on Civil Society Activists in India’s Maoist Conflict,” documents human rights abuses against activists in India’s Orissa, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh states. Human Rights Watch found that grassroots activists who deliver development assistance and publicize abuses in Maoist conflict areas are at particular risk of being targeted by government security forces and Maoist insurgents, known as Naxalites. Maoists frequently accuse activists of being informers and warn them against implementing government programs. The police demand that they serve as informers, and those that refuse risk being accused of being Maoist supporters and subject to arbitrary arrest and torture. The authorities use sedition laws to curtail free speech and also concoct criminal cases to lock up critics of the government.

Human Rights Watch called for an immediate end to harassment, attacks, and other abuses against activists by both government forces and the Maoists.

“The Maoists and government forces seem to have little in common except a willingness to target civil society activists who report on rights abuses against local communities,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch and the author of the report. “Aid workers and rights defenders need to be allowed to do their work safely and not be accused of having a political agenda simply because they bring attention to abuses.”

The report is largely based on more than 60 interviews with local residents, activists, journalists, and lawyers who were witnesses to or familiar with abuses by Indian security forces and the Maoists primarily in Orissa, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh from July 2011 to April 2012.

While human rights defenders have rarely come under direct attack from Maoists, they operate in a climate of fear and are at great risk if they criticize Maoist abuses. The Maoists have been particularly brutal towards those perceived to be government informers or “class enemies” and do not hesitate to punish them by shooting or beheading after a summary “trial” in a self-declared “people’s court” (jan adalat). Jan adalats do not come close to meeting international standards of independence, impartiality, competence of judges, the presumption of innocence, or access to defense.

For instance, in March 2011, Maoists killed Niyamat Ansari, who helped villagers access the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in Jharkhand. The Maoists abducted him and later admitted to his killing by claiming that he was punished for “being under the influence of the police administration, carrying out anti-people, counter-revolutionary activities, and challenging the party.”

Government authorities in Orissa, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh have arbitrarily arrested, tortured, and otherwise ill-treated many civil society activists, Human Rights Watch said. They have frequently brought politically motivated charges against them, including for murder, conspiracy, and sedition. Sedition charges are brought despite a 1962 Supreme Court ruling that prosecution under the law requires evidence of incitement to violence. Often these cases are dropped only when prosecutors are unable to support the allegations in court. But by then the activists have already served unnecessarily long periods in detention because their bail pleas are routinely denied. Police have often attempted to justify these actions by discrediting activists as Maoists or Maoist supporters.

For example, Rabindra Kumar Majhi, Madhusudan Badra, and Kanderam Hebram, activists with the Keonjhar Integrated Rural Development and Training Institute in Orissa, were arbitrarily arrested in July 2008. All three were severely beaten until they falsely confessed to being Maoists. Majhi was hung by his legs from the ceiling and so badly beaten that his thigh bone fractured. However, when James Anaya, the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous people, expressed concern about their safety, the Indian government, relying on police claims, insisted that the men had confessed to committing crimes. All three were later acquitted, exposing the government’s failure to independently investigate police claims, but each suffered two-and-half years in pretrial detention.

“Anyone, including activists, who engage in criminal activities should be fairly prosecuted,” Ganguly said. “However, local authorities should act on specific evidence of criminal activity, not a blanket assumption that critics of the state are supporting Maoist violence. The national government needs to step in and bring an end to politically motivated prosecutions.”

Activist Himanshu Kumar had to stop his grassroots work with the predominantly tribal population in the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh because of state intimidation. He had built a network of local activists to implement government food and healthcare programs, and work on other development projects. After the Chhattisgarh government began to support the Salwa Judum vigilante movement against the Maoists in 2005, he started filing complaints against Salwa Judum abuses. He became visible in the media and during protests. In retaliation, the district administration declared that his organization’s office was located illegally in protected forest land. In May 2009, police demolished the structure. Unable to secure any other space in the area, and because of threats and arrests of several of his workers, Kumar had to leave Chhattisgarh.

“The Indian government has repeatedly asserted that a parallel approach is needed to resolve the Maoist problem by delivering development while undertaking security operations against Maoists,” Ganguly said. “However, the government has failed to stop local authorities and the security forces from attacking and intimidating civil society activists who are often implementing the very programs that could deliver development in these remote and long ignored areas.”

Accounts:
“The police say, ‘You travel all over the place. Why don’t the Maoists kill you?’ But the thing is the Maoists are angry with me, too. The local leaders say I am inciting people against Maoists. All I am doing is telling people that they should protest to protect their lives. They are stuck between two sets of guns, and they should say that they are suffering. I was told by the police, ‘We are watching. You talk too much, and you will be in jail, defending murder charges.’”
– Human right activist in Chhattisgarh, August 2011 (details withheld)

“They started beating me… They kept asking, ‘Are you a Maoist?’ I said, ‘No.’ They said if you deny it, we will beat you more. Finally, I said, ‘Yes.’”
– Madhusudan Badra, Orissa, July 2011

“My colleagues were arrested under false charges, even murder…. The number of violent reprisals kept increasing. I began to feel my strategy had backfired – instead of protecting them, I had made these tribal people more vulnerable. Continuing to work in Dantewada would only bring more harassment, more attacks, more arrests of people I was trying to help. I decided to leave Dantewada.”
– Himanshu Kumar, Chhattisgarh, August 2011
Human Rights Watch Press release

COLOMBIA - WOMEN FLEE VIOLENCE IN RURAL AREAS, BUT CITIES ARE OFTEN NOT SAFE

Human Rights Watch

"Cowering from Colombia's Violence"

http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/07/24/cowering-colombia-s-violence

 

COLOMBIA - WOMEN FLEE VIOLENCE IN RURAL AREAS, BUT CITIES ARE OFTEN NOT SAFE

July 24, 2012 - A woman cries as she speaks of her fear that her ex-boyfriend will kill their children. A member of one of the successor groups to the paramilitaries, he wounded her in a knife attack after she left him. She is afraid of walking outside because members of his group control many neighborhoods, and if they see her they may report back to him. She is in hiding in a safe house in Barrancabermeja, Santander. © 2008 Stephen Ferry

 

“All that has happened to me is difficult, but what’s worse is the fear that remains with me … It’s a malignancy. Ever since I left my beautiful little village, I have not found a tranquil place to rest.”

I sat down with Mercedes on a sleepy afternoon in Medellin, Colombia. She was nervous. I was exhausted. Mercedes was my 60th interview with women and girls in Colombia – all of whom survived sexual or family violence, and all of whom had fled their close-knit rural communities for large, anonymous cities because of serious threats to them or their family.
Sexual violence against women and girls has been called a habitual practice in Colombia’s five decades of warfare between the military, guerrillas, and paramilitaries. But in interviewing these displaced women and girls, I realized that the terror and violence does not end for them when they flee armed groups. Leaving their villages and moving to cities only exacerbates the economic, social, and cultural vulnerabilities that make them susceptible to violence.
As Mercedes’ story unfolded, it followed a tragic pattern I had heard from numerous other Colombian woman. They faced the same risks and the same government neglect, experienced the same pitfalls. It began when guerrilla groups tried to recruit Mercedes’ husband.
Mercedes lived in a small agricultural village with her husband and four children before coming to the modern and bustling city of Medellin. In the “campo,” or countryside, families grow their own food and raise their own livestock. Despite all of the challenges of rural poverty, many of the women I met spoke longingly of the fruit trees they had in their gardens. Communities are close-knit, and family members support one another. Women can rely on neighbors and friends to share child-care duties. Older generations teach younger people necessary skills. Like most families who flee to cities, Mercedes’ left quickly under threat of violence.
Guerrilla groups tried to recruit Mercedes’s husband in 1997. Afraid, the family left in the middle of the night for another town, leaving their belongings behind. They were too frightened to tell anyone – even the government. In 2004, paramilitaries accused her husband of being guerrilla sympathizer. One night, they killed him. Shortly thereafter, Mercedes’s 16-year-old daughter, Beatriz, was raped. Mercedes fled with her children to Medellin. She told me that she was too frightened to report that they had been forced to flee to the government and to seek the food aid she would have been entitled to. She also did not know her daughter could receive free post-rape medical treatment. Instead, her daughter became pregnant as a result of the rape and had a child.
Mercedes tried to piece together a life for her children in Medellin, but her lack of skills made it hard to find a job. Eventually, she found work on a farm outside of Medellin.
At that point in her account, Mercedes hesitated to continue with her story, but she pressed on, saying that a member of a paramilitary group – at this point, her voice dropped to a whisper – raped her in late 2009. Mercedes didn’t call the police or seek out a doctor. “I kept silent for all the reasons you can think of,” she told me, “for the rage, the fear, everything that one feels after something like this happens. I didn’t tell anyone, not my family, no one.”
When Mercedes became certain she was pregnant, she was concerned about how she would continue to work and feed her children and this new baby. She went to the municipal human rights ombudsman, who told her she could seek an abortion. For her, this offer of medical care came too late. Mercedes said she would have tried to prevent the pregnancy using emergency contraception had she known about this option. But she was four months pregnant at that point and decided not to have an abortion.
The ombudsman referred Mercedes to a unit of the prosecutor’s office. She gave her testimony, but Mercedes told me sadly that no one has been punished for this crime. She was also referred to a local non-governmental organization for psychological support. But her daughter, Beatriz, provided her the most important support – she knew what it was like to be pregnant following rape.
Then Beatriz was killed in the crossfire of neighborhood fighting. There is an on-going investigation, but Mercedes told me that no one has been punished.
With the help of a local nongovernmental organization, Mercedes finally declared her forced displacement – 15 years and 5 additional displacements since the first time she and her husband packed up their children and fled in the night. But the government determined she didn’t qualify as displaced. She doesn’t understand why. In March, her two youngest children were placed in a government welfare institution, until she finds a job and can better support them. She misses them very much.
Mercedes is resigned to her fate. She believes no one will be punished for anything– for her displacement, her husband’s murder, her daughter’s rape, her rape, her daughter’s murder. “The truth is, the state isn’t looking for justice for me…”
Before beginning this research, it would have been hard for me to imagine that one family could experience so much tragedy. But after speaking with more than 80 women and girls, it became clear that many women had similar experiences. Some had been raped multiple times, and many had lost husbands, fathers or children in the conflict. But when they fled the conflict areas, they didn’t find the safety they needed. Instead, they entered another world of less visible risks, where they struggle to feed, house, and educate their children. The violence they hoped to leave behind followed them.
What you probably would not guess from hearing Mercedes’s story is that Colombia has strong laws on violence against women, and the state has funded centers to help victims. Yet women like Mercedes slip through the cracks—often because these services are not geared toward the displaced. And women like Mercedes don’t trust the government – they’ve seen their family members raped or killed and that the government has not held anyone responsible. But, hopefully, this will change. Human Rights Watch is working with people preparing a draft law to help sexual violence victims access justice. The bill will help ensure that victims will not face threats or violence for reporting crimes against them. It also would call on the government to provide psychosocial support to victims. Human Rights Watch has met repeatedly with the people drafting the law, sharing our research as it unfolds. The bill is to be introduced in the Colombian Congress in late July.
Human Rights Watch expects to release a report in the fall about how Colombia can protect these women better and give them improved access to health services. While the government has new laws and policies to help women like Mercedes, it needs to ensure that the victims know about these opportunities and that they can feel safe asking for help.
Mercedes and I finished our interview over cups of herbal tea. She told me about how beautiful her teenage sons are – helping her around the house and helping to work for food. But, she left me with a plea. “All that has happened to me is difficult, but what’s worse is the fear that remains with me … It’s a malignancy,” she said. “Ever since I left my beautiful little village, I have not found a tranquil place to rest.”

[headlines] USA: Police practices fuel HIV epidemic

Sex Workers at Risk From Condom Policy
July 19, 2012 -- Police in New York, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, and San Francisco are confiscating condoms from sex workers and transgender women, undermining health department campaigns to reduce HIV, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

The 112-page report, “Sex Workers at Risk: Condoms as Evidence of Prostitution in Four US Cities,” documented in each city how police and prosecutors use condoms to support prostitution charges. The practice makes sex workers and transgender women reluctant to carry condoms for fear of arrest, causes them to engage in sex without protection, and puts them at risk of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. The report was released prior to the 19th International AIDS Conference, in Washington, DC, starting on July 22, 2012. The US response to the epidemic will be in the spotlight before 20,000 delegates gathered from around the world. The four cities investigated are among the hardest-hit in the US, with over 200,000 people living with HIV among them.

“Sex workers in each city asked us how many condoms it was legal to carry,” said Megan McLemore, senior health researcher at Human Rights Watch. “One woman in Los Angeles told us she was afraid to carry condoms with her and sometimes had to use a plastic bag instead of a condom with clients to try to protect herself from HIV.”


Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 300 people for the report, including 200 current and former sex workers as well as outreach workers, advocates, prosecutors, public defenders, police, and health department officials.

The report includes testimony from sex workers and transgender women who said that police harass, threaten, and arrest them for carrying condoms. In New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, prosecutors introduce condoms into evidence at trial, asking courts to consider them indicators of criminal activity. For immigrants, arrest for prostitution can mean detention or removal from the United States. Some women told Human Rights Watch that they continued to carry condoms despite the potentially harsh consequences, but many did not.
One sex worker in Washington, DC, said, “Police always ask ‘why do you have so many condoms?’ No one walks around with a lot of condoms because of it.”

New York, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, and San Francisco have reported high rates of HIV among sex workers and transgender women, and targeted HIV prevention among these groups as an urgent priority. The US government provides millions of dollars to each of these cities to prevent HIV among groups at high risk, including sex workers and transgender women. Yetsex workers told Human Rights Watch that they turned down offers of condoms from outreach workers.

“These cities gave out 50 million condoms last year,” McLemore said. “But the police are taking them out of the hands of those who need them the most.” Police and prosecutors defended the use of condoms as evidence, saying that the practice was necessary to enforce anti-prostitution laws and that condoms are one tool that helps obtain convictions against prostitutes, their clients, and those involved in sex trafficking.
But law enforcement efforts should not interfere with the right of anyone, including sex workers, to protect their health, Human Rights Watch said. State or city governments should ban the use of condoms as evidence of prostitution. A bill proposing this ban recently failed to pass in the New York State legislature.

Barring the use of specific types of evidence in criminal proceedings is not uncommon where there are competing public interests. For example, in each city addressed in the report, clean needles are available for drug users to reduce HIV and hepatitis C infection, and municipal law enforcement and public health officers collaborate to ensure programs can reach those most at risk. In all 50 states, “rape shield” laws forbid the use of a victim’s sexual history in court, even if it has probative value in a given case, because the harm generally in admitting such evidence is simply too great.

“In legal systems everywhere, evidence is excluded because it is judged to do more harm than good,” McLemore said. “Eliminating HIV infections is a national priority and ensuring the availability of condoms among those at highest risk is critical.”

Human Rights Watch found that police stops and searches for condoms are often a result of profiling, targeting suspected offenders for the way they look, what they are wearing, and where they are standing, rather than on the basis of any observed illegal activity.

In New York, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles, many people, particularly members of the transgender community, told Human Rights Watch they had been stopped and searched for condoms while walking home from school, going to the grocery store, or waiting for the bus. Broad loitering laws in these cities invite profiling and discrimination and should be reformed or repealed, Human Rights Watch said.

Sex workers in New York, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles also described abusive and unlawful police behavior. Police sometimes subjected transgender women to vulgar insults, mockery, and disrespect. Transgender women described being “defaced” by police who removed their wigs and other clothing, in one case throwing it to the ground and stepping on it. In New York and Los Angeles, women reported that some police had demanded sex in exchange for dropping charges.

Few of these women filed complaints, both for fear of further abuse and because they had no faith that police would respond with fairness and integrity. The US Department of Justice should investigate police treatment of sex workers and transgender people in New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC, Human Rights Watch said.

The report also called for local, state, and federal leadership to stop the use of condoms as evidence of prostitution. The Obama administration has highlighted the need to reduce HIV among women and girls, a goal that remains out of reach for many sex workers and transgender women.

“The AIDS Conference is a perfect opportunity for Washington, DC, and the other cities to announce their intention to end the use of condoms as evidence of prostitution,” McLemore said. “Criminalizing HIV prevention undermines human rights and endangers the public health.”
Human Rights Watch Press release

[headlines] Ethiopia: Pastoralists forced off their land for sugar plantations

(Nairobi) June 18, 2012 – The Ethiopian government is forcibly displacing indigenous pastoral communities in Ethiopia’s Lower Omo valley without adequate consultation or compensation to make way for state-run sugar plantations, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The report contains previously unpublished government maps that show the extensive developments planned for the Omo valley, including irrigation canals, sugar processing factories, and 100,000 hectares of other commercial agriculture.

The 73-page report, “‘What Will Happen if Hunger Comes?’: Abuses against the Indigenous Peoples of Ethiopia’s Lower Omo Valley,”documents how government security forces are forcing communities to relocate from their traditional lands through violence and intimidation, threatening their entire way of life with no compensation or choice of alternative livelihoods. Government officials have carried out arbitrary arrests and detentions, beatings, and other violence against residents of the Lower Omo valley who questioned or resisted the development plans.

“Ethiopia’s ambitious plans for the Omo valley appear to ignore the rights of the people who live there,” said Ben Rawlence, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “There is no shortcut to development; the people who havelong relied on that land for their livelihood need to have their property rights respected, including on consultation and compensation.”

The Lower Omo valley, one of the most remote and culturally diverse areas on the planet, is home to around 200,000 people from eight unique agro-pastoral communities who have lived there for as long as anyone can remember. Their way of life and their identity is linked to the land and access to the Omo River. The Omo valley is in Ethiopia’s Southern Peoples, Nations, and Nationalities Region (SNNPR), near the border with Kenya, and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1980.



The significant changes planned for the Omo valley are linked to the construction of Africa’s highest dam, the controversial Gibe III hydropower project, along the Omo River. Downstream, the sugar plantations will depend on irrigation canals. Although there have been some independent assessments of the Gibe dam project, to date, the Ethiopian government has not published any environmental or social impact assessments for the sugar plantations and other commercial agricultural developments in the Omo valley.

Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 35 residents in June 2011, along with 10 donor officials and at least 30 other witnesses since that time. At the time of Human Rights Watch’s visit, military units regularly visited villages to intimidate residents and suppress dissent related to the sugar plantation development. Soldiers regularly stole or killed cattle.

“What am I going to eat?” a man of the Mursi ethnic group told Human Rights Watch. “They said to take all my cattle and to sell them and to only tie one up at my house. What can I do with only one? I am a Mursi. If hunger comes I shoot a cow’s neck and drink blood. If we sell them all for money how will we eat?”

The evidence gathered by Human Rights Watch since its visit demonstrates that in the past year regional officials and security forces have forcibly seized land from indigenous communities living and farming within the areas slated for sugar production. Reports of forced displacement and the clearing of agricultural land have gathered pace.

Access to the Omo River is critical for the food security and way of life of the pastoralists who live in the valley. Several community representatives said that state officials had told them, without any other discussion, that the communities would need to reduce the number of their cattle and resettle in one place, and that they would lose access to the Omo River.

As of June 2012, irrigation canals have been dug, land has been cleared, and sugar production has begun along the east bank of the river. Government maps photographed by Human Rights Watch indicate that the area where sugar cultivation is under way is a fraction of what is labeled as “Sugar Block One.” Two additional “blocks” of land that will be taken for sugar cultivation are to follow. Ethiopia’s existing assessments of the impact of the Gibe dam do not include the impact of sugar cultivation and irrigation on the flow of the Omo River, or the downstream impact on Lake Turkana. The massive network of irrigation canals indicated on the maps suggests that the previous assessments are insufficient.

The full implementation of the plan could affect at least 200,000 people in the Omo valley and another 300,000 Kenyans living across the border around Lake Turkana, which derives up to 90 percent of its water from the Omo River. Human Rights Watch said Kenya should press for new environmental and social impact assessments that examine the cumulative impact of the Gibe III dam and the irrigated commercial agriculture scheme.

These developments – which threaten the economic, social, and cultural rights of the Omo valley’s indigenous inhabitants – are being carried out in contravention of domestic and international human rights standards, which call for the recognition of property rights, with meaningful consultation, consent, and compensation for loss of land, livelihoods, and food security, and which state that displacement, especially of indigenous peoples from their historic homelands, must be treated as an absolute last resort.

The rights of indigenous peoples are addressed by Ethiopia’s own laws and constitution, as well as the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and regional human rights treaties and mechanisms such as the African human rights charter as interpreted by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. Under these laws and agreements, indigenous peoples have property rights over the land they have historically occupied that must be recognized by the state, and they can only be displaced with their free, prior, and informed consent. Even when such consent is given, they must also be fully compensated for any loss of land, property, or livelihood.

In fact, Ethiopia has not recognized any rights over the land of the indigenous communities of the area, including tenure security, Human Rights Watch found. Neither has it taken steps to adequately consult with, let alone seek the consent of, the indigenous peoples of the Omo valley, in particular taking into account the scant formal education of most of the population.

The Ethiopian government has responded to concerns raised by Human Rights Watch by noting that the plantations will bring benefits to the indigenous populations in the form of employment. Employment may be a welcome benefit for affected communities. But the prospect of some jobs does not remove the urgent need for the government to suspend plantation development until rigorous assessments have been carried out, the rights of the indigenous communities over their land has been recognized and consent sought, and any displacement or acquisition of land is shown to be strictly necessary, proportionate, and compensation provided, Human Rights Watch said.

Many international nongovernmental organizations have raised concerns about potential social and environmental impacts of the Gibe III hydropower project and have criticized the Ethiopian government for a lack of transparency and independent assessment. The Ethiopian government withdrew its request of the World Bank and African Development Bank for financing of the Gibe dam project but has not publicized its reasons for doing so. UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee has recommended suspending the project pending further independent evaluation of the effect on Lake Turkana.

The Ethiopian government relies on international aid for a significant percentage of its budget. Security forces and officials from the regional and district administrations are implementing the plans for the sugar plantations and telling local residents they must move, without any consultation or recognition of their rights. A multi-donor funded program called Protection of Basic Services (PBS) provides hundreds of millions of dollars to support health, education, and other sectors and funds the salaries of district government officials across Ethiopia, including SNNPR region. The main donors to PBS are the World Bank, the United Kingdom, the European Union, the Netherlands, and Germany.

Human Rights Watch called on the Ethiopian government to suspend the construction of Gibe III and the associated sugar plantations until these developments can be carried out in a manner consistent with national laws and international human rights standards. The Ethiopian government should recognize the rights of the Omo valley’s indigenous communities over their historic homelands and engage in meaningful discussion with them over the future use of their land and compensation on that basis, prior to further industrial development in South Omo. Donors should ensure their funding is not supporting forced displacement or unlawful expropriation of indigenous lands, Human Rights Watch said.

“Ethiopia’s desire to accelerate economic development is laudable, but recent events in the Omo valley are taking an unacceptable toll on the rights and livelihoods of indigenous communities,” Rawlence said. “The government should suspend the process until it meets basic standards, and donors should make sure their aid is not facilitating abuses.”

Selected Accounts from “What Will Happen if Hunger Comes”
“People disagree with the government on the sugar, but are afraid of the possible use of force to resettle people and so do not say much. big fear of government here. If you express concern, you go to jail.”
– Bodi man, June 2011.

“There will be a problem during the dry season. Now there is water, but when there isn’t if we do not go back to Omo we will need government to bring water. If they do not, and our cattle will die. We will go to Omo anyway, if not, we will die, they can kill us there if they want.”
– Mursi villager, June 2011.

“What am I going to eat? They said to take all my cattle and to sell them and to only tie one up at my house. What can I do with only one? I am a Mursi. If hunger comes I shoot a cow’s neck and drink blood. If we sell them all for money how will we eat? When we get married we marry with cattle. What will we marry with? What will we eat? When hunger comes what will we feed our children with? If we just keep chickens will we eat soup or milk them…? ‘This land is my land,’ say the highland Ethiopians. ‘Run to the forest like a baboon.’”
– Mursi man describing the importance of cattle, December 2011.

“They cleared out their gardens. They cleared far and dug up their sorghum. The sorghum was near ripening; a truck plowed it and cast it away. The Kwegu gardens were plowed and some Kwegu are now without anything. If their sorghum is plowed what are they going to eat? What will they give to their kids?”
– Man describing what happened to Bodi and Kwegu farmland that was cleared in December 2011.

“There will be big problems in the areas if all the cattle are given to the government. What will these people eat, now the drought is really badly affecting the Horn of Africa? Now the dam has been built, no water in the river, land has been taken away, the cattle given to the government, what will happen to the poor people in time of the famine? Those people who want to wipe out the pastoralists eat three times a day. What will happen if hunger comes?”

Human Rights Watch Press release


– Mursi man, May 2011.

Whitewash in Virginity Tests Trial, says Human Rights Watch

(New York) April 7, 2012 – The March 11 acquittal of the only military officer charged in the “virginity tests” trial is a blow for any hopes of accountability for the abuses women have experienced at the hands of the Egyptian military over the past year, Human Rights Watch said today. The military has failed to investigate and punish credible claims of other instances of violence by its members against women, including the beating and torture of women demonstrators by military officers on March 9 and December 16, 2011.

The investigation and trial in the case, in which female protesters who had been detained testified that a military doctor subjected them to “virginity testing,” underscore the lack of independence of the military justice system in trying such cases, Human Rights Watch said. The military prosecutor summoned no witnesses for the prosecution to establish the charges under which he had referred the case to court, nor did he challenge apparently factually inconsistent testimony by defense witnesses. Despite clear statements from senior military leaders that the incident had taken place, the trial did not examine who, and at what rank, ordered the tests.

“The verdict in the ’virginity tests’ trial is just one more example of the military’s failure to punish gross abuses against women and a reminder that the military justice system lacks the fundamental independence to remedy human rights abuses by the military,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

On the afternoon of March 9, 2011, military officers destroyed a tent camp belonging to demonstrators in Tahrir Square's central garden, and arrested at least 190 demonstrators. On March 10, according to five women who gave accounts of their experiences, a military officer went into the prison cell where 17 women were being held and asked if they were married. A prison military doctor, Ahmed Adel, then conducted “virginity tests” on seven of the women who said they were not, using his fingers to examine their hymens.

Three of the women, Samira Ibrahim, Rasha Abdel Rahman, and Salwa al Hosseiny, told Human Rights Watch that a female prison warden and other soldiers were present in the corridor when the doctor conducted the “virginity tests.” Later that day, after trials lasting not more than 30 minutes, a military court sentenced all 17 of the women to suspended one-year sentences for “thuggery.” The military officers released them on March 12.

It took nine months, however, for military prosecutors to refer the case on the allegations of virginity testing to court. The only military officer charged and brought to trial was Adel, who was charged with “public indecency” and “failure to obey orders.” He was acquitted on all charges on March 11, 2012. Even though both Ibrahim and Abdel Rahman testified in court that Adel had subjected them to virginity tests, the court based its decision on the doctor’s denial and the inconsistent testimonies of two prison wardens. The military prosecutor failed to challenge the inconsistencies or to investigate anyone in the command chain who may or should have known that the tests took place and did not prevent them.

Ibrahim’s lawyer, Ahmad Hossam, told Human Rights Watch that the prosecutor also failed to summon a single witness to prove the charges he set out in his indictment referring the case to court, and that Abdel Rahman and three other witnesses for the prosecution were able to testify only by petitioning the judge. Ibrahim had testified in her capacity as the plaintiff since the case had started as a result of the complaint she had filed.

Although they initially denied that any violations had taken place in March 2011, generals of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) later confirmed on at least two occasions that the virginity tests had taken place on March 10 and that this was a routine practice. In an interview with Shahira Amin, a journalist, on May 27, General Ismail Etman, chief of morale affairs for the military, said that, “We didn't want them to say we had sexually assaulted or raped them, so we wanted to prove that they weren't virgins in the first place.”

On June 13, Mona Saif, founder of the No to Military Trials group, met with SCAF General Hassan al-Ruweiny, who gave her the same explanation. On June 26 Major General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, head of military intelligence, confirmed to Amnesty International that the military had carried out the tests, as the organization published in a statement the next day. In addition, General Mohamed ‘Assar told Human Rights Watch on June 7 that conducting virginity tests was “normal practice” and that, “When any woman enters an Egyptian prison, it is a rule that she be subjected to a virginity test.”

The flawed investigation and trial of this case reflects the lack of the military prosecutor’s and military court’s independence, Human Rights Watch said. The military justice system in Egypt is a division of the Defense Ministry. The head of military justice, General Adel Morsy, reports to the SCAF and appoints all the military judges by authority vested in him by a SCAF decree.

In December Morsy said that there “was no decision in the first place to conduct virginity tests and no provision for such a procedure in the regulations of military prisons.” Given his status in the military hierarchy and his authority over the military judge in the trial, such a statement effectively prejudged certain aspects of the trial, precluding an examination of whether the military ordered the virginity tests or had a policy of carrying them out, Human Rights Watch said.

“Civilian courts, not military courts, should be in charge of prosecuting the military for their ongoing abuses against civilians,” Whitson said.

The acquittal of the military doctor reflects an ongoing pattern of the military’s failure to investigate and prosecute cases involving military violence against women. The military has not seriously investigated allegations of assault on women demonstrators on March 9, 2011, or incidents in which video footage captured groups of military police beating and kicking women on December 16, including one veiled woman who lay on the ground with her torso exposed while six military police officers beat and kicked her.

On December 19 General Adel Emara commented on the attack on the veiled woman, telling journalists: “Yes this scene actually happened and we are investigating it. We will disclose the investigation results in full. We do not want to conceal anything.” But the military has not taken the testimony of any of the women assaulted in these cases, human rights lawyers told Human Rights Watch, nor made public any of the results of their alleged investigations. An investigation into the incident by civilian prosecutors also has failed to interrogate any military officers, human rights lawyers told Human Rights Watch.

Despite the fact that military courts have issued harsh sentences, including many death sentences, in cases of rape by civilians, there appears to be a significant discrepancy in sentencing when a military officer is tried for the same crime. Human Rights Watch has been able to identify only one case in which a civilian allegedly raped by a military officer filed a criminal complaint that went to trial: the case of a 34-year-old British woman who said she was raped in a room at a checkpoint in Sinai on May 15, 2011. The military court sentenced the officer to five years in prison, which it commuted to three years in February.

Proposals to amend the Code of Military Justice should not only prohibit trying civilians before military courts but also allow for trials of military officers before civilian courts in cases of serious human rights violations.

“The military has chosen to cover up the ‘virginity tests’ just as it has failed to investigate or prosecute anyone for serious allegations about the beating of women protesters in December,” Whitson said. “Military impunity will continue as long as the military justice system is the only place victims of military abuse can file complaints.”

The Virginity Tests Trial

Failure to Investigate and Prosecute Adequately

Human rights lawyers representing Samira Ibrahim filed a complaint on June 23 at the office of the military prosecutor. The deputy chief military prosecutor summoned Ibrahim on June 28 to take her testimony. On July 10 the prosecutor summoned Adel, a 27-year-old first lieutenant and the military doctor on duty at the military prison at the time of the tests, who denied that the invasive procedure had taken place.

Ahmed Hossam, Ibrahim’s lawyer, told Human Rights Watch that over the following eight months whenever he asked about the progress of the investigation, military prosecutors told him that the results of the investigation by the military police at the prison “weren’t ready yet.” In contrast, investigations by military prosecutors of civilians can last as little as 30 minutes, and in high-profile cases three weeks, before the prosecutor refers the case to court.

It was not until December 20 that Morsy announced in a news release that the virginity tests case had been referred to trial before military courts. The prosecutor’s referral order is dated December 18. It came after hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets in November calling for an immediate end to military rule, and further protests on December 16, when military police were caught on video beating unarmed protesters, including several women.

Charges and Indictment

Case documents reviewed by Human Rights Watch indicate that the military prosecutor limited his investigation to interrogating Adel and did not investigate the potential responsibility of commanders for ordering procedures or indict any of the commanding officers who oversaw the arrest, detention, and trial of the 174 protesters and the detention of the 17 women in the military prison. He indicted only the prison doctor and added a second charge of “failing to obey orders” to indicate that this was an isolated act that the doctor had initiated independently.

Lawyers from the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) obtained the prosecutor’s interrogation and indictment sheets. These reports indicate that on December 13 the military prosecutor interrogated Adel and charged him with “sexual assault” [hatk‘ard] and on December 18 issued a charge sheet accusing Adel of “violating the victim Samira Ibrahim by exceeding the bounds of a medical examination and subjecting her to a virginity test and revealing her area of chastity.” [manatiq al‘iffa].On the interrogation sheet, the prosecutor stated that Adel had subjected Ibrahim to the test in full view of other people in the military prison.

Yet in the December 18 referral order, the prosecutor had reduced the charges from sexual assault to committing “an act of public indecency” and “failure to obey orders.” Hossam told Human Rights Watch that he and other lawyers had on four occasions asked the judge to amend the charges from “act of public indecency” and “failure to follow orders” to “sexual assault” (hatk‘ard). The SCAF had in March 2011 amended article 268 of the Egyptian penal code on sexual assault, increasing the penalty from hard labor to imprisonment of up to seven years and stating that “any person who violates another with the use of force or threat, or attempts to do so, shall be punished with imprisonment.” The judge refused to restore the sexual assault charge.

Witnesses and Evidence

At the trial, two women testified that Adel had subjected them to the tests and two others that SCAF generals had confirmed the incident to them.

At least four witnesses summoned by defense lawyers who said they were in the military prison that day supported the military doctor’s testimony that the tests had not taken place. They included the head of the military prison, Major Ashraf Sayed Mohamed, and the two female prison wardens, Fawziya Sobhi Hassan and Abeer Rashad Abdel Moemen. However, Abdel Moemen testified that she had not been present during the military doctor’s examination of the women, contradicting her June 9 testimony to the military prosecutor that she had been with the doctor at the time of the examination and was the only one present.

Hassan also had told the prosecutor on December 19 that she had been present during the examinations with Abdel Moemen, but on February 6 testified in court that Hassan had been the only one with the doctor. The prosecutor did not raise the issue of the inconsistent testimony during the trial nor did he cross-examine the witnesses.

Since the Code of Military Justice does not recognize the standing of the civil parties to the case, Ibrahim’s lawyers, Ahmed Hossam and Adel Ramadan, only managed to get access to the case file and permission to intervene in the case after appealing to Morsy on January 3. The lawyers contended they had a right to intervene in the proceedings on the basis of article 272 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which allows victims the right to cross-examine witnesses. Morsy allowed them to appear as lawyers for the victim to intervene in the case, but did not allow them to file compensation claims. Morsy told Hossam that he had issued orders to allow lawyers for civilian claimants to intervene in all military trials.

Hossam and Ramadan next asked the judge to summon witnesses for the prosecution, since the military prosecutor had not summoned a single witness to establish the charges. The judge approved this request, and the lawyers brought forward four witnesses to testify on February 26.

One of the four was Rasha Abdel Rahman, who confirmed Ibrahim’s testimony. She told Human Rights Watch that when she saw him in court on February 26 she recognized the accused as the one who had subjected her to the virginity test. She told Human Rights Watch:

There was a prison warden called Azza dressed in black. I was the fifth one to be examined. They took me to a bed in the passageway. There were others there: the prison doctor, a soldier called Ibrahim, Azza the prison warden, and a man standing in the room opposite. The doctor examined me with his hand.

Cover-up, Despite the Military Leadership’s Admission

In the first three months after the incident, members of the SCAF had repeatedly denied that the virginity tests took place, including in the above statements by Generals Mohammed ‘Assar and Ismail Etman.

However, in the trial session on February 26, Shahira Amin, the journalist, testified that SCAF members had confirmed to her that the incident had taken place. In addition, Mona Saif, founder of the No To Military Trials group, testified that when their group had raised the incident in a meeting with a SCAF general, he had told them that “virginity tests” were a routine practice. Heba Morayef from Human Rights Watch also testified that a SCAF member had told her that virginity tests were a normal practice and that they were regularly conducted on all women prisoners.

Amin recounted what General Etman, chief of morale affairs for the military, told her in a telephone conversation on May 27 as she was interviewing him for a story for CNN:

The girls who were detained were not like your daughter or mine. These were girls who had camped out in tents with male protesters in Tahrir Square, and we found in the tents Molotov cocktails and (drugs)…. We didn't want them to say we had sexually assaulted or raped them, so we wanted to prove that they weren't virgins in the first place.

Saif testified that General Hassan al-Ruweiny had told her on June 13 that the tests were a routine procedure on women detainees in military prisons conducted to prevent future claims of sexual assault.

Morayef testified that she was part of a Human Rights Watch delegation who had met with Major General ‘Assar on June 7, who told the delegation:

You have to take into account the differences in culture around the world. There are Asian countries where you are offered the brain of a monkey as a guest. There are differences in cultures… When any woman enters an Egyptian prison, it is a rule that she be subjected to a virginity test… We have issued instructions that this should not take place again.

Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui at Amnesty International also told Human Rights Watch that when their delegation met Major General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, head of military intelligence, on June 26, he confirmed to them that the military had carried out the tests in order to protect the military against possible allegations of rape.

Civilian Administrative Court Orders an End to Virginity Tests

Egyptian human rights lawyers had filed a separate case before an administrative court, asking the court to order an end to virginity tests in military prisons as a violation of human rights.

On December 27 Egypt’s administrative court, the Council of State, ruled in Samira Ibrahim’s favor in the case. Citing Egypt’s Code of Criminal Procedure, Constitutional Declaration, and Egypt’s ratification of treaties including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, presiding judge Abdel Salam al-Naggar ruled that the practice of conducting virginity tests on women in detention was “targeted at humiliating women participating in demonstrations” and that they were “an illegal act and a violation of women’s rights and an assault on their dignity.” Judges in administrative courts can issue findings of law based on prima facie findings of an alleged practice when they rule a case admissible but do not make findings about specific criminal incidents.

The judge cited article 40 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which states that every detainee must be treated with respect for human dignity and prohibits physical or psychological ill-treatment, and article 46, which states that women can only be searched with their consent. The judge also cited that articles 8, 9, and 17 of the Constitutional Declaration guarantee the right of people in detention to be treated with dignity, not to be subjected to any physical or psychological harm, and not to be detained in places other than those specified in the prisons law. He said that any violation of these rights is a crime and that the state is under an obligation to provide a just remedy to those whose rights have been violated.

Later that day, Morsy issued a news release in which he said that the decision of the administrative court was not applicable because there “was no decision in the first place to conduct virginity tests and no provision for such a procedure in the regulations of military prisons.” He said that if these tests were to take place, they would be the act of an individual, who should be punished.

The SCAF has in the past implemented court rulings by Egypt’s administrative courts, such as the Council of State judgment ordering Egypt’s executive authorities to enable Egyptians living outside Egypt to vote in the country’s November parliamentary elections.

Virginity Tests Under International Law

As party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Egypt is obliged to protect women from cruel and inhuman treatment and discrimination, and to ensure their right to privacy. Coercive virginity tests violate all three of those obligations, Human Rights Watch said.

The virginity tests also violate guarantees of freedom from discrimination in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which is reflected in the March 30 Constitutional Declaration that acts as Egypt’s transitional constitution. The CEDAW Committee has previously stated that it views with the “gravest concern the practice of forced gynecological examinations of women … including of women prisoners while in custody.” The committee “emphasized that such coercive practices were degrading, discriminatory and unsafe and constituted a violation by state authorities of the bodily integrity, person and dignity of women.”

Conducting virginity tests without the informed consent of the girl or woman violates her right to bodily integrity, dignity, privacy, and equality before the law, and would amount to a sexual assault. Such assaults cannot be justified, being based on an intrinsically discriminatory presumption that an examination of female virginity can be a legitimate interest of the state. Under international law virginity tests committed in custody constitute cruel and inhuman treatment. These exams are painful, degrading, and frightening. Victims attest that being forced to undress and undergo exams is degrading both as a physical violation and for the threatened consequences, given their status as prisoners.

Impunity for Violence Against Women Demonstrators

In addition to the “virginity tests” case, the Egyptian military has failed to punish other violence against women demonstrators. The military has not investigated or punished the beating and torture of women demonstrators by military officers on March 9 and December 16, despite promises to do so.

Human Rights Watch has interviewed 16 men and women who testified to being tortured by beating, electroshocks, and whipping by military officers on March 9 in the grounds of the Egyptian Museum, adjacent to Tahrir Square. Rasha Azab, a 28-year-old journalist for Al-Fajr Weekly, told Human Rights Watch she was handcuffed to an outside wall in a museum courtyard:

They were kicking me in my stomach, hitting me with wooden sticks and slapping my face. They called me dirty names. At one point, one of them came and tied my hands even more tightly. I stood there for four hours. I saw dozens of men being dragged on the floor and whipped. All of them were the people who had stayed in the square. I heard people screaming from inside the museum, and said, “You should thank God you are not inside.”

On March 28 SCAF Statement No. 29 on the military’s official Facebook page said the military would “look into the truth of what was said recently” about “the torture of women arrested during the latest sit-in in Tahrir by military officers.”

The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights obtained an April 2011 military police report signed by General Hamdi Badeen, head of the military police, titled “on the March 9 arrest of demonstrations from Tahrir square” and marked “very secret.” The document states that:

During the filming of the detainees it was noted that there were bruises and abrasions on some of the men and women and they said that some of those inside the museum … and some members of the armed forces … who were inside the museum attacked them, which is what led to these bruises.

Despite this report, however, there has been no investigation by the military prosecutors into the torture of the women and men. Only the military prosecutor can summon military officers to interrogate them on such charges, and thus far, the military prosecutors have not summoned any of the victims to take their testimonies, which is the first step in any investigation.

On December 16 security forces attacked and beat female and male demonstrators who had been protesting in front of the offices of the Egyptian cabinet. At least six military police officers were caught on camera apparently beating, stomping on, and kicking a veiled woman whose clothes had been torn off, exposing her torso. In other footage, at least four military police were seen beating and kicking another woman, Azza Helal, as she lay motionless on the street with sticks. Helal, who spent over a week in hospital with serious injuries, has filed a criminal complaint with the civilian public prosecution; the other woman, whose picture was splashed across the international media, has not come forward.

General Adel Emara confirmed that this incident had taken place and told journalists: “yes this scene actually happened, and we are investigating it. We will disclose the investigation results in full. We do not want to conceal anything.” But the military has not summoned the victims to testify or formally questioned any military officers in connection with a criminal investigation of this incident.

On December 20, while a women’s march of up to 10,000 people was winding through the streets of downtown Cairo, the SCAF posted a statement on its official Facebook page:

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces expresses its deep regret to the great women of Egypt for the infractions (tagawuzat) that occurred during the events of the Cabinet demonstrations, and affirms its respect and appreciation for the women of Egypt and their right to demonstrate and participate politically in Egypt … taking into account that all necessary legal measures have been taken to hold accountable those responsible for these infractions.

Despite this statement, there has been no “disclosure” by the military of the result of any investigation it may have conducted or whether it has ordered disciplinary measures short of a criminal investigation. The investigation into the violence during the December demonstrations at the offices of the cabinet, led by civilian prosecutors, has not included the military officers involved in the violence. Human rights lawyers Basma Zahran and Ahmad Hossam, who represent some of the women beaten and sexually abused, both confirmed to Human Rights Watch that civilian judicial authorities have not sought to identify which military officers may have been responsible for beating the women, for example by ordering a review of available video footage.

At least two of the women told the civilian investigative judge who was interrogating them in connection with the incident that they had been beaten and sexually abused by military officers. Had there been an intention to investigate, the investigative judge would have had to transfer the complaint to the military prosecution, since only the military prosecution can interrogate military officers as accused. The first step in any investigation would be for military prosecutors to summon victims in order to take their testimonies and this has yet to occur.

Discrepancy in Sentencing Civilians and Military in Cases of Rape

Human Rights Watch is aware of only one case in which a crime of rape committed by a military officer against a civilian was prosecuted and punished. The victim, a 34-year-old woman from the United Kingdom who did not wish to be identified, was in a shared taxi on May 14, 2011, in Sinai when military officers stopped the taxi at a checkpoint before al-Arish, told the woman to get out, and ordered the taxi to drive on. The woman told Human Rights Watch that the military officer had told her to go into the building at the checkpoint, where she would have to stay until morning, and that about 15 or 20 other soldiers were at the checkpoint. She said the officer led her up to a small room on the second floor. In a statement to Human Rights Watch, she wrote:

I became even more scared and stood up to leave, but he stood up and pushed me back. I knew that the other soldiers were just outside, so I screamed, “Help!”, as loudly as I could, but I think this would have only lasted for a second or two at most because he put his hand over my mouth. I struggled to get away but he was really strong. He tried to kiss me so he must have taken his hand off my mouth at some point.

I don’t remember the exact sequence of what happened next. I know that he pushed me onto the floor, because I remember being face down on the floor, twisted with my face against the wall, and him somehow on top of me. I was very scared, and shocked. He pulled my jeans down and I felt something go inside my vagina. His hand was over my face and at one point I managed to move my head so that I could say “I can’t breathe.” I thought that he might kill me at this point. I don’t remember it going in or out of me – I just remember the feeling of it inside me. I was surprised it happened so quickly. He made a noise; I think he had ejaculated.

On May 15 she reported the crime to the tourist police, who referred her to the military prosecution, where she filed a formal complaint. The woman described what happened at the military court building in Nasr City:

After a few hours of waiting I said that I wanted to go, but I was told we weren’t allowed to leave. I started asking for a lawyer because I wanted help … Once I started asking to leave, and asking for a lawyer, the military personnel present … started asking me if I was making it up, why was I changing my mind, and telling me I did not need a lawyer as I was not accused, I was the victim. I stood up to leave but the gate was blocked by army personnel holding guns. This was terrifying. I was extremely upset and kept asking to leave.

The military prosecutor eventually allowed her to leave that evening, telling her to return the following day. The next day, an officer in civilian clothes who identified himself as “detective Hani” asked her to do a “re-enactment” of the rape on the floor, showing the positions she had been in. The military officer then asked her to return the next day. When she arrived, military officials told her that they wanted her to identify her attacker from a line-up of five men, which she did.

It was only months later that her Egyptian lawyers to whom she had granted power of attorney managed to find out that an Ismailiya military court had convicted the officer of rape and sentenced him to five years in prison. However, Field Marshall Hussein Tantawy, the Defense Minister and head of the SCAF, ordered a retrial of the case, and on February 6, the court reduced the sentence to three years.

This sentence stands in marked contrast to the sentences issued by military tribunals against civilians convicted of rape, where sentences have ranged from 25 years to the death penalty. For example, in March 2011, an Ismailiya military court sentenced a 25-year-old civilian, Ismail Mohamed, to 20 years for attempted rape. On May 16 the Supreme Military Court convicted Mohamed Tarek, Karim El Sawy, Ahmed El Ashry, and Mahmoud Hassan of kidnapping and raping a woman and sentenced them to death.

Military Trials of Human Rights Abuses Lead to Impunity

The independence necessary to investigate and prosecute military abuses generally does not exist when military authorities investigate human rights violations by military personnel and prosecute them in military courts. Both the prosecution and judges should be independent of those they are investigating, including of the chain of command, Human Rights Watch said.

The Egyptian military justice system, created by Law 25 of 1966, includes courts and a prosecution section and is a division of the Defense Ministry. All military judges and prosecutors are serving members of the military, subject to the military hierarchy, selected by the head of the military justice system, and appointed by the defense minister. They have no formal independence and report to Morsy, the head of the military justice system, who reports to the defense minister, currently Tantawy, who as head of the SCAF is exercising presidential powers.

The 2005 United Nations Set of Principles for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights through Action to Combat Impunity state that “the jurisdiction of military tribunals must be restricted solely to specifically military offenses committed by military personnel, to the exclusion of human rights violations, which shall come under the jurisdiction of the ordinary domestic courts.” The Inter-American system of human rights protection has opposed the use of military tribunals to try military personnel in cases of human rights violations.

In its long-term work in Mexico and Chile for example, Human Rights Watch has found that restricting jurisdiction over human rights abuses committed by military personnel to military tribunals will lead to impunity. A 2006 report by the United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, held that after asserting jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute cases in which members of the military had raped women in southern Mexico, “rather than carrying out full and impartial investigations, military investigators have reportedly delayed criminal proceedings and tried to disprove the allegations thereby placing the burden of proof on the victim.”

In its report “The Road Ahead: A Human Rights Agenda for Egypt’s New Parliament,” Human Rights Watch identified the Code of Military Justice as one of the priorities for legislative reform to end trials of civilians before military courts and to allow civilian courts to try military officers for serious human rights abuses. It said:

The Egyptian parliament should amend the Code of Military Justice to restrict the jurisdiction of military courts to trials of only military personnel charged with offenses of an exclusively military nature; and
The Code of Military Justice should be amended to explicitly state that the public prosecutor shall be competent to investigate complaints regarding military abuse and that members of the military can be tried before civilian courts in cases of abuse and ill-treatment.

Human Rights Watch Press release