A military coup in October, led to the suspension of a power sharing between civilian representatives and senior officers, which had been established since the overthrow of former ruler, Omar al-Bashir in 2019.
More protests
Political protests took place in several parts of the capital on Monday, according to news reports, which met with a heavy response from security forces, including the use of tear gas. Since the coup, a violent crackdown has seen nearly 100 civilians killed, according to UN figures.
Adama Dieng, the UN Designated Expert on the human rights situation in Sudan, said in a statement issued at the weekend that he was shocked by the killing of a young man in a protest on Friday, reportedly shot in the chest by security forces.
“There can be no justification for firing live ammunition at unarmed protestors…This is a tragedy – each of these deaths is a tragedy for Sudan – another young man whose family are in mourning today. His killing must be investigated immediately, and the perpetrator prosecuted.”
Trilateral approach
Envoys of the trilateral mechanism facilitating intra-Sudan talks – the United Nations, the African Union and regional body, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) – have stressed that it is up to the Sudanese, particularly the authorities, to create an environment conducive to the success of any negotiations.
Briefing the Security Council in May, the UN Special Representative for Sudan, Volker Perthes, warned that time was short to reach a solution to the protracted political crisis in Sudan.
Last week, the military leadership reportedly lifted a state of emergency in place since the October coup, designed to encourage meaningful dialogue, in advance of a return to a democratic transition.
Facilitators
In a statement issued by his Spokesperson, Secretary-General António Guterres, welcomed the efforts of the trilateral mechanism, “to facilitate a solution”.
“As Sudanese stakeholders prepare to engage in direct talks, he encourages them to participate in good faith and to continue to work towards establishing a conducive environment for a constructive dialogue in the interest of the Sudanese people.
“The Secretary-General condemns all calls for violence and reiterates the importance of a peaceful atmosphere for the talks to be successful”, the statement continued.
Hate speech fuelling violence
“He is also concerned about attempts to undermine the efforts of the trilateral mechanism and its envoys.”
Mr. Guterres stressed that “all forms of hate speech represent an attack on tolerance, undermine social cohesion and can lay the foundation for violence, setting back the cause of peace.”
He reaffirmed his strong support for the work of the UN assistance mission, UNITAMS, “as it continues to support the Sudanese aspirations for democracy, peace and prosperity.”
In his statement, Mr. Dieng encouraged all Sudanese “to contribute to efforts towards a political settlement and resumption of the important legal and institutional reforms started by the transitional government.”
Alex Leiva, holding his baby girl, uses the water he managed to collect in barrels at 4:00 a.m., the only time the service is provided in Lotificación Praderas, in the canton of Cabañas, on the outskirts of the municipality of Apopa, north of the Salvadoran capital. The families of this region are fighting in defense of water, against an urban development project for wealthy families that threatens the water resources in the area. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS
by Edgardo Ayala (apopa, el salvador)
Inter Press Service
APOPA, El Salvador, Jun 06 (IPS) – Alex Leiva woke up at 4:00 a.m. to perform a key task for his family’s survival in the Salvadoran village where he lives: filling several barrels with the water that falls from the tap only at that early hour every other day.
If he does not collect water between 4:00 and 5:00 AM, he will not have another opportunity to fill the barrels for another two days.
“That’s what I have to do. Sometimes I manage to fill three barrels. The service is provided every other day,” Leiva, 32, a video producer, told IPS.
“It’s difficult to be in a situation like this, where the water supply is so inefficient,” he added.
In El Salvador there are at least 3,000 of these boards, community associations that play an essential role in the supply and management of water resources in rural areas and the peripheries of cities, in the face of the State’s failure to provide these areas with water.
Leiva lives in Lotificación Praderas, in the Cabañas canton, on the outskirts of the municipality of Apopa, north of the country’s capital, San Salvador.
This northern area covering several municipalities has been in conflict in recent years since residents of these communities began to fight against an urban development project by one of the country’s most powerful families, the Dueñas.
The Dueñas clan’s power dates back to the days of the so-called coffee oligarchy, which emerged in the mid-19th century.
Ciudad Valle El Angel is the name of the residential development to be built in this area on 350 hectares, and which will require some 20 million liters of water per day to supply the families that decide to buy one of the 8,000 homes.
The first feasibility permits granted by Anda to the consortium date back to 2015.
The homes are designed for upper middle-class families who decide to leave behind the chaos of San Salvador and to live with all the comforts of modern life, with water 24 hours a day, in the midst of poor communities that lack a steady water supply.
“There are people in my community who manage to fill only one barrel because there isn’t enough water pressure,” said Leiva, the father of a five-year-old boy and a nine-month-old baby girl.
Valle El Angel is an extensive region located on the slopes of the San Salvador volcano, in territories shared by municipalities north of the capital, including Apopa, Nejapa and Opico.
A general view of Parcelación El Ángel, in the Joya Galana canton, in the municipality of Apopa, near San Salvador. The community is fighting to defend the few natural resources that survive in the area, including a stream that originates in the micro-basin of the Chacalapa River. Water in the area is scarce, while Salvadoran authorities endorse an upscale real estate project that will use millions of liters per day. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS
Unfair justice
Sociedad Dueñas Limitada, the consortium managing the urban development project, received the definitive green light to begin construction: a thumbs-up from the Constitutional court, which on Apr. 29, 2022 rejected an unconstitutionality lawsuit filed in October 2019 by environmental organizations and communities in northern San Salvador.
The lawsuit was against a dubious agreement signed in 2016 between that company and Anda, which manages water in the country. The deal granted the project 240 liters of water per second – that is, about 20 million liters a day.
The consortium intends to dig eight wells in the area. Water will be extracted from the San Juan Opico aquifer, as well as from shallower groundwater from Apopa and Quezaltepeque.
“These agreements open the door to this type of illegal concessions handed over to private companies…it is a situation that is not being addressed from a comprehensive perspective that meets the needs of the people, but rather from a mercantilist perspective,” lawyer Ariela González told IPS.
González added: “It is our public institutions that legalize this dispossession of environmental assets, through these mechanisms that allow the companies to whitewash the environmental impact studies.”
The organizations and local communities argue that water is a human right, for the benefit of the community, and also insisted in the lawsuit that the aquifers are part of the subsoil, property of the State.
Therefore, if any company was to be granted any benefit from that subsoil, the concession could have to be endorsed by the legislature, which did not happen.
Sara García and Martina Vides are members of an ecofeminist collective that has been fighting for five years to prevent the construction of a large residential project in the area, Ciudad Valle El Ángel, owned by one of the most powerful families in El Salvador. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS
The resolution handed down by the Constitutional chamber of the Supreme Court comes at a time when people have lost trust in the Constitutional court in this Central American country of 6.7 million people.
The five Constitutional court magistrates were appointed without following the regular procedure on May 1, 2021, when the new legislature was installed, controlled by lawmakers from President Nayib Bukele’s party, Nuevas Ideas, which holds 56 out of 84 seats.
“This government continues to benefit big capital and destroy local territories,” Sara García, of the ecofeminist group Kawoc Women’s Collective and the Let’s Save the Valle El Ángel movement, which forms part of the Water Forum, told IPS.
García´s fellow activist Martina Vides added: “We want protection for the aquifers and to prevent the felling of trees.”
Both women spoke to IPS on a rainy gray afternoon on the last day of May, in the Parcelación El Ángel, where they live, in the Joya Galana canton, also in the municipality of Apopa, which is in the middle of the impact zone.
A short distance away is the river that provides water to this and other communities, which originates in the micro-watershed of the Chacalapa River. Water is supplied under a community management scheme organized by the local water board.
Vides pays six dollars a month for the water service, although she only receives running water three or four days a week.
According to official figures, in this country 96.3 percent of urban households have access to piped water, but the proportion drops to 78.4 percent in the countryside, where 10.8 percent are supplied by well water and 10.7 percent by other means.
Since the Ciudad Valle El Angel project began to be planned, environmentalists and community representatives have been protesting against it with street demonstrations and activities because it will negatively impact the area’s environment, especially the aquifers.
The struggle for water in El Salvador has been going on for a long time, with activists demanding that it be recognized as a human right, with access for the entire population, because the country is one of the hardest hit by the climate crisis, especially the so-called Dry Corridor.
For more than 10 years, environmental and social collectives have been pushing for a water law, reaching preliminary agreements with past governments. But since the populist Bukele came to power, the progress made in this direction has been undone.
In December 2021, the legislature approved a General Water Resources Law, which excluded the already pre-agreed social proposals, although it recognizes the human right to water and establishes that the water supply will not be privatized. However, this is not enforced in practice, as demonstrated by the Dueñas’ urban development project.
A vendor of a traditional ice cream in El Salvador, made with shaved ice bathed in fruit syrup, waits for customers on one of the streets of Parcelación El Ángel, in the municipality of Apopa, north of the capital. The locality is one of the epicenters where poor families have been organizing to block a residential development project, which will affect the local water supply and worsen the water shortage in the area. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS
Not the only one
The residential development project is neither the first nor the only one in the area.
Residential complexes of this type have already been built in that area for the upper middle class, thanks to investments made by other wealthy families in the country, such as the Poma family.
And the same type of agreements have been reached with these other companies, in which the consortiums receive an endorsement to obtain water for their projects, said González.
The same thing has happened in the surroundings of the Cordillera del Bálsamo, south of the capital, where residential projects have been developed around municipalities such as Zaragoza, close to the beaches of the Pacific Ocean.
In Valle El Ángel there is also at least one company whose main raw material is water. This is Industrias La Constancia, which owns the Coca Cola brand in the country and other brands of juices and energy drinks, located in the municipality of Nejapa.
González, the Fespad lawyer, said that there should be a moratorium in the country in order to stop, for a time, this type of investment that threatens the country’s environmental assets, especially water.
But until that happens, if it ever does, and until the water supply improves, Alex Leiva will continue to get up at 4 a.m. every other day to fill his three barrels.
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 06 (IPS) – The United Nations, which has failed to help resolve some of the world’s ongoing and longstanding civil wars and military conflicts—including Palestine, Afghanistan, Yemen, Western Sahara, Myanmar, Syria, and most recently, Ukraine—was rightfully challenged by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during his riveting address to the Security Council last April.
“Where is the peace that the United Nations was created to guarantee? And “where is the security that the Security Council was supposed to guarantee?” he asked, via tele-conferencing.
The UN has also remained helpless—with a divided Security Council in virtual paralysis — in another long-running political issue: the nuclear threat from North Korea, where a Security Council resolution for additional sanctions against DPRK was vetoed last month by Russia and China (even though it garnered 13 out of 15 votes).
The UN’s declining role in geo-politics, however, has been compensated for by its increasingly significant performance as a massive humanitarian relief organization.
These efforts are led by multiple UN agencies such as the World Food Program, the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN children’s fund UNICEF, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) , the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), among others.
These agencies, which have saved millions of lives, continue to provide food, medical care and shelter, to those trapped in war-ravaged countries, mostly in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, while following closely in the footsteps of international relief organizations, including Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children, international Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), CARE International, Action Against Hunger, World Vision and Relief Without Borders, among others.
The UN’s increasing role in humanitarian relief work could perhaps earn the world body a new designation: United Nations Without Borders.
Besides humanitarian assistance, the UN also oversees nearly 90,000 peacekeepers in more than 12 UN peacekeeping operations and several observer missions, mostly in post-conflict situations., “helping countries navigate the difficult path from conflict to peace.”
In an interview with US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield last month, Anne McElvoy of “The Economist Asks” Podcast said “the UN is becoming a giant humanitarian relief organization, …and it’s sort of really retreating from big-time geopolitics simply because this formula of the UN, the format of it and the way its checks and balances work, aren’t sharp or effective enough in the world as it is. Your thoughts?”.
Justifying the existence of the UN as a political body, Thomas-Greenfield said: “The UN is what we have, and we’re all members and we have to work every single day to ensure that this organization functions and that it provides the platform for ending conflict. It is the one place where we can all sit at the table together”.
She also said: “The UN is the one place where we can have discussions on peace and security. And it is the responsibility of the UN to work to prevent the scourge of war. That’s what it was created for. And so, we have not given up on the organization. We’ve not given up on the goals of the organization.”
Last month, the Executive Director of WFP David Beasley said the World Food Programme has fed about 130 million people, mostly in conflict zones, last year. This year, that number is expected to rise to be about 150 million.
At the daily news briefings, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric provides a list of the humanitarian relief provided by UN agencies worldwide, particularly in conflict zones.
As of May 26, Dujarric said the UN and more than 260 of its humanitarian partners in Ukraine have reached 7.6 million people with assistance. Cash support also continues to increase with an additional 1.1 million people reached in May.
From March to May, a total of 1.5 million people have received cash assistance and health care support while around 352,000 people have been provided with clean water and hygiene products.
“We have also reached nearly 430,000 people with protection services, psychosocial support and critical legal services, including support to internally displaced persons,” he added.
In the Horn of Africa, the UN and its partners have provided about 4.9 million people with food while more than two million livestock have been treated or vaccinated, and over 3.3 million people have received water assistance.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the UN and its NGO partners, have started distributing aid to thousands of people in Nyiragongo territory, including food to some 35,000 people, water, and medicine to at least 10,000 people.
Since January last year, the UN has also reached out to about 1.1 million drought-impacted people in the Grand Sud, Madagascar, with critical assistance, which has played a vital role in averting the risk of famine.
This has been possible due to the generosity of donors, who contributed $196 million out of the $231 million required for the Grand Sud drought response, between January of last year and May of this year.
In an op-ed piece for IPS, Dr Alon Ben-Meir, a retired professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University (NYU), said although the UN has lagged greatly in its intended purpose to maintain international peace and security, it has over the years established many agencies that provide significant humanitarian assistance in many fields.
Among the most important agencies are the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, World Food Program, International Monetary Fund, UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), World Health Organization, High Commissioner for Refugees, and UN Women, he wrote.
“In this respect, the UN has become a massive relief organization,” he declared.
Kul Gautam, a former UN Assistant Secretary-General and ex-Deputy Executive Director at UNICEF, told IPS the UN system has not been as effective as its founders had hoped in preventing wars and maintaining peace and security.
It has also been less effective than what many developing countries had hoped for in helping them tackle the challenges of economic development and social progress.
Its saving grace has, therefore, been largely in the area of humanitarian relief and rehabilitation – an area which is now heavily populated by UN agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and faith-based charities.
“This is not to underestimate the value of the UN’s humanitarian response, as the world today confronts historically unprecedented numbers of refugees, displaced persons, victims of natural and man-made disasters and new forms of violence against women, children and other vulnerable groups”.
But as modern wars, violent conflicts, pandemics and increasingly perilous environmental crises can no longer be contained within national boundaries, but require concerted multilateral action, the need for a stronger and more effective UN is more urgent today than ever before, said Gautam, author of “My Journey from the Hills of Nepal to the Halls of the United Nations”. www.kulgautam.org.
Andreas Bummel, Executive Director, Democracy Without Borders, told IPS the UN’s humanitarian activities are essential. This is where the UN has the most immediate impact.
In the field of peace and security it should not be forgotten that the UN was created as a tool of its member states, he pointed out.
“State sovereignty is the UN’s most glorified principle. The UN has no independent authority and no means of enforcement. Even if it had, it is difficult to imagine how it could interfere in a conflict that involves one of the big powers”.
The UN was not intended to wage war against any of them, he argued, “That’s why the veto right was created. The veto is being misused though for political purposes. This is not in line with the purpose of the UN and the spirit of its Charter,” he declared.
STOCKHOLM, Jun 03 (IPS) – What I have most wanted to do… is to make political writing into an art.
George OrwellWarfare and misinformation are intimately connected. The 29th of May was globally observed as The Day of Communication and due to the ongoing war in Ukraine it was difficult to avoid thinking of affiliated propaganda campaigns, carried out by warring factions and far from indifferent bystanders.
Not only news reporting, but fabrications like movies, novels, fables and legends are part of a web of global communication and just as the broadcasting of news they might provide insights and alternative perspectives to reality, as well as being used as means of deception. One example is George Orwell’s novella Animal Farm.
I was reminded of this when I some weeks ago watched the Polish director Agnieszka Holland’s 2019 film Mr Jones, a co-production between Polish and Ukrainian media companies. In Ukrainian the film was named ???? ??????, The Price of Truth. It tells the story of Gareth Jones, an ambitious young Welsh journalist who in 1933, after gaining some fame for an exclusive interview with Adolf Hitler, was able to obtain permission to enter the Soviet Union. A privilege mostly due to the fact that Jones had served as secretary to former British prime minister Lloyd George. Jones’s intention to interview Joseph Stalin could not be realized, though he was offered an exclusive guided tour to pre-selected industries in Donbas. On his way there, Jones double-crossed his “handler”, jumped off the train in the Ukrainian countryside and became a shocked witness to the Ukrainian Holodomor, the catastrophic famine that resulted in at least 3 million deaths.
Gareth Jones documented empty villages, starving people, cannibalism and the enforced collection of grain. On his return to Britain, he struggled to get his story taken seriously and finally succeeded in having his articles published by The Manchester Guardian and New York Evening Post, thus revealing the conceit of the Soviet propaganda machine, which had hidden and covered up the enormous scope of the catastrophe and the Soviet Government’s guilt for its origin and development. The film ends by recording how Jones two years after his revelations was murdered while reporting in Inner Mongolia, betrayed by a guide clandestinely connected to the Soviet secret service.
The film Mr Jones emphasised the relevance of a misguided, or even corrupted, journalist corps, foremost among them The New York Times’ Walter Duranty, who from his privileged and pampered existence in Moscow served as a mouthpiece for Stalin’s terror regime. For his “unbiased and well-written” articles, Duranty was in 1932 awarded the U.S. prestigious Pulitzer Prize.
While watching the movie, I became somewhat bewildered by several cameos presenting George Orwell writing his Animal Farm. The film seems to indicate that Orwell met with Gareth Jones and that his Animal Farm was inspired by Jones’s work. To my knowledge Jones and Orwell never met, though this fact does not hinder the possibility of Orwell having read his articles and that the Animal Farm has had a crucial role in Ukrainian politics.
Famines and governments’ occasional efforts to cover them up is an essential feature in Orwell’s fable. It is hunger that triggers the farm-animals’ revolt. However, when their work and freedom are used to benefit the dictatorial pig Napoleon’s selfish well-being, hunger and suffering return to harass the animals. The megalomaniac Napoleon and his acolytes hide embarrassing facts from a global environment, which the mighty pig manipulates and makes business with:
Starvation seemed to stare them in the face. It was vitally necessary to conceal this fact from the outside world. Napoleon was well aware of the bad results that might follow if the real facts of the food situation were known, and he decided to make use of Mr Whymper to spread a contrary impression.
Orwell wrote Animal Farm between November 1943 and February 1944, when Britain was in alliance with the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany. Since the Allies did not want to offend the Stalinists, the manuscript was rejected by British and American publishers. After much hesitation a small book publisher issued the novel by the end of the war in 1945. After Allied relations with the Soviet Union turned into hostilities Animal Farm became a great commercial success.
The novel’s harsh criticism of the Soviet State is obvious to everyone – it is a fable telling the story of talking and thinking farm animals who rebel against their human farmer, with a hope to end hunger and slavery and create a society where all animals are equal, free, and happy. Wistfully, the revolution is betrayed by infighting and self-interest among its leaders – the intellectual pigs. The still food producing farm is by the hard-working animals proudly declared as The Animal Farm, with its own hymns, insignia, myths and slogans, but it eventually ends up in a state of repression and violence just as bad, or even worse, as it was before. The omnipotent pig Napoleon (whose name in the French translation was changed to “Caesar”), is without doubt a caricature of Stalin, with his scared and lying acolytes, fierce watchdogs brought up by himself, show trials, political persecution, murders, Stakhanovites/Super Workers, and ethnic clensing. A nightmarish world Orwell developed further in his next novel – 1984. With its Big Brother watching your every move and where citizens are brainwashed through torture, doublethink, thought-crimes, and newspeak:
The Ministry of Truth — Minitrue, in Newspeak… was startlingly different from any other object in sight. It was an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring up, terrace after terrace, 300 metres into the air. on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party: WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
It was as a volunteer during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) Orwell obtained his dislike for Stalinism, loathing of Fascism, and anger over “Western indifference”:
The most baffling thing in the Spanish war was the behaviour of the great powers. The war was actually won for Franco by the Germans and Italians, whose motives were obvious enough. The motives of France and Britain are less easy to understand. In 1936 it was clear to everyone that if Britain would only help the Spanish Government, even to the extent of a few million pounds’ worth of arms, Franco would collapse and German strategy would be severely dislocated.
In his preface to the Ukrainian edition of Animal Farm Orwell wrote that after the Stalinists had gained partial control of the Spanish Government they had begun hunting down and execute socialists with different opinions. Man-hunts which went on at the same time as the great purges in the USSR:
It taught me how easily totalitarian propaganda can control the opinion of enlightened people in democratic countries ”the mutability of the past”. Falsification, airbrushing, rewriting history: in short, the memory hole. And so for the last ten years, I have been convinced that the destruction of the Soviet myth was essential if we wanted a revival of the socialist movement.
The English edition of Animal Farm reached refugee camps, where soldiers that had been drafted by the Soviet Army and several civilians occasionally killed themselves, rather than returning to the Soviet Union. 24-year-old Ihor Šev?enko, a refugee of Ukrainian origin was part of a movement for Ukraine’s independence. After having learned English from listening to the BBC he translated Animal Farm into Ukrainian and it was spread in handwritten copies, or read aloud, in refugee camps. In April 11, 1946, Šev?enko wrote to Orwell asking if he could publish his novel in Ukrainian. Orwell agreed to write a preface and refused any royalties.
The translation was published in Munich and shipments of the book were quietly delivered to the refugee camps. Its Ukrainian title was Kolhosp Tvaryn, A Collective Farm of Animals, an obvious reference to Stalin’s forced collectivization implemented by the terror famine. However, only 2,000 copies were distributed; a truck from Munich was stopped and searched by American soldiers, and a shipment of an estimated 1,500 to 5,000 copies was seized and handed over to Soviet repatriation authorities and destroyed.
It was first some years later the Ukrainian translation of Animal Farm became appreciated by Western covert operation organizations and was secretley distributed into Ukraine as anti-Soviet propaganda. It is still generally read and in high regard within an Ukraine liberated from Soviet/Russian repression.
If the novel is read today it is easy to discern affinities between the dictatorial pig Napoleon and the current Russian warlord Vladimir Putin. Like Napoleon, Putin appears to want to turn the clock back to an imagined Russian imperial heyday, or as in the title of Masha Gessen’s study of Putin’s Russia, The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia. In Animal Farm Napoleon starts to walk upright on his hind-legs, dresses in human festive clothes and declares that the name Animal Farm has been abolished:
Henceforward the farm was to be known as the Manor Farm – which he believed, was its correct and original name.
Sources: George Orwell – Animal Farm: A Fairy Story, Also Including in Two Appendices Orwell´s Proposed Preface and the Preface to the Ukrainian Edition. London: Penguin Classics 2004, Nineteen Eighty-Four, 1984. London: Penguin Classics 2015.
Special Rapporteurs Fernand de Varennes and Balakrishnan Rajagopal said the move could result in “irreparable damage” to the minority community.
UN human rights experts urged 🇮🇱 to stop the eviction & demolition of a village in #Israel that will forcibly displace 500 Bedouins, which could cause “irreparable damage” to their traditions, livelihoods, cultural practices, & relationship to the land. https://t.co/VzHppqItSBpic.twitter.com/Li5iYgIt4s
— UN Special Procedures (@UN_SPExperts) June 3, 2022
“Thousands of Bedouin citizens of Israel living in the Naqab are facing threats of eviction to make way for more Jewish-only towns, military bases, and other major infrastructure projects that exclude the Bedouin people and their development interests,” they warned.
Facing imminent eviction
The experts were particularly concern that some 500 Bedouin residents in the village of Ras Jrabah, which Israeli authorities do not officially recognize, are facing imminent threat of eviction.
The Israeli Land Authority (ILA) filed 10 eviction lawsuits against 127 households, back in May 2019.
Israel is seeking to force the residents out, the experts said, pushing them into segregated, impoverished Bedouin-only towns in order to expand the primarily Jewish city of Dimona.
The Magistrate’s Court in Beer Sheva, the main city in the Naqab, held a hearing into the case last month.
Traditional life threatened
“While the State calls the residents ‘trespassers’, in fact, members of the Bedouin minority have lived there for generations,” the experts said.
They called on Israel to immediately cease evictions and housing demolitions which could cause irreparable damage to the traditional way of life of the Bedouins, and to their livelihoods, cultural practices, and relationship to their land.
The two experts have previously raised the issue of forced evictions targeting Bedouins in Israel, and destruction of their property.
This has included calls to “refrain and desist from actively pursuing segregationist policies and practices, resulting in the violation of the right to adequate housing and the prohibition of discrimination”.
They expressed regret that the Israeli government has yet to respond and continues to deny the basic human rights of the Bedouin minority, but remain in dialogue with the authorities on this issue.
Special Rapporteurs and other independent experts receive their mandates from the Council, and report on specific country situations or thematic issues.
They serve in their individual capacity and are not UN staff, nor are they paid for their work.
The UN Resident Coordinator in Thailand, Gita Sabharwal (3rd from right), talks to migrants in Tak province on the impact of COVID-19. Credit: UNSDG/Build back better: UN Thailand’s COVID-19 strategy.
Opinion by Simone Galimberti (kathmandu, nepal)
Inter Press Service
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Jun 03 (IPS) – Few deny the huge role the United Nation plays in global multilateral system especially in the area of poverty eradication, sustainability and climate change.
As enabler of the Agenda 2030, the UN system has the ability, stemming from its extraordinary convening powers, to bring around the table global leaders and key stakeholders for the most consequential decisions humanity must take.
Its agencies and programs do make a difference, uplifting millions of people out of poverty.
Yet, at the same time there is no doubt that the system is too complex and fragmented with too many overlaps and duplications that often make its work, using a development jargon, not of much “value for money”.
Short of a complete overhaul that would revolutionize its governance and shut down many of its operations around the world, including the merging of many of its agencies and programs, there is an ongoing attempt of reforming the system from the inside.
Recognizing the urgency for improvements but unable to undertake this needed drastic shift, Secretary General Antonio Guterres is doing what he can.
The focus is on better cooperation and coordination among the agencies and programs around the world and, while not as ambitious as the situation would require, it is still a mammoth operation that has been tasked to UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed.
Based on Resolution 75/233, adapted on 21 December 2020, the Quadrennial Comprehensive Policy Review of operational activities for development of the United Nations system, this is the formal name of the ongoing efforts, is attempting to create a new working culture within the UN.
Such change is desperately needed. The focus is going to be on ensuring a “new generation of United Nations country teams working more collaboratively and according to a clearer division of labor, driving greater alignment with country needs and priorities”.
Some key updates on the progress being made, the so-called Report of the Chair of the UNSDG on the Development Coordination Office and the Report of the Secretary-General on Implementation of General Assembly resolution 75/233 on the quadrennial comprehensive policy review of operational activities for development of the United Nations system, are offering some perspectives on what being achieved and what is still missing.
The UN Resident Coordinator in Thailand, Gita Sabharwal (3rd from right), talks to migrants in Tak province on the impact of COVID-19. Credit: UNSDG/Build back better: UN Thailand’s COVID-19 strategy.
At the center of this broad reform is the revitalization of the role of the UN Resident Coordinators, now full-time positions on their own and no more tied to job of the UNDP Representatives.
The idea is to enable and empower a “primus inter pares” figure, someone who has the authority to also look after and monitor the work being done by each single agencies and programs whose work, so far, has been infamously uncoordinated.
As a consequence, planning mechanisms like the United Nations Development Assistance Framework, UNDAF, the planning matrix listing all the contributions of each single UN entity in a given country, has been turned into a stronger tool, the Country Cooperation Framework.
The name shift from ‘assistance’ to “cooperation” is symbolically indicative of the different role the UN system aims playing: an enabler and facilitator rather than a static, top down “bossy” partner.
There is also a new common assessment, the UN Common Country Analysis (CCA), “an integrated, forward-looking, and evidence-based analysis of the country context for sustainable development”.
Now, the Resident Coordinators have a stand-alone structure supporting their tasks, including different advisors, economists, data specialists and very importantly, partnerships and communication experts.
Technically, their job now also foresees “supporting governments mobilize financing for the SDGs”, as they are going to be “focused on innovative SDG financing approaches with Governments and key partners”.
The ambitious goal is to turn the Resident Coordinators in connectors and to some extent, “fund raisers” for the local governments they are supporting.
With also a new Accountability Framework in place, the common vision is as self- evident as much required but as daunting to achieve as it can be: create a “path forward for the system to work collaboratively under robust and impartial leadership, building on the strengths of each entity but moving away from the ‘lowest common denominator’ that prevailed in the previous architecture”.
The new approach is based on the much needed “dual reporting model in which, at least on the paper, the Resident Coordinators have a role in monitoring and assessing the work of each head of agencies/programs and the latter, on their end, would also asses the work of the Resident Coordinators.
That such system, far from being revolutionary, was never put in place earlier, clearly tells of the substantial ineffectiveness and lack of coordination that stymied the UN System for decades.
Having stronger coordination system makes total sense especially if the empowered Resident Coordinators, of whom, positively, now fifty-three per cent are women, can truly scale up joint pooled funding, bringing together different agencies and programs.
It is already happening but it would be really a game changer if most of the programs supported by the UN would be implemented through this modality.
In this regard the Joint SDG Fund, “an inter-agency, pooled mechanism for integrated policy support and strategic financing that acts as a bridge”, can be promising and if wholly embraced, truly transformative.
Mechanisms like the Joint SDG Fund should become the standard working modality at country levels with more and more power centered on the Office of Resident Coordinators.
Such development would mean much leaner agencies and programs in the country offices because otherwise the risk is to create another coordinating structure without simplifying and “slimming down” the system on the ground.
The scale of work to accomplish in this reform is still significant.
An internal survey, part of official report of the SG General, is emblematic.
Answering to “what extent have the following measures improved the UN Country Team’s offer to the country in the last year”, among the respondents, there was still a considerable percentage indicating that only “moderate change” had occurred so far.
Therefore, there is not only the risk that the well-intentioned reforms being pursued are simply not up to the gigantic needs of change that the UN must achieve but that it will take lots of time and energies to even bring around minimum change at country level.
Moreover, a stronger and better UN system on the ground means also a UN able to do a much better job at engaging and working with the people and civil society.
Being mandated with working with and supporting national governments does not imply as it happened so far, that the UN keeps insulate itself from the society.
You will always read about tokenistic measures that make appear like the UN is always open for collaborations and always striving to reach out the commoners but the reality is very different.
All this means one thing: the revamped offices of the Resident Coordinators have a huge role in enabling a transformation in mindsets and working culture inside the UN.
The report of the Secretary General could not have been clearer on this aspect.
“We must continue our efforts to ensure the reform of the United Nations development system brings about the changes in behavior, culture and mindsets that can maximize the collective offer of the United Nations”.
The Author, is the Co-Founder of ENGAGE, a not for profit in Nepal. He writes on volunteerism, social inclusion, youth development and regional integration as an engine to improve people’s lives.
Juana Martínez takes part in an October 2021 protest in Lima organized by the platform of people affected by heavy metals in front of Congress, holding a sign that reads: “Cajamarca. Mercury Never Again”. She was 29 years old when the mercury spill occurred in her town, Choropampa, in Peru’s northern Andes highlands. Several of her relatives have since died from the effects of the heavy metal and one of her sisters became sterile. CREDIT: Courtesy of Milagros Pérez
by Mariela Jara (lima)
Inter Press Service
LIMA, Jun 03 (IPS) – “We are not asking for money, but for our health, for a dignified life,” is the cry of the people of Choropampa, which lawyer Milagros Pérez continually hears 22 years after the environmental disaster that occurred in this town in the department of Cajamarca, in Peru´s northern Andes highlands, on the afternoon of Jun. 2, 2000.
On that day, a Yanacocha Mining company truck spilled 150 kilograms of mercury on its way to Lima, the capital, leaving a glowing trail for about 40 kilometers on the road that crosses Choropampa, a town of 2,700 people located at an altitude of almost 3,000 meters.
The company, 95 percent of which is owned by a U.S. corporation, set up shop there in 1993, 48 kilometers north of the city of Cajamarca, where it operates between 3,400 and 4,200 meters above sea level. Yanacocha (black lagoon in the Quechua indigenous language) is considered the largest gold mine in South America and the second largest in the world, although its production is declining.
Children and most of the population started collecting the shiny droplets scattered on the ground and in the following days, responding to a call from the mining company that announced that it would purchase the material, they picked it up with their own hands, unaware of its high toxicity and that this exposure would affect them for life.
Before the disaster, the town was known for its varied agricultural production which, together with trade and livestock, allowed the impoverished inhabitants of Choropampa to get by as subsistence farmers.
But their poverty grew after the mercury spill, in the face of the indifference of the authorities and the mining company, which never acknowledged the magnitude of the damage caused.
The Choropampa road, now paved, where a truck of a large gold mining company spilled mercury on Jun. 2, 2000, affecting this small town in the department of Cajamarca, in Peru’s northern Andes highlands. The only change since then has been the paving of the road. CREDIT: Grufides
Violated rights
A report, also from the year 2000, by the Ombudsperson’s Office concluded that of the total mercury spilled, 49.1 kilos were recovered, while 17.4 remained in the soil, 21.2 evaporated, and the whereabouts of 63.3 were not identified.
The autonomous government agency also questioned the actions of the authorities and the mining company, referring for example to the extrajudicial agreements they reached with some of the affected local residents, which included clauses prohibiting them from filing any complaint or lawsuit against the company, and which “violate the rights to due process and effective judicial protection of those affected.”
Twenty-two years after the incident, Choropampa’s demands for reparations and access to justice are still being ignored. Pérez, a lawyer with the non-governmental Information and Intervention Group for Sustainable Development (Grufides), based in Cajamarca, said in an interview with IPS that the effects on the local territory and people’s health are evident.
She explained that despite the attempt to hush up the incident, it received enough attention that then president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) was forced to promise “an investigation, punishment and reparations” – although these did not happen.
Against a background of poverty and lack of opportunities, the mining company took advantage of the local residents’ goodwill and reached compensation agreements with some of them in exchange for their silence. There were also collective reparation agreements such as the construction of a town square, but nothing that actually contributed to remedying and addressing the damage caused to the people, say experts and activists.
For instance, the mining company committed to a private health plan for the people who were affected by the disaster, but it ended up being “a sham,” she said.
“They give them pills for the pain and nothing more, to people affected by mercury, while every day it becomes more difficult for them to support their families as they suffer terrible loss of vision, decalcification, bone malformations, and permanent skin irritations, which make it impossible for them to work their land and lead the lives they had before,” said Pérez.
Lawyer Milagros Pérez, who is dedicated to fighting for the reparations demanded by the population of Choropampa after a mercury spill in 2000 by the Yanacocha Mining Company in this town in the northern Andean department of Cajamarca, Peru, which caused irreversible damage to their health and lives. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS
Women, affected in very specific ways
The Grufides attorney stated that there is also an additional impact that has remained in the dark until now.
“Although the population in general has suffered damage to the corneas, nervous system, digestive system, skin, and bone malformations, we have noticed specific problems in women related to their reproductive capacity, such as premature births, miscarriages, sterility and births of infants with malformations, which have not been investigated,” she said.
Pérez criticized the fact that to date the affected population continues without specialized attention, with access only to a health post with a general practitioner and three nurses, who lack the capacity to deal with the specific ailments caused by contamination with heavy metals such as mercury.
“What the women are experiencing is part of this overall situation, effects that began in the year 2000 after the spill, according to the testimonies we have been collecting. But they need a specialized health diagnosis, something as basic as that, in order to begin to remedy the damage,” she said from Cajamarca, the capital of the department.
Pérez also mentioned the effects on women’s mental health and their role as caregivers, as a collateral aspect of this tragedy that has not yet been documented.
She cited the example of Juana Martínez, who is known for her defense of the rights of the local population and who for this reason has been threatened and slandered by unidentified persons.
“I tell her, Juanita, you don’t die because everyone needs you, that keeps you alive; because as a result of the contamination, her sister, her mother-in-law and her sister-in-law all died. There is a chain of contamination, the problem is much bigger and it affects different generations, but they don’t want to study it,” she said.
IPS tried to contact Martínez, but was unable to do so because she lives in a remote area far from the town, where there is no cell phone signal.
Denisse Chávez is an ecofeminist activist and member of the team promoting the Third International Tribunal for Justice and Defense of the Rights of Pan-Amazonian-Andean Women, to be held Jul. 30 in the city of Belem do Pará, Brazil, where the case of the women of Choropampa, whose health was affected by mercury contamination in 2000, will be presented. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS
Getting their voices heard in an international ethical tribunal
Denisse Chávez, an ecofeminist activist, told IPS that the case of the women of Choropampa affected by the mercury spill will be among those presented at the Third International Tribunal for Justice and Defense of the Rights of Pan-Amazonian-Andean Women, to be held Jul. 30, 2022, in the city of Belem do Pará in Brazil’s Amazon region.
The tribunal is one of the emblematic activities to take place within the framework of the 10th Pan-Amazonian Social Forum, which under the slogan “weaving hope in the Amazon” will bring together for four days some 5,000 people from different countries of the Amazon basin interested in coordinating actions in defense of nature and the Amazon rainforest.
Chávez, a member of the group organizing the tribunal, which also includes feminist and human rights activists from Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia and Uruguay, denounced that the Peruvian State has failed to make the company compensate the damage caused to the local population or to make visible the specific impacts on women, in the past 22 years.
“Choropampa is an area far from the city and with a highly vulnerable population, with high rates of poverty and illiteracy. In more than two decades no government has been interested in solving the problems while the mining company continues to offer solutions on an individual basis, which is violent since money is offered so that people do not talk,” she added.
She said the tribunal will bring the case international visibility, like others from Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador, which “have in common the impact caused by extractive economic activities on the lives of our peoples and especially on the bodies of women, which is still not taken into account or discussed.”
The ethical, symbolic tribunal will issue a judgment specifying the violations of women’s human rights and the obligations incumbent upon States and corporate actors.
Chávez said the document would be sent to the Peruvian authorities, both in Cajamarca and at the national level. “We cannot allow impunity in the Choropampa case; we will continue to keep the memory of what happened alive,” she said.
Pérez pointed out that the government’s decision was the result of pressure from civil society and groups affected by heavy metals. But Choropampa has not been included in this first stage, despite the lasting impact on its population and soils.
“It is supposed to expand gradually but we will be closely watching the decisions that are taken because a protocol of attention and budgets for diagnostics must be elaborated,” she said.
Juana Martínez takes part in an October 2021 protest in Lima organized by the platform of people affected by heavy metals in front of Congress, holding a sign that reads: “Cajamarca.
“The Government of Iraq admittedly operates in a complex environment, including within the context of stalled government formation,” said the Update on Accountability in Iraq, jointly published by the UN Assistance Mission there (UNAMI) and the UN human rights office, OHCHR.
“However, continued impunity for killings, disappearances, abduction and torture of activists, undermines the authority of State institutions.”
Elections
Between 1 May 2021 and 15 May this year, the report notes an increase in politically motivated violence during the pre and post-election period.
The authors explain that in October last year, early parliamentary elections took place in the wake of an “unprecedented wave of country wide demonstrations in 2019,” which were marked by violence, excessive force, abductions, and targeted killings the saw hundreds perish, and thousand suffer injuries.
According to latest news reports, the biggest party to emerge from the vote, led by Shia religious leader, Muqtada al-Sadr, has still been unable to put together a new coalition government.
Limited progress
The Update highlights that while some progress has been made, particularly on victim compensation, accountability remains limited.
From 1 May 2021 to 30 April, UNAMI and OHCHR documented convictions in relation to four cases concerning violence perpetrated by “armed elements”.
And although the Government-established Fact-Finding Committee is operational, it has not produced any investigative outcomes or provided public information about its work.
The report found that Iraqi authorities have taken just “limited steps” to investigate the unlawful killing and injury of protestors, critics and activists, saying that “much more needs to be done to identify, arrest and prosecute the perpetrators of those crimes, including those responsible for ordering and planning them”.
“UNAMI/OHCHR remains extremely concerned by the continued limited progress towards accountability for crimes perpetrated against protestors, critics and activists,” the report said.
And many who have been subjected to threats and violence have unsuccessfully sought accountability.
Meanwhile, as civic space remains limited and those expressing dissent at risk of reprisal from armed elements, a climate of impunity for human rights violations has evolved, with “a chilling effect” on the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.
Recommendations
The Update recommended that the Government of Iraq conduct prompt, independent and credible investigations of all alleged human rights violations and abuse perpetrated against protestors, activists, journalists, and critics.
It must also work harder to ensure that victims have access to effective remedies, such as judicial and administrative processes that are responsive to their needs.
Victims must also be informed on the scope, timing, and progress of the proceedings and disposition of their cases.
And the Government should assist victims throughout the legal process, taking measures to minimize their inconveniences, protect their privacy, and ensure their safety – as well as that of their families and witnesses on their behalf – from intimidation.
Global support
The international community also has a role to play.
The report advocates for funding and capacity-building programmes for the police and judiciary, which should include structured oversight.
This aims to ensure that entities comply with international human rights law standards surrounding investigations, prosecutions, and victim’s rights, particularly concerning crimes targeting protesters, activists and critics, and provide assistance where needed.
Local singers and instrumentalists joined rights activists and politicians in a protest against Afghan musicians’ arrest in Peshawar. They fear that there could be serious repercussions if the musicians are deported back to Taliban-led Afghanistan. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS
by Ashfaq Yusufzai (peshawar)
Inter Press Service
PESHAWAR, Jun 01 (IPS) – The arrest of Afghan musicians in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan has elicited protests from local politicians, artists and rights activists who demand their release and say they should be allowed to stay as refugees.
“Four musicians arrested by police in Peshawar, the capital of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, for lack of visa and travel documents have been sent to jail and will be deported under the 14 Foreigners’ Act,” a police officer, Nasrullah Shah, told IPS.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) is one of the four provinces of Pakistan located on the border with Afghanistan.
Police arrested the artists on May 27. They had been performing on TV and radio for years in Afghanistan, but the Taliban government’s opposition to music silenced them. The group includes Saidullah Wafa, Naveed Hassan, Ajmal and Nadeem Shah.
According to Shah, they crossed into Pakistan illegally.
The musicians, however, insisted that there was a ban on music back home, and as a result, they faced economic problems.
“Since the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in August last year, there was an unannounced ban on musical activities, which has landed the singers and musicians in hot water,” Saidullah Wafa, one of the arrested singers, told IPS. Taliban are notorious for killing musicians, and they will murder us if we go back,” Wafa said. Before fleeing to Pakistan, he lived in the Afghan capital, Kabul.
He claimed that Taliban militants consider music against Islam and have killed many singers and others associated with it in the past. Fearing prosecution, we came to Pakistan to seek refuge, the 25-year-old said.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has condemned the arrest and possible deportation.
“HRCP is concerned to learn that four Afghan nationals have been arrested by the KP police under the Foreigners’ Act 1946; the court has ordered they be deported. All four face significant threats from the Taliban government in Kabul,” it tweeted.
Local music journalist Sher Alam Shinwari, who writes for Dawn newspaper, said the seized Afghan musicians are refugees. He said they cannot and should not be deported to the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan.
“Afghan musicians, since they arrived in Peshawar and elsewhere in KP, have never been involved in any unlawful activities. Secondly, they have re-joined their relatives already living in refugee camps or rented homes in and around Peshawar,” Shinwari said.
Most have valid documents or ration cards, while some of them carried artists’ registration cards issued by local artists’ organisations, he said.
Deporting Afghan musicians to the Taliban is tantamount to throwing them to the wolves because the Taliban had murdered several artists in the recent past, Shinwari explained.
Families of most of the musicians were already living in Pakistan, and their deportation would be a human rights violation.
Rashid Ahmed Khan, head of Honary Tolana, an organisation striving for musicians’ rights, told IPS that the arrested musicians would be in danger if sent back.
“They were taken into custody by police without a search warrant, sent to jail and be handed over to the Taliban – which is an inhuman act. These famous artistes moved to Peshawar last year when Taliban seized power in Afghanistan to save their lives,” he said.
On May 30, local artists held a protest demonstration against the arrest of Afghan musicians in Peshawar and urged the government to allow them to stay in Pakistan as refugees.
Politicians also joined the protest.
Sardar Hussain Babak, a local lawmaker, assured them that they would raise the issues on the floor of the parliament.
Some Afghan artists present at the protest said they had come to Pakistan for their safety and could not continue their profession in their own country.
They demanded police stop their action against the artists because they were guests in Pakistan and their lives were at risk in Afghanistan.
Local artists, including Saeeda Bibi and others, condemned the police action against the Afghan musicians and demanded their early release.
“Taliban have resorted to violence against the musicians, destroyed their equipment at different places, and shot dead people even participating in the wedding ceremonies in Nangrahar and other provinces of Afghanistan,” Saeeda Bibi told IPS.
“We have applied for bail of the detained artists with the hope to get them released at the earliest,” she said. “We have set a three-day deadline for police to stop action against the artists. Otherwise, Afghan and Pakistani artists would march on Islamabad and stage a sit-in until their demands were heard.
“We also appealed to UNHCR to take notice of the ordeal of Afghan artists so that they could live in Pakistan as refugees.”
KP Information Minister Muhammad Ali Saif told IPS that the artists should be prosecuted in terms of the law.
“We have been hosting 3 million Afghan refugees for the past four decades, which is the glaring example of hospitality. They will be treated as per the law,” he said.
There were no instructions to police regarding the arrest of Afghan musicians, and the court would decide about their deportation, he said.
In May 2017, the then 14-year-old was arrested on charges of robbery and murder. Despite having an alibi, and based on a confession extracted under torture and other ill-treatment, he was convicted, and recently sentenced to death for a second time after his original conviction was overturned by the Saudi Supreme Court last year.
“We are alarmed by the confirmation of the death sentence against Mr. Al-Howaiti, on 2 March 2022, without initiating any investigation into the allegations of torture or determining the veracity of the coerced confession of guilt,” the experts said.
If the Court of Appeal confirms the conviction, Mr. Al-Howaiti will be at an imminent risk of execution.
Trial errors
From failing to consider an alibi, to dismissing allegations of torture and ill-treatment, and admitting torture-tainted confessions as incriminating evidence without properly investigating, the experts were dismayed by the conviction after a trial marred with such due process irregularities.
“We would like to remind the Saudi authorities of their obligation to conduct a prompt and impartial investigation wherever there are reasonable grounds to believe that torture has been committed, and to exclude any evidence obtained through torture and coercion from judicial proceedings,” the experts said.
Abolish capital punishment
The experts also urged the Saudi Government/authorities to adopt measures towards abolishing the death penalty for children, including in relation to offenses punished under qisas and hudad.
Qisas is an Islamic term interpreted to mean “eye for an eye.” It is used as a category of retributive justice for murder in Saudi Arabia and allows victims’ families to demand the death sentence, compensation or offer a pardon.
Hudud refers to Islamic penal law or Quranic punishments for offences including theft, brigandage, adultery and apostasy.
The death penalty on children is absolutely prohibited under international law without exception or derogation under any circumstances, according to the UN experts.
“We urge the Saudi Government to adopt without delay the necessary legislative measures to abolish the imposition of the death penalty for children for all crimes, including in relation to offences punished under qisas and hudud,” the experts said.
Deprivation of life
The UN experts have previously expressed their concerns regarding this case to the Government of Saudi Arabia.
They reiterated their request to the authorities to take immediate measures to protect the moral and physical integrity of Mr. Al-Howaiti, considering his age and vulnerability.
“Prolonged incommunicado detention can facilitate the perpetration of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and can in itself constitute a form of such treatment,” underscored the UN experts said.
The death penalty against juvenile offenders in Saudi Arabia is the arbitrary deprivation of life, the UN experts said.
More on experts
Special Rapporteurs and independent experts are appointed by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a specific human rights theme or a country situation. The positions are honorary and the experts are not paid for their work.
The experts in this case included the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Chair-Rapporteur Miriam Estrada-Castillo,Vice-Chair Mumba Malila and members Elina Steinerte, Matthew Gillett, and Priya Gopalan along with the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Morris Tidball-Binz.
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