P.O. Box 130901, Houston, TX 77219-0901
832-310 9326
http://www.amnestyhouston.org
mail@amnestyhouston.org

Monthly meeting first Wednesday of every month (except holidays).

NEWS AND NOTES

Monthly Meeting Agenda:

       Introductions
       Reports by Coordination Groups:
       Group case (Bárbara Italia Méndez)
       Avdo Palic
       Death Penalty
       Radio Committee
       Stop Violence Against Women Campaign
       Counter Terror With Justice Campaign
       South Asian Regional Action Network (SARAN)
       Refugees
       Out Front Campaign
       Who Will Bring Letter Next Meeting
Old Business:
New Business:
       IFEST
       Westheimer Block Festival - 2010
       December Write-a-thon

Local Group 23 News:

• We had a huge volunteer opportunity at the U2 concert. Sheli Rae was the lead volunteer and Linda Vezeay, John Sullivan, Sheli Rae, Joseph O'Rourke, Sara Newhouse, Juli Kring, Gary Kring, Esmeralda Salinas, Summer Ozio, Vero Schlumberger, Sophie Hollier, Mark Trahan, Robert Siefert, Rochelle White and Allan Wang all volunteered. We collected over 500 signatures on petitions and took pictures of 160 people with the Justice Against Poverty placard for AI's new Demand Dignity Campaign. We also participated in the on-stage dedication to Aung San Suu Kyi.

• We have openings for Group Coordinator and Secretary.

The Sri Lankan authorities must act to ensure the safety of two female editors at a national newspaper who received death threats last week, Amnesty International said.

The organization also called for an immediate investigation into the threats, received by Frederica Jansz, Editor-in-Chief of the Sunday Leader, and the newspaper's News Editor, Munza Mushataq.

The threats, which were written in red ink, were delivered by post to the newspaper on 22 October.

The founder and former Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper, Lasantha Wickrematunge, was murdered in January three weeks after receiving a similar death threat also written in red ink.

No one has yet been prosecuted for his murder.

The most recent threats relate to the coverage by the Sunday Leader of a video, broadcast on UK TV station Channel Four in August, which allegedly showed Sri Lankan soldiers executing Tamil prisoners.

The Sri Lankan government has stated that the video had been faked, but on 18 October the Sunday Leader printed an article on its front page, highlighting a report that an analysis of the video had concluded that the footage had not been tampered with or edited.

The threatening letters were postmarked 21 October, just three days after the newspaper ran its controversial story. Both letters included text saying "if you write anymore, we will kill you, [and] slice you into pieces".

The journalists reported the threat to Sri Lanka's Inspector General of Police, and also to local police in the capital, Colombo. However, no action has yet been taken by the authorities.

In September, Dileesha Abeysundera, who works for the Sinhala-language edition of the Sunday Leader and also campaigns for greater press freedom in Sri Lanka, was threatened.

There have been numerous serious attacks on the staff of the Sunday Leader and its publishers. Its offices have been burnt down, bombed and sealed several times.

Over the past three years, numerous journalists have been detained in Sri Lanka while others have fled the country. At least 14 media workers have been killed. Investigations have not resulted in prosecutions.

Human Rights Organization Said Sudanese Government is Responsible for Prisoner's Death and Ill-Treatment

(New York) -- Amnesty International said today that the Sudanese government was responsible for the death and ill-treatment of a prisoner who died from tuberculosis in police custody last week.

Ahmed Suleiman Sulman died on October 21 at the police hospital to which he was taken from Kober prison in Khartoum two days before his death. His body was still in shackles and showed evidence of torture.

He had been suffering from a lung infection for a long time but was refused access to a specialized doctor by the prison despite requests by his lawyer.

Amnesty International has serious concerns regarding the conditions under which prisoners are held in Kober, and has received numerous accounts of ill-treatment and poor hygiene conditions.

“We are gravely concerned about the prisoners who remain in Kober prison. The Sudanese government must ensure that the detainees families and doctors have immediate access to them,” said Tawanda Hondora, deputy director of Amnesty International's Africa Program.

Sulman was one of 103 men sentenced to death by the special counter-terrorism courts established following an attack by the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), an armed opposition group, on Omdurman, near Khartoum, on May 10, 2008.

“The government must order an independent investigation into the death of Mr. Sulman. Torture is abhorrent. Those responsible for Mr. Sulman’s ill-treatment and death must be brought to justice in fair trials.” said Hondora.

Hundreds of people remain unaccounted for following the JEM attack on Omdurman.

Sulman was detained by the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) between May 12 and 13, 2008. He was sentenced to death in August 2008 and had been in Kober prison since then.

According to information received by Amnesty International, Sulman, who was said to have been in his late-twenties, was severely traumatized by the torture he endured following his arrest. Several sources confirmed to Amnesty International that Sulman was mentally ill when he faced trial.

(Washington) – President Obama signed the FY10 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) today, which contains revisions to the rules for military commissions used to try detainees at the U.S.-controlled detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. Amnesty International rejects as insufficient the changes made and notes that President Obama’s decision to stand by the commissions flies in the face of his promise that U.S. policy would uphold the nation’s laws and values.

“The modified military commissions signed into law today still miss the mark for fairness, legality and credibility. It is counterproductive to bypass time-tested federal courts, as both terror suspects and the nation’s commitment to returning to the rule of law will be on trial,” said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA. “Detainees should be charged with a recognizable crime and immediately brought to trial in federal court, with their full rights upheld. In the past, these courts have been used to bring other terror suspects to justice, and there is no reason why they cannot continue to do so.”

Amnesty International has accused Israel of denying Palestinians the right to access adequate water by maintaining total control over the shared water resources and pursuing discriminatory policies.

These unreasonably restrict the availability of water in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and prevent the Palestinians developing an effective water infrastructure there.

“Israel allows the Palestinians access to only a fraction of the shared water resources, which lie mostly in the occupied West Bank, while the unlawful Israeli settlements there receive virtually unlimited supplies. In Gaza the Israeli blockade has made an already dire situation worse,” said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International’s researcher on Israel and the OPT.

In a new extensive report, Amnesty International revealed the extent to which Israel’s discriminatory water policies and practices are denying Palestinians their right to access to water.

Israel uses more than 80 per cent of the water from the Mountain Aquifer, the main source of underground water in Israel and the OPT, while restricting Palestinian access to a mere 20 per cent.

The Mountain Aquifer is the only source for water for Palestinians in the West Bank, but only one of several for Israel, which also takes for itself all the water available from the Jordan River.

While Palestinian daily water consumption barely reaches 70 litres a day per person, Israeli daily consumption is more than 300 litres per day, four times as much.

In some rural communities Palestinians survive on barely 20 litres per day, the minimum amount recommended for domestic use in emergency situations.

Some 180,000-200,000 Palestinians living in rural communities have no access to running water and the Israeli army often prevents them from even collecting rainwater.

In contrast, Israeli settlers, who live in the West Bank in violation of international law, have intensive-irrigation farms, lush gardens and swimming pools.

Numbering about 450,000, the settlers use as much or more water than the Palestinian population of some 2.3 million.

In the Gaza Strip, 90 to 95 per cent of the water from its only water resource, the Coastal Aquifer, is contaminated and unfit for human consumption. Yet, Israel does not allow the transfer of water from the Mountain Aquifer in the West Bank to Gaza.

Stringent restrictions imposed in recent years by Israel on the entry into Gaza of material and equipment necessary for the development and repair of infrastructure have caused further deterioration of the water and sanitation situation in Gaza, which has reached crisis point.

To cope with water shortages and lack of network supplies many Palestinians have to purchase water, of often dubious quality, from mobile water tankers at a much higher price.

Others resort to water-saving measures which are detrimental to their and their families’ health and which hinder socio-economic development.

“Over more than 40 years of occupation, restrictions imposed by Israel on the Palestinians’ access to water have prevented the development of water infrastructure and facilities in the OPT, consequently denying hundreds of thousand of Palestinians the right to live a normal life, to have adequate food, housing, or health, and to economic development,” said Donatella Rovera.

Israel has appropriated large areas of the water-rich Palestinian land it occupies and barred Palestinians from accessing them.

It has also imposed a complex system of permits which the Palestinians must obtain from the Israeli army and other authorities in order to carry out water-related projects in the OPT. Applications for such permits are often rejected or subject to long delays.

Restrictions imposed by Israel on the movement of people and goods in the OPT further compound the difficulties Palestinians face when trying to carry out water and sanitation projects, or even just to distribute small quantities of water.

Water tankers are forced to take long detours to avoid Israeli military checkpoints and roads which are out of bounds to Palestinians, resulting in steep increases in the price of water.

In rural areas, Palestinian villagers are continuously struggling to find enough water for their basic needs, as the Israeli army often destroys their rainwater harvesting cisterns and confiscates their water tankers.

In comparison, irrigation sprinklers water the fields in the midday sun in nearby Israeli settlements, where much water is wasted as it evaporates before even reaching the ground.

In some Palestinian villages, because their access to water has been so severely restricted, farmers are unable to cultivate the land, or even to grow small amounts of food for their personal consumption or for animal fodder, and have thus been forced to reduce the size of their herds.

“Water is a basic need and a right, but for many Palestinians obtaining even poor-quality subsistence-level quantities of water has become a luxury that they can barely afford,” said Donatella Rovera.

“Israel must end its discriminatory policies, immediately lift all the restrictions it imposes on Palestinians’ access to water, and take responsibility for addressing the problems it created by allowing Palestinians a fair share of the shared water resources.”

Amnesty International has denounced an attack on the freedom of the press in Honduras, following the cancellation of three radio programmes by a popular radio station’s managers who cited a controversial presidential decree to justify their action.

Normally broadcast on the Radio Cadena Voices station, the programmes La Bullaranga, Entre Chonas and Tiempo de Hablar are largely produced and controlled by women and young people.

"The arbitrary termination of such programmes deals another blow to freedom of expression and curtails the Honduran population's access to information and discussion forums" said Javier Zuñiga, Special Adviser in Amnesty International’s Secretriat.

The programme managers were informed in writing by the directors of Grupo INVOSA, owners of the station, that their broadcasts "failed to promote peace” and “discredited” the electoral process, therefore violating an emergency presidential decree issued by the de facto government.

The decree cited has since been annulled, however the programmes remain suspended.

"The pulling of these programmes has promoted an increased atmosphere of fear and intimidation for journalists, " said Javier Zuñiga. "It also demonstrates the de facto authorities’ intolerance of free discussion and expression of views, particularly any views which may be contrary to their own."

Amnesty International has urged the de facto authorities to comply with measures imposed by the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, to ensure that media workers and outlets in Honduras can carry out their work free from intimidation and threats.

On 23 October 2009 the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights placed the workers of the stations Canal 36, Radio Catracha, Cholusat Sur Radio and Radio Globo onto the list of those to be protected by medidas cautelares (provisional measures) after they had been shut down by Presidential decree.

Human rights abuses in Honduras have increased since the democratically elected President José Manuel Zelaya Rosales was forced from power on 28 June and expelled from the country by a military-backed group led by Roberto Micheletti, former leader of the National Congress.

There has been widespread unrest in the country since the coup d’etat with frequent clashes between the police, military and civilian protestors. At least two people have died after being shot during protests.

On 19 August Amnesty International published testimonies and evidence which documented excessive use of force and beating of protestors by police in a report titled Honduras: Human rights crisis threatens, as violence and repression increase. The report was based on evidence gathered by the organization during a fact-finding mission 28 July – 1 August 2009.

The organization is calling for the de facto authorities to ensure Honduran citizens can freely access information - particularly vital during the current crisis.

Letter writing actions have moved to a special section of our website.