TechnoCampus gets international Security Certified Program
certification -Child Mortality : Iraq Death Rate Nearly Tripled Since 1990; Pakistan : 461 Honor Killings Of Women Reported In Two Provinces -Libya: Scores of professionals and students risk unfair trial and possible death sentences Media : Experts Condemn Attacks On Journalists, Ownership Concentration -Iraq: U.N., U.S. Cite Big Omissions In Weapons Declaration; Iraq Issues Invitation For U.N. Visit On Missing Kuwaitis, Property;IRAQ: U.S. Says Arms Declaration Not A Trigger For Military Action;

The US Senator Mr. Sam Brownback calls on the Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in New Delhi on December 13, 2002 (Friday).

Libya: Scores of professionals and students risk unfair trial and possible death sentences

London - December 13, 2002. On the eve of the resumption of proceedings in the appeal trial of scores of professionals and students charged in connection with the banned Libyan Islamic Group, al-Jama'a al-Islamiya al-Libiya, Amnesty International today urged the authorities to ensure a fair trial and to quash the two death sentences handed down in the original trial. "The original trial was grossly unjust, denying the accused their basic rights to a fair trial. The injustice of the past must be redressed", Amnesty International said today.

The appeal trial, which opened earlier this year, is scheduled to reconvene on 14 December before a People's Court in Tripoli. Eighty six of the 152 men were originally sentenced on 16 February 2002 by a People's Court in Tripoli while 66 others were acquitted. They were arrested around June 1998 on suspicion of supporting or sympathizing with the banned Libyan Islamic Group.

Two men were sentenced to death: Salem Abu Hanak, father of five was the head of the Chemistry Department at the Faculty of Science of the University of Qar Younes in Benghazi; Abdullah Ahmed Izzedin, father of four, was a lecturer at the Engineering Faculty of the Al-Fatih University in Tripoli. According to Amnesty International's information, 73 received sentences of life imprisonment and 11 received ten years' imprisonment. The men are believed to be imprisoned in Abu Salim Prison in Tripoli.

"We urge the Libyan authorities to ensure that the death sentences in this case are lifted and to work towards the worldwide trend towards the abolition of the death penalty", Amnesty International said.

In April 2002 the Secretary of the People's Committee for Justice and General Security, Muhammad al-Misrati reportedly declared the original trial to be "fair". However, Amnesty International fears that the necessary measures have not been undertaken to ensure that, in the appeal trial, the accused are granted the right to a fair trial, denied to them in the original trial, including the right of a defendant to choose a lawyer and the right to a public hearing. Despite allegations of torture raised by some of the defendants, no independent, impartial and thorough investigations are known to have been conducted.

Provisions of the international human rights treaties to which Libya is a State Party have thus been violated, including the Convention against Torture which requires authorities to ensure prompt and impartial investigations into all allegations of torture, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which states that "Everyone is entitled to be tried without undue delay".

Family visits to the prisoners have been severely restricted since their arrests more than four years ago. For more than two years, the men were held incommunicado, their whereabouts unknown. They were deprived of their rights to legal counsel and to receive visits from their relatives. During the original trial, which opened in March 2001, relatives were allowed to see and talk to the accused for a limited period. However, according to some reports, subsequent attempts of contact were denied and families were even prevented from delivering parcels of food and clothing to the prisoners.

Background

The defendants are reportedly charged under Articles 2 and 3 of Law 71 of 1972 and Article 206 of the Penal Code. Law 71 defines party activities in a way which encompasses almost any form of group activity based on a political ideology opposed to the principles of al-Fatih Revolution of 1 September 1969. Article 3 of Law 71 and Article 206 of the Penal Code state that "execution" is the punishment for those who call "for the establishment of any grouping, organization or association proscribed by law", support or belong to such an organization.

In a public address to the nation on 31 August 2002, Colonel Mu'ammar al-Gaddafi stated that there are no longer any political prisoners left in Libya and that those who remain in prison are those who have used violent means to further their cause.

Amnesty International has documented many cases of long-term political prisoners, including prisoners of conscience and possible prisoners of conscience, who remain incarcerated. They include persons who are subject to arbitrary detention, including those who have been deprived of their liberty without charge or trial, those who have served lengthy prison terms after grossly unfair trials, and those who remain in detention despite the fact that an order for their release has been issued.

Amnesty International continues to call on the Libyan authorities to release immediately and unconditionally all prisoners of conscience held in Libya and to ensure that all political prisoners, who may have used or advocated violence, are promptly tried before an independent and impartial tribunal, in proceedings which meet international standards of fairness, or released without delay.

Amnesty International repeats its call on the Libyan authorities to introduce legislative and practical measures as a matter of urgency to bring Libya's law and human rights practice into conformity with international human rights treaties to which it is a state party.

Media : Experts Condemn Attacks On Journalists, Ownership Concentration

December 13, 2002 U.N. Human Rights Commission special rapporteur on freedom of expression Ambeyi Ligabo, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe press freedom representative Freimut Duve and Organization of American States freedom of expression rapporteur Eduardo Bertoni this week condemned attacks on journalists and expressed concern over concentration of media ownership.

At an annual meeting organized by Article 19, the experts met Monday and Tuesday with UNESCO, nongovernmental organizations, journalists' associations and human rights experts. In their statement, issued at the end of the meeting, they condemned "attacks on journalists, including assassinations and threats, as well as the climate of impunity that still exists in many countries."

They also stressed the importance and interdependence of free media and free courts, opposing the use of restrictions on expression in efforts to shore up weak judiciaries. They opposed all restrictions on legal reporting except when "the threat to the right to a fair trial or to the presumption of innocence outweighs the harm to freedom of expression."

The experts voiced concern over the "threat posed by increasing concentration of ownership of the media and the means of communication, in particular to diversity and editorial independence." They cited the threat to free speech posed by government officials' ownership of media, adding that "governments and public bodies should never abuse their custody over public finances to try to influence the content of media reporting" and that "media owners have a responsibility to respect the right to freedom of expression and, in particular, editorial independence."

The three also opposed the use of criminal defamation laws to restrict freedom of expression (U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights release, Dec. 11).

Iraq: U.N., U.S. Cite Big Omissions In Weapons Declaration;

December 13, 2002 A U.N. diplomat yesterday said a preliminary assessment of Iraq's 12,000-page declaration of its weapons programs is that much of the declaration "seems to be recycled," while U.S. intelligence agencies said it fails to account for chemical and biological agents missing when inspectors left Iraq four years ago, omissions that White House press secretary Ari Fleischer has said would constitute a violation of Security Council Resolution 1441.

Iraq's declaration of its nuclear program, they said, leaves open a host of questions, including why Iraq would need to buy what the United Kingdom has said are "significant quantities" of uranium from Africa, as well as high-technology materials that U.S. and U.K. officials have said were destined for a program to enrich uranium. "What's remarkable is how little new there is," said one U.S. official, "and how little effort there was to try to explain gaps that everyone knew were there since UNSCOM left," he said, referring to the previous U.N. monitoring agency in Iraq, which was disbanded.

Another U.S. official said the omissions were "big enough to drive a tank through." A senior White House official said yesterday, "We gave them that chance" to answer specific questions. "They knew what issues were outstanding in 1998. They blew it."

International Atomic Energy Agency officials said that 2,100 of the pages appeared to be nearly identical to the declaration submitted in 1998, saying analysts are going through each page, line by line, to determine whether there are any changes at all. Another 300 pages are being translated from Arabic (Sanger/Preston, New York Times, Dec. 13).

U.N. Inspections Snagged By Locked Doors On Muslim Holiday

U.N. weapons inspectors were delayed two hours today when trying to enter an inspection site at Iraq's Communicable Disease Control Center, requiring the team for the first time to use its hotline to contact higher Baghdad authorities. Yet, Iraqi officials said "there is no problem," according to Hossam Mohammed Amin, head of Iraq's National Monitoring Directorate. Another unnamed Iraqi official said the problem resulted from inspections taking place on Friday, the Muslim day of prayer, when the keys for the locked rooms were not readily available (Nadia Abou El-Magd, Associated Press/Yahoo! News, Dec. 13).

Iraq Issues Invitation For U.N. Visit On Missing Kuwaitis, Property

December 13, 2002 Iraqi U.N. Ambassador Mohammed Aldouri sent a letter to Yuli Vorontsov, the high-level coordinator on the issue dealing with the return of missing Kuwaiti nationals and property, issuing the first invitation by Iraq's Minister of Foreign Affairs to visit Baghdad, a U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said yesterday (U.N. release, Dec. 12).

Following last weekend's apologies to Kuwait by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein for his country's occupation of the emirate from August 1990 to early 1991, the Jordan Times reported today that Iraq seems eager to patch up relations with Kuwait amid U.S. threats of war (Jordan Times, Dec. 13).

Compensation Commission Awards $181 Million

The U.N. Compensation Commission yesterday approved awards totaling $181 million, with more than $100 million earmarked for Kuwait. The amount to be disbursed during the next round of payments Jan. 15 is expected to be $550 million (U.N. release II, Dec. 12).

U.S. Blocks Germany From Heading Sanctions Committee

The Bush administration has blocked Germany's bid to assume the leadership of the key Security Council sanctions committee overseeing billons of dollars in Iraqi trade, the Washington Post reported today. U.S. and U.N. officials said the White House fears Germany might challenge U.S. policy on Iraq and has made it clear it would not accept Germany in the position, backing instead the candidacies of Chile and Spain (Colum Lynch, Washington Post, Dec. 13).

Iraqi Opposition Groups Meet In London Amid Squabbling

Iraq exile leaders convened in London today to show unity and work out a role for themselves in a democratic future for their country, but division has arisen among leaders of the main organizations and key representatives of Iraqi society were missing, the Washington Post reports.

The more than 300 participants intend to create a "coordination council" and steering committee, although organizers and participants attempted to play down expectations. In addition, opposition leaders met with special White House envoy Zalmay Khalilzad to dispute the numbers of delegates and quotas for participating parties.

"This is a complete disaster for Iraq," said Kanan Makiya, author of Republic of Fear, an in-depth account of Iraq under Hussein. "These essentially implant the seeds of division in the hearts of Iraqis before we even start" (Williams/Slevin, Washington Post, Dec. 13).

IRAQ: U.S. Says Arms Declaration Not A Trigger For Military Action;

The United States began its study of Iraq's 12,000-page declaration of its weapons of mass destruction program yesterday, assuring others that it does not intend to use the document as a trigger to launch military operations against Iraq, but only "as a piece of the puzzle," according to one U.N. Security Council diplomat.

"We have not made any conclusions about the declaration," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. "We want to be very deliberate as we move through and look at this document to determine, with the international community, what this indicates about [Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein and his disarmament." He added that President George W. Bush "hopes to avoid" war. "Combat," Fleischer said, "is the last thing this president wants to engage in."

The Washington Post today reports that there has been a substantial softening in White House predictions that the Iraqi document provided Saturday would be riddled with lies, which would constitute a material breach of the U.N. resolution adopted unanimously last month.

"We're now on common ground with the administration," said another diplomat from one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, calling it a position of "measured skepticism," without "crazed or precipitative reactions" about Iraq's contentions that it has no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons programs.

Meanwhile, despite the council decision that U.N. inspectors should review the document before it was distributed to governments, one of the two copies Iraq provided went directly to U.S. officials, who said their first priority would be to make copies for the other permanent members of the council. They added that the 10 rotating member countries would eventually receive a copy with omitted sections on sensitive weapons information.

The document is to be parceled out in "one-inch squares" to experts in the various fields, a White House official said. "We don't know what the elephant will look like when we put the pieces together," the official said.

The U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency retained the second original copy and have made plans to report their initial conclusions on Dec. 19 (DeYoung/Lynch, Washington Post, Dec. 10).

A French official said her government received its copy in Washington last night. According to UNMOVIC, the declaration the United States took to Washington is now back at the United Nations.

Commenting on the decision that only the permanent five council members would receive an unedited copy of the declaration, U.K. Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock said today that the 10 nonpermanent council members might feel "uncomfortable, but they have to take on board that there is a nonproliferation element to this" (Jim Wurst, UN Wire, Dec. 10)

British Prime Minister Tony Blair told the Financial Times yesterday that it would be "naive" to believe Hussein plans to comply with U.N. demands for disarmament, restating U.K. readiness to take military action against Iraq (Blitz/Simonian, Financial Times, Dec. 10).

The current president of the Security Council, Colombian Ambassador Alfonso Valdivieso, yesterday defended his decision to reverse a council agreement from Friday and give the council's only copy of the declaration to the United States. U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte phoned him on Saturday morning, Valdivieso said, saying the United States "wanted to make some changes to the previous understanding and that was it." Valdivieso said he received calls "from other members” of the council and then consulted with "all the members, many times."

He added, "This is a sensitive issue, and we cannot risk proliferation, and the way to avoid that is to provide [the declaration] to the members that have the expertise. ... The worst thing I could do is not exercise my responsibility, and I did it."

Valdivieso said only one council member, Syria, disagreed with the decision. Yesterday, Syrian Ambassador Mikhail Wehbe said the move "is against the unity of the council."

"We can't understand why, at this late stage, they ask that the report be distributed to the permanent members and not to the nonpermanent members, although all members of council supported Resolution 1441," the most recent resolution on Iraq, which strengthened weapons inspections. Wehbe said the resolution indicates the declaration should be presented to the council, not "to a few members of the council."

"The United States is able to take the report even without the decision of the council. It is not a matter of just the United States; it's a matter of principle. We don't know what is the aim of these procedures," said Wehbe.

"We did not accept this statement [by Valdivieso], and we are not party to this statement," he added. "It is a matter of principle. The council is always looking for unity of the council, [but] sometimes they want the unity, and sometimes they do not want it."

On the other hand, Ambassador Richard Ryan of Ireland, another elected member of the council, called the move "pragmatic."

"It's a way of getting through an existing problem," he said. "The expertise brought to bear will save time and will bring a text to the council within the next matter of days which we will all examine together" (Jim Wurst, UN Wire, Dec. 10).

Baghdad criticized the United States even more sharply than Syria for taking one of the two copies of the declaration, calling the move "unprecedented extortion" and saying Washington could alter the report in order to justify a military assault (Bassem Mroue, Associated Press/Yahoo! News, Dec. 10). "By acting in this way, the United States is looking for a fig leaf for aggression at a time when the whole world has seen through its false claims about Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement (Agence France-Presse, Dec. 10).

Declaration's Table of Contents

Iraq also submitted to the council a letter dated Dec. 7 from Foreign Minister Naji Sabri that is in effect a table of contents for the 12,000-page declaration. The eight-page document, which is in circulation at the United Nations but has not been officially issued, lists sites and techniques relevant to Iraq's production of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, as well as for ballistic missiles.

The bare-bones document sheds little light on what is in the declaration other than to use the word "former" when describing some of the programs and, in the nuclear declaration, to divide locations between "major" and "secondary" sites. The contents also note how many pages are in each section.

The document also refers to a 5,047-page annex containing "supporting documents" on Iraq's "former programs in the field of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and ballistic missiles since the establishment of those programs." Sabri wrote that some of the "detailed information, in particular the parts relating to research and development and techniques for the production of agents and weapons, entails risk and is inconsistent with the norms of the weapons nonproliferation regime."

The nuclear declaration is the longest of the four at 2,081 pages. It lists several techniques useful for producing nuclear weapons including electromagnetic isotope separation and gaseous centrifuge, but based on the table of contents alone, it is not possible to know whether Iraq is claiming these activities have halted or is claiming them as nonmilitary operations. Eight locations, including al-Tuwaitha, which IAEA inspectors visited yesterday, are listed as "major sites."

Before the Gulf War, al-Tuwaitha was the primary site for Iraq's nuclear weapons program. The new Iraqi document also lists Tarmiya, which had been a facility for uranium enrichment, al-Athir and al-Farat as major sites.

Of the four declarations, only the chemical declaration has a heading for "foreign technical assistance."

Muthanna, near Samarra, is listed under the biological declaration but is regularly cited as a chemical facility. The last report by UNMOVIC's predecessor, UNSCOM, lists Muthanna as a major chemical weapons facility. UNMOVIC reported last week that it had found artillery rounds of mustard gas at the site. Iraq said these were old weapons left over from the early 1990s. According to the nongovernmental research organization GlobalSecurity.org, Iraq's biological weapons program shifted from Muthanna to al-Salman in 1987. Work on anthrax and botulinum toxin is going on at al-Salman, according to GlobalSecurity.org.

Under the missile declaration, Iraq lists the "Ibn Firnas Company for remotely piloted aircraft." The existence of this drone program was cited by President Bush as one of the reasons Iraq is a threat to the United States (Jim Wurst, UN Wire, Dec. 10).

International Monitors Expand Field Missions

International nuclear monitors marked the end of the second week of field inspections in Iraq today with the expansion of their operations, launching inspections at the nuclear research center in al-Tuwaitha, a remote uranium mining site at Ashakat, a veterinary medicine establishment at Abu Ghraib, a military training center in Baghdad and an industrial facility at al-Furat.

Monitors are expecting the arrival of 25 additional inspectors today, bolstering their numbers to approximately 70. Inspection team leaders said they hope to expand operations to eight teams by January (Charles Hanley, AP/Yahoo! News, Dec. 10).

Nobel Laureate Jimmy Carter Urges U.S. Cooperation With U.N.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter accepted the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize today in Oslo, urging Bush to avoid a war in Iraq by working through the United Nations and warning that the world has become "a more dangerous place."

Urging respect for the United Nations as the international forum for solving disputes, Carter said "instead of entering a millennium of peace, the world is now, in many ways, a more dangerous place. The greater ease of travel and communication has not been matched by equal understanding and mutual respect," he said (Doug Mellgren, AP/Yahoo! News, Dec. 10).

U.N. Preparing Humanitarian Response For Possible War

U.N. personnel are already beginning to develop a strategy to protect the Iraqi civilian population in case of war, O Estado de Sao Paulo reports.

According to U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Sergio Vieira de Mello, U.N. agencies are meeting to develop a plan to provide medical and food assistance to Iraqis in case of conflict.

"I am not saying there will be war, but we are already planning so that the population suffers as little as possible in the case of an attack," he said. According to humanitarian agency sources, the outflow of refugees into neighboring countries, such as Iran, is a priority for preparations and the United Nations is already procuring local supplies for possible camps (Jamil Chade, O Estado de Sao Paulo, Dec. 10, UN Wire translation).

Pakistan : 461 Honor Killings Of Women Reported In Two Provinces

Pakistan's main human rights body said Wednesday that at least 461 women were reported killed by family members in so-called "honor killings" this year in Punjab and Sindh provinces, up from 372 reported last year, which it said shows the need for increased protection for Pakistani women. The conservative Balochistan and Northwest Frontier provinces were not included in the report, which suggests the number of actual killings could be higher, Associated Press reports.

The nongovernmental Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said the increase also shows the military government's apparent lack of commitment to fight the practice despite repeated pledges to improve women's rights.

Kamla Hayat, a senior commission official, said the jump in recorded honor killings could be the result of more family and friends reporting the crime amid growing opposition to the practice. "We are mainly relying on the data collected from the two provinces -- Punjab and Sindh," she said, adding that the commission does not have the resources to operate in Balochistan and Northwest Frontier provinces.

Perpetrators of most honor killings are rarely punished, AP reports. "Unfortunately, police in Pakistan either don't arrest such killers or they are not treated as murderers," Hayat said. In Punjab, where 161 cases were reported, only 27 killers were arrested. Government officials have defended their efforts to stop the practice, however.

"The government has recently made some changes in the laws to give more protection to the women, and it will be unfair to say that the government is quiet on the subject,'' said Javed Iqbal Cheema, director general at Pakistan's Interior Ministry (AP/MSNBC.com, Dec. 11).

Child Mortality : Iraq Death Rate Nearly Tripled Since 1990;

Iraq's child mortality rate has nearly tripled since 1990 to levels found in some of the world's least-developed countries, from 50 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 133 in 2001, UNICEF said in its 2003 State of the World's Children report, released yesterday.

Considered the best indicator of child welfare, Iraq's growing mortality rate for children under age 5 is in contrast to two decades of improving living standards and social progress prior to 1990. The country's regression over the past decade is by far the most severe of the 193 countries surveyed, the Financial Times reports today, with only two countries outside Africa -- Afghanistan and Cambodia -- now ranking worse than Iraq on UNICEF's indicator. Critics blame U.N. sanctions imposed after the Gulf War for the country's economic misery.

UNICEF said that nearly a quarter of babies born in Iraq between 1995 and 2000 were underweight, compared with 7 percent in Iran, and that more than a fifth of young children, nearly 1 million, had moderate or severe stunting from malnutrition (Frances Williams, Financial Times, Dec. 12).

Latin America Sees Strong Improvements In Past Decade

Latin America has made some of the most significant advances in the developing world in improving children's health and education, UNICEF's report said. Deaths of children younger than 5 were reduced by about 25 percent during the past decade, said UNICEF's regional director, Per Engebak, in Mexico City yesterday at the launch of the report. He added, however, that Latin America remains the most economically unequal region worldwide, which has severe consequences for its children (Ginger Thompson, New York Times, Dec. 12).

Mexican President Vicente Fox said yesterday that conditions for Mexico's children are far from ideal, and pledged to invest 90 percent of the country's budget next year in social programs, which will work to ensure that children's rights and the laws that protect them are respected, along with efforts to improve health and education (Silvia Magally, Cimacnoticias.com, Dec. 11, UN Wire translation).