Dissident Iranian leads hunger strike for political prisoners

By Anne Penketh and Jerome Taylor
Published: 12 July 2006

They have vanished behind the high walls of Tehran's notorious Evin prison after being jailed without trial and with no charges being laid. They include a union leader who organised a bus strike, a student activist, and an internationally-respected philosopher. Now they are about to receive a powerful message of support from Iran's best-known dissident, Akbar Ganji, who will launch a campaign in London on Friday for the release of all Iranian political prisoners.
Mr Ganji, who has been muzzled by official media since his release from jail four months ago, knows he is risking detention on his return to Iran, and possibly worse, by urging his supporters who dream of Iran becoming a secular democracy to join him in a three-day hunger strike.
"My friends are not concerned about me getting detained. They are concerned about my assassination," he told the Independent. "It is the first time the internal and external opposition are cooperating on one thing. There has been nothing like this in the past 27 years."
The best-selling investigative journalist is no stranger to hunger strikes. He refused food for a total two months while serving a six-year sentence in Evin jail, after writing a book and articles linking senior officials, including former president Ali Hashemi Rafsanjani, to the serial murders of political dissidents in the late 1990s. His revelations prompted President Mohammed Khatami to purge the intelligence services.
From jail, he published a political "manifesto" in 2002. He was released last March, after serving most of his sentence, and after world leaders including President George Bush called for his release.
Mr Ganji, who says he was tortured in Evin, estimates that the number of political prisoners in Iran is around 50. But he has chosen to highlight three as a symbol in order to demand the release of them all. They are union leader Mansour Ossanlu, who has been detained without charge or trial since 22 December 2005 for organising the bus strike during which hundreds of workers were detained; student leader Mousawi Khomeini; and Ramin Jahanbegloo, a pro-democracy philosopher who was arrested in April to the consternation of his family and his profession.
Like 47-year-old Mr Ganji, professor Jahanbegloo advocates a non-violent path to freedom and democracy, a view which has earned the prominent intellectual a place in Evin jail on suspicion of espionage.
Mr Ganji will begin his fast in Trafalgar Square on Friday, before flying to New York where he will continue his hunger strike outside the UN mission of the Islamic Republic on Saturday and Sunday. In New York, he will meet a prominent Bush administration critic and leading intellectual Noam Chomsky - but no-one from the US administration, which has pledged $75m to support the Iranian opposition.
He says more than 1,000 people across Europe and inside Iran have signed a petition in support of the Iranian prisoner release so far. "There is a large democratic movement in Iran, which rejects violence. We don't want a revolution, we want to try to change the regime peacefully," he says.
The hunger strike will be a litmus test of the strength of the pro-democracy movement in Iran, which suffers from a lack of organisation and credible leadership. "We have to organise our movement, this organisation has to have a strategy of civil disobedience," he said.
Political repression has intensified since the election of President Mohamed Ahmadinejad in June last year which consolidated the power of the conservatives in government. Mr Ganji has given thousands of interviews since emerging from prison, but not a single word has been published in Iran. So the internet has become the medium of choice to unite the disparate opposition to the mullahs.
But Mr Ganji stresses that he is not an opposition leader and rejects comparisons with other former political prisoners such as Nelson Mandela. "I am trying to raise the voice of pacifism, and democracy and freedom," he says. "I believe in a secular state, where there is no state religion and no religious state, and which would recognise sexual equality and minority rights."
Mr Ganji advocates a strategy of civil disobedience, building on the impact of a bus strike last January and of a women's protest which was similarly broken up by Iranian police.
Like Nobel peace prize winner Shirin Ebadi, who was his lawyer while he was in jail, Mr Ganji is calling for a revision of the constitution as a first step to reform. But he is also under no illusions that it will happen.

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http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1173236.ece

Europe 'ignoring Turkmen human rights abuses'

By Jerome Taylor
Published: 24 June 2006

The EU has been accused of ignoring human rights abuses in Turkmenistan by considering a trade agreement with the repressive former Soviet republic despite a recent crackdown on political dissidents and human rights activists.
A delegation of five MEPs returned from the Turkmen capital, Ashgabat, yesterday following a fact-finding mission to see if the EU could breath life into a trade agreement with Turkmenistan and tap into the country's huge gas reserves.
Until recently Brussels has resisted an interim agreement with President Saparmurat Niyazov's police state amid concerns over its dismal human rights record but in March this year the EU's foreign and trade committee voted to consider trade talks with Turkmenistan.
Martin Callanan, one of the five MEPs on the fact-finding mission, yesterday accused the EU of ignoring human rights abuses for commercial benefit.
"The EU is being completely hypocritical," he said. "We isolate a country like Belarus, which isn't half as repressive as Turkmenistan but the sad reality is that Belarus doesn't have lots of gas and oil reserves."
In the past week, Turkmen security forces have arrested three human rights activists and four of their relatives in what campaigners say is one of the worst crackdowns on civil society since November 2002, when Mr Niyazov accused dozens of Turkmen of involvement in an assassination plot. Human rights groups fear the prisoners are being tortured.
The latest arrests began on 16 June when security forces detained Annakurban Amanklychev, 35, a human rights activist and member of the Turkmenistan Helisinki Foundation for Human Rights. No charges have been brought against him. Witnesses reported seeing five security agents plant a package in Mr Amanklychev's car, raising fears that he could be falsely accused of drug and weapons offences in order to keep him in custody.
Over the next three days, two more human rights activists and four family members were arrested, including Ogulsapar Muradova, a journalist with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
"We are profoundly concerned that those detained are at risk of torture and ill treatment," said Holly Cartner, the director of the Europe and Central Asia division at Human Rights Watch. "The Turkmen government is one of the most repressive in the world. It's shocking that the European Union could contemplate signing a trade agreement with a government that is so notorious for its human rights violations."
Since Turkmenistan became an independent republic in 1991, a bizarre personality cult has built up around Mr Niyazov. Known to his people as Turkmenbashi (Father of all Turkmen), the "one and eternal" leader has a penchant for unusual edicts, such as banning gold teeth and renaming January after his mother.
"The place is seriously sinister," said Martin Callahan. "This guy's picture is literally everywhere. Every billboard, even every official you meet has a lapel with their leader's face on it." Mr Niyazov has presided over the near collapse of a state that should be benefiting from the world's fifth largest gas reserves but is instead descending into economic freefall.
In the capital, Ashgabat, oil revenue has allowed the Niyazov regime to build splendid palaces and self-congratulatory gold statues. Meanwhile, child mortality rates are on a par with the poorest African nations and women's life expectancy is the lowest in the region.
Mr Callanan warned the EU that unless more pressure is applied on the regime to reform its human rights record Brussels should remain cautious of any new trade agreement. "That would send out completely the wrong signal," he said.

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http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article1096041.ece

Execution of Iraqi teenager adds to surge of homophobic attacks

By Jerome Taylor

Published: The Independent, May 5th 2006

Human rights groups have condemned the "barbaric" execution of a 14-year-old boy, who, according to eyewitnesses was shot on his doorstep by Iraqi police for the apparent crime of being gay.Ahmed Khalil was shot at point-blank range after being accosted by men in police uniforms, according to his neighbours in the al-Dura area of Baghdad.Campaign groups have warned of a surge in homophobic killings by state security services and religious militias in the wake of an anti-gay and lesbians fatwa issued by Iraq's most prominent Shia leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Ali Hili, the co-ordinator of a group of exiled Iraqi gay men who monitor homophobic attacks inside Iraq said the fatwa had instigated a "witch hunt of lesbian and gay Iraqis, including violent beatings, kidnappings and assassinations.""Young Ahmed was a victim of poverty," he said. "He was summarily executed, apparently by fundamentalist elements in the Iraqi police."Neighbours in al-Dura district say Ahmed's father was arrested and interrogated two days before his son's murder by police who demanded to know about Ahmed's sexual activities.It is believed Ahmed slept with men for money in a bid to support his poverty-stricken family who have since fled the area fearing further reprisals.The latest killing is just one of a series of alleged homophobic murders, amid mounting evidence that fundamentalists have infiltrated government security forces to carry out homophobic murders while wearing of police uniforms.Human rights groups are particularly concerned that the Sadr and Badr militias, both Shia, have stepped up their attacks on the gay community after a string of religious rulings since the US-led invasion calling for the eradication of homosexuals.Grand Ayatollah Sistani recently issued a fatwa on his website calling for the execution of gays in the "worst, most severe way."The powerful Badr militia acts as the military wing of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) which counts Ayatollah Sistani as its spiritual leader. Another fatwa from the late and much revered Ayatollah Khoei allows followers to kill gays "with a sword, or burn him alive, or tie his hands and feet and hurl him down from a high place"."According to our contacts in Baghdad, the Iraqi police have been heavily infiltrated by the Shia paramilitary Badr Corps," said Mr Hili.Mr Hili, whose Abu Nawas group has close links with clandestine gay activists inside Iraq, also said US coalition forces are completely unwilling to try and tackle the rising tide of homophobic attacks in Iraq. "They just don't want to upset the Iraqi government by bringing up the taboo of homosexuality even though homophobic murders have intensified," he said.A number of highly public homophobic murders by the Badr militia have terrified Iraq's gay community. In September last year, Hayder Faiek (pictured above), a transsexual Iraqi was burnt to death by Badr militias in the main street of Baghdad's al-Karada district. In January, suspected militants shot another known gay, 27-year-old Ammar, in the back of the head.The US State Department has yet to document the surge in their annual human rights reports. Iraq's neighbours, however, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are often criticised for their persecution of gays.Darla Jordan, from the US State Department said: "The US government continues to work closely with our Iraqi partners to ensure the protection of human rights and the safety of all Iraqi citizens."

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Andijan massacre raises questions over UK arms trade

Photo: AFP

By Jerome Taylor

Published: The Independent 27 April 2006.

The British Government has failed to close a "massive loophole" in its arms trade laws which allowed the Uzbek authorities to use UK-designed vehicles in the Andijan massacre. More than 500 people were killed in May last year when Uzbek troops opened fire on protesters from two columns of armoured cars. Pictures emerged after the massacre showing that Defender vehicles, designed by Land Rover, were used by troops to fire on the crowds. The Defenders used in Andijan were manufactured by Otokar, a Turkish company, and donated to the Uzbek authorities by the Turkish government, but the chassis design and technology is British. A loophole in current legislation means the vehicles, some of which would be classified as military equipment and require a licence if sold directly from Britain, are not covered by arms export laws because they are not assembled in the UK.A spokesman for the Department of Trade and Industry said that while the Government took allegations of flaws in the UK export control regime seriously, the onward sale of Defender kits was beyond its control because the chassis are civilian technology.Land Rover has said the vehicles used in Andijan were "the same as that used by farmers and four-wheel drive enthusiasts" and that what happens to the vehicles after they have been sold is "clearly outside the control of Land Rover". But a former senior manager from Land Rover said many of the kits sold to Otokar incorporated a military chassis that would normally be licensable in the UK. But he did not know whether the Andijan vehicles had such chassis. "There is a military version," he said. "If we were actually to put the whole vehicle together on a military chassis in the UK and try and sell it to someone that would then be licensable."Neither Land Rover nor the Government has broken the law by selling equipment to Turkey but campaigners want the chassis licensed to stop countries such as Uzbekistan, now under an EU arms embargo, from obtaining British technology through third parties. Anna Macdonald, director of the control arms campaigns at Oxfam, said: "These vehicles are made from 75 per cent British parts, but simply by assembling them overseas, a company can completely avoid British export controls. The Government must urgently close this loophole, and... kick-start negotiations on an arms trade treaty. Whether a weapon comes in pieces, or is ready-made, the suffering it causes ... is exactly the same."Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, expressed the UK's strong support for an international treaty at a speech to the Lord Mayor's Easter Banquet last night.Turkey has donated 50 Otokar Defenders, which can be fitted with an array of weaponry and armour, to President Islam Karimov's regime in Uzbekistan.Kate Allen, Amnesty International UK's director, said: "For years we have called for these loopholes to be closed. We saw at Andijan what happens when these calls are ignored."

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Sweden's pungent herring treat is grounded by airlines

By Jerome Taylor

Published: The Independent, 3 April 2006

Surstromming, the highly pungent but much-loved Swedish dish of fermented herring, has a habit of offending the uninitiated with its peculiar taste and overpowering smell of rotten garbage.But now the national favourite, traditionally devoured in the summer months with large quantities of highly alcoholic liquor, has fallen foul of the airline industry which has asked passengers not to take it on board, saying it poses a safety risk.

Much to the chagrin of local producers, shops at Stockholm's Arlanda airport were asked to stop selling the notorious delicacy after airlines, including British Airways and Air France, became concerned the tins could explode midflight and shower customers with noxious odours that would take many days to fumigate.

Jan Lindqvist, head of corporate communications at Arlanda airport, said the decision to remove surstromming from the shelves was a purely practical one.

"It's nothing to do with terrorists," he told The Independent. "We're not saying Bin Laden is going to start using surstromming as a weapon ... but it is a practical consideration for the airlines."

Airlines are worried that the swollen tins of fermented fish are particularly vulnerable in the air because of pressure changes during take-off and landing.

To make authentic surstromming, herring from the Baltic is caught in the spring and fermented in barrels for a number of months. It is then placed in tins and left to ferment for a further year, bloating the container and creating the noxious gases for which the dish is so renowned.

"The cans swell up like a football." said Mr Lindqvist. "If it breaks inside a plane it would take two or three days to clean out the aircraft."The decision to remove the pride of Swedish cuisine from Arlanda airport has angered producers of the dish who have called the move "culturally illiterate".

Swedes are renowned for their love of pickled sea life, particularly during the long summer months where tons of crayfish and pickled herring are quaffed with equally large quantities of schnapps. But no dish is as unforgettable as the foul-smelling surstromming.

Historians believe the origins of surstromming lie somewhere in the 17th century as Sweden needed to keep its troops fed with their favourite fish far from home. Surstromming is served straight from the tin on crisp barley bread with boiled new potatoes, chopped onion and sour cream.But despite surstromming's long cultural heritage, not all Swedes are sold on the idea of the rotten-smelling fish.

Mathias Tornblzm, a self-confessed surstromming lover from Stockholm, admits many Swedes find the smell over-powering. "It does smell like hell but it's really rather tasty when you try it," he said.

He conceded Swedes were unlikely to be protesting on mass about the airport ban: "A lot of Swedes don't like it, to be honest. It's very popular in the north but the majority haven't even tasted it." A British Airways spokesman said that while it had not banned surstromming, it would be asking customers to think twice about bringing the swollen tins of fermented fish back home.

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Britain 'complicit' in human rights abuses at Camp Delta

(Benyam Mohammed al-Habashi)

By Jerome Taylor

Published: The Independent, 28 March 2006

Britain has been complicit in the human rights abuses committed by US authorities at Guantanamo Bay prison camp, according to a report released today.Drawing on exhaustive interviews with detainees and evidence from security services, the dossier gives the complete picture of the British government's cooperation with the US over a camp it now says should be closed.The report, Fabricating Terrorism - British Complicity in Renditions and Terror, is a scathing indictment of the British government's "systematic violations of international law" over its co-operation with the US authorities in the detention of British citizens and residents at the US-run facility in Cuba. The research, compiled by the human rights group Cage Prisoners, plots British involvement in the cases of 13 current or former Guantanamo detainees - either British citizens or residents. All the detainees in the report consistently testified that UK authorities were aware of their plight and unwilling to intervene despite the knowledge that they were either at risk of torture or said they had been tortured.There is no suggestion British authorities played any part in torturing the detainees but the report does argue consistent co-operation between the US and UK has led to an "international chain of abuse" that flies in the face of the British government projecting itself as a leader in the field of human rights.One of the most serious cases surrounds the rendition, imprisonment and alleged torture of Benyam Mohammed al-Habashi, an Ethiopian national with British residency, who was arrested in April 2002 as he tried to leave Pakistan. Benyam was later "rendered" to Morocco and Afghanistan before arriving in Guantanamo in September 2004. Mr al-Habashi claims that, while in a secret detention facility south of the Moroccan capital Rabat, he was brutally tortured by his interrogators as they asked questions that could only have been supplied by the British.In December last year, Jack Straw was forced to admit that MI6 had interrogated Mr al-Habashi in Pakistan before he was sent to Morocco but insisted the security services "did not observe any abuse".Clive Stafford Smith, Mr al-Habashi's lawyer, argues that the nature of his client's imprisonment in Morocco makes the British government complicit in his torture. "The British government was complicit in some of the abuses that took place against Benyam... to the extent that the Government told the Moroccans information that they would use against him in the torture sessions." Now on hunger strike, Mr al-Habashi is one of 10 Guantanamo detainees waiting to be tried by a US Military Commission.Two British residents, Omar Deghayes and Shaker Aamer, both still incarcerated in Guantanamo also say they were questioned by British authorities before their rendition and imprisonment in Guantanamo. Similarly, many of those who have since been released without charge also accuse London of knowing well in advance that they were being transported to Cuba.The latest findings show mounting evidence of consistent involvement and presence of UK officials in run up to the transfer of many British citizens and residents to Guantanamo. "In nearly every single case," the report says, "British intelligence was fully aware of the status of these individuals and still allowed for their transfer."Geoffrey Bindman, the chairman of the British Institute of Human Rights, argues that each case study shows a worrying level of UK collusion. "If substantiated," he writes in the report's forward, "they demonstrate an intolerable level of collaboration and collusion between the UK and US authorities in the abuses which have taken place at Guantanamo and elsewhere through the 'outsourcing' of torture."They also demonstrate a pathetic reluctance on the part of the UK government to stand up for the rights of its citizens and permanent residents against illegal and unacceptable treatment."The government has argued it is unable to intervene on behalf of those British residents still left in Guantanamo such as Mr Deghayes and Mr Aamer because they do not hold British passports.Asim Qureshi of Cage Prisoners said he hoped the report would help alert British citizens to the dangerous policies that are being carried out in their name. "Rendition and torture do not help build security but instead only compromise the standing and security of the British Government in the international community."

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http://www.cageprisoners.com

INTO THE VALLEY OF DEATH: With the Army in a new abuse scandal and no exit strategy from Iraq in sight, UK troops head into another war zone

This report made the Independent's front page on the 13th February 2006. The reason? As Britain prepared to send yet more troops to Afghanistan, the country had overtaken Iraq in the sheer numbers of people killed each day.

Looking at comparable statistics for the start of the year, it was clear Britain was sending troops into a country that was now even more violent than the maelstrom of Iraq.

By Kim Sengupta and Jerome Taylor

Suicide bombings and firefights, Western troops under attack, sectarian clashes between Shia and Sunni, foreigners taken hostage. Days of escalating violence have left dozens of people dead and more than a hundred injured. This is not Iraq but Afghanistan, a conflict which has now overtaken on the grim league table of body counts - 89 killings in the last eight days in Afghanistan compared with 54 in Iraq during the same period.It is into this maelstrom that the Royal Marines - the first batch of 5,700 British troops being sent to Afghanistan - will begin deploying this week in a mission lasting at least three years at a cost of pounds 1bn. With no exit strategy from Iraq in sight, British forces are entering another deadly conflict. Tony Blair's insistence that there should be no sizeable withdrawal from Iraq until the security situation appreciably improves means that contingency plans for a large-scale reduction in numbers have had to be shelved. But last week John Reid, the Secretary of State for Defence, appeared to pave the way for a "significant" withdrawal from Iraq even if the country continued to face serious problems.Senior commanders are deeply concerned about fighting a "war on two fronts". General Sir Mike Jackson, the chief of the Army, has written to Lieutenant General David Richards, the British commander who will lead Nato forces in Afghanistan, asking if he has enough troops to cope with the spiralling turmoil. Lt Gen Richards is believed to have asked for another infantry battle group, about a thousand men, but this is not feasible with the continuing commitment in Iraq.Lord Guthrie, the former chief of defence staff, said: "The British Army is already dangerously overstretched and maintaining a force even of this size over the years will be difficult."There are now lethal similarities in the methods used by the insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq. Nato commanders acknowledge that terrorist techniques are being imported from Iraq to Afghanistan and Islamist fighters are entering the country in ever-increasing numbers from Pakistan.The place where this is most evident is the province of Helmand, where most of the British forces will be deployed, and where a resurgent Taliban and their al-Qa'ida allies have killed almost 100 US and Afghan troops in the past few months - the total number lost by British troops in the Iraq war.Senior British officers have expressed concern about the apparent lack of clear direction.Ministers have said that one of the main roles of the British troops would be to help eradicate Afghanistan's massive opium crop. But the task force would be deployed under a Nato mandate which does not allow eradication.British commanders say they are also aware that Helmand is potentially more hazardous than Basra, where British forces have not actively engaged the Shia militias who have infiltrated the police force in large numbers.The situation, they believe, will be more akin to central Iraq where American forces have borne the brunt of the resistance.The similarities in the patterns of violence in Iraq and Afghanistan were highlighted in a week of strife. In the latest incident two Nepalese aid workers were kidnapped at gunpoint in the centre of the capital, Kabul. Two days earlier eight Afghan soldiers were killed by two roadside blasts in the Afghan province of Kunar. Initial reports say that at least one of the bombs was of a new infra-red type used recently in Iraq to kill British and US soldiers.Senior US and British officials have claimed that the sophisticated Improvised Explosive Device were supplied by the Iranians to Shia insurgents in Iraq.The attacks were in Kunar, near the Pakistani border. Six soldiers died in one blast followed by a second killing two more. Mohammed Hasan, the deputy police chief in the region, said: "The situation here is very bad. We have come under attack throughout the night."Sixteen American soldiers were killed in Kunar last year when their helicopter was shot down. Last month, a village across the Pakistani border was hit by a US missile strike in an attempt to kill Ayman al-Za-wahiri, the deputy to Osama bin Laden in al-Qa'ida Eighteen people were killed.Also yesterday four Canadian soldiers attached to Nato forces in Afghanistan were injured by a roadside bombing in Kandahar province. The Taliban claimed responsibility.In Herat, in western Afghanistan, police opened fire as hundreds of Sunni protesters tried to attack the consulate of Shia Iran.This followed bitter sectarian clashes in the city during the Shia festival of Ashura in which 11 people were killed.Meanwhile, in Iraq nine people were killed in a sectarian attack, a car bombing outside the Shia Iskan al-Shaabi mosque in the Doura district of Baghdad yesterday.A leading Sunni cleric, Adel Khalil Dawoud, was dragged from his house by armed men wearing police uniforms. His brother, Azawi Dawoud, blamed militia supporters of the Shia religious and political leader, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, for the abduction.In Afghanistan, Shia and Sunni exchanged gun fire during the stand-off in Herat. Governor Sayed Hussein Anwari said: "This is not the kind of thing we are used to Afghanistan. We do not have this type of trouble between Shia and Sunni. This is caused by people trying to provoke mischief."Ishmail Khan, Governor Anwari's predecessor who was moved by the government of President Hamid Karzai from his power base in Herat to Kabul was yesterday meeting local Shia and Sunni leaders. But Khan Alakozai, president of the Herat chamber of commerce said: "The situation will get worse unless government can control it."Thirteen people were killed on Tuesday by a suicide bomber in Kandahar, a common weapon in Iraq, but relatively unknown until quite recently in Afghanistan.

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