Kenneth Roth

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The international criminal court in The Hague. Photograph: Peter Dejong/AP

MundoOriente Próximo,

I should not be surprised at the lawlessness of a government that bombs and starves Palestinian civilians in Gaza, but I was still shocked by the brazenness of Israel’s efforts to subvert the international criminal court’s investigation of its war crimes. As exposed by the Guardian along with the Israeli media outlets +972 and Local Call, the Israeli government over the course of nine years “deployed its intelligence agencies to surveil, hack, pressure, smear and allegedly threaten senior ICC staff in an effort to derail the court’s inquiries”.

The effort was brazen. Mysterious men visited the former chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, outside her private home and handed her an envelope of cash, which the ICC believed “was likely [Israel] signalling to the prosecutor that it knew where she lived”, the Guardian has reported.…  Seguir leyendo »

Karim Khan, chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, in Bogotá, Colombia, on April 25. (Luis Acosta/AFP/Getty Images)

MundoOriente Próximo,

On Monday, Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, announced that he was seeking arrest warrants for both Israeli and Hamas senior officials on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Post Opinions asked six experts for their view of the decision.

Avi Mayer: The ICC has united Israel in opposition

In the immediate aftermath of the pogrom perpetrated by Hamas on Oct. 7, Israelis of all backgrounds and beliefs came together in a demonstration of unity seldom seen in this country. The impassioned debates of the preceding months seemed to vanish overnight as the country rallied behind efforts to support the victims of the carnage and the families of the hostages — and to ensure that Hamas can never again carry out a comparable massacre.…  Seguir leyendo »

‘It is time for these key western governments to reconsider.’ Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

MundoOriente Próximo,

‘It is time for these key western governments to reconsider.’ Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, responded with predictable vitriol to international criminal court (ICC) accusations against him and the Israeli defense minister, Yoav Gallant. Yet his arguments are all spin, designed to divert attention from their devastating conduct in Gaza. The American, British and German governments were little better.

On Monday, the court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, announced that he would seek arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant as well as three senior Hamas officials. He proposed charges against the Hamas leadership for atrocities on 7 October as well as the mistreatment of the hostages since then.…  Seguir leyendo »

Europa

Last summer, Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny narrowly survived an assassination attempt, widely believed to have been organized by Russia's security services, through a Novichok nerve-agent poisoning. Now, without concerted action, he may die from medical neglect in a Russian penal colony where the authorities locked him up following a mockery of a trial. The botched nerve-agent attack, since exposed, was supposed to have been accomplished with deniability. If Navlany now dies in prison, the blame will lie unequivocally with the Kremlin.

The Kremlin has already weathered a raft of Western sanctions imposed for misdeeds ranging from the Novichok poisoning of Navalny and of a former KGB agent in Britain, to Russia's seizure of Crimea and hacking into US databases.…  Seguir leyendo »

Dos hombres cargan un ataúd frente al Palacio Nacional, en Ciudad de México, al finalizar una protesta el 11 de mayo de 2020, en la que activistas de derechos humanos buscaron llamar atención a los riesgos de salud que enfrentan las personas en cárceles mexicanas esperando juicios que quedaron estancados por la pandemia por coronairus. (Rebecca Blackwell)

InternacionalOrden Mundial, , , , , ,

Algunos gobiernos alrededor del mundo están usando la pandemia para afirmar que los derechos humanos son un lujo que no nos podemos permitir. Usando la crisis como pretexto, están arrestando a sus críticos, intensificando la vigilancia y tomando amplios poderes de emergencia. La presunción subyacente es evidente: proteger los derechos humanos es un mero detalle que debe ser descartado cuando las cosas se ponen difíciles.

Sin embargo, la pandemia ha resultado ser también una oportunidad para promover los derechos humanos, no solo por una cuestión de principios sino también por razones pragmáticas. La crisis ha demostrado que las autoridades que ignoran los derechos humanos ponen en peligro nuestra salud.…  Seguir leyendo »

Human rights activists prepare for a car caravan protest through downtown Los Angeles to call on officials to release inmates from jails to prevent the spread of coronavirus on April 7. (Robyn Beck/Afp Via Getty Images)

InternacionalOrden Mundial, , , ,

Some governments around the world are using the pandemic to claim that human rights are a luxury we cannot afford. With the crisis as a pretext, they are arresting critics, intensifying surveillance and seizing broad emergency powers. The underlying assumption is clear: Safeguarding human rights is a nicety that must be jettisoned when times get tough.

In fact, though, the pandemic has also turned out to be an opportunity to promote human rights — not only as a matter of principle but also for reasons of pragmatism. The crisis has shown that officials who ignore human rights jeopardize our health, while respecting human rights is the best public health strategy.…  Seguir leyendo »

Isaac Lawrence/AFP via Getty Images. Pro-democracy activists holding pictures of missing citizen journalist Fang Bin and anti-corruption activist Xu Zhiyong, who had been interrogating President Xi Jinping’s handling of the Covid-19 crisis, at a protest outside the Chinese liaison office in Hong Kong, February 19, 2020

ReflexionesDemocracia, ,

For authoritarian-minded leaders, the coronavirus crisis is offering a convenient pretext to silence critics and consolidate power. Censorship in China and elsewhere has fed the pandemic, helping to turn a potentially containable threat into a global calamity. The health crisis will inevitably subside, but autocratic governments’ dangerous expansion of power may be one of the pandemic’s most enduring legacies.

In times of crisis, people’s health depends at minimum on free access to timely, accurate information. The Chinese government illustrated the disastrous consequence of ignoring that reality. When doctors in Wuhan tried to sound the alarm in December about the new coronavirus, authorities silenced and reprimanded them.…  Seguir leyendo »

Willie Siau/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images. Police in riot gear rounding up suspected protesters, Hong Kong, January 5, 2020

MundoAsia,

Because the Chinese government depends on repression to stay in power, it sees the defense of human rights as threatening. But to prevent global criticism of its tightening domestic crackdown, Beijing is increasingly undermining the international system for protecting human rights, putting everyone in greater jeopardy.

To maintain its grasp on power at home, the Chinese Communist Party has constructed an Orwellian high-tech surveillance state and a sophisticated Internet censorship system to monitor and suppress public criticism. Now, China has begun to use its growing economic and diplomatic clout to extend that censorship abroad, silencing critics and carrying out the most intense attack on the global system for enforcing human rights seen since its emergence in the mid-twentieth century.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

La province d’Idlib, au nord-ouest de la Syrie, dernière grande enclave aux mains des forces rebelles, a jusqu’à présent servi de soupape de sécurité. Alors que les autres enclaves antigouvernementales tombaient les unes après les autres, les survivants n’ont eu d’autre choix que d’être livrés à leur sort à Idlib ou bien de vivre dans des zones contrôlées par le gouvernement, où ils seraient constamment exposés au risque d’être détenus, torturés et exécutés. Pour des raisons évidentes, beaucoup ont choisi Idlib. Actuellement, environ la moitié des 2,3 millions de personnes y vivant sont des personnes déplacées, venant d’autres régions de Syrie.…  Seguir leyendo »

A Syrian woman walks with a boy past a banner showing Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) shaking hands with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, after arriving in a convoy carrying displaced people into government-controlled territory at Abu al-Zuhur checkpoint in the western countryside of Idlib province, on June 1, 2018. (Photo by George OURFALIAN / AFP) (Photo credit should read GEORGE OURFALIAN/AFP/Getty Images)

MundoOriente Próximo,

The endgame of the war in Syria is likely to come down to the northwestern province of Idlib, on the Turkish border, where some 2.3 million people are now trapped. As Russian-Syrian forces now finish retaking the smaller southwestern province of Daraa, Idlib will be the last significant enclave in anti-government hands. If Russian-Syrian forces resume pummeling the city and surrounding area from the air, its civilians could face the horrible choice of bunkering in place or desperately trying to cross the Turkish border, which has been effectively closed since 2015.

Recently, however, there is some evidence that Russia might be willing to act more constructively.…  Seguir leyendo »

John Moore/Getty Images. A US Border Patrol agent checking birth certificates while taking immigrants from Central America into detention, McAllen, Texas, January 4, 2017

MundoAmérica,

Twenty-year-old Alexis G. was deported in June to Mexico, a country he barely knows. He told Human Rights Watch researchers who interviewed him at a migrant reception center, “My parents brought me [to the United States], and I grew up in [there]. If I were to sing an anthem right now, it would be ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’ I don’t know the Mexican anthem.” He is one of millions of people deeply integrated into American life whom President Donald Trump has turned into “priority targets” for deportation, even though they cannot be removed without devastating their American families, businesses, and communities. With Trump due to name a new secretary of Homeland Security to replace John Kelly, these cruel policies should face renewed scrutiny during his successor’s confirmation hearings.…  Seguir leyendo »

En nombre de nuestras democracias

ReflexionesDemocracia

La democracia debe estar basada en los derechos humanos. Para muchos resulta obvio pero, cada vez más, vemos cómo en Europa hay quienes sugieren que la democracia se limita simplemente a ganar las elecciones para luego hacer lo que se considera que quieren los votantes. Para ellos, la democracia se convierte en una especie de dictadura de la mayoría.

Obviamente, el gobierno debe reflejar las preferencias de la mayoría, expresadas en la celebración de elecciones periódicas, libres y justas, pero su acción también debe quedar limitada por la salvaguarda de los derechos humanos y el Estado de derecho. Hay ciertas cosas que un gobierno debería tener prohibido hacer, incluso si la mayoría de los votantes las avalan, como imponer la pena de muerte, encarcelar a personas por motivos políticos, limitar su capacidad para expresarse y reunirse libremente o discriminarlas por motivos de género, raza, etnia, religión u orientación sexual.…  Seguir leyendo »

Pardon Edward Snowden

MundoAmérica, ,  

Edward J. Snowden, the American who has probably left the biggest mark on public policy debates during the Obama years, is today an outlaw. Mr. Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor who disclosed to journalists secret documents detailing the United States’ mass surveillance programs, faces potential espionage charges, even though the president has acknowledged the important public debate his revelations provoked.

Mr. Snowden’s whistle-blowing prompted reactions across the government. Courts found the government wrong to use Section 215 of the Patriot Act to justify mass phone data collection. Congress replaced that law with the USA Freedom Act, improving transparency about government surveillance and limiting government power to collect certain records.…  Seguir leyendo »

Edward J. Snowden hablando a una audiencia del Instituto Tecnológico de Massachusetts, en julio. Credit Kayana Szymczak para The New York Times

MundoAmérica, ,  

Edward Snowden es el estadounidense que probablemente haya dejado la huella más profunda en el debate político durante los años del gobierno de Obama.

Snowden, quien dejó la Agencia Nacional de Seguridad tras entregar documentos secretos que detallaban los programas de vigilancia masiva de Estados Unidos a varios periodistas, se enfrenta a una acusación por espionaje aunque el propio presidente ha reconocido que sus revelaciones desataron un debate público importante.

Las filtraciones de Snowden provocaron reacciones en todos los niveles del gobierno. La justicia decidió que el gobierno no debía utilizar la Patriot Act para justificar la recopilación masiva de datos.…  Seguir leyendo »

EuropaUnión EuropeaUE a debate

Los bloques de derechos humanos que construyan a toda sociedad democrática deben ser las ideas, el respeto, la apreciación a las diferencias y el trato cortés con el que queremos que nos traten a nosotros. Sin embargo, actualmente, estos valores están bajo ataque con una intensidad mayor que en cualquier otro momento de las últimas décadas.

En Europa, –pese a que Austria parece haber evitado un potencial desastre en sus elecciones presidenciales– líderes como el húngaro Viktor Orbán y el polaco Jaroslaw Kaczyński hablan abiertamente de la construcción de una democracia “no liberal”: una que carece de los mecanismos de control y supervisión del poder ejecutivo, incluyendo la protección de los derechos humanos.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

Las conversaciones de paz sirias que, según lo programado, se reanudarán en Ginebra el 25 de enero tendrán lugar en un marco que se fijó en Viena en octubre. Estos principios, acordados por los actores extranjeros más importantes en la guerra de Siria, incluyen un compromiso con una gobernancia secular, la eventual derrota del Estado Islámico (ISIS) y otros grupos terroristas, la preservación de las fronteras de preguerra de Siria, la conservación de sus instituciones estatales y la protección de grupos minoritarios.

Lo que no incluyen es un esfuerzo por abordar el mayor obstáculo para una paz duradera: los ataques en curso contra civiles y otras atrocidades que están agudizando las divisiones entre las facciones sirias que, llegado el caso, tendrán que gobernar de manera conjunta.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo, ,

As the self-proclaimed Islamic State, or ISIS, commits horrendous videotaped executions, it might seem to pose the greatest threat to Syrian civilians. In fact, that ignoble distinction belongs to the barrel bombs being dropped by the military of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad. The Islamic State has distracted us from this deadly reality.

Barrel bombs are improvised weapons: oil drums or similar canisters filled with explosives and metal fragments. They are dropped without guidance from helicopters hovering just above antiaircraft range, typically hitting the ground with huge explosions and the widespread diffusion of deadly shrapnel. They pulverize neighborhoods, destroy entire buildings and leave broad strips of death and destruction.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAméricaInternacionalTerrorismo Internacional, , ,

The primary international treaty against torture, the Convention against Torture, which the United States ratified in 1994, contains two key requirements. First, it bans torture, without exception, as well as other inhumane treatment. Second, it requires that torturers be prosecuted.

President Obama has been firm in stopping torture. On his second day in office, he ordered an end to the Bush administration’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” — a euphemism for torture — and the closure of the secret CIA detention centers where torture was carried out.

But Obama has utterly failed in the second requirement. He has flatly refused to investigate the torture, let alone prosecute those responsible.…  Seguir leyendo »

Barbed wire fence surrounding a military area is pictured in the forest near Stare Kiejkuty village, close to Szczytno in northeastern Poland, Jan 24, 2014. The facility was allegedly used as a “black site” by the CIA. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

MundoAméricaInternacionalTerrorismo Internacional, , ,

The publication of the long-awaited summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA’s torture provides a useful moment to consider the lessons learned from this sorry chapter in American history and the steps that might be taken to avoid its recurrence. With the truth now told about this blatantly illegal policy, President Barack Obama has a chance to reverse his misguided refusal to prosecute the officials who authorized the torture, ending the impunity that sets a horrible precedent for future United States presidents and governments worldwide.

There will undoubtedly be much debate about its finding that torture did not “work” — that it produced little if any intelligence of value that was not or could not have been obtained by lawful means.…  Seguir leyendo »