Gaza, Palestinian Territory (TML) – A military court in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip has sentenced at least four men to death, prompting a Palestinian human rights organization to level harsh criticism against capital punishment.

The Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR), a Ramallah-based organization, said that the permanent military court in Gaza had last week sentenced three men to death by firing squad on charges of kidnapping and premeditated murder. Two of the three men were sentenced in absentia, after having fled. A fourth man, 34-year old Mamdouh Al-Attar, was sentenced to death by hanging for “spying for the enemy.”

According to ICHR, five judicial executions were carried out in Gaza during 2010, they were the first executions carried out by the Islamist movement since seizing power from Fatah in a bloody coup in 2007.

“We are completely against the death penalty,” Randa Sanyora, executive director of ICHR told The Media Line. “The way these people were tried is illegal and they’ve received no due process.”

Sanyora pointed to the short time lapse between the men’s arrest and the verdict, depriving them of the possibility to appeal.

“Hamas is trying them based on PLO revolutionary penal code of 1979, which is very strange, since Hamas is not part of the PLO and doesn’t recognize it,” Sanyora added.

Sanyora admitted that capital punishment existed in the Palestinian penal code, but said President Abbas has placed a moratorium on executions. Under Palestinian Authority law, the President must approve all executions. But Hamas no longer recognizes the legitimacy of Abbas, whose four-year term ended in 2009.

Sanyora said the new indictments were causing panic among inmates awaiting trial in Gaza penitentiaries, fearing death penalties would soon increase in civil courts as well.

Samir Zaqout, field work coordinator for Al-Mezan, a Gaza-based human rights organization, said that in principle, Palestinians had no problem with the death penalty since it is sanctioned by Islam. But politically motivated trials in Gaza were a different story, he said.

“There has been a tangible increase in death penalties in Gaza recently,” Zaqout told the Media Line. “But even the PA, when it controlled Gaza, had no problem with capital punishment. Around 70 people were sentenced to death since the PA came into existence, but only 15-16 since Hamas took power in Gaza.”

Zaqout said that the December 6 sentencing was politically motivated, since the three men accused of murder had killed an Imam of a Hamas-affiliated mosque.

“The judges here base their rulings on the letter of the law, but there shouldn’t be selective judging against Fatah people only,” he said.

Bill Van Esveld, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, said his organization had received many complaints of confessions produced under torture being used by courts to indict suspects.

“The Gaza Military Court considers confession to be the ‘royal piece of evidence’,” he told The Media Line. “Detainees often don’t get access to their lawyer until the investigation has ended.”

Van Esveld said that 2010 was the first year in which death penalties have been carried out since Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip. He added that such penalties were delivered by civil courts as well as military ones.

“In some cases, civilians were tried in military courts,” he said. “The crime of collaboration with Israel is usually tried in a military court whether or not the suspect is a member of the security apparatus, because it is considered a security offense.”

Israel’s security services routinely use Palestinians as informants to prevent terrorist attacks or assist in targeted interceptions of militant leaders.

More and more countries have moved to abolish the death penalty in recent years. According to Amnesty International, more than two-thirds of world countries have abolished the penalty in law or practice. At least 95 countries have abolished the penalty completely, 35 have canceled it in practice. Nine countries execute convicts for extraordinary crimes only.

Iran by far leads the list of executions in the Middle East, with more than 388 recorded executions in 2009. Iraq is the leading Arab country with over 120 executions.

In comparison, Egypt, with some 80 million citizens has executed the same number of people in 2009 as did Gaza, a territory of 1.5 million inhabitants, in 2010.

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. president’s special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, is struggling in a critical condition at George Washington University hospital after admission on Friday morning.

“This morning, doctors completed surgery to repair a tear in his aorta. He is in critical condition and has been joined by his family,” said PJ Crowley, the State Department spokesman said in a statement on Saturday.

Earlier on Friday, at the regular briefing, Crowley refused to elaborate on Holbrooke;s condition, saying, “All I can tell you is that the ambassador is at the hospital at the present time, and beyond that I will — we will let you know, as we find out more.”

Crowley also refused to confirm media reports that Ambassador Holbrooke collapsed at Secretary Hillary Clinton’s office, saying on Friday, “It happened on the seventh floor,”

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Kathmandu, Nepal (AHN) – Hong Kong based Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), has issued a report this week on the occasion of Human Rights Day 2010, highlighting the defects that are evident in the area of the judiciary as extraordinary delays often affect the possibility of fair trail.

“The Constituent Assembly of Nepal is not able to move any step forward despite the passing of two years and seven months since it first resolved to draft a new constitution for the country. The deadline fixed for the Constituent Assembly expired on 28 May 2010,” it said.

“Deepening bickering and appalling irresponsibility among the political parties in the country is solely responsible for this impasse. The people of Nepal have become increasingly desperate and can find no solution to this shameful and stagnated political deadlock,” the report cliams, painting a dismal and gloomy picture of country.

“The people’s faith in finding a solution to most of their legitimate grievances arising out of past and continuing human rights violations has rapidly eroded along with their dream of having a functioning democratic republic for which they have sacrificed lives and freedoms in the past,” if further reads.

Despite repeated promises, human rights violations committed before 2008 are yet to be investigated and the perpetrators prosecuted.

Reports made by government commissions are yet to be made public and it is feared that none of these reports will result in any credible actions in the near future.

“On the contrary, despite the country resolving to become a federal democratic republic, human rights violations committed by the state security agencies, the police and other politically affiliated units continue even today.”

The country neither has an adequate number of formal and functioning justice institutions nor are there any serious discussions to constitute them. Even today, the day-to-day functioning of the police, prosecution and the judiciary and other essential service-providing institutions do not exist in Nepal beyond Kathmandu.

“The civil war and long periods of neglect has resulted in pushing an alarmingly high number of the population to the verge of extinction. Kathmandu today has reduced to a capital city that portrays the appalling living conditions in Nepal. The city hardly has the infrastructure to function, including basic facilities like water and electricity to meet the requirement of the city’s population,” the report bluntly reads.

The AHRC expects that in the coming year, the government will take adequate steps to ensure that the unacceptable status quo is changed. However, this not only requires the resolve of the ordinary people of Nepal, but also of its neighbours and above all that of the international community that still entertains concern for the people of Nepal.

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London, United Kingdom (AHN) – International protest is building about the arrest of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange this week. Assange is being held in a British jail awaiting extradition to Sweden on rape charges.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Justice Department is seeking to extradite him to the United States to face espionage charges after his Web site released more than 250,000 documents that exposed secret State Department communications. However, political leaders in Australia, Brazil, Russia and elsewhere say Assange is a political prisoner who is being punished for exercising rights of the free press.

Some of the harshest criticism is coming from Australia, where hundreds of people rallied Thursday in three cities to protest Assange’s arrest. Assange is an Australian citizen.

Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said Assange was merely doing the job of any journalist by publishing the documents. “The blame for any violations of the law should fall on the persons who gave the documents to Wikileaks,” Rudd said. “The Americans are responsible for that.”

The State Department communications, called “cables,” described Rudd as a “control freak” and said that he made mistakes as Australia’s foreign minister.

Rudd said he was unconcerned about the criticisms.

He also said Australia would offer consular help to Assange.

Consular help refers to sending diplomats to meet with a citizen of their own country who is arrested abroad to determine whether legal assistance can be arranged.

In Brazil, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva described the arrest of Assange as a crime.

“I want to express my protest against this offense against free expression,” Lula said. “I will use the presidential blog to express my protest.”

He also encouraged the international news media to be more vigorous in defending Assange.

“The young man who is giving so much trouble to the diplomacy of the United States was arrested and so far I have not seen any protest defending free expression,” Lula said.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin described the U.S. government’s efforts to prosecute Assange as hypocritical.

“If it is full democracy, then why have they hidden Mr. Assange in prison,” Putin said during a press conference Thursday. “That’s what, democracy?”

Putin’s remarks appear to be a response to a February 2010 cable from Defense Secretary Robert Gates that said, “Russian democracy has disappeared and the government is an oligarchy run by the security services.”

In Mexico, the Journalists Club put up a plaque in their Mexico City headquarters honoring Assange for his “contribution to the conscience of mankind.”

The State Department documents published by Wikileaks described Mexico’s difficulties in managing its war with drug cartels. The cables described the government’s efforts as ineffective, often corrupt and divided among competing administrators.

Meanwhile, the Congressional Research Service is saying any U.S. prosecution of Assange would face unprecedented legal and diplomatic challenges.

A 24-page report from the government agency examines how the Justice Department could apply U.S. criminal laws to a foreign news operation.

“We are aware of no case in which a publisher of information obtained through unauthorized disclosure by a government employee has been prosecuted for publishing it,” the report said.

The prosecution of Assange creates First Amendment and diplomatic hurdles “based on concerns about government censorship,” the report said.

Some members of Congress, such as Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I.-Conn) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), say Assange should be prosecuted under the Espionage Act of 1917.

However, the Congressional Research Service report said no single law forbids the news media from publishing diplomatic cables only a “patchwork” of statutes that leave unclear answers.

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Reykjavik, Iceland (AHN) – Iceland will start repaying a $3.45 billion (EUR 2.6 billion) from Britain in 2016. Reykjavik owed the amount to London after the online Icesave Bank failed two years ago.

The agreement to repay ends two years of dispute over interest rates between the two countries after Iceland’s financial system collapsed in October 2008. Following the failure of Icesave’s parent company Landsbanki, the U.K. treasury had to bail out 300,000 British depositors, including 108 English, Scottish and Welsh councils that have high-interest accounts in Icesave.

The International Monetary Fund also extended a $2 billion loan, while Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark provided another $2.5 billion loan to Iceland.

According to the European Economic Area regulations, Iceland was supposed to pay each account holder $29,158 (EUR 22,000), but because of the financial straits in Iceland, Britain and the Netherlands offered the country a loan. Landsbanki also had a number of Dutch depositors.

Icelandic and British officials initially agreed a year ago to set the interest rate at 5 percent. However, 93 percent of Iceland residents rejected the agreement because they considered the interest rate too high.

The new agreement sets interest rate between 3 percent for the Netherlands and 3.3 percent for Britain on repayments from 2009 to 2016. The debt should be fully paid back by 2046.

The deal, however, needs the seal of approval from Iceland’s Parliament, president and government. If the agreement is approved, ratings agency Moody’s said Reykjavik’s credit rating could be raised and it may pave the way for Iceland joining the European Union.

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – In an attempt to prevent President Barack Obama’s plan to bring terror suspects to the United States for trial, the House voted 212-206 on Tuesday to curb the government’s expenses in the fiscal year. The measure targeted funds aimed at transferring inmates from a military holding facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to prisons in the U.S.

The move hurts Obama’s efforts to close the controversial detention camp by next year or his attempts to transfer 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed in America.

“None of the funds made available in this or any prior Act may be used to transfer, release, or assist in the transfer or release to or within the U.S., its territories, or possessions Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or any other detainee held at Guantanamo Bay as of June 24, 2009,” the bill explains.

The bill will be presented to the Senate for approval and would be sent to Obama to sign into law.

Upon assuming power in 2008, Obama had pledged to close down the notorious facility within a year but failed due to unyielding opposition from the U.S. Congress.

Currently, the prison, which is in Cuba’s Guantanamo naval base, holds nearly 170 detainees, including 58, who have been put into indefinite detention without trial.

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Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (AHN) – Former British Columbia Deputy Premier Christy Clark announced Wednesday she will run to become the leader of the Liberal Party in the province and subsequently BC premier.

Clark is the fifth BC politician to declare her candidacy to replace BC Liberal Party leader Gordon Campbell, who will retire early next year from politics. The Liberals will decide Campbell’s permanent replacement on Feb. 26.

Four other former Liberal cabinet members are interested to become Campbell’s replacement. They are George Abbott, Mike de Jong, Moira Stillwell and Kevin Falcon, whom political observers said has the edge at this point. The four recently quit their posts to concentrate on the February election.

Clark temporarily left mainstream politics to become a radio host. Following her announcement of her intention to seek the top post in the Liberal Party in BC, Clark filed for leave from hosting a CKNW radio talk show.

The Liberal election will focus on the harmonized sales tax. Campbell resigned in November as BC premier because of the unpopularity of the HST, which he imposed in July. Clark proposed a free vote on the HST, which will be the subject of a planned referendum in the province in September.

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Jerusalem, Israel (AHN) – Israel, which has restricted all exports from Gaza since 2007 when Hamas took control of the region, has shown some liberty and allowed exports of items like furniture, textiles and agricultural products – a move welcomed by the human rights groups.

The right groups said that they would be more pleased only when Israelis would implement the plan of easing their blockade of the Palestinian territory. Hamas, however, criticized the move, and its spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri described it as a publicity stunt.

He pointed out that Israel not only restricts raw materials from reaching Gaza but also limits people’s movement in the impoverished coastal strip.

In last more than three years, Israel had only allowed transfer of flowers and strawberries from the strip. The decision to ease exports came after security cabinet vote where parliamentarians claimed that the move was aimed at improving the living standards of the Palestinian population.

The move came after repeated international pressure from the U.S., European Union and the United Nations on Israel to completely lift exports’ ban from Gaza.

International envoy for the Middle East, Tony Blair, also lauded the move and described it as a “significant step”, adding that there was “a long way still to go”.

Israeli rights group, Btselem, also welcomed the move but said that the implementation part would prove how honest the Israeli government was while making the announcement.

“In the past, even while allowing import and export, Israel placed arbitrary restrictions that impaired trade,” it said in a statement.

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East Jerusalem, Palestinian Territory (TML) – The Palestinian Authority’s newly formed anti-corruption commission won’t hesitate to investigate ministers that have fled the country or are serving in office and remain politically powerful, the commission’s chief has vowed.

Rafiq Natshe, head of the Palestinian Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC), said he has received 70 files from the attorney-general for investigation, including complaints of fraud, embezzlement and bribery. He said intensive investigations would begin next week, stressing that officials may even be questioned in Palestinian embassies abroad. PACC may use Interpol to pursue suspects aboard, he said.

“The president has transferred all corruption cases to us,” Natshe told the Ma’an radio station. “We have investigated, and continue to investigate, former and current ministers.”

Natshe has his work cut out for him. Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index of 2005, which measures perceived malfeasance among officials and politicians, ranked the PA 108th out of 159 countries, tied with Libya. It wasn’t included in subsequent indexes for lack of sufficient data.

Since then, however, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, a former International Monetary Fund official, has sought to clean up government and build transparent political structures. But the anti-corruption drive will need the strong backing of Mahmoud Abbas, the PA president and Fayyad’s boss.

“Legally, there’s no problem to investigate ministers, both in the country and abroad,” Bilal Al-Barghouthi, legal adviser for Aman, the Palestinian chapter of Transparency International, told The Media Line. “A presidential decree can annul the legal immunity these ministers enjoy.”

Observers, including Sameeh Hammoudeh, a political scientist at Bir-Zeit University, regard the commission, as well as a newly formed special court to try corruption cases, more as a way of assuaging voters who regularly point to official corruption as one of their biggest concerns.

“This court is like a rescue boat for President Abbas,” Hammoudeh told The Media Line. “Currently, with the PA demonstrating zero accomplishments on the peace track with Israel, Abbas needs to bolster his legitimacy in his party Fatah and on the Palestinian street. This step will be very useful to him.”

Popular discontent with corrupt officials is said to have contributed to Hamas’ electoral victory in the January 2006 legislative elections. A poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research last March showed about 68% of all Palestinians believe Abbas’ government suffers from corruption and almost half expected it to get worse in the future.

Efforts by the United States to coax Israel into extending a settlement freeze and bring the Palestinians back to peace talks failed this week. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to unveil new ideas in a speech at the Brookings Institute in Washington Friday.

In the meantime, the PA has acted unilaterally to gain recognition as a state, with Argentina and Uruguay signing on to the initiative Monday.

Palestinian Planning Minister ‘Ali Jarbawi, who met Tuesday with Cobus de Swardt, managing director of Transparency International to discuss corruption issues, told the Ma’an news agency that fighting corruption was imperative in “gaining moral international support for liberation, ending occupation, and state-building.”

PA officials are routinely suspected of corruption, but little has been done about it so far. In 2006, Palestinian Prosecutor-General Ahmad Al-Mughni described a wide investigation of public officials involving dozens of suspects and hundreds billions of dollars in stolen public funds. A year later, the cabinet approved a law for combating money laundering as well as bribery, fraud, kidnapping and embezzlement.

“People on the street have always claimed that the government only talks about fighting corruption, but doesn’t follow through. Now, when decisions will be implemented, the battle against corruption in the PA will receive credibility,” Fares Saba’aneh, a spokesman for the newly established anti-corruption court, told The Media Line.

Barghouthi said a serving Palestinian cabinet minister, who he declined to name, was currently under investigation on corruption charges. Saba’aneh said he had no information about any ministers under investigation, explaining that the Anti-Corruption Commission, which functions as a prosecutor in corruption cases before they are transferred to the courts, carries out its investigations secretly.

Nadim Shehadi, a Middle East expert at Chatham House in London, said he doubted the ability of the Palestinian legal system to try and indict ministers. He told The Media Line that rumors of political corruption were often used in the Middle East as political ammunition.

“It’s always difficult to distinguish between a legal process and political targeting of individuals,” he said. “Middle Eastern Security agencies, including Israel’s, often try to frame politicians using one of two charges: sex or corruption, which are very sensitive.”

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Varanasi, India (AHN) – Almost a year after the deadly German Bakery blast in Pune, India is once again at the crossroads with terrorism, after a bomb strikes the religious town of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, one of the largest and most-populated states of the country. The Ministry of Home Affairs has issued security alerts for all the major cities of India.

On Tuesday, Indian Home Secretary G. K. Pillai, told the press that though the authorities are still investigating the blasts, it seemed likely to be a terror attack.

Among the immediate actions taken by the government include raising the alert levels in all major cities, including those which have been the terror targets in recent years. Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kolkata were put on high alert and additional security forces were deployed at strategic locations throughout the country.

A high-ranking Uttar Pradesh police official says officers are busy collecting “more details,” while security forces are out in force, including in the state capital, Lucknow.

UP Chief Minister Mayawati, called a meeting of her senior government officials late Tuesday night, after which a team of officials was constituted to rush to the blast site and coordinate the relief measures and expedite the treatment of the injured. While condemning the blast, the CM appealed to the people of the State, in particular, and the country, in general, to remain calm and maintain peace and communal harmony.

The State Government of West Bengal, which is located almost next to UP, also sounded a high alert throughout the State. Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order) Surajit Kar Purkayastha revealed that police stations across the state were put on high alert and the police personnel had been asked to remain highly vigilant, especially those posted along the State and international borders.

Hyderabad, the State Capital of Andhra Pradesh, has also remained on the target list of terrorists in the recent past. Therefore, the State government there also beefed up the security apparatus, especially in the sensitive areas. Special focus was put on those areas, which are thronged by foreigners, keeping in mind that a number of foreigners were also targeted during Tuesday’s blasts.

Meanwhile, in the rest of the country, police has increased its vigil in the form of detailed checking of individuals as well as vehicles at the main entry points to strategic venues as well as on the inter-state borders in the country.

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