JURIST - Paper Chase: Sunday, June 5, 2011

[JURIST] US President Barack Obama [official website] has been urged to stop deportations to Haiti on humanitarian grounds. More than 3,000 Americans signed a letter [text, PDF] sent to the president on Thursday, claiming that deportees are immediately imprisoned upon return to Haiti and can suffer illness-related deaths as a result of the unsanitary and inhumane conditions of the jails. Since the earthquake in January 2010, Haiti has suffered from a cholera epidemic [CDC backgrounder] resulting in more than 5,300 deaths, adding to the conditions [CCR press release] inmates endure without guarantee of medicine, food or water. In May, Obama extended [JURIST report] the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) [official website] program to prevent Haitians with only one misdemeanor conviction from being immediately deported, but deportations continue. Though many of the deportees have been convicted of serious crimes, advocates urge that deporting hundreds of people back to a country strewn with tent cities plagued with disease and violence over recent elections is too great of a punishment [Florida Times-Union article]. The petition states:

As international aid agencies end their service contracts, over a million people remain homeless in tent camps and face chronic hunger, threats of eviction, and lack of essentials such as water and medical care. ... No one should be deported to Haiti during this humanitarian crisis. ... Please live up to your pledge to uphold human rights and halt these inhumane and cruel deportations to Haiti.

The letter came a day after the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) [official website] ordered Obama to halt the deportations, following up on a similar order [press release] from February.

In April, the US State Department released [JURIST report] its 2010 Country Report on Human Rights Practices [materials], reporting that Haiti [materials] has faced significant human rights abuses, following the breakdown of government control [JURIST report] after the 2010 earthquake. On January 12, 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake [USGS backgrounder] caused at least 50,000 deaths and massive damage to property and infrastructure in Haiti. The most devastated city was the capital, Port-au-Prince, where the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti [official website] has said that up to 50 percent of buildings [statement] have been destroyed or damaged, including the country's presidential palace, the UN Mission headquarters and the country's main prison [JURIST report].

[JURIST] A report [text, PDF] by UN Special Rapporteur Rashida Manjoo [official profile, DOC] has said that there is a continued prevalence of violence and discriminatory treatment of women in the US, with a heightened impact on poor, minority and immigrant women. The 28-page report, delivered Wednesday, says the US has taken some positive steps with the passage of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) first passed in 1994 and the passage of the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (PREA) [text, PDF]. But the report concludes that a lack of substantive protective legislation at both the federal and state levels combined with the poor implementation of current laws is resulting in the continued prevalence of violence against women and a discrimination against victims, particularly affecting women in the military, women in detention, Native American women and other women in poor and/or immigrant communities:

The government has taken positive legislative and policy initiatives to reduce the prevalence of violence against women, including the enactment and subsequent reauthorizations of the Violence against Women Act, and the establishment of dedicated offices on violence against women at the highest level of the Executive. The government has also allocated substantial resources which are beneficial to advocates and service providers, particularly at the grassroots level... It is clear that multiple forms of discrimination against certain groups of women not only makes them more vulnerable, but also exacerbates the negative consequences that violence has upon them. Thus the implementation of current policy and programmatic initiatives must address the persistent structural challenges which are often both the causes and consequences of violence against women.

The report further says that rates of abuse against women are higher among the African American, Native American and immigrant communities. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) [advocacy website], which assisted Manjoo in the fact-finding [press release], called on the US to do more to protect women. Sandra Park with the ACLU's Women's Rights Project said, "[w]e hope that the government heeds the Special Rapporteur's call to improve policies and protect victims to end this vicious cycle of violence once and for all."

Domestic violence continues to be a global problem [JURIST report]. A 2010 Human Rights Watch report condemned [JURIST report] a United Arabic Emirates practice of a "husband['s] right to discipline his wife." The report noted that women in these countries still face many obstacles in achieving equality, and, despite some progress, women in the region still have little recourse for domestic violence and face discrimination in employment, education and politics. In August 2009, Pakistan [JURIST report] instituted the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act, 2008 [text, PDF], moving a step closer to outlawing domestic violence in the country by protecting women, children and domestic employees from mental, physical, and sexual abuse. Also in 2009, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) [official website] ruled [JURIST report] that the Turkish government was responsible for the death of a woman at the hands of her ex-husband because it failed to investigate complaints. In 2008, the India Ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD) [official website] announced that it would review [JURIST report] the country's controversial anti-dowry act [BBC backgrounder] because increasing numbers of Indian women had issued complaints about misuse. Despite legislation controlling the cultural and religious practice, India's dowry system continues illegally, leaving many women subject to abuse without enforcement of legal protections from so-called "dowry deaths". In 2006, the Council of Europe (COE) [official website] released a report criticizing [JURIST report] France's human rights record and identifying impunity for domestic violence as a shortcoming in the French judicial system.

[JURIST] Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] on Sunday expressed concern [press release] over the arrests of dozens of civilians by Libyan opposition authorities. HRW called on the National Transitional Council (NTC), the opposition ruling body in Libya with de facto control over eastern Libya, to provide civilian detainees with full due process rights, access to counsel, and the ability to challenge their detention before independent judicial authorities. HRW also called on the NTC to reign in the various volunteer security groups under a centralized civilian authority that may also investigate alleged abuses of detainees. The rights group, which was given unrestricted access to rebel-held detainees, documented four civilian detainees alleging physical abuse during capture, and one civilian detained by a volunteer security group that was apparently tortured to death while in custody. HRW stated:

There is no excuse to delay the rule of law in areas under opposition control. The authorities should rein in volunteer security groups, establish a clear civilian authority for criminal justice, and make sure detainees get full due process rights. The people of Libya are all too familiar with arbitrary arrests and detention without charge from four decades of Muammar Gaddafi's rule. The opposition authorities should reject that abusive legacy and create a legal framework to ensure respect for Libyan and international law.

NTC officials say it recognizes the problems and is working to correct them. Opposition forces are estimated to have 330 people in custody, some of which were fighters loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi [BBC profile; JURIST news archive], and others were civilians suspected of pro-Gaddafi activities.

On the other side of the conflict, a three-person commission for the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) [official website] appointed to investigate violence in Libya published a report Wednesday finding that Gaddafi's forces have committed crimes against humanity [JURIST report] and war crimes under orders from Gaddafi and other high-ranking officials. The commission's 92-page report said Libyan authorities have committed crimes against humanity such as acts constituting murder, imprisonment, and other severe deprivations of physical liberties, torture, forced disappearances, and rape "as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population with knowledge of the attack." Last month, International Criminal Court (ICC) Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo [official websites] announced he is seeking arrest warrants for Gaddafi [JURIST report] and two others in his inner circle on charges of crimes against humanity.

[JURIST] The Connecticut Senate [official website] on Saturday voted 20-16 [roll call] to pass a bill that provides protection for gender identity under the state's existing anti-discrimination laws. An Act Concerning Discrimination [HB 6599 text] alters existing law by including "gender identity or expression" as a protected trait for all persons with regard to employment, public accommodations, the sale or rental of housing, the granting of credit, and other laws over which the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities (CHRO) [official website] has jurisdiction. Proponents of the bill say it codifies a ruling by the CHRO outlawing discrimination against people who are transgendered. It also explicitly authorizes people to file discrimination complaints with the CHRO, which enforces anti-discrimination laws in these areas. The bill adds the following definition:

"Gender identity or expression" means a person's gender-related identity, appearance or behavior, whether or not that gender-related identity, appearance or behavior is different from that traditionally associated with the person's physiology or assigned sex at birth, which gender-related identity can be shown by providing evidence including, but not limited to, medical history, care or treatment of the gender-related identity, consistent and uniform assertion of the gender-related identity or any other evidence that the gender-related identity is sincerely held, part of a person's core identity or not being asserted for an improper purpose.

The bill passed the House of Representatives last month. The Family Institute of Connecticut Action [advocacy website], an opponent of the legislation, dubbed it the "Bathroom Bill" and strongly criticized [press release] its passage. Governor Dannel Malloy (D) [official website] issued a statement [press release] lauding the bill's passage, saying that it is a "step forward in the fight for equal rights for all of Connecticut's citizens, and it's the right thing to do," and that he will sign it into law. Upon signing the legislation, Connecticut will become the fifteenth state to offer protections for gender identity.

Protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals remains a divisive political issue. Homosexuality remains a criminal offense in more than 70 countries around the world, and statistics show that anti-LGBT crimes are on the rise [JURIST report] worldwide. In the US, these crimes, in addition to the absence of state protection against employment discrimination, have been estimated to cost states millions of dollars annually [JURIST op-ed]. Nationally, measures have been taken to stop hate crimes against LGBT individuals. In March, US Representative Jared Polis (D-CO) and Senator Al Franken (D-MN) [official websites] introduced legislation to protect LGBT students from bullying [JURIST report] in federally funded public elementary and high schools. In 2009, US President Barack Obama signed into law [JURIST report] a bill that contained a measure extending the definition of federal hate crimes to include crimes motivated by gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.