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	Prisoners protest appalling conditions by self-mutilation by Pavol Stracansky IPS / oD Russia Kazkhstan   Oct 2010   Horrific protests that have seen hundreds of inmates slice their stomachs open over conditions in jails in Kazakhstan are set to continue as the UN accuses the Central Asian country of trying to mask the real state of its prison system.   Convicts have said that torture, beatings and rapes are common in prisons and that the only option left to them to highlight their plight to the outside world is brutal self-mutilation.   Tanja Niemeier, political advisor who was part of a delegation led by European MP Joe Higgins to Kazakhstan last month which met with former prisoners, told IPS: "Protests are still going on and it looks like they will, unfortunately, continue and more people will self-mutilate. It is the only way they have of protesting at the desperate conditions they face.   "Officials have tried to say that the situation is improving. But it is not. Things are very grim."   Kazakhstan, a resource-rich former Soviet state in Central Asia ruled since 1991 by autocratic President Nursultan Nazarbayev, has faced international criticism for its human rights record for years. Abuses of fundamental freedoms have been documented at all levels of society.   But some of the most severe criticism has been levelled at the penal system, and particularly over torture in jails.   Former convicts have spoken of horrific brutality in prisons. They have recounted instances of inmates being hung from the ceiling and beaten, guards urinating on cell floors and then dragging prisoners around using them as human mops to wipe the floor, while others have been forced to lick spit off floors.   Complaints over brutality in jails only lead to more beatings and a transfer, often to a more violent prison, they claim.   Living conditions in the jails -- which were built as Soviet gulags -- is also a problem. Convicts are often kept in converted barracks that house up to 100 people and sometimes cells meant for ten hold up to 20 inmates at any one time. Prisoners say they are only allowed to use a shower once every two weeks and that they are underfed.   Convicts desperation at the situation has led to the current wave of self- mutilation. More than 100 prisoners have self-mutilated in the past two months, with pictures taken on mobile phones of inmates with stomachs sliced open given to media as evidence. Some inmates have managed to talk to local media from their cells to speak of their ordeal.   The Kazakh government has claimed that the prisoners are not actually protesting against conditions and have been forced into cutting their stomachs open by gangs inside the prison.   Niemeier said: "That is the story the government has put forward. We have information from the prisoners themselves and we have no reason to doubt their claims."   Last year the UN"s special rapporteur on torture, Prof. Manfred Nowak, reported after visiting Kazakhstan that he had spoken to inmates and former prisoners who had told him of torture and the appalling conditions inside jails.   He wrote in a report at the time that "the use of torture and ill-treatment certainly goes beyond isolated instances."   He also said that local authorities had tried to hide the real state of the prisons and that new beds and mattresses had been brought in, cells cleaned up, and prisoners forced to paint walls ahead of his visit.   Prof Nowak made a series of recommendations on improving prison conditions, including setting up a proper complaints procedure which would not lead to reprisals for inmates.   Speaking to IPS this week after a visit to Kazakhstan late last month to check on the implementation of his recommendations, Prof Nowak said authorities had been involved in "window dressing" the situation in prisons.   "Torture remains a major problem. The government did a lot to obstruct my fact-finding efforts in 2009. It was difficult for me to arrive at a good assessment of the situation," he said.   He added that the recent spate of prisoners self-mutilating was worrying. "Every mutilation, self-injury or hunger strike is a serious source of concern. These reports have to be investigated and questions asked as to why these things are happening."   Local rights campaigners say the prisoners protests have highlighted a penal system which has reached a "critical point".   Vadim Kuramshin, a prominent lawyer and rights campaigner who has previously been jailed for libel and who says he was tortured and raped in prison, told media after protests last month: "The situation in Kazakh prisons has reached a critical point. The system requires cardinal changes, but no one wants to do anything about it. Torture is widespread. The mechanism for lodging complaints about the actions of the prison authorities does not work at all. And there is simply no response to any of the complaints."   Matthew Pringle of The Association for the Prevention of Torture NGO, whose organisation attended a meeting in Kazakhstan last week along with Prof Nowak on the implementation of Nowak"s rights recommendations, told IPS: "It is the same old problem -- torture, including beatings to get confessions out of people. There is a lot of work that needs to be done to get the situation changed."   Niemeier said that MEPs would now be working to bring pressure to have a December summit of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) -- which Kazakhstan is currently chairing -- cancelled over the continued abuse of prisoners.   "We are doing our best to bring pressure on MEPs to raise questions in national parliaments and have this summit stopped. Western states are turning a blind eye to Kazkah torture because they want the country"s resources," she said.   * Below is a link to oD Russia offering a range of views on the Post-Soviet world. Visit the related web page
	UN-backed tribunal in Cambodia indicts four senior Khmer Rouge figures by United Nations News & agencies Cambodia   16 September 2010   The United Nations-backed tribunal in Cambodia dealing with mass killings and other crimes committed under the Khmer Rouge three decades ago indicted four of the regime’s top officials today.   Ieng Sary, Ieng Thirith, Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea – the four most senior members of the Democratic Kampuchea regime who are still alive – will now be tried before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) for crimes against humanity, which includes murder, enslavement, torture and rape as a result of forced marriage.   They are also charged with the genocide of the Cham and Vietnamese ethnic groups, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, and violations of the 1956 Cambodian penal code, including murder, torture and religious persecution.   Ieng Sary, 84, served as foreign minister and deputy prime minister under the Khmer Rouge. A former history professor, he fled to Thailand when the regime fell in 1979.   His wife Ieng Thirith was social affairs minister. Having studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, she was the first Cambodian to receive a degree in English literature.   Khieu Samphan, 79, was a professor before serving as head of State of Democratic Kampuchea. He took over from notorious Khmer Rouge dictator Pol Pot when he retired as the official head of the Khmer Rouge in 1987.   Nuon Chea, 84, was known as “Brother Number Two” under the regime. He studied law in Thailand, where he joined the Thai Communist Party. He served as Pol Pot’s deputy, and reached a deal with the Cambodian Government in 1998 that allowed him to live near the Thai border.   All four former leaders were arrested and handed over to the court in 2007.   In its first verdict handed down in July, the ECCC found Kaing Guek Eav guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Also known as Duch, the head of a notorious detention camp run by the Khmer Rouge was given a 35-year prison term, but last month, the tribunal’s prosecutors appealed the sentence, saying that it “gives insufficient weight to the gravity of [his] crimes and his role and his willing participation in those crimes.”   As many as 2.2 million people are believed to have died during the 1975-79 rule of the Khmer Rouge, which was then followed by a protracted period of civil war in the impoverished South-East Asian country.   Under an agreement signed by the UN and Cambodia, the ECCC was set up as an independent court using a mixture of Cambodian staff and judges and foreign personnel. It is designated to try those deemed most responsible for crimes and serious violations of Cambodian and international law between 17 April 1975 and 6 January 1979.   July 2010   Khmer Rouge official found guilty of atrocities by UN-backed court. (UN News)   Three decades after nearly 2 million people perished under Khmer Rouge rule in Cambodia, a United Nations-backed tribunal issued its first verdict today, finding the former head of a notorious detention camp guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.   Kaing Guek Eav, whose alias is Duch, was sentenced to 35 years in prison by the trial chamber of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC).   The first person to stand trial before the court, he headed the S-21 camp, also known as Tuol Sleng, where numerous Cambodians were unlawfully detained, subjected to inhumane conditions and forced labour, tortured and executed in the late 1970s.   As many as two million are thought to have died during the rule of the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979, which was then followed by a protracted period of civil war in the impoverished South-East Asian country.   Although prisoner lists from S-21 show that at least 12,272 people were detained and executed, the trial chamber believes the number of victims is considerably larger.   During his trial, which began in March last year and wrapped up in November, 24 witnesses, 22 civil parties and nine experts were heard. More than 28,000 people followed the proceedings from the public gallery.   The ECCC, established in 2003 under an agreement between the UN and Cambodia, is tasked with trying senior leaders and those most responsible for serious violations of Cambodian and international law committed during the Khmer Rouge rule. It is staffed by both Cambodian and international employees and judges.   July 2010   30 Years in Jail too short for Khmer Rouge Leader say Victims, by Steve Finch. (IPS)   The Khmer Rouge tribunal delivered its first verdict Monday and sentenced a key leader of the genocidal regime, Comrade Duch, to 30 years behind bars, but many victims were left complaining over this sentence outside the emotional courtroom.   Because the 67-year-old Duch has been in detention since May 1999, or more than 11 years ago, his sentence could in the end be reduced to about 18 more years from now. "The verdict is too light," complained Bou Meng, one of just 12 people to walk out of Duch"s torture facility at Tuol Sleng prison.   Although the prosecution had asked for the maximum 40- year sentence, judges at the U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal said Duch"s compliance with the court and "limited remorse" meant that a total sentence of 35 years was sufficient.   "This court has tried and punished a perpetrator of Democratic Kampuchea, one of the most macabre regimes of the modern era," Co-prosecutor Chea Leang said following the hour-long verdict, which found the defendant guilty of crimes against humanity and crimes against the Geneva Conventions of 1949 that limit the barbarity of war.   "Anything under 30 years is not acceptable because it"s inconceivable that he could even have one minute on the street," said Theary Seng, president of Cambodia"s Board for Justice and Reconciliation. "Now if the international community isn"t providing us justice, it leaves us with hopelessness," she added.   Nearly a quarter of Cambodia"s population at the time, were executed or died during the Khmer Rouge"s rule due to forced labour or from starvation, as the leader of the extremist Maoist group, Pol Pot, tried to create an agrarian utopia in the country.   It was not just the Duch verdict that caused disquiet, particularly among the civil parties, in what was the first time that victims and their families have been considered part of an international hybrid court process.   Lawyers representing the civil parties throughout the process lamented that reparations were little more than symbolic anyway. This is because the Khmer Rouge tribunal had not set up the likes of a trust fund to compensate victims, as is the case with the International Criminal Court in The Hague.   Along with a compiled list of Duch"s confessions of guilt and remorse, the names of those deemed victimised as a result of his actions are to be compiled on the official tribunal website.   But as some civil party lawyers noted, many of the relatives of the Khmer Rouge victims are unlikely to ever witness this gesture anyway, because Cambodia is among the least Internet-connected countries in the region.   "It seems ... what has been ordered is the most minimal, most conservative and - perhaps it"s fair to say - rather unimaginative reparations," said Karim Khan, a legal representative of some of the victims.
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