[R-G] HRW Acts: Pakistan: Judges, Under Arrest Before Election; etc..

[james m nordlund]

Pakistan: Judges Remain Under Arrest Before Election
Independent Judiciary Critical Safeguard for Free and Fair Elections
(New York, February 9, 2008) - The continued detention of independent 
judges, the recent re-arrests of lawyers on spurious grounds, and the
large-scale induction of President Pervez Musharraf's appointees into
Pakistan's judiciary will have a serious impact on the credibility of the
national elections scheduled for February 18, Human Rights Watch said
today.

http://hrw.org/

Under Pakistani law, the Supreme Court is the final arbiter over any
claims of election irregularities and controversies. Judicial review of
the decisions of the Election Commission can be sought in the High Court
and the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

"Days before Pakistan goes to the polls, its lawful chief justice and his 
children remain under illegal house arrest, as do many lawyers who would 
likely challenge election-rigging in the courts," said Brad Adams, Asia 
director at Human Rights Watch. "Musharraf's systematic destruction of
legal 
institutions has seriously compromised the upcoming elections."

Since November 3, deposed Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad 
Chaudhry, his family and five other Supreme Court justices who also
refused 
to accept Musharraf's suspension of the constitution and declaration of a 
state of emergency have remained under illegal house arrest. Judges at
other 
levels of the judiciary were also deposed and repeatedly face arbitrary 
detention. Meanwhile, Musharraf has replaced dozens of arbitrarily fired 
judges with his own nominees.
Leaders of the lawyers' movement, including Supreme Court Bar Association 
President Aitzaz Ahsan, retired Justice Tariq Mehmood, and former Bar 
Council Vice Chairman Ali Ahmed Kurd, were detained under the colonial-era

Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance (MPO). They remain under house
arrest. 
The Pakistani constitution prohibits detention under the MPO for more than

90 days. The government released them on January 31 on expiry of that 
period, but arbitrarily re-arrested them 48 hours later under a fresh MPO 
order.

"The re-arrest of these lawyers is a disgrace and makes it clear that 
Musharraf is determined to ensure that many of his fiercest critics are 
locked up before the election," said Adams. "Musharraf must release the 
lawyers and judges immediately."

In 2007, the movement of lawyers and the growing independence of the
nation's 
judiciary had made genuine progress in putting Pakistan back on the path
to 
the rule of law and raised hopes for a free election, Human Rights Watch 
said. That ended when Musharraf announced his state of emergency on
November 
3.

Under the revised constitution, unilaterally imposed by Musharraf, the 
government now has powers to disbar lawyers involved in peaceful 
anti-government activities, and the military can now try civilians for a 
wide range of offenses previously under the purview of the country's 
judiciary, including charges as vague as causing "public mischief."

Human Rights Watch noted that such a repressive political environment 
thwarts any possibility that elections, scheduled for February 18, could
be 
free or fair.

"The government has warned it will not tolerate the 'politics of
agitation,'" 
said Adams. "Such restrictions are contrary to human rights law at the
best 
of times, and absolutely unacceptable in the middle of an election."

Rigging in successive elections by the Pakistani military has been 
well-documented. The emergence of an independent judiciary in Pakistan
last 
year provided the best hope in decades for a fair election. But the 
dismantling of that judiciary shows Musharraf's bad faith in the months 
before these elections.

"A real election campaign is impossible when a country's military
government 
deposes the legitimate judiciary, replaces lawful judges with its 
hand-picked supporters, and keeps its chief critics under arrest," said 
Adams.

Human Rights Watch criticized the United States and the United Kingdom, 
which consider Musharraf an indispensable ally in the "war on terror," for

failing to press for the restoration of the independent judiciary headed
by 
Chief Justice Chaudhry. Both countries should urge the immediate release
of 
all persons arbitrarily detained and a return to genuine constitutional
rule 
in Pakistan.

"In other parts of the world, the US and UK wax eloquently about the need 
for an independent judiciary and pressure governments to respect this 
principle," said Adams. "Yet President Bush and Prime Minister Brown seem
to 
have a double standard where Musharraf is concerned."

Related Material

UK/Pakistan: Brown Should Press Musharraf on Rights
Press Release, January 26, 2008

http://hrw-news.c.topica.com/maajYVwabESPPbspkJpeaeQyvL/

Pakistan: End Persecution of Lawyers and Judges
Press Release, December 18, 2007

Destroying Legality: Pakistan's Crackdown on Lawyers and Judges
Report, December 19, 2007

Pakistan 2008 Country Summary
World Report Chapter, January 31, 2008





Gaza: Israel's Energy Cuts Violate Laws of War
Attacks by Palestinian Armed Groups No Excuse for Collective Punishment
(New York, February 7, 2008) - Israel's cuts of fuel and electricity to 
Gaza, set to escalate today, amount to collective punishment of the
civilian 
population, and violate Israel's obligations under the laws of war, Human 
Rights Watch said today.

These cuts, which Israel says are intended to pressure Palestinian armed 
groups to end their unlawful rocket attacks against civilians in southern 
Israel, are having a grave impact on Gaza's hospitals, water-pumping 
stations, sewage-treatment facilities, and other infrastructure essential 
for the well-being of Gaza's population.

Starting today, Israel will reduce the electricity it sells directly to
Gaza 
by 1.5 megawatts over the next three weeks. This adds to a series of
Israeli 
measures since 2006 that have caused a 20 percent shortfall in Gaza's 
electricity needs. The Israeli Supreme Court approved the most recent cuts

last week, rejecting a petition by 10 Israeli and Palestinian human rights

groups.

"Israel views restricting fuel and electricity to Gaza as a way to
pressure 
Palestinian armed groups to stop their rocket and suicide attacks," said
Joe 
Stork, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "But the cuts are 
seriously affecting civilians who have nothing to do with these armed 
groups, and that violates a fundamental principle of the laws of war."

Human Rights Watch said that indiscriminate Palestinian rocket and suicide

bomb attacks against Israeli civilians constitute war crimes, but Israel's

attempts to suppress those attacks must not also violate international 
humanitarian law.

Israeli officials have implicitly acknowledged that the fuel and
electricity 
cuts amount to collective punishment. "There is no justification for 
demanding we allow residents of Gaza to live normal lives while shells and

rockets are fired from their streets and courtyards at Sderot and other 
communities in the south," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on January 24.

Morever, Israeli Defense Ministry spokesman Shlomo Dror said on January
18: 
"If Palestinians don't stop the violence, I have a feeling the life of 
people in Gaza is not going to be easy."

Israel normally sells to Gaza 120 megawatts of electricity per day, 
delivered by 10 feeder lines across the border. Gaza's sole power plant 
currently produces 55 megawatts. Its full capacity is 100 megawatts, but a

2006 Israeli Air Force attack and subsequent fuel restrictions have 
prevented the plant from operating at capacity. An additional 17 megawatts

come from Egypt.

The electricity that Israel sells to Gaza is paid for by taxes that Israel

collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority. In addition, the Israeli 
company Dor Alon sells the industrial fuel on which Gaza's power plant 
depends. The funds for these purchases come from the European Union.

According to the United Nations, Gaza requires roughly 240 megawatts of 
power per day during the winter. The 48 megawatt deficit has forced the
Gaza 
Electricity Distribution Company to institute rolling blackouts of up to 
eight hours per day in most areas. In addition to private homes, these 
blackouts affect hospitals, water pumps, schools and sewage-treatment 
facilities without distinction. Further cuts of industrial diesel fuel for

Gaza's power plant will make the deficit grow.

During power outages, hospitals and health clinics rely on generators that

require regular diesel fuel, as do residential buildings. Restrictions on 
the supply of diesel in recent months and prohibitively high prices have 
limited the use of generators. Citing security concerns, Israel has 
restricted the import of spare parts to repair overused generators. At
Gaza's 
al-Shifa Hospital, power surges following outages have caused equipment to

break.

The problems have been exacerbated by a strike of the Gaza Petrol Station 
Owners Union, which from January 16 to February 5 refused to distribute
some 
fuel sold by Israel out of protest to the cuts. The union deputy head told

Human Rights Watch that, while they blocked delivery of gasoline for cars 
and regular diesel, which would affect generator use, they did not
restrict 
cooking gas or the industrial diesel fuel used by the power plant. He said

the union also delivered diesel fuel as fast as possible to all hospitals 
that requested it, but poor communication and mismanagement of government 
institutions at times made delivery difficult.

The authorities in Gaza also have obligations to ensure the well-being of 
the civilian population under its control, including facilitating the 
delivery of humanitarian supplies, Human Rights Watch said.

Israel claims the cuts are not depriving Palestinians in Gaza of their 
"essential humanitarian needs." But Human Rights Watch, as well as major 
humanitarian agencies, says that civilians are paying a heavy price.

According to the UN's top humanitarian official, UN Deputy
Secretary-General 
John Holmes, Gaza in October already faced a "serious humanitarian
crisis." 
On January 29, the United Nations said that border closures and fuel and 
electricity cuts have had the following effects in Gaza:

. The World Food Program was unable to provide full food rations to 84,000

of its poorest beneficiaries;
. Around 50 percent of households in Gaza had access to running water for 
only four to six hours per day; and
. Due to a partially functioning wastewater system, up to 40 million
liters 
of untreated sewage were being dumped daily into the Mediterranean Sea.

On January 25, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called 
the humanitarian situation in Gaza "critical." A health worker for the
ICRC 
said hospitals in Gaza were cold because the heating units had been
switched 
off to conserve fuel, and the gas to cook meals for patients and staff was

running low. One patient on a ventilator at Ahli Arab hospital died while 
the hospital switched from the power plant to its generator during a 
blackout.

A report by the World Health Organization (WHO) on January 21 expressed
deep 
concern. "Whilst the frequency of electricity cuts and limited power 
available to run hospital generators is extremely serious for all hospital

services, its impact is particularly felt in intensive care units,
operation 
theatres and emergency rooms," the report said. As of January 21, three
out 
of the 11 Ministry of Health hospitals were facing "severe shortages of 
fuel," the WHO said.

On February 6, Human Rights Watch visited the al-Nasser Pediatric Hospital

and the Psychiatric Hospital in Gaza City. Both facilities were facing 
average daily blackouts of nine hours, forcing them to rely on backup 
generators. The pediatric hospital had enough diesel fuel to run its 
generator for nine hours. The psychiatric hospital had enough fuel for
four 
hours of generator use.

On January 25, the pediatric hospital ran out of diesel fuel entirely, the

director said. The hospital had to close the X-ray department, diagnostic 
lab, and its four general pediatric wards, keeping open only the intensive

care unit and the department with incubators, thanks to a smaller reserve 
generator.

A diesel truck that the hospital uses to transport food, laundry, and
blood 
samples has not been in operation for the past week, the director said.

The deputy head of the petrol station owners' union said the hospital had 
not contacted the union to request a delivery.

"The impact on civilians in Gaza is clear," Stork said. "Children, the 
mentally ill, and others with no connection to armed groups are suffering 
from the Israeli cuts and mismanagement by Gaza authorities amidst the 
confusion, and at least one person has died."

Israel's pressure on Gaza's civilians began after Hamas took over the 
Palestinian Authority in March 2006, following its electoral victory the 
previous January. Since then, Israel has increasingly limited the flow of 
people and goods into and out of the territory.

Israel further clamped down on the movement of goods and people after
Hamas 
violently seized power in Gaza from Fatah in June 2007. Israel also
imposed 
restrictions on people with emergency medical needs who need care only 
available outside Gaza. The border closures have forced 85 percent of
Gaza's 
factories to close or to operate at less than 20 percent of their
capacity, 
frozen 95 percent of construction projects, and driven unemployment to 
record highs. Eighty percent of the population relies on food aid.

The Israeli government says the border closures and fuel and electricity 
cuts are in response to ongoing indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israel by

Palestinian armed groups. On February 3, in the first suicide attack in a 
year, a suicide bomber from Hamas killed a 73-year-old Israeli woman and 
injured 11 in a shopping area in the town of Dimona. Israel retaliated the

next day by killing nine Hamas militants in Gaza.

Human Rights Watch has repeatedly condemned suicide-bombing attacks that 
target civilians as war crimes.

According to the latest statistics provided by the United Nations, during 
the third week of January, Palestinian armed groups in Gaza fired 147
Qassam 
rockets and 82 mortars toward Israel, injuring three Israeli civilians. 
During that same time, Israeli military operations from the ground and air

killed 23 Palestinians and wounded 70 inside Gaza. At least seven of the 
dead and 40 of the wounded were civilians, although the information from
the 
UN was inadequate to determine whether those casualties resulted from any 
Israeli violations of international humanitarian law.

Human Rights Watch said that cutting fuel or electricity to the civilian 
population violates a basic principle of international humanitarian law,
or 
the laws of war, which prohibit a government that has effective control
over 
a territory from attacking or withholding objects that are essential to
the 
survival of the civilian population. Such an act would also violate
Israel's 
duty as an occupying power to safeguard the health and welfare of the 
population under occupation.

Israel withdrew its military forces and settlers from the Gaza Strip in 
2005. Nonetheless, Israel remains responsible for ensuring the well-being
of 
Gaza's population for as long as, and to the extent that, it retains 
effective control over the area. Israel still exercises control over
Gaza's 
airspace, sea space and land borders, as well as its electricity, water, 
sewage and telecommunications networks and population registry. In
addition, 
Israeli military forces can and have re-entered Gaza at will.

Article 55 of the Fourth Geneva Convention places a duty on an occupying 
power to ensure the food and medical supplies of the population, as well
as 
to permit and facilitate the consignments of humanitarian relief. In the 
conduct of a conflict, each party must allow and facilitate rapid and 
unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief to civilians. A deliberate
refusal 
to permit access to these supplies in response to military action can 
constitute collective punishment or an illegal reprisal against the
civilian 
population.

Collective punishments are prohibited as a matter of customary
international 
law in all forms of conflict. Under article 33 of the Fourth Geneva 
Convention, which governs occupations, collective punishments and all 
measures of intimidation are explicitly prohibited. Reprisals against 
civilians and their property are also prohibited under both customary law 
and the Fourth Geneva Convention.

"Israel should understand the danger of policies that appear to justify
the 
targeting of civilians," Stork said. "Having suffered so much from such 
attacks, it should reject anything that suggests that the targeting of 
civilians is acceptable."

Background

Israel's Energy-Supply Cuts to Gaza

Israel's policy of reducing Gaza's electricity began in June 2006, after a

Palestinian armed group from Gaza captured the Israeli soldier Gilad
Shalit. 
On June 28, the Israeli Air Force fired eight missiles at Gaza's sole
power 
plant, rendering the plant's six transformers inoperable. Israel 
subsequently delayed or blocked the delivery of material needed to repair 
the plant. Today, the plant is capable of producing at 80 percent of its 
former capacity (80 megawatts per day out of an original capacity of 100 
megawatts).

The pressure intensified after Hamas took control of Gaza by force in June

2007. On September 19, the Israeli cabinet declared Gaza a "hostile 
territory" and decided to restrict "the passage of people to and from
Gaza" 
and to reduce supplies of fuel and electricity.

On October 28, a group of 10 Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups 
petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court, seeking an injunction against the
fuel 
and electricity cuts, which they said, among other concerns, amounted to 
collective punishment. The court rejected the injunction request as it 
applied to deliveries of fuel, and Israel began to reduce its deliveries
of 
EU-funded diesel fuel to the power plant from 2.2 million liters per week
to 
1.75 million liters. At the time, the power plant had 3.5 million liters
of 
reserves to compensate for the reduced supply in diesel fuel.

On November 29, in an interim decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the 
fuel cuts could continue because they would not cause a humanitarian
crisis. 
At the same time, it requested more information from the state before the 
electricity cuts could proceed.

On January 5, the low level of industrial diesel fuel reserves at the
power 
plant forced a reduction in output. On January 18, following a surge in 
fighting between Israeli forces and armed Palestinian groups, Israel fully

closed its borders with Gaza, denying the delivery of all food, medicine, 
and fuel, including humanitarian aid. On January 20, the reserves ran out 
and the plant stopped production altogether for two days. Two days later, 
the plant restarted at partial capacity after Israel allowed restricted
fuel 
and limited humanitarian deliveries. On January 23, Hamas helped 
Palestinians break through sections of the wall and fence separating Gaza 
and Egypt, to the west of Rafah, allowing tens of thousands of
Palestinians 
to flood into Egypt, where they bought goods, many of them essential, 
including fuel. Egyptian forces, with cooperation from Hamas, resealed the

border on February 3.

The temporary border breach did not change Gaza's near-total dependence on

Israel for fuel and electricity, nor could it, given the time it takes to 
develop alternative energy supplies. Israel still allows fuel deliveries
to 
come only through its Nahal Oz crossing with Gaza.

On January 30, the Supreme Court issued its final ruling on the human
rights 
groups' petition, saying the fuel and electricity cuts could proceed, 
because it understood that the state was going to "fulfil the essential 
humanitarian needs in the Gaza Strip."

The ruling garnered little media coverage in Israel because that same day 
the Winograd Commission, which looked into Israel's conduct of the 2006 
Israel-Hezbollah war, released its much-anticipated final report.

The Supreme Court ruling said the state could do the following:

. Order a reduction of up to 5 percent on three of 10 power lines (1.5 
megawatts total) in the electricity sold to Gaza by Israel's electric 
company;
. Restrict the amount of industrial diesel for Gaza's power plant to 2.2 
million liters a week (the plant needs 3.5 million liters per week to 
operate at capacity);
. Cut supplies of gasoline to Gaza to 75,400 liters a week (compared with 
400,000 liters a week delivered in October 2007); and
. Cut supplies of diesel fuel to 800,000 liters a week (compared with 1.4 
million in October 2007).

The Supreme Court accepted without challenge the state's proposal to 
maintain a "minimum humanitarian standard," which has no basis in 
international humanitarian law. Israel has never defined what constitutes 
Gaza's minimum humanitarian needs, nor how it will determine if those
needs 
were not being met. The government's proposal is also not the appropriate 
standard for such a long-term occupation as Gaza's.

The court had said that two Palestinian utility officials, Rafiq Maliha, 
project manager at Gaza's Power Generating Company, and Nedal Touman, an 
official from Gaza's Electrical Distribution Company, could testify at the

January 30 hearing regarding the affidavits they had submitted about the 
effects of the cuts on their operations. But on that day, the Israeli 
military prevented them from crossing into Israel in time to testify.

Rafiq Maliha told Human Rights Watch that both men arrived at the Erez 
crossing at 7:30 a.m. on the day of the hearing, but they were not allowed

to cross into Israel until 11:30 a.m.

"When we arrived in Jerusalem, the court session was over and we were
unable 
to give our testimonies," Maliha said. "We were going to show the court
the 
needs of the station from a technical side and explain for them that the 
amounts of fuel are insufficient for normal functioning of the station."

Related Material

A Petition to stop electricity and fuel cuts to the Gaza Strip
Press Release

http://gisha.org/index.php?intLanguage=2&intItemId=742&intSiteSN=110&OldMenu=113

Gaza: Israel's Fuel and Power Cuts Violate Laws of War
Press Release, October 29, 2007

B'tselem: Act of Vengeance: Israel's Bombing of the Gaza Power Plant and
its 
Effects
Report

More of Human Rights Watch's work on Israel and the OPT
Country Page

From: http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/02/07/isrlpa17994.htm






US: Electric Chair Banned as Cruel, Unusual Punishment
Nebraska Ruling Brings US Closer to Ending This Inhumane Form of Execution

in US
(New York, February 8, 2008) - The Nebraska Supreme Court's ruling today 
that use of the electric chair violates the state constitution's ban on 
cruel and unusual punishment is an important step toward eliminating 
inherently inhumane executions in the United States, Human Rights Watch
said 
today.

Nebraska is the only state to use the electric chair as its sole method of

execution; all other US death penalty jurisdictions use lethal injection.

"This ruling abolishes the barbaric practice of electrocutions in the
state 
of Nebraska," said Sarah Tofte, US researcher at Human Rights Watch and 
co-author of a 2006 report on executions by lethal injection in the United

States.

The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled today that execution by electrocution 
violates the ban on cruel and unusual punishment found in Article I,
section 
9 of the Nebraska Constitution. "Condemned prisoners must not be tortured
to 
death, regardless of their crimes," the court wrote.

Since 1994, Nebraska has electrocuted three condemned prisoners. Since the

death penalty was reinstated in the US in 1976, there have been at least
10 
visibly botched electrocutions, including the 1997 electrocution of Pedro 
Medina in Florida. During his execution, flames shot out from the
headpiece, 
filling the execution chamber with a cloud of thick smoke and gagging the 
two dozen official witnesses. An official then threw a switch to manually 
cut off the power and prematurely end the two-minute cycle of 2,000 volts.

Medina's chest continued to heave until the flames stopped, and then he 
died.

As a result of today's ruling, the task falls to the Nebraska legislature
to 
consider an alternative method of execution if it wishes to retain the
death 
penalty. Although the court contends that lethal injection "is universally

recognized as the most humane method of execution," Human Rights Watch
urged 
the Nebraska legislature to carefully examine the risk of suffering posed
by 
the three-drug protocol currently used in lethal injections in other
states.

In January, the US Supreme Court heard arguments on the constitutionality
of 
lethal injection. Pending the court's decision, there is a de facto 
moratorium on lethal injections in the country.

"Lethal injection is not as humane as it might appear to be," said Tofte. 
"There is mounting evidence that condemned prisoners are at risk of 
suffering excruciating pain. With today's ruling, the Nebraska legislature

has an opportunity to reject methods of execution that cause inhumane pain

and suffering."

Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances as an 
inherently cruel and unusual form of punishment and a violation of 
fundamental human rights.

To view the Nebraska Supreme Court opinion, please click here.

Related Material

So Long as They Die: Lethal Injections in the United States
Report, April 24, 2006

HRW's Work on the Death Penalty
Thematic Page, February 8, 2007

From: http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/02/08/usdom18025.htm

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