The death of Natalia

I can’t bear seeing these pictures of a bare-chested Vladimir Putin on horseback. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6738969.ece As well as beefing up his macho image, the one of him feeding his mount suggests a sensitivity, a gentler, caring side that, alas, is severely lacking in Russia’s PM. It’s a very shrewd but cynical tactic to have released the photographs for public consumption. I’ve always believed animal lovers to have a compassionate streak, and when I saw Putin kissing a horse (in a previous picture) I hesitated… for a fraction of a second.

But no! This was the man (then President) who refused for three days to issue a statement on the brutal contract killing of courageous journalist Anna Politkovskaya. When he was finally drawn, he callously remarked that “Politkovskaya’s political influence inside the country was of little significance.” The writer was shot dead on 7 October 2006, her body found slumped in an elevator outside her apartment in Moscow. At the time of her death, she was working on an article about torture in Chechnya that implicated Ramzan Kadyrov, then the pro-Kremlin Chechan Prime Minister. After her murder, rumours began to circulate that Kadyrov had ordered the contract killing to coincide with Putin’s Birthday.

Russia bears comparison with Mexico; a country that, in recent months, has been referred to as “a failed state”. One can see a similar pattern of violence in Russia, and in particular in the republic of Chechnya, where violence and corruption has created a lawlessness that Moscow seems increasingly to be unable to keep in check. On coming to power, Putin ordered a ground offensive in 1999 that was to become the Second Chechen War. Russia’s superior military power, its indiscriminate bombing and sheer brute force severely disabled the Chechen resistance and Putin installed a pro-Moscow Chechen regime under Akhmad Kadyrov that lasted until his assassination in 2004. His son, Ramzan Kadyrov, succeeded him, becoming President of Chechnya in February 2007. Over the past decade, Amnesty has published a horrific list of human rights abuses taking place in Chechnya, including extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances and abductions, torture in unofficial detention centres and arbitrary detentions. It is these abuses that Politkovskaya was so intent on reporting and bringing to the world’s attention and that, few dispute, resulted in her murder.

And now, almost three years later, we are mourning the loss of another courageous female activist who has been slayed in a contract killing for her work. Natalia Estemirova, an award-winning Russian human rights activist and freelance journalist, was murdered on 15 July 2009.

Estemirova worked with Memorial, one of Russia’s best known and oldest human rights group. She was a close friend and colleague of Politkovskaya and they investigated some of the same cases together, writing about them in the independent Novaya Gazeta and other local papers. Estemirova was half-Russian and half-Chechen and had often interpreted for Politkovskaya. In October 2007, she came to England to accept the  inaugural Anna Politkovskaya Award from the Reach All Women in War campaign group; an award established to honour female human rights defenders from conflict zones who stand up for the victims of conflict, often at a great personal risk.

On the morning of 15 July, Estemirova was reportedly seized by four unknown men as she left for work and was bundled into the back of a white car. Neighbours at her house in Grozny, Chechnya’s capital, heard her shout: “I’m being kidnapped.” Later her body was found slumped on the main road of a village in Ingushetia, the neighbouring republic to Chechnya. She had been shot in the head and chest. The news of her death, coming so soon after Politkovskya’s, is heartbreaking. Just, fifty years old, Estemirova leaves behind a fifteen-year-old daughter.

There are many similarities between the lives and deaths of these two courageous women. Both were investigating human rights abuses in Chechnya. Both would listen to the stories of Chechen victims, who would tell them how their relatives had been shot by Kadyrov’s troops, or who had been kidnapped and tortured or who had just disappeared. Both wrote articles for Novaya Gazeta, well-known for its critical and coverage of Russian political and social affairs, and both collaborated with human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.  They were scathing critics of Kadyrov, who is a close ally of Vladimir Putin. Their murders bear all the hall marks of contract killings and in both cases their colleagues have pointed the finger at Chechnya’s president.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), since 2000, under Putin’s tenure, seventeen journalists have been murdered for their work or have died under suspicious circumstances in Russia. They have been murdered with impunity; in only one case have the killers been convicted, and the masterminds remain unpunished.

When Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev, backed by Putin, became President, he pledged to enforce the rule of law by investigating crimes against the press. But according to CPJ, attacks on journalists continue unchecked. In the past year alone, CPJ has documented work-related violence against 19 journalists in various parts of the country. English PEN has reported on four journalists killed in the opening months of 2009.

One has to wonder why the most powerful man in Russia today, who is trying to soften his brutish image by posing in photos with horses, cannot stem the tidal wave of murders of journalists, lawyers and human rights activists in his country. Why do these courageous men and women keep on being killed and why do the perpetrators never get caught?

Click here to visit International PEN’s website for further info and suggestions of how you can help.

Burma: Aung San Suu Kyi arrested – please sign petitions

The Burma Campaign, UK

Nobel Peace Prize Winner and Burmese opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has today been charged with breaching the conditions of her house arrest.  She faces five years in prison after a US citizen reportedly swam across the lake to her home and in doing so violated the ban on the opposition leader meeting with anyone without prior permission from the military junta.

Suu Kyi is currently held in the notorious Insein Prison in Rangoon, with two members of her house staff, under Section 22 of the State Protection Law for “subversion”.  Her trial is due to begin on 18 May 2009 and, if found guilty, she could remain imprisoned for a further five years.

Her house arrest was due to expire on 24 May 2009 and many believe that this is an excuse to keep the leader of the pro-democracy movement behind bars. The junta plans elections in 2010. Suu Kyi’s party won a landslide victory on 27 May 1990, but the military refused to recognise their right to rule and Suu Kyi is prohibited from holding office. Despite being effectively muzzled, after having spent 13 of the past 20 years in detention, she remains a hugely popular figure both inside the country and internationally.

It takes less than 2 minutes to email the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon and ASEAN leaders urging them to take immediate action to secure the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, and to send envoys to Burma. Click here

Free Burma’s Political Prisoners Now aims to collect 888,888 signatures before 24 May 2009, the legal date that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi should have been released from house arrest. The military junta is notoriously superstitious and the target of 888,888, symbolises the timing of Burma’s largest democracy uprising (8 mins past 8 on 8 August 1988), when over 3000 protesters were massacred.

The petition calls on the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to make it his personal priority to secure the release of all political prisoners in Burma. Please sign before 24 May by clicking on petition

Murder and Mayhem

Another Mexican journalist has been gunned down. What is so depressing is that his murder took place on World Press Freedom Day. Carlos Ortega Samper, a lawyer and writer for the daily El Tiempo de Durango, was known for his critical reporting on local government corruption and had reportedly been threatened by local officials a few days before he was killed. On 3 May, he was driving home when four unidentified men pulled him from his car and, after a heated argument, shot him three times in the head. According to PEN, just days before Ortega had criticised poor hygiene standards in a local abattoir. Then, on 2 May he claimed that that the town mayor and another local official had threatened him over the article and that he was investigating allegations of corruption by a local policeman. Chillingly, he added that these three men should be held responsible if anything happened to him.

Mexico is now one of the most dangerous places in the world to work as an investigative journalist. Sadly, Ortega’s killing is one of many brutal acts of intimidation causing a pervasive sense of fear and self-censorship amongst media workers. Governments, state agents, and local officials, may not always like what is written about them but murder is the ultimate form of censorship.

Thankfully, there is less chance of that happening to the journalists involved in a similar story gathering momentum in Romania. A recent article in the New York Times tenuously links the presence of Smithfield Foods, Inc. in Romania to the H1N1 flu. (A Mexican hog farm jointly owned by Smithfield, in La Gloria, Veracruz, was at the centre of a recent investigation into the possible link between pigs and the new strain of influenza in humans).

The Romanians are understandably miffed at intimations that the flu pandemic may have originated in their country. Initially the Mexican press, and some officials suggested, that an Asian source was the most likely culprit for what was originally referred to as the swine flu virus. Following the piece in the New York Times, the finger of blame is now pointing towards Eastern Europe. Smithfield’s controversial pig factories are currently the biggest producer of pork in Romania. According to the New York Times: ‘swine fever swept through three Romanian hog compounds in 2007, two of which were operating without permits. Some 67,000 hogs died or were destroyed, with infected and healthy pigs shot to stanch the spread.’ This article, together with Romanian news reports, seems to have sent government officials into over-drive.

As you may have guessed from my name, I have a familial link with the country. I know, from personal experience,  how much Romanians like their meat and, where the faint-hearted might blanch, they tend to relish cooking and eating every single part of an animal. I can imagine how the opportunity for a seemingly endless supply of cheap pork and salami would have been too mouth-watering for them to pass by; they would have welcomed Smithfield with open arms. Judging by the New York Times piece, though, they are now suffering the consequences of selling their souls to one of the giants of American agribusiness.

The plot thickens, but for those convinced that the US pork producer is in some way responsible for the spread of swine flu to humans, this will add grist to the mill. In addition, I suspect that there will be scenes of mayhem in Romanian ministries for some days to come. Hopefully, other than the possibility of positive change for the pigs and local communities, that’s all this expose of pig farms and ‘manure lagoons’, will provoke.

In Mexico, a journalist can get killed for writing about poor hygiene standards in a local abattoir. Romania has its fair share of problems regarding freedom of expression* but thankfully shooting the messenger isn’t one of them. Probably the worst that journalists writing about poor hygiene in Romania’s pig farms can expect is some gentle admonishment  from the health minister.  He has taken pains to point out that ‘not accidentally the owner of New York Times is a Mexican cement giant, who took over this newspaper three months ago’. This is a sly dig  at Mexico’s wealthiest businessman, Carlos Slim, and his 10% stake in the newspaper.

*On 11 June 2008, the Constitutional Court of Romania rejected a measure that would have required broadcasters to air “good news”. God knows who proposed this incredible legislation, but the idea was that television and radio stations would be required to devote at least 50% of their news output to positive stories.

3 May 2009

World Press Freedom Day 2009: International writers’ organisation focuses on Mexico.

To mark World Press Freedom Day on 3 May, PEN, the international writers’ organisation is focusing on Mexico. Around the globe, the day is used to remind governments of the importance of a free press and to highlight the risks of death or imprisonment faced by many journalists whilst attempting to practice their profession.

This year over fifty prominent writers, including Paul Auster, Lydia Cacho, Noam Chomsky, Ariel Dorfman, and Derek Walcott, have signed PEN’s ‘Declaration in Defense of the Freedom to Write in the Americas’. The international writers’ organization has united authors from across the Americas in its 2009 campaign to end violence against journalists in Latin America.

The Declaration condemns the persistent attacks against freedom of expression in Mexico where, in the last five years alone, PEN has recorded the deaths of twenty journalists and the disappearance of four more. PEN has called for appeals to be sent to President Calderón, using a postcard that is available to download on its website.

Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the Act was intended to protect the right of all to freedom of expression and opinion; to allow them to speak and to write freely; and to seek and receive information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers.

PEN’S Declaration is damning evidence that in the Americas, particularly in Mexico, those who “criticise the authorities or expose the activities of criminal gangs, are frequently targeted, harassed, threatened, kidnapped and murdered for what they publish. Often those responsible for these crimes escape justice, official investigations stall or lapse into silence, and the crimes remain unpunished.”

What is so worrying it that despite it being “widely accepted that non-state actors are responsible for many of these violent attacks against journalists, particularly drug traffickers, paramilitaries and other criminal groups, and even state agents operating outside of the legitimate authority of their offices’, these atrocities continue with impunity. In Mexico, fear is stopping many journalists from covering major stories.

Freedom of expression is a cornerstone of any democracy. Writers, journalists and academics are often, quite literally, in the front line, whilst attempting to practice their profession or to safeguard this right.  When they are threatened or murdered and those responsible escape prosecution and justice, the climate of impunity that prevails undermines an entire society’s right to free speech and to access information.

In recent years, the Mexican government has taken various steps meant to combat these problems and encourage a free press. None of them have proved decisively successful. In early 2006, the Special Prosecutor’s Office for Crimes against Journalists was created but to date there have been very few successful prosecutions. Campaign groups have attributed this failure to a lack of autonomy and resources as well as jurisdictional limitations.

In March 2007, the federal penal code was amended in order to decriminalize defamation. This was widely welcomed but has not yet had much impact as state laws are yet to be amended.

In October 2008, a proposal to reform Article 73 of the Constitution, to recognize crimes relating to freedom of expression and human rights as federal rather than state offences, was presented to Congress and recently the Mexican Chamber of Deputies approved an incomplete reform that attempts to confront the prevailing impunity for crimes against journalists in the country.

It is crucial that effective laws are imposed to prevent and prosecute violations of freedom of expression in Mexico. PEN’s Declaration serves to foreground the urgent need to combat impunity in Mexico.

For further information please visit:  http://www.internationalpen.org.uk

8 March 2009

To mark International Women’s Day (http://www.internationalwomensday.com/), PEN centres around the world are focussing on the cases of four female writers who have been persecuted for their work. (http://www.internationalpen.org.uk/go/freedom-of-expression/campaigns)

One of these is award-winning writer and investigative journalist Lydia Cacho who runs a refuge for abused women and children. Cacho has written numerous articles on the prostitution of Cuban and Argentine girls in Mexico and the sexual abuse of minors. In 2005 she published a book (Demons of Eden: the power behind pornography), exposing a Mexican child pornography ring. A textile businessman, José Kamel Nacif Borge, brought charges of libel against Cacho. He is cited in the book as having ties with another Mexican businessman, Jean Succar Kuri, who owns a hotel in the popular Mexican resort, Cancún, in Quintana Roo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintana_Roo). Succar Kuri is an accused paedophile and head of the child pornography and prostitution network, who was already detained at the time. Kamel Nacif did not deny knowing him but claimed that his reputation had suffered as a result of Cacho’s book.

On 16 December 2005, Cacho was arrested at gunpoint by Puebla state officials, and endured a twenty-hour car journey from her home in Cancún to Puebla, where she was physically threatened. On her arrival she was charged with ‘defamation’ and calumny and faced up to four years in jail if found guilty. During the spell in police custody, the writer was reportedly ill-treated and held incommunicado in an attempt to intimidate her into abandoning her work to combat child abuse and people-trafficking. In February 2006 a recorded telephone conversation alleged to be between Kamel Nacif and the governor of Puebla, Mario Marín, was released to the local media. The businessman reportedly thanked the governor for his part in Cacho’s arrest and offered Marín ‘two beautiful bottles of Cognac’ as a token of his appreciation. He also voiced his desire that the writer be raped whilst in detention.

Cacho filed a countersuit for corruption and violation of her human rights. After fighting a year-long battle, and enduring repeated death threats, the defamation charges were dismissed. However, her acquittal was only the result of her case being transferred to another state where defamation is no longer a criminal offence.

Despite the Mexico’s Supreme Court’s ruling that there had been ‘no serious violation’ of Cacho’s rights when she was arrested on Marín’s orders (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2007/dec/04/mexicocourtrulesagainstjou) , last April the special office set up to investigate crimes against journalists in Mexico ordered the arrest of five public employees for the illegal detention of Cacho. These reportedly included the former attorney general, a minister, a police commander and various criminal justice system officials, who allegedly falsified paperwork in order to facilitate her arrest. Disappointingly, in June the court in Cacho’s home state of Quintana Roo ruled that although there was evidence of arbitrary detention and torture it could not accept her case for jurisdictional reasons and recommended that she take the case to Puebla. Her appeal was rejected in January 2009. Cacho claims that it impossible to get justice in Puebla, particularly given the role of the state authorities in her ordeal, and so she will submit her case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. She continues to receive threats to her life for her writing.

Lydia Cacho will be in London talking about her work at Shakespeare’s Globe on 18 April, as part of International PEN’s festival of world literature, Free the Word! http://www.internationalpen.org.uk/go/literary-events/free-the-word

You may like to write to the Mexican President expressing concern at the continuing harassment of writer Lydia Cacho for writing about sexual exploitation in Mexico to:

Lic. Felipe De Jesús Calderón Hinojosa
Presidente de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos
Fax: 00 52 55 5093 4901/ 5277 2376
Email: felipe.calderon@presidencia.gob.mx