Category: Human Rights

UNITED NATIONS— Senior UN officials have arrived in Kabul for talks as the United Nations chief voiced concern over the Taliban’s creation of “gender-based apartheid,” a UN spokesman said.

Since returning to power 17 months ago, the Taliban have imposed severe restrictions on women, keeping them out of government jobs, banning them from secondary schools and universities, and prohibiting them from visiting parks.

The UN delegation, which arrived Monday, includes Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed and Sima Bahous, executive secretary of UN Women, spokesman Farhan Haq said.

Also attending is Khaled Khiari, a senior official of the UN Department of Political Affairs, Haq said, declining to give further details of the visit citing security reasons.

Last week, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres denounced the “unprecedented, systemic attacks on women’s and girls’ rights,” which he said “are creating gender-based apartheid.”

Before arriving in Afghanistan, the delegation held talks in several countries in the region, the Gulf, Asia and Europe to discuss women’s and girls’ rights and sustainable development.

The UN officials were urged to convey “the urgency of the situation,” the spokesperson said, noting a “clear consensus… on the issue of women’s and girls’ rights to work and have access to education.”

The visit follows the weekend slaying of a former Afghan lawmaker who was killed at her home in Kabul, a murder that “shocked” Guterres, another spokesperson said.

In late December, the Taliban banned NGOs working with Afghan women, leading several organizations to suspend their activities.

At least three of them partially resumed their activities after receiving assurances from the Taliban authorities that women could continue to work in the health sector.

The UN decided to continue its operations.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

NAIROBI— More than 150 public and civil society actors from 40 African countries convened in Nairobi, Kenya for the joint Africa Gender Statistics Conference taking place from Sept 26-30.

Held under the theme ‘Gender Statistics Imperatives for Africa’, the Conference will interrogate gender statistics through the lens of agenda 2063—the African Union’s blueprint for transforming Africa into a global powerhouse, the Sustainable Development Goals that support gender equality and women’s empowerment, and global guidance on violence against women data, among others.

Delegates comprising policy analysts and gender statistics experts from line ministries, national statistical offices, and civil society will exchange knowledge on the latest innovations and best practices in gender statistics to inform action plans in AU member states and the region as a whole.

Gender statistics are instrumental in measuring progress towards achieving regional and global gender development goals. However, the production of gender statistics is relatively new, and information is not fully consolidated and always readily available, even at the global level.

“Gender equality has increasingly been recognized as being essential to the process of sustainable development and the formulation of effective national development policies and programmes,” said Themba Munalula, Chief Statistician, Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA).

“Given the pivotal role of gender equality in socioeconomic and cultural development, ensuring that African countries produce high-quality, timely, and reliable gender data has far-reaching benefits,” said Roza Mamuye Bora, Principal Statistician at the African Development Bank Group (AfDB).

The production of gender statistics in the region has been slow due to a combination of factors including a reluctance to change how statistics have traditionally been compiled and presented, a lack of knowledge on how change can be effected, and a constrained policy and financial environment.

“Gender data and statistics are not just important for their own sake. The end goal is really to improve the lives of women and girls as envisioned by the SDGs and other regional and international plans,” said Dr. Maxime Houinato, UN Women East and Southern Africa Regional Director.

“While nearly all countries in the region have endorsed the SDGs and incorporated them into national strategies and plans, lack of funding is often cited as the most critical impediment in the region”, said Houinato.

“This has hindered the progress of national statistical offices in designing the systems and operations needed to generate gender data for evidence-based policymaking and advocacy,” said Fatouma Sissoko, Gender Statistician at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).

Despite these challenges, regional initiatives such as the Africa Programme on Gender Statistics (APGS), have contributed significantly to improvements in gender statistics at both the regional and national levels.

An umbrella regional programme implemented by regional organizations, regional economic communities, civil society organizations, and international agencies, the APGS is currently in its third phase (APGS III).

The Programme has made strides in improving the availability of accurate and standardized gender statistics by developing methodologies and approaches for the production of gender statistics in Africa.

However, much remains to be done in terms of improving coordination and reinforcing partnerships to strengthen knowledge, skills, and communication related to the production, dissemination, and use of gender statistics in the region.

This is one of the main focus areas of APGS III, which is also being launched during the Joint Africa Gender Statistics Conference.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

The United States imposed sanctions on three Liberian government officials, including President George Weah’s chief of staff, for what it says is their ongoing involvement in public corruption, the U.S. Treasury Department said on Monday.

The sanctions target Weah’s Chief of Staff Nathaniel McGill, Liberia’s Chief Prosecutor Sayma Syrenius Cephus and Bill Twehway, the managing director of the National Port Authority.

“Through their corruption these officials have undermined democracy in Liberia for their own personal benefit,” Brian Nelson, Treasury’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement.

The designations “demonstrate that the United States remains committed to holding corrupt actors accountable and to the continued support of the Liberian people,” he said.

McGill, Cephus and Twehway are being designated as foreign government officials who allegedly engaged in corruption including the misappropriation of state assets, taking private assets for personal gain, or bribery, according to the statement.

Under the sanctions, all property and interests in property of the three officials that are in the United States must be blocked and reported to Treasury, while people who engage in transactions with the officials may be subject to sanctions themselves, the statement said.

Source: Voice of America

WASHINGTON — Federal officials are saying little so far about Monday’s FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, but Trump and one of his sons have said the move is part of an investigation into Trump’s removal of official documents from the White House.

While such a search of a former U.S. president’s residence would appear to be unprecedented, investigations into the removal or unlawful retention of classified information is not.

Since 2005, the FBI and the Justice Department have launched at least 11 such investigations, some targeting high-profile former U.S. officials, including a former national security adviser and a former CIA director.

Others who have been prosecuted and who have pleaded guilty or were convicted include Defense Department employees, defense contractors and employees or contractors with the FBI, the CIA and the National Security Agency.

Here’s a list of some notable cases:

April 2005 – Former U.S. national security adviser Sandy Berger pleaded guilty to knowingly removing classified documents from the National Archives and Records Administration. Berger admitted to concealing and removing five copies of a classified document from the Archives in September and October 2003.

Berger also admitted to concealing and removing handwritten notes in violation of the Archives’ policy. In September 2005, Berger was ordered to pay a $50,000 fine and give up his security clearance for three years.

March 2013 –Retired Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Pierce Bishop was arrested in Hawaii and charged with one count of unlawfully retaining documents related to the national defense and one count of willfully communicating national defense information to a person not entitled to receive such information. Court papers alleged Bishop, who was working for a defense contractor, stored 12 documents containing classified information at his residence. The documents further allege Bishop willfully communicated that information to a 27-year-old Chinese woman with whom he had a relationship.

Bishop pleaded guilty in March 2014. He was sentenced to more than seven years in prison followed by three years of supervised release.

March 2015 – Retired U.S. Army General David Petraeus, a former CIA director, pleaded guilty to one count of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material. The plea followed revelations that Petraeus shared some of the materials with his biographer and mistress.

Petraeus was sentenced to two years of probation and a $100,000 fine.

July 2015 – U.S. Navy reservist Bryan Nishimura was sentenced to two years of probation and a $7,500 fine after he pleaded guilty to downloading and storing classified documents from his deployment to Afghanistan in 2007-2008 on his personal devices and media. A search of his home in May 2012 turned up numerous classified materials, both in digital and hard copy formats.

August 2016 – Former National Security Agency contractor Harold Martin was arrested for what federal prosecutors described as a theft of top-secret government information that was “breathtaking in its longevity and scale.”

Martin was indicted in February 2017 on charges of stealing and retaining classified documents and other material, according to a statement from the Justice Department. The department further alleged Martin “stole and retained” highly classified top secret documents covering 20 years, keeping them in his home and in his vehicle.

According to the indictment, the documents stolen and retained by Martin contained NSA planning information and information on intelligence collection targets. Other documents, from U.S. Cyber Command, contained information on U.S. military capabilities, some to be used in specific operations, and documents about gaps in U.S. cyber capabilities.

Martin pleaded guilty to the willful retention of national defense information in March 2019. In July 2019, Martin was sentenced to nine years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.

January 2017 – Former defense contractor and sailor Weldon Marshall was arrested for unlawfully retaining classified information, stored on compact discs and computer hard drives that he kept at his home in Texas. The information included classified documents from Marshall’s time with the U.S. Navy and from his time as a defense contractor in Afghanistan.

Marshall pleaded guilty in March 2018. He was sentenced in June 2018 to more than three years in prison followed by a year of supervised release.

January 2018 – Former CIA officer Jerry Chun Shing Lee, also known as Zhen Cheng Li, was arrested on charges of unlawful retention of national defense information. Prosecutors alleged that Lee, while staying at hotels in Hawaii and Virginia, was in possession of two, small books that contained handwritten notes that included the true names and phone numbers of assets and covert CIA employees, operational notes from asset meetings, operational meeting locations and locations of covert facilities.

Lee was indicted in May 2018 on two counts of unlawfully retaining documents related to the national defense, as well as one count of conspiracy to deliver national defense information to a foreign government.

Lee pleaded guilty and was sentenced in November 2019 to 19 years in prison for conspiring to communicate, deliver and transmit national defense information to China.

May 2018 – Former CIA contractor Reynaldo Regis pleaded guilty to charges of unauthorized removal and retention of classified materials, as well as to making false statements to federal law enforcement officers. Prosecutors said during his time at the CIA, Reyes conducted unauthorized searches of classified databases and copied the information into dozens of notebooks, which he then took home.

In November 2018, Reyes was sentenced to 90 days in jail. Regis’ lawyer later told the Associated Press and other news outlets that his client “had no nefarious purpose. It was just a mistake.”

August 2019 – Former National Security Agency (NSA) employee Elizabeth Jo Shirley was arrested in Mexico City on charges of parental kidnapping and was later charged with retaining top secret documents on her electronic devices, both in Mexico and some stored at her home in West Virginia.

Prosecutors additionally alleged that Shirley sought to offer the information to the Russian government.

In July 2020, Shirley pleaded guilty to one count of willful retention of national defense information and to one count of international parental kidnapping. She was sentenced in January 2021 to more than eight years in prison for the willful retention of national defense information. She was also sentenced to three years in prison on the kidnapping charges.

June 2020 — Investigators conducted a search of the Hawaii home of Asia Janay Lavarello, a U.S. Defense Department employee, following her return from a temporary assignment to the U.S. Embassy in Manila. Investigators found numerous classified documents, writings, and notes relating to the national defense or foreign relations and said the documents – first seen by guests at a dinner party hosted by Lavarello – had not been transported by secure diplomatic pouch, as required.

Lavarello pleaded guilty to knowingly removing classified information in July 2021. She was sentenced in February 2022 to three months in prison and a $5,500 fine.

May 2021 – Kendra Kingsbury, an employee at the FBI’s Kansas City division, was indicted on two counts of having unauthorized possession of documents relating to the national defense. The court documents allege Kingsbury removed sensitive material and classified documents from her workplace over a period of more than 12 years and kept them at her home. One of the documents included information on al-Qaida members in Africa, including a suspected associate of al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden.

Source: Voice of America

GABORONE— A court in Botswana has summoned former President Ian Khama to appear before it on multiple criminal charges, including possession of firearms.

The “unprecedented” charge sheet showed that Khama was accused alongside ex-intelligence chief Isaac Kgosi, former police commissioner Keabetswe Makgophe and ex-deputy permanent secretary Bruno Paledi ranging from illegal acquisition, unlawful possession and theft of firearms.

In Botswana, the illegal possession of guns could lead to a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

Khama previously told South Africa’s Daily Maverick newspaper that he keeps his hunting rifles, shotguns and “a few handguns” collected over three decades at his home.

Some of these belonged to his official and private security detail, he was quoted as saying.

It is unlikely that Khama will appear in court in person.

Khama – the son of Botswana’s founding President Seretse Khama – went into self-imposed exile in South Africa in November 2021.

At the time, he denied that he was fleeing Botswana but he hasn’t returned to the country since.

Khama was president from 2008 to 2018.

He fell out with his handpicked successor, Mokgweetsi Masisi, whom he accused of authoritarianism. Masisi was the vice-president under Khama, from 2014 to 2018.

The summons against the former president come ahead of President Masisi’s planned meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in Pretoria on Friday.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

A court in Rwanda has sentenced a Chinese mining engineer to 20 years in prison after he was found guilty of tying his workers to a tree and whipping them.

A Chinese citizen was convicted Wednesday in Rwanda on charges of torture, according to Rwandan media reports.

Last year, a video circulated online showing Sun Shujun, the Chinese national, flogging two Rwandan workers, who had been tied to a tree.

Shujun said the two men had stolen minerals from his company, Ali Group Holdings Ltd,, Rwanda’s KT Press reported.

The Chinese Embassy in Kigali condemned the “unlawful acts” in a statement at the time, according to local media.

This is not the first time Chinese nationals working in Africa have been accused of abusing their local workers. In Zimbabwe in 2020, a Chinese coal mine owner shot and wounded two local workers after they complained about wages they were owed.

Source: Voice of America