Donation

Thank you for your donation.

Amount: 

Worldwide readers

Partners

NPC02

aghora

UGSM-Monarch-Long2

Democratic-World-Federalists

acunts

 

Elkedia

Geopolitics-GR

European-Rim-Policy-Investment-Council

DSC_0792

rieas

WFMC

KEMEA

guarini



Sponsors

logo

Avacas-Wines

Philippides-Gallery

Synergix20logo202

Advertisement

Tsikkastel

enaila20developers

GEVO-logo1

Place your advertisement here. For more information please contact: info@inter-security-forum.org

Polls

Do you think Turkey will become a full European Union member-state?
 
12,000 Tried by Military in 2011, Hundreds More Cases Pending

(New York, May 7, 2012) Egypt’s parliament on May 6, 2012, approved amendments to the Code of Military Justice that failed to end the unprecedented expansion of military trials of civilians, despite pleas for reform from the legal and human rights communities, Human Rights Watch said today. In 2011 more than 12,000 civilians, including children, faced unfair military trials which fail to provide the basic due process rights of civilian courts, more than the number of military trials of civilians during 30 years of rule by former president Hosni Mubarak.

The military has continued to try civilians before military tribunals in 2012 despite promises to limit the practice. More than 300 civilians arrested since May 4 in Cairo during the clashes near the ministry of defense in Cairo are now also scheduled for military trials.

FacebookFacebookTwitterTwitter

The International Security Forum exclusively publishes below the letter forwarded by Mr. Michael R. Bradle, Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations International Human Rights Commission to the African Commission on Human and People's Rights imploring the latter to examine the possible concealment of human rights violations and crimes by the NTC in Libya. The letter was sent May 4, 2012:

Dear Honorable Commissioners:

Pursuant to Article 55 of the African Charter, I am herein requesting that the African Commission on Human and People's Rights vote to approve receiving my formal complaint against the National Transition Council and Mustafa Abdul-Jalil in Libya. Specifically, they have unilaterally granted 'immunity to revolutionaries' (Exhibit 1: AFP Report below: "Libya Grants Immunity to Revolutionaries") in order to conceal all of the human rights violations and crimes committed by the NTC, by and through their fighters. Anyone, regardless of whether they are pro-Gaddafi or a part of the NTC, should be held accountable for any crimes committed against humanity, and subject to the African Charter.

FacebookFacebookTwitterTwitter
Libyan authorities on Thursday granted immunity to former rebels who fought to oust Moamer Kadhafi's regime and unveiled legislation that cracks down on the fallen strongman's supporters. "There is no punishment for acts made necessary by the February 17 revolution," read the law published on the National Transitional Council's website. The immunity covers "military, security or civilian acts undertaken by revolutionaries with the aim of ensuring the revolution's success," the NTC added.

February 17 marks the start of a popular uprising which led to the collapse of Kadhafi's regime last year.It was unclear if the law includes acts committed after October 23, when the NTC declared Libya's liberation following the capture and killing of strongman Kadhafi. Rights groups say war crimes were committed by both sides during the 2011 conflict and warn of torture in detention centres run by militias made up of former rebels.

 

FacebookFacebookTwitterTwitter

An Interview with Selahettin Demirtas

Selahattin Demirtaş is co-president of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party of Turkey (BDP), the fourth largest political party in the country. The BDP is not formally tied to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has been in armed conflict with the Turkish state since 1984, but it shares the PKK’s core political demands and the two groups likely have many supporters in common. As such, the BDP is a pivotal player in the search for peace. Hopes for a political solution to the decades-old confrontation between the Kurds and the government of Turkey were raised in 2009, when the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) launched an initiative known as the “Kurdish” or “democratic opening,” only for the effort to collapse that winter. Talk of democratic reforms and a new approach to the Kurdish issue has resurfaced since the AKP won a third term in the 2011 parliamentary elections, but prospects remain grim as PKK-army clashes and political repression of the Kurdish movement continue. A lawyer by trade, Demirtaş represents the Hakkari province in the Turkish parliament and is a past vice president of the Human Rights Association of Turkey. Jake Hess interviewed him in Washington during a BDP parliamentary delegation visit in April and translated the conversation from Turkish.

FacebookFacebookTwitterTwitter

[Speech delivered at the University of Nicosia conference on New Threats and Challenges  for Regional Security in the Eastern Mediterranean, 24 April 2012]

First of all, let me take this opportunity to join everyone I believe in this room wishing that the fighting and consequent sad loss of innocent civilian lives is terminated in the neighbouring country as soon as possible. I think that I express the wish of every one of us in this auditorium to urge for the swift implementation of the ceasefire as envisaged by Security Council resolutions and the resumption of peace talks without preconditions in order to resolve the political crisis in Syria.

In the limited time available I will seek to analyse the sad developments in Syria in two main perspectives. On the one hand, the perspective of international law and on the other, the view from Nicosia but also I would say the view from Athens and any other capital that is concerned by the rise of Ankara's Neo-Ottomanism and Muslim fundamentalism.

FacebookFacebookTwitterTwitter

The issue of the British Bases in Cyprus is invariably visited by London every ten years, that is the time that lapses in between British strategic and defence reviews. The last such review took place in 2011. David Cameron, the British PM, appointed Lord Ashcroft to report on the utility of the Cyprus military bases. Lord Ashcroft duly submitted his report. London decided to sustain the bases at an annual cost to the British taxpayer running to about 350 million pounds sterling.

On the island itself, Greek Cypriot politicians continue their usual practice of paying lip service to the removal of the British bases in every election campaign period. Four years ago, in the Spring of 2008, President Demetris Christofias, upon his election to office - of both Head of State and Head of Government of the Republic of Cyprus - ordered the Press and Information Office of the Republic to issue and circulate his five-year programme of government. It was the same policy document which won him the ticket to lead Cyprus government for the next five years. In it an explicit reference was made that regarding security arrangements his steadfast policy promoted 'the ultimate aim of the complete de-militarization of Cyprus with the removal of the British Bases' (Government Programme: Cyprus Problem - Just and Viable Solution, p. 2 in Greek)

 

FacebookFacebookTwitterTwitter

The Russian Foreign Ministry has warned Russian citizens about the dangers of buying land in the Turkish occupied areas of Cyprus. In a statement at the Interfax News Agency, Deputy Director of Press and Information Department Zacharova Maria, stated that the administration in the Turkish occupied areas of Cyprus, is an illegal state and property purchases should be avoided. She stresses that the so called Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is an illegal entity which was declared in the Turkish occupied areas of the independent and internationally recognised Republic of Cyprus. Zacharova underlines that UN Security has condemned this illegal action in its resolutions 541 (1983) and 550 (1984).

''Buying a property in occupied Cyprus is illegal since several properties belonging to Greek Cypriots legally who fled their homes after the invasion of Turkish occupation troops in 1974. The property market is at great risk because under legal lawsuits filed by the owners, ''Zacharova warns. She also explains that under the Criminal Code of Cyprus any property without the consent of legal owner, is fraud and punishable by imprisonment for seven years. The Russian Foreign Ministry urges Russian citizens to be informed in detail about this issue.

 

FacebookFacebookTwitterTwitter

As oil started to be pumped out of the Middle East, Cyprus served as London's outpost securing the uninterrupted flow of the vital energy resource for the formidable industrial machine of the British Isles. It is no coincidence that Sir Anthony Eden explained in strong and unyielding words, the British government's position in Cyprus clear and flat. Without bothering to clothe it in the familiar language of imperialistic idealism, Sir Anthony defined Britain's stake in one word: oil. He stressed:

Our country's industrial life and that of Western Europe, depend today, and must depend for many years, on oil supplies from the Middle East. If ever our oil resources were imperiled, we should be compelled to defend them. The facilities we need in Cyprus are part of that. No Cyprus, no certain facilities to protect our supply of oil. No oil, unemployment and hunger in Britain. It is as simple as that.[1]

FacebookFacebookTwitterTwitter
Facebook
Facebook
Twitter
Twitter