Communiqué

Nous représentons des organisations non gouvernementales et des coalitions engagées dans le désarmement humanitaire, avec comme objectif commun de protéger les civils des effets néfastes de la violence armée. Nous sommes réunis à l’occasion du 20 e anniversaire de la création de la Campagne internationale pour interdire les mines (ICBL), lauréate du Prix Nobel de la paix 1997, pour échanger, pour renforcer notre travail commun, et pour agrandir et unir notre communauté.

Human Rights Violations Continue in Burma’s Karen State Despite Announcements of Political Reforms

Media Contact
Stephen Greene
Interim Director of Communications
sgreene [at] phrusa [dot] org
Tel: 617-301-4210
Cell: 617-510-3417

Cambridge, MA - 08/27/2012

Even as Burma’s central government institutes political reforms, the Burmese army continues to routinely violate the human rights of ethnic minorities in Karen State, PHR reported today, citing findings from a field survey conducted earlier this year.

(Haifa, Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Gaza) Adalah submitted two administrative appeals to the Magistrate Court in Beer el-Sabe (Beer Sheva) on 26 July 2012 seeking permission for an independent doctor to visit two detainees, Wa’il Kamil Muhammad At-Taweel and Rawhi Fouad Qazaz from Gaza, in order to perform medical tests and document their conditions. The appeals also asked for the release of their medical records.

Physicians for Human Rights-Israel is proud to announce the conferring of the U.S. State Department’s Trafficking In Persons (TIP) Heroes Award upon our dedicated volunteer Sister Aziza Kidane. Sister Aziza is being recognized for her extraordinary contribution in exposing and leading, together with PHR-Israel, a campaign aimed at raising awareness worldwide of the systematic trafficking, kidnapping, and torture of refugees in the Sinai Desert prior to their entry into Israel.

Adalah, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-I), Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) conducted an advocacy visit to Brussels to push for more active EU engagement with Israel to end torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment (CIDT) of Palestinian prisoners and detainees held in Israeli prisons, and the use of administrative detention /detention under the Unlawful Combatants Law – 2002.

Introduction

In September 2011, PHR conducted an investigation in Burma’s Kachin State in response to reports of grave human rights violations in the region. PHR found that between June and September 2011, the Burmese army looted food from civilians, fired indiscriminately into villages, threatened villages with attacks, and used civilians as porters and human minesweepers.

Key human rights findings of the report include:

• The Burmese army forced Kachin civilians to guide combat units and walk in front of army columns to trigger landmines.

29 August 2011
EU High Representative Catherine Ashton
External Action Service

Re: EU-Israel Informal Human Rights Working Group: Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment in Israel

Dear High Representative Ashton,

In the early months of 2010, the Open Clinic’s staff began noticing an increasing phenomenon of female asylum seekers from Africa arriving at the Open Clinic in order to perform an abortion. In private conversations, the women revealed to the Open Clinic staff that they were raped on their way to Israel. In order to study and comprehend the increasingly many testimonies of cases of torture and rape in Sinai, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) put together a questionnaire, which was presented to hundreds of patients who had crossed Sinai on their way to Israel.