By PAKINAM AMER
Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press
updated 9:09 a.m. ET July 15, 2008
CAIRO, Egypt - The Arab League's envoy to Sudan on Tuesday described the indictment of the country's president on genocide and other charges as a serious blow to peace efforts in Darfur.
The Egyptian diplomat, Salah Halima, told reporters at his office in Cairo that the indictment filed by a prosecutor at the International Criminal Court on Monday will have a negative impact on the stability of a region already beset by internal and cross-border conflict.
Also Tuesday, Yemen reacted strongly to the court action, the first Arab nation to publicly come to the defense of the head of Sudan's Arab-dominated government. Egypt's foreign minister also spoke out in support of Sudan's government, but elsewhere in the Arab world governments have not openly come to the defense of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.
Foreign ministers from the 22-nation Arab League will meet Saturday in response to a request from Sudan for an emergency session.
Yemen's leader phoned al-Bashir, and its Foreign Ministry called the indictment "a grave and unacceptable interference in Sudan's internal affairs and in the affairs of all Islamic and Arab countries."
The Arab League envoy said the court's prosecutor overstepped his jurisdiction with the charges accusing al-Bashir of orchestrating campaigns to wipe out ethnic African tribes in Darfur. Sudan is not a member of the Netherlands-based court, the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal.
In an apparent reference to the United States, Halima accused governments that have themselves refused to recognize the court of pressuring it to go after the Sudanese leader.
"There are countries with political agendas that target Sudan," he said.
Egypt's foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, warned Tuesday of "the danger of irresponsibly approaching the situation in Sudan" and said the indictment risks destabilizing the country further.
In defense of Sudan's government, he said "many parties inside and outside Sudan bear responsibility for the suffering of civilians in the region" of Darfur.
He also called for the conflict to be resolved through diplomacy and said an international conference should be held to set out a "road map" and timeline for achieving a political settlement.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak met with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Monday after a summit in Paris and expressed fears that the indictment would threaten efforts to reach peace between Sudan's government and numerous rebel factions, said Mubarak's spokesman, Sulieman Awwad.
International aid groups are concerned that the court's action could trigger a backlash against humanitarian groups whose work is vital for sustaining the 2.5 million people displaced since the conflict began in 2003.
The humanitarian group CARE said tension has increased in Darfur. The group has temporarily suspended the movement of its staff to sites in Darfur and in Sudan's capital, Khartoum, where it provides food and other services to more than 1 million people.
The group said it would be able to maintain essential services in the short term, though it warned that conditions in Darfur and in its camps for the displaced would quickly deteriorate unless aid groups are permitted unrestricted access.
"We call on all parties and persons in Sudan to respect the independent and humanitarian nature of our work ... and to protect our ongoing access to those people who are in need of our assistance," the group said Monday.
An Egyptian human rights research group welcomed the charges against al-Bashir, calling the court action an "important" and "just retribution for the victims of the monstrous acts committed by the Sudanese army and the janjaweed militias that enjoy the protection of the Sudanese authorities."
The Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies said "hunting down perpetrators of such crimes whatever their positions are, and bringing them to justice is a main step toward rebuilding peace in Sudan."
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25649473/
More links: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/07/15/africa/ME-Arabs-Sudan.php
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1215330976467&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull (AP News Now)
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
7 peacekeepers killed in ambush in Darfur - Contribution to regional AP reporting
AP foreign, Wednesday July 9, 2008
KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) - In a brazen attack on horseback and from SUVs mounted with anti-aircraft weapons, some 200 gumen ambushed peacekeepers from a joint U.N.-African Union force in Sudan's Darfur region, killing seven in fierce battles that lasted more than two hours, U.N. officials said Wednesday.
Twenty-two members of the U.N.-African Union force were wounded in the fighting Tuesday. Attackers outnumbered the peacekeepers by nearly three-to-one.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon's office said the joint military and police patrol was investigating the killing of civilians in North Darfur state when it was ambushed by militants driving vehicles armed with anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons.
Five Rwandan soldiers and two police officers, one from Ghana and the other from Uganda, were killed.
``We are outraged by the attack,'' Shereen Zorba, deputy spokeswoman of the U.N.-AU mission known as UNAMID, told The Associated Press.
``We are not part of the conflict, but a tool to alleviate the suffering of civilians. We try to establish some level of peace and security in the ground. But to drag us in to be part of the conflict is unjustifiable.''
Hindered by a lack of crucial equipment, including attack helicopters, the joint U.N.-AU force has struggled to fulfill its mission since deploying Jan. 1 with about 9,000 soldiers and police officers.
The force is authorized to have 26,000 members, but it is faced with chronic shortages of staff and equipment and less-than-adequate cooperation from the Sudanese government.
The peacekeepers mostly patrol the wartorn Darfur region, helping protect unarmed civilians in the many camps of the displaced and mediate between fighting factions. But they often have little access to wide swaths of the remote western Sudanese area, roughly the size of France.
The peacekeeping force has been unable to persuade the U.S. and other governments to supply attack and transport helicopters, surveillance aircraft, military engineers and logistical support it needs to safely navigate Darfur. ...
Continued at The Guardian UK http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/7641484
----
Associated Press writer Mohamed Osman reported from Khartoum and Maggie Michael contributed from Cairo, Egypt. AP writers Pakinam Amer in Cairo and John Heilprin at the United Nations also contributed to this report.
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Human rights groups call on Iran to end the execution of juveniles - AP
By Pakinam Amer
ASSOCIATED PRESS
1:47 p.m. July 8, 2008
CAIRO, Egypt – Human Rights Watch on Tuesday called on Iran to fulfill its promise to outlaw the execution of minors, charging it has been sending children as young as 16 to the gallows.
The New York-based human rights group, together with 23 other organizations, sounded the alarm over Iran's policy of executing those under 18, noting that four other Iranian minors are scheduled to be put to death this summer.
The juveniles in question have all been convicted of murder.
“Iran is violating international law every time it executes a juvenile offender whether or not the individual has reached 18 at the time of his or her execution,” read the joint statement.
In a move strongly condemned by the European Union, Iran executed a Kurdish-Iranian 16-year-old boy in June for a crime he committed two years earlier.
Iranian judiciary spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi had earlier announced that the execution of minors has “practically stopped” and that the country was working to outlaw the procedure.
Iran is a member state of both the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child; “both of which prohibit the execution of persons under the age of 18 at the time of their offense,” said HRW.
Iran had executed at least 17 juvenile offenders, eight times more than any other country, since the beginning of 2004, including two so far this year, according to an HRW count.
The international watchdog believes, based on findings by network lawyers and testimonies by local activists, that almost 140 juvenile offenders are on death row in Iran, “but the true figure could be even higher.”
The figure could not be confirmed by Iranian authorities, according to researcher Clarisa Bencomo, from HRW's Children's Rights Division.
In Iran, capital crimes include murder, rape and drug trafficking.
Under Iranian law, whose penal code follows Islamic law, the final say in such cases is for the victim's family who can pardon the perpetrator or accept compensation in lieu of execution.
On June 22, a bill was proposed in Iran's parliament to outlaw juvenile executions but it has yet to be passed.
An earlier HRW report, which deemed Iran “the world's leading offender” in this area, said that the proposed legislation would still allow the death penalty for juvenile offenders if the judge decided the defendant was “mentally mature.”
Link: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20080708-1347-iran-childexecutions.html
ASSOCIATED PRESS
1:47 p.m. July 8, 2008
CAIRO, Egypt – Human Rights Watch on Tuesday called on Iran to fulfill its promise to outlaw the execution of minors, charging it has been sending children as young as 16 to the gallows.
The New York-based human rights group, together with 23 other organizations, sounded the alarm over Iran's policy of executing those under 18, noting that four other Iranian minors are scheduled to be put to death this summer.
The juveniles in question have all been convicted of murder.
“Iran is violating international law every time it executes a juvenile offender whether or not the individual has reached 18 at the time of his or her execution,” read the joint statement.
In a move strongly condemned by the European Union, Iran executed a Kurdish-Iranian 16-year-old boy in June for a crime he committed two years earlier.
Iranian judiciary spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi had earlier announced that the execution of minors has “practically stopped” and that the country was working to outlaw the procedure.
Iran is a member state of both the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child; “both of which prohibit the execution of persons under the age of 18 at the time of their offense,” said HRW.
Iran had executed at least 17 juvenile offenders, eight times more than any other country, since the beginning of 2004, including two so far this year, according to an HRW count.
The international watchdog believes, based on findings by network lawyers and testimonies by local activists, that almost 140 juvenile offenders are on death row in Iran, “but the true figure could be even higher.”
The figure could not be confirmed by Iranian authorities, according to researcher Clarisa Bencomo, from HRW's Children's Rights Division.
In Iran, capital crimes include murder, rape and drug trafficking.
Under Iranian law, whose penal code follows Islamic law, the final say in such cases is for the victim's family who can pardon the perpetrator or accept compensation in lieu of execution.
On June 22, a bill was proposed in Iran's parliament to outlaw juvenile executions but it has yet to be passed.
An earlier HRW report, which deemed Iran “the world's leading offender” in this area, said that the proposed legislation would still allow the death penalty for juvenile offenders if the judge decided the defendant was “mentally mature.”
Link: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20080708-1347-iran-childexecutions.html
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