UGANDA: Museveni distances himself from “cruel” anti-gay bill

Photo: IRIN

KAMPALA,  – Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has indicated he will not back a bill that would impose the death sentence for the crime of “aggravated homosexuality” – when an HIV-positive person has sex with anyone who is disabled or under the age of 18.

Museveni appears to have bowed to international pressure, telling members of his ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had all urged him to ensure the controversial bill does not go ahead.

“I told them that this bill was brought up by a private member and I have not even had time to discuss it with him; it is neither the government nor the NRM Party,” he told party members during a meeting on 13 January, according to local media. “This is a foreign policy issue and we have to discuss it in a manner that does not compromise our principles but also takes care of our foreign policy interests.”

The Anti-Homosexuality Bill (2009) – introduced as a private member’s bill by ruling party MP David Bahati in October 2009 – would also force people accused of aggravated homosexuality to undergo HIV tests, and would impose prison sentences or heavy fines on members of the public who fail to report homosexual activity.

Bahati said he looked forward to discussions with Museveni that would result in a version of the Bill that would accommodate international interests while not compromising Uganda’s “internal principles”.

Rights groups and health workers have expressed relief that the bill now seems unlikely to be passed in its current form. ”I have always known that this Bill cannot be passed; if it is passed it will affect our international relations, but it is also a very cruel Bill,” said Frank Mugisha, chairman of the gay rights organization, Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG).

“Even without the Bill, the gay community operates from underground; we service providers were afraid, but now we know that the Bill will be debated and improved,” said Janeva Busingye, coordinator of the Ministry of Health’s Most at Risk Populations Initiative.

Men who have sex with men have been identified as a population at high risk of contracting and transmitting HIV, but they have never been included in Uganda’s national HIV/AIDS response, mainly because of existing laws outlawing homosexuality; a 2009 Modes of Transmission study recommended that legal impediments to their inclusion in the response be reviewed.

en/kr/mw source.irinnews

EGYPT: Signs of rising sectarian tension

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

CAIRO,  – A 6 January drive-by shooting on a Coptic Christian congregation leaving midnight mass on their Christmas Eve in Nagaa Hammadi, southern Egypt, has focused attention on decades-old tensions between Muslims and Christians in Egypt.

Six Copts and a Muslim security guard were killed in the attack which has sent shockwaves through the Coptic community and led to sporadic clashes between Christian protesters and security forces, and between Christians and Muslims.

“Everything in this country is leading up to a situation where non-Muslims are hated, denigrated, and even marginalized,” Youssef Sidhom, editor of Egypt’s Coptic weekly newspaper Watany, told IRIN. “Our education [system] fills the students with nothing but hatred and fear of those who are different.”

Sidhom believes anti-Christian sentiment has been sweeping this populous predominantly Muslim society since the early 1980s, when Islamic extremism began to rise. Coptic Christians make up about 10 percent of the country’s 80 million citizens, he said.

Recent incidents include five days of riots in the village of Farshout, near Nagaa Hammadi, with Christian properties set on fire, after an alleged rape of a Muslim girl by a Christian man.

Copts frequently say the authorities will not bring justice to the perpetrators of violence, and will not tackle the root of the sectarian problem.

Photo: ReliefWeb

A map of Egypt highlighting the town of Nagaa Hammadi, about 650km south of Cairo and 60km north of Luxor

“After every attack on the Copts, if it brings anybody to account, the government does nothing but arrest a big number of people and then try to reconcile these people without searching for the reasons for this attack,” said Kamal Zakhir, a Christian analyst. “The root causes of the violence aren’t addressed and this encourages me to say that sectarian tensions will continue to be a feature of life in Egypt for ever.”

Alleged injustices

Rights groups have for years sought to address what they say are systematic injustices towards the Christian community.

In 2008, an Amnesty International report said sectarian attacks on Copts had increased in 2008 and that “sporadic clashes between Coptic Christians and Muslims left eight people dead.”

In mid-2009, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, a local NGO defending the rights of minorities in Egypt, released a report on the plight of Egypt’s Copts. It said Copts suffered persecution, limits on practicing their religion and restrictions on building churches.

Egypt’s National Council for Human Rights has repeatedly called for giving Copts equal rights as far as the construction of prayer houses is concerned. There are only 4,000 churches in Egypt, according to Coptic leaders, while there are about 400,000 mosques.

Photo: US Copts Association

Coptic Christians gather around the coffins of the victims of the 6 January drive-by shooting

Intolerance fuelled by teachers, media

“This intolerance is new to our society,” said Soad Saleh, professor of Islamic Jurisprudence at al-Azhar University. “Many of this country’s schoolteachers and mosque imams fan these sectarian sentiments.”

She said some TV channels were also to blame for increasing tensions between the communities by portraying the adherents of other faiths as evil or bad.

“How long will we continue to bury our heads in the sand?” Coptic newspaper editor Sidhom asked. “Our school curricula must change. These curricula contain materials that demonize non-Muslims and fill the pupils with hatred towards whoever is different.”

Fouad Allam, former chief of the State Security Agency, also blamed sectarian tensions on the education system and “a big number of religious TV channels that spread nothing but hatred”. He criticized the manner in which the government was trying to resolve the matter: Dealing with it only as a security issue was “a gross mistake”.

“The government needs to formulate a comprehensive social, educational and political strategy to put an end to this,” he said.

ae/ed/cb source.irinnews

By Beauttah Omanga

The Italian Government will help market Kenyan products through conferences soon.

Italian Foreign Affairs Minister Franco Fratini, speaking after he held consultations with Prime Minister Raila Odinga, said the workshops to be addressed by Kenyan officials would be fully organised by his government.

“We will be organising major workshops in Italy to market Kenyan products,” said Fratini.

Raila said Kenya was banking on friendly foreign countries among them Italy to access new lucrative markets for her products.

The PM said Kenyans appreciated the gesture by the Italian Government

Fratini also disclosed plans by his government to finance construction of water Dams in various parts of the country to help reduce the commodity’s scarcity. “The Italian Government will finance various water projects in Kenya and I am sure at the end of the projects, thousands of Kenyans will immensely benefit” said the Minister.

Effects of drought

He said his Government would also revive a satellite project in Malindi as part of a wider campaign to address climatical effects being felt across the globe. The two leaders, who were accompanied by Foreign Affairs Assistant Minister Richard Onyonka, said the water projects would benefit thousands of Kenyans suffering due to lack of the essential commodity.

Raila said the soft water loan would be used to address the plight of people living in hard hit areas to enable them carry out some income generating activities among husbandry.

sour4ce.standard.ke

By Ben Agina

Two prominent Americans have launched a bid to block International Criminal Court from handling Kenya’s post-election violence trials.

Their suit echoes an earlier objection by a Belgian non-governmental organisation with the same aim.

The two, a lawyer and a political science professor, filed a suit on Tuesday that has raised questions as to their interest in the matter.

The International Criminal Court at the Hague. Two Americans, Prof Max Hilaire, who chairs Department of Political Sciences at Morgan State University, and a San Fransisco lawyer William Cohn, filed a suit at the Hague over the Kenya case, even though their country is not signatory to the statute that created the ICC. [PHOTO: courtesy]

They are seeking suspension of prayers by ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo for the court to take up Kenya’s case for at least 30 more days, so that they can raise their arguments. Their argument is Kenya’s case was, in legal terms, “overstretched” or “exaggerated” and does not meet ICC’s threshold for crimes against humanity. They say bringing the issue before the trial chamber (the phase where it is now) was unnecessary.

“We want to know why the case should go to The Hague since Kenya is not a failed State and efforts have already been made by the President and the Prime Minister to set up a local tribunal,” their suit document reads.

They also demand to know of “efforts to set up a local tribunal and actions of the President and the Prime Minister on the complementarity principle.”

The Americans want the ICC pre-trial judges to determine if the Kenyan situation qualifies as a “crime against humanity” or a “matter of civil unrest”.

Former US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Fraser in 2008 described the violence as falling short of genocide but rising to the level of crimes against humanity.

Earlier, the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) filed an objection to restrain the ICC from intervening in Kenya.

The Brussels-based NGO claims it has global membership but Kenyan activists claimed it is linked to powerful individuals in the Cabinet.

“It is instructive that this organisation has had no known basis or track record of commenting, acting or participating on any Kenyan issues,” they said.

Though their country is not a signatory to the Rome Statute that created ICC, Prof Max Hilaire who chairs Department of Political Sciences at Morgan State University, teamed up a San Fransisco lawyer Prof William Cohn to file a suit at The Hague.

In the suit, among other seven legal issues they intend to raise, are questions on whether Kenya’s case qualifies to be taken up by ICC.

Though the two booklovers could on academic joyride or serious academic venture, locally where President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga flatly declined to formally refer the Kenyan case to ICC, it will be speculation galore.

Pre-trial judges

Documents obtained by The Standard authored by the two show they want to be amicus curiae (friends of the court) before the Pre-trial chamber. If granted the status, they want the pre-trial judges, who were appointed to weigh the admissibility of the Kenyan case, to grant a stay on the decision on Moreno-Ocampo’s motion seeking their authority to commence investigation on Kenya’s high-profile suspects.

The arguments put up by the two professors are similar to those earlier advanced by PS Foreign Affairs Thuita Mwangi in a commentary critical of ICC’s handling of Kenya’s case.

The two Americans, however, have put up a disclaimer they are not affiliated to any organisation in Kenya or have taken any partisan position with regard to the Kenyan situation or any known suspect.

Three days before Moreno-Ocampo’s arrival in Nairobi, Mwangi dispatched an opinion article to newsrooms in which he criticised the prosecutor’s mission in Kenya.

Arguing it was too early for him to intervene, the PS questioned the legitimacy of the ICC’s jurisdiction over Kenya. He argued the ICC should not override Kenya’s justice system.

End impunity

Exuding confidence in the ability of the Judiciary to handle perpetrators of post-election mayhem, Mwangi petitioned Moreno-Ocampo to give Africa an opportunity to prove to the world she is ready, willing and able to end impunity.

In their submissions to pre-trial judges dated January 11, 2010, the Professors put out believe ICC intervention would ruin the political careers of key suspects said to be the Waki Envelope.

The professors want to know from the pre-trial judges the “long-term political and social aspects” relating to the prosecutions that have a bearing on the decision to commence investigation.

Professors Hilaire and Cohn would also want to know the cumulative effect of the efforts to set up a local tribunal and actions of the President Kibaki and Prime Minister on the complementarity principle and the interest of an investigations.

If granted the amicus curiae status, the professors would also want to know the extent of and progress in investigations and prosecutions of crimes against humanity in Kenya and the effect thereof on the complementarity principle under the ICC statute.

setting precedent

They are also questioning the timing of Prosecutor Ocampo’s application to the pre-trial chambers. In their justification to the court, the Americans said the orders sought by the prosecutor were precedent setting.

“This is the very first time in the history of ICC that the prosecutor seeks authorisation. It is important that the court clearly establishes the parameters for the exercise of jurisdiction in circumstance where a state with functional judicial system has not referred a situation to the court,” said the professors.

They noted as the prosecutor’s Motion under article 15 of the rules is essentially ex-parte, (for or by one party) it may be useful for the chamber to listen to other views and submissions on the applicable legal principles.

This development comes exactly a week after Imenti Central MP Gitobu Imanyara and human rights activists spoke of their disappointment at attempts to delay the Pre-Trial Chamber’s decision on Kenya’s post-election violence case.

An international lawyer’s organisation filed an objection to the case with ICC. The activists have also raised the red flag over an alleged plot to intimidate potential witnesses of the post-poll chaos through death threats, particularly in the North Rift and in internal refugee camps.

Addressing the press on Friday, last week, Imanyara, along with rights activists Ndung’u Wainaina, Haron Ndubi and Ken Wafula, said that a Cabinet minister who feels he might be on the list of suspected perpetrators was behind the plot.

Go slowly

The minister, Mr Ndubi claimed, had been promising the witnesses land for resettlement, money, jobs, and scholarships among other inducements.

In their statement, the activists said that the minister was said to have held a meeting with officials of the internally displaced from all camps in the Rift Valley on November 25, last year. He allegedly urged them to influence other camp residents to “go slowly” in submitting their views ICC.

source.standard.ke

By Cyrus Ombati

Controversial Jamaican cleric Sheikh Abdullah al-Faisal is still stuck in Nairobi as top Government officials met with diplomats to enhance his deportation.

An earlier plan to deport him to his home country on Wednesday night failed after an international airline declined to fly him because the US was yet to grant him a transit visa.

The airline was to make a stopover in Geneva en route to Jamaica via Miami in the US. This was after Switzerland agreed to grant the cleric a transit visa.

“America is yet to grant him a transit visa because the airline has to stop in Miami,” said a senior Government official who sought anonymity.

The development came as police said they would not allow a planned street demonstration by Muslim leaders today in Nairobi to protest the detention of the preacher.

But one of the organisers, Al-Amin Kimathi said they would go on with the protest.

“Police have no such powers to outlaw or allow a protest. We obliged by notifying them as per the requirements and our protests tomorrow (Friday) are on,” said Kimathi.

Sources said Commissioner of Police Mathew Iteere had on Wednesday met diplomats from the American Embassy as part of negotiations to have the preacher deported.

Sources said the issue was being handled at diplomatic level and it was a matter of time before al-Faisal was put on a plane for his home country.

source.standard.ke