TIGblogs TIG | TIGblogs GROUP TIGBLOGS LOGIN SIGNUP
Ishwor - My Blog
Ishwor - My Blog
« previous 5


Video exposes Indian police brutality
Related to country: India

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

UTTAR PRADESH, India (CNN) -- An Indian police office grabs two fists-full of a suspect's hair; twists and then lifts until the suspect's feet dangle off ground. The suspect: A 6-year-old girl accused of stealing 280 rupees or about 6 dollars. The incident resulted in one officer being fired, another suspended. Charges against the girl were dropped. It was all caught on tape in February of this year.


Harcharand Singh and his wife. Mr Singh says their son, accused of thief, died in police custody.

Two years earlier in another Indian state another caught on tape moment. A police officer watches as a crowd beats an accused thief. Then the policeman binds the suspect and ends up dragging him behind a motorcycle leaving large raw patches of skin on the suspect's body. The accused survived the thrashing. Two officers were fired in the incident but were later reinstated by a panel that blamed the crowd.

Brutal police tactics are all too common in India according to the latest report by Human Rights Watch in India. Naureen Shah with Human Rights Watch says the report is based on interviews with 80 police, 60 alleged victims and other experts.

"The police are taking the law into their own hands." Shah says. "They are acting as a vigilante force and they're saying this is a bad guy instead of building a case against him we're going to kill him, we're going to take these harsh measure cause it has to get done."

"Police administration are meant to protect, but they are becoming predators." Harcharand Singh says. He is the father of a suspect he says died in police custody.

Singh and his wife are dirt poor and partially blind. They sit on a bed with tears in their eyes as they speak about losing their son Pradeep.

They say police hauled Pradeep away one night accusing him of being involved in a car theft and shooting. Days later they say he died in police custody. Police refused to comment on the case or the report.

"We are scared." Mother Ram Vati Singh says through tears. "What else can we do? We have no money so that we can leave or put up a fight with the police."

The case was one of dozens highlighted in the Human Rights Watch report used as yet another example of what they say is out of control police behavior
police stations for days even months at a time unable to go home to see their families because they are expected to be on call 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

Some work and live in tents in scorching temperatures. Their bathroom facilities are often wretched. Their cooking facilities sometimes made up of bricks with fire wood. The number of cases and pressure to solve them is intense. Police also say they are short staffed. One police official told us in his jurisdiction there are 70 police for a population of 250-thousand people, something CNN is unable to independently confirm. There are no computers for reports so police officers fill everything out by hand. Some departments even run out of paper to write the reports according to the Human Rights Watch report.

Former Delhi Police Commissioner Ved Marwah says the conditions are dire.

"The policemen are treated very inhumanly and that's why he gets desensitized and brutalized by his living and working conditions an by his interaction with the common citizen and with his superiors and that desensitization is reflected in the way an average policeman deals with the public at large." Marwah says.

Marwah says there is also interference from politicians in police investigations.

"Politics plays a very negative role." He says. Today's politicians, every politician there are good politicians and bad politicians, every politician looks upon it as a profession and he's there to make a quick buck and when he gets that control over the police, he uses an misuses not to ensure that the police enforces the rule of law, but to see that the police commits or doesn't commit a particular action to help him in his personal ends."

Efforts to reform police activities were ordered by India's supreme court three years ago. Marwah and Human Rights Watch both agree the ruling was never implemented. However the current government is promising changes. But Marwah says until it really happens, the abuses by and to police will continue unabated.

"Because ultimately the police, unlike the army, is absolutely under political control. He says "If those who control the police have no will to reform it, then nothing is going to happen."

August 26, 2009 | 8:51 AM Comments  0 comments

Tags:


Red Cross worker among Afghan bomb victims
Related to country: Afghanistan

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- A Red Cross worker was among the 43 people killed in a massive car bombing in southern Afghanistan, the aid organization said Wednesday.


Ballots continue to be counted in Afghanistan's presidential election.

more photos » A tanker truck full of explosives went off Tuesday in front of a Japanese construction company in Kandahar, officials said. The blast was so intense that windows shattered in homes a kilometer (0.62 miles) away.

An Afghan water engineer working for the International Committee of the Red Cross was killed when the blast collapsed the ceiling of the room he was in, the organization said.

Abdul Wadood, 48, had worked for the Red Cross for six years, the aid group said. He leaves a widow and 10 children, who were not home when the blast occurred.

"The ICRC is deeply shocked by the death of a much-loved colleague, and extends its deepest sympathy to Mr. Wadood's family," the organization said in a statement.

No one has claimed responsibility for Tuesday's attack, which happened in a largely residential neighborhood, the Red Cross said.

It left 43 people dead and 75 wounded, said Col. Fazel Ahmad, the chief police commander of Kandahar province. Most of the victims were civilians, the Red Cross said, and children were among them, Ahmad said.

The bomb came as Afghan election officials continued to count ballots in the country's presidential election. On Tuesday they said partial election results put incumbent President Hamid Karzai ahead of his main rival by a slim margin.

Based on 10 percent of the votes counted, Karzai received 212,927 votes compared with rival Abdullah Abdullah who received 202,889 votes.

Full results are expected to be released in mid-September. If no candidate gets 50 percent of the vote, there will be a runoff -- most likely in mid-October.

Abdullah, who was foreign minister under Karzai, has accused the incumbent of rigging the August 20 elections in his favor.

Six other presidential candidates have also called for an investigation into "widespread fraud and intimidation" which they said could cast doubt on the legitimacy of the vote. But unlike Abdullah, they did not accuse Karzai of having a role in the alleged fraud.

America's top diplomat for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke tried to downplay the post-election dispute, calling it "politics, Afghan-style."

August 26, 2009 | 8:48 AM Comments  0 comments

Tags:


Monitors: Taliban cut off fingers of Afghan voters
Related to country: Afghanistan

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Making good on a threat of election day violence, the Taliban sliced off the index fingers of at least two people in Kandahar province, according to a vote monitoring group.

Electoral workers count votes at a school in Kabul.
more photos » After they cast their ballots, the fingers of Afghan voters are stained with ink to prevent them from voting multiple times. The fingers of the two women in Kandahar, a stronghold of the Taliban, were cut off because they voted, said Nader Naderi of the Free and Fair Election Foundation.

The Taliban had vowed to disrupt Thursday's election and the risk was too great for some Afghans to venture out, especially in the southern provinces that form the heartland of the radical Islamist group.

Just days ahead of the election, U.S. Marines and other NATO forces carried out military operations to clear and hold sectors that have long been in the Taliban grip, and free up the population to vote.

Sporadic attacks on election day killed 26 people and injured scores more. Still, Afghan officials hailed the voting as a success.

On Friday, the European Union echoed those sentiments and congratulated Afghanistan for holding elections under what it called challenging circumstances. Watch how counting is under way in Afghan provinces

"While deploring the loss of life, we believe that the security measures successfully prevented any major disruptions of the elections," the E.U. said in a statement.

Preliminary results will be announced on a piecemeal basis from Tuesday to September 5, according to the Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan.

Zekeria Barakzi, the deputy chief electoral officer for the commission, told CNN that as of Friday, the counting was complete in 30 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces.

Barakzi said that after September 5 there would be a period -- which could last a month -- of accepting objections and complaints about the elections.

A spokeswoman for the American Embassy in Kabul said the United States has "every confidence that they (the commission members) will be able to finish this part of the electoral process in a transparent fashion"

Meanwhile, the top two presidential candidates -- President Hamid Karzai and his chief rival Abdullah Abdullah -- positioned themselves as the likely winners in the race.

Karzai's campaign team claimed Friday he was on track for victory in the country's presidential election, while Abdullah also said he was leading the vote.

Their claims came as election officials said the results of the vote, seen as a judgment on the Karzai government's efforts in tackling Taliban insurgents, poverty and corruption, would be rolled out starting August 25.

Meanwhile Abdullah, seen as Karzai's main challenger, told Associated Press Television that he believed he was leading, characterizing the vote count as "promising" despite what he described as sporadic "rigging" across the country.

Thursday's election, the country's second since the 2001 fall of the Taliban, was held amid a climate of fear as militants threatened to violently disrupt the process. Violence on voting day killed 26 Afghans and injured scores more.


U.S. President Barack Obama offered strong praise Friday for the election, calling it "an important step forward" in Afghanistan's struggle for democracy in the face of ideological extremists.

"The future belongs to those who want to build, not ... destroy," Obama said at the White House, adding that he was struck by the "courage in the face of intimidation" demonstrated by the millions of Afghans who went to the polls.

August 22, 2009 | 9:54 AM Comments  0 comments

Tags:


Blair denies Libyan claims of Lockerbie deal
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

BEIJING, China (CNN) -- Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Saturday no deals were ever made with Libya while he was in power to arrange the Lockerbie bomber's release, a move that has caused outrage in the United States.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi (second from left) arrives in Tripoli, Libya.
In an exclusive interview with CNN, Blair denied claims -- made Friday by the son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi -- that he raised the case of Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi every time he visited Libya as prime minister.

"Let me make one thing absolutely clear," Blair, who stepped down as PM in 2007, told CNN's John Vause on Saturday in Guiyang, China. "The Libyans, of course, were raising the case for Megrahi all the way along, not just with me but with everybody. It was a major national concern for them. But as I used to say to them, I don't have the power to release Mr. Megrahi."

Colonel Gadhafi's son, Saif al-Islam Gadhafi, made his comments in an interview with Libyan channel Al Mutawassit, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported. The interview was conducted Thursday while he flew with al Megrahi from Scotland to Libya after the convicted bomber's release from prison.

"The release that has taken place is a decision by the Scottish Executive, which has taken place on compassionate grounds," Blair said. "Those compassionate grounds didn't even exist a few years back.

"So yes, of course it's absolutely right the Libyans were always raising this issue, but we made it clear that the only way this could be dealt with was through the proper procedures."

Al Megrahi had been serving a life sentence for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in which 270 people -- including 189 Americans -- were killed. Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill freed al Megrahi after doctors concluded he has terminal prostate cancer and has three months to live.

"All British interests were linked to the release of Abdelbaset al Megrahi," AFP reported Gadhafi as saying, citing the Al Mutawassit broadcast.

"In all commercial contracts, for oil and gas with Britain, (al Megrahi) was always on the negotiating table," Gadhafi said, according to AFP, adding that Blair raised al Megrahi's case each time he visited Libya.

Asked by CNN whether a major $900-million oil deal that Britain signed with Libya in 2004 had anything to do with al Megrahi, Blair said no.

"How could it?" he said. "I wasn't in a position to say so-and-so should be released. That's not the way the British system works. And the release of Mr. Megrahi, as I understand it, has been done by the Scottish Executive which, obviously, not only myself, but my successor, has no influence over."

Blair added: "Were the Libyans always raising it? Of course. They always raised it. It's a major issue."

The British Foreign Office also denied the younger Gadhafi's claims in a statement issued late Thursday.
"No deal has been made between the UK Government and Libya in relation to Megrahi and any commercial interests in Libya," said the statement obtained by CNN. "All decisions relating to Megrahi's case have been exclusively for Scottish ministers, the Crown Office in Scotland and the Scottish judicial authorities."

The newly freed al Megrahi met the elder Gadhafi late Friday in Libya, giving him a hug and kissing the leader's hand. Gadhafi thanked authorities for releasing al Megrahi.

Saif al-Islam Gadhafi also called al Megrahi's release "a victory that we offer to all Libyans," according to AFP.

The U.S. State Department blasted the comments by Saif al-Islam Gadhafi. Assistant Secretary of State P.J. Crowley told CNN that "al Megrahi is a terrorist and mass murderer, and any triumphalism is disgusting."

Both U.S. and British leaders have denounced the hero's welcome that al Megrahi received on his return to Libya, where a flag-waving crowd cheered for him and honked horns.

"We have told the Libyans that he should not be considered a hero -- not today, not ever. The Libyans are aware that their treatment of Megrahi will have a profound impact on our bilateral relationship," Crowley said.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday said the joyous welcome al Megrahi received after arriving in Libya was "highly objectionable." British Foreign Secretary David Miliband called it "deeply upsetting."

Al Megrahi always maintained his innocence, complaining that he had spent years in prison for something he did not do.


The Libyan government had accepted responsibility for the bombing and compensated victims' families in a $2.7 billion deal that paved the way for sanctions against Libya to be dropped and for Tripoli to improve ties with the West.

But Thursday, after al Megrahi's return, the Libyan official news agency JANA issued a statement from the government saying that al Megrahi had been "a political hostage," as evidenced by his release.

August 22, 2009 | 9:50 AM Comments  0 comments

Tags:


Abducted French tourist released in Pakistan
Related to country: France

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

PARIS, France (CNN) -- A French tourist who was taken hostage in Pakistan on May 23 was released Friday, the French government said.

Armed men abducted the tourist in Baluchistan, in southern Pakistan, the government said. Kidnappers released the tourist and handed him over to authorities.

August 21, 2009 | 11:17 AM Comments  0 comments

Tags:


« previous 5


Ishwor's Profile

Ishwor's Friends


Latest Posts
Video exposes Indian...
Red Cross worker among...
Monitors: Taliban cut...
Blair denies Libyan...
Abducted French...

Monthly Archive
July 2009
August 2009

Change Language


Filter By Type
Travel
Topics

Friends
basha
Dave Matthews
Dela
Ikahota
Invisible Youth Network
J
jorge
Kelli Korducki
lynn rose
Ms. Noha Rahhal
Suneboy


20157 views
Important Disclaimer