impunity

Lawyer who predicted his own death: “I was murdered by President Colom”

Sophie Team Observers — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:36:50 +0200

"If you are currently watching or listening to this message, it's because I was murdered by President Alvaro Colom". Four days later, lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzan was shot dead in broad daylight.

The 47-year-old was killed last Sunday while out cycling in the Guatemalan capital. In this video, which he recorded beforehand, he charges President Colom responsible for both his own death (yet to come), and the deaths of businessman Khalid Musa and his daughter Marjorie Musa of 14 April 2008. According to Marzan, the victims were killed off in an attempt to cover up the embezzlement of public funds and laundering of money earned through trafficking drugs. The alleged dealings included Banrural, one of the country's biggest part state-owned banks.

The government immediately denied the allegations. In a press conference last Monday, a spokesperson for the president described the claims as a "conspiracy to destabilise the country", and on the same day, the president himself called on the FBI and the UN's International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala to find "those really responsible for the crime". His words however, did not convince the public, who, in calling for his resignation, staged mass protests in the capital.

The latest victim of a shoe-hurling

Sophie Team Observers — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 11:10:27 +0200

In launching his shoe at Gerorge Bush in January, journalist Mountazer al-Zaidi also launched a global trend. China's Prime Minister Wen Jiabao was subjected to a similar attack in February in Cambridge. This time, it's Indian Interior Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram. The weapon - a trainer. The assailant - a Sikh journalist.

Jarnail Singh is a reporter for Hindi daily Dainik Jagran. On 7 April, he attended a press conference given by the interior minister. The subject at hand was the acquittal of Jagdish Tytler, an Indian National Congress party member and one of those accused of the Sikh massacre of November 1984. The riots, in which 3,000 Sikhs were killed, were in retaliation to the murder of the then Prime Minister of India, Indira Ghandi, who was killed by her two Sikh bodyguards.

The new shoe-hurling journalist, Sikh himself, is reported to have thrown his shoe after he become exasperated by the minister's alleged dodging of questions over the responsibility of the massacre. Palaniappan Chidambaram says he has forgiven the journalist for the act.

The world's deadliest job: defending human rights in Russia

Sophie Team Observers — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 17:06:00 +0100

Mourners commemorate a human rights lawyer's death. Image: "Dave Pyle".

Lawyer and human rights defender Stanislas Markelov, 34, was shot dead on 19 January after leaving a press conference not far from the Kremlin. His death hasn't come as a great surprise in Russia, where mysterious killings end up lost to a culture of impunity.

Stanislav Markelov was a controversial figure in Russia. He once represented Anna Politkovskaya, the journalist who dared to write about Chechen war crimes, herself killed in 2006. Markelov had just finished telling reporters that Yuri Budanov, a Russian soldier condemned for raping and killing an 18-year-old Chechen girl, was being released from prison. On leaving the press conference, he was shot by a masked gunman, who also killed 25-year-old Anastasia Barburova, a Novaya Gazeta journalist who had come to Markelov's aid. The client behind the attack, evidently committed by a professional, has yet to be identified - and probably never will. Markelov is just the latest in a long list of investigative journalists and human rights advocates shot, stabbed or poisoned to death by killers who go unfound and untried.

A few of Russia's most famous unsolved murders:

1993 - Nikolay Likhachev, banker
1994 - Dmitry Kholodov, journalist
1995 - Vladislav Listiev, journalist
1996 - Paul Tatum, businessman
1997 - Mikhail Manevich, member of State Duma [MP]
1998 - Galina Starovoitova, member of State Duma [MP]
1999 - Viktor Novoselov, vice-speaker of St Petersburg city parliament
2000 - Ilya Vaisman, businessman
2001 - Igor Belyakov, vice-mayor of Novosibirsk
2002 - Vladimir Golovlev, member of State Duma [MP]
2003 - Sergey Yushenkov, member of State Duma [MP]
2004 - Paul Khlebnikov, journalist
2005 - Ayrat Sharipov, businessman
2006 - Anna Politkovskaya, journalist
2007 - Farid Babayev, political activist
2008 - Ruslan Yamadaev, member of State Duma [MP], Chechen opposition leader.