Ciham Ali, disappeared by the Eritrean government
Written by Lotte van Liempd. [Trigger Warning: mentions of sexual violence]
With the 2021 Write for Rights campaign, Amnesty International is demanding the US to put diplomatic pressure on Eritrea to release Ciham Ali. Ciham Ali is a 23-year-old Eritrean girl who was born in Los Angeles. She moved back to Eritrea at a young age, where her father obtained a post as information minister in Eritrea. He fled the country in 2012 after a conflict with the increasingly autocratic President Isaias Afwerki. He was suspected by the President to have played a role in an attempted coup. Shortly after her father fled, Ciham tried to leave the country as well but she was arrested at the border with Sudan on the 8th of December, 2012. She was 15 at the time. Today, 9 years later, it is still unclear where Ciham is. She’s most likely being held in incommunicado detention, without trial or charge. This means that no one has been able to contact her for all these years. “By holding Ciham Ali incommunicado from the age of 15, the government has effectively disappeared her,” Felix Horne, a senior Africa researcher for Human Rights Watch said in 2019. He continued, “The release of Ciham and all of Eritrea’s political prisoners would send a clear message to the international community that the country’s leaders are embarking on a new path of increased respect for human rights.”
Ciham was attempting to leave the country out of fear for government retribution for her father’s defection, as well as fear for mandatory conscription. In Eritrea, young people are forced to join the armed forces for what is officially an 18-month period, but which in reality can extend to last a lifetime. This forced conscription includes practices that the UN Human Rights Council deemed “slavery-like”. In the 2015 report, the Council mentions especially “arbitrary detention, torture, sexual torture, forced labor, absence of leave and the ludicrous pay” within the Eritrean national service as topics of concern. Women and girls in military training camps face (sexual) violence and enforced domestic labor. People who refuse conscription and political dissidents are imprisoned and subjected to torture, forced labor and inhumane conditions. As with Ciham, this imprisonment happens without trial, charge and sometimes without the family knowing anything about their loved one’s whereabouts.
Ciham’s family has been trying to find out what happened to her for years. However, they are constantly told that “her case is being personally handled by the President and no one knows anything about it.” Because she has US citizenship, her uncle is convinced the US should take action to find her. He told CNN, “I really thought the government of the United States would scream bloody murder but no one is speaking for her. It's very, very disappointing.”
Organisations such as One Day Seyoum, have been calling attention to Ciham’s fate for years with campaigns such as #happybirthdayCiham. Even though Ciham is a US citizen, the US hasn’t done anything to obtain information about her whereabouts and hasn’t pushed for her release. Amnesty International demands in this year’s Write for Rights campaign that the US puts pressure on Eritrea to release Ciham. At the same time, Amnesty is calling attention to the fate of all political prisoners, forced conscripts and all people suffering human rights violations in Eritrea.
Imoleayo Michael and the #EndSARS Protests in Nigeria
Written by Anandi Sweere
This year, one of the people the Write for Rights Committee is advocating for is Imoleayo Michael. He is a young Nigerian computer programmer who attended an #EndSARS protest and was arrested and locked up after. Whilst free now, he is facing charges by the Nigerian government of ‘disturbing public peace’ that could result in him ending up in jail for many years. He received these charges only for joining a protest while he was speaking up about police brutality.
SARS is short for the Special Anti-Robbery Squad. The squad was created in Nigeria in 1992 to deal with the increase in armed robbery in Lagos and other states. They have the mandate to investigate, arrest and prosecute suspected violent criminals. However, soon after its creation it started abusing its power and the squad has been implicated repeatedly in issues of extortion, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, torture and unlawful detention. Already in 2006 the first reports regarding the abuses committed by SARS came out and governmental reforms were promised. However, nothing significant has changed and empty promises have continued to be made over the years. During this time SARS has continued to act with impunity. Amnesty International has produced many reports documenting the crimes committed by SARS, but not only NGOs were responding. The Nigerian people themselves started to use their voice to call for an end to SARS as well. In 2017, the social media campaign #EndSARS was created to demand an end to the impunity of SARS for all the human rights violations it committed and to disband the squads once and for all.
This #EndSARS campaign leads us all the way to October 2020. In the start of that month a video went viral on social media showing two men being dragged from a hotel by SARS members and one of them being executed on the spot. This re-sparked the outrage against SARS and many protests erupted around Nigeria. It is one of these protests that Imoleayo Michael joined. These protests have been violently repressed. The most infamous example is the protest on 20 October at Lekki Toll Gate which ended in the Nigerian army using live bullets to end the protest, killing at least 12 people. Amnesty International estimates that around 56 people will have died in the October 2020 #EndSARS protests. Protests against police brutality have been shut down through the same use of police brutality the people were protesting against.
But not only the protests themselves are being repressed, people involved have beenindividually targeted as well with amongst others asset freezes, passport seizures and criminal charges. It is in this light that Imoleayo Michael is facing“trumped-up” charges of ‘disturbing public peace’ for his participation in the #EndSARS protest. Amnesty International and the Write for Rights campaign is advocating for these charges to be dropped immediately. And in the broader issue, Amnesty International is advocating to put an end to the impunity of police violence by SARS in Nigeria.
Mikita Zalatarou
Written by Roos Neuteboom
What happend to Mikita Zalatarou?
In August 2020 Mikita Zalatarou (16) was standing near the main square of his hometown Homel, Belarus. He was waiting for a friend when he saw a big crowd running away, and someone told him to run as well. This crowd was a group of largely peaceful protestors, showing the authorities they want fair and transparent elections.
A day later, the 11th of August, the police showed up at Mikita’s house. They arrested him and put him in police custody, because he was accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail towards officers at the protest. Officers beat, electrocuted and interrogated him without a lawyer or responsible adult present. And they locked him up for six months before putting him on trial. This is not only problematic because we’re talking about an underage boy with epilepsy, but also because there is simply no evidence for the things Mikita was convicted of: mass disorder and using illegal explosives. There was not even video footage showing Mikita took part in the protest in the first place. The judge still sentenced Mikita to five years in a child educational prison colony. “He spent more than 6 months in pre-trial detention and is currently in solitary confinement. For minors, this amounts to torture or other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment”, says Marie Struthers from Amnesty Eastern Europe and Central Asia. His mother was barred from visiting him in the penal colony. “When she asked the guard to take a photo of the son to show her that he was alive, the guard answered that such things are forbidden. And she had to return home with a heavy heart,” Mikita’s father Mikhail Lapunou said. In the meantime, Mikita had not been able to continue his education since November 2020.
What is going on in Belarus?
In August 2020 a lot of Belarusians got on the streets to protest against the foul play in the elections. Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko has been the president of Belarus since its independence in 1994. How he could last this long is questionable. At first in 1996, he reduced the power of the legislature that could impeach him and term limits were abolished. A research by Freedom House in 2020 revealed restrictions on freedom of expression during the campaign period, irregularities in vote counting, political alignment of the electoral commission with Lukashenko, and so on. From this point, Belarus would rather be described as Europe's last dictatorship. Lately Belarus has been in the news a lot again, because of the Belarus-Poland border conflict. However, the current migrant crisis at this border seems to be a way to shift the attention to a different issue than Lukashenko’s dictatorship.
Not only can you support Mikita, a victim of his own government, by sending him or the Belarusian authorities a letter, you can also help by signing the following petition:
How you can get involved with Write for Rights
You can find information about the Write for Rights 2021 campaign and all the people Amnesty is writing letters for here.
You can join the campaign in the Netherlands by ordering a letter-writing package here, or sign an online letter here (in Dutch, the English versions can be found here).
You can join the online letter writing event of Amnesty Netherlands on the 10th of December here (17.00-22.00).
And join the AISU Write for Rights online writing event on the 13th of December (17.30-19.30). You can even win a lottery by writing many letters! You can find information on the AISU Instagram page.
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