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On 25 June 2004 Atiq-ur Rehman, a scientistworking for Pakistan’s Atomic EnergyCommission, went to the market to buy food forhis wedding guests. He was due to be marriedlater that day but he never returned home.According to police, he is being held in thecustody of an intelligence agency.Since Pakistan joined the US-led “waron terror” in late 2001, hundreds of peoplesuspected of links to terrorist activity have beenarbitrarily detained and held in secret detentionfacilities. They have no access to their families,lawyers or the courts, are outside the protectionof the law and are at risk of torture and otherill-treatment. When Atiq-ur Rehman’s familyapproached the local police, they were told theycould not lodge a complaint. Instead, he wasdeclared missing. The police appear not to haveinvestigated his disappearance. Various officialshave met with the family but have simplyreferred them to another authority. Army officialsadvised them to keep quiet and avoid publicityand legal proceedings.In June 2006 his family filed a habeascorpus petition with the Lahore High Court.During a hearing in the Supreme Court on 11 May2007, the Deputy Attorney General stated thatAtiq-ur Rehman was untraceable.
Please write, calling for the Pakistaniauthorities to make known the whereabouts ofAtiq-ur Rehman to his family. Ask that he iseither released immediately, or charged witha recognizably criminal offence and given afair trail. Send appeals to:Prime Minister GilaniPakistan SecretariatConstitution AvenueIslamabadPakistanFax: +92-519213780Salutation: Dear Prime Minister
Birtukan Mideksa is currently being held insolitary confinement while serving a lifesentence following the revocation of a pardonshe received in mid-2007. She was convicted forco-leading opposition protests against the 2005election results, during which some 187demonstrators and at least six police were killed.She was sentenced in 2006 alongside otheropposition leaders, journalists and human rightsdefenders.In mid-2007 the majority of those foundguilty, including Birtukan Mideksa, signedletters of apology and were subsequentlypardoned and released. However, the exact termsof their pardons remain unclear.In November 2008 Birtukan Mideksa spokeat a public meeting in Sweden, describing thenegotiations that led to her release, includingthe letter of apology she had signed. Upon herreturn to Addis Ababa, the government ofEthiopia gave her three days to retracther statement, which she refused to do. On28 December she was rearrested. Her pardonwas then revoked and her original life sentencere-imposed.She is currently being held in a cell said tomeasure two metres square, which previousinmates say is often unbearably hot. AmnestyInternational is concerned that, despite beingallowed visits from her four-year-old daughter,her mother and her sister, she is at risk of ill-treatment because of her overall isolation.Amnesty International considers her a prisonerof conscience.The European Commission could use itssignificant influence with the Ethiopiangovernment to press for Birtukan Mideksa’srelease.
Please write to Louis Michel, EuropeanCommissioner for Development andHumanitarian Aid, requesting that he use alldiplomatic means to press the Ethiopiangovernment to release Birtukan Mideksaimmediately and unconditionally.Send appeals to:Louis MichelEuropean Commissioner forDevelopment and Humanitarian AidBerlaymont 10 / 1651049 BrusselsBelgium
SCIENTISTDISAPPEAREDPAKISTAN ATIQ-UR REHMANETHIOPIA BIRTUKAN MIDEKSA
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LIFEIMPRISONMENTFOR DEMOCRACYCAMPAIGNER
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SAUDI ARABIA SULIAMON OLYFEMI
Nigerian national Suliamon Olyfemi is at risk ofimminent execution in Saudi Arabia following anunfair trial. He was detained during a massarrest of African nationals in September 2002after a policeman died in an alleged dispute withmigrant workers. He has always maintained hisinnocence.After his arrest, Suliamon Olyfemi wasmade to put his fingerprints on documentswritten in Arabic, a language he could notunderstand. It is possible that the fingerprintsserved as a signature, and that the documentswere used against him during his trial. The trialitself was conducted in Arabic and nointerpretation or translation was provided.Suliamon Olyfemi was not given any legalrepresentation and in late 2004 he wassentenced to death.In 2007 the Saudi Arabian Human RightsCommission said that Suliamon Olyfemi’s deathsentence had been upheld by the Court ofCassation and ratified by the Supreme JudicialCouncil. Suliamon Olyfemi has thereforeexhausted all levels of appeal and could beexecuted at any time. Amnesty International isparticularly concerned about his situation afterthe recent executions of five men, including aChadian national whose death sentenceAmnesty International had urged the SaudiArabian authorities to commute. So far this year,at least 48 people have been executed in SaudiArabia, including 15 foreign nationals.
Please write to the Head of State, KingAbdullah of Saudi Arabia, calling for SuliamonOlyfemi’s death sentence to be commuted.Please also write to the Nigerian authorities,asking them to raise the case with their SaudiArabian counterparts. Send appeals to:King Abdullah of Saudi ArabiaOffice of His Majesty the KingRoyal CourtRiyadhSaudi ArabiaSalutation: Your MajestyHis Excellency Oluyemi AdenijiMinister of Foreign AffairsMinistry of Foreign AffairsMaputo Street, Zone 3, Wuse DistrictPMB 130Abuja, Federal Capital TerritoryNigeriaSalutation: Your Excellency
MIGRANT WORKERFACES IMMINENTEXECUTION
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Daka Asani, a member of the Romani communityin Kosovo, was abducted from the local market inthe town of Uroševac/Ferizaj on 1 August 1999.In 2000, his body was exhumed from a singleunmarked grave near Pristina. Remains of 176other Albanians, Serbs and Roma were alsofound at the site.Daka Asani’s body was identified from DNAsamples given by his family. His remains werereturned to his family on 1 December 2006. Theywere told he had died from multiple gunshotwounds to the head and torso.This is one of thousands of cases ofenforced disappearance and abduction whichtook place around the time of the 1999 armedconflict in Kosovo. Approximately 3,000 ethnicAlbanians disappeared at the hands of theSerbian authorities, and around 800 Serbs andRoma were abducted by the Kosovo LiberationArmy (KLA). The United Nations Mission inKosovo (UNMIK) was originally responsible forinvestigating cases of enforced disappearanceand abductions. Following pressure fromAmnesty International, UNMIK beganinvestigations into a number of cases. InDecember 2008 a European Union Rule of LawMission, known as EULEX, took overresponsibility for the investigation andprosecution of war crimes in Kosovo.Despite repeated requests from his family,the abduction and death of Daka Asani havenever been investigated.
Please write to the head of EULEX, calling forthe abduction and death of Daka Asani to bepromptly investigated, and for thoseresponsible to be brought to justice.Send appeals to:Head of EULEX KosovoYves de KermabonSt. Mbreteresha Teuta 21Tauk Bahqe, Road to GermiaP.O. Box 268PristinaKosovoFax: +381 38 513 9333Email: info@eupt-kosovo.euSalutation: Dear Mr de Kermabon
ABDUCTED ANDKILLED
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HUMAN RIGHTSDEFENDERS AT RISK COLOMBIA MOVIMIENTO NACIONAL DE VÍCTIMAS DE CRÍMENES DE ESTADO, MOVICEBOSNIA ANDHERZEGOVINA FATHER TOMISLAV MATANOVIĆ
Father Tomislav Matanović, a Croatian Catholicparish priest from Prijedor in Bosnia andHerzegovina was arrested by local police on 24August 1995. He was detained in a police stationovernight and taken to his parents’ house thefollowing day. He was placed under house arrestalong with his father Josip and mother Božena.All three remained under police guard until19 September, when they were taken to the Urijepolice station. They were then subjected toenforced disappearance.In September 2001, the remains of threehandcuffed bodies were found in the bottom of awell in the village of Bisćani. Forensic testsrevealed that they were the bodies of theMatanović family. They had been shot at closerange and ballistic tests show that they wereshot with police-issue guns. The handcuffs onthe bodies were also of the type issued to thepolice, suggesting that those responsible for theextrajudicial executions of the Matanović familywere police officers.An investigation of 11 police officers isongoing. It has reportedly been established thatthese police officers were the last people to seethe Matanović family alive.Over a decade after the end of the war inBosnia and Herzegovina, at least 13,000 peopleare still missing. Many of them are victims ofenforced disappearance committed by membersof armies, police forces and paramilitary groupsinvolved in the 1992-95 war.
Please write, urging the Chief Prosecutor, inco-operation with the Ministry of the Interior,to promptly conclude the investigation into themurder of Tomislav Matanović and his parentsand bring the perpetrators to justice. Sendappeals to:Chief Prosecutor of Republika SrpskaAmor BukićVladike Platona bb78000 Banja LukaBosnia and HerzegovinaFax: +387 51 316 168Email: rjt@inecco.net
PRIEST’S FAMILYMURDERED
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The National Movement of Victims of StateCrimes (Movimiento Nacional de Víctimas deCrímenes de Estado, MOVICE) is a coalition ofmore than 200 non-governmental human rightsand social organizations. Formed in 2004,MOVICE campaigns for truth, justice andreparation for the countless victims of humanrights violations committed by the security forcesand paramilitary groups in Colombia’s long-running armed conflict. The conflict continues topit security forces and paramilitaries againstguerrilla groups.On 7 May 2009, a pamphlet signed by aparamilitary group was circulated in Bogotá. Itcontained a list of people and organizations thatwere ordered to leave the area or be killed,including a number of organizations belongingto MOVICE.On 11 May 2009, the daughter of AídaQuilcué, leader of an Indigenous rightsorganization that is part of MOVICE, wasthreatened at gunpoint outside her home. Thisoccurred after Aída Quilcué raised concerns atthe UN Human Rights Council about humanrights violations against Indigenous Peoples. Herhusband, Edwin Legarda, was killed by armytroops in controversial circumstances inDecember 2008.Members of MOVICE were also included inlists of human rights defenders andorganizations in military intelligence filesdiscovered in the Departments of Caquetá andAntioquia in May 2009. Those named on the listswere accused of being linked to the guerrillagroup FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionariasde Colombia). The Corporación Jurídica Libertad(Liberty Legal Corporation), a member of MOVICEfrom Medellín, and Domingo Emilio Pérez Cuellar,president of MOVICE in Caquetá, were amongthose listed.
Please write, urging the authorities to takeeffective measures to protect members ofMOVICE. Call for immediate investigations intothe attacks against human rights defenders inColombia. Send appeals to:Señor Presidente Álvaro UribePresidente de la RepúblicaPalacio de NariñoCarrera 8 No.7-26BogotáColombiaFax: +57 1 337 5890Salutation: Dear President Uribe
 
KOSOVO DAKA ASANI
 
‘I NEED TOKNOW WHATHAPPENEDTO HIM’
TITA RADILLA MARTINEZ
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