executes prisoners in secret jails (Video by RT) Archives

AZERBAIJAN Leyla Yunus The activist released from jail

December 9, 2015 by administrator

Baku, December 9, 2015 (AFP) – The Azerbaijani Justice released from prison Wednesday rights activist Leyla Yunus Human, commuting his sentence of eight and a half years in prison, suspended sentence, said a journalist from AFP at the trial.

The Baku Court of Appeal sentenced the activist to five years suspended sentence, Ms. Yunus justifying the release from prison of the deterioration of his health. She was sentenced in August to eight and a half years in prison for “fraud” and “tax evasion”.

Her husband, Arif Yunus, was also sentenced to seven years in prison for the same reasons before being released in November because of his poor health. Since he pleaded for the release of his wife, according to his lawyers who suffers from liver necrosis.

Leyla Yunus, director of the Institute for Peace and Democracy, and her husband Arif, renowned political analyst, were arrested in the summer of 2014 for “treason” and “tax evasion” charges that spouses reject. Justice accuses including Leyla Yunus espionage in favor of Armenia and attempt to “propaganda for recognition Nagorno Karabakh regime,” a separatist region that are fighting for decades Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Incarcerated for over a year, she said “she was beaten in his detention center.” The Ministry of Justice had denied the accusations.

The NGOs defending human rights, including Human Rights Watch (HRW), had repeatedly called for the release of this woman who has been campaigning for several years to promote reconciliation between Armenia and Azerbaijan on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The NGOs defending human rights regularly denounce the regime of President Ilham Aliyev, including any dispute as soon as it provokes a severe reaction from the authorities of that country’s oil-rich Caucasus.

Wednesday, December 9, 2015,
Ara © armenews.com

Terrorist State of #Turkey sentenced to jail pro-Kurdish MP over alleged PKK links

November 21, 2015 by administrator

This photo, provided by Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency, shows Turkish and pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) lawmaker Lezgin Botan (2nd-L).

A court in Turkey has sentenced a lawmaker from the country’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) to more than six years in prison over alleged affiliation to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

On Friday, the 2nd High Penal Court in Turkey’s eastern province of Van handed down a six-year-and-three-month jail term to Lezgin Botan.

Jail terms with similar lengths were also given to former HDP legislator Selami Ozyasar and two members from a teachers’ union.

They were convicted of being members of the Group of Communities in Kurdistan (KCK), which is said to be linked to the PKK.

MPs on hunger strike

Meanwhile, four HDP lawmakers have gone on hunger strike in a show of protest against a curfew imposed in the southeastern city of Nusaybin, situated 792 kilometers (492 miles) east of the capital, Ankara.

Turkish security officials placed Nusaybin under curfew on November 13, and military operations continue against PKK fighters in the area.

There are reports that the power is out in some 70 percent of the neighborhoods in Nusaybin, and one third of the population is experiencing cuts in water supplies.

Turkey has been engaged in a large-scale military campaign against the PKK in its southern border region in the recent past. The Turkish military has also been conducting offensives against the positions of the PKK in northern Iraq.

The operations began in the wake of a deadly July 20 bombing in the southern Turkish town of Suruc, an ethnically Kurdish town located close to border with Syria. Over 30 people died in the Suruc attack, which the Turkish government blamed on Takfiri Daesh terrorists.

After the bombing in Suruc, the PKK militants, who accuse the government in Ankara of supporting Daesh, engaged in a series of supposedly reprisal attacks against Turkish police and security forces, in turn prompting the Turkish military operations.

Amnesty Int’l: Al-Qaeda in Syria kidnaps, tortures, executes prisoners in secret jails (Video by RT)

December 19, 2013 by administrator

Abductions, torture, killing, sharia courts, secret prisons with “inhuman” conditions – that’s what an Al-Qaeda-linked jihadist group in Syria is accused of in the latest report by Amnesty International. Victims included children as young as eight.

According to the Amnesty report, people were seized by masked men, held for weeks on end in solitary confinement at unknown locations and tried by self-styled Islamic sharia courts, which frequently pass death sentences or impose harsh corporal punishment.

Video: http://rt.com/news/syria-qaeda-prison-detainees-478/

Video: http://rt.com/news/adra-syria-massacre-witnesses-355/

Former detainees described being beaten with rubber generator belts or cables, tortured with electric shocks and being forced into a painful stress position known as the “scorpion” in which the detainee’s wrists are bound over one shoulder.

All the prisoners detained by the group ISIS (the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham) were held in “cruel and inhuman conditions.”

For instance, two 14-year-olds were among those sentenced to floggings, and one of the fathers was forced to listen to his son’s screams of pain as the boy was tortured in a nearby room.

Another example provided by Amnesty concerns a child of about 14 receive a flogging of more than 90 lashes during interrogation at Sadd al-Ba’ath, an ISIS prison in al-Raqqa governorate. Another child of about 14 who ISIS accused of stealing a motorbike repeatedly received severe corporal punishment over several days.

Some people were held by ISIS for common crimes like theft, while others were detained for smoking, sex outside of marriage, or because they challenged the group’s rule or belong to other armed organizations.

Dozens of people have allegedly been detained over the past few months.

“After years in which they were prey to the brutality of (President Bashar al-Assad’s) regime, the people of Raqa and Aleppo are now suffering under a new form of tyranny imposed on them by ISIS, in which arbitrary detention, torture and executions have become the order of the day,” Philip Luther, Amnesty’s director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in the report.

Amnesty has called on Turkey and Gulf states that support the mainstream rebels to curb the flow of arms and aid to ISIS and other organizations accused of human rights violations.

“The Turkish government, in particular, should prevent its territory being used by ISIS to bring in arms and recruits to Syria. As well, Gulf states that have voiced support for the armed groups fighting against the Syrian government should take action to prevent arms flows, equipment or other support reaching ISIS in view of its appalling human rights record,” Luther said.

ISIS is notoriously known for orchestrating and conducting scores of suicide bombings and other attacks in Syria and Iraq.

The organization is reported to include big numbers of foreign fighters.

It’s not the first time that the Syrian rebel factions become known for human rights violations and extreme violence. On Wednesday, Russia condemned a massacre in the town of Adra, 20 kilometers north of Damascus, where jihadist rebel groups executed dozens of civilians, including children, beheading them or burning them alive. At least 80 people reportedly were killed.