Spanish organizations oppose a resolution that could end Spain’s universal jurisdiction

In support of Universal Jurisdiction

The social organizations, solidarity groups, development NGOs and human rights associations, as well as persons of the academic and legal sphere, listed below:

WE EXPRESS our opposition to the approval by the Spanish Congress of Deputies of the Resolution that limits the exercise of the universal penal jurisdiction by the Spanish courts and restricts their jurisdiction to the cases in which those presumed responsible are found in Spain or to the fact that there are victims of Spanish nationality.

WE RECALL, once again, that as a signatory of the Geneva Agreements of 1949 on Humanitarian International Law and the Additional Protocol I to these Agreements, related to the protection of victims of international armed conflicts, Spain is obliged to maintain the universal jurisdiction principle within its legislation in order to judge those responsible for war crimes. Because of this, we consider this resolution a clear disregard of the conventional obligations assumed by the Spanish State. In relation to other international crimes as crimes against humanity or genocide, defined by International Law, on the extent that it prevents them from being prosecuted, its approval also implies an act of concealment. Consequently, the decision will also evidently limit the rights of the victims.

WE REQUEST that the Government not continue with the reform of Article 23.4 of the Organic Law of the Judicial Power which could prejudice ongoing causes. We believe that the Spanish Government is obliged to prefer the fulfilment of its international commitments
and the defence of human rights over contingent national interests and economic or political pressures.

Manifesto signed by:

ACSUR – Las Segovias, Adriana Ortiz Martínez, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, Al Quds Málaga, Alberto Arce, director de documentales y activista por Palestina, Alliance for Freedom and Dignity de España, Angeles Diez Rodríguez, Profesora Contratada Doctor, Facultad de CC. Políticas y Sociología de la UCM, Antonio Segura, abogado, Asociación Cultura, Paz y Solidaridad Haydée Santamaría, Asociación de Solidaridad de los trabajadores y trabajadoras de los países empobrecidos, Sotermun, Asociación Elcàlam – Comité de defensa de los derechos humanos en el Magreb, Asociación Hispano Palestina Jerusalén, Asociación Paz Ahora, Asociación Paz con Dignidad, Associacio Cultura, Pau i Solidaritat Haydée Santamaría de Catalunya, Bárbara Azaola Piazza, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Carla Canal Rosich, Barcelona, Carmen Pérez González, Profesora de Derecho Internacional Público, Univ. Carlos III Madrid, CIEMEN, Barcelona, Comisión Española de Ayuda al refugiado – CEAR, Comité de Solidaridad con la Causa Árabe – CSCA, Ester Jiménez de Cisneros Puig, FEDERACIÓN DE ASOCIACIONES DE DEFENSA Y PROMOCIÓN DE LOS DERECHOS HUMANOS-ESPAÑA: Asociación para las Naciones Unidas en España (ANUE), Asociación para la Defensa de la Libertad Religiosa (ADLR), Comisión Española de Ayuda al Refugiado (CEAR), Institut de Drets Humans de Catalunya (IDHC), Instituto de Estudios Políticos para América Latina y África (IEPALA), Justicia y Paz, Liga Española Pro Derechos Humanos, Movimiento por la Paz – (MPDL), Paz y Cooperación, Mundubat, UNESCO Etxea, Plataforma de Mujeres Artistas contra la Violencia de Género, Coordinadora Estatal de Asociaciones Solidarias con el Sáhara (CEAS-Sáhara), Asociacion Española para el Derecho Internacional de los Derechos Humanos (AEDIDH). Ferran Izquierdo Brichs, Profesor de Relaciones Internacionales, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, François Houtart. Profesor Emérito Universidad de Lovaina, Bélgica, Fundación CEAR, Fundación IEPALA, Fundación Mundubat, Gemma Casal Fité, CCDR – Universitat de Lleida, Grupo de ONG por Palestina, Ignacio Álvarez Ossorio, Profesor del Área de Estudios árabes e islámicos, Universidad de Alicante, Ignacio Castien, Profesor Contratado Doctor, Facultad de CC. Políticas y Sociología UCM, Instituto de Estudios sobre Conflictos y Acción Humanitaria IECAH, International Jewish Antizionist Network – IJAN,Irene Fernández Molina, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Isaías Barreñada Bajo, miembro de la junta directiva de ACSUR, Izquierda Unida, Joan Coma i Roura, José Abu-Tarbush, Profesor de la Universidad de La Laguna, Juana Moreno Nieto, Instituto de Estudios Sociales Avanzados, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (IESA-CSIC), Laura Camargo Fernández Profesora Universitat de les Illes Balears, Lidón Soriano Segarra (Profesora Universidad Camilo José Cela. Madrid, Manuela Piazza Manuello, Marc Agramunt Mayà, Setem, Maria Jose Lera, Profesora Titular Universidad de Sevilla, premio Clara Campoamor 2009, Marta Godinho Marques de Carvalho, Marta Ter Ferrer, Lliga dels Drets dels Pobles, Mercè Adrové Ariño, Mujeres por la Paz y Acción Solidaria con Palestina – canarias, Najaty S. Jabary, Nieves Ortega García, Profesora Asociada de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Palestinarekin Elkartasuna, Pamplona – Iruña, Pascual Serrano, periodista, Pedro Azaola Rodríguez- Espina, médico, Pierre Galand, Presidente del European Co-ordinating Committee of NGOs on the Question of Palestine, Pilar Salamanca, Plataforma 2015 y más, Plataforma de solidaridad con el pueblo palestino de Ibiza, Plataforma de Solidaridad con Palestina de Sevilla, Plataforma Solidaria con Palestina – Valladolid, Rafael Escudero Alday, Profesor Titular de Derecho, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Rafaél González Fernández Profesor Titular Facultad de CC. Políticas y Sociología de la UCM, Red de Jóvenes Palestinos, Red Solidaria contra la Ocupación de Palestina, Santiago Alba Rico, escritor y filósofo, Sergio García Arcos, Sodepau, Sodepaz – Valladolid, Sodepaz, Taula per Palestina, Illes Balears, Unión Sindical Obrera – USO, Willy Meyer Pleite, eurodiputado de Izquierda Unida, Xarxa d’Enllaç amb Palestina

Spain signals end to war crimes, genocide hunting

Ben Harding | Reuters

20 May 2009

Spanish judges who tried to extradite ex-Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and investigate Bush administration officials over Guantanamo will likely be barred from doing so again after a parliamentary vote on Tuesday.

Under pressure from foreign governments, members of Spain’s congress almost unanimously passed a resolution which, if translated into law, would end the right of Spanish judges to investigate serious crimes like genocide anywhere in the world in cases where courts in the affected country do not act.

The resolution would restrict Spain, which had been praised by international campaigners, to only investigating cases in which the accused is in Spain or Spaniards are victims.

Spain’s Socialist government said earlier this year it would change the law after protests from Israel over the High Court’s decision in January to launch a war crimes probe into seven Israelis including former defence minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer for a 2002 attack in the Gaza Strip that killed 14 civilians and a Hamas leader.

U.S. President Barack Obama has also expressed his opposition to moves by Spanish courts to begin a probe into former Bush officials, including then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, over torture allegations at Guantanamo Bay.

“There will be fewer places a victim can turn when he does not find justice in his own country,” said Reed Brody, spokesman for non-governmental organisation Human Rights Watch. “There’s no doubt that the diplomatic heavyweights were throwing their weight around”.

The opposition-backed resolution covering a number of reforms to the judicial system was backed by 338 deputies to eight against.

The vote is the first step in formally changing a law which was used by Judge Baltazar Garzon to request Pinochet’s arrest and extradition from Britain in 1998.

Although the British government ultimately allowed him to return to Chile, his arrest spurred efforts in Chile to prosecute the atrocities committed while he was in power.

European diplomats have privately expressed concern that the law could oblige them to arrest members of friendly governments under EU-wide legal agreements.

It is unclear whether any change in the law would be retroactive and wipe the slate clean of cases currently under investigation.

Those include a request by a Madrid judge to interrogate eight senior Chinese officials including its defence minister as part of an investigation into the deaths of at least 203 Tibetans during disturbances in 2008.

Spain to limit judges’ jurisdiction; includes probe against Israelis

The Jerusalem Post

20 May 2009

Spain’s congress on Tuesday reportedly passed a resolution to limit the jurisdiction of investigative judges.

The move follows pressure from foreign governments such as the US, China and Israel, which has strongly criticized Judge Fernando Andreu’s ongoing investigation into the 2002 assassination of Hamas terrorist Salah Shehadeh in Gaza, in which 14 others were also killed.

The resolution confines judges to cases with a clear Spanish connection and excludes them from probing investigations already under way in the country that allegedly committed the crime, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

The move effectively reins in Spain’s investigative judges from dealing with crimes against humanity allegedly committed around the world. The investigating judges of Spain’s National Court have been employing the so-called principle of universal jurisdiction – which holds that for grave crimes such as genocide, terrorism or torture, suspects can be prosecuted in the country even if the alleged offenses were committed elsewhere – to 13 cases involving events that took place in other countries, from Rwanda to Iraq.

Under the new resolution, however, cases taken up by the judges would now have to involve a Spanish citizen or the accused would have to be on Spanish soil, the WSJ reported. The Spanish government will now introduce legislation, which the major parties in Congress have agreed to back, according to the report. It wasn’t clear whether the changes would apply to existing cases or only to future ones.

At the beginning of the month, Judge Andreu of Spain’s National Court decided to continue the investigation of Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon and five other former top security officials for their part in the Shehadeh assassination, despite Spanish prosecutors’ attempts to dissuade him from doing so on the grounds that Israel was still investigating the attack. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has said the Shehadeh case “makes a mockery out of international law.”

Herb Keinon contributed to this report.

Israeli plans for East Jerusalem hotel raise U.S. ire

Akiva Eldar | Ha’aretz

2 June 2009

Washington is furious over the Interior Ministry’s anticipated approval of a plan to build a new hotel in East Jerusalem, just 100 meters from the Old City’s walls. The plan, which would see the demolition of a wholesale market and kindergarten, is slated to be approved today.

In conversations with Israeli officials, senior American officials have made it clear that they want Israel to freeze all plans for expanding the Jewish presence in East Jerusalem, and especially in the Holy Basin – the area adjacent to the Old City.

The regional planning and building committee for Jerusalem will discuss the plan today. It was submitted by the Jerusalem municipality, which owns the land on which the hotel is slated to be built, and the state-owned Jerusalem Economic Corporation, which will actually construct it.

The site in question is in the wholesale market, just east of the Rockefeller Museum.

The Interior Ministry’s district planning office told Haaretz that it will recommend the plan’s approval.

The plan calls for a 200-room hotel that will be nine stories tall on its eastern face (where the ground is lower). It will also include a commercial building, which will be five stories tall on its eastern face, plus another three stories underground.

The plan will require the existing wholesale market to be demolished, along with a Palestinian kindergarten.

The hotel plan is only one of several proposals for expanding the Jewish presence in East Jerusalem. Another, which would involve evicting hundreds of Palestinians from King’s Valley, on the outskirts of Silwan, was approved yesterday by the Jerusalem municipality’s planning committee despite the opposition of the city’s legal advisor, Yossi Havilio.

Harvest challenges

Eva Bartlett | In Gaza

1 June 2009

Just after 7 am on May 30th, Palestinian farmers in Khoza’a, east of Khan Younis, returned to the land they’d been menaced off of 5 days earlier. “The same day the Israelis dropped papers saying they would shoot at us for being on our land they did shoot at us,” Ahmed, a 22 year old farmer explained. It was around 10:30, he said. “They were shooting so much that the dirt rose in clouds of dust.”

When we arrive on May 30th, the bales of wheat are ready, all neatly and compactly hand-bundled, covering 30 dunums (1 dunum=1000 square metres) of land belonging to Radi Abu Rayder. He has another 140 dunums which he can no longer access because it lies too close to the border, within the Israel-imposed “buffer zone”.

The farmers will take 2 days to clear the bundles from the field.

The farmers today are two 18 year olds, two 22 year olds, and two men in their late 30s/early 40s.

They work steadily, carrying bales of wheat to the waiting tractor trailer. It is piled as high and full as manageable, then trundles off to a storage field hundreds of metres away, further from the Green Line and the potential danger from Israeli soldiers.

While most of the 30 dunums has been harvested, a small section remains. As some of the farmers off-load the trailer, the others resume hand-picking the wheat, ripping in bunches and laying for bundling.

As they work, they tell us of how the land used to be. “This area used to be so filled with trees you couldn’t see the fence,” Ahmed recalled, gesturing at the naked fields around us. He spoke of how they adapted to the razing of trees and grew, instead, many types of vegetables. “We grew tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and beans, among other things. We used to fill 17-20 trucks (4 tons each) of produce each day,” he said.

Amazingly, as he recounts their losses, he speaks without audibe bitterness or anger. This is something I’ve come across countless times, whether speaking of razed farmland or a bombed house. The tone, when emotion is evident, is fatigue and confusion: why do they attack us? how are we supposed to live? how can I feed my children?

But Ahmed recounts with a soft smile, just telling how it used to be.

Some time later, we notice thick smoke rising from the direction of the tractor. Moving to see what’s happened, we arrive to find blackened, burnt wheat spread along the dirt track, laid there as the panicked farmers put out the fire. Upon inspection, they see that the tractor crossed under a low-hanging electrical wire which immediately set the dry wheat alight. It’s not hard to imagine how the wheat and barley in Johr ad Dik blazed just weeks ago, after Israeli soldiers shot incendiary bombs into farmers’ fields.

After two days, the group has successfully brought all of the bales to safety. We are pleased their harvest hasn’t been lost, but not disillusioned to think that this is a victory. Their situation remains the same: each time they go onto their land near the Green Line border fence they face the danger of being targeted by Israeli soldiers from jeeps or from their watchtowers.

A heavy price to pay for working on your land.

Six days earlier, on May 24th, we joined 7 farmers, including women and 1 youth, in a different area of Khoza’a, on land of Nasser abu Rjla a few hundred metres from the border fence. They, too, were harvesting the wheat they had already bundled, though they were forced to bring it in without the luxury of a tractor.

At around 7:45 am the shooting began, coming from one of the mechanical watchtowers this time. These towers are a recent addition to the military landscape: remotely-operated by soldiers, the towers guns can shoot as dangerously close as the guns of Israeli soldiers at the jeeps.