Author: Théophile Niyitegeka

{Germany says it will deport two men born in the country but whose parents are foreign – the first such case in German history.}

The men, a 27-year-old Algerian and a 22-year-old Nigerian, were arrested last month on suspicion of planning a terror attack.

A gun and an flag of the so-called Islamic State were found at their homes during police raids in the central city of Gottingen.

But the men have never been charged.

The criminal proceedings were dropped because police never established whether the suspects had planned to carry out an attack. Police say the two men are “dangerous”.
Lower Saxony Interior Minister Boris Pistorius said the deportations would take place as soon as possible, and certainly before mid-April.

He said discussions were already under way with Algeria and Nigeria to facilitate this, and the two men would be subject to a “life-long re-entry ban”, preventing their return to Germany.

If was not immediately clear if the two men would appeal against the decision.

Germany determines citizenship by the nationalities of one or both parents and also a person’s place of birth.

The country has been on high alert since the Berlin Christmas market attack on 19 December, that left 12 people dead and dozens injured.

Source:BBC

{Libya’s eastern-based self-styled army says it is investigating abuses allegedly committed by its fighters in the city of Benghazi.}

It comes after several videos were posted online showing its men killing captured fighters.

The Libyan National Army (LNA) took over Benghazi’s south-western district of Ghanfouda on Sunday following weeks of fighting.

The graphic videos have been condemned by Libyans and human rights groups.

In one piece of footage, a senior LNA commander kills three men lined up against a wall on their knees; they were shot at point-blank range.

In another, soldiers drag a captured, unarmed man, who they believe is a militant. He gets thrown into a pile of rubble, slapped, and is asked if he has anything to say before he dies.

Then at least three in the group can be seen opening fire on him with assault rifles.
In a statement, the LNA condemned the summary executions and said they were individual acts not sanctioned by top commanders.

The LNA’s General Command says it has asked army unit chiefs to hand over the men shown in the videos to military police for questioning. They say the perpetrators will be held to account for their actions.

The alleged violations came after the LNA captured the last block of buildings in Ghanfouda, where fighters and civilians were holed up for weeks.

Libya’s second city has been a battleground since 2014 as a patchwork of army units and other armed groups loyal to them has fought against a coalition of Islamist militias.

Human Rights Watch told the BBC it had spoken to relatives of civilians who said several family members had been detained by the LNA.

There have also been unconfirmed reports of civilians being killed as they tried to escape. Some of them are believed to be relatives of fighters.

Hanan Salah, the senior Libya researcher at Human Rights Watch, said: “Fighters aligned with the Libyan National Army in eastern Libya seem to have torn up the rule book, as they stand accused of summary executions, desecration of corpses of opposing fighters and attacking civilians with impunity.

“The army’s leadership in the east needs to know that they carry individual responsibility over the forces under their command and can be implicated in what appear to be war crimes, unless they act immediately to stop such violations and hold perpetrators to account.”

Source:BBC

{A video of a white man threatening a black woman inside a popular restaurant has caused outrage in South Africa.}

The film of the incident at a Johannesburg branch of the Spur chain of restaurants has been widely shared.

In it, the two can be heard arguing and hurling insults at each other, while a group of children are sitting at the table watching the row unfold.

The video appears to have touched a nerve in a country where racism is still a sore point.

It is not clear what started the altercation but both adults say that their child was bullied by the other’s child.

The confrontation escalated when the man threatened to hit the woman, who accused him of bullying her because she was black.

“You can’t come here and bully me… this is a democratic South Africa in case you had not noticed,” the incensed woman says.

Although the man does not say anything specifically racist, many have interpreted his treatment of the woman as being based on her skin colour.

At one point he lifts up and shakes the table at which the woman’s family was seated.
A number of people including customers are seen trying to intervene until he eventually leaves.

People have taken to social media to express their dismay at how the restaurant “failed to protect” the woman.

The restaurant chain, whose managers have been criticised for not stepping in, has apologised for the drama at one of its busiest stores.

“The man in the video is not welcome at any Spur restaurant nationally.

We do not condone any forms of violence against women or children, irrespective of the circumstances,” the company said in statement shared on social media.

The incident is believed to have happened at the weekend but the video has only just surfaced.

Source:BBC

{The UN refugee agency has criticised Cameroon for the forced return of hundreds of refugees to north-east Nigeria after they had fled from the Islamist Boko Haram insurgency.}

The UNHCR said forced returns had “continued unabated” despite an agreement earlier this month.

Under the deal, any returns would be voluntary and only “when conditions were conducive”.

Cameroon has rejected the accusation and said people returned willingly.

According to the UNHCR, more than 2,600 refugees have been forcibly returned to Nigeria from Cameroon this year.

Many are unable to go back to their villages in Borno state for security reasons and have ended up in camps for displaced people.

In some cases, the UNHCR said, people had been returned “without allowing them time to collect their belongings”.

UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch spoke of “chaos” in the returns process and said “some women were forced to leave their young children behind in Cameroon, including a child less than three years old”.

Many of the returnees are now settled in the Banki camp for internally displaced people.

UNHCR staff also recorded about 17 people who claimed to be Cameroonian nationals, who it said had been deported by mistake to Banki.

It is common in the region to find people who have no documentary proof of their nationality.

Cameroonian Communications Minister Issa Tchiroma told the BBC’s Focus on Africa programme: “I strongly deny this accusation” of forced returns.

He said the Cameroonian army had been working “hand-in-hand” with the Nigerian army against Boko Haram and any civilians who had returned to Nigeria had done so of their own accord.

“This repatriation has taken place willingly,” he said.

The Cameroonian authorities have previously said Boko Haram militants have been entering the country disguised as refugees.

Militants have carried out a number of attacks in northern Cameroon in recent years, often using suicide bombers.

The UNHCR said forced return constitutes a serious violation of the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1969 OAU Convention, both of which Cameroon has ratified.

It called on Cameroon to honour its obligations under the conventions and continue keeping its borders open so as to allow access to territory and asylum procedures for people fleeing the Islamist insurgency.

Source:BBC

{Judges at the International Criminal Court may Friday award the tribunal’s first monetary sums to victims of war crimes, with lawyers estimating some $16.4 million in damages were caused by a 2003 attack on a Congolese village.}

Friday’s order for reparations for 304 victims of former Congolese warlord Germain Katanga is set to be a landmark step for the world’s only permanent war crimes court.

“Reparations should place the victim in a situation as close as possible to that before the crime was committed,” Fidel Nsita Luvengika, the legal representative for victims, argued in a 2016 filing to the court in The Hague.

Katanga was sentenced by the ICC to 12 years in jail in 2014, after being convicted on five charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for the February 2003 attack on Bogoro village in Ituri province.

Some 200 people were shot or hacked to death with machetes in the attack.

Legal representatives have estimated a minimum of $16.4 million in damages was caused, and it may be as high as $24.7 million, even if the “victims are not demanding this sum”.

JUSTICE NOT JUST IN COURTROOM

Katanga, 38, now on trial in the Democratic Republic of Congo on other charges of war crimes and insurrection in the mineral-rich Ituri region, is liable for any compensation.

The judges could decide to order collective reparations for projects to help the community, as well as individual damages to victims.

“It may bring the prospect of some redress for the victims,” said Pieter de Baan, director of the Trust Fund for Victims, arguing it was important to show justice “doesn’t stop in the courtroom”.

“For the system as a whole, it’s really important to spend time building a process in which you don’t only get convictions, but you also get decisions which go to the benefit of the victims,” he told AFP.

The Trust Fund for Victims (TFV) is an independent body set up under the ICC’s founding guidelines, to support and implement programmes to help victims.

If Katanga cannot pay any reparations then the TFV could decide to dip into its funds, accumulated by voluntary contributions from member states. But it only has $5 million available, of which one million has been set aside for the case of Thomas Lubanga.

The 2016 filing on behalf of Katanga’s victims sets out a detailed list estimating cost of the loss of life, goods and property, as well as for services such as counselling.

A total of 228 homes were destroyed in Bogoro, most made of sticks and worth about $600 each. A new school is needed at a cost of $22,400.

Seventy-nine people each lost between 10-15 cows worth $400 each: total cost between $316,000 and 474,000.

Lawyers have also sought to place a monetary value on the loss of a parent or relative, on whether a victim was raped, maimed or robbed of their livelihood.

MONEY WON’T BRING THEM BACK

“The reparations regime of the court is without real precedent,” said De Baan. “It’s not science. It’s basically trying to reach an estimation of what the harm has been in relation to the crimes.”

The case of Lubanga, another Congolese warlord sentenced in 2012 to 14 years for conscripting child soldiers, was the first to see some kind of ICC compensation award.

In October, judges approved “symbolic reparations” to create a “living memorial” to remember and raise awareness about child soldiers.

But a final decision on collective reparations for Lubanga’s victims is still awaited.

“The money won’t bring back the victims,” said local tribal chief Salomon Kisembo Byaruhanga.

He told AFP the local Hema community would rather one of the hearings in Katanga’s current trial in the DRC “be held in Ituri and that a public apology is made.”

Katanga’s “brothers in arms continue to commit atrocities in the region,” he said, adding: “For us the biggest reparation of all, would be if Germain and his men would stop carrying out murders, massacres and pillages on the population.”

Aid workers say they hope some money will go towards long-term projects such as building roads, health centres and schools.

“Given that today the victims and the executioners are living together, we must help people reach a real reconciliation,” said Jean Bosco Lalo, coordinator for the local group, the Ituri Civil Society.

Source:AFP