7, June 2016

Malawi: Attacks on albinos unprecedented ⁰

Amnesty International has warned that the number of attacks on people with albinism has risen in Malawi, calling on authorities to bring those responsible for the crimes to justice. “The unprecedented wave of brutal attacks against people with albinism has created a climate of terror for this vulnerable group and their families,” Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International’s director for southern Africa, said on Tuesday.

The body parts of albinos, who lack pigments in their skin, hair and eyes, are sold for witchcraft in North Africa. Their body parts are believed to bring wealth and good luck and are prized in witchcraft for use in charms and magical potions. The report condemned the Malawian authorities for “leaving this population group at the mercy of criminal gangs who hunt them down for their body parts.”

Amnesty said campaigners, police authorities, families and community leaders have all said that the number of attacks have increased recently. According to the report, April was the bloodiest month for such attacks in Malawi, with at least four people murdered, including a child aged under two. The parents of the child have been arrested as suspects. Simeon Mawanza, the lead researcher of the Amnesty report, said children with albinism have been sold by their parents.

Presstv

7, June 2016

Burkina Faso’s General Zida and President Kabore: No longer at ease? ⁰

Burkina Faso’s transition Prime Minister, General Yacouba Isaac Zida risks being sanctioned when he returns to the country from Canada where he has been for some months, RFI reported. President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, who also holds the position of Defence Minister has summoned Isaac Zida back to the country several times in vain.

Without giving Zida an ultimatum, President Kaboré is threatening to consider him as a soldier who has deserted the army in times of peace. The President is likely to take up his responsibilities and implement the regulations in force with regard to indiscipline in the army.

Isaac Zida on the contrary is requesting to be considered as being in health evacuation. The President has refused to accept the plea as a medical file has not been presented to him. RFI cited Mr Kaboré as saying that evacuation abroad for health reasons is done within the framework of the law.

The current stay of Isaac Zida has further complicated issues for him. RFI reported that the ongoing audit of the stewardship as transition presidency and Prime Minister’s Office indicate that there were some financial mismanagement. The authorities want some clarity in the situation. Reports say, the transition Prime Minister besides military sanctions for abandoning his duties may also face justice to answer charges of mismanagement during the transition period.

Cameroon Tribune

6, June 2016

Raila Odinga destabilizing Kenya again!!!!! ⁰

At least two people have lost their lives and six others sustained injuries during clashes between Kenya’s police and protesters demanding the dissolution of the country’s electoral commission prior to next year’s presidential election. The casualties occurred on Monday in the western Kenyan city of Kisumu as police opened fire to disperse protesters during the latest in a series of rallies by opposition groups and their supporters demanding that the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) be scrapped for allegedly being biased.

Carrying banners, the protesters who are all Raila Odinga loyalists blocked the roads with burning tires and stones in both Kisumu and the country’s capital of Nairobi, and chanted the slogan “IEBC must go.” “We have confirmed two people shot dead. We are yet to establish the circumstances,” said Dennis Onyango, a spokesman for Kenya’s main opposition group, the Coalitions for Reforms and Democracy (CORD). The Red Cross in the East African country said six protesters suffering from gunshot wounds had been taken to hospital.

Presstv/CIR

2, June 2016

Ivory Coast: Attempted rape of former first lady filmed ⁰

Ivory Coast’s former first lady Simone Gbagbo says she suffered attempted rape while in detention back in 2011, and claims French soldiers deployed in the country also filmed the attempted rape. During the first day of her trial on Tuesday, Simone denied a court’s charges of crimes against humanity during the 2010 wave of violence, saying, “Mr. Chairman, I have been brought before this court for crimes I did not commit. I have been accused of things that are not established as facts, alluding to my direct involvement in the violence.”

“Personally, I arrived at the Golf hotel (Ouattara’s headquarters) with my buttocks exposed, naked, and I suffered several attempts to rape me in broad daylight … and all this in the presence of French soldiers who were filming this,” she said. According to the prosecution, the wife of former president Laurent Gbagbo was part of a small group of party officials from Gbagbo’s Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) that organized violence and rights abuses against supporters of her husband’s presidential rival — Alassane Ouattara — in an attempt to keep him in power. She also faces allegations of crimes against prisoners of war, crimes against the civilian population and crimes against humanity.

“The FPI put in place a crisis cell in January 2011 that met at the presidential residence and constituted the organ charged with planning and organizing the repression,” an indictment read in the court stated. The trial is the West African country’s first for crimes against humanity and is being held in a domestic court after the government rejected her extradition to the International Criminal Court (ICC), claiming that the Ivorian justice system is now capable of judging her. However, her lawyers did not immediately enter a plea on Tuesday and challenged the court’s jurisdiction for several hours, noting that Simone could not be prosecuted for “crimes against humanity” and “war crimes” committed in 2011 because these charges had not been included in Ivory Coast’s penal code since March 2015.

But prosecutors hit back at the criticism on Wednesday with Abidjan’s chief prosecutor, Aly Yeo, saying, “The trial that began yesterday will be a fair trial that will respect the rights of the defense, a transparent trial.” During the court session, Ivory Coast’s “Iron Lady” also claimed that Ouattara, now president of Ivory Coast, instigated the bloodshed. “The post-election crisis was born from the refusal of Alassane Ouattara, with the help of French authorities, to respect the constitution of Ivory Coast,” she claimed.

More than 3,000 people were killed in the post-poll civil war that broke out when Gbagbo refused to concede defeat to Ouattara in the November 2010 run-off election. The violence petered out when troops stormed the bunker where the Gbagbo couple had taken refuge in the country’s main city, Abidjan, and arrested the two.

Simone Gbagbo is currently serving a 20-year sentence which was handed to her last year for charges on “endangering state security” — a sentence that was upheld on appeal this month — and Laurent Gbagbo is facing trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague on charges linked to the conflict.

Culled from Presstv