The Human Rights Blog

Sumbu Chantraine Temo, President of Amnesty International at Stockholm University.

Colonel Nyiragire “Kifaru” Kulimushi, known as Congo’s “rape Colonel” surrendered in early July together with 116 of his soldiers amid accusations of mass rape and looting.

Kifaru was a former member of the militia Maï Maï, which played a significant, and sometimes problematic, role in the Second Congo War. As a result of a peace agreement and palaver, the Maï Maï militia joined Congo’s national army, the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC) along with other rebel groups in 2009.

At a military training course in South Kivu in late spring 2011, Kifaru learned that he was to be demoted due to a restructuring within the FARDC.  Unwilling to accept the FARDC’s decision, Kifaru and his men defected as a means of protest. In the days that followed, it is alleged that Kifaru and his soldiers looted villages and committed mass rapes.  NGO’s estimate that approximately 250 women were raped between June 10-12 in villages of Nyakiele, Kanguli and Abala, all in eastern Congo.

Because the rapes garnered international media attention, government spokesman Lambert Mende, DRC’s Minister of Communications, declared that the national army would begin a manhunt for Kifaru. The army soon managed to locate Kifaru, and he and his men surrendered.

According to AFP, Colonel Sylvain Ekenge, spokesmen for FARDC, indicated that Kifaru and his men were ordered to surrender and did so with no demands. “He did not negotiate the conditions of his surrender because there were no conditions to negotiate…“[w]e gave him the order to come out and he came out of the bush.”

“He said he is afraid and that he had done nothing,” Ekenge added.

A BBC article dated July 8, 2011, reported that the UN held the FARDC responsible for the mass rapes.  “[T]he rapes highlighted poor discipline in the army, and the failure to properly vet rebels integrated into the army following a peace deal to end years of unrest.”

Though government authorities are watching the alleged perpetrators, Kifaru and his men are not in detention, as AFP reported that the soldiers are located in an army base in wait for an investigation.  As Ekenge told AFP, ”[Kifaru] remains at the disposal of the authorities while waiting for the outcome of a military hearing. He is not in detention.” (See DR. Congo colonel and men accused of mass rape surrenders. AFP, July 8, 2011)

Not the first time…

This is not the first time Kifaru has been accused of involvement in mass rapes. On New Year’s Day 2011, a group of soldiers led by Kifaru’s deputy, Lieutenant Colonel Kibibi Mutware, attacked Fizi, a village in South Kivu.  This time, approximately 50 women were raped.

After an investigation, Colonel Kibibi and his group of soldiers were arrested and later convicted after a hearing in military court.  Nine of Kibibi’s men were sentenced for crimes against humanity. Colonel Kibibi and three other officers were sentenced to 20 years in prison. Five other officers were sentenced for between 10 and 15 years imprisonment for the same crime. One man was exonerated whilst another one will be charged in a juvenile court.

Brief history of rape in eastern Congo.

Rape as a tactical weapon conflict in DRC can be traced back to the 1994 genocide in neighbouring Rwanda. Likewise, during the Congo’s eight year Civil War, rape was used as key weapon of war, just as it had been in neighbouring Rwanda.

Although the spillage from the Rwandan conflict is more or less settled the eastern part of Congo, the violence continues because of the region’s vast minerals resources. Today, the Congolese army, rebels, local militias, and warlords continue to vie for control over the mines. Rising conflicts result in risks to the civilians lives and personal safety.

“Because one mine alone can export upwards of ten million dollars worth of minerals per month, rape is the cheapest and easiest means to keep civilians intimidated, humiliated and in a state of constant fear, thus making them completely powerless against the rebels.  Civilians who favor an opposing rebel group are often times punished with rape by the group seeking power, often done in a public way in order to shock and destroy the local community.” (See UN admits peacekeeping efforts failed to protect civilians of Eastern Congo from coordinated mass rapes, The Human Rights Blog, Sept. 30, 2010)

In July 2011, the United Nations published a report on mass rapes that occurred last year in villages in North Kivu. The report states that 387 people were raped; among the victims were 44 were children and 23 men.

Experts say that the extent of sexual violence in Congo is to be regarded as a strategic move by the armed forces. The rapes take brutal forms, working as a weapon intended to paralyze, degrade, and weaken communities.

Many of the rape victims are rejected by their husbands and families and often find themselves without legal support. Although men are also victims of rape, it is yet a greater taboo that is rarely discussed.  “A recent study found that 24% of men and 39% of women have been raped in Congo while many more cases go unreported.” (See video Nation of Vice – DRC, Journeyman Pictures, 2010.)

Recent reports also show that soldiers and civilian workers in MONUSCO have also been guilty of sexual exploiting the Congolese women by offering food and shelter in return for sex.  (See Mass Rape: Time for Remedies, Amnesty International, pg. 15.)

Amnesty International says that the frequency and brutality of the mass rapes is due, in large part, to the government’s inability to find and prosecute human rights abusers. (See New Mass Rapes in DRC are Result of Horrific Failure of Justice, Amnesty International, June 23, 2011)  However, some rule of law experts on the ground point to barriers in the Congo’s Constitution, particularly Article 166, which prohibits charges from being brought against government officials without an absolute majority of the National Assembly.  (See Constitution of the Democratic Republic of Congo)

On the right path:

In light of the recent convictions of Colonel Kibibi and others as well as the surrender of Colonel Kifaru, the DRC seems to be moving in a more positive direction in preventing future sexual violence against civilians.  As Amnesty International’s DRC Campaigner, Claire Morclette, said, “[The Kibibi] conviction is a step in the right direction…[f]or decades crimes like this have gone unpunished in DRC, their perpetrators never bought to justice. However much remains to be done to ensure victims of gross human rights violations in the country receive justice.” (DR CONGO COLONEL’S RAPE CONVICTION IS FIRST STEP ON ROAD TO JUSTICE, Amnesty International: February 23, 2011)

KÄLLA – Bibliography:

RDC : “Kifaru” et 116 soldats accusés de viols massifs se sont rendus, Jeune Afrique, Aug. 7, 2011.

En RDC, le «colonel Kifaru», présumé coupable de 250 viols, entendu par l’état-major, RFI, 09 Juillet 2011.

DR Congo hunting for colonel suspected of mass rape. The African Confidential.

Congo’s shame: Rape used as tool of war. The Washington Times.

When Rape Becomes a Game. Huffington Post via Enough Project, July 6, 2011.

Popularity: 12% [?]

On March 22, 2011, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France held a Chamber hearing in the case of V.C. vs. Slovakia concerning a Roma woman who alleges she was forcibly sterilized by a Slovakian state hospital.  While Roma women have made claims of forced and coercive sterilizations by Eastern European countries for decades, this is the first case of its kind to reach Strasbourg.

Case Facts:

V.C. is a Roma woman and Slovakian national from Šarišská Poruba, Slovakia.  At the time of the sterilization, she was approximately twenty years old.  She has a sixth grade education and is unemployed.

According to her complaint, V.C. gave birth to her second child in 2000 via caesarian section at the Slovakian Ministry’s University Teaching Hospital in Presov.  While hospitalized at Presov, V.C. alleges that she was segregated because of her ethnic origin and placed in a “Gypsy room,” which was separated from the white patients.  It is also alleged that she was made to use separate bathroom facilities.

Hospital records indicate V.C. requested to be sterilized after being told by physicians that a third pregnancy would likely result in a ruptured uterus.  However, V.C. claims that the sterilization procedure was performed without her full and informed consent.  She alleges that while in the pain of the final stages of labor, doctors asked her if she wanted to have more children.  After responding in the affirmative, she was then informed that if she had another child, it would die.  V.C. states that it was at that time when she signed the consent form, without having knowledge or understanding as to the consequences of sterilization.  (See European Court of Human Right’s 2009 decision as to the admissibility of V.C.’s 2007 application)

V.C. claims that her ethnic origin played a key factor as to the way in which she was handled and the medical advice and treatment she received.  The Slovakian government denies all of the allegations, stating that V.C. was treated in the same manner as the white patients and that the medical advice provided was not based upon her ethnicity or skin color.

In 2006, V.C. filed civil complaint against the hospital staff, but ultimately the Presov Regional Court dismissed it on appeal.  The Court found that the sterilization was lawfully done, that it was a medical necessity and that V.C. had given her consent.

As indicated in the European Court of Human Rights’ Press Release issued by the Registrar of the Court on March 22, 2011, “[t]he applicant’s sterilisation has had serious medical and psychological after-effects. Notably in 2007/2008 she showed all the signs of being pregnant but was not (known as a “hysterical pregnancy”). Treated since 2008 by a psychiatrist, she continues to suffer from being sterilised. She has been ostracised by the Roma community and her current husband has left her several times due to her infertility.”

Slovakia’s History of Forced Sterilizations:

The practice of “Roma sterilization” dates back to the 1970’s when the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia regularly used forced or coercive sterilization measures to “control” the Roma population.  Roma women who participated in the procedures were given a government financial incentive as encouragement.

According to written comments submitted in 2009 to the UN’s Committee Against Torture by the Centre for Civil and Human Rights, “60% of the sterilisation operations performed from 1986 to 1987 were on Romani women, who represented only 7% of the population of the district. Another study found that in 1983, approximately 26% of sterilised women in eastern Slovakia (the region where the Applicants reside) were Romani women; by 1987, this figure had risen to 36.6%.  In 1992, a report by Human Rights Watch addressed the practice of coercive sterilisation in Czechoslovakia, noting that many Romani women were not fully aware of the irreversible nature of the intervention and was forced into it because of their poor economic situation or pressure from authorities.”  (also citing Statistical Evaluation of the Cases of Sexual Sterilisation of Romani Women in East Slovakia, 1990)

Although the Communist regime collapsed in the early 1990’s, the sterilizations continued.  Procedurally, they varied from hospital to hospital but the results were the same.  According to a 2001 Open Society Institute report, Finnish nurses noticed unusually high occurrences of sterilization and ovary removal in female Roma asylum seekers from Slovakia seeking refuge in Finland.

The “Body and Soul Report”

Perhaps the most influential and widely circulated report concerning the forced sterilization of Roma women in Slovakia came in 2003 when the Center for Reproductive Rights released Body and Soul:  Forced Sterilization and Other Assaults of Roma Reproductive Freedom.  For three months, the Center for Reproductive Rights, based in the United States, and the Centre for Civil and Human Rights, based in Slovakia, conducted interviews with more than 230 Roma women throughout eastern Slovakia.  “The interviews revealed numerous instances of coerced, forced and suspected sterilization of Romani women, along with physical and verbal abuse, racially discriminatory standards of care, misinformation in health matters, and denial of access to medical records.”  The Report culminated in a criminal investigation into the sterilization of Roma women.  However, it was eventually discontinued on the grounds that no wrongdoing had been committed.

The following 2003 documentary from Journeyman Pictures provides a comprehensive overview of the recent history of forced sterilization of Roma women in Slovakia.  Slovakian human rights attorney Barbora Bukovska, who gave comments in Strasbourg last month and who has been instrumental in bringing such cases to light, is highlighted in the film.

Access to Medical Records - K.H. and Others vs. Slovakia

Perhaps one of the most difficult hurdles Roma women faced in filing suit against state hospitals for forced sterilization was gaining access to their own medical records.  In 2002, eight Roma women in Slovakia attempted to retrieve their medical records after finding they were unable to conceive after undergoing caesarian sections.  The women wished to establish cause as to why they were unable to conceive.  After the hospitals refused to release their records, the women filed a civil suit in Slovak court.  However, their requests were denied and the Court held that the records were the property of the hospitals and not the women.

In 2004, the eight women filed suit against the hospitals with the European Court of Human Rights.  In April 2009, the Court ruled that denying the women access to their medical records was in violation of Article 6 paragraph 1 and Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Specifically, the Court held that access to medical records is a right to private and family life and that those persons wishes to make photocopies of their own medical records should be allowed to do so without providing reason as to their purpose or objective.  The applicable articles of the European Convention on Human Rights states:

Article 6 paragraph 1:

In the determination of his civil rights and obligations or of any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law. Judgement shall be pronounced publicly by the press and public may be excluded from all or part of the trial in the interest of morals, public order or national security in a democratic society, where the interests of juveniles or the protection of the private life of the parties so require, or the extent strictly necessary in the opinion of the court in special circumstances where publicity would prejudice the interests of justice.

Article 8:

1.  Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.

2.  There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

Human rights attorney Barbora Bukovska said this in response to the ruling:

“This case indicates the complicity of the Slovak Government in the practice of forced sterilization of Romani women.  Originally, in spring of 2002, we were able to access and copy medical records of our clients. But as soon as the hospitals realized we were seeking access to medical records on forced sterilizations, they halted the access. The Slovak Government, instead of rectifying the situation, supported the hospitals in their position and over the years, denied their responsibility for the violations. All of this in order to prevent forcibly sterilized Romani women from finding truth about their sterilization surgeries and seeking compensations for them.”  (See Press Release, Centre for Civil and Human Rights, April 2009)

A.S. vs. Hungary

While V.C. vs. Slovakia is the first case of forced sterilization against Roma women to be heard by the Human Right’s Court, legal precedence nonetheless exists.  In 2004, A.S. vs. Hungary was submitted to the UN’s Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) alleging that a Hungarian Roma woman was forcibly sterilized in a Hungarian hospital while being treated after her unborn child died in the womb.  According to its findings communicated in 2006, CEDAW found that the woman signed a consent form to perform a caesarian section to remove the dead fetus, but that included within the consent form was a “barely legible” handwritten note that read:

“Having knowledge of the death of the embryo inside my womb I firmly request my sterilization.  I do not intend to give birth again; neither do I wish to become pregnant.”

After the procedure but before leaving the hospital, A.S. asked the doctor when she could try to have another baby.  “It was only then when she was informed as to the meaning of “sterilization.”’  (See CEDAW’s findings, 2006.)

Ultimately, CEDAW found that Hungary violated Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, specifically articles 10 (h), 12 and 16 paragraph 1 (e) which state:

Article 10 (h):

States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in order to ensure to them equal rights with men in the field of education and in particular to ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women:

(…)

(h) Access to specific educational information to help to ensure the health and well being of families, including information and advice on family planning.

Article 12:

1. States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in the field of health care in order to ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women, access to health- care services, including those related to family planning.

2. Notwithstanding the provisions of paragraph 1 of this article, States Parties shall ensure to women appropriate services in connexion with pregnancy, confinement and the post-natal period, granting free services where necessary, as well as adequate nutrition during pregnancy and lactation.

Article 16, paragraph 1 (e):

States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in all matters relating to marriage and family relations and in particular shall ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women:

(…)

(e) The same rights to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children and to have access to the information, education and means to enable them to exercise these rights.

United States’ response:

In regards to forced and coercive sterilization, Chairman of the Helsinki Commission, United States Congressman Christopher Smith (R-NJ) stated, “as a matter of justice for the victims and truth about the past due to all the people of Slovakia this practice should be condemned as a grave human rights violation.”

The European Court of Human Rights is not expected to rule in the matter of V.C. vs. Slovakia for several weeks.  After their decision, either side may appeal the seven-judge ruling to the Court’s Grand Chamber.

For more information, please read the following article on NPR:  Court Hears Claim of Forced Roma Sterilization, Associated Press.

Popularity: 7% [?]

“I find the Congolese people extraordinary, courageous, able to see joy where very few of us would. I am heartbroken by the place as well, but when we’re talking about Congo, a country where five million have died, where 200,000 women and girls have been raped, it is not okay for us to stand by and do nothing.” – Anneke van Woundenberg, Human Rights Watch

This past summer, over 500 people were raped in the eastern part of The Democratic Republic of Congo.  The most concentrated instances of violence occurred during days of July 30 through August 2 when 235 women, 13 men, 52 girls, and 3 boys were raped, and in most cases gang raped.  These acts took place in Luvungi, a village in the Walikale district of Eastern Congo, which is situated less than 20 miles from a United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO) base. It is believed that armed rebel militia groups – the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) and Mai Mai Cheka – are responsible for the attacks.  The UN also reported that during the first three weeks of August, the FDLR was responsible for attacks on nineteen other villages northeast of Shabunda, where 214 other rapes were committed.

On September 24^th, the UN took responsibility for its inadequate actions to prevent the rapes in a report to the UN Security Council.  The UN acknowledged that MONUSCO forces did not receive proper training or equipment to protect and defend civilians in Eastern Congo, despite the fact that the UN mandates that MONUSCO forces are permitted to use force to protect civilians.  As the UN News Centre states:

“[t]he report points to serious shortcomings in the preparedness and response of the local detachments of the Congolese army and the police stationed in the area. It also notes that their failure to prevent or stop the attacks was compounded by subsequent failings on the part of MONUSCO forces, which the report says did not receive any specific training in the protection of civilians.”

MONUSCO is the UN’s major organization and stabilization mission in the DRC and the UN’s most expensive and expansive program in the world.  Concentrated in Eastern Congo, MONUSCO is primarily charged with protecting and defending Congolese civilians from violence and crimes against humanity, such as rape, as well as conducting military operations.

In regards to these latest, gruesome attacks on Congolese civilians, the UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights explained that MONUSCO forces, while not responsible for the recent rapes, could have done more to prevent them.  In her statement regarding the reports, Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said, “[t]he scale and viciousness of these mass rapes defy belief.  Even in the eastern part of DRC where rape has been a perennial and massive problem for the past fifteen years, this incident stands out because of the extraordinarily cold-blooded and systematic way in which it appears to have been planned and executed.”

Rape as a weapon of war

Rape has been used as the primary weapon of war in the Congo since the nation’s eight year-long Civil War and was a key war tactic used in neighboring Rwanda’s genocide of 1994.  Inexpensive, immediate, and far-reaching in its effects, gang rape has long been the weapon of choice for armed rebel groups who wish to retain and expand their power.

At present, rebel warlords vie for control over Congo’s profitable mining industry.  Because one mine alone can export upwards of ten million dollars worth of minerals per month, rape is the cheapest and easiest means to keep civilians intimidated, humiliated and in a state of constant fear, thus making them completely powerless against the rebels.  Civilians who favor an opposing rebel group are often times punished with rape by the group seeking power, often done in a public way in order to shock and destroy the local community.

For example, the town of Luvungi – hit hard by gang rapes between July 30th and August 2nd – is located in the Walikale district, which houses most of the Congo’s cassiterite.  Cassiterite, the primary ore of tin, is used to power fluorescent lights and solder cell phones.  The Congo also naturally produces other valuable substances such as coltan, tungsten, tanalum and gold, which are found in cell phones, computers, flat screen TV’s and other electronics.  (In a video entitled, “Conflict Minerals 101,” John Prendergast of the Enough Project gives an easy to follow explanation of the significance of these minerals and what they mean to the people of the DRC.)

Reaction to the UN’s admission here in the US

While the UN’s surprise admission garnered widespread international attention from foreign media outlets last week, little mention was made of the report in the United States.

Last Friday,Anneke van Woudenberg, Senior Researcher for NYC-based Human Rights Watch and a well-known human rights expert in issues affecting the DRC, spoke with PBS’ Alison Stewart about this very issue on Need to Know.  The sixteen-minute segment provides a concise yet solid overview of the history of Congo’s violence as well as Ms. Woundenberg’s account what she has seen in regards to problems with MONUSCO’s response to the rapes and corruption in the Congolese Army.  Due to her decade’s worth of experience “on the ground,” Ms. Woudenberg provided powerful insight into the Congolese experience.

The Genocide Report, a look back

On Friday, October 1, 2010, I invite readers to visit the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights’ Congo page for the release of an important document that details the violence that took place in the Congo against civilians between the years of 1993 and 2003. Known as “The Genocide Report,” the over 500-page document, which Ms. Woudenberg mentioned in her interview above, sheds light on the many  horrific attacks against Congolese civilians that were never previously reported.  The report also places blame for the violence, citing the involvement of Rwandan troops and rebel militias.

Finally, it is relevant to note that The Genocide Report has been deemed controversial for the following reasons.  After a draft was leaked to the press earlier this month, Rwandan and Ugandan authorities vehemently denied the accuracy of the data contained in the report as well as strong implications that the two nations played instrumental roles in attacks against Congolese civilians.  Both nations subsequently threatened to pull its troops from UN peacekeeping missions unless the document was changed.  While the latest reports project that the language of tomorrow’s final version will be “toned down” from the leaked draft, The Genocide Report will nonetheless place responsibility for the genocide with the Rwandan army and will still provide important details of which the entire world should be made aware.

Link to “The Genocide Report” entitled, DRC: Mapping human rights violations 1993-2003

Popularity: 4% [?]

This Sunday marks the start of the Cartagena Summit on a Mine-Free World, during which over 1,000 delegates will review The Ottawa Treaty, otherwise known as the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction, or simply The Mine Ban Treaty. With the review conference and President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize ceremony just days away, the Obama Administration deemed it an appropriate time to announce its decision to join human rights bastions like China, Pakistan, Cuba, and Myanmar, in its refusal to support The Mine Ban Treaty.   158 other countries endorse the Treaty, including every other country in the Western Hemisphere (minus Cuba) and all our NATO allies.  The decision was made in a brief, closed-door State Department session and no official reasons have since been offered.

The Mine Ban Treaty bans the construction and development of all AP landmines.  State Parties must also promise to destroy all their AP landmines within four years, provide annual transparency reports and offer victim assistance for those devastated by landmine explosions. The Covenant’s inception was inspired by Princess Diana’s 1997 visits to Angola and Bosnia, where she was famously photographed wearing a helmet and ballistic jacket while walking through mine fields.  At the time, Angola had more than one landmine per Angolan citizen, or 10 million land mines, buried in the country while Bosnia had an estimated 750,000.  As a result of Princess Diana’s work and The Mine Ban Treaty, more than 2.2 million AP landmines have been removed worldwide in the past decade.

The United States’ refusal to ratify The Mine Ban Treaty seems a strange turn, even for an Administration that has, thus far, straddled the fence in their approach to human rights. The fact that President Obama intends to send an observer to Cartagena was viewed by most as a positive indication of the United States’ intended support of the Treaty.  Moreover, since the United States has not produced or used an AP landmine in over a decade, and since nearly all of the United States’ allies support the Treaty, it is particularly puzzling that the State Department’s only explanations for this decision are conflicts with current national defense needs and US security commitments.

If the Obama Administration truly wants the world to believe that human rights is, indeed, an “essential element of American global foreign policy,” as Secretary of State Clinton said earlier this year, the Administration must break free of the human rights routine of former President Bush and take substantive steps towards protecting the world’s citizens. The first step could have been an easy one; ratifying a covenant that the United States already follows. How sad that such a perfect opportunity was missed.  Perhaps a second review of The Mine Ban Treaty is necessary not only in Cartagena, but in Washington as well.

Has this post sparked your interest?  Read more at:

The Nobel Peace Prize’s International Campaign to Ban Landmines

The Miss Landmine Beauty Pageant

UNICEF – Landmines pose a particular threat to children

Popularity: 2% [?]

“Life is the great primary and most precious and comprehensive of all human rights . . . whether it be coupled with virtue honor, and happiness, or with sin, disgrace and misery, the continued possession of it is rightfully not a matter of volition.” — Frederick Douglass

Today, many people across the DC region, who lived in absolute terror for nearly a month in the fall of 2002, celebrate the imminent demise of John Allen Muhammad, also known as the DC Sniper. Despite the fear I felt at the time and my sorrow over the lives that were stolen at the hands of Muhammad, I am not among those pleased by the news. Based on the subject matter of my blog, it should come as no surprise that I strongly oppose the death penalty and view the use of execution as a quintessential human rights violation. I hold this belief for a variety of reasons, but perhaps mostly due to my own basic beliefs that all people are entitled to a right to life, that the value of human life is most precious, and that the death penalty completely devalues this gift. Even the most deviant and destructive members of civilized society have the right to be alive, albeit behind bars. Likewise, I believe that humans inevitably lose a part of their humanity when they decide how and when to take the life of another for the primary purpose of reprisal, without taking into consideration the possibility, no matter how remote, of that human’s chance of rehabilitation or redemption.

I remember the terror that Muhammad and his partner Lee Boyd Malvo (who was 17 at the time) inflicted on me. In October 2002, I was a new college grad who had just officially moved to the DC area from my small hometown in Pennsylvania. After the first few random shootings, I started to feel afraid. I recall sitting with my now-husband at a bus stop in Alexandria City; just the two of us, in the dark, with our backs to trees, protected by only a thin wall of plexi-glass. We were convinced that we were going to die. A week later, my husband and I went to the Honda dealer in McLean to buy his first new car. We followed the salesman’s zigzag walking pattern and made sure to shield ourselves between the cars. At one point, the salesman darted back to the main building to grab some paperwork and my husband and I were left in the middle of the lot only to stare at every white van in sight. Crouching between the cars, I thought about how uncertain everyone’s lives had become. The woman who was gunned down outside of the nearby Seven Corner’s Home Depot shopping center was a former teacher of my husband and his friends when they were in DoD high school in Europe. The bus driver who was shot and killed was a close family friend of my husband’s co-worker. After two more weeks, I called my Mom and told her that I was really scared because like most people in the DMV, I was sure I’d be shot. Later, she told me that it was the first time she ever really heard fear in my voice. Two days later, Muhammad and Malvo were apprehended.

In total, 10 people were killed, 3 were seriously injured (including a child) and an entire metropolitan region was shook. Malvo escaped the death penalty since he was a minor at the time the shootings were committed. Muhammad was taken to Virginia Beach in order to receive an impartial jury. There, he was sentenced to death for killing Dean Harold Meyers in Manassas, Virginia.

In 2008, China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia were the only countries who imposed more judicially sanctioned deaths than the United States. While the United States largely remains a retentionist country, 139 others have abolished the death penalty, either in law or in practice. Moreover, The International Criminal Court cannot and will not subject any criminals to the death penalty, even those who committed genocide, war crimes, and the most egregious crimes against humanity. Across the Atlantic, the European Union made the abolition of member states’ death penalty practices a pre-condition for entry into the bloc. Our North American neighbors, Mexico and Canada, will not extradite individuals to the United States unless guarantees are made that the death penalty will not be sought. Perhaps most telling, the American Bar Association called for a death penalty moratorium through their long-standing Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project.

In the United States, the connection between “the death penalty” and “human rights” is not often made. Rather, when speaking of the death penalty, US policy makers and politicos often refer only to the constitutional rights or civil rights of the individual, which pushes the human rights aspect to the periphery and narrows the death penalty debate to one focused on race and class alone. I ask everyone, no matter your stance, to consider the death penalty as intersecting with the sphere of human rights. I also challenge everyone to consider the sort of society in which you prefer to live; one that is concerned solely with “retribution and deterrence,” as stated in Gregg v. Georgia, or one committed to assessing appropriate punishments, promoting rehabilitation and recognizing the possibility of personal reconciliation.

If you are interested in learning more about the death penalty as a human rights issue, please read the following in addition to the hyperlinks provided above:

Amnesty International – The Death Penalty v. Human Rights

Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty

Policies of Religious Groups Towards the Death Penalty

Popularity: 1% [?]