Crimes Against Humanity: January 2005 Archives

Pratap Bhanu Mehta

(President, Centre for Policy Research)

The timing and manner in which the judge, U.C. Banerjee, disclosed the interim findings of his inquiry into the burning of the train at Godhra have done grave harm to the cause of truth. Playing politics with truth can be as insidious as the subversion by lies. Unwittingly perhaps, Banerjee has ensured that truth will remain hostage to politics. The tragedy that was Godhra was incalculably compounded by what can only be described as a state-supported pogrom against minorities. Now it appears that we are determined to ensure that the aftermath of the tragedy is a farce.

By Stephanie Nebehay, Fri Jan 28, 2005 01:00 PM ET

GENEVA (Reuters) - A United Nations human rights body called on Iran on Friday to abolish the death penalty as well as amputation, flogging and stoning for people who committed crimes as minors.

National News Service (Kolkata – India), 28th January, 2005: The OUTLOOK magazine dated the 31st January 2005 has a quotation from retired Justice U. C. Banerjee stating “I’m not a politician; I don't know when the polls are due. I'm not keen on knowing either.” It can then be presumed that this person, for want of a better word, can look at a train compartment and blithely claim that there was no sabotage and that the fire was accidental.

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq is suffering a shortage of state-supplied wheat, sugar and rice because of logistics and security problems, officials and traders say. Most Iraqis, already in the grip of a fuel and electricity crisis, have depended on monthly rations since the Saddam Hussein era under a system meant to lessen the crushing impact of the 1990-2003 sanctions that helped destroy the economy.

PROUT Editor's note: Will the wheels of justice also turn for Mr. George Bush and will he also one day be tried for his egregious crimes against humanity - the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, the depleted-uranium-contaminated US soldiers - he also needs to face the courts of international law!!
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By upholding the ruling made by Judge Guzman and the decision of the Santiago Courts of Appeal on the Pinochet case, the Chilean Supreme Court has today made a decisive step towards justice, said Amnesty International.

Rebecca Romani

ESCONDIDO, USA, Dec 29 (IPS) - Fernando Suarez del Solar is a busy man. He is busy opening boxes, counting pills, counting bandages; he is busy checking everything in the boxes that come addressed to him from all over the United States.