Award for soldier who tied Kashmiri man to jeep shows disdain for human rights, says Amnesty International
According to media reports, the soldier, an Army Major, has been awarded the chief of army staff’s commendation card for “sustained efforts in counter-insurgency operations”.
GK Web Desk
Srinagar, Publish Date: May 23 2017 6:14PM | Updated Date: May 23 2017 6:14PM
File Photo
The Army’s decision to present an award to a soldier who tied a Kashmiri man to a moving military jeep as a “human shield” in Jammu and Kashmir last month “gives the impression that it condones human rights abuses,” Amnesty International India said today.
“Rewarding an officer who is under investigation for a human rights violation suggests that the Army seems to be willing to not just overlook,
but actually valorise an act of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment amounting to torture,” said Aakar Patel, Executive Director at Amnesty International India.
“This decision sends the disturbing message to security force personnel and people in Jammu and Kashmir that the human rights of Kashmiris can be casually ignored without fear of punishment. Authorities should instead be trying to ensure that those responsible, including those with command responsibility, are brought to justice in a civilian court.”
According to media reports, the soldier, an Army Major, has been awarded the chief of army staff’s commendation card for “sustained efforts in counter-insurgency operations”.
The officer is suspected of having ordered 24-year-old Farooq Ahmad Dhar to be tied to a jeep, had a sign reading “I am a stone pelter” pasted to his chest, and driven around for over five hours on 9 April in Budgam district, Jammu and Kashmir.
Some Army officials have claimed that Farooq Dar was used as a ‘human shield’ to deter people from throwing stones at their convoy.
However in a video of the incident uploaded online on 14 April, a voice over a loudspeaker can be heard saying, “This will be the fate of people who throw stones.”
According to media reports, an army spokesperson on 22 May said that the commendation was given to the Major for “sustained efforts”, but refused to confirm whether it was linked to the 9 April incident.
The Indian Army has ordered a military investigation into the incident. However it is unclear if the investigation has been completed. The state police is also conducting a criminal investigation into the incident.
‘Tie Arundhati Roy to Army jeep’, says Paresh Rawal
By
Agencies -
Published at: May 23, 2017
New Delhi, May 22: Even as the army’s court of inquiry is continuing with its examination of whether a group of soldiers broke the law by keeping a Kashmiri man hostage for several hours by tying him to the front of their jeep, BJP Lok Sabha member Paresh Rawal on Sunday tweeted from his Twitter-verified account that the army in Jammu and Kashmir should treat author and activist Arundhati Roy rather the same way.
Shawl maker Farooq Ahmed Dar, 26, was on his way to visit relatives after casting his vote in the Srinagar by-election on April 9, 2017 when an army patrol seized him and tied him to their jeep. They then paraded him around several towns warning bystanders that they would meet the same fate if they threw stones at the security forces. Dar, who was one of only 7% of residents of the constituency to defy the separatist call for a boycott of the election, said he was released several hours later.
Though there is no evidence that Dar threw stones – he himself has denied throwing stones and even displayed his voting slip to demonstrate his bona fides – Rawal, like many other politicians, journalists and social media commentators, has insisted on referring to him as a “stone pelter”.
Not stopping there, Rawal also endorsed a response to his tweet that said similar treatment should be meted out to journalist Sagarika Ghose.
Predictably, Rawal’s tweet promptly incited many of his followers to threaten physical violence against the writer and others. “This is mild … every Indian should be violent physically with traitor like Arundhati Roy who always raise her voice against India,” said one P.K. Pawan. Others said they would like to stone or even set fire to a jeep if Roy was tied to it.
Another Rawal supporter said he would have “dragged her behind my jeep”.
Rawal’s comments inciting violence against Roy and other women have also been widely condemned on the micro-blogging website.
Roy is a vocal activist who is known for her strong stance against human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir. She won the Man Booker Prize in 1997 for her novel The God of Small Things. Her second novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, will be published in June.
Human rights activist Shabnam Hashmi said an FIR against Rawal should be filed immediately. “What he’s done is absolutely obnoxious. In fact I tweeted at the police commissioner, Mumbai police, asking him to take action. I got a response asking me to come and file a case in a police station. I said you should take suo motu action – this is clearly inciting violence against one of our most celebrated writers, internationally known, and a woman,” she said.
The BJP officially washed its hands of its MP’s tweet. Responding to the controversy, Rawal’s comment had triggered, G.V.L. Narsimha Rao, spokesperson of the party, told The Wire, “Arundhati Roy has been known for anti-India propaganda over Kashmir as she is a compulsive attention seeker. Such people are best ignored rather than being commented upon.”
Communist Party of India leader and women’s rights activist Annie Raja, however, was unforgiving. Terming the tweet “highly condemnable,” she told The Wire that Rawal was the one who has shown the “attention-seeking” side to his personality by attacking Roy on social media without any provocation.
“I may not agree with what Arundhati Roy says but it is noteworthy how the BJP leaders so conveniently attack women who assert themselves, who have positions and opinions on political issues. One must ask Rawal, if he is so concerned about the army’s safety, he should offer himself to the army to be used as a human shield. Why should he suggest someone else’s name. Rawal’s tweet does not deserve a cultured response. It speaks about [his] depraved mind. A man using a woman’s name to get attention,” Raja said.
“
The force had to use a human shield. That itself shows the biggest failure of the government in controlling the situation in the Valley. The army’s role is to protect the borders, not to oversee the law and order situation. …The government should allow the army to do their duty to protect the borders and let the police take charge of law and order in the state,” she added.
Congress leader Tom A. Vadakan also said that Rawal should offer himself up as a human shield before suggesting anyone else’s name. “Have we gone back to that age and time when things do not matter? Rawal’s tweet comes at a time when the Gujarat election is around the corner. I think he is doing a disservice to his party by making such a senseless comment. It is one of Rawal’s scripts which has misfired.”
Asked how he would respond to Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh justifying the army’s act of using a civilian hostage in the Valley, Vadakan said it was Singh’s personal viewpoint and not the party’s. Singh, in a recent article, praised Major Nitin Gogoi, the officer in charge of tying a civilian to the army jeep, and had said he deserved a “distinguished services medal” for the act.
“I personally believe that human lives should be respected even if it is of a stone pelter. They can be tried by law. Let the judicial process take place and if he is found guilty, let him face punishment. But if the BJP wants to be the overlord and pronounce punishment without any arbitration, we do not know where Indian democracy is headed. Whatever Arundhati Roy’s ideology is, it is going a lot further by calling to tie her around a jeep as a human shield. We are living in a democracy, not in medieval times,” Vadakan said.
INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE RED CROSS
CUSTOMARY IHL
1. Rules-By Rule-Rule 97
Rule 97. Human Shields
Rule 97. The use of human shields is prohibited.
Summary
State practice establishes this rule as a norm of customary international law applicable in both international and non-international armed conflicts.
In the context of international armed conflicts, this rule is set forth in the Third Geneva Convention (with respect to prisoners of war), the Fourth Geneva Convention (with respect to protected civilians) and Additional Protocol I (with respect to civilians in general). Under the Statute of the International Criminal Court, “utilizing the presence of a civilian or other protected person to render certain points, areas or military forces immune from military operations” constitutes a war crime in international armed conflicts.
The prohibition of using human shields is contained in numerous military manuals, many of which extend the prohibition to all civilians. Using human shields constitutes a criminal offence under the legislation of many States. This practice includes that of States not, or not at the time, party to Additional Protocol I or to the Statute of the International Criminal Court.
In 1990 and 1991, there was extensive condemnation by States of the use of prisoners of war and civilians by Iraq as human shields, and the United States declared that such use amounted to a war crime. The use of prisoners of war as human shields during the Second World War was the subject of war crimes trials by the UK Military Court at Lüneberg in the
Student case in 1946 and by the US Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in the
Von Leeb (The High Command Trial) case in 1948.
In the
Karadžić and Mladić case in 1995 before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the accused were charged with war crimes for using UN peacekeepers as human shields. In its review of the indictments the Tribunal upheld this charge.
With respect to non-international armed conflicts, Additional Protocol II does not explicitly mention the use of human shields, but such practice would be prohibited by the requirement that “the civilian population and individual civilians shall enjoy general protection against the dangers arising from military operations”. It is significant, furthermore, that the use of human shields has often been equated with the taking of hostages, which is prohibited by Additional Protocol II, and by customary international law (see Rule 96). In addition, deliberately using civilians to shield military operations is contrary to the principle of distinction and violates the obligation to take feasible precautions to separate civilians and military objectives (see Rules 23–24).
Several military manuals which apply in non-international armed conflicts prohibit the use of human shields. The legislation of several States criminalizes the use of human shields in non-international armed conflicts. The use of human shields in non-international armed conflicts has been condemned by States and by the United Nations, for example, with respect to the conflicts in Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Tajikistan and the former Yugoslavia.
No official contrary practice was found.
The ICRC has reminded parties to both international and non-international armed conflicts of the prohibition of using human shields.
International human rights law does not prohibit the use of human shields as such, but this practice would constitute, among other things, a violation of the non-derogable right not to be arbitrarily deprived of the right to life (see commentary to Rule 89). The UN Human Rights Committee and regional human rights bodies have indicated that this right involves not only the right not to be killed, but also the duty of States to take measures to protect life. In
Demiray v. Turkey, in which the applicant submitted that her husband had been used as a human shield, the European Court of Human Rights stated that “Article 2 may … imply in certain well-defined circumstances a positive obligation on the authorities to take preventive operational measures to protect an individual for which they are responsible”.
Definition of human shields
The prohibition of using human shields in the Geneva Conventions, Additional Protocol I and the Statute of the International Criminal Court are couched in terms of using the presence (or movements) of civilians or other protected persons to render certain points or areas (or military forces) immune from military operations. Most examples given in military manuals, or which have been the object of condemnations, have been cases where persons were actually taken to military objectives in order to shield those objectives from attacks. The military manuals of New Zealand and the United Kingdom give as examples the placing of persons in or next to ammunition trains. There were many condemnations of the threat by Iraq to round up and place prisoners of war and civilians in strategic sites and around military defence points. Other condemnations on the basis of this prohibition related to rounding up civilians and putting them in front of military units in the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and Liberia.
In the Review of the Indictments in the
Karadžić and Mladić case, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia qualified physically securing or otherwise holding peacekeeping forces against their will at potential NATO air targets, including ammunition bunkers, a radar site and a communications centre, as using “human shields”.
It can be concluded that the use of human shields requires an intentional co-location of military objectives and civilians or persons hors de combat with the specific intent of trying to prevent the targeting of those military objectives.
https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v1_rul_rule97
