The prominent philanthropist is the first Australian to join Amnesty’s council of leaders from the arts, business and philanthropic world.

Amnesty International is pleased to announce that philanthropist and arts patron Judith Neilson, AM will join the organisation’s prestigious Global Council.

Judith Neilson, founder of the White Rabbit Gallery in Sydney, Australia, will be the first Australian to join the Council and joins the likes of Sir Richard Branson, world renowned Brazilian author Paulo Coelho, pioneering Japanese artist Yoko Ono, financier and philanthropist Krishna Rao, Founder and CEO of AirAsia Tony Fernandes, social activist Hadeel Ibrahim and entrepreneur Bassim Haidar.

“As a visible driving force behind restoring the safety, dignity and hope of some of the world’s most vulnerable people, Judith Neilson’s voice will have tremendous strength as she brings it alongside Amnesty International.”

Salil Shetty, Secretary General of Amnesty International.

“As a visible driving force behind restoring the safety, dignity and hope of some of the world’s most vulnerable people, Judith Neilson’s voice will have tremendous strength as she brings it alongside Amnesty International,” said Salil Shetty, Secretary General of Amnesty International.

Growing up in Zimbabwe and South Africa left Judith Neilson with a deep awareness of poverty and the plight of refugees. Those concerns led to her work with Anti-Slavery Australia, of which she is Patron, and her endowment of a Chair in Architecture at the University of New South Wales to develop innovative housing for people displaced by war and natural disasters.

Neilson’s charitable work and her contributions to the arts were recognised in 2016 with her appointment as a Member of the Order of Australia.

Amnesty International’s Global Council was established in 2013 to support Amnesty’s work to advance justice and human rights globally.  Members serve as champions for Amnesty International within their own networks and help the organisation’s Secretary General to raise financial resources and identify and engage new human rights supporters. Council members do this in a variety of ways that are suited to their backgrounds, areas of expertise and interests.

Evidence gathered is suggesting a nerve agent was used in an air-launched chemical attack which killed more than 70 and injured hundreds of civilians in Khan Sheikhoun in Syria’s northern province of Idleb, Amnesty International revealed as the UN Security Council met for an emergency meeting in New York.

We are urging the Security Council to immediately adopt a resolution that will enforce the prohibition of chemical weapons attacks and facilitate bringing the perpetrators of these crimes to justice.

“Security Council members, and in particular Russia and China, have displayed callous disregard for human life in Syria by repeatedly failing to pass resolutions that would allow for punitive measures to be taken against those committing war crimes and other serious violations in Syria,” said Anna Neistat, Senior Director of Research at Amnesty International.

“The Security Council must immediately vote to investigate this attack and help bring those responsible to justice. Failure to do so would be catastrophic, risking further emboldening governments and armed groups in Syria to target civilians in war crimes with banned and conventional weapons alike.”

Many of the victims of the attack, which occurred around 6:30a.m. local time on Tuesday 4 April, appear to have been poisoned as they slept in their beds. Chemical weapons experts working with Amnesty have confirmed that victims are very likely to have been exposed to a nerve agent, or an organophosphorus compound, such as sarin. Experts do not believe that chlorine gas was used, as in previous chemical attacks in the Syrian conflict.

Video evidence

Amnesty International was also able to authenticate more than 25 pieces of video footage shot in the aftermath of the chemical weapons attack. Some videos are of sufficient quality for experts to observe victims with pinpoint pupils, described as a classic symptom of nerve gas poisoning. There are reports of medical staff suffering from secondary exposure, which would also be consistent with the use of a nerve agent. In some videos, victims displayed no twitching or jerky movements which experts agree suggest cases of extreme poisoning. In others, including videos of children, the patients are trembling.

“This is the deadliest chemical attack in Syria since the United Nations Security Council passed resolution 2118 in September 2013 for the elimination of Syria’s chemical weapons”

Anna Neistat, Senior Director of Research at Amnesty International

One piece of footage, which Amnesty International has corroborated with other available content, shows nine children lying lifeless in the back of a pick-up truck. The children, little girls and boys, are naked or partially dressed; they appear to have died in their beds. No signs of trauma are visible on their corpses, which is consistent with chemical poisoning.

Other videos made in medical facilities in the aftermath of the attack show many people being treated for respiratory distress, as well as more images of dead children and adults. There are no obvious signs of bloody wounds or shrapnel injuries.

“This is the deadliest chemical attack in Syria since the United Nations Security Council passed resolution 2118 in September 2013 for the elimination of Syria’s chemical weapons,” said Anna Neistat.

“The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the UN have jointly confirmed several chemical weapon attacks since then, by government and non-government forces alike. It is appalling that nobody has been brought to justice.”

Interviews with medical workers in Idleb

Amnesty International interviewed a nurse, who was working at the Al Rahma hospital on the morning of the attack. He remembers checking his watch at around 6:20a.m. when he was having his morning coffee and all was quiet until then.

“The sound of the explosion was not what we are used to – my colleagues and I thought that this one hadn’t exploded, because of the thump sound it made, not an explosion sound. A few minutes later, around 6:35am, the first victims were brought in – and then the flow just kept going until around 9a.m. There was a huge number of people and aides being brought in, and there were only four of us medics at the hospital at the time, and one of us also got infected.”

The nurse also described unfamiliar symptoms:

“The smell reached us here in the centre; it smelled like rotten food. We’ve received victims of chlorine attacks before – this was completely different. Victims had vomit from the nose and mouth, a dark yellow colour, sometimes turning to brown. Paralysis in respiratory functions – children were dying faster than adults because of this. We tried injections … but it just didn’t work. Victims were unable to swallow, they were unconscious, completely unresponsive.”

“We tried injections … but it just didn’t work. Victims were unable to swallow, they were unconscious, completely unresponsive”

“The use of chemical weapons is strictly prohibited under international humanitarian law and constitutes a war crime. The international community must show outrage and take all possible measures to protect the Syrian people and the people of the world from such horrific acts,” said Anna Neistat.

A doctor working at the specialised surgery hospital, some 50 kilometres away from the site of the attack also gave his account of the incident.

“Victims were sent first to the closest hospitals, so by the time they reached us, it was around 8am. The attack happened at 6.42am exactly. Victims, including around 70 dead, have reached a total of around 400 people, who were spread out between the different medical centres, and those taken to Turkey. Most of the victims we received were still alive. Those who died didn’t make it to us. Two persons brought in here died in hospital.

“Victims reached us in different states – some had muscular and respiratory paralysis, which we tried treating with tranquilizers and Atropine.

They had secretions from the mouth and nose that were white. Some were completely unconscious. Some had severe muscular pain.

Children are the first ones to die, they cannot fight this back. We only had one child who, thank God, survived. “

Background

Khan Sheikhoun is a small town on the Damascus highway in rural Idleb, which is one of the few areas in northeastern Syria to remain under opposition control. In recent months Idleb has become collection point for those fleeing violence in Aleppo and elsewhere. It has suffered sporadic bombardment by Syrian artillery positions and aircraft since 2012. Recently the bombing intensified, in response to a surprise offensive by armed opposition groups in Hama. Aircraft of the US-led coalition have also been carrying out attacks in Idleb Governorate.

Amnesty has repeatedly called upon the UN Security Council to end the cycle of impunity and to refer the situation in Syria to the Prosecution of the International Criminal Court

In February 2017, Russia and China vetoed a draft Security Council resolution to impose Chapter VII measures for the “unauthorized transfer of chemical weapons, or any use of chemical weapons by anyone in the Syrian Arab Republic”.

This attack also serves as a bleak and unfortunate reminder to European countries meeting in Brussels to consider reconstruction in Syria that action towards justice and accountability must be central to any discussions about the country’s future.

Sri Lanka will not break with its violent past until it reckons with the cruel history of enforced disappearance and delivers justice to as many as 100,000 families who have spent years waiting for it, Amnesty International said today in a new report, revealing the enduring scars of a conflict that has been forgotten by the world.

Amnesty International’s report, “Only Justice can heal our wounds”, will be launched by the organization’s Secretary General Salil Shetty at a meeting with families of the disappeared in the northern Sri Lankan town of Mannar.

The report tells the story of relatives, many of them women, who have spent years searching for truth and justice. Obstructed at every turn, they have been misled about the whereabouts or fate of their disappeared relatives, subjected to threats, smears and intimidation, and suffered the indignity of delayed trials and a stalled truth and justice processes.

“There is no community in Sri Lanka that remains untouched by the trauma of enforced disappearance. Most people in the country suffer the absence of a loved one or know someone who does. They have waited years, and in some cases, decades, to learn of the fate of their relatives. Until justice is delivered to these victims, the country cannot begin to heal, let alone move towards a more promising future,” said Salil Shetty, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.

Despite international commitments to end impunity for enforced disappearance, which may amount to crimes against humanity where they have been widespread and systematic, the authorities have failed to investigate these cases, identify the whereabouts or fate of the victim, or prosecute those suspected of the crimes.

A major driver of enforced disappearances has been like Sri Lanka’s notorious Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). Enabling incommunicado and secret detention, the PTA places people outside the law and leaves them vulnerable to human rights violations including torture and enforced disappearances.

“Sri Lanka needs to put the victims at the heart of any reconciliation process. The authorities must hear their demands and implement them. The current government has taken encouraging steps to acknowledge the need to end impunity, but it cannot leave the victims waiting any longer. They have waited too long already. If Sri Lanka wants to successfully pull away from its violent past, it must address victims’ demands for justice, truth, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence,” said Salil Shetty.

A relentless search for justice

One of the cases detailed in the report is of Sandya Eknaligoda, whose husband, Prageeth, left his on 24 January 2010 and never returned. Prageeth Eknaligoda was a political cartoonist, known for his efforts to expose corruption and human rights abuses by the government then in power.

Sandya Eknaligoda’s perseverance has led to some evidence being uncovered which indicates that military intelligence personnel may have been involved in her husband’s disappearance. Since she filed a complaint, she has been to court at least 90 times. Each time she appears, she faces the prospect of harassment. She told Amnesty International that last year, a prominent member of the Buddhist national Bodhu Bala Sena and other monks stormed the court at Homagama and threatened her. The same group has smeared her as a supporter of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in posters.

In 2011, the former attorney general told the UN Committee Against Torture that her husband had not been abducted but had fled the country. When confronted about the claim in court, the former attorney general said that his memory had failed him, forgetting where the claim came from.

Sandya has pressed on with her campaign, writing repeatedly to Sri Lankan leaders, handing out appeals in front of Parliament, organizing vigils, and emboldening other wives of the disappeared to raise their voices and join her demand for justice. Taking her case to the UN Human Rights Council, she has forced slow progress. In 2015, an investigation revealed that Prageeth had been held at army camps. But the process has stalled since then.

A cruel history

Since the 1980s, Amnesty International estimates there have been at least 60,000 and as many as 100,000 cases of enforced disappearance in Sri Lanka. The victims include Sinhalese young people who were killed or forcibly disappeared by government death squads on suspicion of leftists links in 1989 and 1990. They include Tamils suspected of links to the LTTE, disappeared by police, military and paramilitary operatives during the conflict from 1983 to 2009. And they include human rights defenders, aid workers, journalists, government critics, and prominent community leaders.

In June 2016, former President Chandrika Bandranaike Kumaratunga, who was in office from 1994 to 2005, acknowledged receiving at least 65,000 complaints of disappearance. The true figure could be as high as 100,000 people, Amnesty International estimates, as communities who have lived and continue to live under a pall of fear and without confidence in the authorities have not reported other cases.

Under international law, an enforced disappearance is where a person is arrested, detained, abducted or otherwise deprived of their liberty by agents of the state, or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of the state, followed by a refusal  to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which places them outside the protection of the law. In Sri Lanka, many “abductions” or “disappearances” have also been carried out by non-state actors, including armed groups.

In Sri Lanka, enforced disappearance have varied in time, scale and intensity at various points in the conflict.  Having ratified the Convention, Sri Lanka has an obligation to investigate all allegations of disappearance and, where sufficient evidence exists, to prosecute those suspected of the crimes at all levels in proceedings which should be fair and without recourse to the death penalty. The government must ensure that victims and their families are told the truth and that they are provided with full and effective reparation to address the harm they have suffered.

A way forward: truth, justice, reparation and non-recurrence

In October 2015, the Sri Lankan government committed to develop mechanisms and institute other reforms aimed at delivering truth, justice, reparation and ensuring non-recurrence for past human rights violations and abuses.  In public communications, the government of Sri Lanka refers to the overall process as “reconciliation.”

The determined activism of families of the disappeared and widespread public familiarity with the issue has pushed the government to address disappearances first, the process has been stalled. Last year, the Sri Lankan Parliament ratified the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. But a bill to implement the Convention by criminalising enforced disappearance in the Sri Lankan Penal Code has yet to be debated.

Also in 2016, Parliament passed a bill to establish the “Office of Missing Persons”. While a laudable step, the government failed to consult with victims and civil society or address their concerns about the bill, including ambiguous provisions on whether evidence of responsibility for disappearance gathered by the Office would be submitted to prosecuting authorities, undermining public confidence in the initiative. The President has yet to sign the bill into law.

Where the government has reached out to victims, it has ignored what they have to say. Public consultations on the design of justice, truth and reparation mechanisms attracted more than 7,000 submissions, including many from families of the disappeared. But officials have shown little interest in the findings and even denigrated the Task Force that organized it.

To move forward, the Sri Lankan government should:

• Enact legislation making disappearance a crime under national law in accordance with the Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.
• Amend and enact the Office on Missing Persons Act to ensure that the Office is established effectively without further delay to investigate all allegations of disappearance; ensuring its effectiveness by seeing that it is fairly, transparently and adequately staffed and resourced; ensure that it submits evidence of responsibility for  disappearances to prosecuting authorities;\
• Where sufficient admissible evidence exists, prosecute those responsible for disappearances promptly before civilian courts in fair trials without recourse to the death penalty;
• Preclude the application of amnesties, immunities and other measures of impunity to persons suspected of committing crimes under international law;
• Formally acknowledge and prioritize the findings and recommendations of the Consultation Task Force;
• Ensure that victims, including families of the disappeared, are provided with full and effective reparation to address the harm they have suffered, including restitution, compensation, rehabilitation and satisfaction;
• Repeal the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and end its use immediately; abolish Sri Lanka’s system of administrative detention and ensure that any future legislation meant to replace the PTA meets international standards;
• Release all individuals held under the PTA or other forms of arbitrary or secret detention unless they are charged with recognizable criminal offences and remanded in custody by an independent, regularly constituted court.