France : expulsion des enfants scolarisés

Espagne : une loi sur la mémoire de la Guerre civile espagnole

France : expulsions

The Lancet, la célèbre revue médicale, dénonce l'injection létale

Avec l'étude de la revue médicale internationale The lancet, la preuve scientifique est faite que l'injection létale inflige une des pires tortures qui soient. Paru en avril 2005, l'article est à l'origine du doute qui touche depuis des mois les cours américaines.

Aux Etats-Unis, tous les condamnés à mort ne meurent pas anesthésiés. C'est un constat médical à bien des égards dérangeant que publie, dans son édition datée du 16 avril 2005, l'hebdomadaire médical britannique The Lancet. Ce travail est signé par un groupe de médecins américains dirigés par Leonidas G. Koniaris, spécialiste de chirurgie cancérologique et de soins palliatifs (Miller School of Medicine, Université de Floride). Les auteurs de cette publication ont analysé les données médicales et toxicologiques consignées dans les dossiers des personnes exécutées aux Etats-Unis par injection létale.

Dosages insuffisants

Leonidas Koniaris et ses collègues ont tout d'abord passé en revue les protocoles d'injections létales utilisés dans les Etats du Texas et de Virginie (où se déroulent 45 % des exécutions) et ont interviewés des témoins et des responsables des prisons. Il est apparu qu'en général une dose de 2g de thiopental est utilisée et, qu'en raison de cette forte concentration, aucune procédure n'est prévue pour s'assurer de la profondeur de l'anesthésie et de la perte de conscience avant l'injection de curare. Selon Koniaris, si la dose de thiopental est bien supérieure à ce que l'on prescrit habituellement pour une injection anesthésique (3 à 5 mg/kg), la perte de conscience n'est pas maintenue au cours de l'exécution par une perfusion continue (de 1 à 1,5 mg/kg) comme c'est le cas au bloc opératoire. Or le délai moyen entre la première injection et le décès est de huit minutes quatre. Ainsi, la dose totale de thiopental est en réalité faible et peut même être insuffisante si l'exécution s'éternise. Koniaris insiste également sur le fait que les condamnés sont dans un état hyper adrénergique provoqué par le stress lors de l'injection, ce qui pourrait induire une augmentation des besoins en anesthésiques pour obtenir une perte de conscience suffisamment profonde. Enfin, il rappelle que de nombreux condamnés sont toxicomanes, ce qui peut également induire une tolérance relative aux hypnotiques.

Bourreaux sans formation

Pour vérifier l'hypothèse d'une anesthésie insuffisante lors des injections de curare et de potassium, Koniaris et son équipe ont repris les données toxicologiques de 49 autopsies de condamnés réalisées dans quatre autres Etats américains. Les résultats montrent que certains condamnés resteraient conscients lors de l'administration des produits mortels, d'après la concentration de produits d'anesthésie (thiopental sodique) retrouvée dans leur sang après leur mort. Les taux de thiopental sont très variables en post mortem puisqu'ils vont de simples traces dans certains cas à des valeurs allant jusqu'à 370 mg/l (valeur médiane 15,5 mg/l). Les auteurs expliquent ces grandes variations, par de probables fautes techniques dans la préparation des produits ou dans le mode d'injection par des personnels pénitentiaires non qualifiés. Les injections sont faites par des personnes non-formées aux techniques d'anesthésie et les effets des produits anesthésiants ne sont pas médicalement vérifiés avant l'administration du pancurorium bromure qui entraîne la paralysie, puis le chlorure de potassium qui provoque l'arrêt cardiaque, relèvent-ils. Des difficultés techniques (impossibilité de poser une voie veineuse dans un délai raisonnable ou interruption de la perfusion) conduisent de fait assez souvent à des incidents avec prolongation de la durée de l'exécution au delà d'une demi-heure ou à une agitation inhabituelle du condamné après la première injection.

Un feu intérieur

Quoi qu'il en soit, si ces taux post-mortem sont considérés comme de bons marqueurs des concentrations obtenues durant l'exécution, ce qui est probable selon Koniaris, on peut estimer en se basant sur l'expérience des anesthésistes, que 43 des 49 condamnés étaient conscients durant l'une des phases de l'exécution et que, dans la très grande majorité des cas, l'état des sujets aurait été jugé incompatible avec une intervention chirurgicale par un anesthésiste (le taux moyen de thiopental supprimant la réponse à une stimulation forte du trapèze chez plus de 50 % des sujets est de 38,9 mg/l, valeur que ne dépassaient que six des condamnés). Il est donc possible qu'un grand nombre de condamnés soient conscients durant certaines phases du processus d'exécution qui, rappelons-le, dure en moyenne huit minutes, mais que la curarisation rend cet état de conscience totalement inapparent pour les témoins. Ainsi, le bromure de pancuronium provoque chez le détenu encore conscient une sensation de brûlure intense dans les veines où le produit s'écoule. Le condamné peut donc souffrir atrocement tout en suffoquant lentement et cela sans rien laisser transparaître.

« Ce doit être une façon cruelle de mourir : éveillé, paralysé, incapable de bouger, de respirer, alors que le potassium vous brûle les veines », affirme The Lancet, relevant que « la peine de mort est une atrocité » et que les médecins ne devraient pas « participer à cet acte barbare ». Ce risque d'une mort consciente et douloureuse n'a d'ailleurs pas échappé aux autorités sanitaires de certains Etats américains, puisque l'utilisation de curarisants, qui masquent un éventuel réveil, est interdite dans 19 Etats, dont le Texas, ainsi que par l'Association médicale vétérinaire américaine (AVMA)… pour l'euthanasie des animaux. Ainsi, les conditions actuelles d'exécution d'êtres humains « ne répondent même pas aux critères requis par les vétérinaires pour tuer des animaux ».

Pour « prévenir une cruauté et des souffrances inutiles », il est donc justifié, concluent-ils, de « cesser les injections létales et d'examiner publiquement » cette pratique.

Cet article a déjà conduit plusieurs cours à stopper temporairement des exécutions par injection létale, selon Richard Dieter directeur du Death Penalty Information Center, organisme à but non lucratif et impartial. -- Maela Castel

Cliquez ici pour lire la totalité de l'article consacré aux injections létales sur le site de Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort.

Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort

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U.S.: CIA Knew of Eichmann Whereabouts

WASHINGTON -- Determined to win the Cold War, the CIA kept quiet about the whereabouts of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in the 1950s for fear he might expose undercover anticommunist efforts in West Germany, according to documents released Tuesday.

The 27,000 pages released by the National Archives are among the largest post-World War II declassifications by the CIA. They offer a window into the shadowy world of U.S. intelligence, and the efforts to use former Nazi war criminals as spies, sometimes to detrimental effect.

The war criminals "peddled hearsay and gossip, whether to escape retribution for past crimes, or for mercenary gain, or for political agendas not necessarily compatible with American national interests," Robert Wolfe, an expert on German history and former archivist at the National Archives, said at a news briefing announcing the document release.

In a March 19, 1958, memo to the CIA, West German intelligence officials wrote that they knew where Eichmann was hiding. Eichmann played a key role in transporting Jews to death camps during World War II. "He is reported to have lived in Argentina under the alias 'Clemens' since 1952," authorities wrote.

But neither side acted on that information because they worried what he might say about Hans Globke, a highly placed former Nazi and a chief adviser in West Germany helping the U.S. coordinate anticommunist initiatives in that country.

Two years later, when Jewish authorities captured Eichmann, the CIA pressured journalists to delete references to Globke.

"Entire material has been read. One obscure mention of Globke which Life omitting at our request," CIA Director Allen Dulles wrote in a Sept. 20, 1960, internal memorandum, after Life magazine purchased Eichmann's memoir.

Among the other findings:

-- Former Nazi officers such as Heinz Felfe, who served in the "Gehlen organization", the West German intelligence service which in its early years was sponsored by the U.S. Army and then the CIA, were typically hired by the Soviet Union to be double agents.

-- The CIA routinely misled U.S. immigration officials in the mid-1970s about the role of CIA agent Tscherim Soobzokov and his connection to Nazi war crimes.

The documents were among the latest released under a 1999 law, resisted by the CIA, that called for disclosure of government records related to war crimes committed by the Nazi and Japanese governments.

"CIA has been struggling with the nettlesome problem of how to balance the public's interest in the historical record of CIA's connections to Nazis, and an intelligence agency's need ... to protect the identities of sources," said Stanley Moskowitz, a former CIA official who is now a consultant to the agency.

"The passage of time has shifted the balance," he said.

Material relating to Japanese war crimes were scheduled to be released later this summer.

-- HOPE YEN (The Associated Press)

Washingtonpost.com

Vatican : nouvelle diatribe contre les unions homosexuelles

U.S. - Bush to promote gay marriage amendment

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush will promote a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage on Monday, the eve of a scheduled Senate vote on the cause that is dear to his conservative backers.

The amendment would prohibit states from recognizing same-sex marriages. To become law, the proposal would need two-thirds support in the Senate and House, and then be ratified by at least 38 state legislatures.

It stands little chance of passing the 100-member Senate, where proponents are struggling to get even 50 votes. Several Republicans oppose the measure, and so far only one Democrat -- Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska -- says he will vote for it.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the amendment on May 18 along party lines after a shouting match between a Democrat and the chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania. He bid Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin, "good riddance" after Feingold declared his opposition to the amendment and his intention to leave the meeting.

Bush aides said he would be making his remarks on the subject Monday.

A slim majority of Americans oppose gay marriage, according to a poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press from March. But the poll also showed attitudes are changing: 63 percent opposed gay marriage in February 2004.

Those poll results don't reflect how people might feel about amending the Constitution to ban gay marriage.

The Massachusetts Supreme Court decided to legalize such marriages in 2003. A year later, San Francisco issued thousands of marriage licenses to gay couples.

This November, initiatives banning same-sex marriages are expected to be on the ballot in Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin. In 2004, 13 states approved initiatives prohibiting gay marriage or civil unions, with 11 states casting votes on Election Day.

Bush benefited as religious conservatives turned out to vote and helped him defeat Democratic Sen. John Kerry in 2004. In Ohio, an initiative rejecting the legality of civil unions won handily. The same state tipped the election to Bush.

"The president firmly believes that marriage is an enduring and sacred institution between men and women and has supported measures to protect the sanctity of marriage," White House spokesman Ken Lisaius said.

Bush has lost support among conservatives who blame the White House and Congress for runaway government spending, illegal immigration and lack of action on social issues such as the gay marriage amendment.

Opponents of the amendment objected to Bush promoting a measure they said amounts to discrimination.

"This is fundamentally both a civil rights and religious freedom issue and the president's position of supporting amending the constitution is just dead wrong," said Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. "This is simply to give ammunition to the so-called religious right just to show that the president is still with them."

The Associated Press.

Appel à manifester pour les LGBT russes

Independent Report on the Moscow Gay Pride

Robert Wintemute is Professor of Human Rights Law in the School of Law, King's College, University of London, where he teaches European Union Law, Human Rights Law, and Anti-Discrimination Law. He is also co-chair of the "Right to be different" conference which will take place within the framework of the 1st World Outgames Montréal 2006

Thursday, 25 May 2006 (111th anniversary of Oscar Wilde's conviction for "gross indecency", ie, private consensual sexual activity with another adult male, and sentence to 2 years imprisonment with hard labour).

At about 6:30 pm at the Library of Foreign Literature, Mr. Merlin Holland, a heterosexual man who is the grandson of Oscar Wilde, began giving a lecture on the effect of Oscar Wilde's imprisonment on his wife and children. After about 10 minutes, the lecture was disrupted by 15 to 20 neo-fascist Russian nationalists, who stood up and chanted "homosexual propaganda", and "Russia, Russia, Russia". I heard one woman say: "This is our country!". One of the nationalists released a gas as they left the lecture theatre. The gas caused people still in the theatre to choke and cough. The lecture had to be moved to another room.

Friday, 26 May 2006

At about 10:45 am, a judge of the Tverskoy District Court heard the appeal of Nikolai Alexeyev (chief organiser) against the decision of the Mayor's Office of Moscow to refuse permission for the 1st Lesbian and Gay Pride March in Moscow, on exactly the same route as an approved anti-fascist march held in December 2005. I attended the hearing with Mr. Alexeyev, his lawyer Dmitri Bartnev, and John Fisher of ARC International. The judge listened sympathetically, but (after about 50 minutes) she issued an order (with reasons to follow) upholding the decision of the Mayor's Office.

It is not yet clear why she thought that the decision could be justified despite the guarantees of freedom of assembly in Russian legislation, the Russian Constitution, and Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Mayor's Office argued that they could not provide security for the march because there are only 400 police (militia) in Moscow (available for this purpose?). This was hard to believe, because Moscow has a population of over 10,000,000 and recently applied to host the 2012 Olympic Games. The Mayor's Office also argued that the December 2005 march against fascism was approved, and security provided, because the march was supported by the majority of the population. The trial judge's decision will be appealed to the Moscow City Court. If that appeal is rejected, no further appeals will be possible and the case will proceed to the European Court of Human Rights.

Saturday, 27 May 2006 (13th anniversary of the decriminalisation of same-sex sexual activity in Russia)

It had been decided that the participants in the Moscow Pride 2006 World Conferences ("International Gay and Lesbian Cultural Network" on 25 May and "International Day Against Homophobia" on 26 May) would go to the Tomb of the Unkown Soldier, in the Alexander Garden outside the wall of the Kremlin, at 2:30 pm to lay flowers in memory of past victims of fascism. They would then walk from the Garden across Manezh Square and up Tverskaya Street to the Mayor's Office of Moscow. At 3:00 pm, a short demonstration would be held in the small square across the street from the Mayor's Office. Participants would display rainbow flags, a few signs and a large banner reading: "Freedom of minorities - Freedom of everyone! Homophobia is a constituent part of xenophobia!".

To prevent the laying of flowers, police closed the Alexander Garden and locked the gate to the entrance from Manezh Square. When I arrived, there was a crowd around the entrance, including Nikolai Alexeyev, Merlin Holland and Ed Murzin (a heterosexual member of a Russian regional legislature), who were attempting to lay their flowers. They were surrounded by journalists with television cameras, and opponents of the Moscow Pride (neo-fascist Russian nationalists and members of the Russian Orthodox Church). There was a scuffle. I saw two police officers pull Mr. Alexeyev from the crowd and lead him (one officer was on each side of him holding one of his arms) to a police van. (He looked like Oscar Wilde being taken away to prison.)

After the arrest of Mr. Alexeyev, I remained in Manezh Square. I saw nationalists running away (one removing a black balaclava mask as he did so), chased by OMON riot police (OMOH was written in Cyrillic on the backs of their uniforms, which ironically is HOMO spelled backwards). I saw religious protesters with crosses and icons. Some were chanting: "Moscow is not Sodom!". Because it was raining, I opened my rainbow umbrella. Maxim Anmeghichean of ILGA-Europe suggested that I close it, because nationalists nearby were looking at it. I did so, but journalists asked me to open it so that they could take my picture with it. It remained open as I walked across Manezh Square to the south end of Tverskaya Street (one of the main shopping streets of Moscow, comparable to Oxford Street or Regent Street in London), where nationalists were releasing tear gas and setting off flares. I saw the riot police arrest 20 or 30 nationalists and put them in a police van. (For video coverage, see " Scenes from the streets of Moscow ").

I walked up Tverskaya Street with Merlin Holland. Sophie in 't Veld (a Dutch Member of the European Parliament) said that I should put away my rainbow umbrella. I asked how it was different from the rainbow flag carried by Volker Beck (a Member of the Bundestag in Germany) and his partner Jacques Tessier, who were a few feet ahead of me. I said that I was in a European capital city on a main street on Saturday afternoon, that there were police around, and that it was only an umbrella.

A few minutes later, a gang of 30 to 50 nationalists ran up the street. (I would estimate that there were between 200 and 500 nationalists at large, compared with 50 to 100 Moscow Pride participants). One of the nationalists (a tall, well-built man) seemed to recognise Merlin Holland from the attempt to lay flowers and kicked him in the back. I shouted: "Leave him alone!" Merlin and I moved out of their way and stayed at the edge of the pavement by the street. I put away my rainbow umbrella and took off my Moscow Pride 2006 badge. There were no police in the area.

Once things had calmed down, we continued up the street and watched the attempt to hold a demonstration in the small square opposite the Mayor's Office. The demonstration consisted mainly of journalists with television cameras conducting interviews with participants. The protest signs and the large banner could not be seen. (At one point, a nationalist punched Volker Beck in the eye as he was giving an interview, resulting in a bleeding cut below his eye and a black eye. This assault was caught on video and broadcast by EuroNews that evening. Volker's partner, Jacques Tessier, told me that nationalists grabbed their rainbow flag, snapped in two the stick to which the flag was attached, threw the flag on the ground, and stamped on it.)

Eventually, the OMON asked people to leave the square. We were pressed onto the pavement to the north of the square, on the east side of the street. I was asked to give an interview via mobile telephone to a journalist working for Agence France Presse. I told him what I had seen. (See  Le Monde ). A group of nationalists began walking towards me. I told the journalist that they were approaching and said: "I've got to leave." One of the nationalists had singled me out and walked towards me. I tried to avoid him by leaving the pavement and walking into the street. He backed me up against a parked car and stood a few inches from my face, shouting: "Pederasts/queers/faggots get out of Russia!!!". I pointed to the 10 or so OMON officers who were standing a few feet away (hoping that their presence would deter the nationalist from beating me up), and also gestured at the officers (hoping that they would help me). Finally, one of the officers got the nationalist to move away.

However, another officer was soon trying to get me and other Moscow Pride participants nearby to move back onto the pavement, into the middle of the group of nationalists. I said to the officer, "It's not safe", and asked Maxim (who was nearby) to translate this. We were allowed to stay where we were until the nationalists had been cleared from the pavement. We were then moved onto the pavement, and found ourselves unable to move north or south, because there were nationalists in both directions. While we were waiting there, a group of Russian Orthodox women approached, wearing headscarves and carrying icons. One of them squirted water on us from a large bottle of mineral water.

Eventually, we crossed to the west side of Tverskaya Street and sought refuge in a branch of Coffee House. Merlin Holland was with us and told me that, in addition to being kicked, he had had an egg thrown at him, as well as a potato, which had knocked off his glasses.

This experience of "Chaos on Tverskaya Street" left me feeling shaken. In my sheltered life, I had never seen such a breakdown of law and order: gangs of thugs running wild on Saturday afternoon on one of the main streets of a European capital city. The man who shouted in my face, his own face contorted with anger and hatred, gave me a small taste of what it must have been like to be Jewish and facing a pogrom in 19th-century Russia, or a Nazi officer during World War II. All I could think was: "You don't know me. What have I done to you?"

But this experience was also an inspiring visit for a human rights academic to the front lines of the struggle to defend human rights. It was obvious that the Moscow Pride participants, carrying flowers and flags, were trying to defend democracy in Russia, which requires that groups of private citizens be allowed to demonstrate peacefully to draw attention to problems in society. The nationalists were there to attack democracy, and impose censorship by force. We could have been in the closing stage of Germany's Weimar Republic. The most shocking feature of the events of 27 May 2006 was that the Mayor's Office of Moscow, and (as Sophie in t' Veld pointed out in her letter of 29 May 2006 to European Commission President José Manuel Barroso) the protesting members of the Russian Orthodox Church, chose to align themselves with the violent and anti-democratic nationalists.

We will be back in Moscow next year for the 2007 Pride. And we will be looking forward to a strong statement from the European Court of Human Rights, in cases from Poland, Moldova and Russia, that public officials who ban Lesbian and Gay Pride Marches are violating Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and undermining their own democracies.

Robert Wintemute

GayRussia.ru