DRC - hasty UN peacekeepers' withdrawal puts women in danger

From the statistics in my last posting – about 160 women raped every week in the Kivu provinces and more than 8000 cases of rapes reported in 2009 – you wouldn’t think that Congo has laws against sexual violence. On the books the laws are there though, but the country’s capacity to implement them is near zero.

Since 2003, no more than 50 soldiers have been convicted of sexual violence, although 20 were convicted in the first quarter of 2009 alone, according to Human Rights Watch, so there is slow progress.

However, this progress might be short lived if the U.N. peacekeepers are withdrawing from the country at the demand of the government, as the humanitarian news network, Reuters’ AlertNet, reports. This obviously would make the struggle against endemic rape "a lot more difficult", the United Nations has said. Margot Wallstrom, the U.N. special representative on sexual violence in conflict, is at the moment visiting Congo, as the world body tries to persuade the government not to demand a hasty withdrawal of the U.N. force.

Arts and Human Rights in Iran/for Iran

Tomorrow, Monday December 7, students will hold major demonstrations in Iran to support the Iranian civil rights movement and protest the severe repression, widespread arrests and imprisonment of hundreds of civil society activists across the country.

And on December 12, international arts events organized under the banner of ArtsUnited4Iran will try to draw the world’s attention onto human rights abuses in the country.

On the occasion of the six-month anniversary of the disputed elections and the sixty-first anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, artists and activists will join together to highlight the ongoing protests in Iran and honour the Iranian people’s peaceful struggle for their human and civil rights. They will call on the Iranian government to respect the freedom of assembly, expression and press, to free all prisoners of conscience, to end rape and torture in prisons, and to hold those responsible for committing human rights crimes accountable, the ArtsUnited4Iran organizers say.

The arts and culture events will include lectures, concerts, gallery showings, readings, round tables, film screenings in over 20 locations worldwide.

Iran experts and activists speaking out in support of the civil rights movement in Iran include Hamid Dabashi, Columbia University Professor and CNN commentator; Hadi Ghaemi, Director of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran; Firuzeh Mahmoudi, United4Iran’s International Coordinator; Omid Memarian, Iran expert at Human Rights Watch; and Reza Moini, Iran expert for Reporters without Borders (RSF).

United4Iran is a non-political global network of individuals and human rights activists building a mass movement in solidarity with the people of Iran. United4Iran is opposed to blanket economic sanctions and military action against Iran, which they believe, will have detrimental effects on the situation of human rights and harm the Iranian people.

The ArtsUnited4Iran sponsors include Reporters without Borders, Human Rights Watch, the Nobel Women’s Initiative, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, ARTICLE 19, and Front Line.

For more details on December 12 events visit united4iran

Iran - Show Trials and database of detainees

Show Trials
Today, Iran's opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi and the former reformist president Mohammad Khatami are denouncing "show trials" of politicians and activists charged with fomenting unrest after the disputed presidential election on 12 June . Both men accused the Tehran regime of using forced confessions to charge senior opposition figures of "acting against national security" and "conspiring with foreign powers to stage a velvet revolution".

Database of dead and detained
Hundreds, probably thousands, have been arrested in Iran since the election. Human rights and campaign groups such as Human Rights Watch, the Campaign for Human Rights in Iran and Reporters Without Borders have been collecting and publishing the names of those dead or detained.

The Guardian newspaper have brought those lists, and reports from trusted media sources, into a database. They are asking readers and those elsewhere on the internet to contribute too.
Since they launched this exercise, they have had hundreds of emails, photographs and names sent to us. Keep them coming. Please post your visualisations and mash-ups on their Flickr group or mail them at datastore@guardian.co.uk