Mensajes clave

• Las irregularidades en las lluvias y temperaturas superiores al promedio durante julio y agosto afectaron a zonas de producción agropecuaria (subsistencia, excedentaria y comercial), principalmente en el oriente y sur de Honduras y en el centro-norte de Nicaragua, provocando pérdidas importantes en la cosecha de Primera de maíz a nivel nacional.

• En las áreas de agricultura de subsistencia, las pérdidas de cosecha se consideran superiores al 85%, concentradas principalmente en los municipios del sur de El Paraíso, Francisco Morazán, La Paz, Valle y el norte de Choluteca en Honduras; y en los municipios del corredor seco del occidente de Nueva Segovia, Jinotega, Matagalpa, el norte de Chinandega, en Estelí y Madriz en Nicaragua.

• El déficit y el retraso de las lluvias durante la primera quincena de septiembre podrían provocar daños en las siembras de Postrera, reduciendo el suministro de granos para la demanda nacional, incidiendo a partir del primer trimestre del 2020 en alzas de precios de maíz y frijol en los mercados de la región.

• Las familias vulnerables en regiones de agricultura de subsistencia y los obreros rurales dependerán del mercado para su alimentación. Los ingresos por su fuerza laboral se verán muy escasos, y deberán aplicar estrategias de adaptación como dinero o grano prestado y cambio por trabajo, así como migrando a centros urbanos.

• Los hogares vulnerables de la región se encontrarán en estrés (Fase 2, CIF), por deterioro en los medios de vida que limitarán su acceso a necesidades básicas no alimentarias. Sin embargo, en proporciones más limitadas, los hogares más pobres de comunidades afectadas por falta de producción y sin otras alternativas alimentarias y usando estrategias de adaptación negativas, estarán en Inseguridad Alimentaria Aguda en Crisis (Fase 3, CIF), principalmente en Honduras y Nicaragua.

Ankara/Athens – At the International Organization for Migration (IOM)’s Western Turkey warehouse in the port city of Izmir, stocks of basic supplies – food, water, blankets, shoes, and clothing – are nearly depleted.

IOM Turkey’s Mediterranean Response Teams have been working round the clock since July to bring basic help to the thousands of migrants who fail in their bid to cross the Aegean Sea to the Greek islands, 10 short kilometres away.

The Turkish Coast Guard reports that the number of migrants and refugees attempting to cross the Aegean from Turkey to Greece has steadily increased, while being still far lower than 2015’s peaks. IOM Turkey’s Migrant Presence Monitoring Programme, which tracks migratory flows across the country, also has observed an overall increase in the movement of migrants.

In Greece, within sight of the daily maritime drama, IOM is working with authorities coping with the increasing number of arrivals. According to official data from the Greek authorities, since the beginning of September more than 5,000 refugees and migrants have crossed the Greek sea borders, a sharp increase over last year’s figures.

The main nationalities trying to cross are Afghans and Syrians, both groups fleeing continued volatility in their home countries. In August, Afghans made up the majority of crossers, while Syrians made up another 35 per cent. Together, through the first eight months of 2019, citizens of those two countries represent over 60 per cent of all irregular arrivals entering Greece by sea.

IOM’s Chief of Mission in Turkey, Lado Gvilava, said: “We are, of course, concerned by developments which are placing migrants in situations of great vulnerability. It is particularly harrowing to see the number of women and children taking these perilous journeys.”

Since the beginning of 2019, some 36,209 migrants have crossed into Greece from Turkey. Meanwhile, there are 29,000 migrants and asylum seekers on the North Eastern Aegean islands, more than three times the preferred capacity of the existing reception and identification centres.

IOM Greece coordinates closely with the Greek authorities to add accommodations on the mainland and recently supported the transfer of 1,500 vulnerable asylum seekers from Lesvos to temporary facilities in Northern Greece.

“IOM Greece is concerned about overpopulation on the Greek islands and is supporting the authorities in urgent efforts to increase places on the mainland to accommodate the vulnerable migrants,” said Gianluca Rocco, IOM’s Chief of Mission in Greece. “Approximately 4,000 new accommodation places will become available in the coming weeks which will allow more vulnerable groups to leave the Greek Islands.”

So far this year, 59 deaths were reported along the Eastern Mediterranean route and by the end of the year this number is projected to exceed those recorded in either 2017 or 2018.

For more information please contact:

In Turkey: Lanna Walsh, Tel: +90 533 698 7285, Email: lwalsh@iom.int

In Greece: Christine Nikolaidou, Tel: +30 2109919040 (Ext 248), Email: cnikolaidou@iom.int

In Vienna: Joe Lowry, Tel: +43660 3776404, Email: jlowry@iom.int

In Brussels: Ryan Schroeder, Tel: +32 492 25 02 34, Email: rschroeder@iom.int

(Beirut) – Lebanese authorities have largely failed to comply with the country’s Right to Access to Information Law, and the government has not established the body designated to oversee its implementation nearly three years after its passage, Human Rights Watch said today. 

The law obligates all government bodies, public institutions, and institutions that perform public functions – collectively referred to as “the administrations” – to publish key legal, organizational, and financial documents. It also gives citizens the right to request information, including decisions, statistics, and contracts, from those administrations and to receive a response within 15 days. 

“Lebanon passed a law that in theory advances the right to information, but the failure to establish the oversight body indicates that the authorities aren’t interested in increasing transparency,” said Lama Fakih, acting Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. 

The law provides that, in principle, all data should be accessible, with exemptions for national security, foreign relations, personal data, and trade secrets. The administration that receives a request must immediately acknowledge receipt and respond within 15 days, which can be extended for another 15 days if the request is complex. The administration should provide a written justification if it can’t provide the requested information, and the citizen can appeal this decision within two months. 

The law considers a lack of response tantamount to refusal and grounds for appeal. Since the National Anti-Corruption Commission, the oversight body, has not yet been established, the State Council – the country’s top administrative court – can rule on appeals. 

Since the law took effect in February 2017, Human Rights Watch has submitted 72 information requests to various ministries, courts, and state institutions, and received 18 substantive responses. It also received 5 responses claiming that the administration could not provide the requested information. Only 10 of these responses came within the stipulated 15 days.

In response to a recent request for information filed by two Lebanese nongovernmental organizations about a cabinet decision regarding an electricity contract that would entail the expenditure of millions of dollars of public money, the cabinet’s secretariat contended that the Access to Information Law had not yet taken effect. The organizations filed an appeal with the State Council. They argued that the law states that the government could issue implementing decrees “when necessary,” but that no action of that type was required before the law could take effect. 

Gherbal Initiative, a Lebanese group that has been testing the law, requested financial records from 140 government institutions and public bodies in 2019. Only 65 responded, and only 32 provided the requested documents. Assaad Thebian, Gherbal Initiative’s founder, said this response rate of 47 percent is an improvement from a 26 percent response rate in 2018. But he said that the highest authorities, including the offices of the president, prime minister, and speaker of the house, did not comply with the law.

Most administrations currently lack the infrastructure and resources necessary to comply. For example, the law requires administrations to publish annual reports, decisions, and large financial transactions on their websites. But many of them do not have dedicated websites. 

Furthermore, most administrations do not have digitized records that would facilitate retrieval of information. When Human Rights Watch requested statistics about criminal defamation investigations and prosecutions from various judicial bodies, the acting cassation prosecutor responded that it would be impossible for his office to provide those statistics, as their records are not digitized.

The president of the Higher Judicial Council told Human Rights Watch on April 5 that he could not provide the number of defamation cases in the criminal courts, as “Lebanese courts do not rely on automation … thus the courts do not currently have the capacity to prepare such statistics.” He wrote that he “welcome[d] any initiative Human Rights Watch can undertake to provide the necessary human and financial resources to extract the requested statistical information from the courts and prepare statistical data and analysis about it.”

Lebanon should urgently establish the National Anti-Corruption Committee to provide necessary guidance to government administrations on the law’s provisions and to hold accountable bodies that do not comply, Human Rights Watch said.

In Lebanon, truth is a defense in some cases of defamation. The lack of compliance with the Access to Information Law compromises the ability of individuals and lawyers to prove the veracity of alleged defamatory statements in criminal proceedings. Lawyers have noted that even when individuals acted with due diligence to ascertain the truth, they are often not able to provide courts with documentation from state administrations to prove their claims in a timely manner.

The right to information is enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which Lebanon has ratified. The United Nations Human Rights Committee, the authoritative interpreter of the covenant, stated in its General Comment 34 that countries “should proactively put in the public domain Government information of public interest” and “should make every effort to ensure easy, prompt, effective and practical access to such information.” 

Lebanon has also ratified the UN Convention against Corruption, which mandates state parties promote active participation by the public in the fight against corruption by ensuring that they have effective access to information.

May Chidiac, minister of state for administrative development affairs, underscored the role of the access to information law in fulfilling Lebanon’s obligations under the UN Convention against Corruption, saying that implementing the law would enhance transparency and “restore citizens’ trust in their state.” 

“Access to information is a pillar of a functioning democracy, enabling citizens to hold their governments accountable and participate in public life,” Fakih said. “Lebanese authorities should stop making excuses and commit the necessary resources to carry out the Access to Information Law.” 

(Beirut) – Egyptian authorities have arrested nearly 2,000 people in a sweeping nationwide crackdown following anti-government protests that erupted on September 20, 2019. Authorities acknowledged only 1,000 arrests.

The authorities have blocked news and political websites and interrupted other internet services that protesters relied on to communicate and document government abuses. The authorities should pledge to respect the right to peaceful assembly by allowing protests, applying nonviolent means to respond before resorting to the use of force, and taking measures to prevent violence between opposing protesters. The government should release all those arrested solely for peacefully exercising their rights and should stop interfering with news sites and internet services.

“The government’s mass arrests and internet restrictions seem intended to scare Egyptians away from protesting and to leave them in the dark about what’s happening in the country,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The nationwide crackdown on protests suggests that President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is terrified of Egyptians’ criticisms.”

The protests erupted with demonstrators calling to stem corruption and demanding that al-Sisi step down. Mohamed Ali, a contractor who worked for the army for years and now lives in Spain in self-imposed exile, helped spark the protests by posting widely watched Facebook videos exposing alleged government corruption. He called for new protests on September 27.

The mass arrests may be the most sweeping the government has made since late 2013, Human Rights Watch said. Security forces have dramatically escalated mass arrests, with reports from Egyptian rights organizations that about 2,000 people have been arrested since September 20. The Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights said that prosecutors ordered at least 977 of them detained “pending investigations.” Security forces have held incommunicado an additional 920 who have not yet appeared before prosecutors, all apparently for alleged connections to the protests. The government also arrested a number of politicians and journalists in the sweep.

Those detained include 68 women and an unknown number of children, human rights lawyers reported. A lawyer told Human Rights Watch that the security forces released a number of detainees, including several children.

The Interior Ministry said in a statement on September 26 that it “will confront with utmost firmness and determination attempts at undermining stability and social peace.” The Prosecutor General, Hamada al-Sawy, said in a statement around 10 p.m. on September 26 that prosecutors interrogated 1,000 people in relation to the protests since September 20, but he did not say how many have been detained in total.

While the authorities arrested some people who were protesting on the streets, many were arrested at their homes days later. The government also has deployed uniformed and plainclothes security officers in Cairo, Alexandria, and other cities in and around main streets and squares, randomly stopping passersby, searching and questioning people, and forcing them to show the contents of their mobile phones and social media accounts. They have arrested people with antigovernment songs, slogans, or posts on their phones, lawyers said.

Lawyers for detainees have posted on their social media pages several accounts of security forces arbitrarily arresting many people merely for being in the “wrong place at the wrong time” or possessing critical content on their phones, and later charging them with participating in the protests.

The government is holding hundreds of detainees in the National Security Agency’s secret detention centers and in the camps of the Central Security Forces, Egypt’s riot police, both of which are illegal detention sites that lawyers cannot visit. A lawyer told Human Rights Watch the detention camps include al-Darrasa, al-Gabal al-Asfar, and al-Salam Central Security Forces’ camps in and around Cairo.

Two lawyers told Human Rights Watch that the authorities have refused detainees held in these places access to lawyers or family members. Lawyers only see detainees when authorities send them, in large numbers, to State Security Prosecution, where prosecutors interrogate them and order them detained without judicial orders.

International law requires the authorities to take all detainees before a judge promptly, normally within 48 hours, to review their detention. Under Egyptian law, which does not meet international standards, State Security Prosecutors may keep detainees in pretrial detention for months without judicial review.

Detainees are facing a range of charges including “joining a terrorist group,” protesting without permission, and disseminating false news, lawyers and news reports said.

Lawyers also raised concerns that government authorities have deprived detainees of food, medicine, and medical care, including urgently needed cancer treatment and psychiatric medications.

Government and pro-government media have portrayed the protests as a conspiracy by foreign intelligence agencies, the Muslim Brotherhood, and terrorist groups. They have apparently arbitrarily arrested at least nine foreigners – one Dutch, one Tunisian, one Sudanese, one Thai, two Turkish, and three Jordanian nationals. A pro-government television anchor, Amr Adeeb, aired videos showing the men “confessing” to having cameras and taking photos in or near Tahrir Square, or in downtown Cairo, or of criticizing the government.

The government also expanded its harassment of journalists, lawyers, and independent political figures. Among those arbitrarily detained are several lawyers who were assisting detainees such as Mahinour el-Masry and Sahar Ali, and at least three journalists who were reporting on the protests, Egyptian rights groups said.

On September 25, security forces arrested two well-known political science professors, Hassan Nafaa and Hazem Hosny, and Khaled Dawood, an opposition figure and long-time journalist, lawyers said. The government also arrested around two dozen prominent opposition leaders and activists from various backgrounds, such as Kamal Khalil, a leftist, and Magdy Korkor, an Islamist. The journalists and other well-known figures are facing charges similar to what those protesters are facing, the reports said.

News reports citing anonymous pro-government sources have said that the Interior Ministry’s National Security Agency and the General Intelligence have instructed al-Sisi supporters, including leaders of pro-Sisi political parties and directors of government companies, institutions, and ministries to gather employees and followers to show support for al-Sisi on September 27. A few parliament members of the Nation’s Future Party, one of the main pro-Sisi parties, and celebrity figures called for pro-government protests on that day close to Hesham Barakat’s Square (formerly known as Raba’a al-Adawiyya Square) in eastern Cairo. Reports said that the officials promised people free transportation and meals to “celebrate” the army and the president. News reports also said that security forces instructed imams in government-controlled mosques to dedicate Friday prayer speeches to supporting the government.

The authorities have blocked and interrupted various internet services and websites, internet monitoring groups reported. The authorities have restricted access to the BBC’s Arabic website, US-based Alhurra News, and Facebook Messenger. Netblocks, a group that monitors internet disruptions, said that access to Twitter had become intermittent in Egypt as of the evening of September 22, with almost 40 percent of users experiencing difficulty connecting to social media platforms. Experts also said that authorities blocked Signal and Wire, two secure communication apps.

The recent steps to interfere with access to information is in addition to the nearly 600 websites, including major independent news and human rights websites, that it has blocked since May 2017. These include, for example, the websites of the Egypt Independent, Mada Masr, al-Manassa, and Human Rights Watch.

There are serious concerns that the government may shut down the internet and telecommunication services in the whole country, as then-President Hosni Mubarak’s government did in response to 2011 protests, or to entirely block Facebook and Twitter and other websites. Such action would carry and cause millions of dollars in business losses. Egyptian courts did not hold Mubarak or his officials accountable for cutting telecommunication services in 2011, despite evidence presented by lawyers of mass damage.

In July 2016, the United Nations Human Rights Council passed a resolution condemning measures by countries to prevent or disrupt online access and information and called for free speech protections under articles 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In their 2015 Joint Declaration on Freedom of Expression and Responses to Conflict Situations, UN experts and rapporteurs declared that, even in times of conflict, “using communications ‘kill switches’ (i.e. shutting down entire parts of communications systems) can never be justified under human rights law.”

Human Rights Watch reiterates its call to Egypt’s allies, particularly European Union countries and the United States, to suspend military assistance to the government until it ceases its gross violations of international law. Concerned governments should urge the al-Sisi government to respect the rights of protesters to express their views, stop blocking news and information on the internet, and release all those unjustly detained.

“While President al-Sisi was hobnobbing with world leaders at the UN General Assembly in New York, his security forces were violating basic human rights principles on which the UN was built,” Whitson said. “World leaders should recognize that providing security and military assistance to abusive forces won’t bring stability to Egypt, and that what’s needed instead is a government that respects the rights and freedoms of the Egyptian people.”