CJA

On May 26, 2014, Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was sworn in as India’s fifteenth Prime Minister. Modi’s appointment as Prime Minister is not troubling solely because of his actions—or inaction—during the 2002 Gujarat riots. Instead, his appointment signals a broader problem that those linked to mass atrocities evade accountability at the highest ranks of Indian government. Read CJA’s statement on Modi’s appointment here.

In a landmark decision, Judge Santiago Pedraz of the Spanish National Court announced on May 21, 2014 that his investigation of genocide in Guatemala will proceed. The ruling challenges a controversial law enacted in March 2014 that limits Spanish jurisdiction over international crimes. Read the press release here.

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — The Ethiopian jail guard suspected of torturing and maiming political prisoners during that country’s “Red Terror” era came to the United States in 2004 under a false identity, seeking asylum and claiming he would be persecuted if he returned home.

El fallo de un juez de inmigración de Miami generó esperanzas de que se allane el camino de abolición de una ley de amnistía en El Salvador, para que los militares y los responsables de matanzas, torturas y violaciones a los derechos humanos puedan finalmente ser juzgados en su país.

The ruling of a Miami judge to deport Army General Jose Guillermo Garcia, a former defense minister of El Salvador, serves as a victory for human rights supporters, despite the difficulties to implement the rule anytime soon.

This week, in response to a lawsuit filed by The New York Times and Julia Preston, the Executive Office of Immigration Review of the Department of Justice released an immigration judge ruling, which ordered that former Salvadoran Defense Minister José Guillermo García is subject to removal from the United States due to his assistance and participation in the torture of Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA) client Dr. Juan Romagoza, among many other civilians. The ruling also cites Garcia’s assistance and participation in the 1980 extrajudicial killing of the four American churchwomen, the 1981 Sheraton Hotel killings of two Americans and a Salvadoran land reform leader, the 1981 massacre at El Mozote, the 1980 massacre at the Sumpul River, the assassination of the leaders of FDR, the political opposition, among many other killings and massacres.

An immigration judge has found that a former defense minister in El Salvador, a close ally of the United States during a civil war there in the 1980s, should be deported because of his involvement in a number of human rights violations, including the assassination of an archbishop and the massacre of more than 1,000 peasants.

Executive Director Pamela Merchant discusses the Center for Justice & Accountability’s work with Joshua Johnson of KQED.

The United Nations Human Rights Council voted to open an international investigation into possible war crimes by both the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tiger rebels in the final stages of a 26-year civil war that ended in 2009. This investigation is an important step towards breaking the cycle of impunity that fuels ongoing and serious human rights violations in Sri Lanka today. Read more here.