GENEVA (2 November 2021) – Tanzania's human rights record will be examined by the UN Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Working Group for the third time on Friday, 5 November 2021 in a meeting that will be webcast live.
Tanzania is one of the States to be reviewed by the UPR Working Group during its upcoming session taking place from 1 to 12 November *. Tanzania's first and second UPR reviews took place in October 2011 and May 2016, respectively.
The documents on which the reviews are based are: 1) national report - information provided by the State under review; 2) information contained in the reports of independent human rights experts and groups, known as the Special Procedures, human rights treaty bodies, and other UN entities; 3) information provided by other stakeholders including national human rights institutions, regional organizations and civil society groups.
The three reports serving as the basis for the review of Tanzania on 5 November can be found here.
Location: Room XX, Palais des Nations, Geneva [NB: Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the meeting will be held using a combination of in-person and remote participation, and media representatives are encouraged to follow the proceedings on webcast.
Time and date: 09.00 – 12.30, Friday, 5 November (Geneva time, GMT +1 hour)
The UPR is a unique process which involves a periodic review of the human rights records of all 193 UN Member States. Since its first meeting was held in April 2008, all 193 UN member States have been reviewed twice within the first and second UPR cycles. During the third UPR cycle, States are again expected to spell out steps they have taken to implement recommendations posed during their previous reviews which they committed to follow-up on, as well as to highlight recent human rights developments in the country.
The delegation of Tanzania will be led by Mr. Palamagamba Kabudi, Minister for Constitutional and Legal Affairs.
The three country representatives serving as rapporteurs ("troika") for the review of Tanzania are: Gabon, Bangladesh and the Russian Federation.
The list of speakers and all available statements to be delivered during the review of Tanzania will be posted on the UPR Extranet
The UPR Working Group is scheduled to adopt the recommendations made to Tanzania at 16.30 on 9 November. The State under review may wish to express its positions on recommendations posed to it during their review.
Jeff Juma, 35, was jailed for six years after he admitted one charge of importing the class A drug cocaine. Six months was added for failing to give the passcode of his mobile phone to police.
HIGHLY addictive crack cocaine with a street value of up to £4,200 was hidden inside Jeff Juma’s face mask when he arrived in Guernsey by ferry, the Royal Court was told.
The 35-year-old admitted importing 13.86 grams of the class A drug, which he said was for his use, and was jailed for a total of six-and-a-half years.
Crown advocate Fiona Russell told the court Juma was a Burundi national who had lived in London since he was eight.
He arrived in the island, driving a Range Rover, on 5 June. He told Customs officers he had come to Guernsey for three weeks to see his newly-born baby girl for the first time.
He said he had no idea how a hypodermic needle and a pill which were found in the vehicle had got there.
After an ion scan of the vehicle tested positive for the presence of cocaine and spice, it was decided that a strip search would be carried out.
The defendant appeared to be adjusting his face mask. When asked to remove his trousers, he turned his back, and when asked to remove his face mask, officers thought he was swallowing and they managed to force him to spit a package out of his mouth. It was a rock-like substance wrapped in cling film.
His mobile phone was seized and Juma was asked to provide the pin code for it. He said he would do that only if an advocate was present.
He was arrested and gave no-comment responses to interview questions. The purity of the cocaine was 83%, much higher than the UK average of 57%.
Juma never did supply the pass code for his phone and pleaded guilty to that offence in court.
Advocate Samuel Steel said his client had entered guilty pleas at the first opportunity and while the evidence against him might have been overwhelming, everybody had a right to test the prosecution case.
This was not a man who had come to smuggle drugs into Guernsey and he had had a lawful reason for being in the island, to see his daughter.
He used crack cocaine to contain his emotions. He had thought about flushing the drug down the toilet while on the ferry but had decided not to because he feared being in Guernsey without it. He had no intention to supply to others and it was for personal use only.
He had not wanted officers to see all the contents of his mobile phone as there were photos of his new baby daughter on it. £500 he had on him was spending money, an advance of wages from his work.
Juma deeply regretted what he had done and feared what could have happened if the cocaine had got into the hands of children. He had been on remand since his arrest and the mother of his child was in court supporting him.
Judge Russell Finch said the court was satisfied that Juma had failed to disclose the pin code to hide criminal activity.
Although he had claimed the drug was for personal use, the quantity was way above a level where his sentence could be cut.
Juma had previous convictions and was jailed for 42 months in London in 2015 for possession of cannabis and heroin with intent to supply.
Juma was jailed for six years for the importation and six months, consecutive, for not giving the pin code to his phone. A drug trafficking investigation will be carried out, but a prosecution application to forfeit the Range Rover was declined – the court felt it would be disproportionate.
An application for deportation on release was also declined. Judge Finch said the defendant had no intention to stay in Guernsey and as a non-EU national, deportation would mean he could not stay in the UK. - Guernsey Press
WASHINGTON – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agents last week confirmed the departure of a Rwandan man suspected of human rights abuses in his home country, who had been residing in Buffalo, New York. Peter Kalimu, aka Pierre Kalimu, aka Fidele Twizere, was denaturalized and ordered removed from the U.S. following charges alleging his involvement in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. He departed the U.S., Oct. 21.
“HSI special agents will not cease in our pursuit of identifying and bringing to justice those individuals who have participated in unthinkable war crimes and human rights abuses,” said Executive Associate Director Steve Francis of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). “In coordination with the HSI-led HRVWCC, D.C., our special agents and prosecutors continue to ensure that perpetrators are held accountable and denied safe haven in the United States.”
The case was investigated by HSI Buffalo and the HSI-led Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center (HRVWCC). Valuable consultation and support were provided by ICE’s Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA) Human Rights Law Division and the Buffalo Office of the Principal Legal Advisor.
According to court documents Kalimu was living in Rwanda in 1994, when violent conflict erupted between the country’s two major ethnic groups, the Hutus and the Tutsis. During the conflict, often referred to as the Rwandan genocide, members of the majority Hutu population persecuted the minority Tutsis, committing mass murder and looting their property, among other crimes. An estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed during the three-month genocide. The complaint against Kalimu alleged that he participated in two attacks on Tutsi families in his neighborhood during the genocide, and that he looted property from Tutsi families whose houses he then destroyed. Kalimu denied these allegations.
According to the civil denaturalization complaint, while living in Rwanda, Kalimu went by the name Fidèle Twizere. After he left Rwanda, he used a different name – Pierre Kalimu – and provided only that name, and a new date of birth, on his U.S. immigration forms. Throughout the process of applying for permanent residence and U.S. citizenship, Kalimu never disclosed to the U.S. government his previous identity as Fidèle Twizere or his prior use of a different date of birth. The complaint further alleged that Kalimu’s misrepresentations about his identity precluded U.S. government officials from investigating him and determining that he was not qualified to obtain immigration and naturalization benefits.
Kalimu admitted that he was ineligible for citizenship because he engaged in welfare fraud in New York State in 2003-2004, one of the allegations in the civil denaturalization complaint, and agreed to denaturalization. The Department of Justice obtained an order from the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York, effective Sept. 1, 2021, revoking Kalimu’s naturalized U.S. citizenship by consent, and the court entered judgment in favor of the United States on Sept. 30, 2021.
In a separate prosecution, in 2018, Kalimu pleaded guilty to, and was convicted of, one felony count of making materially false statements about his true name to federal investigators of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
On Oct. 12, a U.S. immigration judge in Buffalo, ordered Kalimu’s removal for making materially false statements to procure immigration and naturalization benefits. Kalimu agreed to the entry of the order against him. The case was handled by the Buffalo Office of the Principal Legal Advisor.
“In seeking to escape his past in Rwanda, Kalimu obscured his true identity and repeatedly lied to immigration officers in order to become a U.S. citizen,” said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.
This matter was litigated by the Department of Justice Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section (HRSP) and the Civil Division’s Office of Immigration Litigation (OIL) Enforcement Section; and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of New York.
Since 2003, ICE has arrested more than 468 individuals for human rights-related violations of the law under various criminal and/or immigration statutes. During that same period, ICE obtained deportation orders and/or physically removed from the United States 1,070 known or suspected human rights violators. Additionally, ICE has facilitated the departure of an additional 174 such individuals from the United States.
Currently, HSI has more than 170 active investigations into suspected human rights violators and is pursuing more than 1,700 leads and removal cases involving suspected human rights violators from 95 different countries. Since 2003, the HRVWCC has issued more than 77,000 lookouts for individuals from more than 110 countries and stopped over 340 human rights violators and war crimes suspects from entering the U.S.
Members of the public who have information about foreign nationals suspected of engaging in human rights abuses or war crimes are urged to contact the HSI tip line at 1-866-DHS-2423 (1-866-347-2423) or its online tip form at www.ice.gov/tips. Callers may remain anonymous. To learn more about the assistance available to victims in these cases, the public should contact ICE's confidential victim-witness toll-free number at 1-866-872-4973.
HSI is a directorate of ICE and the principal investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), responsible for investigating transnational crime and threats, specifically those criminal organizations that exploit the global infrastructure through which international trade, travel, and finance move. - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
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