Europe and Central Asia Summary of Amnesty International’s Concerns in the Region, January-June 2007 town of Korça, who were orphaned as children, the majority of them women in their twenties and thirties, would find themselves homeless, as they were due to be evicted from a student hall in which they had been living – in some cases for 15 years – in advance of its renovation (see AI Index: EUR 11/001/2007). A similar threat reportedly hung over some 40 other adults who were orphaned as children in Shkodёr. The Albanian authorities had failed to ensure them adequate alternative accommodation in breach both of domestic law providing for orphans and Albania’s obligations under international and regional human rights standards. Following demonstrations by the Korça orphans, the press on 2 June reported that the city authorities had decided to find temporary accommodation for them and to pay their rent pending a durable solution to their housing problems. However, the orphans themselves were reportedly not directly informed of this decision and remained wary of broken promises. In the event, the orphans gained a further reprieve. Works on the student hall came to a halt later in June 2007, when the private firm entrusted with the renovation was deprived of its licence following an industrial accident at a student hall in Tirana for which it was held responsible. Counter-terrorism In June a report by Dick Marty for the PACE clarified Albania’s role in the unlawful rendition of Khaled el-Masri, a German national of Lebanese origin (see Partners in Crime: Europe’s role in US renditions, AI Index: EUR 01/008/2006). Khaled el-Masri had been unlawfully transferred to the US authorities in Macedonia and flown to Kabul where he had been held for over four months. He subsequently alleged that on his return he had been dropped on the Albanian side of the Macedonian border, before he was flown back to Germany from Tirana airport. Senator Marty, on the basis of flight reports, confirmed that Khaled el Masri was flown out of Kabul on 28 May Amnesty International 9 2004 on board a CIA-chartered Gulfstream aircraft to Berat-Kuçova Aerodrome, a military airbase in Albania, before being driven to the border in an apparent attempt to suggest that he had returned to Macedonia. Eight men who had been unlawfully detained by the US authorities in Guantánamo Bay, including an Algerian, an Egyptian, an Uzbek and five Uighurs from China remained in Albania after the government in 2006 had agreed with the US government to provide them with asylum, following their release from detention. In June the Italian daily La Repubblica reported that the US State Department had asked Albania to give refuge to 15 other detainees, but that this request had been refused. ARMENIA Discrimination minorities against religious AI received reports of physical attacks on Jehovah’s Witnesses by unknown assailants, and is concerned that the reported failure to investigate and punish such crimes may contribute to a climate of impunity and intolerance. On 28 February in the Shengavit suburb of the capital Yerevan, Jehovah’s Witnesses Ruben Khachaturian and Narine Gevorkian were reportedly beaten and allegedly threatened with being thrown out of a window by a neighbour living in the same block. On 13 March Jehovah’s Witness Vartan Gevorkian was reportedly attacked by unknown men in the street in Shengavit. His attackers were prevented from beating him by intervening passers-by. On 17 March a Jehovah’s Witness meeting in the village of Sevabert in Abovian region was allegedly interrupted when unknown men broke down the door, stole a music system and cut the electricity supply. Jehovah’s Witnesses have reported that police responses to these allegations have reportedly been non-existent or very slow. AI Index: EUR 01/010/2007