Content in Other Languages

A year has passed since Prime Minister Demirel’s coalition government, committed to human rights reforms, took office in Turkey — a period long enough to produce significant change. But the promised reforms have not come about; on the contrary, killings, torture and other human rights abuses in Turkey have become significantly worse.

Political detainees in Syria have the distinction of being some of the most isolated in the world. Most have no contact whatsoever with their families; security services for their part, seldom acknowledge having them in their custody.

The question of accountability has become increasingly important around the world in recent years, as different states attempting to make a transition to democracy have struggled to achieve a balance between retribution and forgetfulness in the interests of national reconciliation.

With the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, world attention has focussed on the brutal warfare that erupted first in Croatia and, more recently, in Bosnia-Hercegovina. Most of the human rights violations being committed in both conflicts stem from the use of force and terror by Serbian authorities to assert control over territory and to expel or marginalize the non-Serbian population.

One year after a bloodless coup toppled Thailand’s government and the military took control, protestors staged a rally and demanded freedom. The government responded with violence. This report reveals the truth behind allegations of excessive force and violations of medical neutrality during the events of May 17-20, 1992.

At the end of August, Tunisian military courts pronounced verdicts against 279 Islamists in the most closely watched trials to take place since 1987, when many of the same persons had been put on trial. The 1992 trials were seen as a test of the government's commitment to human rights at a time of growing repression that has affected not only the Islamist opposition, but much of civil society.

The Dominican government's human rights practices on its state-owned sugarcane plantations in 1992 were shaped by two events in the Dominican Republic and Haiti in 1991.

The following report sets out the background to the latest violence in Germany. It focuses primarily on violent attacks in the former German Democratic Republic, but some information is included on West Germany as well.

After twelve long, exhausting years, the war in El Salvador has come to an end. The January 16, 1992 peace accord signed by the Salvadoran government and the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN) in Chapultepec, Mexico, lays out sweeping institutional reforms designed to enable the FMLN to demobilize its forces and participate in the political life of El Salvador.