(New York, December 18, 1997) -- Human Rights Watch applauds NATO's apprehension of two indicted war crimes suspects in Vitez municipality. According to sources in Bosnia and Hercegovina, Dutch forces attached to the NATO Stabilization Force (SFOR), apprehended Vlatko Kupreskic and Anto Furundzija early Thursday, December 18. Kupreskic, publicly indicted by the ICTY for his role in attacks on Bosnian Muslim civilians in the Lasva valley, was arrested in Ahmici, the village where the alleged atrocities took place. Furundzija, the subject of a sealed indictment for war crimes, is accused of being a commander of the "Jokers," a special forces unit within the Bosnian Croat Army (which reportedly included Miroslav Bralo) alleged to have committed war crimes in the Lasva valley.
(New York, December 18, 1997) -- In a letter to Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri made public today, Human Rights Watch says that recent government actions represent serious setbacks for freedom of assembly, freedom of expression, and the rule of law in Lebanon. "No one in Lebanon should have to risk arrest and injury in order to exercise the right to peaceful assembly. The suppression of the peaceful demonstration in Ashrafiyeh on December 14, and the use of excessive force by security forces, was unwarranted. The government's categorical ban on demonstrations should be lifted ," said Hanny Megally, executive director of Human Rights Watch/Middle East. Human Rights Watch also told Mr. Hariri that broadcasting freedom in Lebanon is in jeopardy, and that there is an ominous trend toward greater state censorship. "The banning of the interview with Gen. Michel Aoun on MTV shows the government's elastic approach to freedom of expression," Megally said. "The state seems more than willing to restrict media pluralism when stations attempt to broadcast opinions of the political opposition, including criticism of the Syrian role in Lebanese affairs." The Human Rights Watch letter said that the close bilateral relationship between Syria and Lebanon, and its impact on governanace and human rights conditions in Lebanon, is an issue of great interest to many Lebanese, and that views on the subject should be permitted to be aired fully on radio and television, and in the print media.
(New York, December 12, 1997) In a letter today to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Human Rights Watch expressed its deep concern over the execution of Walid Muhammad Tawfiq Nusseirat, Riziq Bishara Riziq, Sa`id Yusif `Ali al-Doji, and his brother Salah al-Doji. "In stark contrast to the rest of the world, which is moving to abolish the death penalty, Iraq is increasing the number of crimes punishable by death," said Human Rights Watch/Middle East executive director Hanny Megally. Unconfirmed reports indicate that several hundred new executions may have taken place in recent weeks.
(December 11, 1997)--In a stinging report released in Lima today, Human Rights Watch/Americas condemned torture by Peruvian soldiers and police, a practice it termed a persistent feature of the country's efforts to eliminate two leftist guerrilla groups and combat common crime. At the same time, the government of President Alberto Fujimori has undermined officials in the attorney general's office and court system who might have served as a check against these abuses, and has seemed to encourage attacks against politicians and journalists who have denounced them. Torture and Political Persecution in Peru notes that the widespread abuses typical of prior years, including "disappearances" and arbitrary detentions, have tapered off as the government has gained the upper hand in its fight against the guerrillas, but it lambasts what it labels a "routine" and "institutionalized" security force policy to torture. The recent and most welcome abolition of so-called faceless courts, an abusive system used to try cases of terrorism, will not eliminate torture unless further reforms are implemented, according to the report, which contains detailed recommendations for the Peruvian and United States governments.
(New York, December 10) When they meet in Tokyo on December 11-12 for the annual meeting of the Consultative Group for Vietnam, key donor governments should express concern about human rights violations associated with growing rural unrest in Vietnam, Human Rights Watch/Asia said today in a new report. It urged donors to convey to Hanoi that economic development depended on accountable government and the easing of controls on freedom of expression and association. It also urged donors supporting rule of law programs to raise concerns about the way in which new administrative decrees and regulations were being used as an instrument of political control.
(New York, December 9, 1997) Despite frequent statements about its commitment to the enforcement of human rights standards in the country, the Ethiopian government's actual practices, detailed in Ethiopia: The Curtailment of Rights released by Human Rights Watch today, significantly deviate from these principles. The government daily violates the civil and political rights of Ethiopian citizens by denying them the basic freedoms of speech, assembly, and association. The practices of arbitrary arrest, ill-treatment and torture in detention continue under the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) which took power in May 1991 after defeating the Derg military dictatorship. Commenting on the announced visit by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to Ethiopia today, Peter Takirambudde, the Executive Director of the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch said "we are reminding the United States that it is time to insist that Ethiopia meets its international human rights obligations. We call on the U.S. government to use its economic and strategic support for the country to induce and to facilitate human rights improvements."
(December 9, 1997) In a letter to the government of Sudan, Human Rights Watch/Africa asks Sudan to refrain from carrying out the death penalty reportedly imposed on four women convicted of prostitution, and to compensate thirty-seven women peace demonstrators who were beaten, arrested, flogged and fined.
(4 December 1997)--The universality of human rights -- the fundamental premise that they apply to all nations without exception -- came under sustained attack in 1997. With the economic crisis in Asia, the invocation of "Asian values" to justify repression lost much of its resonance, but the marked tendency of the major powers to ignore human rights when they proved inconvenient to economic or strategic interests posed a growing threat to universality. This failing, common to both Europe and the United States, was seen most vividly in relations with China and Central Africa. In addition, the U.S. government actively obstructed the strengthening of international human rights standards and institutions and remained unwilling to permit the application of existing international standards at home. This U.S. arrogance suggests that in Washington's view, human rights standards should be embraced only if they codify what the U.S. government already does, not what the United States ought to achieve. Fortunately, a new coalition of small and medium-sized states from the North and the South, working closely with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), has begun to fill this breech in the defense of human rights.
Human Rights Watch will release its annual survey of human rights practices worldwide on Thursday, December 4, 1997, at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
In this eighth survey of human rights worldwide, Human Rights Watch concludes that during the past year the major powers have shown a growing tendency to ignore human rights when they proved inconvenient to economic or strategic interests. This wavering support for human rights has been offset by a growing coalition, both governmental and nongovernmental, North and South, that has showed stunning success on a treaty banning anti-personnel landmines, and significant progress on the creation of an International Criminal Court.
The report examines significant human rights developments in sixty-five countries and the response of global actors, such as the United States, Japan, the European Union, the United Nations and the World Bank.
The Human Rights Watch World Report 1998 will be released at a press conference on December 4, 1997 at 10:00 a.m. (EST) in the John Peter Zenger Room at the National Press Club, 14th and F Streets NW, Washington, D.C.
(1 December 1997)--The Indonesian government made a series of serious missteps leading to human rights violations in its handling of one of the worst outbreaks of ethnic conflict the country has seen in decades, according to a new report, Communal Violence in West Kalimantan, released today by Human Rights Watch/Asia. The new report, issued as the first anniversary of the violence approaches, documents the conflict that erupted in late 1996 and early 1997 between indigenous Dayak people and immigrants from the island of Madura who settled in the province of West Kalimantan in Indonesian Borneo site of the forest fires that are currently wreaking environmental havoc across Southeast Asia.
(1 December 1997)-- As the World Bank prepares to meet in Brussels to discuss aid to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Human Rights Watch/Africa today urged donor nations not to repeat the mistake of funding a repressive government in the hopes of achieving stability in central Africa. Rather, the rights group called for aid to be linked to carefully calibrated benchmarks and based on an ongoing evaluation of human rights and democratization criteria. "The risk here is that donors will find themselves in the same position they were in under the Mobutu regime," said Peter Takirambudde, executive director of Human Rights Watch/Africa. "They are getting ready to contribute to the bank accounts of a regime that is violating basic human rights and has shown no commitment to democracy."