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Human
Rights Watch Publications
Selected Recent Reports
from Human Rights Watch
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Information
Mexico -- A Job or Your
Rights: Continued Sex Discrimination in Mexico’s Maquiladora Sector
December 1998
(B1001)
In this report Human Rights Watch documents the Mexican government's
failure to enforce its own labor laws in the export processing (maquiladora)
sector. In violation of Mexican labor law, maquiladora operators oblige
women to undergo pregnancy testing as a condition of work. Women thought
to be pregnant are not hired. Among the corporations engaging in this practice,
which violates both Mexican and international law, are such international
corporations as Landis & Staefa, Samsung Group, Matsushita Electric
Corp., Sunbeam-Oster, Sanyo, Thomson Corporate Worldwide, Siemens AG, and
Pacific Dunlop. However, the vast majority of companies engaging in this
practice are U.S.-owned, including Lear, Johnson Controls, and Tyco International.
The Human Rights Watch report, "A Job or Your Rights: Continued Sex Discrimination
in Mexico's Maquiladora Sector," documents how companies demand that women
produce urine specimens for pregnancy exams and how maquiladora doctors
and nurses examine women's abdomens or require them to reveal private information
about menses schedule, birth control use, and sexual activity as a means
to determine pregnancy.
(B1001) 12/98, 79pp., $7.00
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United
States -- Detained and Deprived of Rights: Children in the Custody of the
U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service
December 1998
(G1004)
In this report, Human Rights Watch charges the U.S. Immigration and
Naturalization Service (INS) with violating the rights of unaccompanied
children in its custody. The report finds that roughly one-third of detained
children are held in punitive, jail-like detention centers, even though
most children in INS custody are being detained for administrative reasons
while their case is pending, not as a punishment for criminal behavior.
Approximately 5000 unaccompanied children are detained by the INS each
year. Human Rights Watch focused its report on a Pennsylvania facility
that the INS claims is one of the best in the country. However, the report
found that too many children are locked up in prison-like conditions with
juveniles accused of murder, rape and drug trafficking, where they are
forbidden to speak their native language, instructed not to laugh, and,
according to several interviewees, even forced to ask permission to scratch
their noses. Human Rights Watch found that some children are strip searched
and restrained by handcuffs during transport, and denied basic rights to
privacy.
(G1004) 12/98, 28pp., $5.00
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Indonesia:
Human Rights and Pro-Independence Actions in Irian Jaya
December 1998
(C1008)
In the aftermath of President Soeharto's resignation in May 1998, political
tension in Irian Jaya, Indonesia's easternmost province, has increased.
The province, called West Papua by supporters of independence, occupies
the western half of the island of New Guinea. Unlike the rest of Indonesia
which gained independence in 1949, Irian Jaya was under Dutch control until
1963 and only became part of Indonesia after a fraudulent, U.N.-supervised
"Act of Free Choice" in 1969. Over the last three decades, support for
independence, fueled by resentment of Indonesian rule, loss of ancestral
land to development projects, and the influx of migrants from elsewhere
in the country, has taken the form of both an armed guerrilla movement,
the Free Papua Movement (Organisasi Papua Merdeka or OPM), and generally
non-violent attempts to raise the West Papuan flag. Guerrilla activity
has led in most cases to military operations in which civilians have suffered
a wide range of abuses; flag-raisings and other demonstrations have led
to the arrests of those involved, often on charges of subversion or rebellion.
(C1008) 12/98, 15 pp., $3.00
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Abandoned
to the State: Cruelty and Neglect in Russian Orphanages
December 1998
(1916)
This report documents how, from the moment the state assumes their
care, orphans in Russia---of whom 95 percent still have a living parent---are
exposed to shocking levels of cruelty and neglect. Infants classified as
disabled are segregated into "lying-down" rooms, where they are changed
and fed but are bereft of stimulation and essential medical care. Those
who are officially diagnosed as "imbetsil" or "idiot" at age four are condemned
to life in little more than a warehouse, where they may be restrained in
cloth sacks, tethered by a limb to furniture, denied stimulation, training,
and education. Some lie half-naked in their own filth, and are neglected,
sometimes to the point of death. The "normal" children---those deemed to
be "educable"---are subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment
by institution staff. They may be beaten, locked in freezing rooms for
days at a time, abused physically, denied adequate education and training.
It is deplorable that the very state that is charged with the care and
nurture of more than 600,000 children "without parental care," condemns
untold numbers to an archipelago of grim institutions. Abandoned children
suffer a lifelong stigma that ultimately robs them of fundamental economic,
social, civil and political rights guaranteed by international treaties.
Human Rights Watch calls on the Russian Federation, which has long prided
itself on the education of its children, to stop all medical personnel
from pressing parents to institutionalize newborns with various disabilities,
and reallocate resources spent on institutions to develop humane, non-discriminatory
alternatives.
(1916) 12/98, 228 pp.,
ISBN 1-56432-191-6, $15.00
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Behind
Bars in Brazil
December 1998
(1959)
Beatings, torture and even summary executions are commonplace in the
Brazilian penal system, according to this Human Rights Watch report. The
150-page report, Behind Bars in Brazil, says that severe overcrowding and
institutionalized violence are chronic and widespread in Brazilian prisons
and police stations. In the decade since Human Rights Watch first examined
prison conditions in Brazil, the inmate population has increased at a rapid
pace. Beside exacerbating prison overcrowding-a problem that Human Rights
Watch originally documented during its 1988 mission to the country-the
fast growth of the inmate population has coincided with years of flagrant
prison abuses. Thus, our first Brazil prisons report was succeeded by a
1989 newsletter that focused on conditions in a notorious São Paulo
jail, followed by a 1992 report on a massive prison massacre in São
Paulo. Our annual summary of global human rights conditions, moreover,
has consistently condemned Brazil for severe prison overcrowding, horrendous
conditions of detention, and summary executions of inmates. Human Rights
Watch's sustained attention to conditions of confinement in Brazil reflects
our sense that the mistreatment of prisoners is one of the country's most
serious and chronic human rights violations.
(1959) 12/98, 120 pp.,
ISBN 1-56432-195-9, $15.00
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Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia: Detentions and Abuse in Kosovo
December 1998
(D1010)
At least 1,000 ethnic Albanians are currently believed to be in Serbian
prisons and police stations, according to Human Rights Watch. In Detention
and Abuse in Kosovo, released today, Human Rights Watch charges that many
have been subjected to beatings and torture to extract confessions or to
obtain information about the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), and are being
tried on charges of "terrorism." On October 14, the Serbian government
announced a general amnesty for "crimes related to the conflict in Kosovo."
The Serbian parliament declared that no one would be prosecuted for crimes
related to the conflict, "except for crimes against humanity and international
law." Despite these promises, large numbers of ethnic Albanians remain
in custody and Human Rights Watch has no information that anyone arrested
during the conflict has been released as a result of this amnesty.
(D1010) 12/98, 29 pp., $5.00
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Chemical
Warfare in Bosnia: The Strange Experiences of the Srebrenica Survivors
November 1998
(D1009)
In the summer of 1995, shortly after the fall of the United Nations
"safe area" of Srebrenica in Bosnia and Hercegovina, survivors emerged
from a long trek to safety with tales suggesting that Serb forces had attacked
them during their flight with some type of chemical incapacitating agent.
In 1996, Human Rights Watch carried out an investigation of the claim that
Serb forces used JNA-supplied BZ against the people fleeing Srebrenica
the year before. Following interviews with some thirty-five survivors,
as well as U.N. and other international personnel in the former Yugoslavia,
and a review of available documentation relating to events at Srebrenica
in 1996-97, Human Rights Watch has found the evidence inconclusive on whether
a chemical agent was used. In the view of Human Rights Watch, the question
whether chemical weapons were used during the Bosnian war -- by Serb forces
in Srebrenica in July 1995 or by any of the parties to the conflict at
other times during the war -- must be answered satisfactorily.
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Afghanistan:
The Massacre in Mazar-I Sharif
November 1998
(C1007)
On August 8, 1998, Taliban militia forces captured the city of Mazar-i
Sharif in northwest Afghanistan, the only major city controlled by the
United Front, the coalition of forces opposed to the Taliban. The fall
of Mazar was part of a successful offensive that gave the Taliban control
of almost every major city and important significant territory in northern
and central Afghanistan. Within the first few hours of seizing control
of the city, Taliban troops killed scores of civilians in indiscriminate
attacks, shooting noncombatants and suspected combatants alike in residential
areas, city street sand markets. Witnesses described it as a "killing frenzy"
as the advancing forces shot at "anything that moved." Retreating opposition
forces may also have engaged in indiscriminate shooting as they fled the
city. Human Rights Watch believes that at least hundreds of civilians were
among those killed as the panicked population of Mazar-i Sharif tried to
evade the gunfire or escape the city.
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Limits
of Tolerance: Freedom of Expression and the Public Debate in Chile
November 1998
(1924)
At present freedom of expression and information is restricted in Chile
to an extent possibly unmatched by any other democratic society in the
Western hemisphere. Current restrictions form part of a long established
authoritarian tradition, which reached its apogee under the military government.
Although restrictions on expression were taken to extreme limits by that
government, they certainly did not originate with the military coup of
September 1973 and had, in fact, coexisted with democratic institutions
for decades prior to it. Restrictions on freedom of expression operate
at different levels, and in each branch of government. In general they
are not attributable to repressive action by the executive branch. The
problem, then, is not one of abusive action by the current government,
but of a failure to take long overdue steps to ensure that freedom of expression
is protected and encouraged.
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Losing the
Vote: The Impact of Felony Disenfranchisement Laws in the United States
October 1998
(G1003)
The expansion of suffrage to all sectors of the population is one of
the United States' most important political triumphs. Once the privilege
of wealthy white men, the vote is now a basic right held as well by the
poor and working classes, racial minorities, women and young adults. Today,
all mentally competent adults have the right to vote with only one exception:
convicted criminal offenders. In forty-six states and the District of Columbia,
criminal disenfranchisement laws deny the vote to all convicted adults
in prison. The racial impact of disenfranchisement laws is particularly
egregious. Thirteen percent of African American men -- ;1.4 million --
are disenfranchised, representing just over one-third (36 percent) of the
total disenfranchised population. If current trends continue, the
rate of disenfranchisement for black men could reach 40 percent in the
states that disenfranchise ex-offenders.
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Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia: Humanitarian Law Violations in Kosovo
October 1998
(1940)
This report documents serious breaches of international humanitarian
law, the rules of war, committed in Kosovo from February to early September
1998. The vast majority of these abuses were committed by Yugoslav government
forces of the Serbian special police (MUP) and the Yugoslav Army (VJ).
Under the command of Yugoslav President Slobodan Miloševic,
government troops have committed extrajudicial executions and other unlawful
killings, systematically destroyed civilian property, and attacked humanitarian
aid workers, all of which are violations of the rules of war. The Albanian
insurgency, known as the Kosova Liberation Army (KLA, or UÇK in
Albanian), has also violated the laws of war by such actions as the taking
of civilian hostages and by summary executions. Although on a lesser scale
than the government abuses, these too are violations of international standards,
and should be condemned.
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Online
War Without
Quarter: Colombia and International Humanitarian Law
October 1998
(1878)
Violations of international humanitarian law --the laws of wa r-- are
not abstract concepts in Colombia, but the grim material of everyday life.
War bursts into the daily activities of a farm, a village, a public bus,
or a school with the speed of armed fighters arriving down a path or in
four-wheel drive vehicles. Sometimes, armed men carefully choose their
victims from lists. Other times, they simply kill those nearby, to spread
fear. Indeed, a willingness to commit atrocities is among the most striking
features of Colombia's war. The inauguration of a new president and
the growth of a broad-based civic movement that has called for a just and
fair peace have given Colombians new hope for an end to political violence.
Some communities thrust into the conflict have attempted to negotiate local
accords with combatants as a way of protecting their civilian populations.
Nevertheless, none of the parties to the conflict have fully respected
these decisions. Indeed, negotiations have been doomed in large part by
the failure to address fundamental issues, including impunity for violations
of human rights and international humanitarian law.
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online
Burma/Thailand
-- Unwanted and Unprotected: Burmese Refugees in Thailand
October 1998
(C1006)
At almost no time since Burmese asylum seekers started arriving on
Thai soil in 1984 has the need for protection of this group been greater.
Human rights violations inside Burma continue almost a decade after the
State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) seized power in Burma in
September 1988. The announcement on November 15, 1997 that SLORC had been
dissolved and replaced by the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC)
has done nothing to improve the situation, and refugees continue to flow
into Thailand. As of September 1998, there were over 110,000 refugees in
camps along the Thai-Burmese border and hundreds of thousands more in Thailand
who were unable or unwilling to stay within the refugee camps but who had
suffered clear abuse at the hands of the Burmese government. Deportations
of undocumented Burmese migrants, some of whom would have a clear claim
to refugee status had they been permitted to make one, were also on the
increase.
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United States
-- Nowhere to Hide: Retaliation Against Women in Michigan State Prisons
September 1998
(G1002)
This report documents how women inmates who have been raped by guards
in Michigan prisons are suffering retaliation from their attackers."In
Michigan, a woman risks being sexually assaulted if she's imprisoned, and
being terrorized by guards if she dares report the assault," said Regan
Ralph, executive director of theWomen's Rights Division of Human Rights
Watch. "If this were happening in another country, no one would hesitate
to call it what it is: a terrible abuse of human rights." Thirty-one
women have filed a class action lawsuit against the Michigan Department
of Corrections, charging that prison management has failed to prevent sexual
assault and abuse by guards and staff. The suit, which is being jointly
prosecuted by private lawyers and the U.S. Department of Justice, also
charges that women face retaliation when they report rape: everything from
verbal abuse, to being placed in solitary confinement, to being raped again.
One plaintiff was placed on a permanent visitation ban and has not seen
her daughter for nearly two years. She is now on a hunger strike to protest
her treatment.
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United
States -- Locked Away: Immigration Detainees in Jails in the United States
September 1998
(G1001)
Human Rights Watch charges that the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization
Service (INS) is now holding more than half of its detainees in jails where
they are subjected to punitive treatment and may be mixed with criminal
inmates. With its own detention facilities overwhelmed, the INS is placing
its administrative detainees in jails, even though they are not serving
criminal sentences. Those detained include asylum seekers, undocumented
individuals picked up by the INS on the street or during workplace raids,
and individuals with previous convictions who are now awaiting deportation.
The 84-page report, Locked Away: Immigration Detainees in Local Jails in
the United States, reflects research conducted over an eighteen-month period,
including visits to fourteen jails in seven states and interviews with
more than 200 INS detainees.
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Academic
Freedom in Indonesia: Dismantling Soeharto-Era Barriers
August 1998
(186X)
A nationwide student protest movement played an instrumental
role in forcing the resignation of President Soeharto on May 21, 1998 and
in opening the door to democratic reform in Indonesia. Students and faculty
emerged at the forefront of the reform movement in large measure because
they publicly spoke their minds, courageously and consistently ignoring
a variety of repressive laws, regulations, decrees, and abusive practices
that have long limited political and intellectual freedom on Indonesia’s
campuses and in Indonesian society. Although the change of leadership
in Indonesia has been meant changes, significant barriers to citizens'
exercise of basic rights continue to exist.
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Algeria's
Human Rights Crisis
August 1998
(E1003)
In this report, Human Rights Watch disputes the government’s
claim that Algeria's crisis is solely "a terrorist phenomenon." It
endorses the recent findings of the United Nations Human Rights Committee,
an expert body which concluded that allegations of involvement or collusion
by the security forces themselves in the mass atrocities were widespread
and persistent enough to require independent investigation. The U.N. experts
made their findings public in early August, after examining the government's
fifty-five page report on its implementation of the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights, and following two days of meetings with
Algerian officials. The findings constitute the most severe indictment
by any U.N. body of the government's practices since civil strife escalated
in Algeria in 1992.
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Russian Federation:
Ethnic Discrimination in Southern Russia
August 1998
(D1008)
Ethnic discrimination in the Russian Federation has persisted and perhaps
even worsened since the break-up of the Soviet Union. The government has
failed to combat discrimination and is in many ways responsible for perpetuating
discriminatory practices. While this is evident in much of Russia, it is
striking in Stavropol and Krasnodar, two provinces in southern Russia that
make up part of the North Caucasus region. A common form of state-sponsored
discrimination in these provinces is police harassment of ethnic Caucasians
through selective enforcement of residence requirements (propiska) and
mandatory registration of visitors. Police selectively enforce these rules,
sometimes together with Cossack units -- paramilitary organizations composed
of ethnic Slavs that in southern Russia operate with government sanction
-- through arbitrary identity checks on the street, on highways, and in
homes, during which victims are often forced to pay bribes and sometimes
are beaten and detained.
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Sudan Global
Trade Local Impact
Arms Transfers to
all Sides in the Civil War in Sudan
August 1998
(A1004)
More than one million people may have died, with millions more forcibly
displaced, since today’s ongoing civil war broke out in Sudan
in 1983. This conflict is spreading to other regions of the country and
is linked to guerrilla wars in neighboring Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Uganda.
A steady flow of arms into the Horn of Africa for the past half century
has fueled the fighting and multiplied its lethal impact on the civilian
population. Human Rights Watch began its investigation of the arms trade
feeding the Sudanese civil war in 1996, concentrating on types of armaments,
sources of arms supply, channels of arms distribution, and the connection
between arms flows and already identified human rights abusers.
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Israel's
Record of Occupation: Violations of Civil and Political Rights
August 1998
(E1002)
On July 15 and 16, 1998 Israel presented its initial report to the
United Nations Human Rights Committee, the U.N. body of independent experts
responsible for monitoring implementation of the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and its two Optional Protocols. Already
more than five years overdue, the 369-page report should have included
detailed information on the measures Israel had adopted to give effect
to the rights recognized in the covenant, and on the progress made in the
enjoyment of those rights. Instead, as Human Rights Watch argued in its
submission to the Human Rights Committee, Israel's report failed to give
sufficient information on the implementation of the covenant in practice,
left out any discussion of Israel's implementation of the covenant in the
territories it controlled in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights,
and South Lebanon, and misrepresented Israeli practice on important issues
including torture and administrative detention.
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Sowing Terror
: Atrocities against Civilians in Sierra Leone
August 1998
(A1003)
Since losing political power in February 1998, members of the Armed
Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) and the Revolutionary United Front
(RUF) have been engaging in a war of terror against civilians in Sierra
Leone. With no recognizable political platform, the AFRC/RUF rebel alliance
is committing widespread and egregious atrocities against unarmed civilians
in an attempt to regain power. As the violence in Sierra Leone continues,
grave abuses continue to take place. Human Rights Watch interviewed civilian
men, women, and children who had been intentionally mutilated or
shot as recently as June 12, 1998 in eastern Sierra Leone.
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Bosnia and
Hercegovina: "A Closed, Dark Place":
Past and Present Human
Rights Abuses in Foca (273k)
July 1998
(D1003)
Foca lies in the territory controlled by French troops of the NATO-led
Stabilization Force (SFOR). Until the June 15 arrest of Milorad Krnojelac,
those troops had failed to arrest any of the indicted suspects living in
Foca. In its report, Human Rights Watch urges the arrest of other indicted
war criminals in Foca, and the investigation of individuals who were allegedly
involved in wartime abuses. Human Rights Watch also calls upon international
donor governments and institutions to withhold reconstruction aid from
Foca until those allegedly responsible for abuses are brought to justice.
Donors and investors in the Foca area include the European Union, the Italian
government, the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development,
and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
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Shielded
from Justice: Police Brutality and Accountability
in the United
States
July 1998
(1835)
Police abuse remains one of the most serious and divisive human rights
violations in the United States. The excessive use of force by police officers,
including unjustified shootings, severe beatings, fatal chokings, and rough
treatment, persists because overwhelming barriers to accountability make
it possible for officers who commit human rights violations to escape due
punishment and often to repeat their offenses.This report examines common
obstacles to accountability for police abuse in fourteen large cities representing
most regions of the nation. The cities examined are: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago,
Detroit, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York,
Philadelphia, Portland, Providence, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.
Research for this report was conducted over two and a half years, from
late 1995 through early 1998.
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Cambodia:
Fair Elections Not Possible (112k)
June 1998
(C1003)
The present political environment in Cambodia, in which opposition
parties are not able to operate freely and safely, is in no way conducive
to the holding of free, fair, and credible elections scheduled for July
26, 1998. The primary obstacle is neither logistical nor technical, but
rather the determination of the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) to
control the electoral process and restrict basic freedoms. Human Rights
Watch recommends postponement of elections until the conditions conducive
to a free and fair poll are in place.
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Justice in the
Balance
Recommendations for an
Independent and Effective International Criminal Court
June 1998
(1843)
The impunity enjoyed by architects of this century's worst atrocities
underscores the urgent need for an international criminal court (ICC).
The recent creation of the ad hoc tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and
Rwanda signals the end of international tolerance for heinous crimes, and
a growing determination to punish perpetrators. This determination will
be tested at the Diplomatic Conference in Rome, beginning June 151998,
when over 180 states will gather to establish a permanent ICC. An ICC with
jurisdiction over genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes has
the potential to dramatically transform the human rights landscape in the
next century, providing critical redress to victims and deterring the commission
of egregious crimes. Critical issues hang in the balance, however, which
will determine whether the ICC will be an independent, fair, and effective
institution capable of realizing this potential. This volume provides a
critical analysis of the key issues before the ICC Diplomatic Conference.
It makes specific recommendations for the Court's statute, and comments
on the impact of key provision son the future of the International Criminal
Court.
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Bosnia and
Hercegovina: Beyond Restraint--
Politics and the Policing
Agenda of the United Nations
International Police
Task Force (150k)
June 1998
(D1005)
In this report, Human Rights Watch calls on the United Nations to strengthen
its monitoring of the human rights performance of the local police in Bosnia
and Hercegovina. The IPTF is the most ambitious civilian police operation
ever established by the United Nations, with over 2,000 international police
monitors. It has a mandate to screen all applicants for posts in local
police, and to assure that individuals who have committed war crimes, crimes
against humanity, genocide, or other serious human rights abuses, during
the conflict or since, are prevented from holding any police posts.
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Online
Republic
of Uzbekistan -- Crackdown in the Farghona Valley:
Arbitrary Arrests
and Religious Discrimination (116K)
May 1998
(D1004)
Since gaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, the Republic
of Uzbekistan has made little progress in moving away from Soviet-style
repression of human rights. A government policy of intolerance toward what
it perceives as the primary threat to state stability -- Muslims whom the
government generally refers to as "Wahhabis" -- makes a travesty of the
government's assertion that the stability born of repression is necessary
to achieve democracy. A Human Rights Watch fact-finding investigation conducted
from March 14 to March 21, 1998, in Toshkent, Namangan, and Andijan revealed
numerous human rights violations committed during recent crackdown on dissent.
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Online
Zambia: No
Model for Democracy:
Continuing Human Rights
Violations (235k)
April 1998
(A1002)
In this report, Human Rights Watch documents serious abuses by the
Zambian government such as police brutality and torture of detainees. Former
president Kenneth Kaunda and opposition leader Rodger Chongwe were injured
in August 1997 when police opened fire with live ammunition to disperse
an opposition rally and are lucky to be alive. In addition, a number of
opposition leaders were targeted and as many as eighty-two were detained.
A number of these detainees were tortured.The Zambian government has said
it wants to hold a 'trial within a trial' for the alleged torturers when
the High Court starts its hearing of those supposedly implicated in the
October coup. Human Rights Watch condemns such a proposal as insufficient
to address these serious allegations of abuse and calls for an independent
inquiry.
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Justice
for All?: An Analysis of the Human Rights Provisions
of the 1998 Northern
Ireland Peace Agreement (41k)
May 1998
(D1003)
Human Rights Watch welcomes the presentation of an historic peace accord
to the people of Ireland, north and south. Human Rights Watch is particularly
pleased to note that the new agreement reflects an understanding of the
relationship between the protection and promotion of universal human rights
and the probabilities for a lasting, just, and durable peace. The human
rights provisions of the agreement address a number of issues of critical
concern to human rights organizations that have been working in Northern
Ireland for many years. Some measures, which would have enhanced human
rights protections, are absent from the agreement. This paper analyzes
the human rights provisions of the new accord and also makes recommendations
concerning points in the accord which appear too vague to afford maximum
protection.
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online
Tajikistan
-- Leninabad: Crackdown in the North (131k)
April 1998
(D1002)
Five years of civil war in Tajikistan were formally brought to a close
on June 27, 1997, when a peace accord was signed between the government
and the United Tajik Opposition (UTO). A major force, however, was left
out of the peace negotiations: the political opposition based in Tajikistan's
northern region, Leninabad. Beginning in 1996, when the Leninabadi opposition
sought a prominent role in the peace process, the Tajikistan government
responded with a campaign to discredit that opposition's legitimacy and
influence by cracking down on the region's political parties, arresting
and harassing activists or suspected activists, and censoring from the
media most information about the Leninabad political movement.
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online
Macedonia:
Police Violence in Macedonia (103k)
April 1998
(D1001)
Police abuse is threatening social stability in Macedonia and could
worsen the turmoil in the South Balkans, Human Rights Watch said today.
In this report, the New York-based human rights organization charges that
the Macedonian government is ignoring a pattern of police brutality, while
the international community turns a "blind eye. "
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Bearing
the Brunt of the Asian Economic Crisis: the Impact on Labor Rights and
Migrant Workers in Asia (110k)
April 1998
(C1002)
The collapse has of the Asian economic market has given rise to massive
layoffs of workers and wage and benefit cuts, not only in those countries
worst affected by the economic crisis, but region-wide. Human Rights Watch
is concerned about the likelihood of increasing violations of workers'
rights as a direct consequence of the crisis in countries where labor conditions
already fell well below the International Labor Organization's (ILO) core
standards.
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online
"Prohibited
Persons": Abuse of Undocumented Migrants, Asylum Seekers, and Refugees
in South Africa (43k+)
March 1998
(1819)
Although South Africa, since the first democratic elections in 1994,
has made remarkable progress towards establishing a free and democratic
society based on respect for the human rights of its own citizens, foreigners
have largely failed to benefit from these developments and remain subject
to serious abuse. Anti-foreigner feelings have also increased alarmingly.
Politicians, the press, and the South African public commonly blame foreigners
for exacerbating social problems.
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online
Clinton
Administration Policy And Human Rights In Africa (81k)
March 1998
(A1001)
The Clinton White House deserves a lot of credit for developing a
fresh approach toward Africa, and giving the continent some high-level
attention. But economic development can't be sustained in the face of repression
and humanitarian disaster. Despite their commitment to open commerce, the
continent's "new leaders" will soon look a lot like the old leaders if
they continue brutalizing civilians and monopolizing political power. Stable
societies everywhere rest on the same foundation: democracy and human rights.
Africa is no exception to that rule.
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Public Scandals
-- Sexual Orientation & Criminal Law in Romania (53k+)
January 1998
(1789)
Today in Romania, gays and lesbians are routinely denied some of the
most basic human rights guaranteed by international law. Despite amendments
in 1996 to the criminal code provisions relating to homosexual conduct--portrayed
by the Romanian government as a total repeal of legislation criminalizing
consensual sexual relations between adults of the same sex--gays and lesbians
continue to be arrested and convicted for such relations if they become
public knowledge. Moreover, they face frequent physical abuse and harassment
by law enforcement officials, as well as systematic discrimination in many
walks of life.
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