Human Rights Watch/Asia and the Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor Release a Comprehensive Report on the State of the Hong Kong Prison System Prior to the Handover
(14 June 97) Hong Kong is fast approaching July 1, when British colonial rule ends and the territory becomes a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the People's Republic of China. Among the people left in Hong Kong after the British depart will be some 12,000 Hong Kong prisoners, including some 800 foreign nationals. Human Rights Watch/Asia and the Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor, recognizing that few if any groups are more vulnerable to the impact of political change than prisoners, recently investigated conditions in the Hong Kong prison system with the intention of establishing a benchmark of prison conditions prior to the territory's reversion to China. In Hong Kong: Prison Conditions in 1997, published today, the two groups offer a comprehensive appraisal of the state of the territory's prisons.
Given China's notoriously poor prison conditions and its frequent use of capital punishment, it is unsurprising that some Hong Kong prisoners have already expressed grave apprehensions regarding their treatment under Chinese rule. In light of these concerns, the investigation -- besides establishing a benchmark of prison conditions -- was also meant to establish a precedent of independent monitoring of the territory's prisons, to encourage future monitoring.
A Campaign to Apprehend the Persons Indicted for War Crimes in the Former Yugoslavia
JORDAN: The "Chilling Effect" of the New Press Law
(5 June 97) In a report released in advance of the June 6 meeting of the general assembly of the Jordan Press Association in Amman, Human Rights Watch charges that the Jordanian government has placed "unacceptable infringements" on the right to freedom of expression. The 14-page report, A Death Knell for Free Expression? The New Amendments to the Press and Publications Law, finds the content bans in the new press law "clearly designed to impose a regime of self-censorship on the press and other publications, preventing them from carrying news and other information related to domestic and foreign affairs." Human Rights Watch calls on the government of Jordan to repeal the May 1997 law that amends provisions of the Press and Publications Law of 1993.