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Catalogue [html] Publications Catalogue [Adobe Acrobat - (3mb)] Country Reports (Updated Dec. 2000) Clickable World MapGENERALAFGHANISTAN AFRICA ALBANIA ALGERIA ANGOLA ARGENTINA ASIA AZERBAIJAN BAHRAIN BANGLADESH BELARUS BOLIVIA BOSNIA & HERCEGOVINA BOTSWANA BRAZIL BULGARIA BURMA BURUNDI CAMBODIA CAMEROON CANADA CHILE CHINA COLOMBIA COMMONWEALTH C.I.S. D.R. OF CONGO CROATIA CUBA CZECH REPUBLIC & FORMER CZECHOSLOVAKIA DOMINICAN REPUBLIC EGYPT EL SALVADOR ERITREA ESTONIA ETHIOPIA FRANCE GEORGIA GERMANY GHANA GREECE GUINEA GUATEMALA HAITI HONDURAS HONG KONG HUNGARY INDIA INDONESIA/EAST TIMOR IRAN IRAQ ISRAEL & ISRAELI OCCUPIED TERRITORIES JAMAICA JORDAN KAZAKHSTAN KENYA KUWAIT LATVIA LEBANON LIBERIA MACEDONIA MALAWI MALAYSIA MAURITANIA MEXICO MOLDOVA MOROCCO MOZAMBIQUE NAMIBIA NEPAL NICARAGUA NIGERIA PAKISTAN PANAMA PARAGUAY PERU THE PHILIPPINES POLAND ROMANIA RUSSIA AND CHECHNYA RWANDA SAUDI ARABIA SERBIA MONTENEGRO SIERRA LEONE SLOVAK REPUBLIC SOMALIA SOUTH AFRICA SOUTH KOREA SPAIN SRI LANKA SUDAN SURINAME SYRIA TAJIKISTAN TANZANIA THAILAND TIBET TUNISIA TURKEY TURKMENISTAN UGANDA UNITED KINGDOM UNITED STATES URUGUAY FORMER USSR UZBEKISTAN VENEZUELA VIETNAM WESTERN SAHARA YEMEN FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA ZAIRE ZAMBIA ZIMBABWE |
Fingers
to the Bone:United States Failure to Protect Child Farmworkers
June 2000 (2491) Hundreds of thousands of child farmworkers are laboring under dangerous and grueling conditions in the United States, Human Rights Watch charged in a report released today. HRW found that child farmworkers often work twelve- and fourteen-hour days, and risk pesticide poisoning, heat illness, injuries and life-long disabilities. The vast majority of child farmworkers are Latino. The laws governing minors working in agriculture are much less stringent than those for other sectors of the economy, Human Rights Watch said, allowing children to work at younger ages, for longer hours, and under more hazardous conditions than children in other jobs. "Fingers to the Bone:United States Failure to Protect Child Farmworkers," focuses on children aged thirteen to sixteen. Some of these young workers told Human Rights Watch that they work as many as seventy or eighty hours a week. Often, their workdays begin before dawn. (2491), 6/00, 112pp., ISBN 1-56432- 2491, $10.00 Order online Punishment and Prejudice: Racial Disparities in the War on Drugs June 2000 (G1202) The U.S. war on drugs has been waged overwhelmingly against black Americans, Human Rights Watch charged in a new report released today. This report includes the first state-by-state analysis of the role of race and drugs in prison admissions. All of the 37 states Human Rights Watch studied send black drug offenders to prison at far higher rates than whites. The ten states with the greatest racial disparities are: Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Maine, Iowa, Maryland, Ohio, New Jersey, North Carolina, and West Virginia. In these states, black men are sent to prison on drug charges at 27 to 57 times the rate of white men."Punishment and Prejudice" also documents how drug law enforcement has fueled the exploding U.S. prison population. During the 1990s, more than one hundred thousand people were admitted to prison on drug charges every year. Over 1.5 million prison admissions on drug charges have occurred since 1980. The incarceration of nonviolent drug offenders has propelled the nation's soaring incarceration rate, the highest in the western world. Human Rights Watch calls for changes in drug control strategies to minimize their racially disproportionate impact and to reduce the overincarceration of nonviolent offenders. (G1202) 5/00, 39pp., $5.00 Order online Russia/Chechnya -- February 5: A Day of Slaughter in Novye Aldi June 2000 (D1208) On February 5, 2000, Russian forces engaged in widespread killing, arson, rape and looting in Aldi. The victims included an eighty-two-year-old woman, and a one-year-old-boy with his twenty-nine-year-old mother, who was eight months pregnant. The 46-page report criticizes the failure of the Russian authorities to undertake a credible investigation into the massacre and provide adequate protection for witnesses. Human Rights Watch previously documented the events in Aldi in a February 23 press release, but the new report documents in detail the killings of forty of the victims, along with six cases of rape, and the widespread arson and looting of civilian homes. Russian authorities have themselves admitted that special riot police units (in Russian, OMON) from the city of St. Petersburg and Riazan province were in Aldi on February 5. The military procurator passed the case over to the Grozny civilian procurator, stating that OMON units do not fall under his supervision. Three civilian procurators are currently investigating the killings. The failure to address what amounts to war crimes in Aldi directly contradicts Putin's statement on May 29 that "all violations of the law in Chechnya will be stamped out in the most severe fashion regardless of who committed them." (D1208) 6/00, 43pp, $5.00 Order online Bosnia and Hercegovina -- Unfinished Business: Return of Displaced Persons and Other Human Rights Issues in Bijeljina May 2000 (D1207) More than four and a half years after the war ended in Bosnia and Hercegovina, many ethnic minorities are still unable to repossess their homes in the Bosnian Serb town of Bijeljina, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. An estimated 27,000 out of a pre-war population of 30,000 non-Serbs were expelled from Bijeljina during the war. Only a limited number have returned to the town, in part because their houses are occupied by Bosnian Serbs and Serb refugees from elsewhere in the former Yugoslavia. In certain cases, the police, some of whom are themselves occupying Bosniak houses, have actively discouraged returnees by "warning" them that their safety could not be guaranteed, and "advising" them not to return. In this report, Human Rights Watch documents how the Dayton Peace Agreement, which ended the war in Bosnia and Hercegovina, has not succeeded in restoring a multi-ethnic society. Instead, the authorities in Bijeljina continue to obstruct the implementation of the Dayton agreement, providing neither protection nor equal rights to the Bosniak community of Bijeljina, while actively deterring the return of Bosniaks who were driven from the city during the war. (D1207) 5/00, 77pp, $7.00 Order online Burma/Bangladesh -- Burmese Refugees in Bangladesh: Still No Durable Solution May 2000 (C1203) In this report, Human Rights Watch describes the key obstacles to the satisfactory resolution of the Rohingya refugee problem. Any resolution must comply with international human rights standards, including those guaranteeing protection of the rights of refugees. In 1991 and 1992, some 250,000 Rohingya sought refuge in Bangladesh, and though most of these returned under a repatriation program arranged by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 22,000 remain in camps. More than 100,000 additional Rohingya who have entered the country since 1991 now live in precarious circumstances in Bangladesh outside the camps with no formal documentation as refugees. Though conditions in the camps have reportedly improved, refugees living there continue to suffer abuses, including beatings and other forms of physical abuse, and in the past have been coerced by camp administrators trying to force their return to Burma. The report updates the situation of the Rohingya in northern Arakan and illustrates how they continue to face discrimination, forced labor, and arbitrary confiscation of their property by the Burmese government. The government also refuses to consider recognizing the Rohingya's claim to Burmese citizenship. Lack of citizenship restricts the freedom of the Rohingya to travel outside and within the country, to partake in public service, or pursue some types of higher education. (C1203) 5/00, 29pp., $5.00 Order online Indonesia-- Human Rights and Pro-independence Actions in Papua, 1999-2000 May 2000 (C1202) Human Rights Watch calls on Indonesian authorities to stop harassing organizers of peaceful rallies in Irian Jaya, where a popular pro-independence movement has publicly emerged over the past two years. But the international rights group also welcomed steps the new administration of Abdurrahman Wahid has taken toward respecting basic rights in the province. In a new 38-page report, "Human Rights and Pro-Independence Actions in Papua, 1999-2000," Human Rights Watch details the eruption of independence demands in the province following Soeharto's forced resignation in May 1998, and documents the inconsistent and at times repressive government response. The report in particular credits Wahid, who took office in October 1999, with releasing political prisoners and announcing that peaceful political expression, including expression of pro-independence views, would no longer be treated as a criminal offense. Wahid has also stated unambiguously that the Indonesian government would not recognize Papuan demands for independence. (C1202) 5/00, 42pp, $5.00 Order online Vietnam: The Silencing of Dissent May 2000 (C1201) Vietnam's human rights performance continues to fall far short of international standards, despite economic and socialchanges since the late 1980's. In this 34-page report, "Vietnam: Silencing of Dissent," Human Rights Watch details how the Socialist Republic of Vietnam continues to harass, isolate, place under house arrest, and sometimes imprison its critics. Among those singled out are senior party leaders calling for political reforms, long-time critics from the academic community, members of the press, and religious leaders whom the government fears may be able to attract large followings. The new report takes note of positive changes in Vietnam in recent years as it has opened up to the international community, including human rights improvements. Tens of thousands of political detainees and re-education camp inmates have been released, thousands of Vietnamese who had fled abroad as refugees have returned, and the government has shown an increased willingness to cooperate with the U.N. on human rights issues. (C1201) 5/00, 38pp, $5.00 Order online Eastern Congo Ravaged: Killing Civilians and Silencing Protest May 2000 (A1203) The Rwandan army and its Congolese allies have massacred and raped civilians in eastern Congo, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Their opponents, Hutu and Mai Mai armed groups, are also committing atrocities against the civilian population.The RCD launched a rebellion against the government headed by Laurent Kabila in August 1998. They vowed to restore democracy and respect for human rights within the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) but the RCD-Goma and its Rwandese allies have regularly slaughtered civilians in massacres and extrajudicial executions. In cases where the RCD or its allies admit that the killings took place, they often seek to justify them as unintended consequences of combat with armed groups, but they seem in many cases to have committed the abuses deliberately to punish civilians for their supposed support of enemies of the RCD. Opposition armed groups, known generally as Mai-Mai or Interahamwe, fight against the RCD, sometimes with apparent support from the Kabila government. These armed groups have targeted civilians in massacres and extrajudicial executions and have engaged in widespread pillage and rape. In many cases, they perpetrate abuses against those whom they believe are supporting the RCD or its allies. (A1203), 5/00 40pp, $5.00 Order online Burundi: Neglecting Justice in Making Peace April 2000 (A1202) Continuing abuses of civilians by all parties, the growing regionalization of the Central African conflict, and the threat of increased violence from extremist organizations underscore the urgency of ending the war in Burundi. But a peace without accountability for past crimes offers little hope for future stability within Burundi or the larger region. More than one hundred thousand civilians have been slain in Burundi, both by Hutu and by Tutsi. Many of these killings are crimes against humanity and some have been described as genocide by a U.N. commission of inquiry. They must be prosecuted promptly and effectively by an international tribunal as well as by Burundian courts. Some Burundians and foreign observers now propose yet another international investigation as well as a Burundian Truth and Reconciliation commission. Such commissions may add greater detail to what is already known of this tragic past, but they serve a different purpose from that of prosecutions and must not become a pretext for delaying them. (A1202), 4/00, 18pp, $3.00 Order online Rwanda: the Search for Security and Human Rights Abuses April 2000 (A1201) The Rwandan government is using the pretext of security to cover human rights abuses against Rwandan citizens, Human Rights Watch said in this report. The report details cases of assassination, murder, arbitrary detention, torture and other abuses perpetrated chiefly by soldiers of the Rwandan Patriotic Army, and by members of a government-backed citizens' militia called the Local Defense Force. Rwandan military intelligence operatives recently forced five Tutsi, mostly soldiers or former soldiers, to return to Rwanda against their will after they had fled to neighboring countries. Authorities have linked these cases to the existence of a supposed "army of the king." In another surprising development, authorities arrested some forty Hutu in the usually anti-monarchist northwest on charges of belonging to a secret monarchist association. Human Rights Watch details killings and other abuses committed by members of the Local Defense Force, civilians recruited and armed by the government. Supposedly under the supervision of local authorities, the members of the Local Defense Force commit abuses without punishment in those areas where authorities are afraid of them or have benefitted from their crime (A1201) 4/00 30pp, $5.00 Order online Federal Republic of Yugoslavia-- Curtailing Political Dissent: Serbia's Campaign of Violence and Harassment Against Government Critics April 2000 (D1206) The Serbian and Yugoslav governments have consistently used repressive measures-unfair trials, harassment, and violence-against opposition politicians, street demonstrators, and independent domestic critics. But the past year has seen an increase in abuses against opposition parties, the independent media, student organizations, independent trade unions, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and civic activists in Serbia -in short, against anyone who potentially threatens the ruling elite's grip on power. The abuses began to gain momentum in early 1999, as the threat of war with NATO hung over Serbia. High fines were imposed on a number of independent media outlets, while the state-controlled media labeled government critics "collaborators" with Serbia's enemies. The repression intensified during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia (March to June 1999), when a stateof war was in effect. Feeling under threat, many individuals fled the country or sought safety in Yugoslavia's other republic, Montenegro, which remained neutral in the war. Government abuses have not abated since the end of the war. To the contrary, the government has increasingly used violenceagainst street demonstrations by opposition parties and university students. Journalists have been convicted on a variety of charges and fined or given prison sentences for their writing and broadcasting. (D1206) 4/00, 41pp, $5.00 Order online Russia/Chechnya -- "No Happiness Remains:" Civilian Killings, Pillage, and Rape in Alkhan-yurt, Chechnya March 2000 (G1201) Russian soldiers went on a rampage in the Chechen village of Alkhan-Yurt in December 1999, looting and burning dozens of homes and summarily executing at least fourteen civilians, according to the 32-page report. The report criticizes Russia's military and political leadership for failing to investigate the crime, and charges that Russia's military command is complicit to the abuses. The events in Alkhan-Yurt were previously revealed in Human Rights Watch press releases, but the new report provides a more comprehensive account of the massacre and its victims. When the allegations first emerged, the Russian military and political leadership dismissed them out of hand, claiming that Chechen rebels had unleashed an "information war." Then, as evidence of the killing mounted, the military procuracy was forced to open a criminal investigation into the events. However, this investigation: it focused only on the period leading up to and including the seizure of the village by Russian forces, although the rampage took place in the two following weeks. The military procuracy told Human Rights Watch that it had closed the investigation and no one was charged. (D1205) 4/00, 35pp, $5.00 Order online US: Out of Sight: Super-Maximum Security Confinement in the US March 2000 (G1201) There are currently more than twenty thousand prisoners in the United States, nearly two percent of the prison population, housed in special super-maximum security facilities or units. Prisoners in these facilities typically spend their waking and sleeping hours locked in small, sometimes windowless, cells sealed with solid steel doors. A few times a week they are let out for showers and solitary exercise in a small, enclosed space. Supermax prisoners have almost no access to educational or recreational activities or other sources of mental stimulation and are usually handcuffed, shackled and escorted by two or three correctional officers every time they leave their cells. Assignment to supermax housing is usually for an indefinite period that may continue for years. Although supermax facilities are ostensibly designed to house incorrigibly violent or dangerous inmates, many of the inmates confined in them do not meet those criteria. Supermax confinement, no less than any other, is subject to human rights standards contained in treaties signed by the United States and binding on state and federal officials (G1201) 2/00, 9pp, $3.00 Order online Leaving No Witnesses: Uzbekistan's Campaign against Rights Defenders March 2000 (D1204) Local human rights defenders play a crucial role in promoting the rule of law. They are a lifeline of information, tying victims of government abuse to the rest of society, and providing the first recourse for victims in their search for redress and justice. Since their emergence in 1992, human rights defenders in Uzbekistan have worked under the pressure of rigorous government surveillance and harassment. The government of Uzbekistan since February 1999 has intensified its efforts to intimidate, silence, and punish those who expose abuses, to stop the flow of information to the international community, and to prevent international scrutiny of its disastrous human rights record. The crackdown began in the wake of the bombing of several government buildings in Tashkent that month. (D1204) 3/00, 37pp, $5.00 Order online Federal Republic of Yugoslavia -- Kosovo: Rape As A Weapon of "Ethnic Cleansing" March 2000 (D1203) On the evening of March 24, 1999, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) began bombing the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. As Serbian police and Yugoslav Army forces continued brutal attacks on civilians, more than 800,000 ethnic Albanian refugees poured out of Kosovo, mostly into Albania and Macedonia. Exhausted and traumatized, they carried what few belongings they could grab before fleeing or being expelled. They also brought eyewitness accounts of atrocities committed against ethnic Albanian civilians inside Kosovo by Yugoslav soldiers, Serbian police, and paramilitaries. Witnesses and victims told of summary executions, mass murders, destruction of civilian property, and other war crimes. In more hushed tones, refugees also spoke of rapes of ethnic Albanian women. These instances of sexual violence are the focus of this report. Human Rights Watch began investigating the use of rape and other forms of sexual violence by all sides in the conflict in 1998 and continued to document rape accounts throughout the refugee crisis in 1999. The research found that rape and other forms of sexual violence were used in Kosovo in 1999 as weapons of war and instruments of systematic "ethnic cleansing." Rapes were not rare and isolated acts committed by individual Serbian or Yugoslav forces, but rather were used deliberately as an instrument to terrorize the civilian population, extort money from families, and push people to flee their homes. Rape furthered the goal of forcing ethnic Albanians from Kosovo (D1203) 3/00, 39 pp, $5.00 Order online The Administration of Justice in Tunisia: Torture, Trumped-up Charges and a Tainted Trial March 2000 (E1201) The trial of Tunisia's most outspoken human rights lawyer, Radhia Nasraoui, and twenty co-defendants was attended by jurists representing Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (a joint program of the International Federation of Human Rights [FIDH] and the World Organization Against Torture [OMCT]), and other organizations. Nasraoui and all of the other defendants, most of them students, were convicted and sentenced to prison terms on charges related to membership in or activities on behalf of an unauthorized left-wing political association, the Tunisian Communist Workers Party (Parti communiste des ouvriers tunisiens, PCOT). This trial dramatized many aspects of Tunisia's human rights situation. In addition to government measures to harass and impede the work of human rights defenders like Nasraoui, the case illustrated the use of repressive laws to imprison Tunisians who engage in peaceful political activity deemed critical of the country's present government. It also demonstrated the commonplace nature of torture during interrogations in Tunisia and the judicial system's disregard of this abuse and its failure to provide defendants with basic guarantees of a fair trial. (E1201) 3/00, 39 pp, $3.00 Order online Colombia: The Ties That Bind: Colombia and Military-Paramilitary Links February 2000 (B1201) This report shows that military support for paramilitary activity remains national in scope, and includes areas where units receiving or scheduled to receive U.S. military aid operate. The report relies on Colombian government documents and extensive interviews with government investigators, refugees, and victims of political violence. Several prominent investigators interviewed by Human Rights Watch were forced to flee the country because of their work collecting evidence on military-paramilitary collaboration. The Human Rights Watch report also links three prominent Army brigades based in Colombia's largest cities to paramilitary activity and attacks on civilians. Together with previous reports, Human Rights Watch has so far documented ties between half of Colombia's eighteen Army brigades and paramilitaries.In a letter to Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, Human Rights Watch urged the U.S. government to strengthen human rights conditions on any security assistance to Colombia's military.The letter expressed grave concern that a $1.3 billion aid package proposed by the Clinton administration does not require clear, measurable steps to break links between the military and paramilitary groups. (B1201) 2/00, 24 pp, $3.00 Order online Russia/Chechnya Civilian Killings in Staropromyslovski District of Grozny February 2000 (D1202) Russian soldiers summarily executed at least thirty-eight civilians in the Staropromyslovski district of Grozny, Chechnya, between late December and mid-January, according to testimony taken by Human Rights Watch. Most of the victims were women and elderly men, and all appear to have been deliberately shot by Russian soldiers at close range. Russian soldiers alsocommitted many other abuses in the district, including looting and destroying civilian property and forcing residents of the town to risk sniper fire to recover the bodies of fallen Russian soldiers. Six men from the district who were last seen in Russian custody "disappeared" during this same period and remain unaccounted for. More than a dozen interviews with survivors, eyewitnesses, and family members of the dead revealed detailed information about the killings, which occurred in fourteen separate incidents. Human Rights Watch also received allegations of at least a dozen additional deaths which occurred in the same period. Human Rights Watch is currently investigating these allegations. (D1201) 2/00, 18 pp, $3.00 Order online Civilian Deaths in the NATO Air Campaign February 2000 (D1201) The U.S. Defense Department review of the NATO bombing campaign in Yugoslavia shows that the alliance has failed to learn from its mistakes in killing civilians, Human Rights Watch charged today. The Pentagon review, released today in the course of Defense Secretary William Cohen's testimony beforeCongress, states that the bombing campaign was "the most precise and lowest-collateral-damage air operation ever conducted" (p. xvii), but provides no evidence to substantiate this summary assertion, nor any discussion of how many civilians died, why, or whether these deaths could have been avoided. However, this 79-page Human Rights Watch report documents that the number of incidents in which civilians were killed in the NATO air campaign in Yugoslavia is at least three times as high as what the Pentagon has claimed.In its report on the Yugoslav bombing, Human Rights Watch identified four areas in which NATO fell short of its obligation to minimize civilian deaths. These included: its use of cluster bombs in populated areas, its attacks in populated areas during the day when civilians were most likely to be present, its attacks on mobile targets without ensuring that they were military in nature, and its decision to strike some targets of little or no military value despite a substantial risk of civilian death, such as Serb radio and television headquarters in Belgrade. (D1201) 2/00, 79 pp, $7.00 Order online |