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Human Rights Watch IN THIS ISSUE:
The Human Rights Watch monthly email update highlights the impact of our work around the world, as well as recent campaigns. It does not list everything we produce or on which we work. For the latest information from Human Rights Watch, visit our home page at http://www.hrw.org. Past monthly updates are archived at http://www.hrw.org/update/.
Argentina Faces Its Past
August saw one of the year's most positive developments in human rights: The reopening of the trials of military officers responsible for gross violations of human rights during Argentina's "dirty war" (1976-1983). In mid-August, both houses of Argentina's Congress voted by a large majority to annul the Full Stop and Due Obedience laws, which had barred the prosecution of military officers for human rights violations. On August 26, Human Rights Watch Americas Executive Director José Miguel Vivanco and researcher Sebastian Brett met in Buenos Aires with ministers in the Kirchner government and two members of the Argentine Supreme Court, Enrique Petracchi and Juan Maqueda. Though the justices could not discuss the cases now under consideration, they conveyed their approval of several past court decisions upholding international human rights law. Six months ago, no one would have bet money on the court nullifying the amnesty laws; now the odds seem better than even. The Spanish human rights judge Baltasar Garzón sparked these developments by issuing warrants for the extradition of 45 former military officers and a civilian accused of torture and "disappearances," so that they could stand trial in Spain. In August, President Nestor Kirchner repealed a decree that prevented the extradition of Argentines from standing trial abroad for human rights crimes. Since the parliamentary vote, and with the Supreme Court decision likely, it appears that the officers will be finally tried in Argentina. The Spanish government has announced it would drop its extradition request. On September 2, the Federal Court of Buenos Aires ordered trials to be reopened into crimes committed in the Navy Mechanics School, a notorious torture center, and secret detention centers attached to the First Army Corps. Among those accused is Alfredo Astiz, a former naval intelligence agent who escaped extradition to France last year, and Carlos Suárez Mason, former commander of the First Army Corps, who was extradited to Argentina from the United States in 1988, and pardoned by then-President Carlos Menem. The fate of these and other court cases rests on the Supreme Court decision, which is expected soon. See Human Rights Watch's work on human rights in Argentina at http://hrw.org/americas/argentina.php
Los Angeles Youths to Be Moved from Adult Jail The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has deemed the Men's Central Jail unfit for detainees under 18 and ordered them transferred to a juvenile facility. The shift is expected to take place in October. In a meeting with Human Rights Watch, Sheriff Leroy D. Baca promised to improve living conditions in the juvenile wing of Men's Central, and to complete educational assessments of all youths before they're moved. He also agreed to cooperate with Human Rights Watch's ongoing monitoring of conditions for youths detained in Los Angeles County. This was a significant change of position. Until the July 23 meeting, the sheriff's department had resisted months of pressure to review its detention practices for youths. And when jail chaplain Javier Stauring spoke at a rally questioning whether conditions in the jail were a factor in two suicide attempts in May, the Sheriff's Department retaliated by revoking his clearance to minister to youths at the jail. Mr. Stauring's status remains unresolved. The juvenile module in the Men's Central Jail currently holds 30 to 50 youths under the age of 18 -- twice as many as the combined total in all other adult jails in California. Most of these youths are pretrial detainees who will spend six months to one year or more in jail before their cases are resolved. A Human Rights Watch investigation of Men's Central earlier this year found that youths in the jail are generally locked in windowless single cells for 23 and a half hours each day. They are let out for 30 minutes each day to shower and make telephone calls. Once a week they're given a 3-hour recreation period in individual rooftop cages containing a pull-up bar and a telephone. Apart from these brief respites, a trip to the nurse or the occasional visit from family or attorneys, they remain in their cells with little or nothing to do. There is no classroom instruction in the jail. Jail staff told Human Rights Watch that state education laws required only one hour of face-to-face instruction per week, but the jail does not meet even that minimal requirement. Youths at the jail see a teacher through cell bars two or three times a week for periods of five to 15 minutes each. The jail makes no effort to identify youths with special education needs, in violation of federal law. Harsh detention conditions may have contributed to three suicide attempts by youths since the end of May. One youth tried to kill himself on June 30. Two others attempted suicide on or about May 24; one of these boys had a history of mental illness and had earlier attempted to kill himself while in police custody following his arrest. Human Rights Watch urged Sheriff Baca to act swiftly to improve its psychological assessments and mental health services for youths detained at Men's Central Jail. See Human Rights Watch’s work on human rights in U.S. prisons at http://hrw.org/prisons
Battling Impunity in Cambodian Political Killing
When a Cambodian opposition activist's 16-year-old daughter was murdered in apparent retaliation for his views, the case seemed destined to join the roster of unpunished political killings committed during Cambodia's national elections in August. Several villagers witnessed the village chief shoot the girl with an automatic rifle as she was working in a rubber plantation, and then kick her body several times to make sure she was dead. An arrest warrant was issued, but when several weeks passed and the culprit remained at large, Human Rights Watch intervened. At the request of the U.N. human rights office in Phnom Penh, Human Rights Watch issued a press release on August 19 urging the Cambodian authorities to enforce the arrest warrant. Human Rights Watch's statement was covered in the Cambodian-language press, Radio Free Asia and the wire agencies. A copy was delivered to the Ministry of Interior before U.N. human rights monitors met with police officials to discuss the murder. The culprit was arrested within days of that meeting. For more on human rights in Cambodia, visit http://www.hrw.org/asia/cambodia.php
Vietnamese Cyber-Dissident's Sentence Reduced
See HRW's August 26 press release at http://www.hrw.org/press/2003/08/vietnam082603.htm See HRW's campaign on Internet dissidents at http://hrw.org/advocacy/internet/dissidents
New Steps on Corporate Responsibility
Arvind Ganesan, director of the program on corporations and human rights at Human Rights Watch, participated in U.N.-sponsored seminars that laid the foundation for the document, and much of his commentary, particularly in relation to security and human rights, was incorporated into the final draft. The result is an instrument that is not only comprehensive and authoritative, but may also prevent companies from suffering a competitive disadvantage when they abide by voluntary human rights codes that other companies don't adopt. "The norms help to level the playing field for companies that want to do the right thing for human rights," Ganesan says. "Now every company's obligations are detailed, and no company can say that it doesn't have responsibilities in the area of human rights." The new norms also extend corporate responsibility throughout the supply chain, so that a multinational that has never used child labor in its own operations will be held accountable for using a supplier who does. And the standards would have teeth: Nike factories and Coca-Cola bottling plants could be forced to open their doors for "periodic monitoring" by U.N. inspectors. The norms are voluntary, not binding, and are not expected to be ratified next March, when the full 53-nation Commission is scheduled to hold a vote on the matter. Still, they represent "a good first step," says Ganesan, who believes that the analysis and commentary underlying the document could someday provide the conceptual basis of a binding instrument on corporate responsibility. Ganesan is no stranger to crafting major achievements in small increments. He wrote some of the first drafts of the Voluntary Principles on Security, which was signed in 2000 by major oil companies, including Exxon, Chevron, Mobile and British Petroleum. The signatories pledged to bar security staff from engaging in brutality while securing their overseas operations - a longstanding human rights concern. Ganesan is building on that victory by pushing the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to include human rights safeguards as requirements in all their lending agreements. He works side by side in these efforts with his wife, Pamela Gomez, a former Human Rights Watch Caucasus researcher who now works for the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. Together, they press international lenders to require governments throughout the world to provide more transparent accounting of where the money goes - and on whom it is spent. Ganeson, 34, is the son of Indian physicians who immigrated to the United States. He grew up in Oklahoma, majored in chemistry at the state university there, and moved to New York, where he joined Human Rights Watch in 1995. The author of three books on human rights issues, he is currently based in Washington D.C. See more on corporations and human rights at http://www.hrw.org/corporations
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Undated photos of former top Argentine military offciers; (upper row from L) admiral Eduardo Massera, general Antonio Domingo Bussi, dictator Jorge Videla and general Guilermo Suarez Mason. (Bottom row from L), brigadier Basilio Lami Dozo, captain Alfredo Astiz, admiral Jorge Isaac Anaya and Armando Lambruschini, who among 38 others are sought by Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon for crimes commited by them during the 1976-83 Dirty War dictatorship. © 2003 Reuters Ltd.
Opposition Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) poster in Cambodia. Local authorities had
been harassing the victim's family since April, when her father, Chan Moni, became a local activist for the opposition. © 2003 Reuters Ltd.
