Human Rights Developments

Defending Human Rights

The Role of the International Community

Defending Human Rights

The government denied UNMOT, the ICRC, and the OSCE (among others) access to conflict-affected areas or prevented them from delivering urgently-needed humanitarian supplies. UNMOT personnel were murdered, beaten, shot at, robbed, detained, and threatened by armed groups, particularly in UTO-controlled territory; on occasion they were detained by government security forces. Although U.N. representatives in 1997 and 1998 recommended the immediate deployment of human rights specialists to Tajikistan, by the end of November none had arrived. The ICRC continued to be denied universal access to prisoners in accordance with its standard procedures, and local monitoring remained almost non-existent. In a positive development, the first national conference of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) was held in March, when international and local NGOs during several seminars focused on the dire situation of women and children.