Reports

The existence of confidential Chinese government blacklists barring overseas-based pro-democracy and human rights activists from returning to China has long been suspected by the exiled Chinese dissident community and other concerned observers. Until now, however, no conclusive documentary evidence confirming the operation of such a policy has ever come to light.

Since 1992, Egypt has faced continuing political violence and a corresponding rise in human rights abuses committed by both government security forces and armed Islamist militants.

Now the longest-running conflict in the former Soviet Union, the battle for Nagorno-Karabakh has rapidly expanded and intensified since it began in 1988, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 25,000 soldiers and civilians and the displacement of one million others.

Pressure from the international community has resulted in some signs of movement by the SLORC, the ruling military government of Burma, toward adhering to successive U.N. resolutions and improving its international image. But the fundamental issue of widespread human rights abuses has not changed.

We issued this report upon learning of a tense debate within the U.S. State and Defense Departments over whether to allow the export to Turkey of the most advanced and deadly cluster bomb in the U.S. arsenal, the CBU-87. Those who oppose the sale based on Turkey’s appalling human rights record are squared off against those who fear damage to the “strategic relationship” if the sale is denied. The CBU-87’s “combined effect” is its ability to be used both as an antitank and antipersonnel weapon. The CBU-87 could be used in Turkey’s counterinsurgency war with Kurdish rebels, with dire consequences for the civilian population, as the Turkish government has a well-documented record of contempt for civilian life during military operations.

In May, 1991, the government of former President Mengistu Haile Mariam was overthrown by the military forces of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF), ending seventeen years of the repressive rule of the Dergue regime. The Mengistu government was responsible for human rights violations on an enormous scale.

This report focuses on the use of child soldiers by the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army. The government’s ill treatment of children is described in another report (see 1290). The use of child soldiers bodes ill for the future of the country. Boys as young as 11 have been recruited to fight in Sudan’s civil war.

Angola’s “forgotten war,” fueled by a steady supply of weapons to both sides, has claimed an estimated 100,000 civilian lives since the conflict resumed following the September 1992 elections. The government and the UNITA rebels are responsible for an appalling range of violations of the laws of war.

To be a poor child, a runaway, a child prostitute, or a child in a war zone in Colombia is to live with the threat of murder in daily intimacy. At an average of six per day, 2,190 children were murdered in 1993 according to Colombia's national statistical bureau (DANE). In some regions, the murder of children has reached epidemic proportions.

In July 1994, the campaign to expel non-Serbs from Bosnian Serb-held areas of northern Bosnia accelerated. Most of those being displaced came from the northwestern and northeastern parts of the country.

Gross human rights violations continue in Sudan five years after a military coup overthrew the elected civilian government in June 30, 1989, and brought to power a military regime dominated by the National Islamic Front (NIF), a minority party that achieved only 18.4 percent of the popular vote in the 1986 elections.1 The Sudanese have suffered under military rule and single-party dictatorship for

The Egyptian Constitution proclaims Islam the state religion, but also guarantees to all citizens freedom of belief and freedom to practice religious rites.

On September 20, 1993, 3 Roma (Gypsy) men were killed by a mob in the village of Hadareni following the stabbing death of an ethnic Romanian. During the violence, 13 Roma houses were set on fire and destroyed and an additional 4 houses were seriously damaged.

Many of the 18 countries comprising the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group came to the 1994 summit in Jakarta with impressive economic growth rates and poor human rights records. The Asia-Pacific region has generated a debate about the relationship between economic development and human rights.

In 1992, we released a report (see B407) documenting instances of harassment and intimidation against members of the Miami Cuban exile community who expressed moderate political views regarding the government of Fidel Castro or relations with Cuba. In addition to intimidation by private actors, the report found significant responsibility by the U.S. government at all levels.