The Persecution of Environmentalists and Indigenous Leaders in Indonesia
The 70-page report, “Grabbed Land, Silenced Justice: The Persecution of Environmentalists and Indigenous Leaders in Indonesia,” documents how Indonesian police have responded to complaints filed by company officials or politicians by silencing Indigenous villagers who demand their customary land rights and the activists who defend them. The authorities have targeted environmental and Indigenous community defenders using the criminal code and other laws to bring charges ranging from defamation to “spreading communism” to silence protest over environmental harm.
This report consists of a series of letters on human rights to the government and opposition leaders in Sudan citing concerns about gross violations by all parties to the conflict that have led to massive loss of life and famine.
Dismissals from the workplace as a means of punishing and discouraging critical speech, particularly levelled at members of the political opposition, are occurring all too frequently in Uzbekistan. The administration's attitude toward the opposition has been articulated thus: “It is necessary to straighten out the brains of 100 people in order to preserve the lives of thousands.”
Restrictions on Movement Causing Severe Hardship in Occupied Territories
The hardships caused by Israel’s indefinite ban on the entry of nearly all the 1.8 million Palestinian residents of the West Bank and Gaza Strip into Israel and annexed East Jerusalem include the abrupt loss of income for some 100,000 Palestinians; lack of access to hospitals, mosques, and other vital institutions; the division of the occupied territories into four sectors; and a drastic reducti
Summarizing the findings of an Asia Watch visit to Jakarta and Dili in March 1993, including the results of interviews conducted, direct observation of the trial and an analysis of documents obtained, this report addresses fair trial and human rights issues directly related to the trial of a guerrilla fighter.
One year after elected President Alberto Fujimori suspended Peru’s constitution, closed down the congress, took control of the judiciary, and began to rule by decree, Peru’s already troubling human rights situation has become significantly worse.
Helsinki Watch has been monitoring human rights abuses and violations of the laws of war in both Croatia and Bosnia- Hercegovina since the conflict began two years ago. The original volume in this series documented the appalling brutality inflicted on the civilian population and called on the U.N.
Two Indonesian college students who emceed a rock concert in Yogyakarta, Central Java, were sentenced to two a half years on charges of blasphemy and insulting a group in public for a brief exchange in front of a student audience in which they punned on several phrases from the Quran.
This report describes some of the events that have taken place since Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel’s coalition government took office in November 1991 and their effects on the Turkish Kurds in southeast Turkey.
Fifteen Nigerians are currently imprisoned, awaiting death by hanging for their supposed participation in ethnic-religious riots in northern Nigeria in May 1992.
The testimonies presented here-of abductions, clandestine detentions, and physical or psychological mistreatment and torture-comprise just a few examples of which Americas Watch is aware. Two occurred in 1992, while a third occurred during the government of Vinicio Cerezo Arévalo (1986-1991).
While the deployment of a large international military force in Somalia has produced a dramatic improvement in the ability of relief agencies to reverse the terrible famine that was causing massive death among civilians, it does not adequately address the underlying causes of the destruction of Somalia's social fabric that ultimately led to the famine.
The military forces that overthrew Haiti’s first freely elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, have consolidated their rule by ruthlessly suppressing Haiti’s once diverse and vibrant civil society — the range of civic, popular and professional organizations that had blossomed since the downfall of the Duvalier dictatorship seven years ago.
In 1992, 16 people died in the custody of police or gendarmes. An extraordinarily high percentage of these suspects were said by police to have committed suicide and three of the alleged suicides were children between the ages of 13 and 16.
The Sudanese Copts are a small but prominent minority who are now threatened by an Islamic fundamentalist government that seems determined to drive them out of their country. They are subjected to a wide range of discriminatory practices.
