Reports

Despite impressive displays of independence from the Electoral Commission and the judiciary, the first multiparty elections in two decades have been marred by intimidation of the opposition, military interference in the courts and bias in campaign funding and media coverage, Human Rights Watch said in a <a href="http://hrw.org/backgrounder/africa/uganda0206/">briefing paper</a> released today.

Since October 19, 2005, Saddam Hussein and seven other former Iraqi officials have been on trial for crimes that took place in the town of al-Dujail in 1982. Government security forces allegedly detained and tortured hundreds of individuals from al-Dujail in retaliation for an assassination attempt on Saddam Hussein as his motorcade passed through the town, sixty kilometers north of Baghdad.

In March 2005, the War Crimes Chamber began operations within Bosnia’s State Court to try cases of serious war crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina that could not be prosecuted within the mandate or timeframe of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). The chamber will also handle serious war crimes cases initiated locally.

The absence of legal guarantees is one of the main causes of Saudi Arabia’s serious human rights problems. Without specific legal protections, neither the government nor judges, not to mention ordinary citizens, can know with certainty what is permissible and what is forbidden.

This 84-page report is based primarily on Human Rights Watch’s first-ever trip to Libya, made in mid-2005, which the organization praised as a welcome step towards transparency. The authorities provided access to a wide range of high-level officials, as well as police stations, an immigration detention center and five prisons, where 32 prisoners were interviewed in private.

This report examines the evolving role in the Darfur conflict of the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS), from its inception as a ceasefire monitoring body in June 2004 to its current incarnation as a major operation with a mandate to protect civilians that includes armed troops, unarmed civilian police, unarmed military observers, and support teams.

At the Sixth Summit of the African Union (A.U.) in Khartoum on January 23 and 24, Human Rights Watch calls on the Assembly of African Heads of State and Government to put the protection of civilians and the prosecution of human rights abusers at the top of its agenda.

The 532-page Human Rights Watch World Report 2006 contains information on human rights developments in more than 60 countries in 2005.

The Supreme Court of Rwanda is scheduled to rule January 17 on the bid by former president Pasteur Bizimungu and seven others to have their convictions on charges of having formed a criminal association quashed.

This report describes trends in human rights abuses in Côte d’Ivoire by state security and militia forces and by rebel forces, and examines the human rights and humanitarian consequences of the “no war no peace” stalemate.

This 22-page report focuses specifically on information implicating Fujimori in five criminal cases currently pending in Peru, including human rights violations as well as acts of corruption that undermined Peru’s democratic institutions.

This 60-page report documents cases of girls as young as five working 100 or more hours per week, without rest breaks or days off, for as little as six and a half Moroccan dirhams (about 70 U.S. cents) a day.

Some twenty-four million citizens of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have registered to vote in the first nation-wide elections to be held in more than forty years. In the press to get the Congolese to the polls, donor nations and others in the international community must not neglect continuing efforts to establish the rule of law, freedom of expression, security, and good governance.

In June 2005, Iranians elected Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who had campaigned on a platform of improving economic conditions, as their new president. Ahmadinejad assumed his new post in early August 2005 with the backing of those political factions in Iran who most vigorously opposed political and social reforms initiated by his predecessor, Mohammad Khatami.

The United States is holding an unknown number of terrorism suspects in secret overseas locations, and refusing either to acknowledge the detentions or to give information on the fate or the whereabouts of these detainees. The following questions and answers address legal issues concerning U.S. detainees disappeared into secret prisons.