The 84-page report, “‘You’re Only Getting Out Deported or Dead’: Abusive US Immigration Detention at Ft. Bliss,” documents conditions at the largest immigration detention facility in the United States. The detention camp has the capacity to hold up to 5,000 people and consists of five “soft-sided” tent-like structures that house detained people in penned enclosures. Inside, detainees said they were forced to live in filthy and cramped conditions with up to 72 people housed in each pod. Human Rights Watch found evidence of punitive immigration enforcement practices, including cruel, degrading, and inhumane detention conditions; excessive force by guards; failures to provide medical and mental health care; coercive deportation practices; and systemic barriers to legal representation.
Former President Jimmy Carter will travel to Venezuela on July 6, 2002, to mediate talks between the government and the country's political opposition. President Carter has an invaluable opportunity to help overcome the political impasse that has existed since the failed coup of April 12, 2002.
In the next few weeks, the Bulgarian parliament is due to enact important changes to the country's arms trade law. The legislation would amend the Law on the Control of Foreign Trade Activity in Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies, which was adopted in 1995.
The Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam are preparing for negotiations aimed at resolving more than two decades of conflict over political control of the island's Tamil-dominated north and east. Talks are to be held in Thailand, possibly as early as July.
Police Harassment of HIV/AIDS Outreach Workers in India
Women in prostitution in India are treated with disdain and commonly subjected to violations of their fundamental rights by the police, both at the time of their arrest and while in detention. Peer educators providing HIV/AIDS outreach to these women frequently suffer many of the same abuses.
Women's rights activists throughout the world - of every political stripe, faith, sexual orientation, nationality, and ethnicity - mobilized at each step of the International Criminal Court (ICC) process. They have worked to create an independent court to afford women greater protection from violations of human rights and humanitarian law.
Eight months after the collapse of the Taliban, northern Afghanistan remains on a dangerous precipice. Factional rivalries periodically erupt into open hostilities, jeopardizing civilian security, aid delivery, and the resettlement of displaced communities.
In investigations in Egypt, Ecuador, India, and the United States, Human Rights Watch has found that the children working in agriculture are endangered and exploited on a daily basis. Human Rights Watch found that despite the vast differences among these four countries, many of the risks and abuses faced by child agricultural workers were strikingly similar.
As Afghan and United Nations officials prepare for the forthcoming loya jirga (grand national assembly), as called for in the 2001 Bonn Agreement to choose Afghanistan's next government, ordinary Afghans are increasingly terrorized by the rule of local and regional military commanders - warlords - who are reasserting their control over large areas of Afghanistan.
Weapons Proliferation, Political Violence, and Human Rights in Kenya
This 119-page report, entitled Playing with Fire: Weapons Proliferation, Political Violence, and Human Rights in Kenya, documents the dangerous nexus between arms availability and ethnic attacks in Kenya. The report highlights politically instigated armed violence on Kenya's coast during the last general election cycle, in 1997.
As part of the military buildup resulting from the December 13, 2001, attack on the Indian parliament, both India and Pakistan have emplaced large numbers of antipersonnel and antivehicle mines along their common border.
Vigilante violence and human rights abuses by vigilante groups have become increasingly serious problems in Nigeria in recent years. Despite repeated government promises to tackle crime and to reform and expand the police force, the rate of armed robbery and other violent crime in Nigeria remains extremely high.
