Reports

All-out war broke out between the Bosnian Muslims and Croats in early May 1993 in central and southwestern Bosnia-Hercegovina.

On September 13, 1993, as Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization met in Washington to sign an interim self-rule accord for Gaza and Jericho, protestors against this agreement were killed and injured in Beirut by Lebanese Army troops. The demonstration was held in defiance of an indefinite Lebanese government ban against all assemblies and processions.

Since the fall of the Ceausescu regime in 1989, Romania has experienced a dramatic increase in xenophobia and racist propaganda characterized by an increasingly vocal press and right-wing political parties.

The Salvadoran peace process, fostered and shepherded by the United Nations, has been unique in the central place afforded human rights. A comprehensive human rights accord signed in July 1990 was a stepping-stone on the path to a broader agreement, and set the stage for United Nations verification of the peace process.

Poland's transition to democracy is endangered by government and private restrictions on freedom of expression. In a distressing series of arrests and prosecutions for "slandering" the state, President Walesa has relied upon a repressive Communist-era law to punish government critics.

Undercover units of the Israeli army have been responsible for over 120 killings in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip since 1988. Many of the victims were shot while posing no serious imminent threat to soldiers or others.

In August 1993, the Indian government repatriated nearly 7,000 of the more than 80,000 Sri Lankan Tamils then residing in government-run refugee camps in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. The refugees fled northeastern Sri Lanka in June 1990 after fighting broke out between government forces and a guerrilla army.

The apparent intensity of public debate, variety of publications and the wealth of artistic achievements in the Islamic Republic of Iran create an illusion of unrestricted discourse. The limits on expression are defined, however, in complex and often arbitrary ways by a government beset by internal power struggles and intolerance.

Racism and racially motivated violence against the Rima (Gypsy) minority in Bulgaria has escalated dramatically since 1994. The violence ranges from police torture to mob attacks — including violent attacks by guards employed by private security firms.

Under the anti-terror law, which was introduced in 1991, many left-wing and pro-Kurdish journalists, writers and publishers continue to be tried, and many go on to be sentenced to prison terms and fines. Penal Code provisions that make it a crime to insult Ataturk, secularity, Islam, the security forces and the president continue to be used to restrict free expression.

Initial attempts to purge former Communists from public life in Bulgaria were relatively weak when compared to similar laws passed in the former Czechoslovakia or the former German Democratic Republic. Efforts to initiate a decommunization program gained momentum, however, after the election victory of the Union of Democratic Forces in October 1991.

Containing background information about human rights violations in Iraq gathered in mid-1992 from victims, eyewitnesses and family members currently living in exile in Syria and Jordan, this report serves as a supplement to our Human Rights in Iraq (1990) and Endless Torment: The 1991 Uprising in Iraq and its Aftermath (1992).

As details regarding a war crimes tribunal develop, we believe that integral to any investigatory effort is a parallel commitment to the safety and integrity of the witnesses who will testify, and to the development and implementation of fair procedural and evidentiary rules.