The 71-page report, “‘Educate the Masses to Change Their Minds’: China’s Coercive Relocation of Rural Tibetans,” details how participation in “whole-village relocation” programs in Tibet, in which entire villages are relocated, amounts to forced eviction in violation of international law. Officials misleadingly claim that these relocations will “improve people’s livelihood” and “protect the ecological environment.” The government prevents relocated people from returning to their former homes by generally requiring them to demolish these homes within a year of relocating.
In early September 1991, the Indonesian military forced the country's leading newsweekly, Tempo, to kill a story scheduled for the September 7 issue about the plight of young East Timorese workers who had been promised training and high-paying jobs by President Suharto's eldest daughter, Siti Hardijanti Hastuti, better known as Mbak Tutut.
The Transitional Government of Ethiopia, which assumed power in July 1991, has set itself an ambitious agenda for transforming the political structure of Ethiopia and establishing democracy and human rights. The Transitional Charter, the basic constitutional document adopted at the national conference in Addis Ababa in July, incorporates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as supreme law.
The issue of accountability for past human rights abuses gained considerable prominence in the 1980s as unprecedented global political change focused attention on the crimes of ousted regimes. Unlike most of the nations experiencing radical political change and facing accountability issues, however, Sri Lanka’s political system remains intact.
This report focuses on the chronic problem of impunity in Brazil in the context of the struggle over land use and agrarian reform. It highlights four states and concludes that impunity—or government failure to enforce criminal laws, permitting and encouraging further criminal behavior in the context of the struggle for land—exists in these regions and throughout Brazil.
Despite insistent denials by senior officials, torture by Egyptian security forces frequently takes place while political and security suspects are held in incommunicado detention. Middle East Watch bases this finding on numerous accounts gathered from residents of cities and towns throughout Egypt regarding incidents that took place from 1989 to early 1992.
Over 70 percent of women in jail in Pakistan report sexual abuse by police officials. Despite the high incidence of rape and sexual torture of female detainees, no police official has been subjected to criminal punishment for these abuses.
On March 1, 1992, King Fahd ibn Abdel-Aziz issued three major laws: the Basic Law of Government, the Consultative Council Law and the Law of Provinces.
When he took office in January 1990, Czechoslovak President Vaclav Havel spoke out against the impulse for vindictiveness in the wake of over forty years of Communist rule.
The Greek government has taken significant steps to improve conditions for the Turkish minority in Western Thrace during the past year. Ethnic Turks can now buy and sell houses and land, repair houses and mosques, obtain car, truck and tractor licenses, and open coffee houses and machine and electrical shops.
On February 10-12, 1992, workers in the Medan [North Sumatra] Canning Company, which cans fish, went on strike. The strike was successful, and wages were raised after labor and management agreed on a settlement with the Ministry of Manpower.
In February, the Dominican Republic's telecommunications chief suspended the Creole-language news program of a popular Dominican radio station based in the southwest region of the country, near the Haitian border. After receiving complaints from Haiti's de facto military rulers, the Dominican authorities barred Radio Enriquillo from transmitting its news program in Creole, the Haitian language.
Haitianos Y Domínico-Haitianos En La República Dominicana
Durante la última década, el gobierno dominicano ha deportado a cientos de miles de haitianos a Haití, así como a un número desconocido de dominicanos de ascendencia haitiana.
Despite a series of promising political reforms in 1990 and 1991, the government of President César Gaviria Trujillo has been unable to stem the violence that accounts for more political murders in Colombia than any country in the hemisphere, with the possible exception of Peru.
This report, based on a five-week visit to Mindanao in January and February 1992, provides fresh evidence that the military has failed to control its militia, the Citizen Armed Force — Geographical Units (CAFGU).
Helsinki Watch urges the Spanish government to end its secretive policy with respect to prisons and describes problems ranging from overcrowding and periodic violence to forced idleness for inmates and very limited visiting privileges for a significant group of prisoners.
