Minnesota Communities Terrorized by the Federal Government
The 180-page report, “‘A Manufactured Crisis’: Minnesota Communities Terrorized by the Federal Government,” comprehensively documents how the US government’s “Operation Metro Surge” caused a human rights crisis in Minnesota, particularly in and around the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. The campaign included two unlawful killings, repeated instances of excessive force, racial profiling, unlawful detentions, and abusive detention conditions. These abuses and the terror they spread also led to less visible harm, forcing many people to stay at home out of fear, causing them to miss work, school, and even essential health care. The report calls for accountability at the highest levels of government, and names those with responsibility for overseeing the operation.
A two-person Human Rights Watch delegation traveled to Guatemala in January 1997. The visit focused on reports of the discriminatory treatment of trade unionists at the assembly plants there of the U.S.-based corporation Phillips-Van Heusen (PVH), and allegations of obstacles posed by the company and the Guatemalan labor ministry to the union’s recognition for purposes of collective bargaining.
A two-person Human Rights Watch delegation traveled to Guatemala in January 1997. The visit focused on reports of the discriminatory treatment of trade unionists at the assembly plants there of the U.S.-based corporation Phillips-Van Heusen (PVH), and allegations of obstacles posed by the company and the Guatemalan labor ministry to the union's recognition for purposes of collective bargaining.
Human Rights Watch has uncovered evidence that the Yugoslav National Army (JNA) had an extensive and sophisticated chemical weapons program prior to the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991; that the army of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) inherited much of this program; and that the army of the Republic of Bosnia and Hercegovina produced crude chemical munitions during the Bos
China is increasingly exercising its authority over the territory of Hong Kong on a number of issues and has directed, for instance, that all the Vietnamese be cleared from Hong Kong before July 1. Such pressure has spurred the Hong Kong government to redouble its efforts to resolve the Vietnamese situation, which has embroiled the territory in controversy for over twenty years.
Nearly 100,000 people, most of them Rwandans once resident in the camps of eastern Zaire, have fled to a site near Ubundu, where their further flight is blocked by the Zaire River. Among them are thousands of unarmed noncombatants as well as soldiers of the former Rwandan army (ex-FAR, Forces Armées Rwandaises) and militia responsible for the genocide of Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994.
and Other Human Rights Obligations on the First Anniversary of its Accession to the Council of Europe
On February 28, 1996, the Russian Federation became a full member of the Council of Europe, an intergovernmental organization based in Strasbourg, France, which, among other goals, aims to protect human rights. Accession to the Council of Europe heightened expectations that the Russian Federation would take concrete steps to improve its poor human rights record in the year that has followed.
Between December 1996 and the beginning of March 1997, one of the worst outbreaks of communal violence in Indonesia in decades broke out in the province of West Kalimantan between indigenous Dayak people and immigrants from the island of Madura, off the coast of East Java.
This report examines the context within which children and their parents must struggle to exercise their rights and looks in detail at the legal provisions which deny them even the most basic rights and freedoms. It also reports on the current situation of children in Burma and the daily practices used by the military and other government agents which violate international law.
On Sunday, January 27, the people of Chechnya held presidential and parliamentary elections, the first since the brutal war ended there last fall. These elections may mark the beginning of a new era for Chechnya after twenty months of war and destruction.
The Haitian National Police (Police Nationale d'Haïti, HNP) constitutes the first civilian, professional police force in Haiti’s 193-year history. In past decades, Haiti’s military controlled a subservient police, and both institutions engaged in widespread, systematic human rights abuses.
Reaping the Rewards of “Ethnic Cleansing” in Prijedor
The same warlords who took control of the town of Prijedor, in northwestern Bosnia and Hercegovina, through systematic policies of ethnic cleansing—including pre-meditated slaughter, concentration camps, mass rape, and the takeover of businesses, government offices, and all communal property—have retained total control over key economic, infrastructure, and humanitarian sectors of the communit
On November 18, 1996, Zambians voted in parliamentary and presidential elections—the second multiparty elections since the end in 1991 of twenty-seven years of authoritarian and mostly single-party rule, under former president Kenneth Kaunda.
The international community has appropriately reacted with horror to the present crackdown on anti-government demonstrators and the independent media in Belgrade. At the same time, however, it is poised to squander human rights leverage with the government of Slobodon Milosevic and abandon the Albanians of Kosovo.
Even as international attention focuses on the split in the Khmer Rouge organization and the hopes for peace that it has engendered, the human rights situation in Cambodia remains precarious and has in many respects steadily worsened over the course of 1996.
