Solitary Confinement and Abuse of People with Disabilities in Prisons in the State of South Australia
The 50-page report, “‘They Just Locked Me Away’: Solitary Confinement and Abuse of People with Disabilities in Prisons in the State of South Australia,” documents the use of solitary confinement on people with psychosocial disabilities, mental health conditions. It details broader problems facing people with disabilities in South Australian prisons, including inadequate access to individualized mental health care and lack of prison oversight.
Macedonia has taken some important steps toward democratization since declaring its independence from the Yugoslav federation in 1991. Substantive reform has opened the door to the European institutions and laid the foundation for a multi-party system based on the rule of law. Nevertheless, some serious problems remain.
The fierce struggle for power between Bangladesh's main political parties has fostered a situation of lawlessness and civil strife in which wanton acts of violence and intimidation by both the former ruling party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, backed by security forces, and the opposition parties, have become routine features of the political process.
In 1995 alone, there were at least 181 reported attacks against Roma or foreigners in the Czech Republic and many other assaults go unreported. One murder in particular, that of Tibor Berki in May 1995, incited a public debate about racism and prompted the government to take more forceful measures.
When Atlanta set out to host the 1996 Summer Olympic Games, its application stated that “for many,” the city is “the modern capital of human rights.” In this report, one of a series on the U.S., we offer an assessment of how Atlanta, and the state of Georgia, violates international human rights standards.
In late 1994, the authoritarian government of Uzbekistan, long stigmatized as a serious human rights abuser, showed the first signs that it desired to change its image.
As the 1997 parliamentary elections in Indonesia approach, the political atmosphere has begun to heat up and civil liberties are deteriorating. Since the first such election under the “New Order” government of President Soeharto in 1971, they have never been the “democratic festival” that the government would have both outsiders and its own citizens believe.
Since the National Islamic Front in Sudan took power following a military coup in 1989, it has created restrictions on daily life and political activity in an effort to maintain control. The Sudanese refer to these rules as the “red line,” and anyone who breaks the rules and crosses the line while expressing their political or civil independence is severely punished.
In 1995, under strong pressure from the U.S., the Bolivian government began an aggressive coca eradication effort that was strongly resisted by coca growers. Periods of negotiation alternated with outbursts of violence in the Chapare, the sub-tropical region in which thousands of poor farmers produce most of the Bolivian coca.
In 1996, the conflict in Kashmir entered it seventh year, with little indication that parliamentary elections in May would either lead to peace or end the widespread human rights abuses that characterized the war.
In 1992, a devastating civil war in Tajikistan led to the deaths of more than 20,000 (with some estimates as high as 50,000) and created more than 800,000 displaced persons and refugees.
Laws of War Violations and the Use of Weapons on the Israel-Lebanon Border
For over a decade, a conflict has raged on the border of Israel and Lebanon, where Israel occupies a large section of Lebanese territory. Civilians have been the principal targets and victims in this conflict.
Despite the government of Uzbekistan's professed commitment to freedom of the press—made both explicitly and publicly over the past two years—state censorship of the media remains pervasive and intimidation of journalists is rampant. The tone and subject matter of articles published in Uzbekistan is strictly controlled by the government.
Three years after the deaths of more than 1,000 people in Bombay’s worst incident of communal violence since independence, the government of the Indian state of Maharashtra unexpectedly terminated the commission of inquiry that had been set up to investigate the riots.
