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  • The Anfal Campaign in Iraqi Kurdistan

    The Destruction of Koreme

    Just as the Iran-Iraq War was coming to an end in 1988, the Iraqi government and army embarked on a vengeful campaign against Kurdish villagers living in Iraqi Kurdistan. Taken from a Koranic verse, Anfal refers to "the plunder of the infidel," and evidently was intended to give the campaign the veneer of religious justification, though the Kurds are Muslim, and Iraq is a secular state.

  • Broken Promises

    Torture and Killings Continue in Turkey

    A year has passed since Prime Minister Demirel’s coalition government, committed to human rights reforms, took office in Turkey — a period long enough to produce significant change. But the promised reforms have not come about; on the contrary, killings, torture and other human rights abuses in Turkey have become significantly worse.

  • THROWING AWAY THE KEY Indefinite Political Detention in Syria

    Political detainees in Syria have the distinction of being some of the most isolated in the world. Most have no contact whatsoever with their families; security services for their part, seldom acknowledge having them in their custody.

  • Accounting for the Past

    The lessons for South Africa from Latin America

    The question of accountability has become increasingly important around the world in recent years, as different states attempting to make a transition to democracy have struggled to achieve a balance between retribution and forgetfulness in the interests of national reconciliation.

  • Human Rights Abuses in Kosovo 1990-1992

    With the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, world attention has focussed on the brutal warfare that erupted first in Croatia and, more recently, in Bosnia-Hercegovina. Most of the human rights violations being committed in both conflicts stem from the use of force and terror by Serbian authorities to assert control over territory and to expel or marginalize the non-Serbian population.

  • Bloody May

    Excessive use of Lethal Force in Bangkok

    By early May 1992, hundreds of thousands of protestors were marching in Bangkok, demanding the ouster of General Suchinda Kraprayoon who had declared himself prime minister despite repeated promises to the contrary. On May 17, after talks between the government and opposition parties concerning constitutional amendments broke down, the opposition called a new rally.

  • Tunisia: Military Courts that Sentenced Islamist Leaders Violated Basic Fair-Trial Norms

    At the end of August, Tunisian military courts pronounced verdicts against 279 Islamists in the most closely watched trials to take place since 1987, when many of the same persons had been put on trial. The 1992 trials were seen as a test of the government's commitment to human rights at a time of growing repression that has affected not only the Islamist opposition, but much of civil society.

  • A Troubled Year

    Haitians in the Dominican Republic

    The Dominican government's human rights practices on its state-owned sugarcane plantations in 1992 were shaped by two events in the Dominican Republic and Haiti in 1991.

  • Foreigners Out

    Xenophobia and Right-Wing Violence in Germany

    The following report sets out the background to the latest violence in Germany. It focuses primarily on violent attacks in the former German Democratic Republic, but some information is included on West Germany as well.

  • Peace and Human Rights

    Successes and Shortcomings of the United Nations Observer Mission in El Salvador (Onusal)

    After twelve long, exhausting years, the war in El Salvador has come to an end. The January 16, 1992 peace accord signed by the Salvadoran government and the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN) in Chapultepec, Mexico, lays out sweeping institutional reforms designed to enable the FMLN to demobilize its forces and participate in the political life of El Salvador.

  • Bloodshed in the Caucasus

    Escalation of the Armed Conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh

    The four-year struggle for control over Nagorno-Karabakh has escalated in recent months to full-scale conflict, leaving in its wake hundreds of civilian casualties. Both parties to this tragic conflict have systematically violated the most basic rules of international humanitarian law.

  • Political Control, Human Rights & the U.N. Mission in Cambodia

    The United Nations has embarked on its most ambitious project ever in terms of both expense and scope in Cambodia, and the exercise will undoubtedly exert great influence on how the U.N. is used in the settlement of other conflicts around the world.

  • Indivisible Human Rights

    The Relationship Of Political And Civil Rights To Survival, Subsistence And Poverty

    The advocacy of civil and political rights is often perceived as neglect of social and economic rights. Many governments argue that their primary concern must be to address concerns such as hunger, poverty and illiteracy, implying that rights such as freedom of expression and association are somehow secondary.

  • The Trial of Bao Tong

    On July 21, in the most important political trial in China in twelve year, a three-judge panel of the Beijing Intermediate People's Court sentenced Bao Tong had been taken into custody on May 28, 1989 and held without charge, incommunicado for much of the time, for over three years. The trial took less than six hours. Asia Watch has obtained the verdict attached as Appendix I.

  • War Crimes in Bosnia-Hercegovina (Volume I)

    Full-scale war, marked by appalling brutality inflicted on the civilian population and extreme violations of international humanitarian law, has been raging in Bosnia-Hercegovina since early April 1992. Mistreatment in detention, the taking of hostages and the pillaging of civilian property is widespread.

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