Explosive Weapons’ Effects in Armed Conflict and Measures to Strengthen Protection
The 80-page report, “Destroying Cultural Heritage: Explosive Weapons’ Effects in Armed Conflict and Measures to Improve Protection,” details both the immediate and long-term harm from the use of explosive weapons in populated areas on cultural heritage, such as historic buildings and houses of worship, museums and archives, public squares, and performance centers. It shows that the Declaration on explosive weapons could serve as a valuable tool for addressing the problem.
36 writers from 16 countries receive funds from the estates of Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett
The Italian translator of The Satanic Verses, who was the victim of a knife attack last summer; a Peruvian journalist arrested during the recent coup; and numerous Burmese and Chinese writers imprisoned for their roles in their nations' pro-democracy movements are among the writers recognized this year by the Fund for Free Expression for their courage in the face of political persecution.
Prisoners in the U.K., which has the highest per capita rate of imprisonment in Western Europe, suffer from unsanitary conditions, extremely poor conditions for remand prisoners, and the lack of useful educational or work activities.
In Andhra Pradesh, one of India’s poorest and least developed states, conflict between government forces and an armed insurgent group known as the Peoples’ War Group, has resulted in massive human rights violations.
This report is the result of an unprecedented joint effort between two leading citizen advocacy organizations: a human rights group, Human Rights Watch; and an environmental group, the Natural Resources Defense Council. As one who has been for 14 years privileged to be involved with both, I have long believed that a cooperative effort such as this one will enhance both causes significantly.
The people of Peru are caught in a deadly crossfire between government forces and a brutal insurgent movement, chiefly Sendero Luminoso, as they battle for control of the country.
Saddam Hussein's record of brutally suppressing even mild dissent is well-known. When the March 1991 uprising confronted his regime with the most serious internal challenge it had ever faced, government forces responded with atrocities on a predictably massive scale. The human rights repercussions continue to be felt throughout the country.
After nearly 70 years of South African colonial rule, an armed struggle for independence began along the country’s northern border in 1966. South African military and paramilitary forces were deployed to prevent intervention from the South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO).
On May 7, 1992, an Egyptian administrative court decided to uphold last year's decree dissolving the Egyptian branch of the Arab Women's Solidarity Association (AWSA), a prominent women's rights organization. The court refused to grant an injunction that would have allowed AWSA to continue operating while it awaits the outcome an appeal on the merits of the government decree.
Landmines and Civilian Casualties in Iraqi Kurdistan
Decades of internal conflict with the Kurds and another nine years of international strife — first with Iran and then with the U.S.-led coalition — have left much of northern Iraq littered with millions of unexploded landmines.
Despite the reforms following the 1989 revolution in Romania, the laws regulating prison life are largely unchanged and many of the prison personnel remain the same. Not surprisingly, with decades of neglect and the current economic crisis, prison facilities are sorely lacking in basic necessities and overcrowding contributes to violence among inmates.
Human Rights Abuses Along the U.S. Border with Mexico
Examining human rights abuses committed by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and its agents during the enforcement of U.S. immigration laws in the four U.S. states that border Mexico, Human Rights Watch finds that beatings, rough physical treatment, and racially motivated verbal abuse are routine during arrests. Unjustified shootings, torture, and sexual abuse, also occur.
The current map of the former Soviet Union is pockmarked with violent conflict, primarily in Transcaucasia, Moldova and Tajikistan. Some of the conflicts are longstanding territorial disputes inherited from the Soviet and pre-Soviet periods; others are born of governmental power struggles that are peculiar to post-putsch politics.
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.
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.
