New York Governor George Pataki's proposed drug law reforms would leave drug offenders vulnerable to excessive prison sentences and maintain prosecutors' undue power over sentencing decisions, Human Rights Watch charged today. In a letter to Governor Pataki with an accompanying critique ...
Like most critics of the Rockefeller drug laws, we were heartened by your announced intention early this year to seek dramatic and comprehensive changes to these misguided mandatory sentencing laws. Your decision to press for changes in the Rockefeller drug laws had the welcome effect of ...
Dear Speaker Silver: We write to support your efforts to secure meaningful reform to New York's drug laws. For the past quarter of a century, these laws have inflicted disproportionately severe sentences on drug offenders, imposed unwarranted restrictions on judicial sentencing discretion, and ...
A day after China´s successful bid for the 2008 Olympics, Human Rights Watch condemned the trial and conviction in Beijing of Li Shaomin, a U.S. academic, on “espionage” charges. It said the judicial proceedings against him were unfair and unwarranted from the outset. Li is expected to be deported ...
Human Rights Watch today called on the heads of state of India and Pakistan to focus on restoring civil liberties, accountability, and justice in Kashmir. The summit between Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf will take place in Agra on Sunday ...
Human Rights Watch said that today's selection of Beijing as the site for the 2008 Olympics put a major burden on the International Olympic Committee and the Games' corporate sponsors to make the Games a force for change in China. "The IOC didn't even try to get guarantees on ...
Human Rights Watch welcomed the commitment of the Croatian government to cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. In a letter sent to Croatian Prime Minister Ivica Racan, Human Rights Watch praised the government's recent decision to surrender to the ...
Ivica Racan Prime Minister Government of Croatia Dear Prime Minister Racan: Human Rights Watch welcomes the recent decision by the Croatian government to cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the arrest and surrender to the tribunal of two ...
Slobodan Milosevic's prosecution is a step forward for international human rights and for democracy in Serbia. When the chief prosecutor at the United Nations's war-crimes court indicted Milosevic in the waning days of the Kosovo war, critics argued that it would prolong the Yugoslav ...
Palestinian students are graduating this weekend from Bir Zeit University in the Israeli-occupied West Bank despite having suffered persistent and considerable violations of their right to academic freedom, Human Rights Watch said today. Since the beginning of the so-called Al Aqsa intifada in late ...
The United Nations Security Council should impose a comprehensive embargo on all military assistance against all warring factions in Afghanistan, Human Rights Watch urged today. In a new report released today, Human Rights Watch accused Pakistan, Iran, and Russia of providing military support to ...
A Letter to Prime Minister (Italy) Silvio Berlusconi asking that at the forthcoming G-8 meeting address the decline of democratic freedoms in Russia and on-going Russian abuses in Chechnya. We hope you will make clear that Russia must keep its commitment to respect human rights if it is to build a ...
We are writing to ask that you address the decline of democratic freedoms in Russia at the forthcoming G-8 meeting and during your summit meeting with President Vladimir Putin. We fear that your June summit meeting with President Putin conveyed insufficient concern to the Russian government and the ...
Human Rights Watch called on Jamaican Prime Minister P. J. Patterson to order an independent and impartial inquiry into the killing of more than twenty civilians in West Kingston. The killings occurred during police and army sweeps of the neighborhoods of Tivoli Gardens and Denham Town, which began ...
The International Olympic Committee may well award the 2008 Olympic Games to Beijing this Friday. If it does, the human rights controversy around the selection will not be over. From now until 2008, human rights issues will arise around every Olympic site constructed and every decision made about ...
The U.S. State Department’s first annual report on trafficking in persons contains serious flaws that will need correcting the next time around. The State Department's report was released today, five weeks after the congressionally-mandated deadline of June 1, 2001. No explanation was given ...
It is important for this Subcommittee to continue to support human rights in Colombia by including strong and workable human rights conditions in the legislation under consideration. Conditions create an effective and measurable mechanism to promote positive change for human rights in Colombia. ...
Human Rights Watch today deplored the death in custody of a human rights defender in Uzbekistan. On July 7, police returned the corpse of forty-four-year old Shovrik Ruzimuradov, head of the Kashkadaria branch of the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan (HRSU), to his family. Police had arrested him ...
Today's decision by the Santiago Appeals Court suspending the proceedings against former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet on health grounds will disappoint thousands of victims of his rule, Human Rights Watch said today. But the group noted that Pinochet's arrest and prosecution have ...
comandante del Teófilo Forero," El Tiempo, March 2, 2001; "Fiscalía vincula a las Farc en asesinato ... "Fue saqueada la Fiscalía de Mesetas (Meta): Asalto en la zona de despeje," El Tiempo, July 2, ...
