III. COUNTRY STUDIES: THE HUMAN RIGHTS IMPACT OF COUNTER-TERRORISM MEASURES IN TEN COUNTRIES

This chapter looks at human rights concerns raised by counter-terrorism measures in China, Egypt, Georgia, India, Indonesia, Russia, Spain, United Kingdom, United States, and Uzbekistan. Particularly troubling, and common, have been the pretextual use of counter-terrorism laws as new weapons against old political foes, systematic violation of terrorist suspects' due process rights, and tightening of controls on refugees and migrants. The cases detailed below include far-reaching restriction of civil liberties, crackdowns against internal political movements, misuse of immigration laws to circumvent criminal law protections otherwise available to suspects, pervasive secrecy, allegations of torture, and at times indiscriminate detention of non-nationals.

China
Since the September 11 attacks, China has sought to blur the distinctions between terrorism and calls for independence by the ethnic Uighur community in the Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in order to enlist international cooperation for its own campaign, begun years earlier, to eliminate "separatism." Chinese authorities have used the global counter-terrorism effort as a justification for deepening crackdown in Xinjiang.

Before September 11, official reports made no distinction between Uighur demands expressed peacefully and acts of separatist violence. All were labeled separatist and treated simply as criminal cases. After September 11, the government re-categorized separatist acts involving the use of force as "international terrorism," reserving the term "separatism" for peaceful activities such as expressions of cultural identity, religion, literature, association, or rites of passage. But at every opportunity the two terms are linked.

China first presented allegations of Uighur complicity in international terrorism in mid-November 2001. On January 21, 2002, the Information Office of the State Council (China's cabinet) issued a report arguing that terrorist forces from Xinjiang "jeopardized...social stability in China, and even threatened the security and stability of related countries and regions." The report cited four waves of terrorism during which Uighur activists were allegedly responsible for explosions, assassinations, attacks on police and government institutions, and poison and arson attacks both inside China and abroad. During the last phase, which began in the latter half of 1999, it claimed that "anti-China" forces outside the country directed domestic forces to carry out sabotage within China. Between 1990-2001, according to the report, the combined efforts resulted in over 200 incidents, 162 deaths, and more than 440 injuries. During those years, Xinjiang police reportedly broke up 487 terrorist groups and identified 253 major violent terrorist crimes. The most serious threat purportedly came from organizations operating from neighboring countries, such as Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, but the report also alleged that other groups, operating from bases in Turkey, Germany, and the United States also sponsored terrorist activities.

Much of the State Council's report and a subsequent one in September 2002 focused on a relatively small group called the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), dozens of whose members allegedly trained in Afghanistan. They accused the organization of responsibility for sending terrorists into China, setting up training bases, manufacturing explosives, stockpiling weapons, and preaching "holy war." China claimed that financing for ETIM, including its Central and Western Asian and North African operations and training for over 500 core members, some of whom fought with the Taliban and in Chechnya, came from Osama bin Laden. The Chinese Foreign Ministry specifically accused ETIM of joining the Islamic Movement of Ubekistan's "rebellions of invasion" into parts of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. However, no detailed evidence supporting any of China's allegations has been made public.

The police have claimed success in cracking down on terrorists, arresting over 100 of the more than 1,000 Chinese Muslim Uighurs identified by authorities as having fought with the Taliban. Another 300 reportedly were captured in Afghanistan. Scattered reports indicate that as many as thirty Uighurs are now held by the United States at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. So far as is known, the United States has refused Chinese requests for extradition.

In December 2001, the Chinese Communist Party committee of the XUAR convened a teleconference to urge that the "strike hard" law and order campaign, which had begun anew in April 2001, be directed against terrorists and separatists. The strike hard campaign involved systematic violations of due process and the right to a fair trial. Credible reports of crackdowns came from communities across Xinjiang; while exact numbers and information about specific crimes were strictly controlled, available information indicated severe sentences and liberal use of the death penalty.

China has sought international support for its campaign. In January 2002, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (China, Russia, and the Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan), prodded by China, agreed to step up its backing for China's anti-separatist campaign which, it said, threatened the whole region. In August 2002, the United States, which had repeatedly warned China not to use counter-terrorism as an excuse to repress ethnic minorities, put ETIM on the U.S. State Department list of terrorist organizations. It then backed China's successful effort to have ETIM placed on the U.N. Security Council Sanctions Committee's list of terrorist organizations.

The anti-terrorist campaign may now spread to other parts of China. By March 2002, the Ministry of Public Security had formed special units in all provinces to deal with "terrorist crimes." In December 2002 Chinese courts in two provinces lodged the first known terrorism charges outside Xinjiang. In Sichuan, the renowned and popular Tibetan religious leader Tenzin Delek Rinpoche was sentenced to death (with a two-year reprieve) for "crimes of terror" and "incitement to separatism" in connection with a series of bombings. He denied all charges. His co-defendant, Lobsang Dhondup, was executed. Both men were denied access to family members and lawyers of their own choosing. Chinese authorities had long been unhappy with Tenzin Delek's activities, including support for schools and orphanages, renovation of monasteries, opposition to extensive logging in the region, and his unflagging support for the Dalai Lama.

On February 10, 2003, a court in Guangzhou sentenced U.S. permanent resident Wang Bingzhang to life imprisonment in part for "organizing and leading a terrorist group." The accusations included plotting to blow up the Chinese embassy in Thailand and using the Internet to advocate violence. However, a Thai anti-terrorism official said information about Wang was never solicited, that Wang had come to Thailand as a tourist and had been monitored simply as a "high-profile" person. Wang had been active in dissident activities in China and the U.S. Wang and two others disappeared in June 2002 after meetings with labor activists in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. According to Chinese official sources, the three were kidnapped in Vietnam and later secretly transported to Shenzhen.

Egypt
Egypt has a long history of using anti-terrorism decrees and emergency rule to suppress peaceful dissidents, as well as to punish opponents advocating or using violence. But repressive measures have intensified since the September 11 attacks.

Egypt has been under emergency rule-Emergency Law No. 162 of 1958-for most of the past thirty-five years, and continuously since the assassination of President Anwar Sadat in October 1981. The government has routinely used its authority under the law to arrest individuals at will and detain them without trial for prolonged periods, refer civilians to military or exceptional state security courts, and prohibit strikes, demonstrations, and public meetings. On February 23, 2003, without prior notice, the government introduced a bill in the People's Assembly to extend the law for another three years, and rushed its passage the same day. Prime Minister Atif Ubayd cited the "war on terrorism" and new security laws passed in the United States and elsewhere since September 11, 2001, to justify the emergency law extension. The prime minister said that most of this legislation was "permanent" and "adopted the principles to which we have adhered in the Egyptian Emergency Law."

In the early 1990s, following a resurgence of political violence spearheaded by several armed Islamist groups, the government introduced "anti-terror" decrees, notably Law No. 97 of 1992, that gave security and intelligence forces still greater powers of arrest and detention. In its submission to the U.N. Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee, the government highlighted Law No. 97's extremely broad definition of terrorism, as "any use of force or violence or any threat or intimidation to which the perpetrator resorts in order to carry out an individual or collective criminal plan aimed at disturbing the peace or jeopardizing the safety and security of society and which is of such a nature as to create harm or create fear in persons or imperil their lives, freedom or security; harm the environment; damage or take possession of communications; prevent or impede the public authorities in the performance of their work; or thwart the application of the Constitution or of laws or regulations." The U.N. Human Rights Committee has questioned this broad and general definition of terrorism in national law.

Since September 11, 2001, Egypt has arrested hundreds of suspected government opponents, many for alleged membership in the Muslim Brotherhood, a banned but non-violent group, and possession of "suspicious" literature. Many of those arrested, including professors, medical doctors, and other professionals, have been referred to military courts or to emergency and regular state security courts whose procedures do not meet international fair trial standards.

In one case, ninety-four alleged members of a previously unknown Islamist group were arrested in May 2001, prior to the September 11 attacks, on charges of illegally collecting funds for Chechen separatists and the Palestinian group Hamas. In October 2001, after the attacks on the U.S., they were additionally charged with plotting to assassinate government officials and others, and of arranging for military training in Chechnya. Fifty-one were convicted and forty-three acquitted in a trial before the Supreme Military Court.

In January and February 2003, state security forces used emergency law provisions to detain without charge or trial persons involved in peaceful demonstrations opposing military intervention in Iraq and in support for the Palestinian uprising against Israeli military occupation.

Top Egyptian officials have frequently cited the September 11, 2001 attacks to justify Egypt's repressive policies. "There is no doubt that the events of September 11 created a new concept of democracy that differs from the concept that Western states defended before these events, especially in regard to the freedom of the individual," President Mubarak said in December 2001, adding that the U.S. decision to authorize military tribunals "proves that we were right from the beginning in using all means, including military tribunals." In September 2001, Prime Minister Ubayd, referring to critical reports on torture and unfair trials, lashed out at human rights groups for "calling on us to give these terrorists their `human rights.'"

Responding to the February 2003 renewal of emergency legislation, the State Department spokesman said, "we understand and appreciate the Egyptian government's commitment to combat terrorism and maintain stability." He said the U.S. had "serious concerns" with "the manner in which that law has been applied" but did not criticize the law or its renewal.

On a number of occasions before and since September 2001, the U.S. has encouraged and participated in the rendition of suspects to Egypt from third countries without regard for extradition or other legal procedures, and despite concerns about the routine use of torture by Egyptian security officials. Although Egypt 's abusive practices are well known, other governments have returned persons there, in likely violation of the Convention against Torture. Two Egyptian asylum seekers in Sweden, Ahmad Hussein Mustafa Kamil Agiza and Muhammad Sulaiman Ibrahim al-Zari, were forcibly repatriated on December 18, 2001, after their claims were rejected on the basis of secret evidence that they had connections to armed Islamic opposition groups. Other Egyptians have reportedly been forcibly repatriated by Jordan, Syria, Canada, Bosnia, and Uruguay.

The U.N. Human Rights Committee, the treaty body responsible for overseeing implementation by States Parties of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, examined Egypt's most recent periodic report on November 28, 2002. The Committee expressed alarm at the jurisdiction of military courts and state security courts in cases of civilians accused of terrorism, and "the very broad and general definition of terrorism given in Act No. 97 of 1992." The Committee noted that "Egyptian nationals suspected or convicted of terrorism abroad and expelled to Egypt have not benefited in detention from the safeguards required to ensure that they are not ill-treated...."

Georgia

U.S.-supported anti-terror measures in Georgia have focused on the Pankisi Gorge and on Georgia's Chechen population. In implementing these measures the government has committed serious human rights violations, which it refuses to address. President Eduard Shevardnadze indicated the government's attitude toward observing human rights in its counter-terrorism campaign on October 5, 2002, one day after Georgia had extradited five Chechens to Russia without due process, when he said: "International human rights commitments might become pale in comparison with the importance of the anti-terrorist campaign.¹⁹"

The U.S. and Russia have both claimed that Georgia's Pankisi Gorge -- home to several thousand Chechen refugees who fled renewed conflict from 1999 - was a haven for terrorists, citing the presence there of al-Qaeda and Chechen rebel fighters.²⁰ The U.S. established a $64 million "Train and Equip" program to strengthen Georgia's counter-terrorism capability. As of October 2002, at least sixty U.S. military personnel were based in Georgia, as trainers for the "Train and Equip" program.

Georgian operations in the Pankisi Gorge at times have been arbitrary and brutal. Georgian forces have committed at least one extrajudicial execution, several "disappearances," summary extraditions, arbitrary detentions, and discrimination on the basis of racial and ethnic identity.

On March 22, 2002 the National Security Ministry detained two Georgian ethnic Chechen activists who worked with refugees in the Gorge, Islam Saidaev and Zurab Khangoshvili, on suspicion of association with al-Qaeda, apparently based only on the fact that they were the only Georgian citizens to make the pilgrimage to Mecca in 2002. That information was provided in a U.S. Embassy letter to the Ministry of National Security.²¹ The ministry secured their pre-trial detention for three months by falsifying the date of their arrest to avoid their compulsory release under criminal procedural deadlines. They were released in June, but the investigation continued.

Human Rights Watch has documented four "disappearances," one extrajudicial execution, and cases of incommunicado detention, attributable to Georgian security forces engaged in counter-terrorism.

On April 28, 2002 three men of Arab origin "disappeared" after a uniformed military detachment detained them from their car. Witnesses reported that the troops handcuffed the men's driver, Vizuri Khangoshvili, shot him fatally in the stomach, and left him in a ditch. TIME magazine reported that this action was carried out on the basis of "real time intelligence" provided by the United States.²²

On September 25, 2002, Chechen refugee Hussein Yussupov "disappeared" while in Security Ministry detention after being detained for five days in the Pankisi Gorge.

On December 6, 2002, a National Security Ministry unit killed four of the five passengers of a car traveling near Lagodekhi, eastern Georgia. No government investigation into these killings has been undertaken. Two of the passengers were from the Russian north Caucasus Karachai-Cherkess Republic, and had been implicated by Russia in the Moscow and Volgodonsk apartment block bombings of September 1999. One of the two, Yusuf Krymshamkhalov, survived the incident and was summarily extradited the next day to Russia. This was despite a new extradition appeals procedure instituted by the Supreme Court in late October 2002. ²³

In September and October 2002 Georgian officials confirmed then backtracked on reports of extralegal and clandestine extradition of terrorist suspects to U.S. custody. However, on February 6, 2003 Georgia's U.N. ambassador stated that: "During the search operation in Pankisi last fall, Georgian troops detained several suspected Al-Qaeda members and handed them over to the United States." U.S. officials have not denied the reports. When asked for comment in October 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said: "I guess anything's possible. I can't validate it."²⁴ The U.S. Embassy had no comment on the extraditions. This situation has provided the Georgian security forces with a tacit alibi for any further "disappearances."

In a massive passport check in Tbilisi on December 7, 2002, police briefly detained nearly one hundred ethnic Chechens, including some minors. Given the context, many in Georgia believed this operation to be connected with counter-terrorism efforts, though no offical publicly linked the two. The Interior Ministry spokesman fended off accusations that the detainees were targeted due to their Chechen ethnicity with the comment: "We also took seven Negroes.²⁵" The Interior Ministry spokesman stated that the operation was undertaken on U.S. recommendation, and in newspaper interviews, the U.S. ambassador expressed cautious approval for the operation.²⁶

India
India's response to perceived threats of terrorism intensified in the wake of an attack by militants on the national parliament in December 2001. On March 26, 2002, the long debated Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) was enacted. Like its predecessor, the much misused and now lapsed Terrorists and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) of 1985 (amended 1987), POTA has already been used by the Indian government to target minorities and political opponents.

POTA creates an overly broad definition of terrorism, while expanding the state's investigative and procedural powers. Suspects can be detained for up to three months without charge, and up to three months more with the permission of a special judge. Its close resemblance to TADA foreshadowed a return to widespread and systematic curtailment of civil liberties. Under TADA, tens of thousands of politically motivated detentions, acts of torture, and other human rights violations were committed against Muslims, Sikhs, Dalits (so-called untouchables), trade union activists, and political opponents in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In the face of mounting opposition to the act, India's government acknowledged these abuses and consequently let TADA lapse in 1995.

Indian and international human rights groups, journalists, opposition parties, and minority rights groups have unequivocally condemned POTA. Numerous political parties have alleged the misuse of POTA against political opponents in states such as Uttar Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. Since it was first introduced, the government has added some safeguards to protect due process rights but POTA's critics stress that the safeguards do not go far enough and that existing laws are sufficient to deal with the threat of terrorism. India's own National Human Rights Commission has stated that "existing laws are sufficient to deal with any eventuality, including terrorism, and there is no need for a draconian POTA." India has a plethora of security laws, some pre-dating independence. Many lack adequate procedural safeguards and have been similarly abused.

Since its passage, POTA has been used against political opponents, religious minorities, Dalits, tribals and even children. In February 2003 alone, over three hundred people were arrested under the act.

On July 11, 2002, in the state of Tamil Nadu, Vaiko, a leader of the political party Marumalarchi Dravida Munetra Kazhakam (MDMK), was arrested and charged under POTA for making remarks in support of the banned terrorist group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Only two weeks after Vaiko's arrest, P. Nedumaran, a leader of the Tamil Nationalist Movement, was also arrested under POTA for making pro-LTTE remarks at a conference on April 13.

In Kashmir, the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chairman, Yasin Malik, was held under POTA the very day of its enactment, March 26, on charges of receiving smuggled money from a Pakistan-based separatist group. Malik was released on bail for medical reasons, but was immediately rearrested under a Jammu and Kashmir preventive detention law, the Public Safety Act (PSA), for anti-national activity. Acknowledging the extent of its misuse, the newly-elected government of the state of Jammu and Kashmir announced in October 2002 that POTA would no longer be used in the state.

An independent member of the legislative assembly in Uttar Pradesh and political opponent of the state's chief minister was charged under POTA in January 2003, along with his seventy-year-old father. Both were arrested in November 2002 under the National Security Act. Also in Uttar Pradesh, between April and July 2002, over twenty-five Dalits and tribals were charged under POTA. Tribals in the area, who work for Rs. 20 (U.S.$0.42) a day, claim that POTA has become an instrument to brand them as Naxalites (members of extreme leftist Maoist-Leninist groups) whenever they challenge the government official-landlord nexus. One villager remarked, "We are thrashed, arrested and called Naxalites. The nexus between the contractors, police, landlords and industry is just growing stronger here.... when we protest we are booked under POTA." In one case from Sonbadhra district, nine out of twelve people arrested were bonded laborers who refused to return to work because of the physical abuse of their employer.

On February 19, 2003 in Jharkhand state almost 200 people were arrested under POTA, among them a twelve-year-old boy and an eighty-one-year-old man. According to the government, the accused are being held for supporting Naxalites. According to press reports most of those arrested were farmers, students, or daily wage earners. When asked how a Naxalite was identified, a senior police official told reporters, "Anyone caught with a copy of the Communist Manifesto or Mao's Red Book becomes a suspicious character. We then watch him and often find clinching evidence." Following widespread criticism against the charges, Deputy Prime Minister Advani directed the state to review the cases. As a result, officials decided to drop the POTA charges against eighty-three of the detainees. Rights groups have charged that POTA is being used indiscriminately against ordinary citizens in the state, including young children. In January 2003, for example, a thirteen-year-old boy was arrested because his father was suspected of involvement with the insurgent Maoist Communist Centre group. The charges were later withdrawn. At this writing, a total of ten children, mostly students, had been arrested under POTA in Jharkhand state.

On February 19, 2003, the Gujarat government charged 131 Muslims under POTA for allegedly attacking Hindus. A year earlier, a Muslim mob set fire to a train carrying Hindu activists in Godhra in the western state of Gujarat. Fifty-eight people were killed. In the days that followed, Hindu nationalist groups and their supporters killed more than 2,000 Muslims throughout the state. Muslims were branded as terrorists while armed gangs set out to systematically destroy Muslim homes, businesses and places of worship. Scores of Muslim women and girls were gang-raped before being mutilated and burnt to death. Human Rights Watch investigations revealed that attacks against Muslims were carried out with extensive state participation and support and planned months in advance of the Godhra attack. The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party that heads the state government has not charged any Hindus under POTA for violence against Muslims.

Indonesia
Since the September 11 attacks, Indonesia has been seen as a frontline in the international campaign against terrorism due to ongoing political and sectarian violence and alleged links between local Islamist movements and international terrorist networks. After the October 12, 2002 Bali bomb attack, President Megawati, under intense U.S. pressure, issued two executive decrees to address terrorism. The Indonesian parliament is now considering similar anti-terror legislation. The decrees and draft legislation threaten to seriously curb fundamental rights, invoking broad definitions of terrorism that could be used to target political opponents. Critics argue that existing Indonesian criminal laws are sufficient to address the country's security needs.

Under the draft law, suspected terrorists can be detained by the police for up to seven days on the basis of scant preliminary evidence and then for a further six months for questioning and prosecution. The draft law would allow intelligence reports to be admitted as prima facie evidence in order to detain suspects. The military would be allowed to conduct arrests, bringing the Indonesian military back into direct involvement in policing and criminal investigations, powers it abused in the Soeharto era. Investigators would also have the authority to go through personal mail and parcels and to tap telephone conversations or other forms of communication. While intelligence-gathering actions have to be reviewed by a judge, the Indonesian court system is so weak and corrupt that judicial review cannot be relied upon to constitute a meaningful safeguard. The draft law allows for the death penalty.

After the Bali attack, senior Indonesian officials began to incorporate the term "terrorist" into their rhetoric when talking about domestic groups perceived to be a threat to the unity of Indonesia. Armed separatist groups, the Free Papua Movement (OPM) in Papua and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in Aceh, were singled out. In September 2002, Indonesian Foreign Affairs Minister Hasan Wirajuda publicly labeled OPM a terrorist organization, while Coordinating Minister of Political and Security Affairs, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, accused GAM of carrying out acts of terrorism.

The Indonesian police have carried out a high profile investigation to identify and arrest the perpetrators of the Bali attack. Up to thirty people have been arrested and are being held under the terrorism decrees. The police have conducted public interrogations of suspects and staged public re-enactments of the crime, using detainees as key `actors' in these re-enactments. This will make it difficult to hold fair and credible trials, as the presumption of innocence is lost after such reenactments. There are also concerns with the validity of "confessional" evidence from other detainees in Singapore and Malaysia, which has apparently served as the basis for the arrests of many suspects. It is unclear whether or not persons who are not involved in violent activities have been arrested under the anti-terrorism decrees.

The U.S. has pressured the Indonesian government to arrest key terrorist suspects and label the radical Islamic group Jemaah Islamiyah a terrorist organization under Indonesian law. Jemaah Islamiyah has been accused of sponsoring the Bali attack and of planning to carve out an Islamic state in Southeast Asia through violent means. On October 23, 2002, the U.S. State Department designated Jemaah Islamiyah a foreign terrorist organization. Shortly afterwards the U.N. Security Council Sanctions Committee included Jemaah Islamiyah on its consolidated list of individuals and entities, the assets of which member states are required to freeze in accordance with Security Council resolutions. At the end of January 2003 the United Nations Security Council Sanctions Committee added two Indonesians to its list of persons and entities subject to the sanctions because of their links to the Taliban or to other terrorist operatives: Riduan Nurjaman Samuddin and Iqbal Mohamad Abdurrahman. It is unclear where these two individuals are at present but at least one of them is wanted by the Indonesian police in connection with the Bali attack.

Omar al-Faruq, an alleged Kuwaiti citizen married to an Indonesian woman, was arrested on December 5, 2002 and handed over to the U.S. authorities as part of an intelligence operation involving Indonesia's intelligence service and the CIA. Indonesian authorities have given conflicting statements about al-Faruq's case, including statements by authorities insisting that al-Faruq was an Indonesian citizen wanted by the U.S. government for terrorist acts in the U.S. even prior to the September 11 attacks. Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was quoted in the press as saying, "The arrest was the result of cooperation between the Indonesian police and intelligence as well as foreign intelligence sources under a cooperation framework in the fight against terrorism." However, Minister of Foreign Affairs Hassan Wirayuda said that al-Faruq's extradition to the U.S. was not linked to the government's efforts against terrorism, but was immigration related. It was unclear where Omar al-Faruq was at the time of writing.

The Bush administration has renewed links with Indonesia's military (TNI) as part of its counter-terrorist strategy for Indonesia, arguing that the only way to support democracy and human rights and fight terrorism in Indonesia is to work with the military. The U.S. IMET (International Military Education and Training) program to Indonesia had been cut after the TNI-orchestrated 1999 violence in East Timor. Resumption was conditioned on demonstrable reform of the military and a willingness to tackle impunity, but in its efforts to secure a bulwark against terrorism in Southeast Asia the Bush administration has agreed to resume the program without the necessary reforms. On a visit to Jakarta in 2002, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell announced a new $50 million program to assist the security forces in the campaign against terrorism. The U.S. Congress approved legislation giving Indonesia's police force $16 million, including $12 million to set up a special anti-terrorism unit. Restrictions on lethal arms and arms supplies, both commercially and U.S. government-funded, remained in place.

Russia - Chechnya
Since it launched a military operation in Chechnya in 1999, Russia's leaders have described the armed conflict there as a counter-terrorism operation and have attempted to fend off international scrutiny of Russian forces' abusive conduct by invoking the imperative of fighting terrorism. This pattern has become more pronounced since the September 11 attacks, as Russia sought to convince the international community that its operation in Chechnya was its contribution to the international campaign against terrorism. The current armed conflict in Chechnya is Russia's second in ten years.

Following bombings in Moscow attributed to Chechen separatists, in September 1999 Russian forces began aerial bombing and ground operations in Chechnya. Several thousand civilians died before Russian forces established control over most of the republic's territory in March 2000. Russian officials constantly used the language of counter-terrorism to describe the conflict; in some forums they argued that this meant that humanitarian law was irrelevant.²⁷ The terrorist label was attached not only to Shamil Basaev, a Chechen field commander responsible for a mass hostage-taking of civilians during the first Chechen war, and Khattab, a field commander with alleged links to al-Qaeda, but to all Chechen forces.

After September 11, Russia went to great lengths to link the war in Chechnya to the global campaign against terrorism. On September 12, 2001, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that America and Russia had a "common foe" because "Bin Laden's people are connected with the events currently taking place in our Chechnya,"²⁸ and on September 24 said that the events in Chechnya "could not be considered outside the context of counter-terrorism," glossing over the political aspects of the conflict.²⁹

World leaders, until then critical of Russia's conduct in Chechnya, did little to challenge these claims. Two weeks after the attacks in the United States, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder said, during a meeting with President Putin, "As regards Chechnya, there will be and must be a more differentiated evaluation in world opinion." On the same occasion, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy said, "We'll probably have to judge things differently than we have done until now regarding Chechnya. But it does not mean forgetting about various rights such as human, civil and political rights."

While Russia has described its actions in Chechnya as a tightly focused counter-terrorism operation, it has produced vast civilian casualties. The first phase of the conflict involved the bombing and shelling of dozens of towns and villages to dislodge Chechen fighters. Research by Human Rights Watch and other organizations showed the shelling and aerial bombardment by Russian forces to be highly indiscriminate and disproportionate, causing about 3,000 civilian casualties. Between December 1999 and February 2000, Russian forces committed massacres after taking control of three villages, killing at least 130 people. During this period they also rounded up thousands of people, mostly males whom they called "potential terrorists," took them to detention centers, and tortured them to compel confessions or testimony.

By the spring of 2000, Russian troops had established nominal control over most of Chechnya and large-scale hostilities ceased. They continued to conduct many "sweep operations," to seek out rebel fighters and ammunition depots. Sweep operations have become synonymous with abuse, involving the arbitrary detention of large numbers of Chechen civilians (along with captured fighters), who are then beaten and tortured in detention.

This cycle of abuse, well established before September 11, continues to this day. Hundreds of people have "disappeared" since that date after being taken into Russian custody. Increasingly, Russian forces conduct targeted night operations, in which masked troops raid particular homes, execute targeted individuals, or take them away, never to be seen again. In December 2002, Human Rights Watch documented nine extrajudicial executions and seventeen forced disappearances by Russian forces, most of which had taken place in the two months following a mass hostage taking in Moscow by armed Chechens. Among these cases was the November 29 killing of Malika Umazheva, who had previously been dismissed from her post as village administrator, had been an outspoken critic of Russian abuses, and a trusted source of information on abuses for human rights organizations. Masked Russian troops shot her at point-blank range during a night raid of her home. Among the many individuals who have "disappeared" is Issa Abumuslimov, a fifty-two-year-old engineer, whom Russian forces detained in a December 11 night raid of his home.

Chechen forces have also targeted civilians. They are believed to be responsible for a continuing pattern of assassinations of village administrators and other civil servants working for the pro-Moscow government in Chechnya. They bombed the main government building in Grozny in December 2002, killing seventy-two civilians, and are believed responsible for other explosions that have cost civilian lives. They took more than seven hundred people hostage at a Moscow theater last October, demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya. They threatened to kill all of the hostages, and killed several. Three days later, Russian special forces liberated over six hundred hostages in a raid that resulted in the deaths of 128 hostages and about fifty hostage takers.

Spain
In the aftermath of September 11, Spain applied its existing strict counter-terrorism regime to the investigation, apprehension, and detention of suspected al-Qaeda operatives. The climate created by the international campaign against terrorism provided the Spanish authorities with a further pretext to crackdown on Basque separatists and supporters of the pro-independence movement. Spanish authorities were also quick to issue public statements equating stricter controls on immigration with the war against terrorism, contributing to a climate of fear and suspicion toward migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees.

Spain's anti-terror laws permit the use of incommunicado detention, secret legal proceedings, and pre-trial detention for up to four years. The proceedings governing the detentions of suspected al-Qaeda operatives apprehended in Spain in November 2001, July 2002, and January 2003, among others, have been declared secret (causa secreta). The investigating magistrate of the Audiencia Nacional, a special court that oversees terrorist cases, can request causa secreta for thirty days, consecutively renewable for the duration of the four-year pre-trial detention period. Secret proceedings bar the defense access to the prosecutor's evidence, except for information contained in the initial detention order. Without access to this evidence, detainees are severely hampered in mounting an adequate defense.

In November 2002, the United Nations Committee against Torture (CAT) expressed serious concern about incommunicado detention under Spain's criminal laws. A suspect can be held incommunicado for up to five days, without access to an attorney, family notification, services such as access to health care, or contact with the outside world. The CAT concluded that incommunicado detention under these circumstances can facilitate acts of torture and ill-treatment. In Spain, most suspected terrorist detainees are held incommunicado for at least the first forty-eight hours in custody.

The global anti-terror climate hardened the Spanish government's resolve in the ongoing conflict with armed Basque separatists, Euskadi ta Askatasuna (ETA) and the non-violent pro-independence movement. ETA uses violent means to seek the creation of an independent Basque state in parts of northern Spain and southern France. The group has been responsible for over 800 deaths since the 1960s. In recent years, it has targeted civilians, including academics and journalists. Since September 11, over fifty suspected ETA members have been detained and held under Spain's anti-terror laws. Casualties of the government's hard-line approach, however, have included Gestoras pro Amnistía, an organization that provided support to families of ETA detainees, which was banned in December 2001. In August 2002, the Batasuna Party, widely regarded as the political arm of ETA, was banned for three years. In February 2003, Euskaldunon Egunkaria-the sole remaining newspaper written entirely in the Basque language-was closed down, and ten people associated with the paper were arrested and held incommunicado. These actions give rise to serious concerns that Spain's counter-terrorism measures breach the rights to freedom of association and expression. Human rights organizations have also documented instances of alleged torture and ill-treatment of ETA members and pro-independence supporters detained by Spanish authorities.

In the aftermath of September 11, then Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Pique told El País that "the reinforcement of the fight against illegal immigration is also the reinforcement of the fight against terrorism." Such political rhetoric has been accompanied by increasingly restrictive immigration and asylum policies and practices, including police harassment in Muslim and Arab migrant communities, which undermine the right to seek asylum and contribute to the creation of a climate hostile toward all migrants in Spain.

United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, the government's response to the events of September 11 resulted in laws, policies, and practices that undermine fundamental human rights protections, including the right to seek asylum and prohibitions against arbitrary detention and mistreatment. The U.K. derogated from the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR), the sole Council of Europe member to do so on counter-terrorist grounds. Subsequent government action and rhetoric signaled a further tendency to opt out of human rights obligations, with little effort to find accommodation between national security interests and the protection of human rights.

In considering the periodic report of the United Kingdom in December 2001, the Human Rights Committee noted with concern legislative measures being considered by the government which could have "far-reaching effects" and require derogations from its human rights obligations. The Committee also expressed concern at reports of attacks and harassment on the basis of religious beliefs and the use of religion to incite criminal acts, and called for criminal legislation to cover offences motivated by religious hatred and other steps to protect against religious discrimination. During questioning by the Committee, the United Kingdom reportedly invoked Article 103 of the U.N. Charter to argue that its obligations to the Counter Terrorism Committee under Resolution 1373 took precedence over its obligations to the Human Rights Committee.

Arbitrary Detention
In December 2001, the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act (ATCSA) went into force. The ATCSA provides for the indefinite detention without charge or trial of non-U.K. nationals who are suspected of terrorism-related activity and cannot be returned to their country of origin or to another country. The Secretary of State for Home Affairs must certify a detainee as a suspected terrorist or a national security risk. The evidence used to make such a determination is secret and the suspect is prohibited from gaining access to it. A detainee can lodge an appeal with the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC), but only on a point of law. Although a detainee can be represented by a court-appointed "special advocate," he or she has no right to legal counsel. A detainee's advocate cannot reveal to the detainee or discuss the evidence upon which the original certification was issued, undermining a detainee's ability to mount an adequate defense. Certification can be withdrawn by the Home Secretary or by the SIAC, although the U.K. courts have ruled that the executive should be given wide discretion in certifications based on national security interests. An October 2002 Court of Appeal ruling held that the indefinite detention of aliens on grounds of national security is a power expressly reserved to the state in time of war or similar public emergency.

In response to the charge that it was reinstituting the practice of internment, used in Northern Ireland, the U.K. government derogated from Article 5 of the ECHR, the provision establishing procedural guarantees that govern the right to a fair trial. The derogation was predicated on the argument that the global threat of terrorism amounted to a public emergency that "threatened the life of the nation," although the Home Secretary publicly stated in October 2001 that there were no specific terrorist threats aimed at the U.K.

In February 2002, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (ECPT) made an ad hoc visit to the U.K. to monitor detentions under the ATCSA. The committee expressed concern about lack of access to counsel; the use of secret evidence; lack of exercise and out-of-cell time; delayed access to healthcare, in particular to psychological support and psychiatric treatment; translation and interpretation problems; and lack of adequate contact with the outside world.

The U.K. police have arrested over 300 people under anti-terrorism legislation since September 11. Approximately forty persons have been charged, most with immigration-related offenses. Three persons have been convicted for membership of a banned organization, including a Sikh youth group, but none to date for membership or association in a banned Islamic group or organization. Defense lawyers have alleged that the police have targeted particular racial, ethnic, or religious communities in random sweeps, with little hard evidence of terrorist activity.

The arbitrary nature of detention under the ATCSA was highlighted by the case of Lotfi Raissi. In an April 2002 ruling, a U.K. court halted extradition proceedings against Raissi, certified by the Home Secretary as a "terrorist suspect" associated with the September 11 attacks, after the United States promised repeatedly but failed to produce evidence to support that charge. Raissi was released on bail in February 2002 after five months in detention under the ATCSA. The court ruled that it had received "no evidence" to support Raissi's certification as a "terrorist suspect." According to human rights monitors, Raissi was severely traumatized by the combination of harsh detention conditions in a high security prison, lack of access to the evidence against him, and the indefinite nature of detention under the ATCSA.

Seven United Kingdom nationals, detained in Guantánamo Bay under the supervision of the U.S. military, have also been subject to indefinite detention without charge or trial and denied access to legal counsel (see section on the United States). While U.K. authorities have interrogated these detainees, they have failed to press the U.S. adequately to ensure that they fully enjoy their rights. A November 2002 ruling by the U.K. Court of Appeals described one U.K. national's detention at Guantánamo as "objectionable."

Mistreatment in Detention
In January 2003, following opposition calls for rejected asylum seekers certified as security threats to be removed from the country, Prime Minister Tony Blair stated publicly that the government would "consider further measures, including fundamentally looking at the obligations we have under the Convention on Human Rights." Prime Minister Blair's remarks raised serious concerns that the U.K. would consider withdrawing from the ECHR in order to return suspected terrorists to their home country despite the possibility that they might be tortured.

The treatment of detainees under anti-terrorism legislation in high security U.K. prisons has also raised concern that they are subject to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Detainees in U.K. prisons have complained of long periods of isolation; lack of access to health care, exercise of religion, and educational services; lack of exercise; obstacles to visits from friends and family; and psychological trauma associated with the uncertainty of when they will be released.

Concerns about the use of torture have also arisen in connection with other aspects of U.K.'s participation in the international campaign against terrorism. In December 2002, reports that U.S. forces were using "stress and duress" techniques in their interrogations of al-Qaeda suspects detained on the island of Diego Garcia-part of British-held Indian Ocean Territory-resulted in urgent appeals to the U.K. government to ensure that the detainees' human rights were upheld. The U.K. government could be seen as having been complicit in acts of torture if it permits allies to use abusive interrogation techniques on its soil.

Treatment of Refugees and Asylum Seekers
The U.K. government, political parties and the media have exploited insecurities arising from the September 11 attacks to call for greater restrictions on the right to seek asylum in the U.K. The ATCSA and the Immigration, Nationality and Asylum Act of 2002 both contain provisions that seriously undermine the right to seek asylum, ostensibly in the interest of national security. In January 2003, allegations that asylum seekers were implicated in a plot to manufacture poison ricin and the killing of a police officer in the course of that investigation, spawned a backlash against asylum seekers and refugees in the media. Following the killing, the opposition Conservative Party called for the detention of all asylum seekers on arrival in the U.K. pending security checks. Home Secretary David Blunkett responded to media attacks on asylum seekers and refugees, warning against possible vigilante action against asylum seekers by the public. Despite this response, human rights organizations claimed the government was partially responsible for creating a climate of suspicion that links asylum seekers with terrorism.

United States
Many of the measures adopted by the U.S. government after the September 11 attacks violated fundamental provisions of international human rights and humanitarian law. These included the arbitrary and secret detention of non-citizens, secret deportation hearings for persons suspected of connections to terrorism, the authorization of military commissions to try non-citizen terrorists, a failure to abide by the Geneva Conventions in the treatment of detainees held in US military custody in Cuba and elsewhere, and the military detention without charge or access to counsel of U.S. citizens designated as "enemy combatants."

Recently unveiled draft legislation prepared by the Department of Justice reveals the administration's plan to further increase executive branch powers under the rubric of strengthening national security. The so-called Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 would, among other legal changes, authorize secret arrests in immigration cases, permit Americans to be stripped of their citizenship for peacefully supporting groups deemed terrorist by authorities, expand the grounds on which non-citizens can be summarily deported without a hearing, and preclude judicial review of certain immigration proceedings by exempting them from habeas corpus provisions.

Non-Citizen "Special Interest" Detainees Held on Immigration Charges
Some twelve hundred non-citizens, mostly from the Middle East or South Asia, some of whom were legal permanent residents, were detained in connection with the investigation of the September 11 attacks, although the government has never disclosed the exact number. At least 752 were held on immigration charges; the others were held on criminal charges or as material witnesses. Four have been indicted for terrorism-related crimes. Although the detainees were of interest to the Department of Justice because of possible links to terrorism, they were held under immigration laws, which enabled the Department of Justice to circumvent the greater safeguards in the criminal law-including the requirement of probable cause for arrest, the right to a court-appointed attorney and the right to be brought before a judge within forty-eight hours of arrest. The U.S. Department of Justice has maintained in secrecy the names of "special interest" detainees held on immigration charges, their place of incarceration, and the names of their attorneys, and has closed their deportation proceedings to the public, arguing that this was necessary to protect national security interests. A federal appeals court accepted this argument on October 8, 2002. Human Rights Watch has documented the mistreatment of non-citizens detained in the September 11 investigation, including: custodial interrogations without access to counsel, prolonged detention without charge, executive decisions overriding judicial orders to release detainees on bond during immigration proceedings, and unnecessarily restrictive conditions--including solitary confinement--under which some "special interest" detainees were held.

Guantánamo Bay Detainees
Since September 11, the United States has transferred about 650 men captured in connection with the Afghan war or who are suspected of links to al-Qaeda to the U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. U.S. officials apparently chose the site both for security purposes as well as because they believed that U.S. courts would refuse to exercise jurisdiction over it - a belief that has been borne out in court cases. The detainees were originally held in makeshift open-air facilities with chain-link walls until moved to a newly constructed facility on April 28, 2002. According to press reports, the detainees spend twenty-four hours a day in small single-person cells, except for two fifteen minute periods of solitary exercise a week, as well as interrogation sessions. About eighty of the prisoners were held in special high security cells with steel walls that prevented them from communicating with other prisoners.

The United States has refused to recognize the applicability of the Geneva Conventions to any of the Afghan war or al-Qaeda detainees held at Guantánamo or elsewhere, including captured members of the Taliban armed forces, although it has insisted that it treats them humanely. It refused to permit competent tribunals to determine whether any of the detained combatants were entitled to prisoner of war status. It has also refused to abide by principles of international human rights law with regard to these detainees, asserting, in effect, that no legal regime applies to them and that in the war against terrorism, the United States may hold such combatants for as long as it chooses. The Guantánamo detainees remain without a legal forum in which they can challenge their detention; a federal judge ruled on July 30, 2002 that U.S. federal courts do not have jurisdiction to hear constitutional claims brought by aliens held by the United States outside U.S. sovereign territory. In addition, the United States denied the request made by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to provide for a lawful tribunal or court to determine the status of these detainees. The United States did not even respond to letters from the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention seeking information on the treatment and legal status of the Guantánamo detainees.

Enemy Combatants
The United States is holding incommunicado at U.S. military facilities two U.S. citizens who it claims are "enemy combatants" who may be held indefinitely without charges and without access to counsel. Jose Padilla, a.k.a. Abdullah al-Mujahir, was arrested on May 8, 2002 at the Chicago international airport and initially held as a material witness pursuant to a federal court order. In June, President Bush signed an order designating him as an enemy combatant and he was then removed from the criminal justice system, and incarcerated in a military base in South Carolina. U.S. officials claimed that Padilla had met with al-Qaeda representatives overseas, that he had engaged in conduct in preparation for acts of international terrorism, and that he had returned to the United States to advance plans to explode a radioactive "dirty bomb" in the United States. According to U.S. officials, Yaser Esam Hamdi was captured in Afghanistan in November, 2001, where he was reportedly fighting with the Taliban, and he was transferred to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. When U.S. officials learned that he was a U.S. citizen, they transferred him to a U.S. Navy brig in Norfolk, Virginia.

In the case of Yaser Esam Hamdi, a federal appeals court agreed with the United States' position that a citizen alleged to be an enemy combatant could be detained indefinitely without charge or access to counsel if a court, based on documents provided by the government, agrees that there is "some basis" for the enemy combatant designation. The court rejected Hamdi's petition for habeas corpus even though Hamdi was never given an opportunity to contest (or even review) the facts alleged against him by the government and was never permitted to meet with his attorney. In the case of Jose Padilla, a court ruled that he has a right to present facts to argue against his detention and that the best way for him to do so would be through counsel. The U.S. government, however, has still refused to give Padilla access to his lawyer, and has filed briefs arguing that to do so would disrupt ongoing interrogations (which at this point have lasted more than eight months) and hence harm national security. The U.S. government is appealing a federal court decision ordering that Padilla be able to meet with his lawyer.

Uzbekistan
Since September 11, the government of Uzbekistan has used the global campaign against terrorism to justify its own abusive five-year campaign to eliminate independent Islam. Western governments, particularly the United States, have been less critical of the Uzbek government's human rights record in view of the country's strategic importance to international counter-terrorist efforts.

Since 1998, the Uzbek government has imprisoned thousands of independent Muslims whom it claims are religious "extremists." These are individuals who practice their religion beyond the tight restrictions imposed by the government, by participating in private prayer groups, following imams out of favor with the state, joining religious organizations banned by the state, and distributing literature not sanctioned by the state.

After a series of bombings of government buildings in Tashkent in February 1999, government officials began to brand such people as "terrorists." They also tried to justify abuses as a necessary element of the government's campaign against the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), an armed insurgent group that was primarily based in Afghanistan and that had links to the Taliban and al-Qaeda.³⁰ On October 9, 2001, President Karimov declared that "indifference to, and tolerance of, those with evil intentions who are spreading various fabrications, handing out leaflets, committing theft and sedition in some neighborhoods and who are spreading propaganda on behalf of religion should be recognized as being supportive of these evil-doers."

Victims of the arrest campaign face charges of "anti-state activity" or "attempted subversion of the constitutional order," with sentences of up to twenty years in prison. While the Uzbek authorities have claimed defendants are associated with terrorism, they have very rarely charged them with acts of terrorism, conspiracy to commit terrorism, or involvement in any violent act. Human Rights Watch has documented more than one hundred cases in which arrest victims were tortured, including five deaths resulting from torture in 2002 alone. Among them was Muzafar Avazov, who died in August 2002. His body was covered with burns, bruises, and open wounds; his hands had no fingernails. Avazov had been sentenced to nineteen years for having given classes on Islam and other related charges.

Another victim of the arrest campaign was human rights defender, Yuldash Rasulov. Police arrested Rasulov, of the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan, on May 24, 2002, charging him with "religious extremism." On May 27, police claimed that Rasulov had recruited young men for "terrorist training camps abroad,"³¹ a move that seemed aimed at discrediting human rights workers. In a letter to Human Rights Watch, which Uzbek authorities distributed among Tashkent's diplomatic community, Uzbek authorities attempted to link him to the IMU, and by association to Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, "against whom international forces are carrying out a counter attack in the campaign against terrorism after the events of September 11."³² A court sentenced him to seven years of imprisonment for spreading "religious extremist" materials; it dismissed the charge that he had recruited for criminal organizations.

The government also invoked the counter-terrorism imperative when faced with international criticism about the death in custody of an independent Muslim. On January 14, 2002, a police spokesman justified the actions of four policemen charged with the October death in custody of Ravshan Haidov, an accused member of the Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir, by claiming that the group was responsible for the events of September 11. Hizb-ut-Tahrir, which employs anti-Semitic and anti-American rhetoric, is banned in Uzbekistan for espousing the establishment of a Caliphate, but it has not been implicated in acts of violence. On January 30, 2002, the policemen were found guilty of inflicting "bodily harm that caused death" and were sentenced to twenty years in prison.

Uzbekistan's proximity to Afghanistan, and its willingness to host U.S. airbases, has made it a valued partner in the international campaign against terrorism. The U.S. has failed to leverage this partnership to press for human rights improvements in Uzbekistan, and sometimes exaggerated Uzbekistan's progress in meeting its human rights commitments. In August 2002, the State Department prematurely certified that Uzbekistan was making the progress demanded by supplemental aid legislation, allowing for the release of $16 million in military and security assistance. It made no visible effort to use the law to seek additional progress to meet the law's requirements, despite several key human rights setbacks during those months. Prior to the August supplemental appropriation, Uzbekistan was scheduled to receive $173 million in U.S. assistance, of which $61.3 million was security related. Citing "serious human rights violations by members of Uzbek security forces," a Congressional amendment to the U.S. Foreign Appropriations Act required the administration to report every six months on all military and security assistance to the government.

19 Those extradited had been arrested in August. The Procuracy General extradited them without recourse to a court appeal, which is provided for in Georgia's criminal procedure code.

20 Russia has repeatedly demanded the forcible return of Chechen refugees and threatened to conduct its own military operations in the Pankisi Gorge.

21 Human Rights Watch interviews with attorneys for both the defendants, Tbilisi, April 2002.

22 The Surprise in the Gorge/Inside al-Qaeda's Georgia Refuge" by Paul Quinn-Judge, TIME Magazine, October 20, 2002. The article was published in two versions, one more comprehensive than the other. The passage quoted amalgamates both, to produce a maximum of relevant detail. The longer version of the article can be accessed on the internet at: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,366217,00.html. [accessed November 11, 2002]

23 The Supreme Court's decision followed the Georgian Procurator General's controversial summary extradition of five alleged Chechen fighters to Russia on October 4, 2002. Earlier, in July 2002, Adem Dekkushev-another Karachai-Cherkessian-was summarily extradited to Russia.

24 Rumsfeld Denies Georgia Handed Over Al Qaeda Ties to U.S., Civil Georgia, October 23, 2002, www.civil.ge [retrieved November 2002].

25 Nona Tsabadze, "Twleve Wanted Men Detained in Tbilisi," Akhali Taoba, December 10, 2002.

26 See, for example, Shota Utnashvili, "Religious Extremism on the Path to NATO, 24 Saati, December 13, 2002.

27 Russian diplomats objected to references to international humanitarian law for the Chechnya conflict during the 56^th and 57^th sessions of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. Resolutions adopted at both sessions of the UNCHR recognized the applicability of international humanitarian law to the conflict. See, Commission on Human Rights, "Situation in the Republic of Chechnya of the Russian Federation, E/CN.4/2000/L32,12 April 2000, and Commission on Human Rights, "Situation in the Republic of Chechnya of the Russian Federation," E/CN.4/RES/2001/24.

28 Susan B. Glasser and Peter Baker, "Putin, Bush Weigh New Unity Against A 'Common Foe,'" Washington Post, September 13, 2001, p. A25.

29 "Vremya" (Russian Public Television news program), September 24, 2001.

30 The IMU launched cross border incursions into Uzbekistan in 2000 and Kyrgyzstan in 1999 and 2000.

31 Remarks made by Ilia Piagi, of the Department for the Fight Against Organized Crime, Corruption and Terrorism of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Uzbekistan, to Human Rights Watch and others gathered at the Ministry of Internal Affairs to protest Rasulov's arrest, Tashkent, May 27, 2002.

32 Letter dated July 25, 2002 to Human Rights Watch from A.O. Sharafutdinov, chief of Main Directorate for Investigation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

BACK: In the Name of Counter-Terrorism: Human Rights Abuses Worldwide

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