HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
MONTHLY EMAIL UPDATE
April 2002
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IN THIS ISSUE:
> International Criminal Court Launches
> Violence in Afghanistan
> Military Commissions in the United States: Improved But Still Flawed
> Human Rights In Uzbekistan
> Justice Comes to Chad
> Flawed Greek Anti-Trafficking Legislation Delayed
> Nigeria Army Massacre
> Human Rights in Russia and Chechnya
> Los Angeles Schools Fight Harassment of Gay Teens
> HRW International Film Festival Update
> Become a Member or Make a Contribution
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INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT LAUNCHES
On April 11, ten governments ratified the statute of the International Criminal Court, bringing the total number of ratifications to 66, well above the 60 needed to launch the court. With this milestone, the treaty will take effect July 1, and the court should be up and running within a year.
This is an historic moment for the cause of human rights and international justice. The ICC will be the first standing court of its kind, a permanent international criminal tribunal with potentially global reach to try individuals responsible for the most serious human rights crimes: genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity such as systematic torture, enforced disappearance, or rape. The ICC was created because national court systems--from Guatemala to Sierra Leone to Iraq--have failed to provide justice to the victims of egregious crimes. The Court will take cases when national systems do not work.
Human Rights Watch has played a central role in pushing the court onto the international agenda, helping negotiate the treaty, promoting ratification, and defending the court against its detractors, particularly the United States. We will continue to monitor the establishment of the court, including the selection of judges and prosecutors, to ensure that the Court fulfills its high expectations.
Find out more about the International Criminal Court at http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/icc/
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VIOLENCE IN AFGHANISTAN
Targeted violence and looting by ethnic militias have uprooted Pashtun communities across northern Afghanistan. The displacement and insecurity could undermine the process of setting up a new national government. Released on April 9, "Paying for the Taliban's Crimes: Abuses Against Ethnic Pashtuns in Northern Afghanistan" documents cases of summary executions, beatings, sexual violence, abductions, and looting that have been committed since November 2001, when non-Pashtun Northern Alliance forces regained power in the north.
In an op-ed in the Washington Post, researchers Peter Bouckaert and Sam Zia-Zarifi reported on the continued ethnic abuse in Afghanistan, specifically Uzbek, Tajik, and Hazara militia violence against Pashtuns -- perceived "payback" for the "sins of the Taliban" simply because most of the Taliban leadership were ethnic Pashtuns.
In Kabul, Human Rights Watch discussed its findings with the UN Special Representative for Afghanistan, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, members of the interim Afghan administration, the Office of the EU Special Representative to Afghanistan, several EU embassies, the International Security Assistance Force, and representatives of the European Commission and the U.S. State Department. In Islamabad, HRW met with ambassadors from Norway and Sweden and members of the U.S. Embassy. In Washington, HRW met with members of the State Department, House International Relations Committee, and the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The report is available online at http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/afghan2/
The op-ed is available at http://www.hrw.org/editorials/2002/afghan_0320.htm
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MILITARY COMMISSIONS IN THE UNITED STATES: IMPROVED BUT STILL FLAWED
The U.S. Department of Defense has released the new rules for the military commissions authorized by President Bush's November 13 military order. Human Rights Watch and others strongly criticized the Bush order for failing to comply with the Geneva Conventions and for failing to provide defendants with full due process protections. The new rules announced on March 21 do address many of Human Rights Watch's concerns, but nonetheless fail to meet the core human rights requirement of appellate review by an independent and impartial court. Nor do they meet the requirements of the Geneva Conventions for the trials of prisoners of war. The rules also leave intact sweeping military jurisdiction over non-citizens, even when they are arrested far from the Afghan battlefield.
Many thanks to all those who sent letters to Secretary Rumsfeld and the Department of Defense underscoring Human Rights Watch's concerns.
For more about the new military commissions, visit http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/03/tribunals0321.htm
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HUMAN RIGHTS IN UZBEKISTAN
Despite its central position in the U.S.-led campaign in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan's appalling human rights record remains unchanged. The government of Uzbekistan keeps tight control over all media and other forms of expression, and does not tolerate independent political parties, social movements, or dissidents who seek to expose abuses. State agents have tortured detainees, and at least five people died in custody under highly suspicious circumstances in 2001. The government continues to unlawfully arrest, torture, and imprison Muslims who practice their faith outside state controls.
In advance of the summit between U.S. President George W. Bush and Uzbek President Islam Karimov on March 12, Human Rights Watch wrote to President Bush urging him to insist on specific improvements in Uzbekistan's abysmal human rights record. HRW, Amnesty International, the International League for Human Rights, and Freedom House wrote to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg in advance of his separate meeting with Karimov. An op-ed by Washington Advocacy Director Tom Malinowski and Central Asia Researcher Acacia Shields in the Washington Times also encouraged President Bush to use his meeting with President Karimov to link continued U.S. engagement with Uzbekistan to progress in ending human rights abuses and showing openness to political change.
These efforts have resulted in some preliminary concessions from the Uzbek Government. On March 5, as a result of U.S. diplomatic efforts made on our recommendation, the Uzbek Government registered the Independent Human Rights Organization of Uzbekistan, recognizing the organization a legal group. HRW has honored two human rights monitors from the organization in recent years: the group's chairman, Mikhail Ardzinov, in 1995; and Ismail Adylov, this past November. President Karimov also recommitted himself to allowing the International Committee of the Red Cross into Uzbek prisons and pre-trial detention facilities.
Last year, HRW convinced the U.S. Department of Defense and State Department to push for the release of human rights activists Mahbuba Kosymova and Ismail Adylov and to allow the ICRC into Uzbek prisons. The government of Uzbekistan initially complied, but the ICRC suspended its operations after only three months, reportedly because Uzbek authorities had obstructed the visits. In addition to registration of human rights groups, HRW is calling for the release of key political and religious prisoners, the registration of political opposition parties, legal reform to enhance protection from torture, and invitations to UN investigators.
Find out more about Uzbekistan at http://www.hrw.org/europe/uzbekistan.php
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JUSTICE COMES TO CHAD
There has been a major breakthrough in the case against the former Chadian dictator Hissène Habré, who has been living in comfortable exile in Senegal since he left power in 1990. In January 2000, Human Rights Watch, working with Chadian groups, initially convinced a Senegalese judge to arrest Habré on charges of torture and crimes against humanity - until Senegalese appeals courts, under pressure from a new president, dismissed the case. As a fallback, HRW helped the Chadian victims file criminal charges against Habré in Belgium, whose courts have broad jurisdiction over serious human rights crimes. From February 26 to March 7, a Belgian investigating judge and a police team visited N'Djamena, Chad, with the cooperation of the Chadian government. The visit was front-page news in Chad and transformed the abstract case against Habré in far-off courts into a concrete reality, touching off a firestorm in a country where Habré's most brutal henchman still occupy most of the key security posts. The team visited the five N'Djamena jails as former inmates demonstrated how they were held and tortured. Ex-prisoners led the judge to the sites where they were forced to dig mass graves for those who died in detention. The judge also took the testimony of a number of Habré's aides, and even allowed former victims to confront their torturers. The victims now hope that the judge will indict Habré and seek his extradition from Senegal, which has so far heeded pressure not to let Habré flee pending such a request.
Find out more about the case against Habré at http://www.hrw.org/justice/habre/
En français: http://www.hrw.org/french/themes/habre.htm
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FLAWED GREEK ANTI-TRAFFICKING LEGISLATION DELAYED
On March 6, Human Rights Watch released a detailed commentary on Greece's draft anti-trafficking legislation based on our research published in July 2001. In part as a result of criticism from HRW and local NGOs, the government of Greece delayed sending the draft law to parliament until some of the suggested revisions could be included. HRW's commentary noted that the draft legislation fails to criminalize all forms of trafficking in persons, focusing only on trafficking into the sex industry, fails to provide explicit penalties for state officials' complicity and other unlawful involvement in trafficking, does not explicitly prohibit the detention of trafficking victims, and fails to outline explicit protection measures for victims and witnesses.
Find out more at http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/eca/greece/greece_memo_greece.htm
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NIGERIA ARMY MASSACRE
From October 22 to 24, 2001, Nigerian army soldiers killed more than two hundred unarmed civilians and destroyed homes, shops, public buildings and other property in more than seven towns and villages in Benue State, in central-eastern Nigeria. The attacks were part of a well planned military operation, carried out in reprisal for the killing of nineteen soldiers in the area two weeks earlier, which was attributed to members of the Tiv ethnic group. Those who died at the hands of the military were victims of collective punishment, targeted simply because they belonged to the same ethnic group. The government's failure to condemn or investigate the killings in Benue amounts to an encouragement for the military to continue such violent attacks with impunity.
Released on April 1, "Military Revenge in Benue: A Population Under Attack" documents the Nigerian military's extrajudicial execution of more than two hundred unarmed civilians and destruction of property. Human Rights Watch also criticized the public silence of foreign governments in the aftermath of the Benue massacres, pointing in particular to the unexercised influence of the United States and the United Kingdom. The report was circulated widely within Nigeria and received widespread coverage there, landing front-page stories in all the main newspapers. Nigeria's Minister of Information personally reacted to the report in a BBC interview. Human Rights Watch met with diplomats from the United States and the United Kingdom to discuss our findings and recommendations.
Read the report online at http://hrw.org/reports/2002/nigeria/
Read the press release at http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/04/nigeria040102.htm
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HUMAN RIGHTS IN RUSSIA AND CHECHNYA
Chechnya is the only place in Europe where civilians are being killed on a near-daily basis. Although the Russian government insists that Chechnya is returning to normal, Human Rights Watch continues to document forced disappearances, the indiscriminate use of force, and limited efforts to investigate these crimes. HRW also continues to press for greater accountability in Russia by exposing ongoing atrocities and pressuring Russia's allies and the United Nations to condemn such abuses.
In January, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) reviewed Russia's report on the protection of women's human rights. As a result of our memorandum and our presence during the review, Committee members questioned the government about violence against women in Chechnya. The Committee's report noted that in the vast majority of cases Russia had failed to conduct proper investigations or hold perpetrators accountable despite strong evidence that Russian forces had committed acts of rape and other sexual violence against women in Chechnya. The Committee urged Russia to investigate and punish such acts, to adopt human rights education programs for the armed forces, and to implement swift disciplinary measures for military and law enforcement personnel. See HRW's memorandum at http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/eca/chechnya_women.htm
On March 19, largely inspired by Human Rights Watch's findings and recommendations, the U.S. Senate passed a strongly worded resolution on the human rights situation in Chechnya, calling on Russian President Putin to "act immediately to end and to investigate human rights violations by Russian soldiers in Chechnya, and to initiate, where appropriate, prosecutions against those accused." The resolution also urged U.S. President Bush to "seek specific information from the Government of the Russian Federation on investigations of reported human rights buses in Chechnya and prosecutions against those individuals accused of those abuses."
HRW also presented its concerns and recommendations to the current sessions of the UN Commission on Human Rights and pressed for a resolution condemning abuses in Chechnya and calling on Russia to investigate them. "For two years straight Russia has flouted Commission resolutions," said Elizabeth Andersen, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch's Europe and Central Asia division. "Now Commission members have to make a choice to protect human rights in Russia, and to uphold the Commission's integrity." The recommendations can be found at http://www.hrw.org/un/unchr-chechnya.htm
One note of progress: on March 29, the Russian Commander of the United Group of Forces in Chechnya issued a decree requiring military service personnel to observe human rights during all operations in Chechnya. The decree also requires all police and ministry of interior troops involved in detaining individuals to identify themselves, and requires all military vehicles to display registration numbers. Human Rights Watch's past documentation of human rights abuses in Chechnya, including disappearances, found that Russian forces' failure to wear distinguishing marks on their uniforms was a serious impediment to accountability.
Find out more about human rights in Russia and Chechnya at http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/russia/chechnya/
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LOS ANGELES SCHOOLS FIGHT HARASSMENT OF GAY TEENS
Widney Brown and Mike Bochenek, co-authors of "Hatred in the Hallways: Violence and Discrimination Against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Students in U.S. Schools," returned to Los Angeles in March to help prepare for the anti-bias training of administrators and counselors in seven Los Angeles high schools. The School District scheduled the anti-bias training in response to recommendations from the "Hatred in the Hallways" report, which exposed rampant harassment of gay kids in U.S. high schools. The training will focus on current law, policy, and methods for addressing discrimination and harassment. Mike also trained a team of Human Rights Watch members from HRW's California Committee, South to assist with the student interviews and to gather information for the pilot project. Subsequent training with teachers, students, and support staff is planned for the future.
Read the report online at http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/uslgbt/
Find out more about the California Committee, South at http://www.hrwcalifornia.org/
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HRW INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL UPDATE
The Human Rights Watch International Film Festival kicked off a very successful season in London with over 500 people attending the benefit gala screening of Costa-Gavras's "AMEN." Marina Kaufman, a long-term member of Human Rights Watch, one of the co-founders of our Film Festival, and a personal friend of Costa-Gavras, helped us to bring the director and his film to London for this special screening ahead of its general release in the UK. The film tells the tale of German chemist Kurt Gerstein and his attempts to bring the information about the Holocaust to the world's attention.
The Film Festival in London screened films and videos from March 20th to the 28th at cinemas in Brixton, Hampstead and Richmond. Many of this year's works addressed pressing human rights issues in the Middle East including, "Bethlehem Diary," "Citizen Bishara" and "Lebanon Dream;" others addressed the disastrous effects of globalization in Jamaica and Haiti, "Life and Debt" and "Profit and Nothing But!"; and two powerful documentaries dealt with the current situation in Afghanistan, "Silent Scream" and "JUNG(War) in the Land of the Mujaheddin." The festival closed with the Oscar-winning drama from Bosnia, "No-Man's Land." The film festival received excellent press coverage, particularly in the Observer, the Independent and the Guardian. Fourteen out of twenty-one screenings were sold-out.
In the United States, the Film Festival appeared for the first time at the University of Southern California with a screening of "Scout's Honor," a documentary on the anti-gay policies of the Boy Scout's of America. Tom Shepard, the filmmaker, made a special guest appearance at the screening.
The Film Festival returns to Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater in New York from June 14 to 27. Information on tickets to films and the benefit gala will be posted soon.
For more about the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival visit http://www.hrw.org/iff/
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