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HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH ----- ----- ----- AIDS activist Wan Yanhai, who was detained by the Chinese authorities on August 24, was released on September 20, following a concerted outcry that included three formal statements by Human Rights Watch. Dr. Wan is the most prominent AIDS activist in China, and he was charged with releasing "state secrets" after he circulated a government report about the epidemic on e-mail. The HIV/AIDS Program and Asia Division also worked with other groups to coordinate protests and advocacy to press for Dr. Wan's release. Human Rights Watch's HIV/AIDS Program joined with the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network to present Dr. Wan with an "Award for Action" on HIV/AIDS and human rights on September 13 in Montreal. Dr. Wan was chosen for the award several months before his detention. Dr. Wan's wife, Ivy Su Zhaosheng, accepted the award on behalf of her husband, generating a great deal of international media attention. Human Rights Watch and activists around the world continue to follow Dr. Wan's case and to monitor restrictions on other grassroots AIDS activists in China. ----- Along with two other leading human rights groups (AI & WOLA), Human Rights Watch issued a document refuting the State Department's certification that Colombia is in compliance with the human rights conditions of U.S. aid legislation. This document may be viewed at: http://hrw.org/backgrounder/americas/colombia-certification4.htm To discuss our concerns about Colombia's human rights situation, Human Rights Watch Americas Director Jose Miguel Vivanco and Washington Advocacy Director Tom Malinowski met repeatedly with Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman, and Department of State Andean Affairs head Phil Chicola. ----- Human Rights Watch's efforts helped to ensure that domestic war crimes trials, police abuse, and discrimination against Roma will be among the issues scrutinized by the Council of Europe after Yugoslavia joins the pan-European organization in the next few months. In comments submitted to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, in anticipation of its debate and vote on the country's accession in Strasbourg on September 24, Human Rights Watch argued that the list of post-accession commitments for Yugoslavia had omitted a number of key human rights requirements where urgent progress is warranted, including fair and independent war crimes proceedings before national courts; preventing and punishing police violence; and protecting the Romani minority from discriminatory treatment. A Human Rights Watch delegation traveled to Strasbourg to meet with parliamentarians as they gathered to consider Yugoslavia's application for membership. The final document, as voted by the Assembly, contains references to all three previously missing elements, thus rendering them part of the Council's post-accession monitoring of Yugoslavia's human rights record. ----- Human Rights Watch's advocacy efforts around Kyrgyz President Askar Akaev's visit to Washington helped to spotlight the Kyrgyz government's dramatically worsening human rights record. In a letter sent to U.S. President Bush in anticipation of the September 23 summit, Human Rights Watch urged the administration to use the meeting to seek concrete human rights improvements and a commitment to genuine reform. The letter outlined a range of serious abuses by the government in recent months, including its growing intolerance for political opposition, enactment of draconian laws, use of brutal methods to deprive citizens of their right to free assembly and expression, intensified persecution of religious dissidents, and aggressive stance against human rights defenders. The resulting joint statement between the two presidents "reaffirm[ed] [both leaders'] desire to strengthen democratic institutions and processes, such as civil society, independent media, local government, political pluralism, and free and fair elections" and their "mutual commitments to advance the rule of law and promote freedom of religion and other universal human rights as enshrined by the founding documents of the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe." Kyrgyzstan's poor human rights record was the focus of all press reports covering the Kyrgyz president's visit, and questions relating to the worsening human rights situation in the country dominated the questions asked during the press briefings given by the U.S. Department of State following Secretary of State Powell's meeting with the Kyrgyz president. The department's spokesman, Richard Boucher, assured the audience that "[h]uman rights was a major topic both for the secretary and for President Akayev during the course of the meetings." ----- An unusually punchy piece lambasting the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development for its decision to hold its annual meeting in 2003 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, appeared in The Economist on October 5. The piece, headlined "The European Bank for Repression and Dictatorship? Human-rights groups don't like the EBRD throwing jollies in Tashkent," described the year-long campaign by Human Rights Watch and 54 other NGOs to challenge the Bank's decision to reward the Uzbek government with the financial and political prize of hosting such a meeting. According to the Economist, "playing host to a gathering of this type is a feather in the cap of Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan's dictator since its birth in 1991, but it is turning into an embarrassment for the bank." ----- Following intense efforts by Human Rights Watch, Turkmen dissident Gulgeldi Annaniazov, who fled Turkmenistan in early September, narrowly escaped the near-certain imprisonment and torture that he would have faced had he been forcibly returned to the country from Kazakhstan. Human Rights Watch mobilized capitals from Washington to Oslo, and helped ensure that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' office was able to meet with Annaniazov and determine his status as someone in need of urgent protection. Shortly therefafter, Annaniazov was flown to Oslo, Norway, where he is expected to be granted asylum. ----- In news received on Monday, October 7, Human Rights Watch was informed that Turkey's Justice Ministry had prepared a draft law to curb torture by permitting all detainees access to a lawyer from the first moments of detention. Human Rights Watch has been persistently advocating this measure as a short-term requirement before the EU begins formal negotiations with Turkey on EU membership. The 11th-hour initiative was clearly aimed to satisfy the E.U., announced as it was two days prior to the European Commission's October 9 release of its regular reports on the candidate countries' progress toward accession. ----- The U.S. Department of Justice's civil rights division released the results of an investigation into conditions at the Baltimore City Detention Center in Maryland. Investigators concluded that conditions violate the constitutional rights of juvenile and adult inmates and appear to have contributed to the deaths of several prisoners, some of whom received little or no medical attention for chronic health problems. The impetus for the report was a 1999 investigation by Human Rights Watch. The report, entitled "No Minor Matter: Children in Maryland's Jails," disclosed that over one hundred children were jailed in appalling conditions in the Baltimore jail, including the City Detention Center. Mike Bochenek, the Human Rights Watch researcher who was the author of the report, met with Justice Department officials in late 1999 to request that the department open an investigation into the facility. Officials agreed. The Justice Department report was particularly critical of the Center's health care and suicide prevention system, which is responsible for close to 3,000 inmates. The department found that patients must often wait days to have their medical needs assessed, and the report noted instances of jail suicides, fatal asthma spasms, and heart-attack deaths that federal authorities deemed "preventable if the inmates' conditions had been properly treated." According to the Baltimore Sun, Stuart O. Simms, chief of the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, has said he has begun to speak with health care administrators for advice and help in delivering better care at the jail. "No Minor Matter: Children in Maryland's Jails" may be viewed at: http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/maryland/Maryland.htm -----
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