May 2005
Tunisia: HRW Report Prompts Pledge to End Solitary Confinement
The night before Human Rights Watch was to release a
report in Tunis condemning Tunisia's use of prolonged solitary confinement, the government contacted our researchers. Instead of canceling our press conference, as we expected, the government surprisingly announced that it would move all prisoners out of solitary confinement the following day. It then invited Human Rights Watch to visit Tunisian prisons, reversing a fourteen-year policy barring independent human rights organizations from the prisons. In recent years, Human Rights Watch has documented the government's use of solitary confinement as a means of punishing and demoralizing leaders of the banned Nahdha opposition party. Political prisoners have been held in isolation from other prisoners for as long as eleven years. Prisoners are not formally told why they are in isolation, how long it will last, or how to appeal the measure. Despite the government's pledges, Human Right Watch will continue to closely monitor the status of prisoners to ensure its compliance with these welcome developments.
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India: Minister Tied to Anti-Muslim Violence Denied U.S. Visa
The U.S. Embassy in India denied Gujarat State Chief Minister Narendra Modi a diplomatic visa and, citing violations of religious freedom, also revoked his existing ten-year business/tourist visa. Human Rights Watch worked in collaboration with many colleague rights groups to revoke Modi's visa. We had extensively documented the chief minister's role in orchestrating the 2002 violence against Muslims in Gujarat by retaliatory Hindu mobs. Our reports on the violence in Gujarat, which have been publicly cited by the U.S. Embassy, describe the systematic murder, rape, and displacement of tens of thousands of Muslims under Modi's Hindu nationalist government. In the aftermath of the violence, Human Rights Watch documented the government's use of state security officials to harass and intimidate victims, witnesses and human rights defenders who are fighting to prosecute those responsible. Read more about Gujarat.
Nepal: U.N. Commission Establishes Human Rights Office
Due in part to Human Rights Watch's advocacy, the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) will establish an office in Nepal to monitor human rights abuses. The office will be the second largest OHCHR office in the world, with a detailed mandate to investigate violations of human rights in the country, including in rebel-held territories. Following the February 1 government takeover in Nepal by King Gyanendra, Human Rights Watch reported from Nepal on the civil society crackdown, censorship of the media, and increasing violence against civilians. To press our recommendations at the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, we collaborated with key member states, including Switzerland, the European Union, the United States and India. We also worked with rights colleagues Amnesty International and the International Commission of Jurists to spotlight the crisis. Human Rights Watch recently issued a report highlighting the fact that for the last two years Nepal has led the world in "disappearances." We are now working closely with the OHCHR to ensure the smooth implementation of the office in Nepal and the rapid deployment of human rights monitors to the region. Read more about Nepal.
E.U.: Parliament Adopts Fair Trials
On April 14, 2005, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the Western Balkans incorporating language written by Human Rights Watch on the importance of fair and effective domestic war crimes trials. The section was drafted at the request of a senior member of the European Parliament following our recent advocacy trip to Brussels. In a study of war crimes trials in the Western Balkans, focusing on Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia and Montenegro, Human Rights Watch found that domestic trials suffer from ethnic bias on the part of judges and prosecutors, poor case preparation by prosecutors, inadequate cooperation by the police in the conduct of investigations, poor interstate cooperation on judicial matters, and ineffective witness protection. Human Rights Watch has consistently pressed the European Union to ensure that its relations with the countries of the Western Balkans be conditioned on compliance with human rights benchmarks, and, in particular, international justice standards. Read more about the Western Balkans.
IN THE NEWS:
Darfur Drawn Through the Eyes of Children
On a research mission along the border of Chad and Darfur, Human Rights Watch researchers Annie Sparrow and Olivier Bercault gave children notebooks and crayons to keep them occupied while they spoke with the children's parents. Without any instruction or guidance, the children drew scenes from their experiences of the war in Darfur. See their drawings here, as featured in the New York Times Magazine
Abu Ghraib Was the Tip of the Iceberg
On the one-year anniversary of Abu Ghraib abuse revelations, Special Counsel for Prosecutions Reed Brody, in the Baltimore Sun, calls for the U.S. to prosecute officials at the top who ordered or condoned torture and to repudiate the mistreatment of detainees.
South Africa Must Speak Out on Darfur
In the International Herald Tribune, Geneva Director Loubna Freih and U.N. Advocacy Director Joanna Weschler, urge member states to back U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan's plan to overhaul the U.N. Commission on Human Rights.
Political Opening Needed in Pakistan
Pakistan researcher Ali Dayan Hasan argues in
The Jakarta Post that President General Musharraf, on the dawn of his trip to Indonesia, should learn from that country's transition away from military rule and open Pakistan to the rule of law.
