Reports

A Guatemalan appeals court has freed six National Police officers jailed for the 1987 kidnapping and murder of two university students. The appellate court ruling, which overturned the only conviction to date of security force officers for a crime of political violence, underlines the complete impunity with which the Guatemalan authorities commit gross violations of human rights.

This report examines three aspects of Israeli policy that have contributed to the frequency of unlawful killlings of Palestinians during the intifada. These are the open-fire regulations issued to Israeli troops operating in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip that are more permissive than what the internationally recognized standards of necessity and proportionality allow; the inadequate procedures followed by the Israel Defense Force (IDF) to investigate and punish troop misconduct against Palestinians; and the restrictions imposed by the IDF on independent bodies attempting to monitor its conduct in the occupied territories. 

A comprehensive investigation of brutal human rights violations told in chillingly dispassionate style, Human Rights in Iraq describes how the Ba’ath regime subjects Iraqi citizens to forced relocation and deportation, arbitrary arrest and detention, torture, “disappearance,” and summary political execution.

An array of violent human rights abuses committed by public security units have become institutionalized in Mexican society. Americas Watch concludes that this pattern of excessive violence can only mean that either the Mexican government has adopted a policy of tolerating such behavior, or it has lost control over its police, security and prosecutorial agencies.

The Ghanaian government, the Provisional National Defence Council(PNDC), has attempted to crack down on churches and other religious organizations through the imposition of a controversial new law. PNDC Law 221 requires all religious bodies to register with the Ministry of the Interior, so as to make them "accountable" to the government.

A small group of rebel insurgents attacked the Liberian border town of Butuo in late December 1989, killing an undetermined number of soldiers and immigration officials. The government of Liberia responded to the attack with a show of force, sending two battalions to Nimba County, where Butuo is located.

As Cuba approaches the 36th anniversary of its revolution, it is engaged in an extended crackdown on independent peaceful activity and its human rights practices continue to be subject to the whim of the executive. Among the targets of this crackdown are newly-emerged human rights groups, whose establishment in recent years had given the appearance of greater openness in Cuba.

In this report, Asia Watch calls upon the South Korean government to strengthen its commitment to human rights.

Afghanistan has been the scene of some of the most serious human rights violations on record. About one half of the country's prewar population is either in emigration, or internally displaced, or dead. Most of the biolations documented in three previous Helsinki/Asia Watch reports continued in 1987, despite the fact that prospects for peace in 1988 seem brighter than ever before.

This 33-page report by Americas Watch and the National Coalition for Haitian Refugees finds that, far from encouraging political pluralism, the Haitian goverment is stiffling opposotion political parties; shutting down the independent press; attempting to silence the Church; and terrorizing members of the inteligentsia who have attempted to speak out about Haiti's critical economic and social prob

This 25 page report by the National Coalition for Haitian Refugees, Americas Watch, and the Lawyers Committee for International Human Rights examines human rights conditions in 1984, a year when respect for human rights continued to be poor, and in some respects deteriorated significantly.