Forced Russification of the School System in Occupied Ukrainian Territories
The 63-page report “Education under Occupation: Forced Russification of the School System in Occupied Ukrainian Territories,” documents violations of international law by the Russian authorities in relation to the right to education in formerly occupied areas of Ukraine’s Kharkivska region, and other regions that remain under Russian occupation. Russian authorities have forced changes to the curriculum and retaliated against school staff who refused to make such changes with threats, detention, and even torture. Human Rights Watch also found that occupying authorities threatened parents whose children were learning the Ukrainian curriculum online.
Human Rights Abuses Along the U.S. Border with Mexico
Examining human rights abuses committed by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and its agents during the enforcement of U.S. immigration laws in the four U.S. states that border Mexico, Human Rights Watch finds that beatings, rough physical treatment, and racially motivated verbal abuse are routine during arrests. Unjustified shootings, torture, and sexual abuse, also occur.
The current map of the former Soviet Union is pockmarked with violent conflict, primarily in Transcaucasia, Moldova and Tajikistan. Some of the conflicts are longstanding territorial disputes inherited from the Soviet and pre-Soviet periods; others are born of governmental power struggles that are peculiar to post-putsch politics.
Prisoners in the U.K., which has the highest per capita rate of imprisonment in Western Europe, suffer from unsanitary conditions, extremely poor conditions for remand prisoners, and the lack of useful educational or work activities.
In Andhra Pradesh, one of India’s poorest and least developed states, conflict between government forces and an armed insurgent group known as the Peoples’ War Group, has resulted in massive human rights violations.
This report is the result of an unprecedented joint effort between two leading citizen advocacy organizations: a human rights group, Human Rights Watch; and an environmental group, the Natural Resources Defense Council. As one who has been for 14 years privileged to be involved with both, I have long believed that a cooperative effort such as this one will enhance both causes significantly.
The people of Peru are caught in a deadly crossfire between government forces and a brutal insurgent movement, chiefly Sendero Luminoso, as they battle for control of the country.
In early September 1991, the Indonesian military forced the country's leading newsweekly, Tempo, to kill a story scheduled for the September 7 issue about the plight of young East Timorese workers who had been promised training and high-paying jobs by President Suharto's eldest daughter, Siti Hardijanti Hastuti, better known as Mbak Tutut.
The Transitional Government of Ethiopia, which assumed power in July 1991, has set itself an ambitious agenda for transforming the political structure of Ethiopia and establishing democracy and human rights. The Transitional Charter, the basic constitutional document adopted at the national conference in Addis Ababa in July, incorporates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as supreme law.
Despite insistent denials by senior officials, torture by Egyptian security forces frequently takes place while political and security suspects are held in incommunicado detention. Middle East Watch bases this finding on numerous accounts gathered from residents of cities and towns throughout Egypt regarding incidents that took place from 1989 to early 1992.
Over 70 percent of women in jail in Pakistan report sexual abuse by police officials. Despite the high incidence of rape and sexual torture of female detainees, no police official has been subjected to criminal punishment for these abuses.
On March 1, 1992, King Fahd ibn Abdel-Aziz issued three major laws: the Basic Law of Government, the Consultative Council Law and the Law of Provinces.
The issue of accountability for past human rights abuses gained considerable prominence in the 1980s as unprecedented global political change focused attention on the crimes of ousted regimes. Unlike most of the nations experiencing radical political change and facing accountability issues, however, Sri Lanka’s political system remains intact.
This report focuses on the chronic problem of impunity in Brazil in the context of the struggle over land use and agrarian reform. It highlights four states and concludes that impunity—or government failure to enforce criminal laws, permitting and encouraging further criminal behavior in the context of the struggle for land—exists in these regions and throughout Brazil.
When he took office in January 1990, Czechoslovak President Vaclav Havel spoke out against the impulse for vindictiveness in the wake of over forty years of Communist rule.
The Greek government has taken significant steps to improve conditions for the Turkish minority in Western Thrace during the past year. Ethnic Turks can now buy and sell houses and land, repair houses and mosques, obtain car, truck and tractor licenses, and open coffee houses and machine and electrical shops.