The Cruel and Ineffective Criminalization of Unhoused People in Los Angeles
The 337-page report, “‘You Have to Move!’ The Cruel and Ineffective Criminalization of Unhoused People in Los Angeles,” documents the experiences of people living on the streets and in vehicles, temporary shelters, and parks in Los Angeles, as they struggle to survive while facing criminalization and governmental failures to prioritize eviction prevention or access to permanent housing. Law enforcement and sanitation “sweeps” force unhoused people out of public view, often wasting resources on temporary shelter and punishments that do not address the underlying needs. Tens of thousands of people are living in the streets of Los Angeles; death rates among the unhoused have skyrocketed.
On April 8, 1995, senior Mexican army officers invited us to discuss the human rights situation in Chiapas and offered information on the internal investigations conducted by the army into several violent incidents of the 1994 Chiapas uprising of the Zapatista National Liberation Army and its suppression.
By early 1995, the international tribunal established by the U.N. to adjudicate war crimes and crimes against humanity in the former Yugoslavia had indicted 22 individuals for serious violations of humanitarian law, including the crime of genocide.
eginning in June 1994, the government of Iraq issued at least nine decrees that establish severe penalties, including amputation, branding and the death penalty for criminal offenses such as theft, corruption, currency speculation and military desertion.
Haiti faced its first opportunity for genuine, democratic elections since the 1990 contest that brought Pres. Aristide to office with the parliamentary and local elections held on June 25, 1995.
This report — the fourth in a series — documents Russian forces' flagrant human rights violations against the civilian population in the ongoing conflict with Chechen rebels.
Two years after a bloody and devastating civil war, the human rights situation in Tajikistan remains precarious. Since the spring of 1993, refugees and internally displaced persons have returned to their villages in the southern province of Khatlon, from which the largest number of people were displaced following the war.
The U.S. has pursued the development of at least 10 different tactical laser weapons that have the potential of blinding individuals. The existence of most of these programs is not known to the American public, Congress, or even throughout the military, and services responsible for laser weapons seem largely unaware of the programs in research and development in other services.
For the last decade South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal region has been troubled by political violence. This conflict escalated during the 4 years of negotiations for a transition to democratic rule, and reached the status of a virtual civil war in the last months before the national elections of April 1994, significantly disrupting the election process.
International Support for the Perpetrators of the Rwandan Genocide
After a year in exile, the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide have rebuilt their military infrastructure, largely in Zaire, and are rearming themselves in preparation for a violent return to Rwanda.
One year after the genocide began in Rwanda, the crisis continues. Despite calls for justice inside and outside the country, no criminal trials, national or international, have taken place. The Rwandan government is now arresting some 1,500 persons a week, producing life-threatening overcrowding and appalling treatment in the prisons and fostering insecurity among the population at large.
The current epidemic of communal violence--violence involving groups that define themselves by their differences of religion, ethnicity, language or race--is today's paramount human rights problem.
Germany has been confronted with a disturbing escalation in violent crimes against those who are different, and especially those who are perceived as not ethnic German during the period since unification. Racism that is endemic in many societies has exploded in a public way in Germany.
Human Rights Abuses Along the U.S. Border with Mexico Persist Amid Climate of Impunity
U.S. Border Patrol agents are committing serious human rights violations, including unjustified shootings, rapes and beatings, while enjoying virtual impunity for their actions.
One year after the genocide began in Rwanda, the crisis continues. Despite calls for justice, no criminal trials, national or international, have taken place. As of April 1995, the Rwandan government was arresting some 1,500 persons a week, producing life-threatening overcrowding and appalling treatment in the prisons and fostering insecurity among the population at large.
The departure of the last U.N. troops of the Somalia operation in March 1995 marks a critical juncture for Somalia, and for international peacekeeping. In researching this report, we set out to discover what would be left behind when the U.N.