U.S. Policy on Voting Rights in Global Perspective
The 55-page report, “Out of Step: US Policy on Voting Rights in Global Perspective,” examines the laws of 136 countries around the world with populations of 1.5 million and above and finds that the majority—73 of the 136—never, or rarely, deny a person’s right to vote because of a criminal conviction. In the other 63 countries, the United States sits at the restrictive end of the spectrum, disenfranchising a broader swath of people overall.
This report provides an overview of human rights developments since the declation of a 12-month state of emergency on February 9, 1992, after factions of the Algerian participated in a military coup of the government.
As the international community condemned the massacre in East Timor on November 12, 1991 and pressed the Indonesian government to account fully for the killings, other human rights abuses attributed to the Indonesian military went largely ignored.
New lists of prisoners supplied by former inmates and smuggled out of the Tibet Autonomous Region substantially increase the known number of political prisoners in Tibet. In this report, Asia Watch and the Tibet Information Network present the cases of some 275 prisoners with all extant biographical material.
Across northern Iraq, Kurds, freed for now from President Saddam Hussein's grip, have begun revealing the horrors of nearly a quarter of a century of repressive rule. In former Iraqi police stations and prisons, Kurdish officials have discovered torture chambers and execution sites where they say thousands of political prisoners died under torture or were shot in the 1980s.
Abuse of the Legal System Under the PNDC Government
Soon after it came to power, Ghana's ruling Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) established a "revolutionary" court system. Consisting of Public Tribunals which operate within the country's judicial system, this parallel system for the administration of justice has shown a cavalier disregard for normal judicial procedures.
Major human rights violations go far to explain the ouster of Georgian President Zviad Gamsakhurdia. Helsinki Watch hopes that the new rulers of Georgia are mindful of these violations as they consolidate power and establish a new government. There are, however, several disturbing incidents which suggest that this may not be the case.
Over 60 East Timorese, many of them students, remain in detention in Jakarta and Dili, capital of East Timor in the aftermath of the November 12 massacre in Dili in which upwards of 75 demonstrators were killed when Indonesian troops opened fire. All are facing trial, some on criminal charges, some on charges of subversion.
Asia Watch has studied the preliminary report of the National Commission of Inquiry prepared by the seven-person team appointed by President Suharto to investigate the killings in Dili, East Timor on November 12, 1991, when Indonesian armed forces opened fire on unarmed demonstrators.
Helsinki Watch has documented scores of cases of torture in Turkey since 1982, and Turkish lawyers who represent detainees claim that police routinely torture between 80 and 90 percent of political suspects and about 50 percent of ordinary criminal suspects, including children. Nothing Unusual documents the torture of children under the age of eighteen in Turkey.
Human Rights Violations by the Government of Zviad Gamsakhurdia
Helsinki Watch has sent two fact-finding missions to Georgia in recent months that have documented severe violations of human rights on the part of the Gamsakhurdia government, including violations of freedom of speech and the press, violations of the right to free assembly, the imprisonment of political opponents, some of whom have not used or incited others to violence, the torture and mistreatm
The trial of nine Salvadoran army soldiers and officers accused in the November 1989 murders of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter took place in San Salvador on September 26-28, 1991, in front of a host of international observers including Americas Watch.
On November 12, 1991 in Dili, the capital of East Timor, anywhere from 75 to 200 people are estimated to have been killed when Indonesian troops opened fire on a demonstration. The demonstrators were calling for the independence of East Timor, the former Portuguese colony of some 700,000 people on the eastern half of the island of Timor, off the north Australian coast.
A decade ago, on December 4, 1981, the South African government declared that the Ciskei, an arbitrarily defined area in the south east of the country, had joined three other "national states" in receiving "independence." No other state recognizes the independence of Ciskei or of the other homelands.
The Cairo-based Arab Women's Solidarity Association (AWSA) was ordered dissolved by an administrative decree dated June 15, 1991. The action was taken pursuant to the 1964 Law of Associations which regulates private voluntary organizations in Egypt. AWSA actively promotes women's rights in Egypt and the Arab world. The founder and president of AWSA, Dr.
A Personal Statement by Dr Mohamed Mostafa Mandour
Dr. Mohamed Mandour, an Egyptian medical doctor and psychiatrist, was administratively detained by the Egyptian security authorities for sixteen days in February 1991. He was brought from his home after midnight to State Security Intelligence headquarters at Lazoughly, Cairo. He was held there for ten days, from the early morning hours of February 8 until the morning of February 17.
