How Kazakhstan’s Financing Terrorism List Compounds Human Rights Harms
The 29-page report, “Politically Targeted, Economically Isolated: How Kazakhstan’s Financing Terrorism List Compounds Human Rights Harms,” documents that people on Kazakhstan’s Financing Terrorism List face financial restrictions that cause them significant hardship. The restrictions lead to violations of rights guaranteed by the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) to which Kazakhstan is a state party, including the rights to an adequate standard of living and access to work and social security benefits. This is particularly egregious when the prosecutions are for alleged nonviolent “extremist” or “terrorist” crimes, that should not be considered crimes in the first place.
Violations of the Laws of War by All Parties to the Conflict
In the course of less than a year, Liberia has become a human rights disaster. Over half its population has been displaced from their homes, including over 500,000 who are refugees in West Africa. All parties to the conflict have committed grave abuses of human rights against civilians, violating the humanitarian standards governing non-international armed conflict.
Malawi is a land where silence rules. Censorship is pervasive: Orwell, Hemingway, Graham Greene, and Wole Soyinka are among hundreds of authors who have been banned. Dozens of Malawians suspected of critical views are detained without charge or have been unfairly tried.
The first major expression of popular anger in the Soviet Union occurred in the republic of Kazakhstan in December 1986, when thousands of youths took to the streets to protest the appointment by Moscow of Gennady Kolbin as First Party Secretary for Kazakhstan. In the violence that followed, at least three people were killed by government forces and hundreds were wounded.
For the past decade, Colombia has been rocked by political violence that claims thousands of lives every year. Both the Colombian government and the Bush administration have oversimplified the causes of the violence, linking it too readily to drug traffickers and underplaying the role of the military and paramilitary groups.
Starvation as a Weapon and Violations of the Humanitarian Laws of War
Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, is a besieged city. Food supplies are running out, and there is scarcely any fuel and water. The army rules, exercising a wide range of arbitrary powers, requisitioning food at will, and preventing people from trying to ease their plight by searching for food outside the city.
Published in 1990, this 36-page report documents the Kenyan government’s requirement that all ethnic Somalis in Kenya carry identification cards in order to benefit from state services. The Kenyan government claimed the cards were needed to identify “illegal aliens” following the influx of refugees escaping the conflict in Somalia.
Despite a decade of promises by government officials to bring to justice those responsible for gross violations of human rights in El Salvador, the impunity of military officers and death squads members remains intact.
For ten days in May of this year, Ethiopia saw its first significant open civilian opposition for fifteen years, in a series of protests led by students. A wave of strikes was sparked by the government execution of 12 army generals on May 19. Earlier in March, the government had promised political tolerance and pluralism.
The policy of the Greek government with regard to the Turkish minority seems to be, as described by the Minority Rights Group, a "deliberate policy of discrimination with a long-term aim of assimilation." The findings of the Helsinki Watch mission certainly confirm this analysis.
The rule of law is only fitfully respected in Indonesia, the world's fifth largest country. This fact is vital to understanding the conditions of Indonesian prisons. Many of the senior staff of the Directorate of Corrections, the unit of the Ministry of Justice responsible for prisons, are able and concerned people with a clear commitment to prison reform.
Police Acquitted in Killing of Students in Quezaltenango
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.
Policies that Contribute to the Killings (A Middle East Watch Report)
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.