This page is maintained by Margarita
Lacabe. Last updated Sept. 24, 1996.
Sept. 16
(Derechos and Equipo Nizkor) - Derechos and Equipo Nizkor have published, for the first time, "Denunciation of Torture Against Citizens Accused of Armed Uprising," a report by the Commission of Human Rights of the Chamber of Deputies of Bolivia. The report analyzes several cases of torture and human rights violations and names some of the members of the security forces who were alleged to have committed human rights violations. However, the report was never made public. The report, in Spanish, can be found at http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/bolivia/cdh/
(HRW) - Southeast Asia - Human Rights Watch, together with the CITADEL-Electronic Frontier France, Les Chroniques de Cyberie, Canada , Electronic Privacy Information Center, USA, American Civil Liberties Union, USA, cyberPOLIS, USA, Electronic Frontiers Foundation, USA, ALCEI-Electronic Frontiers Italy, Association des Utilisateurs d'Internet (AUI), France, Fronteras Electronicas Espana (FrEE)--Electronic Frontiers Spain, Electronic Frontiers Austin, Texas USA, Digital Citizens Foundation Netherlands--DBNL, Article 19, PEN American Center, and CommUnity, UK, sent a letter to ASEAN members concerning the ASEAN nations agreement of September 4 to collaborate on finding ways to control expression on the Internet. The agreement was announced in Singapore at the close of a meeting organized by the Singapore Broadcasting Authority. Member nations of the ASEAN are Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. The letter stated that contest-based restrictions of online communication violate Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Support was reportedly expressed for Singapore's Internet Code of Practice, which imposes controls on content, including political discussion. HRW has already to the Singaporean government to express its opposition to these regulations.
(HRW) - Indonesia - A Human Rights Watch press release expressed concern about the arrest and possible torture of Gusti Agung Anom Astika and Wilson, leaders of a student-led political organization in Indonesia. They were among seven student activists arrested on Sept. 10, 1996, in Ungaran in central Java. The others were released after they agreed to report regularly to the police. The concerns have been generated because some of their colleagues who were previously arrested were tortured with electric shock and lighted cigarettes while being interrogated. Gusti Agung Anom Astika is the head of the education and propaganda department of the People's Democratic Party (Partai Rakyat Democratik or PRD) and Wilson is secretary-general of the PRD's labor wing, the Center for the Struggle of Indonesian Workers (PPBI).
HRW has called for all embassies in Jakarta to ask the Indonesian government for the whereabouts of the students and for immediate access to them by family members, lawyers, and international humanitarian organizations.
Human Rights Watch, 485 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10017-6104
TEL: 212/972-8400, FAX: 212/972-0905, E-mail: hrwnyc@hrw.org
Sept. 17
(WP) - China - A Chinese student who posted a message on a computer bulletin board that is linked to more than 200 Chinese universities has caused repercussions that ... The message called for a demonstration at the Japanese Embassy in Beijing to protest Japanese actions concerning the Diaoyu Islands, which China, Japan, and Taiwan claim as their own. Word spread and demonstrations took place in Hong Kong while hundreds of thousands of Chinese signed a petition. The Chinese government responded by banishing a leader of the petition drive to a remote province and warned students that permission is needed to hold a public demonstration. Since this incident, computer technicians have been told to monitor the Qinghua University computer bulletin board and delete offensive messages - anything but education or research.
Sept. 18
(Reuters) - Germany - The German government reaffirmed its plan to repatriate 320,000 Bosnian refugees next month despite criticism from the humanitarian groups and the United Nations. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) representative in Germany, Judith Kumin, said that it was too soon to send refugees back.
(WP) - South Africa - Eugene de Kock, a former police colonel convicted last month on 89 counts stemming from his confessed occupation as an assassin during the apartheid era, implicated former president Pieter W. Botha as well as cabinet members and a collection of generals from the 1980s during statements at a sentencing hearing. De Kock stated that the officials either ordered, knew of, or approved of the covert operations that involved killing children, blowing up bodies, and bombing church offices. He is the first high-level white security official to be convicted of apartheid-era crimes. De Kock admitted to participating in the 1987 bombing of the Congress of South Africa Trade Unions (for which he was congratulated by law and order minister Adriaan Vlok), the 1982 bombing of the ANC headquarters in London (for which he received a medal from Louis le Grange, then the law and order minister), raids in 1985 and 1986 on neighboring Botswana in search of ANC operatives, the 1988 bombings of Khotso House and Khanya House, and the 1990 gun-running to the Inkatha movement of Mangosuthu Buthelezi.
(UPI) - USA - Texas - Joe Fedelfido Gonzales was executed today by lethal injection after spending only eight months on death row. Gonzales pleaded guilty to killing William J. Veader in 1992. By waiving all rights to appeal, Gonzales spent less time on death row than any previously executed Texas inmate. Veader, 50, was killed by a single shot to the head in his rental home in Amarillo in 1992. Gonzales was the 107th person to be executed in Texas since the death penalty was reinstated in 1982. Although the Legislature enacted a law to speed up the appeals process in death penalty cases, the process has been delayed by a lack of money to pay lawyers appointed to represent death penalty inmates.
(States News Service) - USA - Illinois - Raymond Lee Stewart was executed today by lethal injection after praying with Cardinal Joseph Bernardin. Stewart was sentenced to death in 1981 for murdering five people. Stewart was the eighth person to be executed in Illinois since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977.
(Reuters) - Kenya - The Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) blamed the government for failing to stop torture, extra-judicial executions, restrictions of movement and theft of land. Spokesman Njuguna Mutahi said that the KHRC was investigating allegations that police tortured seven people accused of robbery in central Kenya. The KHRC noted that although there have no executions in Kenya since 1985, 55 people were sentenced to death in the first six months of 1996.
(Reuters) - Indonesia - Human rights lawyers here complained of harassment by authorities since the riots in Jakarta in July, including attempts to make them provide information against their clients. Legal Aid Institute (LBH) chairman and 1993 winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award Bambang Widjojanto protested to the attorney-general's office against five summonses he had received to be a witness in the investigation of his own clients. Munir, head of the LBH's operations section, reported that LBH offices in Lampung in South Sumatra, Medan in North Sumatra and Surabaya in East Java has all been recent targets of government intimidation. Leading human rights lawyer Johannes Princen's office was searched by nine officials of the attorney-general's office with a search warrant. LBH also complained about police questioning of Nasiruddin Pasigai, head of the Ujung Pandang office, after meeting with Bill Liddle, professor of political science at the Ohio State University. Local reporters who met with Liddle were also questioned by police.
(Reuters) - US/Indonesia - Two senior officials indicated that the US government would go ahead with its sale of nine F-16 fighter jets to Indonesia, despite concerns about human rights abuses by the Indonesian government.
(Reuters) - Australia/Indonesia - Australia's Maritime Union began rolling bans on Indonesian shipping to protest against the arrest of Indonesian labor leaders and the Australian Prime Minister John Howard's unwillingness to press Indonesia on human rights during his visit to Jakarta. Indonesia, Australia's closest Asian trading partner, bought US$ 1.9 billion worth of Australian goods in 1995. Muchtar Pakpahan, leader of the Indonesian Labour Welfare Union (SBSI) was charged with subversion, which is punishable by death, in connection with the July riots in Jakarta. U.S. Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Winston Lord met with Pakpahan in prison on September 13.
(Reuters) - Guatemala - Eighteen officials, including a deputy defense minister and a general were fired for corruption. Military personnel in Guatemala have usually been immune from prosecution, so the arrest of high-level officials is unprecedented. Some of the fired military officers have been linked to human rights abuses, including Gen. Cesar Augusto Garcia Gonzalez, who was linked to a possible cover-up in the 1992 disappearance of Efrain Bamaca, husband of US lawyer Jennifer Harbury.
(Reuters) - China - At the second day of a five-day conference of parliamentarians, participants took the rare opportunity to demand an end to Chinese repression in Tibet. Zhu Qizhen, vice-chairman of the parliament Foreign Affairs Committee, called the remarks warrantless and irresponsible.
(Reuters) Human Rights in China (HRIC), a human rights group based in New York, reported that Zhang Zhong'ai went on trial this week for "pledging loyalty" to authorities in Taiwan. Zhang was indicted on September 3 for spreading "counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement," according to HRIC.
(San Francisco Examiner) - USA- California governor Pete Wilson signed into law the nation's first law requiring sex offenders to be chemically castrated. Under the law, two-time sex offenders convicted of molesting a child under 13 years of age would be required to undergo weekly administration of a chemical that shrinks their testicles. Wilson claimed that chemical castration has been successful in Europe while therapists have pointed out that the chemical castration in Europe is accompanied by intensive therapy, for which the California law has no provisions.
(Reuters) - Europe - The European Parliament adopted a resolution (A4-223/96) condemning torture and any kind of degrading treatment. The resolution also called for member states to address prison overcrowding, condemned racism in all forms, and called for the recognition of the rights of workers to join unions and to strike.
(IPS) - Palestine - Palestinian security forces continue to detain nine West Bank students despite a High Court ruling last month that ordered their immediate release. Will Walsh, a lawyer at the human rights research group, the Mandela Institute, stated that "the government ignores the authority of the courts." The students were ordered released on August 18, when a panel of five Palestinian judges ordered the Palestinian Authority to show cause why the students were being held or immediately release them. The Mandela Institute estimates that 2,000 people have been arrested and released in the two years that the Palestinian Authority has been operating in the West Bank and Gaza. Only 47 cases have been brought before state security courts, usually held in the middle of the night.
Sept. 19
(Reuters) - Europe - The European Parliament condemned the expulsion of illegal immigrants from some member states and urged its members to respect human rights "under any circumstances." The Parliament expressed shock that some returnees had been executed for their beliefs upon returning home. The Parliament also called for a UN investigation into the Indonesian government crackdown on pro-democracy activists on July 27, in which at least five people were killed.
(UPI) - Peru - The Peruvian Congress has summoned three government ministers in its investigation of alleged links between presidential adviser Vladimiro Montesinos and drug trafficking. Montesinos, who was discharged as an army captain and became a lawyer, has previously been accused of corruption and human rights abuses, but has never responded publicly to the charges. Montesinos has been a close adviser to Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori since he was elected in 1990, and is considered the top man in the intelligence service.
(UPI) - Guatemala - The Guatemalan government and leftist rebels signed an agreement in Mexico City today after years of civil war. Entitled "The Strengthening of Civilian Power and the Function of the Army in a Democratic Society," it is considered the final hurdle on the way to a peace agreement. Parts of the agreement call for a 33 percent reduction in the number of armed forces, the elimination of military courts, and the removal of the armed forces from domestic policing. The text of the agreement, in Spanish, can be found at http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/guatemala/acuerdo.txt
(Mainichi Daily News) - Japan/Burma - An estimated 60 Burmese activists marched through the streets of Tokyo on September 18, calling for an end to human rights abuses and military rule in Burma. The march ended at the Burmese Embassy, where protestors demanded the release of all political prisoners and an opening of dialogue between the current government and Burmese Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. Protestors also decried Japanese other southeast asian government's support for Burma's ruling military junta, known as SLORC.
(DPA) - Malawi - A four-man commission was appointed by Malawi President Bakili Muluzi today to investigate the deaths of 11 suspects in a Lilongwe prison in June 1995. Human rights activists have claimed that overcrowding and squalid conditions were the cause of the deaths.
(DPA) - Jordan - Al-Sabeel editor-in-chief Hilmi Asmar was detained in Jordan for publishing an article which accused the authorities of torturing Issam Najjar, an activist with ties to the Palestinian Hamas movement. Hasmar was charged with violating the press and publications law, according to a Jordanian official.
(Canada Newswire) - Canada/South Africa - Under a four-year project sponsored by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), experts from Canada's Department of Justice will work with South Africa's Ministry of Justice to provide court administration and human rights training to judges, magistrates and court personnel.
(BBC) - Comoros - A murderer of a young woman was executed on Tuesday September 17, in front of several hundred people. This is the second execution since Comoran independence in 1975. The condemned man was tried by a religious tribunal, which the Comoran human rights organization SOS Democratie has called illegal and criticized for not having any provision for appeals.
(AFP) - Africa - Leaders from prisons, human rights groups, and humanitarian organizations met in Kampala for a conference on how to improve conditions in African prisons. Overcrowded prisons have been the direct cause of many deaths and the indirect cause of deaths when conditions have caused rioting.
(AFP) - US/Burma - The US is expected to announce within the next week that it will outlaw visas for members of Burma's ruling military junta and anyone who benefits from its rule. Mike Jendrzejczyk, Washington director of Human Rights Watch/Asia, stated that "Clearly the administration wants to use this to demonstrate US concern about the deterioration of human rights in Burma."
Sept. 20
(Reuters) - Bosnia - Bosnian Serb authorities sacked Prijedor police chief Simo Drljaca as requested by NATO. Drljaca had threatened Czech peacekeeping troops in a confrontation on September 16. Human rights workers claim that Drljaca led a campaign of terror and ethnic cleansing against local Moslems and Croats.
(Reuters) - US - The US Defense Department said today that a training manual used at the U.S. Army School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia, suggested that informants could be controlled with fear, beatings, truth serum and death threats. The School of the Americas trains soldiers, officers, and police from Latin American countries. The manuals were also distributed to intelligence schools in several Latin American countries. The Defense Department said that the manuals were used at the School of the Americas from 1989 to 1991 and by trainers in Latin America from 1987 to 1989. Representative Joseph Kennedy, who has sponsored bills in the last three Congressional sessions to close the School of the Americas, called for a full disclosure of the manual.
[Ed: For more information, contact the School of the Americas Watch, P.O. Box 3330, Columbus, GA 31903, (706) 682-5369, http://www.derechos.org/soaw/]
(Reuters) - China - The 96th conference of the Inter-Parliamentary Union ended today with a call to protect human rights, end hunger and stop the death and maiming caused by landmines. Amnesty International's Rory Mungoven praised China for upholding the universality of human rights for women and children.
(Times-Picayune) - US/Indonesia - Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold announced Sept. 19 that it would not renew its political risk insurance policies for its copper and gold mine in Irian Jaya, Indonesia. Calling the move a business decision in the best interest of its shareholders, the announcement came just as World Bank Group's Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, which holds a policy for Freeport's project, was preparing to send of independent investigators to review Freeport's operation. The timing enables Freeport to avoid the scrutiny that MIGA would have brought and has prompted human rights activists to question the timing.
(The Guardian) - UK - The British government is seeking a High Court injunction to prevent a former intelligence officer from revealing his past activities. The officer, who could not be named for security reasons, has challenged his dismissal by MI6. John Wadham, director of Liberty, the civil rights group, plans to take the officer's case to the Employment Appeals Tribunal, and the European Court of Human Rights, if necessary.
(The Daily Telegraph) - UK - Corporal punishment, including caning, should be reinstated immediately, an influential group of Christian educators said yesterday. John Burn, chairman of the Christian Institute, led the group of educators and called for a "fair, judicial and properly regulated system of corporal punishment..." Corporal punishment was outlawed in England in 1986 after a 1982 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights.
(Reuters) - US/Nigeria - Trustees of the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System (KPERS) were to consider a request to divest from companies doing business in Nigeria, including Shell, Mobil, and Chevron. Sonny Scroggins, leader of Bias Busters of Kansas, has asked the board to divest from these companies because they were helping to prop up a government that violated human rights. However, it appeared unlikely that the trustees wold take that into consideration as legislation passed in 1992 that prohibited the trustees from basing their decisions upon anything other than economic considerations.
(The Commerical Appeal) - US - Tennessee - The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis is hosting a human rights film festival today through September 27. The festival, entitled "Power of the Image Film Festival" being shown in conjunction with the museum's 1996 Conference on Freedom and will feature 14 films that deal with human rights issues.
(PROVEA) - The Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued a new decision in the El Amparo case, in which 14 fishermen were massacred in by military commandos in 1988 in Venezuela. Venezuelan courts had absolved the members of the military accused of the massacre. The Inter-American Court urged the Venezuelan government to "continue the investigation of the events related to this case and to punish the responsible parties." In addition, the Court ordered the Venezuelan government to pay damages to the victims' families and pay for legal and court expenses. The Court, however, refused to consider whether the provision of the Military Justice Code that authorizes the President to close an investigation, and which both parties agreed had been applied in this case, violated the American Convention on Human Rights. The families of the victims plan to ask the Inter-American Commission to ask the Court to reconsider this issue.
(AFP) - Turkey - US State Department Spokesman Nicholas Burns expressed US disapproval of the European Parliament decision to block an aid package for Turkey. The US has supported Turkey's military action against the Kurds, which it said is justified to fight terrorism and for security concerns.
(AFP) - Indonesia - The Indonesian National Commission on Human Rights will expand its membership by adding a member from the troubled province of Irian Jaya. The commission was created by President Suharto in 1993 under pressure from human rights groups and other governments to promote the protection of human rights.
Sept. 21
(Reuters) - US - President Clinton angered gay activists by signing into law a bill which gives states the right not to recognize same-sex marriages. Clinton stated that he signed the bill because he has always been opposed to government recognition of same-sex marriages. Although no US state currently recognizes same-sex marriage, the bill was passed out of fear that a court case in Hawaii may result in same-sex marriages being legalized in Hawaii.
(UPI) - Lebanon - Ahmad Hallak was executed today by firing squad after he was convicted of collaborating with Israel and masterminding a 1994 Beirut bombing. The execution was carried out just days after President Elias Hrawi rejected Hallak's appeal. It was Lebanon's sixth execution since a death penalty law was reinstated in 1994.
(Tass) - Ukraine - Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma said Friday September 20 in an address to a conference of Ukrainian judges that it would be premature to abolish the death penalty. He told the conference that a special commission had been formed to study the problem.
(LA Times) - US - The US Senate passed a resolution condemning human rights abuses against Christians around the world. The nonbinding resolution was adopted by unanimous consent on September 17. The Senate also recognized and applauded the World Evangelical Fellowship for declaring September 29 an international day of prayer on behalf of persecuted Christians. A similar resolution has been introduced in the US House of Representatives.
(AFP) - World/China - Participants in the Inter-Parliamentary Union conference in China called for investigations into the cases of 109 parliamentarians who died under suspicious circumstances, were detained, or had denied their freedom of expression. The cases include parliamentarians from Albania, Burundi, Cambodia, Colombia, Gambia, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nigeria, Togo, Tunisia, and Turkey.
Sept. 22
(Reuters) - Turkey - The European Parliament, in a resolution passed on Thursday, Sept. 19, will block hundreds of millions of dollars of aid because of Ankara's lack of progress in human rights. Although Foreign Minister Tansu Ciller said that the decision was biased, human rights activists in Ankara lauded the decision. According to the Ankara-based Human Rights Association (HRA), there were 21 extrajudicial executions and 37 cases of police torture reported in August, compared with 12 and 22, respectively, last year. Akin Birdal, head of the HRA, said that there are 170 people in jail under laws that restrict freedom of expression, up from 90 before December 1995. The case of 100 writers and intellectuals who put their name to a banned publication to protest these laws will be heard in an Istanbul court next week. The indictments earlier this year of 48 police for killing Goktepe and another 10 for the torture of students have given some hope for justice, but the cases are moving very slowly.
(The Observer) - Egypt - In its all-out war against Islamic terrorism, the Egyptian authorities are taking women hostage and torturing them for information about men in their families. Officials admit privately that the degradation of women by arrest, torture, and sexual abuse is intended to pressure the male militants. Amal Farouk, arrested hours after her husband, reported that she has hung from her hands, whipped her with cable wire, kicked her in the stomach and sliced open her back with a razor. While she was being interrogated, she could hear the screams of her husband. After she was threatened with rape, she agreed to sign anything the authorities wanted. Weeks later, when she attended her husband's trial in a military court, her request to tell the court that her confession was extracted under torture was refused for security reasons. When Montasr Sayat, her lawyer, filed a complaint, the authorities responded by taking her back into custody. Jihan Ibrahim Abdel Hamid has been in custody since 1994, accused of helping her husband, who is a suspect in the assassination of Dr. Farag Foda, but she has never been brought before a judge.
(DPA) - Bangladesh - The Bangladesh government declared an amnesty today for thousands of political prisoners imprisoned during the government of former prime minister Khaleda Zia. The amnesty will cover about 40,000 people arrested from March 1994 to March 1996.
(DPA) - Turkey - A seminar on human rights in Turkey will begin Monday September 23 in Mersin. The seminar is scheduled to run for two weeks and will include deputy governors, security chiefs, and gendarmie commanders from Turkey's 26 southeastern and eastern provinces. In the seminar, the participants will review Turkey's compliance with human rights requirements of the United Nations, the Council of Europe, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
(AFP) - Tonga - Journalists attending the Pacific Festival of the Arts faxed King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV of Tonga requesting that two Tongan journalists be released from jail. The Times of Tonga editor, Kalafi Moala and deputy editor Filokalafi 'Akau'ola were jailed for contempt of Parliament.
Copyright 1996 Michael Katz-Lacabe and Margarita Lacabe. This information may be freely distributed (and we encourage you to pass it along) so long as it remains intact.
AFP - Agence France Presse
AI - Amnesty International
AP - Associated Press
BBC - British Broadcasting Company
CTK - Czech News Agency
DPA - Deutsche Presse-Agentur
GNS - Gannett News Service
HRW - Human Rights Watch
IPS - Inter Press Service
LA Times- Los Angeles Times
NYT - New York Times
PROVEA - Programa Venezolano de Educacio'n en Derechos Humanos
UPI - United Press International
WP - Washington Post
This page is maintained by Margarita
Lacabe. Last updated Sept. 24, 1996.