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Human Rights Watch Issues Annual Report
by Jamshed Bokhari
WASHINGTON (IslamOnline) – Human Rights Watch (HRW), a U.S.-based international non-governmental organization (NGO), on Thursday issued its World Report for 2001 documenting cases of human rights violations throughout the world.
As the title suggests, the report addresses violations of human rights committed by governments throughout the world. Virtually no nation has escaped HRW’s wrath.
Countries from the United States to Pakistan to South Africa and those located in the Middle East were included in its report.
In the United States, the report criticized police brutality, state executions, racial profiling and a host of concerns raised in prisoner incarcerations, ranging from racial discrimination to the use of electro-shock therapy to the holding of juveniles in penal facilities designed and populated by adult offenders.
Special emphasis was also placed on events in Chechnya as the watchdog group slammed Russia for widespread human rights violations in the continuing conflict in the region.
Calling the events in Chechnya a “civilian carnage”, the group also condemned the international community for not pressuring the Russian government enough to end both the conflict and the abuses against the population.
Rachel Denber, Deputy Director of the Europe and Central Asia division of HRW, in a conversation with IslamOnline, commented upon such acts as she discussed the use of indiscriminate bombings, provided an example.
“There’s a convoy of refugees trying to drive out to flee [Chechnya], and there’s a bombing campaign going on and the Russian forces know darn well those are refugees and they bomb right near by it anyway,” Denber commented.
She also commented on arbitrary rounding up and detention of civilians, mostly young men, by Russian police forces where allegations of torture are rampant.
Denber added, “They’re beaten and tortured in horrible ways and the only way that they can secure their freedom, secure their release, most of the time is to have the Russian forces extort their relatives for bribes.”
Commenting on high Russian military leadership’s knowledge or prosecutorial efforts on abuses committed by their troops, Denber stated, “The Russian military has done absolutely nothing to convince us that they are holding accountable those people who have perpetrated these atrocities,” adding that, “nobody has been called to account for the major atrocities.”
The human rights group did not spare Middle Eastern governments either, stating that some of the worst violations occurred within the region.
Recognizing the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, the group condemned both Israel’s use of excessive force and abuses of those held in Israeli prisons and violations committed by the Palestinian Authority, including torture of criminal and political detainees and curbs on free speech and the press.
AFP quoted HRW’s report, stating that "investigations in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip in early October revealed a pattern of excessive, and often indiscriminate, use of lethal force by Israeli security forces in situations where demonstrators were unarmed and posed no threat of death or serious injury to the security forces or to others."
The Palestinian Authority (PA) was heavily criticized for arresting those who merely disagreed with PA policy, housing and treating them under abusive conditions.
Despite Egypt’s overturning of a 1999 law restricting NGO freedom, the government of President Hosni Mubarak "intensified its efforts to exercise control over civil society institutions, harassing and restricting the activities of political parties, human rights and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs), professional associations and the press."
The report also noted improved conditions in Iran due to the actions of reformists introducing greater freedoms within society, but stated that their efforts were thwarted by conservatives still in positions of authority that closed newspapers and employed "intimidation, detention, and prosecution" against them.
Although the report criticized Jordan for its violent suppression and ban on public demonstrations following battles between police and protestors after a demonstration in support of Palestinian rights on October 6, it lauded the country for signing a memorandum with the International Labor Organization, pledging to eliminate child labor.
The report criticized Kuwait for its persecution of intellectuals and treatment of foreign workers. Saudi Arabia was not spared for its treatment of foreign workers either as the country was also criticized for not maintaining laws it signed for in the international Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).
Libya was condemned for widespread attacks against black Africans, including a majority of those from Nigeria, this past September, which reportedly also left 50 Sudanese and Chadians dead.
Smita Narula, senior researcher for HRW’s South Asia desk, in a conversation with IslamOnline, stated that while the present military regime in Pakistan was criticized by the organization for political detentions and controls on the judiciary, it was given better marks in attempting to rectify issues such as honor killings and child labor.
However, Narula stated there were concerns that current laws enacted, and international treaties signed, to guard against such actions were given to the international community more in the form of lip service, rather than in actual enforcement.
India, for its part, was slammed for its treatment of both caste and religious minorities, where attacks against Christian priests and churches, as well as the lack of movement concerning bringing those who incited the Ayodhya riots and the sacking of the Babri Masjid, have failed to be properly addressed and rectified.
The human rights group blamed both countries for the increased violence, especially against civilians, in both Pakistan- and Indian-controlled Kashmir.
When questioned about Human Rights Watch’s method of collecting data for its reports, Narula said that the report “comes from onsite investigations, it comes from press reports from our NGO partners in-country,” she said, adding, “it’s a combination and our reports are also based on outside investigations.”
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