 | Non-violent
political prisoners - AI reports
that men and women are being imprisoned in 78 states purely because of their political
beliefs, skin color, origin, language, religious belief or sex. |
|
Unfair
trials carrying long prison terms were
uncovered by AI in 35 states. |
| Imprisonment
without a trial or
hearing culminating in loss of liberty or work in labor camps was a reality for hundreds of
thousands of people in 66 countries. |
|
Political
murder carried out by the military, police and
paramilitaries took place in 47 countries. |
|
"Disappearances"
of people after being arrested was reported by AI in 37 states. |
| Torture
and abuse was
established by AI in 125 nations. Death in custody as a direct result of
this was a reality in 51 countries. |
| The death
penalty was carried out in 37 nations
on 1625 people, over a thousand of these in China alone. 3899 sentences of
death were handed down in 78 countries. Nonetheless, the overall picture is
improving: 105 nations have abolished capital punishment or have not
executed any one in the past 10 years. This is the highest number in the
history of humanity. |
|
Hostage
taking,
torture and political murders by armed
political groupings was horrible reality in 37 countries. |
Johannes Metzler, in: die tageszeitung vom 17.06.99
Only small steps made
Amnesty International
publishes its annual report. China, Iran, Congo and the US criticized over death
"I am free today only because
of international public pressure", says Ngarléjy Yorongar le Moiban. The
opposition member from Tschad was arrested and sentenced to three years
imprisonment for 'defamation' after voicing criticism about the state's
leadership. Quick action on the part of the human rights organization, Amnesty International, resulted in the state
president being inundated with protest letters, which eventually led to his release at the
beginning of the year.
Around 700 other actions of this kind took place last year involving around 80,000
participants, and in over a third of all cases their commitment led to success.
And this was the position presented by the organization yesterday in Bonn. While a
'decisive
breakthrough' has not yet been achieved on human rights, there have been
'a number of steps in the right direction', says Barbara Erbe, press
spokesperson for the German AI section. Nonetheless, in almost 80 nations people
were still being imprisoned for their belief, and in a further 50 people were
being executed at random by the state. In 37 nations, people with alternative
opinions have a tendency to 'disappear' at short notice. Torture, abuse and rape were
still part of everyday life in many areas. AI was particularly critical of the
situation in parts of Africa, Asia and in Kosovo.
Erbe also pointed to the fact that human rights violations were changing. Instead
of being carried out mainly behind prison walls, violations were now being
carried out in the public gaze.
The report also focuses on the issue of the death penalty. AI counted 1,625
executions worldwide, the majority of which were carried out in China. AI was
also biting in its criticism of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran and the
USA. Taken together, these three countries are responsible for one third of death sentences
actually carried out worldwide. AI is demanding postponement of all
executions for the year 2000. Indeed, countries no longer using capital punishment
are
already in the majority.
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Peter Nonnenmacher, in: Stuttgarter Zeitung vom 17.06.99
Human Rights walked all
over
Despite several incidents
of "historical progress" in the fight against human rights violations,
the vast majority of perpetrators are getting away with their crimes,
emphasized the human rights organization, Amnesty International (AI), yesterday
in London during a statement marking the publication of its annual report for 1998.
Amnesty International registered a
series of extremely worrying human rights violations being perpetrated by governments and
opposition groups in almost all of the world's nations and states - 142
altogether. Kosovo is at the top of the current list of violations, where, over
the past few months (AI's report all includes the first half year 1999), events
have been taking place quickly. Amnesty criticized the violent expulsion of
hundreds of thousands of Kosovo-Albanians. Often watching on helplessly as their
houses are seized and burnt down, they are also being "killed, raped, and
tortured.
Amnesty did, however, register a certain amount of progress internationally in the
protection of human rights, which can be put down to increasing pressure on
governments. Included in this progress is the agreement from July 1998 to set up
an international criminal court and the decision to arrest of the former Chilean
dictator
Augusto Pinochet by the British in October last year. Zambia and South
Africa's entry into the anti-torture convention, China's signature to the
international Civil Rights Charta, the release of political prisoners in South
Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, East Timor, Syria, Morocco and Kuwait, as well as the
restriction of the death penalty by half a dozen countries were all praised in
AI's report. Yet despite this progress, Amnesty was scathing about the ongoing
disregard of elementary rights in many countries. The worse examples were to be
found in the regions located next to the great lakes in Africa, Angola,
Afghanistan, Algeria and Columbia, each with thousands of victims of violence among their civilian populations.
And Amnesty International is less than satisfied with the situation in
Europe. AI reports abuse being carried out on members of ethnic minorities and asylum
seekers in Germany, France and Switzerland. (...)
As part of a new initiative, Amnesty International wants to make inroads into the
problem of capital punishment worldwide. "The willful execution of defenseless
people should not be justified by any society", said AI's
general secretary, Pierre Sane. Amnesty accuses the USA in particular of
seriously ignoring human rights, with its insistence of holding on to the death penalty.
It also accuses the US of using capital punishment in a "random,
unfair and racist way. Moreover, ten people have been executed in the USA since
1990, who were still classed as juveniles at the time the offence was committed. According to AI, a total of 900 prisoners have been
sentenced to death in Russia: We are still waiting for the Russian government to fulfill its promise
of April 1998 to
abolish capital punishment.
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