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Deadly Denial
by Human Rights WatchThis 57-page report found that routine police harassment and arrest - as well as the lasting effects of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's 2003 drug war - keeps drug users from receiving lifesaving HIV information and services that Thailand has pledged to provide. The report also documents how drug users face discrimination from health care workers, who continue to deny antiretroviral treatment to people who need it based on their status as drug users.
Decades of Disparity
by Human Rights WatchThis 20-page report says that adult African Americans were arrested on drug charges at rates that were 2.8 to 5.5 times as high as those of white adults in every year from 1980 through 2007, the last year for which complete data were available. About one in three of the more than 25.4 million adult drug arrestees during that period was African American.
Decisions Denied
by Human Rights WatchThe 85-page report, "Decisions Denied: Women's Access to Contraceptives and Abortion in Argentina," documents how judges, doctors and health workers prevent women from making independent reproductive decisions in violation of women's internationally recognized human rights. The report also exposes some of the detrimental effects of domestic violence on women's reproductive health. The Argentine government has not done enough to remedy these abuses and their effects on women's health, Human Rights Watch said. Women's severely limited access to safe and legal abortions in Argentina is inconsistent with international law because it threatens the rights to life, health, equality, privacy, physical integrity, and freedom of religion and conscience. Amid continuing barriers to contraception, an estimated 40 percent of all pregnancies end in an illegal and therefore unsafe abortion in Argentina today. The consequences of illegal abortions have been the leading cause of maternal mortality for two decades. Human Rights Watch called on the Argentine government to protect women's human rights to health, life, nondiscrimination, privacy, physical integrity, information, freedom of religion and conscience, equal enjoyment of rights, equal protection under the law, and the right to make decisions about the number and spacing of children.
Demolished
by Human Rights WatchThis report, based largely on published Chinese-language sourcesincluding press accounts, Internet discussions, expert commentary, and government laws, regulations, and statementsdetails the problems many Chinese citizens face as they are evicted from their homes, sometimes violently, by state and private actors. Many of these forced evictions violate basic human rights protections in both Chinese and international law. The report also provides an overview of current eviction and demolition practices in Chinas cities, the regulations governing such practices, and the parties involved. It traces the emergence over the past several years of a vibrant tenants rights movement and the governments recent crackdown on some of the leading figures. The issue of forced evictions in China has begun to receive attention in official circles, and has even prompted a constitutional amendment, but significant hurdles remain. If the deficiencies in implementation of laws are not remedied and rights of evictees not upheld, eviction practices can be expected to serve as a continuing source of high profile social unrest and at times extreme forms of protest. In Beijing, the clearing of new sites for Olympics venues likely will continue to be a flashpoint.
Discrimination, Denial, and Deportation
by Human Rights WatchThis 22-page report describes how discrimination and human rights abuses faced by migrant populations result in increased vulnerability to HIV infection and barriers to care and treatment.
Divorced from Justice
by Human Rights WatchThe Egyptian government has created two widely disparate systems for divorce, one for men and one for women. Egyptian men have a unilateral and unconditional right to divorce. They never need to enter a courtroom to end their marriages. Egyptian women, on the other hand, must resort to Egypt's notoriously backlogged and inefficient courts to divorce their spouses. In the courts, women face procedural and evidentiary hurdles to divorce that are inherently discriminatory. Men, who can divorce their spouses at will with an oral renunciation later registered by a religious notary, can simply sidestep these procedures. Obtaining a divorce can also take years as men manipulate the many defenses and tactics Egyptian law reserves only for them. As a result, many Egyptian women, like Amira Ahmad, avoid the courts and are left with two equally distressing options: either remain in an unwanted marriage and possibly endure physical and psychological abuse, or beg their husbands to divorce them, giving up everything they own and cherish in return. The consequences of this two-tiered system are often financially and emotionally devastating for women. In some cases, they can be life-threatening.
A Dose of Reality
by Human Rights WatchGovernments around the world have done far too little to combat the entrenched, chronic abuses of women's and girls' human rights that put them at risk of HIV. Misguided HIV/AIDS programs and policies, such as those emphasizing abstinence until marriage, ignore the brutal realities many women and girls face. By failing to enact and effectively enforce laws on domestic violence, marital rape, women's equal property rights, and sexual abuse of girls, and by tolerating customs and traditions that subordinate women, governments are enabling HIV/AIDS to continue claiming the lives of women and girls. Human Rights Watch has interviewed hundreds of women and girls living with HIV around the world. This briefing paper focuses on the links between HIV/AIDS and abuses of women's and girls' human rights.
Double Standards
by Human Rights WatchWomen's rights to property are unequal to those of men in Kenya. Their rights to own, inherit, manage, and dispose of property are under constant attack from customs, laws, and individuals including government officials who believe that women cannot be trusted with or do not deserve property. The devastating effects of property rights violations including poverty, disease, violence, and homelessness harm women, their children, and Kenya's overall development. For decades, the government has ignored this problem. Kenya's new government, which took office in January 2003, must immediately act to eliminate this insidious form of discrimination, or it will see its fight against HIV/AIDS (human immuno-deficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome), its economic and social reforms, and its development agenda stagger and fail.
Egypt
by Human Rights WatchOn October 7, 2004, a massive car-bomb wrecked the Taba Hilton hotel located on the Egyptian-Israeli border. There were two smaller bombings later that night at nearby tourist campsites. The attacks killed more than thirty and wounded more than one hundred. Most of the victims were tourists, many of them Israelis, as well as Egyptian hotel staff. Initial speculation by Egyptian and Israeli authorities focused on al-Qaeda or other international groups that have carried out large-scale attacks against civilians. But just over two weeks later, on October 25, Egypt's Ministry of Interior announced that it had identified nine persons responsible for the attacks, all from the North Sinai area: five were in custody, two had been killed carrying out the attack, and two remained at large. Meanwhile, around October 13, Egypt's State Security Investigation service (SSI) began a campaign of mass arbitrary arrests in and around al-`Arish, the government and commercial center of North Sinai, apparently as part of its investigation into the Taba attacks. These arrests continued unabated after the October 25 announcement through early December. Egyptian human rights groups said that security forces had rounded up as many as three thousand persons, including several hundred persons detained solely to secure the surrender of wanted family members.
Egypt
by Human Rights WatchThis report documents serious human rights violations by Egyptian security officials during and following large demonstrations in Cairo on March 20 and 21, 2003 against the U.S.-led war in Iraq. These violations included: excessive use of force in disbursing demonstrators and bystanders on March 21 in violation of the right to freedom of assembly; arbitrary arrest and detention, including of children; beatings and mistreatment of persons in detention, in some cases amounting to torture; and failure to provide medical care to seriously injured detainees.
Empty Promises
by Human Rights WatchThis report analyzes the use of diplomatic assurances by governments and commentary on their use from the U.N. system, North America, and the Council of Europe region. It includes Human Rights Watchs research on several cases that involve the use of diplomatic assurances. The report examines cases in which courts have ruled on the adequacy of such assurances, frequently finding that diplomatic assurances are not an effective safeguard against torture. The report highlights returns or proposed returns based on diplomatic assurances from Austria, Canada, Georgia, Germany, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom, and the United States to countries where torture is a serious or systematic human rights problem, including Egypt, Philippines, Russia, Sri Lanka, Syria, and Uzbekistan. This is not an exhaustive survey, but reflects relevant information available to Human Rights Watch indicating inherent problems and dangers with respect to the use of diplomatic assurances and how select legal systems have addressed the use of such assurances.
'Enduring Freedom' Abuses by U. S. Forces in Afghanistan
by Human Rights WatchOn Afghan soil, the United States is maintaining a system of arrests and detention as part of its ongoing military and intelligence operations that violates international human rights law and international humanitarian law (the laws of war). In doing so, the United States is endangering the lives of Afghan civilians, undermining efforts to restore the rule of law in Afghanistan, and calling into question its commitment to upholding basic rights.
Failure to Protect
by Human Rights WatchOn March 17 and 18, 2004, violent rioting by ethnic Albanians took place throughout Kosovo, spurred by sensational and ultimately inaccurate reports that Serbs had been responsible for the drowning of three young Albanian children. For nearly forty-eight hours, the security structures in Kosovo-the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR), the international U.N. (UNMIK) police, and the locally recruited Kosovo Police Service (KPS)-almost completely lost control, as at least thirty-three major riots broke out across Kosovo, involving an estimated 51,000 participants.
Fanning the Flames:How Human Rights Abuses are Fueling the AIDS Epidemic in Kazakhstan
by Human Rights WatchHuman rights abuse against injection drug users and sex workers in Kazakhstan is fueling one of the fastest growing AIDS epidemics in the world, Human Rights Watch said in this new report.The 54-page report, "Fanning the Flames: How Human Rights Abuses are Fueling the AIDS Epidemic in Kazakhstan," documents instances of violent police brutality, lack of due process, harassment and stigmatization that drive drug users and sex workers underground and impede their access to life-saving HIV prevention services.Routine and sometimes violent harassment of injection drug users and sex workers by the police adds to their already marginal status in Kazakhstan. Drug users may be arrested for possession of very tiny amounts of narcotics, police find it easy to pin false charges on them, and they are convenient targets when arrest quotas need to be filled.
Fleeting Refuge
by Human Rights WatchIn recent years the Netherlands has successfully tailored its asylum policies and practices with an eye toward stimulating efficiency in decision-making and deterring manifestly unfounded claims. As a result, requests for asylum are dramatically lower while the percentage of applications processed in accelerated procedures has significantly increased. But as this report details, the Dutch government has pursued its new asylum policies at the expense of fundamental asylum and refugee rights. After three months of research into Dutch asylum policies, Human Rights Watch has identified three areas of particular concern: violations of refugee and asylum rights in the accelerated procedure; inappropriate treatment of migrant children; and restrictions on asylum seekers' rights to basic material support, such as food and housing. This report elaborates these concerns and identifies measures the Dutch government should take to address them.
Flight From Iraq
by Human Rights WatchThis report documents the plight of refugees and other non-nationals in Iraq after the fall of the government of Saddam Hussein on April 11, 2003. As of April 30, 2003, more than 1500 people, of whom some 560 were Palestinians had fled Iraq for Jordan, where they were being held in refugee camps in difficult conditions at the border. For a variety of reasons, all foreigners, but particularly Palestinians, are especially vulnerable to abuse by segments of the Iraqi population in U.S. occupied Iraq. In research in Baghdad and two refugee camps in Jordan, Human Rights Watch documented harassment and insecurity amongst many nationalities of foreigners in Iraq. Human Rights Watch also documented physical threats against and forced evictions of Palestinians by Iraqis who expressed resentment for the preferential treatment afforded Palestinians under the Saddam Hussein government.
Forced Apart
by Human Rights WatchThe 64-page report uses data from 1997 to 2007 from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to evaluate the effects of sweeping deportation laws passed in 1996. It shows that some of the most common crimes for which people were deported were relatively minor offenses, such as marijuana and cocaine possession or traffic offenses. Among legal immigrants who were deported, 77 percent had been convicted for such nonviolent crimes. Many had lived in the country for years and were forced apart from close family members.
Forced Apart
by Human Rights WatchThis 88-page report is the first comprehensive assessment of the deportation of non-citizens with criminal convictions and the impact on families and communities in the US. The mandatory deportation of legal immigrants convicted of a crime, even a minor one, has separated an estimated 1.6 million children and adults, including US citizens and lawful permanent residents, from their non-citizen family members. Many of those deported arrived in the US as children and were lawful permanent residents who had lived legally in the country for decades.
Forgotten Fighters
by Human Rights WatchAn agreement reached between government armed forces and the largest opposition group, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola, UNITA), brought peace to mainland Angola in April 2002. Some 100,000 adult combatants from UNITA moved with their families into quartering areas. Five thousand of these were integrated into the national police and armed forces; the rest into a formal demobilization program. Most adult fighters eighteen and older received demobilization and photo identification cards, a travel authorization certificate, a five-month salary based on military rank, and food assistance. They are also to receive a transport allowance and a reinstallation kit upon return to their home communities. But boy and girl soldiers, seventeen and younger, were not included in the demobilization program and received only an identification card and food aid distributed by the international community to family units attached to the soldiers.
Forgotten Schools
by Human Rights WatchThe South African government is failing to protect the right to a primary education for children living on commercial farms by neither ensuring their access to farm schools nor maintaining the adequacy of learning conditions at these schools. This violates South Africa's 1996 South African Schools Act (Schools Act), the National Education Policy Act, and its obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Receiving an education is compulsory for all children up to grade nine or age fifteen, depending on whichever comes first. The historical, social and economic conditions on commercial farms, inherited from years of an undemocratic minority government, mean that farm schools public schools on private commercial farms, which constitute 13 percent of all state-funded schools and provide education to about 3 percent of learners in the public school system are among the poorest in financial resources, physical structure and quality in South Africa. Farm children may attend schools without electricity, drinking water, sanitation, suitable buildings or adequate learning materials. Also, children may face harassment from farm owners.
Future Forsaken
by Human Rights WatchThis 209-page report documents how many doctors refuse to treat or even touch HIV-positive children. Some schools expel or segregate children because they or their parents are HIV-positive. Many orphanages and other residential institutions reject HIV-positive children or deny that they house them. Children from families affected by AIDS may be denied an education, pushed onto the street, forced into the worst forms of child labor, or otherwise exploited, all of which puts them at greater risk of contracting HIV.
Getting Away with Torture? Command Responsibility for the U.S. Abuse of Detainees
by Human Rights WatchThe report, Getting Away with Torture? Command Responsibility for the U.S. Abuse of Detainees, is issued on the eve of the first anniversary of the publication of the Abu Ghraib photos (April 28). It presents substantial evidence warranting criminal investigations of Rumsfeld and Tenet, as well as Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, formerly the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Gen. Geoffrey Miller the former commander of the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Human Rights Watch said that there was now overwhelming evidence that U.S. mistreatment and torture of Muslim prisoners took place not merely at Abu Ghraib but at facilities throughout Afghanistan and Iraq as well as at Guantánamo and at "secret locations" around the world, in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the laws against torture. Despite this evidence, Human Rights Watch said, the United States has deliberately shielded the architects of illegal detention policies through the refusal to allow an independent inquiry of prisoner abuse and the failure to undertake criminal investigations against those leaders who allowed the widespread criminal abuse of detainees to develop and persist. Rather, the Department of Defense has established a plethora of investigations, all but one in-house, looking down the chain of command. Prosecutions have commenced only against low-level soldiers and contractors. Human Rights Watch requested the appointment of a special prosecutor, saying that because Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was himself deeply involved in the policies leading to these alleged crimes, he had a conflict of interest preventing a proper investigation of detainee abuse. U.S. Department of Justice regulations call for the appointment of an outside counsel when such a conflict exists and the public interest warrants a prosecutor without links to the government.
Hated to Death
by Human Rights WatchJamaica's growing HIV/AIDS epidemic is unfolding in the context of widespread violence and discrimination against people living with and at high risk of HIV/AIDS, especially men who have sex with men. Myths about HIV/AIDS persist. Many Jamaicans believe that HIV/AIDS is a disease of homosexuals and sex workers whose "moral impurity" makes them vulnerable to it, or that HIV is transmitted by casual contact.
Hearts and Minds
by Human Rights WatchThis report documents and analyzes civilian deaths caused by U.S. military forces in Baghdad since U.S. President George W. Bush declared an end to hostilities in Iraq on May 1, 2003. It is based on research in Baghdad from September 18-30, and follow-up research on October 5 and 9. During that time, Human Rights Watch interviewed the witnesses to civilian deaths, family members of the deceased, victims who were non-lethal casualties, Iraqi police, lawyers and human rights activists, U.S. soldiers, officers from the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General's office (JAG) and members of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), responsible for governing Iraq.
Hidden in the Mealie Meal
by Human Rights WatchWhile acknowledging the significant overall progress made by the Zambian government in scaling up HIV treatment generally, this report documents how the government has fallen short of its international legal obligations to combat violence and discrimination against women. The report details abuses that obstruct women's ability to start and adhere to HIV treatment regimens, including violence against women and insecure property rights that often force women into poverty and dependent, abusive relationships.