Amnesty International Report 2004 Updates

Selected by Kabul Press

KP/27/May/ /2004

Brazil
Denunciations of human rights abuses by security forces and armed gangs were numerous in Rio de Janeiro. These included reports of torture, death in custody, extrajudicial execution and "death squad" activity. Heavy-handed attempts to combat drug trafficking gangs in the city led to continued deaths of civilians at the hands of the police and the recommendation to use members of the armed forces in support of the police. Extensive violence continues to surround the issue of indigenous rights as the federal government has failed to address their plight. Prison conditions continued to be a concern as more than 14 prisoners were killed by inmates in Urso Branco, in the state of Rondonia, in April.

United States
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in cases of so-called "enemy combatants" held without charge or trial by the executive. The cases involved some of the hundreds of foreign nationals in Guantanamo Bay and two US citizens held on the US mainland. The Court's rulings are expected later this year. There were 24 executions between January and April 2004. In March, the governors of Wyoming and South Dakota signed into law legislation prohibiting the execution of child offenders. Later this year, the US Supreme Court will revisit its 1989 decision that permits the execution of child offenders -- those under 18 at the time of the crime. Several executions scheduled to take place before the end of June were stayed pending the Supreme Court's decision.

Afghanistan
A new constitution was adopted by the Constitutional Loya Jirga in January 2004. It committed Afghanistan to equality, regardless of gender or ethnicity; to freedom of religion; and to upholding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international treaties and conventions to which Afghanistan is a signatory. AI is concerned at the long-term arbitrary detentions at Bagram airbase and other detention centres run by US military forces. Despite repeated requests, AI has not been permitted to visit detainees at those places and the detainees held there remain in a legal black hole. In late April, the first judicial execution since the fall of the Taleban was reported. Abdullah Shah, a regional commander, was sentenced to death in September 2003 after a trial that clearly violated international standards of fair trial.

Samoa
The Parliament abolished the death penalty for all crimes on 15 January 2004.

India
In Jammu and Kashmir, two human rights defenders belonging to the "Coalition of Civil Society" (CCS), Asiya Jeelani and driver Ghulam Nabi Sheikh, were killed during election monitoring activities on 20 April. In January 2004, tens of thousands of activists from around the world gathered in Mumbai for the World Social Forum (WSF).

New Zealand
Ahmed Zaoui, an Algerian who sought asylum in December 2002, continued to be held in detention as of April 2004 and faces possible deportation because of a national security assessment by New Zealand intelligence services based on secret information. This is despite his being granted refugee status in August 2003.

European Union
The EU admitted 10 new states on 1 May -- the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. AI has concerns relating to the administration of justice; discrimination against minorities, in particular Roma in some of the new EU member states; and the treatment of asylum-seekers. The EU must address more seriously the issue of observance of human rights within its borders.

UK
In March 2004, a Libyan man, known as M, was released from a London high security prison after the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) ruled that the case for detaining him as a "suspected international terrorist" was "not established". He was one of the 14 people detained under the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act (ATCSA) which permits potentially indefinite detention of foreign nationals, who cannot be removed from the UK, principally on the basis of secret "evidence" and allows the use of "evidence" extracted under torture. In April 2004, SIAC also granted bail to another detainee, known as G, since it was persuaded that G's mental and physical health had seriously deteriorated as a result of his detention under the ATCSA. G was released on bail under strict conditions amounting to house arrest.

In March 2004, five UK nationals were released from US custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and returned home. Upon their return to the UK, they were released without charges.

In April 2004, the UK government failed to implement Judge Cory's recommendation to establish an immediate public inquiry into the killing of human rights lawyer Patrick Finucane. Public inquiries were announced into three other cases of alleged state collusion on the part of UK authorities in killings.
Iraq
Details of widespread torture and ill-treatment of Iraqi prisoners by Coalition troops emerged in April and May. AI Secretary General Irene Khan, wrote an open letter to the US President George W Bush on 7 May stating that abuses allegedly committed by military personnel in the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad were war crimes and calling on the administration to fully investigate. Irene Khan also wrote to Tony Blair, on 10 May, asking for a meeting as early as possible to put forward AI's concerns about the UK's role in Iraq. Intensified fighting between Coalition forces and armed groups and individuals opposed to occupation led to the deaths of dozens of civilians in cities, including Baghdad, Falluja, Ramadi, 'Amara, Karbala, Kut, and Nassirya. At least 600 people died in fighting between Coalition forces and insurgents in Falluja in March and April. Half of these are said to have been civilians -- many of them women and children. Nine coordinated attacks by armed groups took place in Karbala and Baghdad on 2 March 2004 as millions of Shi'a Muslims were marking 'Ashoura, (the holiest day in the Shi'a calendar), claiming the lives of more than 100 civilians and injuring over 400. In Basra attacks on 21 April claimed the lives of at least 58 people, many of them children.

Israel/Occupied Territories
On 14 April the US President gave his support to a plan by the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, but to maintain and expand Israeli settlements on occupied territory in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem; to deny the right of return to Palestinian refugees; and to continue construction of the fence/wall inside the West Bank. These plans were condemned as being contrary to international law in a letter to President Bush by Irene Kahn, Secretary General of AI. The Israeli army carried out an extrajudicial execution of Hamas' leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin on 22 March 2004 in the Gaza Strip and his successor Abdel Aziz Rantisi on 18 April. The March attack also resulted in the unlawful killing of seven other Palestinians and the injury of many more.
A suicide attack in Jerusalem on 29 January 2004 claimed the lives of at least ten people and injured scores of others when a man blew himself up in a bus.
Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli nuclear whistleblower, was released on 21 April having served an 18-year prison sentence in full, much of it in solitary confinement. However, the Israeli government placed unprecedented restrictions on him, refusing him the right to travel freely. He is forbidden from leaving Israel and cannot contact foreign citizens without permission.

Iran
Discriminatory gozinesh provisions -- laws used to exclude individuals from employment by the state on grounds of imputed political opinion and association -- were used to exclude thousands of prospective candidates from the 20 February parliamentary (Majles) elections. The same procedures, applied to union members and leaders, have lead to an inability to address escalating labour disputes, including one in Kerman province, in which at least four people were killed in the course of a policing action. Scores of individuals -- often students or labourers -- were detained following demonstrations relating to specific, regional disputes; it is not known whether these arrests led to charges being laid. Similarly, freedom of expression and association remained under attack by the judiciary, as scores of journalists were summoned, charged and imprisoned. In April, Ensafali Hedayat was given a prison term in Tabriz, West Azarbaijan province, a sentence which was upheld in May. In February, Mohsen Mofidi, died following flogging, a sentenced handed down in connection with minor offences. In January, Mohammad Mohammadzadeh, was executed for a murder that he had committed when he was a minor. The execution is believed to be the eighth execution of a child offender in Iran since 1990.

Further information :
Amnesty International Report 2004
Report 2004 Press Pack