MINELRES: IHF Annual Report 2002

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Annual Report of the International Helsinki Federation for Human
Rights Documents Continuing, Severe Human Rights Violations Twenty
Years After Organization's Founding

Vienna, 28 May 2002. The International Helsinki Federation for Human
Rights (IHF) today released Human Rights in the OSCE Region: the
Balkans, the Caucasus, Europe, Central Asia and North America, Report
2002. The report describes main human rights developments in 40 member
states of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
(OSCE) in 2001.

The IHF was founded in 1982, based on an appeal by Nobel Laureat
Andrei Sakharov for the formation of an international organization to
support all Helsinki Committees behind the Iron Curtain, particularly
the Moscow Helsinki Group established by Dr. Yuri Orlov. The IHF now
includes 41 Helsinki Committees and Cooperating Organizations, all
independent human rights monitoring groups that work together in the
framework of the Federation.

"What deserves more effort by governments is that the human rights
situation in a number of the participating States of the OSCE,
especially in Central Asia, is deteriorating precipitously, increasing
the threat of terrorism. Many of the basic human rights for which the
Helsinki Committees have campaigned for over 20 years are still under
serious threat despite years of so-called 'transition'. A number of
these rights are also threatened in established democracies of the
region," according to IHF Executive Director Aaron Rhodes.

The Report documents that numerous human rights defenders were
unjustly detained, beaten, and demonized. One of them, Shovrik
Ruzimuradov, a member of the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan, died
in 2001 after having evidently been tortured in detention. In Turkey,
police raided the Ankara office of the Human Rights Foundation of
Turkey and its Diyarbakir rehabilitation center for torture victims.
Charges are still pending against many Turkish human rights activists.

Throughout the OSCE region freedom of expression has been restricted -
ranging from virtual censorship (in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) to
the authorities' failure to grant access to information, or because of
criminal defamation laws, which were used to silence journalists and
often led to self-censorship.

Freedom of expression did not exist in Turkmenistan: a journalist was
quoted saying that "freedom of speech means the chance to use
different positive expressions about Turkmenbashi the Great (i.e.
President Niyazov) and his politics." In Russia, the notorious
"spy-mania" continued. Several persons were on trial for alleged
espionage or revealing state secrets, including Grigory Pasko (former
naval captain and journalist), Igor Sutyagin (researcher on military
issues), Valentin Moiseev (former senior Foreign Ministry official),
and Valentin Danilov (physicist).

While many "traditional" churches already enjoyed or were in the
process of gaining a privileged status (e.g. in Armenia, Belarus,
Macedonia, Moldova, Russia), religious minority communities faced
increasing harassment. Particularly Jehovah's Witnesses were treated
harshly in many OSCE member states (e.g. Georgia). Devout Muslims were
under special scrutiny in the Central Asian OSCE States (Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan).  According to Human Rights
Watch, thousands of Muslims in Uzbekistan have been persecuted on
religious grounds in the last two years. The Uzbek Government has
expanded the repression to include relatives of devout Muslims who
pray in non-state run mosques. Many of the arrested were sent to
Jaslyk prison, also known as the "Camp of No Return", as it is
situated in a former chemical weapons testing area where there is no
vegetation, and where winters are extremely cold and summers burning
hot.

Since the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and
Washington, a number of countries (e.g. Germany, France, Sweden, the
UK and the US) have adopted anti-terrorism laws which, for example,
expand police powers to intrude into the private life of individuals,
provide for violations of the due process standards, or endanger the
rights of asylum seekers and other foreigners. For example, on 13
November 2001, President Bush issued a highly controversial military
order authorizing the use of special military commissions to try
non-citizens accused of supporting or engaging in terrorist acts.

In other countries, for instance Bosnia and Herzegovina, naturalized
citizens from Arabic countries were detained, in some cases stripped
of their Bosnian citizenship and deported to countries where the death
penalty is applied.

One central concern in the field of rule of law was the inability of
courts to administrate justice according to international standards
and within a reasonable time frame. Judicial systems in many countries
in transition were still dependent on the executive or the political
elite. Numerous countries, both in East and West Europe (e.g. Belgium,
Croatia, France, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Turkey, Ukraine and
Slovenia), had huge backlogs of pending cases, which often resulted in
long pre-trail detention periods and other violations of individuals'
rights.

In Ukraine, Moldova and other former Soviet republics, courts remained
under the strong influence of the executive branch, were overloaded
with work and suffered from a lack of funding and staff - all facts
that rendered them vulnerable to political pressure. Some judges
continued to function according to old Soviet norms, prosecutors
enjoyed disproportional powers, and trials were excessively long.
Arbitrary arrests were common (police stations usually did not keep
record of arrests) and people were held in detention for weeks without
court warrant. In Moldova persons deemed as "vagabonds", "beggars" or
those without IDs could be held in custody for 30 days. They were
typically not even informed about the reason for detention. Detainees
were frequently denied access to a lawyer, and confessions extracted
under torture were regularly admitted as evidence. In civil cases
court decisions often remained unimplemented.

Torture and ill treatment by law enforcement officers remained among
the most widespread human rights violations: cases of police violence
were reported from nearly all countries. In some countries it was
almost a routine measure (e.g. in Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine,
Uzbekistan); in others it was often racially motivated (e.g. Austria,
US). In many countries (e.g. Romania, Bulgaria, France, Greece)
unwarranted use of firearms by police officers led to deaths. Even
children fell victim to torture, for example in Kyrgyzstan and Turkey.
Few officers were punished for these abuses, and if they were, they
usually received lenient sentences.

In Uzbekistan, torture and ill treatment were not only used to extract
confessions from detainees, but also to force victims to incriminate
or reveal the whereabouts of others, mostly relatives. Typical forms
of torture included electric shocks, suffocation and sexual abuse.
There were several deaths in custody due to violent abuse, and a total
of 70 political prisoners have reportedly died as a result of police
violence in the country in the last two years.

The death penalty remained in force in many countries. In Tajikistan
(as in other Central Asian OSCE States), the number of issued death
penalties and executions remained a state secret, in violation of
international law. Monitors estimated that over 100 death penalties
were handed down in 2001, and several executions took place. The
number of death penalties increased both due to rising crime rates and
tougher sentencing policies. In Belarus people were executed shortly
after they had turned to the UN Human Rights Committee, expressing
concern over serious violations in the due process standards in the
legal proceedings of their cases.

In Belarus, the fate of "disappeared" people - the opposition leaders
Yury Zakharanka, Viktar Hanchar and Anatol' Krasouski as well as the
journalist Dzmitry Zavadski - was not resolved. The authorities did
not make public the results of their investigations. However, it was
believed that secret squads, commissioned by the government, were
involved in the "disappearances."

Prison conditions remained poor to inhumane in all former socialist
countries. Prisons were centers for the spread of infectious deceases
such as TB, and the lack of adequate medical care led to the deaths of
numerous prisoners. In Turkey, the introduction of the "F-type"
prisons, in which inmates were held in virtual isolation, triggered
hunger strikes: 33 prisoners and 8 relatives died.

Restrictions of association and assembly were common, for example, in
Central Asia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Moldova. Hundreds of
NGOs in Azerbaijan continued to face problems with official
registration by the Ministry of Justice, and most applications for
demonstrations in the Baku city centre were rejected.

In many countries, governments flatly negated that a large part of
their citizens constituted national minorities, a policy that violated
their right to ethnic self-definition: Turkey did not recognize the 20
percent Kurd minority and Greece continued to deny that a Macedonian
minority existed on its territory. Of all minority groups, Roma faced
most problems; in Italy Roma were officially regarded as "nomads", in
Greece and Bulgaria they were frequent victims of police abuse, and
virtually everywhere they faced discrimination in employment and other
sectors of life.

Stringent asylum laws made it practically impossible for individuals
to legally file an asylum claim in any Western European country, and
many were sent back to countries where they faced persecution. Asylum
seekers, including minors, were frequently put into custody. In
addition, the failure to grant access to a legal asylum procedure
contributed to trafficking in human beings. This new form of slavery
increased significantly and involved in particular young women who
were lured mainly from Eastern and South-Eastern Europe as well as the
former Soviet states to Western Europe and other countries, where they
were forced into prostitution and other forms of servitude. The
problem is exacerbated by socio-economic conditions, high levels of
corruption and a lack of appropriate legislative mechanisms.

The 2002 IHF Annual Report is posted on the IHF website and hard
copies are available at the IHF Secretariat.

For further information please contact:
Aaron Rhodes, Executive Director: 
++ 43 - 1 - 408 88 22 or 
++ 43 - (0) 676 - 635 66 12
Brigitte Dufour, Deputy Executive Director: 
++ 43 - (0) 676 - 690 24 57 or 
+ 420 - 732 - 162 936
Henriette Schroeder, Press Officer: 
++ 43 - 1 - 408 88 22 or 
++ 43 - (0) 676 - 725 48 29

___
International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF)
Wickenburggasse 14/7, 1080 Vienna, Austria
Tel. +43-1-4088822-11 Fax +43-1-4088822-50
http://www.ihf-hr.org/