TORTURE, INVOLUNTARY DISAPPEARANCES, VIOLATIONS OF FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION DISCUSSED BY COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS
Press Release
HR/CN/783
TORTURE, INVOLUNTARY DISAPPEARANCES, VIOLATIONS OF FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION DISCUSSED BY COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS
19970401 (Reproduced as received; delayed in transmission.)GENEVA, 27 March (UN Information Service) -- A series of national delegations and non-governmental organizations addressed the Commission on Human Rights this afternoon on matters related to the human rights of detainees and prisoners, in some cases making allegations of torture.
In a meeting that ended abruptly around 5:15 p.m. when the room filled with smoke and was cleared by security guards, others denounced disappearances, violations of freedom of expression, and abuses of the human rights of children held in detention.
Several, including those representing the United States, the Transnational Radical Party, and the International Peace Bureau, urged the Commission to do more to discourage countries known to commit or allow torture, some of whom were members of the Commission.
The observer for Switzerland said that on the subject of torture the Commission could not weaken human rights by engaging in "semantics" -- torture should be banned, without exception. And a delegate of Brazil said the country believed that for an optional protocol to the Convention against Torture to be effective, investigative missions should be allowed to countries without their consent.
Delegates from the following countries addressed the meeting: Denmark, Brazil, Bhutan, Austria, United States, Senegal, Norway and Switzerland.
Representatives of the following non-governmental organizations (NGOs) also delivered statements: International Progress Organization; Franciscans International; African Commission of Health and Human Rights Promoters; Transnational Radical Party; International Peace Bureau; International Association of Democratic Lawyers; Center for Justice and International Law; International Association Against Torture; American Association of Jurists; International Federation of Human Rights; World Council of Churches; Centre Europe - Tiers Monde; and International Human Rights Association of American Minorities.
Statements
SHEENA JOICE, of the International Progress Organization, said detention, whether by State or non-State agencies, left open the opportunity for torture; imprisonment of the mind, particularly a child's mind, was the worst kind of torture conceivable; she had been horrified to read that in some schools in Pakistan, children were kept chained and deprived of any modern learning. When the State needed to detain people for crimes committed, it must provide education and resources and treat them as human beings; the international community must set standards for this and provide resources for poor countries so that they could improve their penal and legal systems. Where detention and torture were invisible and a function of religious or social norms, the international community must take the lead in singling out societies which indulged in such practices; through a process of persuasion, these States must be encouraged to shed old ways in favour of new modes of living that protected the rights particularly of people in the weaker and more vulnerable sectors of society.
OMAR FERNANDEZ, of Franciscans International, said there was the practice of arbitrary detention persisted around the world. People were being deprived of their liberty for trying to obtain their human rights. In many countries, powers were granted to the executive bodies which had led to legislation harmful to the international framework of human rights. An example of this was terrorist legislation in Colombia and Peru. People in the two countries were accused of terrorism and detained under these laws for exercising their legitimate rights to engage in political opposition or to strike. Detainees were not guaranteed a fair trial under these laws. Secret witnesses and secret jurisdictions resulted in the criminalization of social protest. In Colombia, activists were detained for months and years, after which judges decided to drop cases with no compensation for the suffering caused. The Commission should continue to follow-up on anti-terrorist and emergency legislations.
MARTINE BECKERS, of the African Commission of Health and Human Rights Promoters, said the Special Rapporteur on Rwanda had called for establishment of a special fund to provide substantial assistance to the victims of genocide; after having been watched by the world community during the unspeakable events of 1994, the survivors of the genocide had simply been forgotten. They were still suffering; their sufferings were so deep, so overwhelming, that they could not even demand justice; they were without families, they had unbearable mental suffering, many of them were seriously injured. Meanwhile human-rights associations were having trouble functioning effectively in the field because of difficulties and constraints imposed on them; among those affected were organizations trying to help victims of torture. The victims deserved justice, reparation, individual apologies, and immediate medical, psychological, and social assistance. The Commission must
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further call on countries to fulfil their international responsibilities in pursuing those suspected of carrying out the genocide.
WEI SHANSHAN, of the Transnational Radical Party, said her brother, Wei Jingsheng, was a political prisoner in China, which, like a number of countries, had improperly used the concept of "endangering state security" as a way of punishing those who exercised free expression. Her brother had been sentenced in 1979 to 15 years' imprisonment; less than six months after his release in 1993, he disappeared at the hands of Public Security Bureau agents and for 20 months was held incommunicado until in December 1995 he was charged with "conspiracy to subvert the Government" for "crimes" which included "publishing anti-Government articles abroad", discussing the "struggle" with friends, and raising money for victims of political persecution. He was sentenced to 14 more years' imprisonment; she was speaking about him because he symbolized the fate of numerous pro-democracy, religious, and labour activists who dared to exercise free speech and were punished; all he had done was write articles and express in a peaceful manner his opinion about necessary reform of the Government. The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression must continue their investigations in China, and the Commission must denounce such Governments who used the legal system for such repression.
ERIK HOLST (Denmark) said there was a critical need for action on the effective implementation of principles of medical ethics in order to underline the duty of health professionals to provide prisoners and detainees with protection of their physical and mental health and treatment of disease of the same quality and standard as that afforded to people not imprisoned or detained. It was a contravention of medical ethics for health personnel to apply their knowledge and skills in order to assist in the interrogation of prisoners and detainees in a manner which might adversely affect the physical and mental health or condition of such prisoners or detainees. It was also a contravention to certify the fitness of prisoners and detainees for any form of treatment or punishment which might adversely affect their physical or mental health. Yet there were many examples of physicians who had been directly involved in torture or in surgical mutilations like amputations. In many situations, associations of health professionals were unable or discouraged from providing effective protection of members who tried to uphold principles of medical ethics. The United Nations had also failed to protect these health professionals. The Commission should consider ways to ensure full respect the principles of medical ethics and envisage sanctions against individuals and institutions who failed to respect the rights of health professionals.
ANTONIO LUIS ESPINOLA SALGADO (Brazil) said his delegation endorsed the view of Special Rapporteur on torture that his mandate not only authorized him to investigate cases of torture, but also enabled him to take up cases of
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corporal punishment. Brazil believed that for an optional protocol to the Convention against Torture to be effective, any field missions had to be carried out without the consent of the State to be visited each time. Brazil also welcomed the announcement by the Chairman of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention that the group would from now on avoid the use of words that could be interpreted in a wrong way. Brazil had enacted a law on disappeared persons which contained a list that officially recognized 136 persons as dead and opened the way for the inclusion of others. Under the law, compensation had been provided in relation to an additional 85 missing people not included in the list of 136. These measures attested to the willingness of the Brazilian Government to improve the observation of human rights, in particular detention conditions.
KARMA T. RINCHHEN (Bhutan) said his country had been the first to extend an invitation to the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to investigate a case involving a single person. The group had concluded it was not a case of arbitrary detention. Bhutan expressed its satisfaction and gratitude to the members of the Working Group for their very valuable advice and constructive criticism which brought about several positive changes. Bhutan's only complaint was the reference in the Working Group's report to the people in the refugee camps in Nepal as Bhutanese. The identity of those people was the subject of discussions between the Governments of Nepal and Bhutan.
ELIZABETH SCHIEFERMAIR (Austria) said in many States, children and juveniles were at times deprived of their liberty without due process and for indeterminate periods of time, and that in often abysmal conditions. These children were frequently vulnerable victims, suffering all forms of exploitation. Notwithstanding existing international standards such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Austria had taken the initiative, in collaboration with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Children's Fund and the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Division, to organize an international expert meeting to promote the effective use and application of international standards and norms in juvenile justice in Vienna in February. The pooling of resources of different United Nations bodies was in line with the overall thrust of reform of the United Nations system in the economic and social fields. A new global partnership should involve advancing sustainable development in ways that would place people, including children, at the centre of development.
CRAIG KUEHL (United States) said torture was a coward's practice and insulted the values every member of the Commission was pledged to keep. It was difficult to look out across the room and see Governments which were members but looked the other way while their policemen and soldiers engaged in torture. When asked why, they always said, "You don't understand". But they should stop torturing their own people, should let their journalists and dissidents go free. And what of the Commission? How long would it continue
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to coddle such regimes, which tortured their own people; should it make excuses once again, or pretend that it did not see? The United Nations Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture was a very effective programme -- the United States was proud to have contributed $1.5 million this year, and hoped other nations would contribute as well. The country also strongly supported the work of the Special Rapporteur on torture, and the efforts of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention; it would oppose any effort to weaken or narrow the Working Group's mandate.
ABSA CLAUDE DIALLO (Senegal) said the Commission was a forum where, for six weeks, the voices of all those who had suffered from torture, ill-treatment, arbitrary detention and other violations of their human dignity were raised. Senegal took a two-pronged approach in maintaining its vigilance regarding such abuses: prevention by means of education; and implementation of the Convention against Torture. The Senegalese Committee of Human Rights had been founded with the objective of encouraging a free dialogue between the authorities and civil society in their joint search for an effective implementation of human rights conventions. Judges, the police force and the armed forces had received training in the respect of human rights principles. Moreover, numerous ministries were actively involved in applying the recommendations of the United Nations Committee against Torture.
PETTER F. WILLE (Norway) said Norway strongly advocated giving sufficient resources to allow special rapporteurs to fulfil their mandates. Development towards democratization was the result of long lasting dialogue between various governmental and non-governmental actors at both the national and international levels. Norway believed that working through multilateral fora was of paramount importance in the promotion of human rights. In its bilateral contacts with other countries, Norway's principal approach was to establish dialogue and offer incentives. Still, there were very few mechanisms that could be used to implement international law effectively. Norway supported the speedy establishment of a permanent criminal court within the United Nations system.
ODILE GORDON-LENNOX, of the International Peace Bureau, said the Committee of Soldier's Mothers of Russia received each year more than 10,000 complaints of physical and psychological torture of young Russian servicemen, and the war in Chechnya had added thousands of new victims of torture; most soldiers who were tortured were afraid to complain or reveal the details because the could be labelled as "informers" and further punished, because officers might further punish them, and because the violations often were so shameful that they were unwilling to discuss them. Meanwhile, the living conditions in Russian military barracks these days were essentially equivalent to torture, and led to epidemics of hepatitis, dysentery, and tuberculosis. The Commission should request Russia to strengthen provisions of its criminal
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code dealing with torture, and request the Committee against Torture to reflect the cases of Russian soldiers in its reports and investigations -- in fact, that Committee should send a delegation to Russia to look into problems of torture there.
JEAN-DANIEL VIGNY, observer for Switzerland, said the struggle against the abject phenomenon of enforced or involuntary disappearances consisted of both fighting the phenomenon itself while trying to resolve the 43,980 pending cases. As many as a third of outstanding cases relate to Iraq, a country that had not to respond to even one request by the Working Group on enforced disappearances. India and Turkey, meanwhile, should review their positions and allow the Working Group to visit the countries. In 1996, a further 551 cases in 28 countries had been added to the list of unsolved disappearances. With regard to the practice of arbitrary detentions, he said that the question of determining whether arbitrary detentions were the work of the executive or of the judicial power had been answered by the Chairman of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, who had recalled that in international law, the State was indivisible. He said that the mandate of the Working Group should cover arbitrary detention, before and after a final verdict, and whether this followed charges being pressed or not. As for the report on torture, it presented a troubling picture; here again one could not weaken human rights by engaging in semantics. Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment should be banned, without fault, as should other forms of corporal punishment.
OMAR ABDESLAM LAHCEN, of the International Association for Democratic Lawyers, said the situation prevailing in Western Sahara was worrying: Moroccan armed forces continued to commit serious violations of human rights. Saharawis were being held for expressing their opinions, and a number among them had been jailed after unjust and summary trials in military tribunals. Prolonged arbitrary detention was common and torture of detainees systematic. In 1991, some 300 Saharawis previously recorded as disappeared persons had been released from such secret detention centres as Kalaat M'Gouna, Agdz, Skoura and Tazmamart. But rather than signalling renewed hoped for detained Saharawis, the human rights situation had become worse, and persons released had been subjected to different forms of intimidation and reprisals.
LILIANA VALIÑA, of the Center for Justice and International Law, said international provisions to prevent arbitrary detention varied to some degree, but recognized the fundamental principle involved. Still, they had to be implemented; specific conceptions must be given to make them more effective; the efforts of the Working Group on arbitrary detention were valuable, and should be continued; as for the draft guidelines and principles on the right to reparations of victims of human-rights violations, such standards were vital and should be established -- they were a future protection against human-rights abuses and a protection against impunity. The principles should
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be adopted as soon as possible. The abominable practice of torture continued, and the draft optional protocol to the Convention against Torture deserved intensified work, as such a protocol would be a valuable additional weapon in combatting torture.
ROGER WAREHAM, of the International Association Against Torture, said there were inhuman prison conditions in Peruvian jails. The Tupac Amaru had brought up this issue. In the United States, similar conditions prevailed in prisons. The criminal justice system was incarcerating ever greater numbers of prisoners, whose conditions were worsening. The counter-terrorism bill passed last year put restrictions on rights of people; for example, it limited the number of appeals for prisoners on death row. The majority of prison inmates in the United States were Black or Latino. Blacks and Latinos, but especially Blacks, were subject to summary and arbitrary execution at the hands of the police. The real indicator of the American justice system was how it treated its prisoners to make them an example and discourage anyone from claiming their human rights.
ALEJANDRO TEITELBAUM, of the American Association of Jurists (AAJ), said a group of grandmothers of disappeared children had initiated a series of complaints of human-rights violations committed under the former military regime in Argentina. But recent procedure in Argentina had taken away from the victims of crimes the ability to promote a public action; they could file a claim, but the decision to continue an investigation lay with the public prosecutor; that procedure was far from the terms of international human-rights instruments. In entitling only the public prosecutor to initiate proceedings, the country was opening the way to impunity, and in other countries with similar provisions the decision whether or not to proceed often was political. The AAJ was concerned about the decision of prosecutor's office in Argentina not to proceed with cases involving crimes against children under the former military regime. The organization also was concerned about problems of justice in Peru; and about thousands of illegal immigrants in the United States who remained in jails without trial, as "non-persons"; the Working Group on arbitrary detentions should visit the United States to investigate the situation.
LAURA DE SORIA, of the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs of the World Council of Churches, said her group was an NGO active in Chile. In 1977, she had testified in front of the Commission regarding the murder of her husband, a United Nations staff member, by Chilean secret police. The case was still pending because Chile was supposed to inform the Secretary-General of the result of the investigation into the murder. The Truth and Conciliation Committee which was created in Chile in 1990 did not reach a decision on the Soria case because the judge had declared himself incompetent. Policemen had been tried for his murder, but a judge later ruled that they could benefit from the amnesty voted in the country.
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SANDRINE SALERNO, of the Centre Europe - Tiers Monde, said 179 people had been summarily executed or killed in detention in Turkey in 1996. The authors of these violations were rarely bothered and there was a lack of political will on the part of Turkish authorities to implement legislative, political and administrative measures to end such acts. The state of emergency reigning in Turkish Kurdistan has been in force for 19 years and was itself responsible for some of the human rights violations that had occurred. Successive Turkish governments had recognized the gravity of those violations. But while promises had been made to remedy the s situation, no concrete measures had been taken. In fact, quite the contrary had happened: the Ministry for Human Rights created only in 1991 had been closed down in 1995.
SHABIR CHOUDHRY, of the International Human Rights Association of American Minorities, said the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention had been rightly concerned with countries such as India, whose record of such abuses was abysmal; the Group was implored to take up all cases specified in a writ of Habeas Corpus lodged at the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir by Abdul Ahad; those named in the writ had been arbitrarily detained for a number of years. The Special Rapporteur on Torture had made references to India as well, in particular to cases of torture often followed by death and custody in Jammu and Kashmir; he continued to receive information on cases of torture there, which included beatings, electric shocks, crushing of leg muscles with wooden rollers, burning, rapes, and gang rapes; Ghulam Rasool Dar, who had delivered a statement to the Commission in March 1996, was the latest victim of torture and degrading treatment there. The Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances also had made extensive reference to Indian activities in Jammu and Kashmir. It was time the Commission put a stop to these horrendous human-rights violations; further, the three Working Groups should be allowed to visit India and Jammu and Kashmir.
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