COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS HEARS ALLEGATIONS OF VIOLATIONS AGAINST PRISONERS, DETAINEES
Press Release
HR/CN/842
COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS HEARS ALLEGATIONS OF VIOLATIONS AGAINST PRISONERS, DETAINEES
19980403 (Reissued as received.)GENEVA, 1 April (UN Information Service) -- A series of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) filed claims this afternoon of torture, arbitrary detention, disappearances and related maltreatment in a number of countries, as the Commission on Human Rights continued its annual consideration of the rights of prisoners and detainees.
Along with specific charges were thematic complaints. The December 12 Movement, an NGO, spoke in opposition to privatization of prisons in the United States, claiming human rights were taking a second place to profits. The International League for the Rights and Liberation of Peoples stated that amnesties enacted in some Latin American countries could not be justified, even as a price to be paid for transition from dictatorial regimes to democracies.
The Commission also heard from its Special Rapporteur on the Question of Torture, Nigel Rodley, who said he was disappointed that at the close of his first full term of office, and after 13 years of work by him and his predecessor under the Special Rapporteur's mandate, there remained a high incidence of torture in many countries.
Param Cumaraswamy, Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, told the Commission, among other things, that he felt concern over several general trends: an increased number of complaints of governmental accusations of lawyers identifying themselves with their clients' causes; an increased number of complaints of governments' non-compliance with internationally accepted standards of due process, particularly in terrorist- related crimes, which raised questions about the integrity, independence and impartiality of the courts; the number of countries where judges were appointed on a provisional basis, without security of tenure; and problems faced by countries in transition in providing independent and impartial judicial systems, in part because of a lack of human resources.
Speaking at the meeting were representatives of Mexico and of the following NGOs: Arab Organization for Human Rights; Asian Cultural Forum on Development; African Association of Education for Development; Association for the Prevention of Torture; International Rehabilitation Council for Torture
Victims; Afro-Asian Peoples' Solidarity Organization; International Progress Organization; International Association against Torture; December 12 Movement; War Resisters' International; Human Rights Law Group; International Educational Development; Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Centre for Human Rights; International League for the Rights and Liberation of Peoples; Asian Buddhist Conference for Peace; Human Rights Watch; Amnesty International; France Liberté; and International Association of Democratic Lawyers.
The representatives of Yemen and Egypt spoke in exercise of the right of reply.
Statements
ADEL AMIN, of the Arab Organization for Human Rights, said Mansour al-Kikhia, former Libyan Foreign Minister, had disappeared over four years ago, after leaving a Cairo hotel accompanied by Yusuf Najm, also a Libyan, at one time a member of the Libyan opposition who subsequently left it and began to cooperate with the Libyan regime. He was now under arrest in Libya on charges of collaborating with the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The office of the Attorney General in Egypt undertook an investigation of the disappearance, but failed to produce Mr. Najm as a witness and later filed the investigation without having questioned the main witness; this was gross professional negligence by the office. The United States and its intelligence agencies also were not beyond suspicion, since at the time it organized numerous conferences and meetings of the Libyan opposition under the supervision of a person known to have connections with the CIA. The International Committee for the follow-up of the case of Mr. al-Kikhia had appealed to all authorities concerned to cooperate with it, but none had done so. It appealed to the Commission and to the Egyptian, Libyan, and United States Governments to clarify the mystery.
SARAH CHEE, of the Asian Cultural Forum on Development, said the group was seriously concerned about the infringement on freedom of expression in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly in South Korea, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. The right to freedom of expression was essential in a democratic society, and the media had an important function to fulfil. In South Korea, Suh Joon-sik, the representative of Sarangbang Centre for Human Rights, was arrested on 4 November 1997 for hosting the Second Annual Human Rights Film Festival at Hongik University. He was subjected to interrogation, intimidation and harassment. In South Korea, there were currently 17 long-term political prisoners who had served over 28 years in prison, all held in solitary confinement. The Sri Lankan Government had also targeted Sri Lankan journalists belonging to the Tamil media and had subjected foreign journalists to intimidation, harassment and expulsion in order to hide continuing human rights abuses in the country. The organization urged all Governments to review laws intended to protect national security and also ordinary criminal laws which might be used to infringe the rights to freedom of opinion, expression and information.
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GHENNET GRIMA, of the African Association of Education for Development, said NGOs had been exposing the suffering of African journalists, in general, and of Ethiopian journalists, in particular. In Ethiopia, they were imprisoned or forced to become refugees. Arbitrary detention was often used, followed by torture. According to the Ethiopian Human Rights Council, some people reappeared in official prisons after two or more months in clandestine prisons. Civil and human rights leaders were often detained or exiled, and those who made particular efforts for the advent of a pluralistic society were still languishing in prison. In Djibouti, where polarization through ethnic division had been going on for a long time, the escalation of repression had reached an unprecedented level. Peaceful demonstrators last week had been repressed, and one of them had been paralysed after a beating by the police. An international human rights conference reportedly was planned for Addis Ababa in May 1998. It was to be hoped that participants would make themselves aware of the suffering of Ethiopians whose relatives were in prison, had disappeared, or had been executed.
CLAUDINE HAENI, of the Association for the Prevention of Torture, said that only 104 States had ratified the Convention against Torture. Five of the major NGOs working against torture, of which the Association was a part, had joined forces to undertake a joint NGO campaign for the full, universal and speedy ratification of the Convention. In February 1998, 154 individualized letters were sent to each of the permanent missions of the governments concerned, including States parties who had not accepted the competence of the Committee against Torture to receive individual communications. To date, only two States had replied. The Association encouraged the Commission to renew and strengthen the mandates of the Special Rapporteur on torture and the Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances. It should also renew the mandate of the Working Group on the Draft Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and allow it supplementary resources.
INGE GENEFKE, of the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims, said the work for assistance of torture victims had started almost 25 years ago at a time when no specific knowledge of treatment existed. Today, there existed profound knowledge of torture methods, the effects of torture, and the diagnosing and rehabilitation of victims. Actually, there were close to 200 centres or programmes all over the world treating torture victims. Today, torture victims could be helped -- that was the good news. The bad news was that millions of victims of torture were left without help because funds were lacking. What could be done about that? The other bad news was that torture was carried out in a significant number of United Nations Member States. Tremendous work lay ahead to eradicate torture from the world and to support the millions of torture victims.
MASOOMA ALI, of the Afro-Asian Peoples Solidarity Organization, said conditions of conflict continued to permit the taking of hostages, as well as torture, detention and involuntary disappearances. An example was the former
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Yugoslavia, where some of the most brutal atrocities had been committed in the name of ethnic and political agendas. Indian Kashmir was another example where kidnapping had become a familiar trademark of mercenary groups. It was unfortunate that the international community and the Commission on Human Rights had so far been unable to do anything definite to protect the life and liberty of people held hostage by terrorists and mercenaries. Unless some mechanism could be instituted to take to task the armed groups and their mentors, torture, detention and the degrading treatment of innocent human beings was here to stay for a long time.
REFAQUAT ALI KHAN, of the International Progress Organization, said the most visible symptom of lack of concern for human rights of individuals was the practice of some States of detaining people without cause, torturing them, demeaning their existence, and then going on about the business of governance without accountability or remorse. The torture suffered by certain segments of Pakistani society, of humiliation and treatment as second-class citizens, did not come within the usual description of torture; only the victims knew it for what it was. It was not illegal detention or torture in a defined facility, but detention where the whole country became a prison. The reins of power were still held by people who valued a feudal past, and they prospered through inheritance of landed wealth and toil of bonded labourers. Christians, Hindus and other minorities had been transformed into lesser beings, and the various sects of Islam either brought under pressure or simply labelled non-Muslims as was the case of the Ahmediyas. Women were lesser citizens than men. Unless an effort was made to change the structures of Pakistan so that all citizens were treated equally, there would continue to be denial of the rights of ordinary Pakistanis.
AMADI ATAMU, of the International Association against Torture, said the show trial conducted by the Spanish Government against the members of Herri Batasuna, a legal political movement of the Basque people, clearly showed the existence of political prosecutions and political prisoners within so-called advanced democracies. The entire 23-member executive body, including seven members of Parliament, were convicted of collaborating with an armed group, the ETA. They were each given sentences of seven years.
In the United States, the speaker said, the prison population was over 1.7 million. One out of 155 United States residents was in jail. Owing to the racist nature of the justice system in the United States, blacks and Latinos constituted more than 50 per cent of that prison population. Within that huge prison population were over 200 unacknowledged political prisoners, men and women targeted because of their political beliefs and actions deriving from those beliefs.
ERICA FORD, of the December 12 Movement, said in the trend towards privatization in the United States, prisons were seen as a vehicle for profit. As the socio-economic conditions deteriorated in the United States, the
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biggest employer and housing developer had become the American Bureau of Prisons. The United States had the world's largest prison population, with an estimated 1,725,842 prisoners in 1997. It was within this reality that there was a motion towards privatization of prisons. The prison industrial complex was a conglomerate of private business and government interests with a dual purpose: profit and social control. The prison population of black men had soared because groundwork had been laid for the criminalization of young black youths. Although blacks only made up 12 per cent of the population, they represented 42.5 per cent of those incarcerated. While the United States issued scathing reports on human rights violations around the world, it arrogantly and shamelessly committed acts against its own citizens.
SAEED MOKBIL, of War Resisters International, said the human rights situation in Yemen had been deteriorating since July 1994, particularly in matters of torture and arbitrary detention. Cases of those violations had increased despite obligations acknowledged by the Yemeni Government to the international community. There had been a number of reports and acknowledgements by the Government and various NGOs about the situation, and yet in 1998 there continued to be reports of torture and inhumane treatment. One detainee described to a court how he was tortured to give a false confession. There also had been illegal detention of five opposition members at the San'a airport. The Commission must follow up matters through its working group on involuntary disappearances. It should study the possibility of having the Special Rapporteur on Torture and the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention go to Yemen. It should call on the Government to halt the practice of torture and arbitrary detention and to release detainees illegally held, and should pressure the Government to fulfil its pledges and obligations to the international community.
UCHE OKWUKU, of the International Human Rights Law Group, said the Special Rapporteur on human rights situation in Nigeria had not been allowed entry into the country. At present, people in Nigeria were detained without formal charges for periods longer than prescribed by law. Detainees were also subjected to different forms of inhuman treatment, including flogging, cutting of fingers, and denial of access to family members, lawyers and doctors. In addition, they were held in congested, unhealthy and dirty cells. When the Government did not find suspects for a crime, it often held others in their place, taking wives or other relatives. Among other recommendations, the Law Group called for the release of all political prisoners detained, particularly the Ogoni 20.
KAREN PARKER, of International Educational Development, said the group condemned the United States for violating the freedom of opinion and information in denying visas to Cuban scholars and professionals invited by the University of California at Berkeley to participate in a conference on Cuba last March. The Special Rapporteur should address the systematic denial of visas based on political opinion or belief in the United States. The group
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also condemned the expulsion from Mexico of international human rights monitors from a number of organizations, including her own.
BEATRICE LAROCHE, of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Centre for Human Rights, said more attention should be paid to the use of national security laws to justify violations of basic rights, including freedom of opinion and expression. China had moved towards the use of "State security" as a rationale for suppression of dissent. Its legal system defined neither the term "State security" nor what constituted a danger to it. It was a cause of concern that the Chinese Government might merely have replaced its laws related to "counter-revolutionary activities" with the equally elastic notion of "endangering State security". The failure of the Government to reverse the convictions of 2,000 "counter-revolutionary" prisoners after amendment of its criminal code provided strong evidence of that abusive practice, which had been pointed out by the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. Nor did China's 1988 law on preservation of State secrets give a clear definition of "State secrets". The Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Centre also was concerned with problems of a similar nature involving anti-subversion laws and State security measures in Indonesia and Viet Nam.
NIGEL RODLEY, Special Rapporteur on the question of torture, introducing his report (document E/CN.4/1998/38), said with regard to a mission to be carried out to Turkey that the Government had invited him to visit the country in the last quarter of this year. He was grateful for the positive development. While one week was not sufficient for such a mission, he had conveyed his hope that it would be possible to extend the amount of time available for the visit so that the mission could go ahead on a proper footing. He also mentioned the positive reactions from the Permanent Missions of Algeria and Egypt to requests for visits to those countries.
In the case of Algeria, Mr. Rodley said discussion had focused on the possibility of a visit jointly with the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions. However, attempts at further contacts with a view to obtaining a formal invitation for him to visit the country and identifying dates for such a visit had yielded no response. Meanwhile, Egypt had welcomed his visit and had expressed a willingness to cooperate. There were still outstanding requests for visits to China, India, Indonesia and Kenya.
The Special Rapporteur said that, following his visit to Mexico, he did not find that torture was systematically practised in all parts of the country.
Mr. Rodley said he was disappointed that at the close of his first full term of office, and after 13 years of the mandate, there remained a high incidence of torture in many countries.
ANTONIO DE ICAZA (Mexico) said although the Special Rapporteur on torture's report was dated January, it had only been distributed on 27 March.
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The Commission's rules said reports had to be issued six weeks ahead of the session, or four weeks under exceptional conditions. The Special Rapporteur could not expect a careful study of a report on matters of such importance in less time.
Since the Special Rapporteur was not responsible for the delay, the speaker said he would try and match his efforts and make some general comments based on a rapid reading of the report. The invitation extended to the Special Rapporteur to visit Mexico was evidence of the country's abiding concern to cooperate with international machinery to protect human rights. The extensive facilities extended for his interviews with officials of the Federal Government, members of the legislature, NGOs and alleged victims of torture reflected Mexico's concern to improve the rule of law within the State. In Mexico, there was no deliberate policy of using torture, nor was torture widespread or systematic in any part of the country.
Mexico had enacted its first law for the prevention of torture in 1986, he said. Since then, legislation had been strengthened and improved to criminalize torture and to allow State compensation for victims. However, torture could not be eliminated by decrees and could not be isolated from the full respect for human rights in general. There was a need to foster a cultural respect for human rights. Mexican national and State commissions for human rights, and others, had played a decisive role in that field. There could be no doubt that the number of complaints of torture had continued to decline. Torture had ceased to be the prime cause of complaints and it had been possible to break the circle of impunity. The fact that those responsible for torture had not all been punished was still a matter of concern for the Government. Much remained to be done and it would be done.
VERENA GRAF, of the International League for the Rights and Liberation of Peoples, said the scourge of impunity was one of the greatest challenges for human rights. In some cases, impunity had been supposedly justified by some as the price paid for the transition from dictatorial regimes to democracies, but what happened was that justice was held hostage to the crimes and criminals of the past. The Commission must make sure that those perverse situations did not continue. In some Latin American countries, yesterday's torturers could become lifetime senators, as had just occurred with Pinochet in Chile. Governments could not justify past cases of severe human rights violations by saying a country's citizens wanted to "turn the page of history". It did not work; society did not forget. Argentina was an example. The Commission should convene a meeting of experts to review the campaign against impunity and prepare a report for the Commission at its fifty-fifth session.
TOMAS GANDARA, of the Asian Buddhist Conference for Peace, said that in February 1998 in Rome, the Nobel Prize laureate Bishop Ximenes Belo had denounced the fact that every month more than two dozen East Timorese children
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were taken away from their families in East Timor and handed over to families in Indonesia. The speaker said he was one of those victims of enforced disappearance. He was born in East Timor, but at the age of three years, Indonesian soldiers took him to Jakarta where he was handed over to a family of Indonesian public administration officials. For 15 years, he was told he was Indonesian. Although he had been baptized a Catholic, he was brought up as a Muslim. He was never told of his true identity.
REED BRODY, of Human Rights Watch, said his group welcomed the visit of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to China and Tibet. The Working Group was commended for its sharp criticism of "vague and imprecise" offences in China's Criminal Law, which clearly jeopardized fundamental rights. The Working Group's report, however, inadequately addressed several key issues, including the lack of independence of the Chinese judicial system; Chinese violations of international law with regard to the presumption on innocence, time and facilities available for preparation of an adequate defence, and the use of illegally gathered evidence; trial procedures weighted in favour of the State; the use of administrative punishments, especially re-education through labour; and a serious incident that took place during the group's visit to Drapchi prison in Tibet. In that last case, inmates had held a peaceful protest in the presence of the Working Group. It had been reliably reported that those involved were intensively interrogated and severely beaten after the delegation left the premises. The Working Group had made no further inquiries about the inmates following assurances from the Chinese authorities that they would not be harmed. In general, Human Rights Watch was disappointed at the weak and vague recommendations put forward by the Working Group.
ALIA GOWYAN, of Amnesty International, said the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, who had visited the United Kingdom, had identified the lack of safeguards for suspects arrested under emergency legislation in Northern Ireland. Suspects were detained in special police interrogation centres. Suspects held in the centres had been ill-treated and forced into making false confessions, and police reportedly made comments about suspects' lawyers during interrogations which amounted to harassment and intimidation, including death threats. There was evidence that a prominent lawyer, Patrick Finucane, murdered in 1989, had been particularly targeted by security forces. To date, no one had been prosecuted for the murder. Inadequate measures had been taken to prevent human rights violations in the special interrogation centres, despite the documentation of such abuses over many years by human rights organizations. The Government also should end its derogation of relevant provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The United Kingdom was urged to comply with the recommendations of the Special Rapporteur.
MICHELE LAUNEREINS, of France-Liberté, said a series of detentions of individual had been taking place in Mauritania as part of an effort by the Government to suppress the freedoms of expression, opinion and association.
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Among the persons arrested were Cheikh Saad Bouh Kamara, President of the Mauritanian Association of Human Rights; the Association's Vice-President, Fatima Mbaye; Boubacar Ould Messaoud, President of the "Association S.O.S. Enclaves"; and Brahim Ould Ebetty, Secretary-General of the National Order of Lawyers. Also in Ethiopia, Aberra Yemane Ab was still in jail despite a court's decision to free him. In addition, 18 Ethiopian opponents living in Djibouti had been sent back to Ethiopia by force and their fate was not known.
KENZO FUKUMA, of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, said Japan had not ratified the International Labour Organization Convention which protected the human rights of workers. In Japan, excessive overtime was a problem. Every year, more than 10,000 people died from overwork. The case of Hideyuki Tanaka, who had been fighting for more than 30 years against an unfair dismissal from his employment, was an example of the situation. He symbolized the cause of protecting the human rights of employees of Japanese companies. He had been dismissed from Hitachi Ltd. because of his refusal to work overtime. His case, moreover, illustrated how the Supreme Court of Japan violated the independence of judges. Some months before Mr. Tanaka's case was heard by the High Court, the Supreme Court summoned judges from the High Court, as well as District Court judges, and discussed cases similar to those of Mr. Tanaka. The Supreme Court proposed that companies had the right to dismiss employees for refusing to work overtime. Subsequently, the High Court ruled that the dismissal of Mr. Tanaka was legitimate, reversing a previous ruling. Judges should be able to make rulings without any restrictions other than laws and their conscience. However, the Supreme Court had been violating this by advising various courts to hold special meetings and by mailing out the views accepted at those meetings to courts all over the country, establishing a system where the decisions of judges could be greatly influenced.
PARAM CUMARASWAMY, Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, introducing his report, said he felt concern over several general trends: the increased number of complaints of governmental accusations of lawyers identifying themselves with their clients' causes; the increased number of complaints of governments' non-compliance with internationally accepted standards of due process, particularly in terrorist-related crimes, which raised questions about the integrity, independence and impartiality of the courts; the number of countries where judges were appointed on a provisional basis, without security of tenure; and problems faced by countries in transition in providing an independent and impartial judicial system, in part because of a lack of human resources.
During his visit to Peru, the Special Rapporteur said, he had found, among other things, evidence that the use of "faceless tribunals" violated the principles of due process and had resulted in conviction and sentencing of many persons. He was pleased that such tribunals had since been abolished, but was concerned that the practice continued in the military courts, and appealed for its abolition.
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After visiting Colombia, Mr. Cumaraswamy said, it had become apparent that where there was such a high incidence of impunity, rule of law took a heavy toll. Unless there was sufficient will on the part of the Government to undertake bold measures to change the situation and bring about reforms, he was afraid the situation would further deteriorate.
He had visited Belgium following massive public demonstrations in October 1996 following removal of a magistrate investigating a case of child prostitution, kidnapping and murder, he said. He found no malfunction of justice in removal of the magistrate, and wished to say that courts had to make unpopular decisions which might not find favour with the public. There would be chaos if judicial decisions were tailored to meet the demands of street demonstrations. He had impressed upon the Government the need to observe international standards for the protection of an independent justice system in any reform exercise.
After visiting the United Kingdom, Mr. Cumaraswamy said, he had found, among other things, that there was truth to allegations that defence lawyers had been harassed and intimidated by the Royal Ulster Constabulary, which had failed to take note of those abuses and had allowed the situation to deteriorate.
He had not been granted leave to appeal a Malaysian court decision refusing him immunity from legal process in performing United Nations work in connection with a defamation suit brought against him by two commercial corporations, the Special Rapporteur said in conclusion.
Right of Reply
ABDUL RAHMAN AL-MUSIBILI (Yemen), referring to a statement made by War Resisters International, said allegations by the group were false. The statement contained a false conception about his country. That NGO was exploiting human rights to satisfy its aspiration for a political choice of its own in Yemen. In order to democratize the society, the Government had already undertaken measures which guaranteed its citizens the full enjoyment of the freedoms of association, expression and opinion. The representative of the NGO could go to Yemen and see the situation with his own eyes.
TAREK ADEL (Egypt), responding to a statement by the Arab Organization for Human Rights on the alleged disappearance of Mansour Al-Kikhia, said the authorities in Egypt had cooperated fully in removing all doubts concerning that question and had carried out serious and ample investigations. Egypt had very long borders and people moved freely outside the borders. It was possible that the person referred to in the allegations had left the country before the issue was raised.
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