The 56-page report, “‘I Could Have Been Next’: Stymied Reforms in the Maldives,” finds that the Solih administration, more than halfway into its five-year term, has not fulfilled election promises to reform the criminal justice system to address threats to free expression. The government has reduced its repression of free speech and the media, so reporters say they no longer fear state censorship or worry about facing criminal cases or fines for doing their jobs. Yet, the government has often relented to pressure from politicians and powerful religious groups, instead of upholding free speech and association
Human Rights Watch Report to the Commission of Inquiry on Maher Arar
On June 7, Julia Hall, Senior Researcher for Human Rights Watch, testfied before a Canadian Commission of Inquiry that is investigating the transfer of Maher Arar to Syria, where he alleges he was brutally tortured. Arar, a Canadian citizen, was transferred by U.S. authorities to Jordan with the understanding he would be turned over to Syria.
Sometime at the end of February 2004, six Egyptians, alleged militants who had spent several years in exile in Yemen, the last several in official custody, were surreptitiously ferried from Sanaa to Cairo, very much against their will.
Command Responsibility for the U.S. Abuse of Detainees
This 95-page report, issued on the eve of the first anniversary of the publication of the Abu Ghraib photos, 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.
Diplomatic Assurances No Safeguard Against Torture
This 91-page report documents the growing practice among Western governments—including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands—of seeking assurances of humane treatment in order to transfer terrorism suspects to states with well-established records of torture.
`Abd al-Salam `Ali al-Hila, a Yemeni intelligence officer, disappeared in Cairo in 2002. Since then, he is believed to have been held without trial in Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay.
This 48-page report documents how, in the weeks and months after the bombing that killed 30 people in the resort town of Taba, the State Security Investigation agency conducted mass arrests in northern Sinai without a warrant or judicial order as required by Egyptian law.
This 65-page report analyzes aspects of Spain’s criminal law and procedures that fall short of its commitments under international human rights law. Problematic practices include the use of incommunicado detention and secret legal proceedings, limitations on the right to a lawyer during the initial period of detention, and lengthy periods of pre-trial detention.
Terrorism Trials, Military Courts and the Mapuche in Southern Chile
This 60-page report shows how Mapuche defendants charged with terrorist acts face unequal trials for crimes that do not pose a direct threat to life, liberty or physical integrity.
The following is a compilation by Human Rights Watch of accounts by thirty-three former detainees at Guantanamo of their experiences there. Human Rights Watch interviewed sixteen of the detainees, reviewed press reports containing statements by former detainees interviewed by journalists, and used as well statements published by the detainees themselves.
The 70-page report, “Human Rights at a Crossroads,” features interviews with the lawyers and family members of Moroccan prisoners who said that their interrogators had subjected them to physical and mental abuse, in some cases amounting to torture, in order to extract confessions or to induce them to sign a statement they had not made.
In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, the Bush administration has violated the most basic legal norms in its treatment of security detainees. Many have been held in offshore prisons, the most well known of which is at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
The interrogation techniques used by U.S. personnel on detainees at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba remain shrouded in mystery. While U.S. policy is that the detainees be treated “humanely,” the Department of Defense has never revealed publicly how the detainees have been interrogated.
Brief outlines of the military commissions, the combatant status review panels, and the administrative review procedures adopted by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) for use at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The U.N. Security Council's Approach to Human Rights Violations in the Global Anti-Terrorism Effort
This 17-page briefing paper documents how countries as diverse as Egypt, Uzbekistan, Malaysia, Morocco and Sweden—have violated human rights in their efforts to combat terrorism. These are the very kinds of violations that the U.N. Counter-Terrorism Committee should pay closer attention to.
