China’s Interference in United Nations Human Rights Mechanisms
This report details China’s efforts to harass independent activists, primarily those from China. Chinese officials have photographed and filmed activists on UN premises in violation of UN rules, and restricted travel by mainland activists to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. China has also used its membership on the Economic and Social Council’s Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to block NGOs critical of China from being granted UN accreditation, and it has sought – and succeeded in – blacklisting accredited activists from participating in UN events.
Refoulement, Militarization of Camps, and Other Protection Concerns
The United Nations Security Council should extend the arms embargo on Liberia to all rebel groups, and closely monitor the compliance of the Guinean government with that embargo, Human Rights Watch said today. The Guinean government’s close relationship with Liberian rebel groups is posing a serious threat to refugees’ security and protection in Guinea.
As Afghan and United Nations officials prepare for the forthcoming loya jirga (grand national assembly), as called for in the 2001 Bonn Agreement to choose Afghanistan's next government, ordinary Afghans are increasingly terrorized by the rule of local and regional military commanders - warlords - who are reasserting their control over large areas of Afghanistan.
In this briefing paper, Human Rights Watch builds on the U.N. experts’ report to examine the manner in which the Liberia arms embargo has been systematically breached to furnish weapons to gross human rights abusers. Much attention has been given in the past to the subject of individual arms traffickers and the transport networks they use to illegally deliver weapons to abusive end users.
State-sponsored national human rights commissions represent a new vogue among governments, and particularly in Africa. The number of state human rights commissions has multiplied across the continent in the past decade, spreading from one country in 1989 to two dozen by 2000.
On April 18, the United Nations Security Council will debate the U.N. Panel of Experts report on the sanctions regime against the rebels of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), which was submitted to the Security Council on February 28. The Security Council is expected to issue a resolution that will shape the future of the sanctions regime in Angola.
Sierra Leonean refugee children in Guinea are among the most vulnerable children in the world. They have lived through an extremely brutal war -most have witnessed or suffered unspeakable atrocities including widespread killing, mutilation, and sexual abuse.
In a report released today, Human Rights Watch condemns the war of terror now underway against civilians in Sierra Leone, and calls on the international community to take emergency measures to end the killings, amputations, and abductions taking place in that civil war.
The United Nations Operation in the Western Sahara
In 1988, both Morocco and the Polisario Front agreed to a United Nations Settlement Plan. After sixteen years of war, a cease-fire formally took effect in the Western Sahara in September 1991. In August 1995, Human Rights Watch conducted a fact-finding mission to Tindouf, Algeria and to Laayoune, the capital of the Western Sahara.
Recycled Haitian Soldiers On the Police Front Line
The United States-dominated multinational force entered Haiti on September 19, 1994, with a mandate to "use all necessary means...to establish and maintain a secure and stable environment...." The force's presence permitted the reinstatement of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and a reduction in the severe human rights abuses that plagued Haiti during the three year military regime.
In this report, we examine five of the largest UN field operations in recent years, in Cambodia, El Salvador, Iraq, Somalia and the former Yugoslavia. These operations span a broad range of regions and circumstances. Yet with the exception of El Salvador, they have in common the low priority given to human rights.
