Sanctioned Death and Racism Is 1998's Legacy - Amnesty International's report on human rights violations and captial punishment in 1998 - Brief Article

Despite historic forward in the struggle against impunity, perpetrators of gross human rights abuses continued to escape justice in 1998, according to Amnesty International's annual report. Released June 16, 1999, the report details abuses committed by governments and paramilitary groups in 142 countries and territories during the fiftieth anniversary year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It also applauds the positive steps taken toward building an international system of accountability for abuses, including the July 1998 agreement to establish a permanent International Criminal Court and the October arrest of former Chilean President Augusto Pinochet.

In particular, the report focuses on the use of the death penalty and calls for a worldwide ban by 2000. AI says the only country known to have executed juvenile offenders in 1998 was the United States, where use of the death penalty is arbitrary, unfair, and racist. Some Latin and South American countries took unprecedented steps to facilitate executions--effectively cutting off recourse to international bodies for the redress of human rights violations.

The death penalty continued to be widely used in many countries of the Middle East and North Africa, along with torture and ill-treatment of prisoners, particularly in Egypt and Israel and the Occupied Territories. However, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Estonia, and Lithuania abolished the death penalty, while Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan instituted moratoria on it. Asia's Nepal also reinforced its opposition to the death penalty.

"The premeditated killing of defenseless people should not be condoned by any society," says Al Secretary General Pierre Sane "Accepting executions means condemning ourselves to living in a world where murderers set the moral tone and brutality is officially sanctioned. Deliberately killing someone violates the most basic of all human rights--the right to life itself--and has no place in today's world."

Racial and ethnic tensions continued to play a major role in human rights violations across Europe. In a prelude of events to come, Al received hundreds of reports of human rights violations against ethnic Albanians in the Kosovo region of Yugoslavia, including "disappearances" at the hands of security forces. Many of the "disappeared" were deliberately and arbitrarily killed by the police, army, or civilians armed by the authorities.

In November, the United Nations Committee Against Torture drew attention to the number of deaths in police custody in the United Kingdom and the lack of effective mechanisms to deal with allegations of abuse, including racist verbal abuse, by police and prison authorities. Reports of ill-treatment also continued in France, Germany, and Switzerland, where many of the victims were members of ethnic minorities or asylum seekers.

In Afghanistan, several thousand civilians were taken prisoner, including suspected Taleban opponents and members of non-Pashtun minorities, particularly Hazaras. In Jammu and Kashmir in northern India, dozens of unarmed men, women, and children of the Hindu minority were deliberately killed, allegedly by paramilitary groups. And in Myanmar, members of ethnic minorities were routinely seized by the military for forced labor.

AI says flagrant abuse of security legislation to silence dissidents and political opponents continued across Asia in 1998. In China, new legal provisions on state security introduced in 1997 were used for the first time in the trials of high-profile dissidents who were sentenced in December to prison terms of eleven to thirteen years. In Malaysia, former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and sixteen of his political associates were arrested under the Internal Security Act. In South Korea, hundreds of trade unionists were detained following public protests and strikes over widespread job losses.

There also were some positive developments in the region. Political prisoners, including long-term prisoners of conscience, were released in South Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, and East Timor. China signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, while legal and institutional reforms began in Indonesia. And in a landmark judgment, five members of Sri Lanka's security forces were found guilty of rape, "disappearance," and murder.

Reported Human Rights Abuses in 1998

Human Rights Abuse                            Number of Countries

Extrajudicial executions                              47
Death penalty executions                              36
Prisoners under sentence of death                     77
"Disappearances"                                      37
Torture and ill-treatment by security                125
 forces, police, or other state authorities
Torture or ill-treatment, lack of medical             51
 care, or cruel, inhumane, or degrading
 prison conditions leading to deaths
 in custody
Prisoners of conscience                               78
Political prisoners receiving unfair trials           35
People arbitrarily arrested and detained or           66
 in detention without charge or trial
Paramilitary groups committing serious                37
 human rights abuses, such as the
 deliberate killings of civilians,
 torture, and hostage-taking