The 45-page report, “Like a Prisoner in My Home’: Coal Fueling Toxic Air in Bulgaria” analyzes the data revealing alarmingly high air pollution levels in Dimitrovgrad, a town in southern Bulgaria, which hosts Maritsa 3, one of the country’s oldest coal plants. Maritsa 3 emits hazardous air pollutants, which contribute to poor air quality that harms the health of local residents, particularly children.
This report provides an update on the human rights situation in Cuba. Again this last year, Human Rights Watch/Americas (formerly Americas Watch) has been handicapped in monitoring Cuba because of the regime's refusal to allow us to visit the country, to conduct inquiries and talk to victims, and to engage in a dialogue with the authorities.
A campaign to curb pornography has backfired dangerously in Canada, leading not toward its ostensible goal of gender equality, but to a weakening of fundamental liberties for women and gay men. The cornerstone of this campaign is R. v. Butler, an anti-pornography decision issued by the Canadian Supreme Court in 1992 that sets forth a litmus test for determining obscenity and has been used to prosecute a lesbian magazine, to destroy books intended for gay consumers, and to confiscate an array of political and erotic works.
Police and Death Squad Homicides of Adolescents in Brazil
Despite the considerable attention that has been brought to homicides of adolescents, impunity for those responsible for these abuses has in most respects, continued to prevail.
On January 3, 1994, a massacre in a Venezuelan prison left more than one hundred inmates dead and scores injured. While security personnel stood by, a group of prisoners set fire to a prison building, then shot and stabbed prisoners who tried to escape the inferno.
Twenty-one people died in suspicious circumstances while in police custody in 1993. These deaths took place in police or gendarmarie stations throughout Turkey during the interrogation phase of investigations. They follow on the deaths of at least 17 people who died while under interrogation in police custody in 1992.
The Arms Trade and Human Rights Abuses in the Rwandan War
On October 1990, the Rwandese Patriotic Front launched an invasion from neighboring Uganda, aimed at overthrowing the Rwandan government. While the war has stopped in an uneasy peace, an estimated 4,500 people died in the conflict and nearly one million civilians are refugees.
Facing serious problems, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is making the difficult transition from communism to democracy and a free market economy. It also faces the possibility of the Bosnian war overtaking the region.
Even as the Indonesian government repealed a controversial decree and stated it's concern for the welfare of workers, we continued to receive reports of labor rights violations. These violations include the harassment of union members and reports of bonded labor in Irian Jaya.
A Report on U.S. Compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
Last year, the United States formally adopted the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), undertaking a commitment to ensure the covenant's protections for "all individuals within its territory." the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch have prepared this report - the first of its kind -covering race and sex discrimination, prisoners' rights, police brutality
Trafficking of Burmese Women and Girls into Brothels in Thailand
Thousands of Burmese women and girls are trafficked into Thai brothels every year where they work under conditions tantamount to slavery. Subject to debt bondage, illegal confinement, various forms of sexual and physical abuse, and exposure to HIV in the brothels, they then face wrongful arrest as illegal immigrants if they try to escape or if the brothels are raided by Thai police.
Describing prison conditions under an acute crisis, this report covers not only decayed facilities, poor sanitation and overcrowding, but also prisons facing the economic and political disintegration of the state. Since 1990, a pattern of neglect and corruption has given way to complete abandonment.
Human Rights and Russian Military Involvement in the “Near Abroad”
The Russian Federation is engaged in military policies in several armed conflicts in the “near abroad” — the countries of the former Soviet Union — that simultaneously protect and violate human rights.
Political Violence and Counterinsurgency in Colombia
On November 8, 1992, Colombian President César Gaviria Trujillo adopted a series of emergency decrees restricting civil liberties, granting additional powers to the military, and punishing contact or dialogue with insurgent groups. The decrees marked a reversion to authoritarian patterns of rule supposedly left behind with the passage of the 1991 Constitution.
