Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 11, 1990 TAG: 9007110465
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/4 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LONDON LENGTH: Medium
The human rights group also criticized the executions of 16 people in the United States in 1989 and U.S. court rulings that permit the death penalty for teen-agers or retarded people convicted of murder.
In its annual world survey of human rights, the London-based organization said repressive measures in many cases served to entrench bitter conflicts and dimmed prospects for dialogue.
"Peaceful protesters in many countries were arbitrarily arrested in vast numbers. Many were held for months without charge or trial. In countless cases, state torture was the price citizens paid for being identified as sympathizers with ethnic or nationalist movements," it said.
"Around the world, particularly where the tensions erupted into violence, tens of thousands of people became victims of security operations resulting in `disappearances' and extrajudicial executions," it added.
The nearly 300-page survey said ethnic and nationalist groups have been suppressed in Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Sri Lanka, India, Burma, Indonesia, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, China, Chad, Mauritania, Israel, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Bulgaria, Guatemala and Brazil.
In Eastern Europe, it said, new governments have emptied their prisons of dissidents, but it said dissenters are still harshly treated in Albania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia.
On a positive note, Amnesty noted the release of political prisoners in Benin, Ethiopia, Somalia, South Africa and Namibia, and significant reductions in executions in South Africa and Nigeria.
The report cited "disturbing" U.S. Supreme Court rulings permitting the execution of offenders who are mentally retarded or as young as 16.
With 16 executions last year, the United States carried out more legal death sentences than any other country in the hemisphere by Amnesty's count. Cuba executed four, Guyana executed one and Antigua and Barbuda executed one.
Amnesty says it opposes the death penalty "under all circumstances."
The report highlighted these instances of ethnic or nationalist tensions being met by government repression:
Thousands of Sri Lankans were reported to have "disappeared" or were summarily executed by government troops and paramilitary allies combating an armed Tamil rebellion.
In Somalia, 46 members of the Issaq clan, including children, reportedly were murdered by government soldiers in July. Similar reprisals were reported against members of the Ogadeni clan after a rebellion by Ogadeni soldiers.
Forty-two members of the Dinka and Nuber communities in Sudan reportedly were summarily executed in October, and members of the Dinka, Nuber, Nuer and Shilluk communities have suffered gross human rights violations "solely because of their ethnic origin."
Twenty people were killed when Soviet troops broke up a peaceful demonstration in Tbilisi, Georgia, in April, and police and troops assaulted an unarmed crowd of about 1,000 people in the western Ukraine in October.
An unknown number of Tibetans were killed and more than 1,000 arrested when Chinese troops broke up an independence demonstration in Tibet in March 1989 and imposed martial law. Amnesty said there were many reports of torture involving beatings, electric shocks and hanging by the arms.
Israeli troops shot to death more than 260 unarmed Palestinians in the occupied territories, and 13,000 Palestinians were held in prisons or detention camps.
Kurds have been subject to brutal treatment in Iraq, Iran and Turkey, the report said. Seven Kurds who surrendered to Iraqi authorities during an amnesty in February were executed, the report said, and Kurds were victims of a wave of secret executions in Iran that ended in January 1989.
by CNB