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May 1989, Page 19 Human Rights Amnesty International Intensifies Middle East ScrutinyBy Sally Clark NyhanAmnesty International (AI), the internationally recognized human rights organization, greeted Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's arrival in the US with an advertisement in the Washington Post calling on Israel to stop abuses in the occupied territories. The April 6 advertisement charged that Israeli occupation forces "condoned if not encouraged the excessive use of force" in the occupied territories, and asked the Bush administration and Congress to call on Israel to stop "these human rights abuses." David Aasen, government program officer for the Middle East and Europe in Amnesty International's Washington, DC, office, said the Shamir visit provided an "opportunity to highlight our concerns over Israeli occupation tactics and to challenge the Bush administration to transmit the words of the State Department's human rights report into actions." A similar, full-page ad was placed in USA Today. Aasen said that AI has tried over the past year to "motivate" its US membership to ask their representatives in Congress to address the situation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. AI also recently launched a "Challenge to Congress" campaign, assigning one prisoner of conscience to each state's delegation and asking members of Congress from each state to work for that prisoner's freedom. Aasen noted that several Palestinians were assigned, including one case sent to George Bush and James Baker involving Zahi Jaradat, a Palestinian human rights worker who had been imprisoned by Israeli officials. Jaradat was released soon after the case was assigned. Washington Report readers may obtain AI's most recent report on Israeli human rights practices in the occupied territories, upon which the advertisement was based, by sending $5 to Amnesty International, 608 Massachusetts Ave. NE, Washington, DC 20002. Healey Criticizes Past EditorialAmnesty International USA Executive Director John G. Healey has recently criticized the Washington Post for printing an editorial treating human rights abuses as an ideological subject. (Healey's letter can be found in "Other People's Mail" on Page 24.) The editorial compared human rights violations by Israel and the Soviet Union, but conveyed the impression that Israeli human rights violations were less serious because Israel is a democracy. "No amount of lamination is going to change the fact that a democratic government that is responsible for killing, beating, torture, and unfair imprisonment is no less culpable because its activities provoke 'a deep national debate,"' Healey wrote. "Visualize the arm of a teen-ager held out by soldiers and broken at midshaft... chronicle dozens of deaths as a result of plastic bullets, hundreds of deaths as a result of high-velocity bullets, and many thousands of wounded people ... count the thousands imprisoned without trial and the scores tortured. Now turn to the Post and read 'what counts most, however, is the nature of the system."' Healey called upon the Bush administration to demand that the Israeli government stop its current policy of "force, might, and beatings;" stop the use of live ammunition and plastic bullets against demonstrators; and free all prisoners of conscience currently held under Israeli administrative detention. Amnesty Reports Torture of Children in IraqAmnesty International also released a March 1989 report on what it called the routine practice of torture of Iraqi children. AI allegations included abuse of Kurdish children to force family members to confess to alleged crimes, and punishment designed to humiliate or abuse young women and girls. AI also charged that several youths under age 18 were executed in defiance of Iraqi legislation. Those executed, Amnesty reported, were allegedly supporters of the prohibited Kurdistan Democratic Party. Torture in BahrainA London-based group, the Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners in Bahrain ( CDPP Bahrain), charged the Bahraini government with killing Mohammed Mansoor Hassan, a Bahraini national who was arrested Jan. 25 on his return from Syria. The charges cited evidence of torture on the body, including broken bones, burn marks, and lacerations. CDPP Bahrain claims that seven Babrainis have been tortured to death since 1980. NGO Symposium Focuses on Human Rights and PalestineThe Sixth North American Regional NGO Symposium on the Question of Palestine is scheduled for June 21-23 at the UN New York headquarters. Panels and workshops will focus on support for Palestinian children and victims of violations of the 4th Geneva convention, Palestinian labor conditions, humanitarian aid projects, and congressional and parliamentary strategies for human rights. Contact Jeanne Butterfield, PO Box 576, Cambridge, MA 02140 or call (212) 963-8230. In addition, the North American Coordinating Committee of NonGovernmental Organizations on the Question of Palestine (NACC) recently began a full-scale effort to convince Congress to convene open public hearings on human rights violations committed by Israel in the West Bank and Gaza. A letter-writing campaign to House Foreign Affairs human rights subcommittee Chairman Gus Yatron (D-PA) and to House Europe and the Middle East committee Chairman Lee Hamilton (D-IN) is also underway. Sally Clark Nyhan is the Book Club Editor at the American Educational Rust. SIDEBARHuman Rights Publications
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