OMCT speech on Agenda Item 2:
Question of the violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms

Thank you Madam Chairperson,

The World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), which coordinates the world's largest network of non-governmental organisations working in the fight against torture, comprising 261 NGOs, has noted with concern the deleterious effect upon the human rights situations in countries where there has been a cessation or continuing absence of United Nations human rights monitoring. OMCT believes that the ending of such monitoring activities in countries where the human rights climates continue to be clouded by widespread abuses, act as a signal to the repressive regimes that are in place that they have a free reign, a green light to continue or even intensify their violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

In order to illustrate these concerns, OMCT would like to bring to the attention of the Sub-Commission the grave situations in countries in which UN monitoring has been forsaken:

In Sudan, OMCT has witnessed a continuing degradation of the human rights situation, since the Special Rapporteur on Sudan's mandate was not renewed during the last session of the Commission on Human Rights, which has left a monitoring vacuum in the country. The lack of UN monitoring has been followed by a worsening of the situation, with widespread and numerous cases having been brought to OMCT's attention by the members of its network. OMCT has received approximately twice as many accounts of serious violations in 2003 compared with 2002, and over 75% of these cases have been received, and have become the subject of OMCT urgent appeals, since the end of the Commission in April of this year. OMCT has already released appeals concerning some 300 Sudanese victims this year.

The cases have included a large variety of violations including: widespread and mass arbitrary arrests; incommunicado detentions; death threats; severe and systematic ill treatment and torture, which on several occasions has led to deaths in detention; forced disappearances; corporal punishment, including flogging, amputations and stonings, which in some cases have been carried out upon children; and the sentencing to death of a large number of persons, again including children, subsequent to trials, notably before so-called Special Courts in the Darfour region, that do not meet internationally recognised fair trial standards.

The victims of these violations include: women, children, journalists, human rights defenders, and a large number of students and opposition political activists. In particular, serious and widespread violations have been perpetrated against members of the Christian and Animist tribes, while members of the Arab tribes have in particular been sentenced to corporal punishment, including cross-amputation, as well as crucifixion and death.

Concerning the Islamic Republic of Iran, OMCT has noted with alarm a substantial increase in the number of serious violations since the UN Special Representative on Iran's mandate was not renewed, during the session of the Commission in 2001. The violations have included: mass arrests, most recently of student activists; the widespread use of torture; as well as a stark rise in the number of harsh sentences being handed out, including flogging, amputation of limbs and executions following unfair and expeditious trails; and characterise a general escalation of the repressive means being used by the country's clerical regime.

OMCT has previously declared its preoccupation with the absence of human rights monitoring in Iran, notably during the last Commission. It has been noted that the failure of the Commission to adopt a resolution on Iran in 2001 was followed by a significant increase in the gravest violations, with certain periods in 2002 having witnessed a tripling in the number of executions compared with the same periods in 2001. OMCT deeply regrets the lack of a resolution on Iran and the accompanying monitoring during the Commission's 59th session.

OMCT would like to urge the Sub-Commission to request that the Secretary general collect information in order to enable the evaluation of the effects upon the human rights situations in countries engendered by the cessation of UN human rights monitoring. OMCT believes that safeguards against the abandonment of monitoring, in situations where serious violations are known to be ongoing, should be put into place in order to prevent these situations from escaping from international attention, and the protection for potential victims of abuses that such attention can afford. In light of this, OMCT calls upon the UN thematic procedures to pay particular attention to the situations in such countries.

Madam Chairperson,

Concerning the Indonesian Province of Aceh, OMCT is gravely concerned by emerging reports of grave abuses that are ongoing in the new phase of the conflict in the region, which began on May 18th, 2003, when Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri declared a state of emergency and imposed martial law in the province. The new phase has been characterised by a total clampdown on international monitoring of the situation, with no United Nations, International NGO or foreign media presence currently tolerated in the province. OMCT has received serious allegations of mass killings, including hundreds, if not thousands of victims, and tens of thousands of displaced persons, including women and children, who have little or no recourse to humanitarian aid. Furthermore, OMCT has denounced several attacks upon local human rights NGOs, and the issuing of a 600-member list of wanted persons, many of whom are activists, which have forced the majority of Acehnese civil society into hiding for fear of arrest, forced disappearance and extrajudicial execution. OMCT is also gravely concerned by the lack of international monitoring in a situation that clearly requires it.

Madam Chairperson,

OMCT would also like to take this opportunity to highlight its concerns in relation with the growing barriers that are being erected to hinder the freedom of communication.

Since September 11th 2001, security has become the absolute priority for governments. At the domestic level, many governments have either adopted new anti-terror legislation or modified pre-existing legislation in a manner that, in a number of cases, curtails certain individual rights and creates the conditions for the violation of fundamental human rights such as the right to freedom of opinion and expression.

The legitimate and necessary fight against terrorism is increasingly being diverted from its primary objective and used by governments to establish or strengthen their hold on power at the expense of their commitments to human rights. Consequently, those who dare to criticize regimes for their human rights abuses are more than ever the targets of criticism, and even of severe repression. This was pointed out by the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the situation of human rights defenders in her report to the 59th session of the Commission on Human Rights.

In December this year, the first phase of the World Summit on the Information Society will be held in Geneva while the second phase will be organised in Tunis. On this occasion, OMCT will raise its concern over the strategies that are being developed by the most repressive governments in order to control the information that is released about them, which contrasts with the positions they take on the international scene regarding globalization and the freedom of communication. While an increasingly sophisticated global system of communication is emerging, governments are attempting to control the means of communication and information about them, be it by restricting access to the Internet, blocking websites or arresting so-called cyber-dissidents.

In Resolution 56/183, the General Assembly encouraged contributions from all relevant UN bodies. Taking this into consideration, OMCT would like to recommend to the Sub-Commission to request the High Commissioner for Human Rights to actively participate in the preparatory process of the Summit and the Summit itself.

In China, 42 cyber-dissidents are currently imprisoned, having been handed between 3 to 15-year sentences.

In Malaysia, online journals are facing considerable pressure. Despite the launching of the MultiMedia Super Corridor project and a guarantee by the State that there would no restrictions placed upon the availability of Internet content, official media groups have publicly attacked an online journal. In addition, Internet-based journalists are being subjected to discrimination on the part of State representatives, who are refusing to give them interviews.

In August 2001 in Vietnam, the government adopted a decree that imposed strict regulations on Internet cafés and fines for clandestine use of the Internet. In addition, Vietnamese Internet sites require a licence from the government to operate. A number of dissidents have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms for having "communicated with foreign elements via the Internet."

In Tunisia, the case of Zouhair Yahyahoui, the founder and webmaster of the TUNeZINE Internet site, typifies the governmental repression to which human rights defenders are subjected in the country. He was arrested on June 4th, 2002, as a result of his activities in favour of human rights and was sentenced to two years of imprisonment on July 11th, 2002 by the Tunis Court of Appeals for having "communicated or divulged knowingly false information about a terrorist attack" (Penal Code, Article 306 c.) and for "misappropriation of telecommunications lines" (Telecommunications Code, Article 84). In addition to the arrests of cyber-dissidents, it must be noted that International human rights NGOs' websites, including OMCT's, cannot be accessed in Tunisia, and human rights defenders' e-mail accounts are either blocked, emptied of their content, or their content is systematically read by the authorities.

Thank you Madam Chairperson

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