Eritrea marked 20 years of independence in 2011, but its citizens remain victimized by one of the world’s most repressive governments. They suffer arbitrary and indefinite detention; torture; inhumane conditions of confinement; restrictions on freedom of speech, movement, and belief; and indefinite conscription and forced labor in national service.

Arbitrary Detention
Since September 2001 or even before, Eritreans from all walks of life—government officials, leaders of government-controlled labor unions, businesspeople, journalists, and national service evaders or escapees—have been jailed for explicit or inferred opposition to President Isaias Afwerki and his policies. The number of Eritreans jailed for such opposition is difficult to confirm, but ranges from 5,000 to 10,000, excluding national service evaders and deserters, who may number tens of thousands more. Twenty prominent critics and journalists have been held in incommunicado isolation for a decade; nine are feared dead.

Prisoners are often held indefinitely without access to family members, prison monitors, or lawyers. There are no public trials and no appeals. Persons inquiring about a relative’s whereabouts risk being jailed themselves.

Families are punished for the acts of one of its members, especially for draft evasion or desertion. The family is given no opportunity to defend itself. Families are fined Nakfa 50,000 (US$ 3,333) for evasion or desertion. Those who do not or cannot pay are jailed and may have property confiscated.

Forced Labor and Other Abuses in “National Service”
Since 2002 Eritrea has misused its national service system to keep a generation of Eritreans in bondage. Service is indefinitely prolonged, extending for much of a citizen’s working life. Pay is barely sufficient for survival. Recruits are used as cheap labor for civil service jobs, development projects, and the ruling party’s commercial and agricultural enterprises. Female recruits have reported sexual abuse by higher-ranking officers.
Thousands of Eritreans, mostly of younger generations, flee the country because of the harsh conditions in national service. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported in early 2011 that 220,000 Eritreans, about 5 percent of the population, have fled. During a visit to a refugee camp in Ethiopia in mid-2011, an assistant high commissioner said she was shocked to see such a “sea of young faces.” The new refugees included a significant number of unaccompanied children, some as young as six-years-old.

Among the most prominent defectors in 2011 were 13 members of a 25-member soccer (football) team who refused to return after a regional tournament in Tanzania. Such defections are not new. In 2009, 12 soccer players absconded in Kenya. Earlier in 2011, fearful of further defections, the government refused to allow a soccer team that won a first-round game in Eritrea to play a return match in Kenya.

A UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea found strong evidence that high-level Eritrean officials facilitate escapes to earn hard currency: “People smuggling is so pervasive that it could not be possible without the complicity of Government and party officials, especially military officers….” Military officers charge about $3,000 per person for a border crossing and up to $20,000 for smuggling escapees through Sudan and Egypt. According to the UN group, receipts are funneled through Eritrean embassy staff into a Swiss bank account.

Torture and Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment
Escaping Eritreans, including prison guards, report that torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment in detention are systematic and routine. Aside from severe beatings, punishments include mock drowning, hanging by the arms from trees, being tied up in the sun in contorted positions for hours or days, and being doubled up inside a tire. One investigative technique is to tighten handcuffs so that circulation to the hands is cut off and pain from the swelling hands becomes unbearable.

Many prisoners are held in unlit underground bunkers and in shipping containers with broiling daytime and freezing nighttime temperatures. Prisoners are held in isolation or are packed tightly in severely crowded cells. Food rations generally consist of lentils and a bread roll once a day and tea twice a day. Deaths in prison from torture, disease, inadequate food, and other harsh conditions are frequent.

Freedom of Expression and Association
The government destroyed Eritrea’s private press in September 2001 and arrested its journalists. Since then propaganda outlets run by the Ministry of Information—television, radio, and newspapers—serve as the only domestic sources of news. Information inconsistent with President Isaias’s preconceptions is suppressed. It took a month for government media to mention the Tunisian, Libyan, and Egyptian revolutions. When they did, it was to assert that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s government deserved to fall for not adopting Isaias’s policy of self-reliance.

According to Reporters Without Borders, four additional journalists were detained in 2011 and remain in custody: Neibel Edris, Ahmed Usman, Mohammed Osman, and Tesfalidet Mebratu.

Internet access is available but difficult. Penetration is under 4 percent, primarily through cyber cafés in Asmara. Users are closely monitored. Some users were reportedly arrested in early 2011.

No political or civic organizations are permitted except those controlled by Isaias’s People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ). Nongovernmental public gatherings of over seven persons are prohibited. Critical questions at government-convened meetings constitute grounds for arrest.

Freedom of Religion
In 2002 the Eritrean government banned religious activities, except those organized by four registered religious organizations: Sunni Islam, the Eritrean Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Evangelical (Lutheran) Church of Eritrea. It deposed the Orthodox patriarch in 2005, has held him in house arrest since 2007, and chose his successor. The government also appointed the current Sunni mufti.

Adherents of “unrecognized” religions are seized in raids on churches and homes and imprisoned and tortured until they renounce their faiths. Jehovah’s Witnesses are especially victimized. As of April 2011, the Jehovah’s Witness media website lists 51 Witnesses incarcerated as conscientious objectors, for participation in religious meetings, or for unknown reasons; three conscientious objectors have been imprisoned for 17 years.

Usually reliable sources who monitor religious persecutions reported continuing persecution of religious practitioners in 2011. Thirty members of an evangelical Christian church were arrested in Asmara in January. In May and June authorities reportedly arrested over 90 members of unrecognized Christian churches, including 26 college students. Two women and one man in their twenties, arrested in 2009 for participating in prayer meetings while serving in national service, reportedly died in captivity at military camps in 2011. A 62-year-old Jehovah’s Witness arrested in 2008 died in July, a week after he was placed in solitary confinement in a metal shipping container.

United Nations Sanctions and Horn of Africa Relations
The UN Security Council imposed sanctions on Eritrea in 2009 for providing political, financial, and logistical support to insurrectionary groups in Somalia and for occupying Djibouti territory it had invaded in 2008. In 2011 the council’s Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea reported that Eritrea was still funneling funds through its embassies to al-Shabaab and other groups fighting the UN-recognized Somali government. Although Eritrea had withdrawn from Djibouti territory by 2011, it continues to hold 19 Djiboutian prisoners of war to whom it has not permitted third-party access.

The Monitoring Group also concluded that Eritrea had sponsored an unsuccessful attempt to bomb an African Union Heads of State Summit in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, in January 2011. Eritrea and Ethiopia have been bitter enemies since Eritrea began a border war in 1998. The bitterness continues partly because of animosity between the leaders of the two countries, and partly because Ethiopia refuses to vacate land that a neutral boundary commission, whose decision both countries agreed would be binding, held belongs to Eritrea.

Key International Actors
Eritrea received modest amounts of foreign aid from China (in the form of soft loans), the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Libya, and Qatar in recent years; no loans or grants were announced in 2011. The European Union provides some development and emergency assistance, but the bulk of this remains undisbursed because of concerns about transparency and accountability.

The Isaias government lost a key political and financial supporter with the death of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi of Libya. The emir of Qatar and president of Sudan remain important supporters. Qatar is financing a four-star resort on Dahlak Kebre island, not far from a notorious underground prison. In October 2011 Sudan refouled over 300 Eritreans without screening them for refugee status, ignoring an agreement with the UNHCR calling for such screening.

Eritrea in 2011 began to re-engage with other African countries, announcing that it would rejoin the regional organization, the Intergovernmental Authority for Growth and Development.

Eritreans who fled the country in 2011 report a lack of food and soaring prices for what food remains available because of a serious regional drought, but Eritrea insists it needs no food assistance. It has not allowed access by humanitarian organizations to assess needs. In 2009 Isaias privately told the UN Children’s Fund that Eritrea was suffering from famine even as he publicly denied food shortages. It continues to receive UN funding for health, sanitation, and safe-water projects, but it ended its relationship with the World Bank in 2011.

Isaias told Eritreans in May 2011 that international NGOs harbor “a pathological compulsion for espionage.”

The Awami League government failed to use its significant parliamentary mandate in 2011 to push through policies to ensure strong protections of human rights. Instead of prosecuting members of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), who engage in extrajudicial killings, the home minister chose to deny that such violations occur, even in cases where internal ministry investigations found evidence of wrongdoing. The practice of disguising extrajudicial killings as “crossfire” killings seeped from the RAB into other law enforcement institutions, particularly the police. New allegations of torture, arbitrary arrest, and enforced disappearances by police continue to emerge.

The government in 2011 tightened controls over civil society organizations by prosecuting labor union leaders and delaying foreign grants to NGOs. At this writing a bill proposing restrictions on media, which would prohibit the broadcast of certain religious and political speech, was under consideration.

Violence against women including rape, dowry-related assaults, acid attacks, and sexual harassment continue.

Torture, Extrajudicial Killings, and Other Abuses

Despite strong evidence that security forces were continuing to arbitrarily arrest people, often torturing and then killing them in custody, the home minister refused to acknowledge the need for accountability. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said her government had zero tolerance for extrajudicial killings, but failed to properly investigate allegations and prosecute the perpetrators.

On May 21, 2011, William Gomes, a representative of the Asian Human Rights Commission, was allegedly picked up by plainclothes RAB personnel and taken to a place his abductors described as “headquarters,” where he was stripped naked, had his hands and legs cuffed, was forced into stress position, and was verbally abused and threatened with physical torture. He was interrogated about his work documenting human rights violations.

In at least two cases, the Home Ministry ignored its own findings that RAB was responsible for wrongful killings. According to Odhikar, a Dhaka-based human rights organization, at least 1,600 people have been victims of extrajudicial killings since 2004. Before the Awami League came to power, its leaders had accused RAB of widespread extrajudicial killings; they now claim that all deaths occur during armed exchanges with criminals.

The military and police continue to employ torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment against suspects, violating both domestic and international law. Many deaths in custody are never investigated. According to Odhikar, at least 12 people died in custody due to police torture in 2011.

Trials for Bangladesh Rifles Abuses

Military tribunal hearings against members of the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) accused of participating in a February 2009 mutiny continued through 2011. Military courts convicted nearly 1,000 soldiers in mass trials that did not meet fair trial standards, among other things because the prosecution failed to produce individualized evidence against each detainee. In a single trial that concluded on June 27, 657 of 666 defendants were found guilty and sentenced to prison terms ranging from four months to seven years.

Several thousand other soldiers remain in custody awaiting trial in military courts, while another 847 have been charged under the Bangladesh Criminal Code. Some of those charged under the criminal code face the death penalty and many do not have lawyers.

The government did not investigate allegations of torture and possibly as many as 70 custodial deaths during investigations after the mutiny. Many suspects were denied access to legal counsel, particularly in the few months directly after the mutiny.

Civil Society

The government increased surveillance of Odhikar and in particular, Adilur Rahman Khan, Odhikar’s secretary advocate; threatening and harassing staff; and delaying approvals of projects.

After Nobel Peace Laureate Mohmmad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank, was removed from his position at the bank because he had exceeded the mandatory retirement age, there were mysterious attacks on his supporters. In May Sagirur Rashid Chowdhury, an accounts officer at the bank, was picked up outside the office by plainclothes men. When he was released his body bore signs of severe beatings. He said his abductors had asked him to issue a public statement withdrawing support for Yunus. In September six women directors and one former director of the board of directors of the Grameen Bank, all beneficiaries of the microcredit system, suffered intimidation by police who came and searched their rooms.

The government continued legal action aimed at intimidating the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity (BCWS), a trade union group. After revoking BCWS’s registration one agency demanded that two union leaders, Kalpona Akhter and Babul Akhter, both facing criminal charges, resign as a precondition to renewed registration of the organization. BCWS has denied all allegations against it.

International Crimes Tribunal

To address fair trial concerns, the government in June 2011 amended the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act of 1973 to include some basic due process concerns, such as the right to the presumption of innocence and a fair and public hearing. But the law, established to prosecute those responsible for atrocities in the war of 1971, still fell short of international standards. The definitions of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide did not conform to international standards and the government failed to amend the law to ensure due process. Defense lawyers, witnesses, and investigators said they had been threatened.

The tribunal in 2011 began proceedings in its first case, that of Jamaat-e-Islami leader Delawar Hossein Sayedee, accused of involvement in war crimes in the 1971 war.

Women’s and Girls’ Rights

Violence against women and girls and their discriminatory treatment under personal status laws persists. New cases were reported in 2011 of beatings, isolation, and other public humiliation of girls, all imposed following religious leaders’ issuance of fatwas on issues such as talking to a man, pre-marital relations, having a child outside wedlock, and adultery. Women’s groups are particularly concerned that such abuses continue even though the High Court division of the Bangladesh Supreme Court ordered government authorities to take preventive measures and prosecute perpetrators.

The Bangladesh parliament in 2011 enacted a law against domestic violence and rules are currently being framed for its implementation. The government also introduced a national policy to advance women’s rights.

Recruiters in the Middle East are increasingly turning to Bangladesh to hire women domestic workers as other labor-sending countries tighten their regulations or impose bans in response to widespread exploitation. The Bangladeshi government has failed to introduce minimum protection measures for these workers during training or recruitment or to ensure that embassies abroad are adequately equipped with labor attaches and shelters to respond to cases of abuse.

Protection of Indigenous People

Bangladeshi authorities did little to prevent intensifying violence and discrimination against indigenous groups residing in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. There were repeated clashes between ethnic and religious minority groups and “settlers” who belong to the majority Bengali community. These clashes were in part a result of government failure to implement its agreement with the indigenous communities to protect their rights.

Key International Actors

The United States and United Kingdom expressed concern in 2011 about continuing impunity for human rights violations by the RAB. Both countries have provided assistance and training for RAB, though the UK ended such programs in 2011. The US recommended creation of an independent unit to investigate allegations of torture, disappearances, and extrajudicial killings by the RAB.

Bangladesh and India signed trade and security agreements in 2011. Despite Indian government commitments to order its border forces to act with restraint against Bangladeshi nationals who cross into Indian territory, it failed to properly investigate and prosecute those responsible for abuses, including killings.

In mid-February Bahraini authorities used lethal force to suppress peaceful anti-government and pro-democracy protests, killing seven and wounding many more.

The crackdown resumed in mid-March, after troops from Saudi Arabia entered Bahrain and Bahraini military and security forces launched a systematic campaign of retribution, arresting thousands of demonstrators or individuals who supported the protests. Authorities fired hundreds of public sector employees suspected of supporting the protests, as did large private firms in which the state had a substantial stake.

Security forces’ use of birdshot pellets, rubber bullets, and tear gas as well as live ammunition caused most of the deaths and injuries of protesters and bystanders. Attacks against protesters continued after authorities formally lifted the “state of national safety” on June 1. At this writing more than 40 persons had been killed in connection with suppression of protests, including four who died in custody in April from torture or medical neglect, and several members of security forces.

Right to Assembly

During the early morning hours of February 17, security forces attacked peaceful demonstrators at the Pearl Roundabout in Manama, the capital. Many were sleeping. The assault left four protesters dead and hundreds injured. On February 18, security forces and the Bahrain Defense Force (BDF) fired live ammunition and rubber bullets at peaceful protesters marching towards the Pearl Roundabout—then occupied by BDF tanks, armored vehicles and police units—mortally wounding Abd al-Ridha Bu Hameed.

On February 19, authorities ordered security and military forces to withdraw and protesters reoccupied the Pearl Roundabout. For four weeks protesters gathered at the roundabout and other areas to voice opposition to the government and ruling Al Khalifa family. Crown Prince Salma bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa appeared on national television and guaranteed that protesters would be free to demonstrate at the Pearl Roundabout without facing arrest or attack by government forces.

On March 16—a day after King Hamad declared a “state of national safety,” akin to a state of emergency—security and military forces forcibly cleared the Pearl Roundabout, the center of anti-government protests. The same day, forces dispersed protesters in villages outside Manama and surrounded the Salmaniya Medical Complex, the country’s largest public hospital, preventing patients and medical staff from entering or leaving the hospital. At least six people were killed during clashes on March 16, including two police officers.

After lifting the state of emergency on June 1, authorities permitted Al Wefaq, the largest opposition political society, to hold several rallies, which remained peaceful, but clashes with security forces regularly broke out when protesters held demonstrations in Shia villages. At least eleven protesters and bystanders, including two children under age 18, had been killed as a result of protest-related injuries between June 1 and this writing.

Arbitrary Arrests and Detentions

Since mid-March security forces have arrested over 1,600 people who participated in, or were suspected of supporting, the anti-government demonstrations. Some of those arrested and detained were children. In many cases armed masked men, some in uniforms and others in civilian clothes, pulled people out of their homes in pre-dawn raids and transferred them to unknown locations. Others were arrested at work or pulled out of cars at checkpoints. Authorities held most detainees in incommunicado detention for weeks, in some cases months. Detainees had little or no contact with lawyers or family except when they were presented before a special military court.

Those held incommunicado included doctors, teachers, students, athletes, a prominent defense lawyer, and leaders of legally recognized opposition political societies. Ibrahim Sharif, a Sunni who heads the secularist National Democratic Action Society, was one of the first arrested, in a pre-dawn raid on March 17. Matar Ibrahim Matar andJawad Fairouz—who represented Al Wefaq, the largest opposition bloc in parliament before its members resigned in protest in February—were seized on May 2. Authorities released Matar and Fairouz in August but they still face charges related to their political activities.

Dozens remained in pre-trial detention as of October, in addition to the more than 250 who were convicted and sentenced by special military courts. The government provided little information about the number of people arrested and typically gave reasons for arrest only when detainees were charged before special military courts.

Torture, Ill-Treatment, and Abuse

In April four people died in custody, apparently as a result of torture and medical neglect. The body of one—Ali Isa Ibrahim Saqer, arrested in connection with the deaths of two police officers—bore unmistakable signs of torture on his body. On April 28 Bahrain TV broadcast Saqer’s purported confession in connection with the trial of his co-defendants, although authorities notified Saqer’s family of his death on April 9.

Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, a leading human rights and political activist, appeared before a special military court on May 8 with facial fractures and head injuries, apparently the result of severe beatings he sustained when authorities detained him on April 9. Several other co-defendants showed signs of possible abuse or ill-treatment. Since mid-February dozens of released detainees, including doctors, nurses, and paramedics arrested in March and April, have alleged they were abused or tortured during detention, often to coerce confessions.

On February 23, authorities released from prison 23 opposition leaders and activists arrested between mid-August and early September 2010 for alleged terrorist offenses. Several in the group described lengthy interrogation sessions during which they were blindfolded and subjected to both physical and psychological abuse, some of which amounted to torture. The abuse included threats, humiliation, solitary confinement, beatings to the head, chest, and other sensitive areas, beatings on the soles of feet with sticks or hoses, sleep deprivation, denying access to the bathroom, and electric shocks. Some said they were sexually harassed or assaulted. Most of the defendants have since been rearrested.

Authorities denied requests for visits to detention facilities by independent human rights and humanitarian organizations as well as United Nations human rights mechanisms.

Unfair Trials in Special Military Courts

On March 15 King Hamad established by decree special military courts, called the “Courts of National Safety,” to try protesters and people perceived as supporting the street protests. BDF Commander-in-Chief Field Marshal Khalifa bin Ahmed Al Khalifa appointed the military judge who presides over the court, along with two civilian judges, and the military public prosecutor who prosecuted the cases.

Since March, authorities have tried several hundred defendants before military courts and have convicted and sentenced more than 300 persons.

Among those the special military court sentenced to prison terms ranging from five years to life were Sharif al-Khawaja, and 19 other protest leaders, seven of them in absentia, on June 22. The charges against them ranged from calling for a change of government, leading “illegal” demonstrations, “spreading false news,” and “harming the reputation” of the country. The trial record cited no evidence linking any of the accused to acts of violence or other recognizable criminal offenses. An appeals court upheld their convictions and sentences on September 28.

On April 28 the special military court sentenced four defendants to death andthree others to life in prison for their alleged involvement in the murder of two police officers. Two of the death sentences were upheld by the Appeals Court of National Safety, while the other two were changed to life imprisonment. On September 29 the special military court sentenced another defendant to death for the alleged murder of a third police officer.

Lawyers defending suspects before the special military court had extremely limited access to their clients and were unable to adequately prepare their clients’ defenses. In many cases convictions were based solely on secret evidence that the military prosecution provided, the testimony of interrogators, and confessions that defendants claimed were coerced.

The special military courts ended their operation on October 7, more than four months after a June 29 decree by King Hamad that supposedly transferred all protest-related cases to civilian courts.

Attacks on Doctors and Other Health Care Staff

Since the outbreak of anti-government protests in mid-February, Human Rights Watch documented restrictions on provision of emergency care at temporary health posts, sieges at hospitals and clinics by security forces, arrests and beatings of people with protest-related injuries, and arrests of doctors and other health care staff who had criticized these actions.

Police attacked a volunteer medical tent in the February 17 raid on Pearl Roundabout, beating and arresting nurses and doctors as well as protesters. In response to this attack and to allegations that authorities prevented the dispatch of ambulances to attend to wounded protesters, demonstrators gathered outside the emergency facilities of Salmaniya hospital, with the support of some of the health care staff. For several weeks the grounds outside the complex became a staging ground for anti-government demonstrations, with posters, tents, photos of wounded protesters, and speeches by opposition leaders.

The BDF took over Salmaniya hospital on March 16 and restricted entry to and exit from the complex. Hospital staff and protesters being treated for injuries inside the hospital were subjected to harassment, beatings that sometimes rose to the level of torture, and arrest. Security forces also raided health care facilities elsewhere, where they interrogated and arrested medical staff.

On September 29 the special military court sentenced 20 doctors and other health care staff charged with serious crimes, including kidnapping and storing weapons at Salmaniya hospital, and terms of imprisonment ranging from 5 to 15 years. The court denied the doctors and other health care staff a fair trial by relying on tainted or questionable evidence including coerced confessions, hearsay, and “secret evidence” submitted by interrogators, who often served as the prosecutor’s main witness. Judges also prevented the doctors and other health care staff from testifying in their own defense. At this writing a civilian court was scheduled to hear the doctors and health care staff’s appeal on November 28.

Twenty-eight other doctors and health care staff faced misdemeanor charges before a civil court.

Summary Workplace and University Dismissals

According to the General Federation of Bahraini Trade Unions, ministries, other official bodies, and private companies in which the state held a substantial interest dismissed more than 2,500 employees in the first half of the year.

In most cases the stated reason for dismissal was absence from work during and immediately after street protests, but the dismissals appear to have been arbitrary and carried out in violation of Bahraini law.

On April 19 the Bahrain News Agency (BNA) reported that the University of Bahrain had dismissed 200 students, academics, and other employees in connection with protests and clashes on the campus in March. On May 25, according to the BNA, Education Minister Majid al-Nuaimi confirmed that some students in Bahrain and abroad who participated in anti-government protests lost their government scholarships. The University of Bahrain required all students to sign a loyalty pledge to the ruling family before they could re-enroll when the university reopened in early May and again in September.

Women’s Rights

Unlike for Sunnis, there is no codified personal status law dealing with marriage, divorce, guardianship and child custody, and inheritance for Shias. Such matters are left to the judge’s discretion in Shia courts. The penal code does not adequately deal with violence against women as there are no comprehensive provisions on sexual harassment or domestic abuse. Rape can be punished with life in prison, but marital rape is not recognized as a crime.

Migrant Workers

More than 460,000 migrant workers, primarily from Asia, work in Bahrain on temporary contracts in construction, domestic work, and other services. Abuses such as unpaid wages, passport confiscation, unsafe housing, excessive work hours, and physical abuse are common. A 2009 reform allowing workers to change jobs more freely has yet to be publicized widely and does not apply to domestic workers, who are also excluded from protection under the labor law. Bahrain voted to adopt the International Labour Organization Convention on Domestic Work, but has yet to ratify it or to pass draft national legislation on domestic work.

Key International Actors

Troops primarily from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates entered Bahrain on March 14 to support Bahrain’s crackdown against largely peaceful protests.

Bahrain hosts the United States Navy’s Fifth Fleet, and the US sells military equipment to Bahrain, a “major non-NATO ally.” After the February attacks on demonstrators the United Kingdom and France announced they would cut off security and military sales and assistance to Bahrain, and the US announced it would “review” such sales. In September the US Department of Defense formally notified Congress of a proposed the sale of US$53 million in armored Humvees and other equipment to the BDF as well as $15 million in Foreign Military Financing for Bahrain.

US President Barack Obama telephoned King Hamad on February 18 after Bahraini forces fired on demonstrators and, according to a White House statement, “reiterated his condemnation of the violence used against peaceful protesters,” and in a speech on May 19 criticized the government’s “mass arrests and brute force.” For the most part, however, Bahrain’s major western allies—the US and the European Union and its member states—were muted in their public criticism of Bahrain’s serious human rights violations in a manner that contrasted sharply with their public statements concerning other governments engaged in similar abuses in the region. They also failed to prompt any action at the UN Human Rights Council.

On June 29 King Hamad issued a decree establishing the Bahrain Independent Commission of Investigation (BICI) headed by M. Cherif Bassiouni and four other internationally recognized human rights experts. The commission’s mandate is to investigate “the events occurring in Bahrain February/March 2011, and any consequences arising out of the aforementioned events.” The commission was scheduled to issue its findings on November 23.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN secretary-general welcomed the establishment of the BICI. The US government has said it will wait for the commission’s final report and the government’s response before deciding on the $53 million arms sales.

After the March crackdown the government sharply restricted access to the country by independent journalists and international rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch.

Syria, a repressive police state ruled under an emergency law since 1963, did not prove immune in 2011 to the pro-democracy Arab Spring movements. Anti-government protests erupted in the southern governorate of Daraa in mid-March and quickly spread to other parts of the country. Security forces responded brutally, killing at least 3,500 protesters and arbitrarily detaining thousands, including children under age 18, holding most of them incommunicado and subjecting many to torture. The security forces also launched large-scale military operations in restive towns nationwide.

In parallel, Syria’s government enacted a number of reforms in an unsuccessful effort to quell the protest movement, lifting the state of emergency, introducing a new media law, and granting citizenship to stateless Kurds. But at this writing the ongoing bloody repression signaled the government’s determination to crush dissent and reject reforms that might undermine its authority.

Killings of Protesters and Bystanders

Security forces and government-supported armed groups used violence, often lethal, to attack and disperse overwhelmingly peaceful anti-government protesters from mid-March onwards. The exact number of dead is impossible to verify due to restrictions on access, but local groups documented 3,500 civilian dead as of November 15.

Many of the killings took place during shootings on protesters and funeral processions, such as the April killings in the central city of Homs of at least 15 people at the New Clock Tower Square when protesters tried to organize a sit-in, and in the southern town of Izraa of at least 34 protesters. While in some cases security forces initially used tear gas or fired in the air to disperse the crowds, in many others, they fired directly at protesters without advance warning. Many victims sustained head, neck, and chest wounds, suggesting they were deliberately targeted. In several cases, security forces chased and continued to shoot at protesters as they ran away.

Syrian authorities repeatedly claimed that security forces were responding to armed attacks by terrorist gangs. In most cases that Human Rights Watch documented, witnesses insisted that those killed and injured were unarmed and posed no lethal threat. Instances where protesters used lethal force against Syrian security forces were limited, and often came in response to lethal force by security forces.

Violations during Large-Scale Military Operations

Security forces conducted several large-scale military operations in restive towns and cities, resulting in mass killings, arrests, and detentions as well as the use of torture. In April tanks and armored personnel carriers imposed a siege on the city of Daraa for 11 days, killing at least 115 residents according to local activists. Daraa residents told Human Rights Watch that security forces occupied all neighborhoods, placed snipers on roofs of buildings across the city, and prevented any movement of residents by firing on those who tried to leave their homes. Security forces launched a massive arrest campaign, arbitrarily detaining hundreds. Released detainees said that security forces subjected them, as well as hundreds of others they saw in detention, to various forms of torture and degrading treatment.

In May security forces attacked the coastal city of Banyas, using the town’s sports stadium as a detention facility, and the town of Tal Kalakh, near the Lebanese border, forcing more than 3,000 Syrians to flee over the border to Lebanon. In June security forces sent tanks into the northern town of Jisr al-Shughur following armed confrontations between locally posted security forces and residents. In July security forces stormed Hama, which had witnessed the largest anti-government protests in Syria, killing at least 200 residents in four days, according to lists of the names of those killed provided by local activists. In August tanks and armored vehicles entered al-Ramel neighborhood in the coastal town of Latakia. Security forces also stormed the neighborhoods of Bab Sba, Bab Amro, and Bayyada in Homs on multiple occasions between May and September.

Arbitrary Arrests, Enforced Disappearances, and Torture

Security forces subjected thousands of people to arbitrary arrests and widespread torture in detention. The exact numbers are impossible to verify but information that Human Rights Watch collected suggests that security forces detained more than 20,000 people between March and September. Many detainees were young men in their 20s or 30s; but children, women, and elderly people were also included. While the government appears to have released most after several days or weeks in detention, several hundred remained missing at this writing.

According to released detainees, the methods of torture included prolonged beatings with sticks, twisted wires, and other devices; electric shocks; use of improvised metal and wooden “racks”; and, in at least one case, the rape of a male detainee with a baton. The interrogators and guards also subjected detainees to various forms of humiliating treatment, such as making them kiss their shoes and declare that President Bashar al-Assad was their god. Several detainees said their captors repeatedly threatened them with imminent execution, and all described appalling detention conditions, with overcrowded cells in which at times detainees could only sleep in turns.

At least 105 detainees died in custody in 2011, according to local activists. In cases of custodial death reviewed by Human Rights Watch, the bodies bore unmistakable marks of torture including bruises, cuts, and burns. The authorities provided the families with no information on the circumstances surrounding the deaths and, to Human Rights Watch’s knowledge, no investigation has been launched. In some cases, families of dead detainees had to sign statements that “armed gangs” had killed their relatives and promise not to hold public funerals as a condition to receiving the bodies. Some of those who died in detention were prominent protest leaders like Ghiyath Mattar, a 26-year-old community organizer from Daraya—a Damascus suburb—whose body security forces returned to his family four days after detaining him in September.

Denial of Medical Assistance

Syrian authorities in many cases denied wounded protesters access to medical assistance. On several occasions security forces prevented ambulances from reaching the wounded and, in at least three instances that Human Rights Watch documented, opened fire on medical personnel, in one case killing a doctor and a nurse in Daraa in March.

Security forces also arrested many injured protesters at hospitals, forcing many wounded to instead seek treatment in makeshift field hospitals—set up in private homes or mosques—for fear of arrest. In September hospital workers told Human Rights Watch that security forces forcibly removed 18 wounded persons from al-Barr hospital in Homs, including five who were still in the operating room.

Arrest of Activists and Journalists

The Syrian security forces have arrested hundreds of activists since protests erupted in mid-March, often merely for communicating with media or helping to organize protests. In April security forces detained Rasem al-Atassi, 66, former president of the Arab Organization for Human Rights in Syria, and a board member of the regional Arab Organization for Human Rights. A military investigative judge ordered his detention for 15 days to investigate his role in supporting protests. In May security forces detained Mohammed Najati Tayyara, a human rights activist from Homs who had spoken to international media about the government’s crackdown. He remained in detention at this writing.

Women activists were also targeted. In May security forces detained journalist and activist Dana al-Jawabra from outside her house in Damascus. Al-Jawabra, who hails from Daraa, was active in attempts to break the siege of the town by attempting to arrange a relief convoy. Also in May security forces detained human rights lawyer Catherine al-Talli, 32, in Damascus and held her incommunicado for two days.

In some instances, when the security forces were unable to locate the activist they were seeking, they detained family members. In May security forces detained Wael Hamadeh, a political activist and husband of prominent rights advocate Razan Zeitouneh, from his office. The security forces had gone to the couple’s house on April 30 searching for them but instead detained Hamadeh’s younger brother, Abdel Rahman, 20, when they could not find them. Security forces released Wael and Abdel Rahman months later.

The Syrian government also detained journalists trying to report on Syria’s crackdown. In March Syrian security services detained Reuters journalist Suleiman al-Khalidi, a Jordanian national, for reporting on the violence in Daraa. They expelled him from the country after holding him incommunicado for four days. In April security services detained Khaled Sid Mohand, a Franco-Algerian freelance journalist, and held him incommunicado for almost one month. Security services also detained Dorothy Parvaz—a national of the United States, Canada, and Iran—upon her arrival in Syria in April and held her incommunicado for six days, and detained Ghadi Frances and Ghassan Saoud, two Lebanese journalists, for short periods of time.

Reforms

In an attempt to quell the protests, Syrian authorities enacted a number of reforms, but the ongoing repression undermined their impact and made it impossible to assess the government’s intent to implement them. On April 4 President Assad enacted a decree that would grant citizenship to a number of Syria-born stateless Kurds. On April 21 he lifted the state of emergency in place since 1963 and abolished the State Security Court, an exceptional court with almost no procedural guarantees. In May and June Assad also issued two general amnesties, which benefited a small group of political prisoners.

The Syrian authorities also enacted a number of reforms that they say will open up the political system in Syria and increase freedom of media. On July 28 Assad issued a decree approving a new political parties law. In August Assad issues a decree for a General Elections Law and approved a new media law meant to uphold freedom of expression, although the law still requires media to “respect this freedom of expression” by “practicing it with awareness and responsibility.”

Women’s and Girls’ Rights

Syria’s constitution guarantees gender equality, and many women are active in public life. However personal status laws and the penal code contain provisions that discriminate against women and girls, particularly in marriage, divorce, child custody, and inheritance. While the penal code no longer fully exonerates perpetrators of so-called honor crimes, it still gives judges options for reduced sentences if a crime was committed with “honorable” intent. The nationality law of 1969 prevents Syrian women married to foreign spouses the right to pass on their citizenship to their children or spouses.

Key International Actors

In response to the crackdown, the US and European Union imposed sanctions against individuals and entities, including travel bans and asset freezes against senior officials in the government and security forces, business officials who benefited from and/or aided government oppression and a host of entities. Both the US and the EU froze the assets of Syrian companies and banks tied to the government or its supporters, and the US government prohibited US entities and citizens from doing business with those companies and banks. In September the EU, which buys 95 percent of Syria’s oil exports, prohibited the purchase of Syrian oil and banned EU companies from investing in Syria’s oil sector.

A number of Arab states joined together in condemning Syria’s crackdown. In August Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Tunisia withdrew their ambassadors from Damascus for consultations. In November the Arab League voted to suspend Syria’s membership after Syria failed to implement an agreed-to plan to end to the violence.

Turkey, until recently a close ally and major trade partner, repeatedly condemned the Syrian crackdown and stopped at least two weapons shipments to Syria. It also hosted a number of meetings for Syria’s opposition.

In August the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted a presidential statement condemning ‘the widespread violations of human rights and the use of force against civilians by the Syrian authorities.” However, in October Russia and China, as well as India, Brazil, and South Africa, refused to support a Security Council resolution applying significant pressure on the Syrian government.

In April the UN Human Rights Council “unequivocally condemned the use of lethal violence against peaceful protesters.”In Augusta report from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights “found a pattern of human rights violations … which may amount to crimes against humanity,” andthe council again condemned the “grave and systematic human rights violations by the Syrian authorities” and established “an independent international commission of inquiry to investigate all alleged violations since March 2011.” The commission was appointed in September and was due to issue its report in late November, but had not been granted access to Syria at this writing. Navi Pillay, the UN high commissioner for human rights, recommended in a briefing to the Security Council in August that it refer Syria to the International Criminal Court.

Human rights violations increased significantly in Yemen in 2011, as authorities sought to quash largely peaceful demonstrations challenging the 33-year rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. State security forces, often acting together with armed plainclothes assailants, responded to anti-government protests with excessive and deadly force, killing at least 250 people and wounding more than 1,000.

Clashes on several fronts between government forces and various armed groups killed scores more civilians and displaced more than 100,000 others. State security forces, opposition tribal fighters, and Islamist militants may have committed laws of war violations during some of these confrontations.

Attacks on Protesters

In January, inspired by popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, thousands of Yemenis began protests in major cities to force President Saleh’s resignation. Popular discontent, fueled by widespread unemployment and government corruption, soared in late 2010 after the ruling party proposed to amend electoral laws and the constitution so that Saleh could stand for re-election when his seventh term expires in 2013.

Security forces responded to the largely peaceful demonstrations with excessive force, often firing live ammunition directly at unarmed protesters. These forces include Central Security, a paramilitary unit commanded by President Saleh’s nephew, Yahya Saleh; the Republican Guard, an elite army unit led by the president’s son, Ahmed Saleh; and General Security. Central Security includes a counterterrorism unit that receives United States training, but Human Rights Watch was unable to verify allegations that the unit participated in the attacks on protests. The security forces sometimes attacked protesters together with armed assailants in civilian clothing, or stood by during attacks by armed gangs.

At least 250 civilians and bystanders died in these attacks, most in Sanaa, the capital, as well as in Taizz, and Aden. At least 35 of those killed were children. On March 18, snipers firing on a protest in Sanaa killed at least 45 people. Between May 29 and June 3, security forces killed at least 22 people in Taizz and razed a protest encampment. On September 18 and 19, Central Security and other government forces shot directly at rock-throwing protesters in Sanaa, killing about 30. In the following days security forces killed dozens more protesters and other civilians with gunfire, rocket-propelled grenades, and mortar rounds.

In Sanaa, Aden, and Taizz, security forces blocked wounded protesters’ access to medical care. They also raided and looted hospitals, and threatened, detained, or beat medical workers who sought to treat wounded protesters. In June Republican Guard forces began occupying al-Thawrah Hospital in Taizz and using it as a base to shell opposition neighborhoods. In September Central Security forces attacked opposition forces from Sanaa’s Jumhuri hospital. In November a government shell struck al-Rawdha Hospital, killing at least one patient.

A September report from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) found that elements “seeking to achieve or retain power” were “collectively punishing” the population by curtailing access to electricity, fuel, and water.

Authorities failed to prosecute any members of the security forces for serious human rights violations.

Armed Clashes

In May, after Saleh reneged for a third time on signing a Gulf Cooperation Council-brokered agreement to cede power, dozens of civilians were killed in fighting between government forces and various armed factions.

In May and June fighters of the opposition al-Ahmar clan skirmished with government forces in Sanaa. On June 3, an explosion in the mosque of the presidential palace in Sanaa killed 11 people, and gravely wounded Saleh and several high-ranking officials. Saleh spent three months in Saudi Arabia for medical treatment.

In mid-2011 government forces began fighting with tribal opposition fighters in Arhab, outside Sanaa, and in Taizz. In September Central Security and Republican Guards in Sanaa began clashes with fighters of the al-Ahmar clan and with soldiers from the First Armored Division, a military unit led by Gen. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar—no relation to the al-Ahmar clan—who defected to the opposition in March.

During these armed confrontations there were credible reports of extrajudicial killings and indiscriminate attacks by security forces on densely populated areas. On June 22, at al-Buraihi checkpoint outside Taizz, a soldier of the Republican Guard fired on a minibus that his unit had just searched and authorized to proceed, killing a 15-year-old boy.

In May the government also launched a military campaign in Abyan province against Ansar al-Sharia (Partisans of Islamic Law), an armed group reportedly backed by Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Ansar al-Sharia had previously captured two provincial cities, Zinjibar and Jaar. On May 20, Central Security forces opened fire with assault rifles in a crowded market in Zinjibar, killing six merchants and shoppers and wounding three dozen others. The forces opened fire after a car bomb nearby killed four members of Central Security, but there were no reports of militants or other suspects inside the market.

Witnesses said that opposition fighters repeatedly deployed in densely populated neighborhoods in Taizz, and that Islamist forces did the same in Abyan, potentially placing civilians at unnecessary risk of attack. Both government and opposition forces deployed children to patrol streets and guard checkpoints.

Freedom of Expression and Opinion

Government forces and armed gangs attacked, harassed, or threatened scores of Yemeni journalists and human rights activists, many for reporting on or denouncing attacks on protesters.

Two journalists were killed covering protests in Sanaa. Jamal al-Sharabi, a photojournalist for the independent weekly al-Masdar, was killed during the March 18 attack. Hassan al-Wadhaf of the Arabic Media Agency died five days after being hit in the face by sniper fire on September 19; he filmed his own shooting.

At a protest in Sanaa on February 18, men armed with sticks beat Al-Arabiya’s bureau chief, Hamoud Munasser, and his cameraman, then attacked his car in front of the director of Yemen’s US-funded Counterterrorism Unit and a Central Investigation Department official, both of whom failed to intervene.

Authorities expelled several foreign journalists and confiscated press runs of independent Yemeni print media, including Al-Yaqeen, that contained reports on security force attacks on Saleh’s opponents.

On May 25, pro-Saleh forces fired machineguns and mortar rounds at the satellite TV station Suhail, owned by the opposition al-Ahmar clan. On August 12, government forces arrested Ahmed Firas, a Suhail TV cameraman, as he left Arhab and confiscated his equipment. At this writing he remained detained without charge.

Authorities continued to prosecute journalists in specialized criminal courts that failed to meet international standards of due process. On January 18 the Specialized Criminal Court in Sanaa sentenced Abdulelah Haidar Shae’ of the state-run Saba New Agency to five years imprisonment after convicting him of membership of a terrorist group in a trial fraught with procedural irregularities. Shae’ had criticized government approaches to fighting al Qaeda.

Scores of human rights defenders were beaten or received frequent anonymous threats. In January some human rights defenders who were active in protests were briefly detained, including Tawakkol Karman of Women Journalists Without Chains and human rights lawyer Khaled al-Anisi. On February 24, five armed assailants repeatedly stabbed a guard at the Sanaa offices of the Yemen Observatory for Human Rights following anonymous threats against the group for releasing information on attacks on protestors.

Internally Displaced People

Armed clashes displaced about 100,000 people, mostly from Abyan to Aden. Approximately 300,000 had already been displaced during the intermittent six-year armed conflict in the north between government forces and Huthi rebels, who despite a ceasefire recaptured Sa’da governate in March. Up to 100,000 of these displaced people reportedly returned home. Aid agencies were unable to access many displaced people due to insecurity, inadequate funding, and a lack of government permission.

Terrorism and Counterterrorism

US officials in 2011 designated AQAP as a greater threat to its security than the core al Qaeda group in Pakistan.

AQAP claimed responsibility for placing bombs aboard two US-bound cargo planes in October 2010. The group also reportedly provided support to Ansar al-Sharia, the armed group that captured Jaar and Zinjibar in Abyan. Dozens of civilians were killed during clashes between government forces and Ansar al-Sharia in Abyan.

The US reportedly conducted more than a dozen drone strikes and piloted air attacks on alleged AQAP militants in Yemen, including one in September that killed the cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, and Samir Khan, editor of AQAP’s English-language magazine Inspire. Another suspected drone strike in October killed nine people including al-Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abderrahman. Both Awlakis and Samir were US citizens. US President Barack Obama called Awlaki the “leader of external operations” for AQAP, but the killing of three Americans outside a traditional battlefield heightened a controversy over the US targeted killing program.

Unnamed US and Yemeni officials said the drones and other air strikes killed dozens of militants. Local officials reported some civilian casualties but lack of access to the targeted areas prevented independent verification.

Campaign against Southern Separatists

Security forces targeted activists of the Southern Movement, an umbrella group seeking independence or greater autonomy for southern Yemen, a separate state until 1990. After the Southern Movement joined anti-Saleh protests in February, security forces briefly detained dozens of its members and forcibly disappeared at least eight of them for days or weeks. The eight who were “disappeared” included a leader of the Southern Movement, Hassan Baoum, 68, and his son Fawaz, 34. Masked security forces kidnapped the pair on February 20 from an Aden hospital where the elder Baoum was receiving medical treatment. They were held incommunicado until July and at this writing remained detained without charge.

In June soldiers in Aden killed Jiyab Ali Muhammad al-Saadi, 35, the son of a Southern Movement leader, when he asked them to stop blocking a burial procession for Ahmad al-Darwish, whom local activists alleged was tortured to death in police custody in 2010. Authorities transferred Aden’s Chief of General Security Abdullah Qairan to Taizz in March after a local court accused him in connection with al-Darwish’s death.

Women’s and Girls’ Rights

Women in Yemen generally have low social status and are excluded from public life.

Child marriages and forced marriages remain widespread, exposing young girls to domestic violence and maternal mortality and truncating their education. Judges are not obliged to ensure a girl’s free consent before notarizing a marriage contract. In August a 12-year-old bride from Hudeida was reportedly injured after being drugged and raped by her 50-year-old husband. Despite such cases, conservatives have stalled a draft law that would set the minimum age for marriage at 17.

Women played an important role in anti-Saleh protests, despite beatings, harassment, and, in some cases, shame from relatives. In April Saleh admonished women demonstrators, saying “divine law does not allow” public intermingling of the sexes. Women responded with further protests. Karman was named a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in October for her role in the protests.

Yemen has a high maternal mortality rate of 370 deaths per 100,000 live births. Approximately seven to eight women die each day from childbirth complications.

Key International Actors

Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other Gulf states provided substantial assistance to the Yemen government, tribal leaders, and religious institutions. The US was the largest donor outside the region. European Union states also provided humanitarian and development aid.

A Gulf Cooperation Council initiative, supported by the UN Security Council, offered immunity to Saleh and top officials in return for Saleh relinquishing power.

By May most Western and Gulf states had withdrawn public support for Saleh and informally suspended military assistance and arms sales, but ignored calls to freeze the president’s assets abroad. The US delayed counterterrorism assistance to Yemen because of political unrest after providing an estimated US$172 million in fiscal year 2010.

In September the UN Human Rights Council condemned human rights violations in Yemen, but failed to authorize an international, independent investigation into them or to establish an OHCHR field office in the country, despite calls for these actions from the OHCHR.

In October, for the second consecutive year, President Obama issued a waiver allowing Yemen to receive military assistance prohibited by the Child Soldiers Prevention Act of 2008, despite documented use of child soldiers by government forces and militias allied to the government.

2011 was a dramatic year for Libya. A popular uprising and government crackdown led to an armed revolt, NATO intervention, and the death of a dictator who had amassed a deplorable human rights record over 42 years. At this writing Libya’s new interim leadership, the National Transitional Council (NTC), was struggling to rein in the many militias and local security forces across the country, secure unguarded weapons, and build a new Libya based on independent institutions and the rule of law. A weak criminal justice system, torture and mistreatment of detainees, and revenge attacks against Gaddafi officials and supporters were pressing concerns, as was the apparent execution of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, his son Muatassim, and dozens of his supporters.

The Uprising

On February 15, 2011, anti-government protests began in Libya’s second-largest city, Benghazi, following popular uprisings in neighboring Tunisia and Egypt. The protests were triggered by the arrests of government critics, including a lawyer representing the families of an estimated 1,200 prisoners who had been killed at Tripoli’s Abu Salim prison in 1996.

Government forces responded by arresting and attacking peaceful demonstrators in Benghazi and other eastern cities. The government used excessive force when protests spread to the western cities of Tripoli, the capital, Misrata, Zawiya, Zuwara, and Zintan. Human Rights Watch documented the government’s lethal use of live fire on peaceful protesters, as well as the arrest and disappearance of hundreds of people suspected of involvement in anti-government demonstrations.

The international response to Gaddafi’s crackdown was swift. On February 25 the United Nation Human Rights Council condemned “gross and systematic” violations in Libya and called for the creation of a commission of inquiry.The next day the UN Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1970, imposing an arms embargo, sanctions on Gaddafi and key members of his family and government, and referring the situation in Libya to the International Criminal Court (ICC). The resolution gave the ICC jurisdiction over war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Libya from February 15. In June ICC judges authorized arrest warrants for crimes against humanity against three suspects: Muammar Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam, and Gaddafi’s intelligence chief and brother-in-law Abdullah Sanussi. Muammar Gaddafi died on October 20, but at this writing the other two suspects remained at large.

Faced with violent government repression, the uprising rapidly evolved into an armed conflict, especially after opposition forces seized arms from abandoned government military depots in eastern Libya. On March 17, as Gaddafi’s military forces closed in on Benghazi, the key opposition stronghold, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1973 imposing a no-fly zone over Libya and authorizing the use of “all necessary measures”—with the exception of an occupation force—to protect civilians. This led to NATO’s Operation Unified Protector, with a mandate to protect civilians, which prevented Gaddafi forces from retaking Benghazi and eastern Libya. The NATO mission expanded over time beyond its mandate to give air support for anti-Gaddafi forces. France, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and possibly other governments provided weapons and training to opposition fighters. Qatar later said it had deployed hundreds of its own forces on the ground.

The Armed Conflict

From February until August, when Tripoli fell, Gaddafi forces arrested thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people across the country, including anti-government protesters, suspected government critics, and people alleged to have provided information to international media and human rights organizations. Many of those arrested were fighters, but many others were civilians, including doctors, journalists, and people caught in areas where fighting took place. The Gaddafi government provided no information regarding how many people it had arrested, where they were being held, or the charges they faced. Detainees who were released from government custody during and after the conflict reported frequent torture, including beatings with wooden sticks and plastic pipes, and the use of electric shock. Some prisoners apparently died from the abuse or the subsequent lack of medical care.

In the fighting, government forces repeatedly launched indiscriminate attacks with mortars and GRAD rockets into civilian-inhabited areas, especially in Misrata and towns of the western mountains. The coastal city of Misrata suffered a two-month siege with near daily attacks that killed scores of civilians and for a while blocked delivery of humanitarian aid. Human Rights Watch confirmed the government’s use in Misrata of mortar-fired cluster munitions in residential areas, and the use of “parachute” antivehicle mines fired by GRAD rockets.

The government laid thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of antipersonnel and antivehicle landmines in various parts of Libya, including in Ajdabiya, Brega, Misrata and the western mountains. Human Rights Watch confirmed the use of five types of landmines in six separate locations, which will likely endanger civilians for many years. The Brazilian T-AB-1 antipersonnel landmine appears to have been the most frequently used mine; its low metal content makes the mine more difficult to detect and clear.

Human Rights Watch documented 10 cases of apparent gang rape and sexual assault of men and women by Gaddafi forces during the conflict, including of detainees in custody. The extent of sexual violence during the conflict remains unknown, due in part to the stigma surrounding rape in Libya and the dangers that survivors may face when they publicize such crimes.

During the conflict, and especially just before the fall of Tripoli, Gaddafi forces executed prisoners in their custody. Members of the Khamis Brigade, a powerful military force run by Gaddafi’s son Khamis, appear to have summarily executed at least 45 detainees in a warehouse in Tripoli in August. Thirty-four bodies exhumed from a mass grave near the town of al-Qawalish in western Libya in August seemed to be those of men detained by Gaddafi forces in early June. In September the bodies of 18 detainees, who died by suffocation when detained by Gaddafi forcesin June in al-Khoms, were discovered buried in western Libya. In May security forces apparently executed 10 antigovernment protesters in Bani Walid.

At this writing Libya was still dealing with the problem of missing persons from the conflict. The number of missing and dead remains unclear. Mass graves continued to be discovered, but the lack of forensic expertise complicatedthe identification process.

Rebel forces also committed human rights and humanitarian law violations during the armed conflict. The most significant documented case came in October, when militias from Misrata appeared to have executed 53 Gaddafi supporters in Sirte.

In areas of eastern Libya under NTC control since late February and early March, volunteer security groups arbitrarily arrested dozens of suspected Gaddafi loyalists. This led to serious abuses, including torture. Human Rights Watch documented one apparent death in custody by a local security group in Baida, and heard credible reports of other such deaths. At least 10 former Gaddafi security officials were found dead in Benghazi and Derna in what appear to be revenge killings.

When the Gaddafi government retreated from the east, tens of thousands of sub-Saharan African foreign workers came under threat of violence and arbitrary arrest, forcing thousands to flee. These migrants, along with dark-skinned Libyans, were widely accused without evidence of having fought as mercenaries for Gaddafi, although mercenaries from some countries did come to fight.

In July the commander of the opposition forces, Gen. Abdul Fatah Younes, was killed with two aides in unclear circumstances. Despite promises, the authorities appear not to have conducted an independent investigation.

In the western mountains, rebel forces engaged in revenge attacks in some towns they captured, including looting, arson, and some physical violence.

As NTC forces took control of western Libya in late August, local militias arbitrarily arrested hundreds, if not thousands, more sub-Saharan migrant workers and dark-skinned Libyans from the south, accusing them of being mercenaries. In some cases, the militias subjected these detainees to physical abuse and forced labor in detention. Thousands of African migrants sought shelter in makeshift camps with very poor living conditions and security.

Prison conditions in post-Gaddafi western Libya were sub-standard, with overcrowding, inadequate food and water, and consistent reports of abuse, including beatings and some use of electric shock. The NTC has failed to provide most detainees with prompt judicial reviews, let alone access to a lawyer.

A key problem was the large number of local security forces in Tripoli and other cities and towns, many of which maintained their own makeshift detention facilities. At this writing the NTC was struggling to bring these disparate forces under a unified civilian command.

Revenge attacks against populations deemed to have supported Gaddafi also grew in September and October. In particular, militias from Misrata prevented about 30,000 people from returning to their homes in Tawergha, a town near Misrata, because they accused them of having committed atrocities in Misrata together with Gaddafi forces. Displaced Tawerghans were subject to arbitrary arrests and torture in detention, in some cases leading to death. Members of the Mesheshiya tribe in the western mountains, accused of past loyalty to Gaddafi, also reported harassment and revenge attacks.

On October 20, after weeks of fierce fighting in Sirte, NTC forces captured Muammar Gaddafi and his son Muatassim. Video footage strongly suggests that they were executed in custody. The NTC said it will form a commission of inquiry to examine the deaths.

Three days after Gaddafi’s death, Human Rights Watch found 53 bodies of apparent Gaddafi supporters outside the Mahari Hotel in Sirte, where rebel forces from Misrata had been based. Some victims had their hands bound behind their backs; they all seemed to have been shot at that location. The NTC said it will investigate.

Despite promises, the NTC had failed through October to secure some of the military weapons and munitions depots abandoned by Gaddafi forces. These stockpiles included unsecured surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and vast amounts of explosive weapons. Many of these sites were extensively looted by civilians and armed groups.

The NTC responded positively to some requests from human rights organizations during and after the conflict, for instance by granting Human Rights Watch and other groups unrestricted access to their detention facilities. The NTC publicly promised to respect the laws of war and to cooperate with the ICC, and political leaders repeatedly condemned revenge attacks. On April 28 the NTC officially pledged not to use antipersonnel and antivehicle landmines, and to destroy all mines in its forces’ possession. At the same time, NTC leaders said they had limited control over the many local militias and brigades who had committed abuses during and after the fighting.

NATO forces led by the French and British, with significant support from the United States, launched thousands of air strikes on government targets during the conflict, some of which killed civilians.Based on a partial Human Rights Watch investigation, the number of civilian deaths appeared far lower than claimed by theGaddafi government, but higher than acknowledged by NATO.

In early August Human Rights Watch investigated four sites in Gaddafi government-held territory of western Libya in which about 50 people appear to have died, some of them clearly civilians.It was not possible under the circumstances to determine at any of the sites whether these civilians had died in an unlawful NATO attack.NATO has failed to provide detailed information about these targets and the reasons for the civilian casualties. NATO forces were also accused of failing to rescue African migrants at sea who were fleeing the conflict, on one occasion leading to 63 deaths.

Key International Actors

Many countries played crucial roles in Libya in 2011, especially those who participated in the NATO campaign. Qatar and the United Arab Emirates provided significant support to the anti-Gaddafi opposition, and then to some post-Gaddafi groups. All these countries, and the European Union, have a major stake in seeing that future Libyan governments respect human rights and the rule of law. A UN mission is tasked with assisting Libya’s transition, especially democratic elections and transitional justice.

Libya’s new leaders face an enormous challenge: to build a country based on the rule of law after 42 years of one-family rule, while preventing revenge attacks, ensuring accountability for abuses by all parties to the conflict, and promoting reconciliation. All these processes will take time and will require outside assistance.But the events of 2011 have given Libyans the opportunity to begin this arduous process.

Egyptians took to the streets starting on January 25 to protest peacefully against President Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule, calling for social justice, democracy, and an end to police brutality. Police violence against protesters, especially on January 28, only hardened the protesters’ determination. On February 11 Mubarak was forced to resign and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), composed of leading army figures, took over, assuming full legislative and executive powers two days later. In March voters approved constitutional amendments in a referendum, and the SCAF issued a Constitutional Declaration setting out a roadmap for holding parliamentary and presidential elections.

Overall, there was no improvement in human rights protections in Egypt. On assuming power the SCAF ordered the release of all detainees held under the Emergency Law (Law No. 162 of 1958)—numbering several thousand at the end of 2010 according to estimates by human rights groups—and promised to end the State of Emergency. However, the SCAF has continued to use special courts under the Emergency Law and has referred more than 12,000 civilians to military tribunals since January, more than the total number of civilians tried by military courts during the 30-year-long Mubarak presidency. Those referred to military tribunals have included children as young as 15, even though international law discourages trials of children in military proceedings. Furthermore, on September 10 the SCAF announced that it was expanding the scope of the Emergency Law’s application, and that it would remain in force through May 2012.

Throughout the year the military used excessive force to break up demonstrations and torture detainees. Despite official recognition of the need to rebuild public confidence in the police, no process of security sector reform was initiated. There has been no comprehensive investigation into systematic acts of torture and ill-treatment practiced in recent years by Egyptian police, and in particular the State Security Investigations (SSI) agency.

On August 3 the trial began of former President Hosni Mubarak and former Minister of Interior Habib al-Adly, as well as 11 other police officials around the country. They were charged with the killing of protestors and corruption. Their trials were still in progress at this writing.

Police Violence and Killing of Unarmed Protesters

On January 28, tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Alexandria, Suez, and Cairo, the capital. Police responded with tear gas, water cannons, rubber bullets, and live ammunition in an effort to prevent protesters from advancing towards the central squares of those cities. The Ministry of Health said 846 persons died during the protests in January and February. Most of these were killed on January 28 and 29. On February 2 and 3, armed men in plainclothes—some mounted on camels and horses—attacked protesters in Tahrir Square, injuring several hundred; on those two days at least eight people died of gunshot wounds.

Torture and Excessive Use of Force by Military and Police Officers

The military arbitrarily arrested scores of journalists while they were covering the protests in January, in addition to hundreds of peaceful protesters. The journalists were released within a few days of their arrests, but military courts sentenced many protesters to imprisonment. For example, authorities filed dubious charges of “thuggery” against peaceful protester Amr Beheiry, arrested during a protest in Tahrir Square on February 26. Military courts convicted and sentenced him to five years in prison. Beheiry remained in prison at this writing. Authorities also detained children, who faced physical abuse and torture. Street children were particularly vulnerable to arrest and abuse.

Torture by military personnel was first reported on February 2, shortly after the army took over law enforcement duties from the police. On March 9 the military broke up a peaceful sit-in in Tahrir Square, arrested at least 174 protesters, and beat, kicked, whipped, and applied electric shocks to them on the grounds of the nearby Egyptian Museum. The military brought these protesters before military courts, which sentenced 134 of them to three to five years in prison on charges of “thuggery,” but released all of them in May after two months of public campaigning on their behalf.

The military used excessive force and carried out arbitrary mass arrests in various cities to disperse demonstrations and sit-ins on numerous occasions—February 25, March 9, March 23, May 16, July 22, and August 1—beating and tasering those arrested. On April 9, military officers used rubber bullets and live ammunition to break up a sit-in opposing SCAF’s rule, wounding at least 71 protesters, one fatally. On October 9, during the dispersal by military police and riot police of a protest of Coptic Christians in front of the state TV building in Cairo, at least two military vehicles ran over and killed 13 protesters and a further 24 were killed by live ammunition. Military prosecutors are overseeing the investigation into the incident, a conflict of interest likely to reinforce military impunity.

Central Security Forces, Egypt’s riot police, continued to use excessive force when policing demonstrations. On June 28 and 29, riot police clashed with protesters outside the ministry of interior for 16 hours. The police fired tear gas into the crowd and used rubber bullets and pellet guns, injuring 1,114 persons according to the Ministry of Health. After the removal of Mubarak, police continued to use torture in police stations, detention centers, and at points of arrest. In June bus driver Mohamed Sabah Nasr died in custody in Azbakeya police station in Cairo after police arrested him along with seven others for “disrupting traffic.” Those detained with Nasr said that they saw the police beating him. The Ministry of Interior said that it is investigating his death but they have yet to make a report public.

Freedom of Expression and Association

News media enjoyed greater freedom in the aftermath of the ouster of Mubarak on all issues except those concerning the military. As of September the military prosecutor under the SCAF had summoned at least nine activists and journalists for questioning on charges of “insulting the military,” but released most without charge. An exception was blogger Maikel Nabil, whom a military tribunal in April sentenced to three years imprisonment for “insulting the military” and “spreading false information” on his blog. At this writing Nabil remained in prison while awaiting his retrial, scheduled for November 27.

On September 7, Minister of Information Osama Heikal said that due to the current “media chaos” he would no longer issue broadcasting licenses for new satellite TV stations. Four days later police raided the offices of Al Jazeera Live Egypt, the station that had provided the most detailed coverage of anti-SCAF protests over the preceding weeks, and ordered it to stop broadcasting from Egypt. The station continued to broadcast from Qatar. On October 30 a military prosecutor detained blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah, one of the most vocal critics of the military, for 30 days on charges of inciting the October 9 demonstration at Maspero and assaulting military officers, charges for which the prosecutor provided no evidence. Abdel Fattah remained in detention at this writing.

In March the SCAF amended the Political Parties Law to make it easier for new political parties to form by enabling them to register as long as they meet the requirements set out in the law. Under Mubarak, applications to register new parties were usually rejected. However, there was no move to amend the Associations Law, which allows for excessive government interference in associations. In July the state security prosecutor announced that he would investigate possible “treason” charges against NGOs that were not registered under the Associations Law and that received foreign funding. In November a Cairo criminal court ordered banks to report on all transactions on the private accounts of 63 human rights defenders and organizations.

Freedom of Religion and Sectarian Violence

Incidents of sectarian violence continued throughout 2011. In the early hours of January 1, 2011, a bomb went off in a church in Alexandria, killing 23 people. The prosecutor opened an investigation but had not charged anyone in connection with the attack at this writing. On March 8, Christians in the eastern Cairo suburb of Muqattam protested the burning of a church four days earlier in Atfih, 13 miles south of Cairo, and clashed with Muslims. Twelve people died in the ensuing violence and shootings, and several Christian homes and businesses were torched. The prosecutor has yet to investigate the incident.

In May sectarian violence outside a church in Imbaba, a neighborhood of Cairo, left 12 dead. On July 3, the trial of those arrested in connection with the violence opened before an Emergency State Security Court. On September 30, a mob burnt down the Mar Girgis church in Marinab, in Aswan, but local authorities and prosecutors failed to investigate instead insisting on a settlement. The prime minister ordered an acceleration of the drafting of a new law to facilitate the renovation and construction of churches, a long-standing demand of Christians, who face discrimination in this respect.

Refugee and Migrants’ Rights

Egyptian border police continued to shoot at unarmed African migrants who attempted to cross the Sinai border into Israel, killing at least 22 since January. Police arrested hundreds of irregular migrants, primarily Eritreans, Ethiopians, and Sudanese, and detained them in police stations and prisons in Sinai and Upper Egypt without access to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, thereby denying them the right to make an asylum claim.

In October immigration officials forcibly deported three Eritreans. Prison officials in Shallal gave Eritrean embassy officials access to 118 detained Eritrean men who were asylum seekers and beat them to force them to sign paperwork agreeing to return to Eritrea. Egyptian authorities announced they would deport the group to Eritrea.

Migrants reported beatings and rape at the hands of traffickers operating in the Sinai. In September traffickers detained a group of 120 Eritreans, including 6 women, and threatened to detain and abuse them until they or their families paid US$3,000 each to allow them to continue their journey to Israel. The Egyptian authorities failed to conduct any investigations into this organized trafficking or to arrest anyone in connection with it.

Labor Rights

Strikes, sit-ins, and labor protests increased in number compared to previous years and spread to new sectors. In April the SCAF passed Law 34 criminalizing strikes that involve “the disruption of the work of public institutions or public or private work.” Military police used excessive force on at least 11 occasions to disperse labor protests and sit-ins. In June military police arrested five workers demonstrating outside the Ministry of Petroleum and a military court sentenced them to a one-year suspended sentence for participating in the strike. In March the minister of labor and manpower recognized the right of independent trade unions to be established through a simple formality of declaration—pending adoption of a draft law—prepared by the cabinet, that would ease registration procedures. At least 70 new independent trade unions have declared their establishment since March.

Women’s Rights

On March 9, military police arrested 20 women as they broke up a sit-in in Tahrir Square and then beat them on the grounds of the nearby Egyptian Museum. Military officers took 17 of the group to a military prison and the next day conducted virginity tests on seven of the women who identified themselves as unmarried. In response to the public outcry, the SCAF said that it would “look into the truth of the matter,” but at this writing there had been no progress in investigating or prosecuting those officers involved.

In May the SCAF amended the Political Rights Law, canceling the women’s quota of 64 seats in the People’s Assembly that was first used in the November 2010 parliamentary elections, and replacing it with a requirement that each party must nominate at least one female candidate on its list, a formula likely to lead to a sharp drop in the number of women deputies.

Egypt’s Sharia-based Personal Status Law—which discriminates against women in family affairs—applies only to Muslims, while Copts are governed by church regulations that prohibit them from divorcing, except in cases of adultery. Some Copts grew more vocal in their demand for a civil law that would give them the right to divorce.

Key International Actors

When protests broke out in January United States and European Union officials initially voiced cautious support of the protesters’ right to freedom of assembly and expression and criticized police violence. As the protests grew, their support for protesters’ demands became stronger and eventually they called upon President Mubarak to step down.

The US announced in March that it had earmarked $65 million for democracy and human rights funding in Egypt for 2011, as well as $100 million for economic development in addition to the roughly $250 million of economic and $1.3 billion in military aid that it had provided in previous years. In May the US also laid out plans for debt relief. The US Agency for International Development quietly removed its requirement that local organizations applying for funding be registered under Egypt’s restrictive Associations Law, provoking criticism from the Egyptian government. In October US President Barack Obama spoke to Field Marshall Mohamed HusseinTantawy, head of the SCAF, and urged him to lift the Emergency Law and end trials of civilians before military courts.

The year was marked by ongoing fighting in Somalia and abuses by the warring parties, including indiscriminate attacks harming civilians. While the armed Islamist al-Shabaab group continued to control more territory than any other group in South and Central Somalia, the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia (TFG)—with the support of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and militias aligned to the TFG, notably Ahlu Sunna Wal Jama’a (ASWJ) and Raskamboni—gained control over new areas in Mogadishu, the capital, and small areas along the border with Kenya and Ethiopia. On August 6 al-Shabaab withdrew from Mogadishu, citing tactical reasons, but has continued to attack the capital, including with suicide bombings.

Al-Shabaab continued to administer arbitrary justice in the areas it controls, including beheadings, beatings, and torture. TFG forces and TFG-aligned militias also committed serious abuses against civilians, and the TFG has largely failed to protect the basic human rights of the population in areas under its control. The war contributed directly to the worsening humanitarian emergency and famine that struck Somalia in mid-2011. Abuses by al-Shabaab and to a lesser extent the TFG restricted humanitarian aid from reaching intended beneficiaries in the country.

Violations of the Laws of War
Indiscriminate attacks were committed by all parties to the conflict during a series of military offensives led by the TFG, with the support of AMISOM and ASWJ, in late 2010 and between February and May 2011. Al-Shabaab regularly fired mortars indiscriminately from densely populated areas towards TFG/AMISOM positions, often unlawfully placing civilians at risk. TFG and AMISOM forces frequently responded with indiscriminate counter-attacks, notably in and around Bakara market. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), between January and late September three hospitals in Mogadishu treated 8,430 casualties for weapon-related injuries. Hospital records show that a significant proportion of civilian casualties were women and children.

Indiscriminate fire on civilian areas has also occurred during offensives by TFG-affiliated militias in the border areas of Dhobley and Baardhere during clashes with al-Shabaab. An outburst of renewed fighting between Raskamboni and other TFG-affiliated militias against al-Shabaab in Dhobley in early October resulted in at least 11 civilian deaths, reportedly due to crossfire.

There have been no attempts to hold to account those responsible for indiscriminate attacks.

On October 4 a suicide bombing in Mogadishu, claimed by al-Shabaab, occurred outside a compound housing several government ministries, including the Ministry of Education. At least 100 civilians were killed, including students and parents awaiting exam results at the ministry.

Abuses in TFG-Controlled Areas
Many civilians were killed and wounded during fighting between TFG forces and insurgents and during TFG “law enforcement” operations. In an incident in late January TFG forces reportedly fired on civilians in Mogadishu, killing between 12 and 20 people and wounding at least 30.

TFG forces and aligned militias have committed a range of abuses against internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Mogadishu, including looting food aid in IDP camps, carrying out arbitrary arrests and detentions, and raping. Despite the TFG’s public claims that it would consider a moratorium on the death penalty, the military court has tried and sentenced at least 17 TFG soldiers and one civilian to death since August, when TFG President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed declared a state of emergency in areas of Mogadishu. On August 22 two TFG soldiers were executed.

In areas under the control of TFG-affiliated militias, civilians have been arbitrarily arrested and detained. In March in Bula Hawo ASWJ arbitrarily arrested hundreds of civilians, including women and children, after a bomb attack. Those fleeing to Kenya via Dhobley reported being arrested and accused of being al-Shabaab sympathizers by men in uniform they believed to be associated with the TFG. Individuals alleged or perceived to support al-Shabaab were also unlawfully killed. At least three civilians were summarily executed by ASWJ following their takeover of Bula Hawo in March; one was reportedly a 17-year-old boy. In May media quoted an ASWJ spokesperson as saying the group would execute those found spying for al-Shabaab.

Indiscriminate shooting by AMISOM has also resulted in civilian deaths; some incidents have led to internal investigations. On September 2, AMISOM forces in Mogadishu shot dead a Malaysian journalist and injured his colleague. An internal investigation found three Burundian soldiers responsible for the killing. The three have been returned to Burundi, reportedly to face trial.

Abuses in Opposition Controlled Areas
Al-Shabaab remained in control of most of southern Somalia where every area of people’s lives is regulated by an extreme form of Islamic law. Women and girls in particular have suffered from these harsh laws. Freedoms previously enjoyed by women in Somali culture have been severely curtailed to prevent them from mixing with men. This has also limited women’s ability to engage in small-scale commercial enterprises. Harsh punishments—notably floggings, summary executions, and public beheadings—are common. Such punishments generally take place after summary proceedings without due process. On August 23 al-Shabaab publicly executed three men accused of spying for the TFG in the Daynile district of Mogadishu.

Children Associated with Armed Forces and Groups
Schools have featured heavily in al-Shabaab’s combat operations. The group has fired on AMISOM and TFG forces from schools, deliberately exposing students and teachers to retaliatory fire and, in some cases, directly attacking students and school buildings and interfering with teaching. As a result of ongoing attacks, teachers have fled and—where schools have not shut down entirely—children, deprived of any meaningful education and afraid for their safety, have dropped out in large numbers. Forced recruitment of adults and children by al-Shabaab is widespread and ongoing. Al-Shabaab routinely uses children in its ranks. Children continue to also be found within the TFG armed forces and TFG-affiliated militias; the TFG has at this writing failed to ensure that all its recruits, including those formerly associated with aligned militias, undergo effective age vetting to prevent the recruitment of children.

Restrictions on Humanitarian Assistance
On July 20 the regions of South Bakool and Lower Shabelle were declared to be in a state of famine and by August the United Nations had declared six areas, primarily in southern Somalia, to be in a state of famine. As of August 2011 more than half of the Somali population—an estimated 4 million people—was in need of food aid.

Al-Shabaab restrictions on humanitarian assistance persisted despite the unfolding humanitarian disaster. It continued to prohibit over a dozen humanitarian organizations from working in areas under its control, with continued attacks on humanitarian workers.

Al-Shabaab has also imposed taxation, both monetary and on livestock, on the population under its control, causing significant hardship. It also severely restricted the movement of those in need of assistance, preventing people, particularly boys and young men, from fleeing to Kenya for assistance. In late September al-Shabaab prevented IDPs from reaching Mogadishu, stopping them in the Afgooye corridor on the outskirts of the city and transporting them back to their places of origin. It also returned IDPs from Baidoa to rural areas.

The diversion of humanitarian aid within Mogadishu and the perpetration of violence during food distribution by TFG forces and allied militias have further limited IDPs’ access to greatly needed assistance. On August 5 at least three civilians were killed in a Badbado camp after militias reportedly allied to the TFG opened fire on a food distribution site. Newly appointed Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali created a committee to investigate the incident. In addition, United States sanctions on terrorist groups have restricted US aid going into southern and central Somalia and support for certain humanitarian organizations.

Key International Actors
Western governments, the UN, the AU, and neighboring countries, with the exception of Eritrea, are united in supporting the TFG as the legitimate government of Somalia. Support for the TFG was forthcoming despite concerns about political infighting and lack of progress on the basic priorities of the Djibouti agreement, such as the drafting of the constitution, the reformation of the parliament and addressing issues of corruption.

Eritrea uses Somalia as a convenient theater in its proxy war against Ethiopia. In July the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea reported Eritrea’s continued support for al-Shabaab.

Kenya closed its border with Somalia in January 2007; it has forcibly returned Somalis, including asylum seekers, to their country and has repeatedly called for Somalis to receive assistance only within Somalia, and yet at this writing Kenya continues to accommodate the arrival of around 1,000 new Somali refugees daily in the sprawling refugee camps around the northern town of Dadaab.

Kenya and Ethiopia have trained and offered military support to TFG-affiliated militia groups, notably Raskamboni and ASWJ. Reports suggest that both Ethiopian and Kenyan forces have also entered Somalia for security operations near the border. On October 16, Kenyan military forces entered Somalia and declared war on al-Shabaab, following a series of kidnappings of foreigners in Kenya.

The US military has carried out targeted strikes using aerial drones on alleged al-Shabaab targets.

The UN Security Council has authorized an AU force of 12,000 peacekeepers for Somalia, but thus far only 9,000 Ugandan and Burundian troops have been deployed, despite calls by the AU for an increase in the number of troops.

The UN independent expert on Somalia and some other key international actors have recognized that accountability for past abuses in Somalia is crucial to establishing a meaningful and inclusive peace process, but they have not prioritized this issue. Such accountability efforts should include documenting abuses since the end of the Siad Barre regime in 1988 and, ultimately, a UN commission of inquiry into war crimes committed since then.

Against a backdrop of rapid socio-economic change and modernization, China continues to be an authoritarian one-party state that imposes sharp curbs on freedom of expression, association, and religion; openly rejects judicial independence and press freedom; and arbitrarily restricts and suppresses human rights defenders and organizations, often through extra-judicial measures.

The government also censors the internet; maintains highly repressive policies in ethnic minority areas such as Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia; systematically condones—with rare exceptions—abuses of power in the name of “social stability” ; and rejects domestic and international scrutiny of its human rights record as attempts to destabilize and impose “Western values” on the country. The security apparatus—hostile to liberalization and legal reform—seems to have steadily increased its power since the 2008 Beijing Olympics. China’s “social stability maintenance” expenses are now larger than its defense budget.

At the same time Chinese citizens are increasingly rights-conscious and challenging the authorities over livelihood issues, land seizures, forced evictions, abuses of power by corrupt cadres, discrimination, and economic inequalities. Official and scholarly statistics estimate that 250-500 protests occur per day; participants number from ten to tens of thousands. Internet users and reform-oriented media are aggressively pushing the boundaries of censorship, despite the risks of doing so, by advocating for the rule of law and transparency, exposing official wrong-doing, and calling for reforms.

Despite their precarious legal status and surveillance by the authorities, civil society groups continue to try to expand their work, and increasingly engage with international NGOs. A small but dedicated network of activists continues to exposes abuses as part of the weiquan (“rights defense”)movement, despite systematic repression ranging from police monitoring to detention, arrest, enforced disappearance, and torture.

Human Rights Defenders

In February 2011, unnerved by the pro-democracy Arab Spring movements and a scheduled Chinese leadership transition in October 2012, the government launched the largest crackdown on human rights lawyers, activists, and critics in a decade. The authorities also strengthened internet and press censorship, put the activities of many dissidents and critics under surveillance, restricted their activities, and took the unprecedented step of rounding up over 30 of the most outspoken critics and “disappearing” them for weeks.

The April 3 arrest of contemporary artist and outspoken government critic Ai Weiwei, who was detained in an undisclosed location without access to a lawyer, prompted an international outcry and contributed to his release on bail on June 22. Tax authorities notified him on November 1 that he had to pay US$2.4 million in tax arrears and fines for the company registered in his wife’s name. Most of the other activists were also ultimately released, but forced to adopt a much less vocal stance for fear of further reprisals. Several lawyers detained in 2011, including Liu Shihui, described being interrogated, tortured, threatened, and released only upon signing “confessions” and pledges not to use Twitter, or talk to media, human rights groups, or foreign diplomats about their detention.

The government continues to impose indefinite house arrest on its critics. Liu Xia, the wife of imprisoned Nobel Peace Laureate Liu Xiaobo, has been missing since December 2010 and is believed to be under house arrest to prevent her from campaigning on her husband’s behalf. In February 2011 she said in a brief online exchange that she and her family were like “hostages” and that she felt “miserable.” She is allowed to visit Liu Xiaobo once a month, subject to agreement from the prison authorities.

Chen Guangcheng, a blind legal activist who was released from prison in September 2010, remained under house arrest in 2011. Security personnel assaulted Chen and his wife in February after he released footage documenting his family’s house arrest. Noted activist Hu Jia, who was released after completing a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence in June, is also under house arrest in Beijing, the capital, with his activist wife Zeng Jinyan and their daughter. Grave concerns exist about the fate of lawyer Gao Zhisheng, who was “disappeared” by the authorities in September 2009 and briefly surfaced in March 2010 detailing severe and continuous torture against him, before going missing again that April.

On June 12, 2011, despite the steady deterioration in China’s human rights environment, the Chinese government declared it had fulfilled “all tasks and targets” of its National Human Rights Action Plans (2009-2010).

Legal Reforms

While legal awareness among citizens continues to grow, the government’s overt hostility towards genuine judicial independence undercuts legal reform and defeats efforts to limit the Chinese Communist Party’s authority over all judicial institutions and mechanisms.

The police dominate the criminal justice system, which relies disproportionately on defendants’ confessions. Weak courts and tight limits on the rights of the defense mean that forced confessions under torture remain prevalent and miscarriages of justice frequent. In August 2011, in an effort to reduce such cases and improve the administration of justice, the government published new rules to eliminate unlawfully obtained evidence and strengthened the procedural rights of the defense in its draft revisions to the Criminal Procedure Law. It is likely it will be adopted in March 2012.

However, the draft revisions also introduced an alarming provision that would effectively legalize enforced disappearances by allowing police to secretly detain suspects for up to six months at a location of their choice in “state security, terrorism and major corruption cases.” The measure would put suspects at great risk of torture while giving the government justification for the “disappearance” of dissidents and activists in the future. Adoption of this measure—which is hotly criticized in Chinese media by human rights lawyers, activists, and part of the legal community—would significantly deviate from China’s previous stance of gradual convergence with international norms on administering justice, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which China signed in 1997 but has yet to ratify.

China continued in 2011 to lead the world in executions. The exact number remains a state secret but is estimated to range from 5,000 to 8,000 a year.

Freedom of Expression

The government continued in 2011 to violate domestic and international legal guarantees of freedom of press and expression by restricting bloggers, journalists, and an estimated more than 500 million internet users. The government requires internet search firms and state media to censor issues deemed officially “sensitive,” and blocks access to foreign websites including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. However, the rise of Chinese online social networks—in particularly Sina’s Weibo, which has 200 million users—has created a new platform for citizens to express opinions and to challenge official limitations on freedom of speech despite intense scrutiny by China’s censors.

On January 30 official concern about Egyptian anti-government protests prompted a ban on internet searches for “Egypt.” On February 20 internet rumors about a Chinese “Jasmine Revolution” resulted in a ban on web searches for “jasmine.” In August a cascade of internet criticism of the government’s response to the July 23 Wenzhou train crash prompted the government to warn of new penalties, including suspension of microblog access, against bloggers who transmit “false or misleading information.”

Ambiguous “inciting subversion” and “revealing state secrets” laws contributed to the imprisonment of at least 34 Chinese journalists. Those jailed include Qi Chonghuai, originally sentenced to a four-year prison term in August 2008 for “extortion and blackmail” after exposing government corruption in his home province of Shandong. His prison sentence was extended in June for eight years when the same court found him guilty of fresh charges of extortion and “embezzlement.”

Censorship restrictions continue to pose a threat to journalists whose reporting oversteps official guidelines. In May Southern Metropolis Daily editor Song Zhibiao was demoted as a reprisal for criticism of the government’s 2008 Sichuan earthquake recovery efforts. In June the government threatened to blacklist journalists guilty of “distorted” reporting of food safety scandals. In July the China Economic Times disbanded its investigative unit, an apparent response to official pressure against its outspoken reporting on official malfeasance.

Physical violence against journalists who report on “sensitive” topics remained a problem in 2011. On June 1, plainclothes Beijing police assaulted and injured two Beijing Times reporters who refused to delete photos they had taken at the scene of a stabbing. The two officers were subsequently suspended. On September 19 Li Xiang, a reporter with Henan province’s Luoyang Television, was stabbed to death in what has been widely speculated was retaliation for his exposé of a local food safety scandal. Police have arrested two suspects and insist that Li’s murder was due to a robbery.

Police deliberately targeted foreign correspondents with physical violence at the site of a rumored anti-government protest in Beijing on February 27. A video journalist at the scene required medical treatment for severe bruising and possible internal injuries after men who appeared to be plain clothes security officers repeatedly punched and kicked him in the face. Uniformed police manhandled, detained, and delayed more than a dozen other foreign media at the scene.

Government and security bureaus prevented the biennial Beijing Queer Film Festival from screening in Beijing’s Xicheng District. Parts of the festival were held surreptitiously in community venues.

Freedom of Religion

The Chinese government limits religious practices to officially-approved temples, monasteries, churches, and mosques despite a constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion. Religious institutions must submit data—including financial records, activities, and employee details—for periodic official audits. The government also reviews seminary applications and religious publications, and approves all religious personnel appointments. Protestant “house churches” and other unregistered spiritual organizations are considered illegal and their members subject to prosecution and fines. The Falun Gong and some other groups are deemed “evil cults” and members risk intimidation, harassment, and arrest.

In April the government pressured the landlord of the Beijing Shouwang Church, a “house church” with 1,000 congregants, to evict the church from its location in a Beijing restaurant. Over the course of at least five Sundays in April and May, the Shouwang congregation held its services in outdoor locations, attracting police attention and resulting in the temporary detention of more than 100 of its members.

The government continues to heavily restrict religious activities in the name of security in ethnic minority areas. See sections below on Tibet and Xinjiang.

Health

On August 2 the government announced the closure of 583 battery-recycling factories linked to widespread lead poisoning. However, it has failed to substantively recognize and address abuses including denial of treatment for child lead poisoning victims and harassment of parents seeking legal redress that Human Rights Watch uncovered in a June 2011 report of lead poisoning in Henan, Yunnan, Shaanxi, and Hunan.

People with HIV/AIDS continued to face discrimination. In September an HIV-positive female burn victim was denied treatment at three hospitals in Guangdong province due to stigma about her status. On September 8 an HIV-positive school teacher launched a wrongful dismissal suit against the Guizhou provincial government after it refused to hire him on April 3 due to his HIV status.

Disability Rights

The Chinese government is inadequately protecting the rights of people with disabilities, despite its ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), and its forthcoming review by the treaty’s monitoring body.

In September a group of part-time teachers with disabilities requested that China’s Ministry of Education lift restrictions imposed by 20 cities and provinces on full-time employment of teachers with physical disabilities. On September 7, Henan officials freed 30 people with mental disabilities who had been abducted and trafficked into slave labor conditions in illegal brick kiln factories in the province. The discovery cast doubt on official efforts to end such abuses in the wake of a similar scandal in Shaanxi in 2007.

On August 10 the Chinese government invited public comment on its long-awaited draft mental health law. Domestic legal experts warn the draft contains potentially serious risks to the rights of persons with mental disabilities, including involuntary institutionalization, forced treatment and deprivation of legal capacity.

Migrant and Labor Rights

Lack of meaningful union representation remained an obstacle to systemic improvement in workers’ wages and conditions in 2011.The government prohibits independent labor unions, so the official All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) is the sole legal representative of China’s workers. A persistent labor shortage linked to changing demographics—official statistics indicate that nationwide job vacancies outpaced available workers by five percent in the first three months of 2011—has led to occasional reports of rising wages and improved benefits for some workers.

In January a government survey of migrant workers indicated that the hukou (household registration) system continued to impose systemic discrimination on migrants. Survey respondents blamed the hukou system, which the government has repeatedly promised to abolish, for unfairly limiting their access to housing, medical services, and education. In August 2011 the Beijing city government ordered the closure of 24 illegal private schools that catered to migrant children. Most found alternate schools, although an estimated 10 to 20 percent had to be separated from their parents and sent to their hukou-linked rural hometowns due to their parents’ inability to secure suitable and affordable schooling in Beijing.

Women’s Rights

Women’s reproductive rights remain severely curtailed in 2011 under China’s family planning regulations. Administrative sanctions, fines, and forced abortions continue to be imposed, if somewhat erratically, on rural women, including when they become migrant laborers in urban or manufacturing areas, and are increasingly extended to ethnic minority areas such as Tibet and Xinjiang. These policies contribute to an increasing gender-imbalance (118.08 males for every 100 females according to the 2010 census), which in turn fuels trafficking and prostitution.

Sex workers, numbering four to ten million, remain a particularly vulnerable segment of the population due to the government’s harsh policies and regular mobilization campaigns to crack down on prostitution.

Although the government acknowledges that domestic violence, employment discrimination, and discriminatory social attitudes remain acute and widespread problems, it continues to stunt the development of independent women’s rights groups and discourages public interest litigation. A new interpretation of the country’s Marriage Law by the Supreme People’s Court in August 2011 might further exacerbate the gender wealth gap by stating that after divorce, marital property belongs solely to the person who took out a mortgage and registered as the homeowner, which in most cases is the husband.

Illegal Adoptions and Child Trafficking

On August 16 the Chinese government announced it would tighten rules to prevent illegal adoptions and child trafficking. Revised Registration Measures for the Adoption of Children by Chinese Citizens were expected to be introduced by the end of 2011 and would restrict the source of adoptions to orphanages, rather than hospitals or other institutions. The planned rule change follows revelations in May 2011 that members of a government family planning unit in Hunan had kidnapped and trafficked at least 15 babies to couples in the United States and Holland for US$3,000 each between 2002 and 2005. A subsequent police investigation determined there had been no illegal trafficking, despite testimony from parents who insist their children were abducted and subsequently trafficked overseas.

Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

In 1997 the government decriminalized homosexual conduct and in 2001 ceased to classify homosexuality as a mental illness. However, police continue to occasionally raid popular gay venues in what activists describe as deliberate harassment. Same-sex relationships are not legally recognized, adoption rights are denied to people in same-sex relationships, and there are no anti-discrimination laws based on sexual orientation. On April 4, 2011, Shanghai police raided Q Bar, a popular gay venue, alleging it was staging “pornographic shows.” Police detained more than 60 people, including customers and bar staff, and released them later that day. High-profile public support for overcoming social and official prejudice against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people is increasingly common. On July 5 a China Central Television talk show host criticized homophobic online comments posted by a famous Chinese actress and urged respect for the LGBT community.

Tibet

The situation in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and the neighboring Tibetan autonomous areas of Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu, and Yunnan province, remained tense in 2011 following the massive crackdown on popular protests that swept the plateau in 2008. Chinese security forces maintain a heavy presence and the authorities continue to tightly restrict access and travel to Tibetan areas, particularly for journalists and foreign visitors. Tibetans suspected of being critical of political, religious, cultural, or economic state policies are targeted on charges of “separatism.”

The government continues to build a “new socialist countryside” by relocating and rehousing up to 80 percent of the TAR population, including all pastoralists and nomads.

The Chinese government has given no indication it would accommodate the aspirations of Tibetan people for greater autonomy, even within the narrow confines of the country’s autonomy law on ethnic minorities’ areas. It has rejected holding negotiations with the new elected leader of the Tibetan community in exile, Lobsang Sangay, and warned that it would designate the next Dalai Lama itself.

In August Sichuan authorities imposed heavy prison sentences on three ethnic Tibetan monks from the Kirti monastery for assisting another monk who self-immolated in protest in March. Ten more Tibetan monks and one nun had self-immolated through mid-November, all expressing their desperation over the lack of religious freedom.

Xinjiang

The Urumqi riots of July 2009—the most deadly episode of ethnic unrest in recent Chinese history—continued to cast a shadow over developments in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. The government has not accounted for hundreds of persons detained after the riots, nor investigated the serious allegations of torture and ill-treatment of detainees that have surfaced in testimonies of refugees and relatives living outside China. The few publicized trials of suspected rioters were marred by restrictions on legal representation, overt politicization of the judiciary, and failure to publish notification of the trials and to hold genuinely open trials as mandated by law.

Several violent incidents occurred in the region in 2011, though culpability remains unclear. On July 18 the government said it had killed 14 Uighur attackers who had overrun a police station in Hetian and were holding several hostages. On July 30 and 31 a series of knife and bomb attacks took place in Kashgar. In both cases the government blamed Islamist extremists. In mid-August it launched a two-month “strike hard” campaign aimed at “destroying a number of violent terrorist groups and ensuring the region’s stability.”

Under the guise of counterterrorism and anti-separatism efforts, the government also maintains a pervasive system of ethnic discrimination against Uighurs and other ethnic minorities, along with sharp curbs on religious and cultural expression and politically motivated arrests.

The first national Work Conference on Xinjiang, held in 2010, endorsed economic measures that may generate revenue but are likely to further marginalize ethnic minorities. By the end of 2011, 80 percent of traditional neighborhoods in the ancient Uighur city of Kashgar will have been razed. Many Uighur inhabitants have been forcibly evicted and relocated to make way for a new city likely to be dominated by the Han population.

Hong Kong

Hong Kong immigration authorities’ refusal in 2011 to grant entry to several visitors critical of the Chinese government’s human rights record raised concerns that the territory’s autonomy was being eroded. Concerns about police powers also continue to grow following heavy restrictions imposed on students and media during the visit of a Chinese state leader in September 2011.

The status of migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong was strengthened in September when a court judged that rules excluding those workers from seeking the right of abode were unconstitutional. However, the Hong Kong government suggested it would appeal to Beijing for a review, further eroding the territory’s judicial autonomy.

Key International Actors

Despite voting in favor of a Security Council resolution referring Libya to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in February, the Chinese government continued to ignore or undermine international human rights norms and institutions. In June, amidst outcry against the visit, China hosted Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted by the ICC on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.In 2011 it significantly increased pressure on governments in Central and Southeast Asia to forcibly return Uighur refugees, leading to the refoulement of at least 20 people, and in October prevailed upon the South African government to deny a visa to the Dalai Lama, who wished to attend the birthday celebrations of Archbishop Desmond Tutu. That same month it exercised a rare veto together with Russia at the Security Council to help defeat a resolution condemning gross human rights abuses in Syria.

Although several dozen governments attended the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize ceremonies honoring activist Liu Xiaobo, relatively few engaged in effective advocacy on behalf of human rights in China during 2011. While the US emphasized human rights issues during Hu Jintao’s January state visit to Washington, that emphasis—and the attention of other governments—declined precipitously once the Arab Spring began, making it easier for the Chinese government to silence dissent. Few audibly continued their calls for the release of Liu and others.

Perhaps demonstrating the influence of growing popular objections to abusive Chinese investment projects, the Burmese government made a surprise announcement in September that it would suspend the primarily Chinese-backed and highly controversial Myitsone Dam. In Zambia, Chinese-run mining firms announced a sudden wage increase following the election of the opposition Patriotic Front, which had campaigned in part on securing minimum wage guarantees.

CORRECTION: The English version of the China chapter of the 2012 World Report states that the date when the Chinese government said it had killed 14 Uighur attackers who had overrun a police station in Hetian as July 12. The date was incorrect — it should be July 18.

Zimbabwe’s inclusive government has made significant progress in improving the country’s economic situation and reversing the decline of the past decade. For example, Zimbabwe has seen a marked improvement in its health system. However, despite a decline in HIV prevalence over the past decade and adoption of new guidelines on treatment in 2011, the number of HIV-positive Zimbabweans requiring but not receiving treatment remained high. Huge challenges also remain on the political front, with elections a key point of contention within the Government of National Unity (GNU).

The two main parties to the GNU, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), differ sharply over when elections should be held and the role of the security forces, often seen as staunch allies of President Robert Mugabe and ZANU-PF. ZANU-PF insists that the environment in the country is conducive to the holding of free, fair, and credible elections while the MDC contends that elections should not take place in the absence of human rights and electoral reforms. Questions also remain over the independence of key institutions that are vital to the proper implementation of free and fair elections, such as the electoral commission and the judiciary.

Mugabe’s announcement in December 2010 that elections would be held in 2011 triggered an increase in violence and abuses across the country. The beginning of the year saw ZANU-PF and elements within the security forces resort to old campaign tactics of violence, intimidation, and harassment. State security agents, police, and ZANU-PF supporters have been implicated in beatings, arbitrary arrests, and harassment of members of the MDC, cabinet ministers, human rights activists, and journalists, deepening the pervasive climate of fear in the country. In reaction to the abuses, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai threatened to withdraw the MDC from the inclusive government in March.

Political Violence

After a period of relative calm, 2011 saw an increase in politically motivated violence across the country. Tensions flared between the ZANU-PF and the MDC as a result of the anticipated elections. The main perpetrators of the violence have been ZANU-PF supporters and youth who have attacked scores of people, mainly MDC supporters and members, in the high-density neighborhoods of Harare, the capital, as well as outside of Harare. Over several days of violence in early February, scores of MDC supporters were injured and some were hospitalized as a result of attacks by alleged ZANU-PF youth in Mbare.

Police and prosecutors have been highly partisan and biased in their investigations and prosecution of acts of violence between supporters of the two parties. Groups allied to ZANU-PF continue to beat and intimidate citizens in the high-density suburbs of Harare with impunity, while MDC activists accused of violence are disproportionately arrested. In March police raided the MDC party headquarters and arrested three MDC officials and seven MDC youth on assault charges. Three days later they were all released. Several MDC parliamentarians and officials are facing various criminal charges, including inciting and participating in violence. In contrast, there have been few arrests or charges laid against ZANU-PF supporters implicated in violence.

Human Rights Defenders

The Zimbabwean authorities continue to use repression and intimidation to silence human rights advocates and to prevent them from exposing abuses and promoting respect for human rights. Harassment and arbitrary arrests of human rights defenders have intensified since January 2011. For example, on February 8, police arrested two employees of the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum as they tried to conduct a survey on transitional justice. In the same period police also raided the offices of a number of human rights NGOs and questioned the employees.

On May 23, police in Matabeleland North arrested two activists from the human rights organization ZimRights for convening a workshop on torture and its effects. Lawyers were denied access to the activists for three days before they were released.

Freedom of Association and Assembly

Minimal changes to repressive laws such as the Public Order and Security Act (POSA) and the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) have failed to open up space for the political opposition and civil society. ZANU-PF continues to selectively apply these laws and others, such as the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act, to justify arrests that violate basic rights and systematically deny civil society activists the right to peacefully assemble and associate. The police use provisions of POSA to strictly monitor and prevent public meetings or disrupt peaceful demonstrations.

On September 21, police arrested 12 activists from the organization Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) during a peaceful march commemorating the international day of peace. Ten of the activists were released without charge but two leaders of the organization, Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mahlangu, spent 13 days in custody.

On February 19, police arrested 45 activists who were meeting in Harare to discuss events in the Middle East. Six of the activists spent three weeks in custody before they were released on bail, initially charged with treason and attempting to overthrow the government by unconstitutional means. On September 14 the trial of the activists began in Harare, but the charges were revised to allegedly conspiring to commit public violence and participating in a gathering with intent to promote public violence.

The office of the attorney general has often been accused of a strong partisan bias toward ZANU-PF and of using criminal laws to prevent peaceful political activism. Prosecutors routinely invoke section 121 of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act to deny bail to political and civil society activists despite judicial rulings granting them bail, thus nullifying judicial checks on the excesses of the executive.

Freedom of Expression

There continue to be serious limits on the rights to freedom of expression and information in Zimbabwe, particularly in the form of threats of closure of independent media organizations, as well as the intimidation, arbitrary arrest, and criminal prosecution of journalists. The government’s actions seem primarily designed to inhibit criticism of government officials and institutions, and to muzzle reporting and commentary on the political situation in the country.

While the government has allowed independent local daily papers to resume operations, it has not fully reformed media-related laws as promised. It has also not reviewed criminal defamation laws that impose severe penalties, including prison terms, on journalists. Media laws such as AIPPA give the Zimbabwe authorities discretionary control over which individuals may practice journalism and operate a media outlet, as well as broad powers to prosecute persons critical of the government. Laws such as AIPPA and POSA continue to be selectively used to restrict the media. Journalists and media practitioners routinely face arrest for allegedly violating the state’s repressive media laws. Journalists and media outlets have also been subjected to threats and harassment from the authorities and security forces, creating major obstacles to reporting on Zimbabwe’s political system and continuing abuses by ZANU-PF.

Human Rights Violations in Marange Diamond Fields

While violence has decreased in the Marange diamond fields over the past year, Human Rights Watch research in June found that Zimbabwe police and private security guards employed by mining companies in the Marange diamond fields were implicated in abuses against local unlicensed miners. Private security guards working with the police routinely beat and set dogs to attack and maul local miners who stray into areas of the fields controlled by the companies. During patrols, police also fired live ammunition at miners as they fled the fields.

These findings contradict claims by the Zimbabwe government and some members of the international diamond monitoring body, the Kimberley Process, that areas controlled by private mining companies are relatively free of abuses and that diamonds from these companies should be certified and allowed on to international markets. The violence followed claims in June by the government and the chairman of the Kimberley Process, Mathieu Yamba, that conditions in the Marange fields are sufficient for it to be allowed to resume exports of diamonds.

Key International Actors

Leaders of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) grew increasingly frustrated with the slow pace of political and human rights reforms in Zimbabwe, in particular ZANU-PF’s reluctance to implement key parts of the Global Political Agreement (GPA), which paved the way for the formation of the GNU. Throughout the year SADC and South African President Jacob Zuma, appointed by SADC to facilitate reforms, exerted concerted pressure on the GNU to increase the pace of reforms and to adhere to a SADC-drafted electoral road map that would lead to free, fair, and credible elections.

At an extraordinary meeting held in Zambia in March, President Zuma reported back to SADC leaders on the situation in Zimbabwe. The report highlighted concerns about widespread human rights violations, including violent attacks on MDC supporters and arbitrary arrests. SADC issued a strong communiqué in support, demanding an end to political violence and arbitrary arrests and calling for an expanded facilitation team to engage with the GNU. ZANU-PF’s response to the communiqué was highly critical of Zuma’s facilitation, publicly accusing SADC of interfering in the country’s sovereignty and its right to hold elections at a time of its choosing. Subsequent communiqués issued by SADC at an extraordinary meeting in June and at its annual summit in August called for greater progress in the implementation of the GPA and the creation of a conducive environment to hold free and fair elections “under conditions of a level playing field.”

SADC and Zuma’s more robust engagement has led to progress in implementing certain parts of the GPA, including the formation of the electoral road map, finalizing the constitution making process, appointing a new election commission, and the introduction of the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission Bill and the Electoral Amendment Bill. Zuma and his facilitation team’s insistence that the environment in the country was not conducive to the holding of free and fair elections forced Mugabe and ZANU-PF to relent on holding the elections in 2011. Meanwhile SADC has been unable to make any gains on important issues such as security sector reform, accountability for past abuses, and ending politically motivated violence and other human rights abuses.

The United Nations Human Rights Council’s first Universal Periodic Review of Zimbabwe took place in October 2011. Zimbabwe rebuffed at the outset all recommendations pertaining to investigating allegations of violations, combating impunity, and bolstering protection in the Marange region, and related to freedoms of assembly and expression, including repealing or amending the POSA.

Due to the absence of meaningful human rights improvements, the European Union and United States have maintained targeted sanctions on Mugabe and others within his government.