Human Rights Watch Monthly Email Update July 2003

CONGO: Advocacy Gets Results
On July 8, Human Rights Watch released “Covered in Blood,” a 57-page report documenting massive crimes against humanity and ethnic killings in the Congo province of Ituri. Exactly one week later, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court announced that the Democratic Republic of Congo, and in particular its northeastern province of Ituri, will be the new court's most urgent investigative priority. The prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, used Human Rights Watch's facts and figures about Ituri in making his announcement.
[ MORE:  http://www.hrw.org/update/2003/07/index.htm#2 ]

SERBIA: First War Crimes Law
In early July, for the first time, the Serbian parliament adopted a potentially important new law for prosecuting war criminals. The law creates a new post of war crimes prosecutor and identifies a district court in Belgrade to judge war crimes cases. Perhaps most important, the law includes provisions for witness protection - a major obstacle to trying war crimes cases in the past. HRW researcher Bogdan Ivanisevic says the Serbian government now needs to muster the political will to make the new law effective.
[ MORE:  http://www.hrw.org/update/2003/07/index.htm#3 ]

SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN IRAQ: A Call to Action
The insecurity plaguing Baghdad and other Iraqi cities is preventing women and girls from participating in public life at a crucial time in their country's history. In Baghdad alone, Human Rights Watch has collected 25 credible accounts of rape and abduction in interviews with victims, witnesses, Iraqi police and health professionals, and U.S. military and civil affairs officers. Our July 2003 report,;Climate of Fear: Sexual Violence and Abduction of Women and Girls in Baghdad; was covered widely, including in-depth pieces on National Public Radio and the BBC World Service, and a front page story in the New York Times. Now we need supporters like you to step up the pressure on the elected officials in the U.K. and U.S. and the Coalitional Provision Authority in Iraq.
[ MORE:  http://www.hrw.org/update/2003/07/index.htm#4 ]

JOHN SIFTON: Our Man in Afghanistan
Reporting on human rights abuse in Afghanistan is becoming downright dangerous. John Sifton, Human Rights Watch's researcher on Afghanistan, made sure that he and other HRW staff were safely out of the country before the July 28 release of our latest report, Killing You is a Very Easy Thing For Us. Local Afghan media, as well as BBC radio in several Afghan languages, gave blanket coverage to HRW's charges: that Afghan warlords supported by the United States are engendering a climate of fear in the country and threatening efforts to adopt a new constitution. But the extensive press coverage has created a backlash among the many government officials and military officials criticized in the report.
[ MORE:  http://www.hrw.org/update/2003/07/index.htm#5 ]