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Programme 1 Background Information
Three Amnesty International Cases Concerning Young People AlgeriaIn February 1994 Katia Bengana, 17, was walking home with a school friend. Her friend had chosen to cover her face with an Islamic veil - hidjab. Katia did not wear a veil although she had been previously threatened by Islamists if she refused to cover her face. A gunman, reportedly a member of an armed Islamist organisation, stepped out, and indicated to Katia's friend to step aside. Then he shot Katia dead. An anti-Islamist youth group then issued death threats to women wearing the veil. A month later two veiled school students were shot dead at a bus stop in an Algiers suburb. The shootings were part of a continuing and worsening pattern of violence and counter-violence that has engulfed Algeria since 1992. It has involved political killings, assassinations and massacres in which more than 80,000 Algerians are reported to have died, most of them civilians. In 1997 hundreds of people were being killed each week in Algeria. Amnesty International also received information about widespread torture, rape, 'disappearances', hostage-taking and other grave human rights abuses. Those responsible were the state security forces and state-armed militias on the one hand and armed Islamist opposition groups on the other.
Amnesty International Annual Report 1995 Guatemala Nahaman Carmona Lopez was a boy of 13, one of 5,000 children living on the streets of Guatemala City, many abandoned by parents too poor to feed themselves, or forced to flee political persecution or physical abuse. One night in March 1990, according to Casa Alianza, the street children's charity and rights organisation, Nahaman had been sniffing glue from plastic bags with his friends on the corner of 6th Avenue and 12th Street to relieve the hunger and cold. Four uniformed police officers approached the group. Most of the children ran away, but Nahaman and four other younger children were arrested. The police poured the glue they had been sniffing over the children's heads to 'teach them a lesson'. Nahaman resisted. He was thrown to the ground and kicked for several minutes. He was then left reeling in pain while the police continued their patrol. He had six broken ribs, a burst liver, and bruising all over his body. He died in hospital 10 days later. After prolonged legal battles history was made when the four police officers were arrested and eventually sentenced to serve 12 years in jail and to pay heavy fines to compensate Nahaman's family. However, they were released after serving less than half their sentence. No compensation was ever paid to Nahaman's family. This case is one of scores of recent incidents of beatings, torture and killings of Guatemalan street children at the hands of the police investigated by Casa Alianza. Amnesty International reports similar patterns of killings of large numbers of street children by security forces in Latin America, particularly 'social cleansing' operations in Brazil and Colombia.
TurkeyTorture of both political and criminal detainees by police or gendarmes is very widely reported to Amnesty International from all parts of Turkey. The abuse is encouraged by incommunicado detentions in police stations for long periods without access to the outside world. On 12 January 1995 Döne Talun, a girl aged 12 from Çubuk, a poor area of Ankara, was suspected of stealing some bread. She was arrested, and held in the police station for five days without access to her family or legal help. Medical evidence later supported her testimony that she had been blindfolded, tied up, punched in the stomach, beaten on the neck with a truncheon, hit on the head with a walkie-talkie, and subjected to electric shock torture on the face and the fingers. 'I shared a cell with three other girls,' she said. 'We had to watch each other receiving electric shocks.' She was finally released without any charge.
BelsenThese scenes were filmed shortly after British forces liberated the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany in April 1945. They show hundreds of naked corpses of the victims of starvation, slave labour, torture, disease and murder being pushed by bulldozers into an immense burial ditch. When the first British tanks arrived in the camp, troops found thousands of unburied corpses. Some were in railway trucks having been shunted from camp to camp in the last months of the war as the Nazis fled westwards. Hundreds of the surviving inmates died daily after the liberation of Belsen. It was to this concentration camp that Anne Frank had been transported from Auschwitz in December 1944. She died here, aged 16, a month before the Allies came. Between 1939 and 1945, six million unarmed and innocent Jewish civilians - men, women, children and babies - were murdered in Nazi-controlled Europe in a highly organised extermination strategy. Two million of them were killed in their own towns and villages, or starved in ghettos to which they had been driven. Four million of them had been driven from their homes, and taken by train to death camps and distant concentration camps, mostly in Poland, where they were worked to death, starved, beaten, shot or gassed. In Belsen the inmates also included many non-Jews, anti-Nazis, homosexuals, the mentally ill, Jehovah's Witnesses, the chronically sick, and gypsies. The concentration camps in Germany - Belsen, Dachau and Buchenwald - were captured by British and American troops while they were still in operation, and their horrors were witnessed, photographed and filmed for the world to see. Auschwitz-Birkenau and the other major Nazi death camps, with their gas chambers and mass crematoria where most of the Holocaust victims perished, were in Poland. These were largely destroyed on Himmler's orders and evacuated by the Nazis before the Soviet Army arrived, the staff fleeing westwards, driving the surviving inmates with them on notorious death marches. This filmed evidence of Nazi atrocities in Belsen was presented at the International War Crimes Tribunal in Nuremberg in November 1945.
Atlas of the Holocaust, Martin Gilbert (1978), Jewish Board of Deputies The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights The year 1998 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Jill Morrell introduces the idea of human rights and freedoms, the right to think, to life, to education, to work, to worship, to live where you want, not as a gift from government, not as something earned, but as basic entitlements that belong to everyone everywhere unconditionally. In 1945 the newly-formed United Nations drew up the UN Charter which committed its member states to take action to promote 'universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion'. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights elaborates these rights, the responsibilities of states, the freedoms of all members of the human family, and their entitlement to a social and international order in which such rights can be enjoyed. The Charter and the Universal Declaration were responses to cataclysmic events that had just convulsed the world: Fascism, the Second World War, the atrocities of concentration camps and the uprooting of millions. The Nuremberg and Tokyo International War Crimes Tribunals had just finished, and new words needed to be added to the legal dictionary to describe the unthinkable: 'holocaust', 'genocide', 'war crime', 'crime against humanity'. In the words of the Preamble to the Universal Declaration: 'Disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind.' In the programme we see Mrs Eleanor Roosevelt, former First Lady of the USA and America's delegate to the United Nations, introducing the Declaration to the UN General Assembly. It is early in the morning of 10 December 1948. Mrs Roosevelt had chaired the Commission that drafted the Declaration through 18 months of debate, 81 meetings, and 168 amendments. At 4am the vote was finally taken. Of the 56 States that then comprised the United Nations, 48 voted for the adoption of the Declaration. No nation voted against. Eight countries abstained: South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Yugoslavia, and five countries of the Soviet bloc (Poland, Czechoslovakia, Russia, Byelorussia, and Ukraine). Mrs Roosevelt said the Declaration 'might well become the Magna Carta of all mankind'. The Magna Carta was one of the earliest human rights treaties. It was drawn up between the English King John and the barons at Runnymede in 1215. It guaranteed freedom from imprisonment and dispossession of property, and freedom from prosecution or exile except by the law of the land or by the lawful judgement of one's peers. It laid down principles of the right to a fair trial. Mrs Roosevelt referred to other historic human rights documents: the proclamation of the rights of man in the American Declaration of Independence (1776) and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen in France (1789). The upholding of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is obligatory for all member states of the United Nations. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was a statement of principles, 'a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations'. Every individual and every organ of society was expected to promote respect for the rights and freedoms that it outlined, through teaching and education, and to secure their universal and progressive recognition and observance. The Universal Declaration represents a significant step forward in the international protection of human rights, heralding a revolutionary change in international law. Until the end of the Second World War the way a government dealt with its citizens was largely seen as its own internal affair, and no business of anyone outside its borders. But with the Universal Declaration, for the first time in history, such matters became the legitimate concern of all states and of all their inhabitants, and established comprehensive rights for individuals and groups against a state. The 30 articles of the Universal Declaration are a set of rights, freedoms and protective measures to be enjoyed by every man, woman and child in the world. The first part of the Declaration (Articles 4 to 21) consists of civil and political rights and freedoms that are everyone's inalienable birthright: the right to life, liberty and justice, the right to equal treatment regardless of gender, race and social origin, the right to freedom of opinion, belief, speech and expression, the right to marry, the right not to be enslaved, tortured or arbitrarily imprisoned, the right to justice and a fair trial, the right to private property, the right to respect for privacy and family life, the right to peaceful association and assembly, the right to take part in the government of one's country. The second part of the Declaration (Articles 22 to 27) concerns economic, social and cultural rights to which we are entitled as members of society, including the rights to health, work, education, leisure, social protection and security, and the right to participate in the cultural life of the community. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, while of enormous importance as a standard-setting proclamation, was technically no more than a statement of intent by the world's rulers. Its provisions only became international human rights law when the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) came into force in 1976, and the machinery was established through which these treaties are monitored, implemented and enforced: the United Nations Human Rights Commission and the Human Rights Committee. The UN member states announced the advent of a world 'in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want', and in which fundamental rights of people would be protected by the rule of law. However, the abuse of human rights did not stop in 1948.
ChinaKate Adie discusses the events in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China in June 1989: Tiananmen Square is a huge square in the centre of Beijing which is named after the Gate of Heavenly Peace, the fifteenth-century entrance to the Forbidden City at the top of the Square, dominated by a large portrait of Mao Zedong. It is bordered by the Great Hall of the People - the Chinese Parliament - and Mao's Mausoleum. When Hu Yaobang, the reformist General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, died in April 1989, very large numbers of students and young people came to Beijing's main square to mourn his passing, to lay wreaths and paper flowers in his memory on the Monument to the People's Heroes, to set up camp in the Square and to stage a massive and escalating pro-democracy protest known as the 'Beijing Spring'. There were demands for human rights, democratic reforms and freedom of the press, and protests against corruption. By mid-May, as many as a million people from all walks of life were taking part in the peaceful protests and rallies. Similar demonstrations spread to 20 other cities across China. 3,000 students staged a hunger strike. Students from the Art Institute built a huge Goddess of Democracy statue that dominated events. By 4 June the numbers in Tiananmen Square had dropped to some 10,000 young protesters. Very early that morning large numbers of tanks from the People's Liberation Army and thousands of heavily armed troops entered the square to crush the protest. The exact number of deaths in the square and the surrounding streets will never be known - Amnesty International reports that more than 1,000 civilians were killed by government forces in the massacre. Remarkable footage, like that shown in the programme, was taken at the time by foreign film crews, smuggled out of China and broadcast around the world. After the massacre there was a crackdown on pro-democracy activists. Thousands were arrested. Many death sentences were meted out for 'counter-revolutionary activities'. Nearly 800 people were tried and jailed in Beijing alone for their part in the events, many receiving long prison sentences. Thousands of others were sent to 'education through labour' camps without charge or trial. The identity, and the fate, of the young man with the briefcase who confronted the tanks is unknown.
China: No-One Is Safe, 1996 Bosnia-Herzegovina In the film we see large numbers of refugees fleeing from the civil conflict and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1995. In that year civil war was taking place between the forces of the minority Bosnian Serbs, who controlled most of the country, and the forces of the Muslim and Croat Bosnian majority. Amnesty International reported Bosnian Serb forces (Vojska Republike Srpske - VRS) driving large numbers of Muslims and Croat citizens from their homes on the basis of their ethnic origins. Amnesty International received numerous reports of torture, beatings and ill-treatment, including rape and sexual abuse as Croats and Muslims were forcibly expelled in large numbers to Croatia or to areas of Bosnia that were controlled by non-Serbs. Thousands were abducted, and many were believed to have been secretly massacred because of their national or religious affiliation. Civilians were deliberately targeted by Bosnian Serb artillery, mortar and sniper fire in the city of Sarajevo and elsewhere. Men of military age were often separated from women and children before the women and children were made to cross front lines, often across minefields. Homes were deliberately destroyed. Hundreds of Bosnians were detained by various parties to the conflict because of their national origins, and made to perform forced labour in dangerous conditions. When Serbian forces and paramilitaries overran the enclave of Srebrenica in July 1995 most of the 8,000 people they captured went missing. It is believed that most were secretly killed, with large numbers buried in mass graves. Human rights abuses against Bosnian Serb civilians were also reported as Croat forces advanced through western Bosnia that autumn. In the Dayton Peace Agreement to settle the conflict (November 1995) Bosnia-Herzegovina was to consist of two Entities, the Bosniac-Croat Federation and the Republica Srpska. The UN's International Criminal Tribunal indicted a number of Serbs, including Radovan Karadzic, leader of the Bosnian Serb authorities, and General Ratko Mladic, the VRS commander, accusing them of genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of the laws of war.
Bosnia Annual Report 1996 United Kingdom The Bridgewater Four Newspaper boy Carl Bridgewater, aged 13, was murdered after interrupting a burglary that was taking place in a farmhouse in Staffordshire in 1978. Four men with previous criminal records - Michael and Vincent Hickey, Pat Molloy and Jim Robinson - were later arrested and charged with murdering the boy. They were condemned as a result of the confession of Pat Molloy. Three were sentenced to life imprisonment for Carl's murder. Molloy was convicted of manslaughter, and died in custody in 1981. The other three all served 17 years in jail. A long-running campaign, the Bridgewater Four Support Group, was organised from inside and outside prison to reopen the case and to clear the prisoners' names. It was led by Mrs Anne Whelan, the mother of Andy Whelan, the youngest member of the group. Michael Hickey, 16 at the time of his arrest, was involved in a 14-week prison rooftop protest which is shown in the film. The journalist Paul Foot told the men's story in a book, Murder on the Farm - who killed Carl Bridgewater? In 1993 a television play, Bad Company, brought the case to public attention. Finally, in March 1997, the convictions against the Bridgewater Four were overturned in court where it was shown that Molloy had been set up by the police and pressurised into making a false confession. In the programme there is an interview with Jim Robinson, one of the Four. He points out that if the death penalty had still been available in the UK, the Bridgewater Four might well have been executed.
Information from Catrin Shackson and Andy de la Tour, Bridgewater Four Support Group Joy Gardner There is an interview with Mrs Myrnah Simpson, the mother of Joy Gardner. Early in the morning of 26 July 1993 three Metropolitan Police officers from a special deportation squad, two local police officers and an immigration officer raided the London home of Joy Gardner to deport her and her five-year-old son forcibly to Jamaica as illegal immigrants. When she was prevented from ringing her lawyer, a struggle ensued in which she was wrestled to the floor of her flat. According to the police she became so violent that she had to be restrained. She was placed in a body-belt with her hands cuffed, her thighs and ankles bound in leather straps, and 13 feet of adhesive medical tape wrapped seven times around her mouth and chin. Bound and gagged, she collapsed in a coma and stopped breathing. She was taken to hospital and was pronounced dead four days later. The post-mortem examination gave asphyxiation as the cause of death. In June 1995 three police officers were acquitted of her manslaughter. Myrnah Simpson talks about some of the protests, the marches and visits to Parliament organised by Joy's family, friends and supporters to protest about what had happened and to campaign to get those responsible for her death brought to justice.
The Age of ConsentNational age-of-consent laws define the age at which sexual activity is permitted. At the time of writing, the United Kingdom and a few other European countries have a higher age of consent for homosexual than for heterosexual activity. In the UK, 16 is the minimum age permitted for heterosexual acts. For male homosexual relations the minimum age permitted in the UK used to be 21. In 1994 the House of Commons reduced this to 18. In 1996 two young gay men, Euan Sutherland, then 17, and his friend Chris Morris, then 16, who is interviewed in the programme, took the UK to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, claiming that the UK's age-of-consent legislation discriminated against homosexuals and contravened their rights to privacy and equality guaranteed under the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms under Article 8 (which guarantees the right to privacy) and Article 14 (which forbids discrimination) - on grounds of both sex and sexual orientation. They withdrew their case when the UK Government promised to allow a free vote on the age of consent in the current session of Parliament.
Breaking the Silence, Amnesty International 1997 (ISBN 187332815) Friends of John McCarthy John McCarthy, a British journalist working for World Television News, was kidnapped while he was working in Beirut, Lebanon in April 1986. He was held hostage by Islamic Jihad, an armed opposition group, for over five years in secret hideouts in appalling conditions. He was detained along with a number of other foreigners including Brian Keenan and Terry Waite. Jill Morrell helped to organise a campaigning organisation in Britain called the Friends of John McCarthy to work for his release. It was based at the office of the National Union of Journalists and used meetings posters, demonstrations and advertisements to raise public awareness and keep his kidnapping in the public eye, to remind politicians of his situation and to develop international diplomatic pressure for his release. In the second year of his secret captivity in Lebanon, John McCarthy heard about the campaigning activities of the Friends. He quotes Helen Bamber of the Medical Foundation for the Victims of Torture condemning the role of the passive bystander who is aware of human rights abuse but does nothing about it, enabling the abusers to continue their work while the victims continue to suffer.
BullyingHayley Dempsey is a young girl from south London who, from the age of 8, had been subjected to severe bullying at her primary school and on the estate where she lived. She was persecuted, verbally abused, threatened and then physically abused, pushed, slapped, punched, kicked and scratched. She lost weight, contemplated suicide and tried to throw herself from a third-storey window to get away from her tormentors. Eventually her family moved house. There are regular stories of bullying in the news. Sadly, some victims do commit suicide.
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