National 7 (Spotlight Weekly)

Yet Another Human Rights Entity!!! Come on, "Jack Sprat would Teach His Grand-Dame"

By Bipin Adhikari

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights's Special Rapporteur on torture, Theo van Boven, the Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Ambeyi Ligabo, and the Chairperson- Rapporteur of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Leïla Zerroügui, expressed their profound concern recently over reports that dozens of individuals are being detained secretly in Nepal and are therefore at risk of suffering torture and other forms of ill-treatment.

These experts said that in the last two months, 31 urgent appeals have been sent, most of them jointly, to the Government of Nepal regarding the alleged detention in unknown locations of 56 people. The Special Rapporteurs and the Chairperson-Rapporteur also expressed that they received information about individuals, including some journalists, arrested by security personnel on suspicion of supporting or being involved with the CPN (Maoist). According to them, those arrested are subsequently kept for prolonged periods at unknown places of detention, where they are potentially at risk of being subjected to torture or other forms of ill treatment. They also noted that some former detainees complain of having been beaten while in custody.

But these allegations are not being made for the first time. The National Human Rights Commission and other human rights groups have been repeatedly asking the state to change the culture of impunity.

On 19 November 2003 the National Human Rights Commission made some important decisions on some outstanding issues at the Commission. The first is on the disappearance of Krishna KC, a journalist who is missing for more than two years. Upon the request of the Supreme Court, the Commission has decided to provide it whatever information it has to help the Court decide the writ petition.

In relation to the incident occurred in Sharada Higher Secondary School, on the basis of collected evidence and documents, the field study done by Nepal Bar Association, and the report submitted to the Commission by the “Children in Zones of Peace Campaign”, the CPN (Maoist) have been found to have seriously in contravention of the Common Article 3 of the four Geneva Conventions by breaching the widely accepted norms of schools as zones of peace. Upon the analysis of the facts received, the so-called cultural program conducted by the Maoists had risked the lives of the teachers, students and others present in the school premises. The shots fired by the security forces without considering the pleas of students and without giving the Maoists any opportunity to surrender causing the deaths of 4 students and 10 other people and injuries of 5 children has seriously violated international humanitarian law, human rights principles and prevailing Nepalese law. The Commission thereby recommended the government for the compensation to the victims and punitive measures for the perpetrators.

Likewise, the Commission decided to correspond with the government to direct concerned authorities to take necessary measures to prevent such acts in future as well as taking precautions according to the law in order to check the violation of fundamental rights in any security operations.

The Commission has also requested the government to invite United Nations Task Force and Special Rapporteur on Disappearances and Torture to visit Nepal and assess the situation. Various United Nations agencies and international human rights organizations have been making public statements for quite some time regarding the increase in the cases of disappearances and torture. The Amnesty International has also fully supported this request of the Commission by its recent statement. Taking into account the complaints received by the Commission, the government has also been asked by the Commission to seek the support of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on this issue.

Referring to the present violent activities of the Maoist, the Commission criticized that the CPN (Maoist) has been targeting even schools after withdrawing from the cease-fire further increasing their violent activities. Four students were killed in the incident of Mudbhara, Doti. The Commission expressed deep sorrow on the incident. The Commission also cited other incidents like forced abduction of large number of students from the schools in Achham and burning of the schools in Palung which clarify that Maoists have also been involving school children and using schools to carry out their violent activities. The Commission urged the Maoists to remain within the boundaries of Geneva Conventions and urged the Maoists not to target schools for any reason. Although all the parties have regularly been urging Maoists not to conduct destructive activities in public places, they have ignored the very fact and instead exploded bombs in public roads such as in the Hetauda –Bhimphidi sector. The general public has been and can be affected by such destructive activities in public places.

The challenge is to address these issues. The move towards Human Rights Promotion Centre only shows the desperation of the government – the extreme anxiety caused by its failure to guard the guards, and protect the vulnerable civilians. One cannot throw up one's hands like this in despair. The times are hard but the cause is just. The National Human Rights Commission is an important body and we must all do what we can do to strengthen it and to increase the impact of its work. There is no alternative. We are attached to human rights because it is a value in itself, because it protects and empowers the people, and enriches their lives.

[Adhikari is a lawyer. He may be accessed at human_rights_nepal@yahoo.co.uk]