DATE=4/7/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=U-N / SUMMARY EXECUTIONS (L-ONLY)
NUMBER=2-261056
BYLINE=LISA SCHLEIN
DATELINE=GENEVA
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: A United Nations special investigator says
there has been an increase in extra-judicial killings
by governments and armed groups around the world.
Lisa Schlein reports the investigator submitted her
findings to the U-N Human Rights Commission in Geneva.
TEXT: The U-N investigator, Pakistani lawyer Asma
Jahangir, says she believes the cases brought to her
attention are only a fraction of the increasing number
of extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions.
In the past year, she says she sent urgent warnings
about possible threats to hundreds of people in more
than 40 countries.
Ms. Jahangir says the chief targets of extra-judicial
killings include human rights and political activists,
journalists and members of various minorities. She
says more and more oppressive governments are using
what she calls "non-state actors" -- unofficial
militant forces -- to deal with individuals or groups
who challenge their authority.
/// JAHANGIR ACT ONE ///
Sometimes it's very difficult to link them to
governments, [to] the role of the intelligence
services that actually support and patronize
these non-state actors who are now being used to
violate -- and the governments use them very
successfully -- to get away from being
accountable to what is happening.
/// END ACT ///
Ms. Jahangir says there is evidence that more and more
countries are permitting so-called "honor killings" --
cases in which women are killed because they are
perceived to have shamed their families. She says she
has received reports of honor killings in Pakistan,
India, Bangladesh, Turkey, Peru, Jordan and Israel,
among others.
The U-N investigator says she has reports of about 25
honor killings a year in Jordan, and 300 a year in
Pakistan.
/// JAHANGIR ACT TWO ///
In Pakistan, the situation has not changed on
the ground at all. There is almost every single
day, one honor killing. And, every third day
there is rhetoric about doing something about
honor killing. But, to this day, nothing has
been done.
/// END ACT ///
In 90 percent of the cases, Ms. Jahangir says, people
are killed by or on orders from their own family. And
usually, she says, the killers go free.
She says honor killings also have been reported in
some western countries, notably Norway, Britain and
Italy. She says these largely non-Muslim countries do
little to outlaw the practice, because of so-called
"cultural sensitivity." She says the western
countries bow to perceived traditional values of
Islamic countries, which she says is not correct.
(Signed)
NEB/LS/JWH/WTW
07-Apr-2000 15:11 PM EDT (07-Apr-2000 1911 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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