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1994-05-02
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<text>
<title>
Congressional Casework
</title>
<article>
<hdr>
Human Rights Watch World Report 1992
Human Rights Watch: Congressional Casework
</hdr>
<body>
<p> Human Rights Watch continued to work closely with two
casework groups composed of members of Congress--the
Congressional Friends of Human Rights Monitors and the
Congressional Committee to Support Writers and Journalists.
Both groups are bipartisan and bicameral. Human Rights Watch
initiated the formation of these groups to enable concerned
members of Congress to write letters and urgent cables to
governments that violate the basic rights of human rights
monitors, writers and journalists. Human Rights Watch supplies
the groups with information about appropriate cases of concern;
the groups, in turn, determine which cases they would like to
act upon.
</p>
<p> The goals of the congressional casework groups are three-
fold. Most important, their letters and cables help to pressure
governments to end the persecution of human rights monitors,
journalists and writers. Second, the material submitted by
Human Rights Watch informs the members of the groups about such
persecution. Finally, copies of letters and cables are sent to
U.S. ambassadors in the relevant countries to inform them about
cases of concern to the congressional members.
</p>
<p> The Congressional Friends of Human Rights Monitors, which
was formed in 1983, is composed of thirty-seven senators and
144 representatives. The five members of the steering committee
for the group are Senators Dave Durenberger, James Jeffords and
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and Representatives Tony Hall and
Constance Morella.
</p>
<p> In 1991, the committee took up the cases of dozens of human
rights monitors who had been killed, disappeared, arrested
arbitrarily, assaulted or harassed. Among these cases were: the
murder or disappearance of several human rights activists in
Guatemala; the assault on Philippine human rights lawyer Vidal
Tombo; the murder of Marco Tulio Hernández, a human rights
activist in Honduras; the arbitrary arrest of human rights
lawyer Paul Muite of Kenya; the arrest and harassment of Cuban
human rights monitors; the detention of Dr. Nguyen Dan Que, a
Vietnamese human rights activist; the murder of Colombian human
rights monitor Alcides Castrillon and death threats against
other Colombian monitors; and the murder of South African human
rights lawyer Bheki Mlangeni.
</p>
<p> The Congressional Committee to Support Writers and
Journalists was formed in 1988 and is composed of nineteen
senators and eighty-five representatives. In 1991, the members
of the steering committee for the group were Senators Bob
Graham and Mark Hatfield, and Representatives Bill Green and
John Lewis.
</p>
<p> During the year, the committee denounced attacks against
individual journalists and writers, as well as acts of
censorship. Among these cases were: the arrests in March and
November of Kenyan editor Gitobu Imanyara and the arrest and
intimidation of several other Kenyan journalists; the temporary
disappearance of a CBS news crew and a British film crew and
the murder of photographer Gad Schuster Gross in Iraq; attacks
against the independent press in Cameroon; the murder of
Colombian journalist Julio Daniel Chaparro Hurtado and
photographer Jorge Enrique Torres Navas; the Salvadoran
military's harassment of foreign journalists; the arrest and
mistreatment of Palestinian journalist Taher Shritah in Israel;
the murder of Philippine journalist Nesino Paulin Toling; the
sentencing of South African journalist Patrick Lawrence; and
the harassment of journalists working for the newspaper al Fajr
in Tunisia.
</p>
</body>
</article>
</text>