🚀 go-pugleaf

Date: 10 July 1996
From: hrwatchnyc@igc.org

EMBARGOED FOR THURSDAY, JULY 11, 1996 11:30 AM EDT

     In its application to host the centennial Olympic Games, Atlanta touted
itself as, "for many the modern capital of human rights," equating itself with
the "justice and equality inherent in fair play" that are a cornerstone of the
Games.   But the poor, racial minorities, gays and lesbians, and virtually
anyone jailed or imprisoned in the state, might well disagree.   In Modern
Capital of Human Rights? Abuses in the State of Georgia, released today, Human
Rights Watch charges that, far from setting a positive human rights example,
Georgia must make significant improvements before it will be in compliance
with constitutional and international human rights standards.  Kenneth Roth,
executive director of Human Rights Watch declared, "Just as Georgia embraces
the international sporting system, it should uphold the international system
for protecting human rights.  The same standards of fair play and justice that
we applaud on the playing field should be applied to our streets, homes and
prisons."

     Georgia does not stand alone as a human rights violator in the United
States.  The custodial abuse, official neglect, discrimination and intolerance
found in Georgia occur in many other parts of the United States, and those
responsible frequently go unpunished. The death penalty is available in
thirty-eight of the fifty states; twenty-five of these permit the execution of
offenders who were under eighteen at the time of the crime.  Forty states lack
laws to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, and no state is
immune from police brutality.  Human Rights Watch has focused on Georgia
because in a country as vast as the United States, it is more effective to
highlight particular, illustrative abuses, rather than attempt a comprehensive
survey, and because Atlanta itself has trumpeted its human rights record as a
reason for gaining the Olympics.

     In timing this report for the opening of the Olympic Games, Human Rights
Watch recognizes that the Games have long had important political symbolism. 
The Nazis' racist supremacism (Berlin 1936), black-power salutes (Mexico City
1968), anti-Israeli terrorism (Munich 1972), and reciprocal boycotts by the
U.S. and Soviet Union (Moscow 1980 and Los Angeles 1984) vividly illustrate
the fact that the Games have long stood for more than sport alone.  Most
recently, Beijing lost its bid to host the 2000 Olympics because of China's
gross and systematic violations of human rights.  As the world's attention is
drawn to an Olympic site, it follows naturally that the host's human rights
record be scrutinized.  Human Rights Watch hopes that the Atlanta Olympics
will become known not for their hollow invocation of human rights, but as the
occasion for a genuine commitment to the full range of human rights
principles.
     
     Human Rights Watch finds that state officials and public policies
contravene fundamental human rights principles in a wide range of settings in
Georgia.  For example:

--   Atlanta police officers have used excessive force, including unjustified
     shootings and severe beatings, and have otherwise abused their power
     without coming before external civilian review and without punishment
     through internal department procedures, such that in Atlanta the
     performance of the police is now a controversial and divisive issue.

--   Georgia's death penalty law, upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976,
     has led to capital punishment primarily for the poor and for
     African-Americans particularly when the victim of the crime is white and
     this discriminatory impact compounds the abuse inherent in the death
     penalty itself. 

--   Drug laws are enforced disproportionately against black drug offenders,
     who, for example, are arrested for cocaine-related offenses at seventeen
     times the rate of whites (even though more whites are cocaine offenders)
     and who receive 98 percent of the life sentences handed down in drug
     cases.

--   State-run jails are so overcrowded and physically deteriorated, and
     local jail officials have neglected prisoners' welfare so shamefully in
     so many areas, that the U.S. government has threatened to sue eleven
     Georgia counties over jail conditions. 

--   Women in prison suffer sexual harassment and intimidation, and sometimes
     rape, at the hands of their guards, a situation which has improved
     greatly since an amended lawsuit was brought against the state in 1992
     but which continues to be serious.

--   Minors in state custody face extremely poor custodial conditions, are
     subjected to cruel restraints and punishment forbidden by international
     standards, are held in overcrowded facilities with little educational or
     other programs to occupy them, without appropriate psychological
     attention, and are virtually ignored as candidates for rehabilitation,
     which is supposed to be the goal of juvenile confinement. 

--   Lesbians and gay men face hostility that ranges from harassment under
     the state's anti-"sodomy" law, to openly discriminatory firing of gay
     employees by state officials and others, to verbal threats and physical
     attacks.  Victims of discriminatory treatment in most parts of Georgia
     have no effective recourse because the state does not prohibit
     discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

--   Freedom of expression is undermined by local school boards, in
     contravention of federal law but without federal action to end it, and
     by state Assembly resolutions that have condemned the state's public
     broadcasting system and have opened up broad new possibilities to
     prosecute Internet users for a variety of hitherto common practices.

     Several of the most persistent practices detailed in the 224-page report
contradict Georgia state law and/or U.S. federal law and the Constitution. 
They also violate international human rights law, which is grounded in
principles that the United States, and the state of Georgia, are presumed to
share principles like the individual's guarantee of free expression, the
prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, the right to due process of law,
and the right to be free from discrimination. 
     
     The United States has helped create these international standards, but
has been slow to apply them to itself.  And when the United States has
ratified key covenants, it has done so with such important reservations that
U.S. citizens cannot enforce international human rights law in U.S. courts.

     In recent years, the United States has ratified the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the Convention Against Torture
or other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and the
International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial
Discrimination (CERD).  The administration of President George Bush saw to the
ratification of the ICCPR, and the incumbent Clinton administration pushed
through Congress the ratification of the Torture Convention and CERD. But both
administrations, Republican and Democratic, have imposed reservations,
declarations and understandings that carve away any expanded protections for
Americans. Principal among these is the declaration that none of the
provisions are self-executing, meaning that they are not automatically
available for Americans to invoke upon ratification, but require passage of
implementing legislation before they can be applied by courts.  At the same
time, the Executive Branch specifically declares that no implementing
legislation is necessary.  The effect is that ratification has no practical
impact; it becomes a charade for external consumption rather than a step to
protect or enhance the rights of Americans.

     Modern Capital of Human Rights? comprises eight chapters on a range of
important human rights issues: police abuse, the death penalty, race and drug
law enforcement, treatment of prisoners, sexual abuse of women prisoners,
conditions for children in confinement, lesbian and gay rights, and freedom of
expression.  In addition to the specific recommendations found in each
chapter, Human Rights Watch makes the following recommendations:

Improving Accountability

--   Effective complaints procedures should be established and adequate
     outreach should be initiated to inform individuals about their right to
     file complaints when their rights have been violated by police and
     corrections officers.
--   Supervisors should be responsible for the actions of their subordinates. 
     Abusive police or corrections officers should be disciplined
     appropriately and consistently.  If local prosecutors fail to prosecute,
     federal prosecutors should consider whether criminal civil rights
     violations have occurred and should prosecute accordingly.

--   Local detention facility administrators should be held accountable for
     ignoring deplorable living conditions.  The Justice Department's recent
     reports on its investigation of conditions at county jails in Georgia
     are a clear indication that local officials have abdicated their
     responsibility to provide humane conditions.  If federal investigations
     are necessary to bring about essential improvements in adult or
     children's facilities, they should continue, but local personnel who
     have engaged in misconduct or management that has failed to protect
     inmates' or detainees' basic rights should not go unpunished.

--   Independent human rights investigators should be allowed access to both
     adult and juvenile facilities.

The Death Penalty and Discrepancies in the Criminal Justice System

--   Georgia should abolish the death penalty.

--   Until then, an independent, state-wide public defender system should be
     established to take responsibility for indigent defense in the state to
     ensure that impoverished defendants are represented by lawyers able and
     willing to devote the time, resources and skills necessary in capital
     cases.  At the very least, the pre-existing Multi-County Defender's
     office should be provided with the staff and other resources necessary
     to fulfill its duties in representing poor defendants in capital cases.

--   Georgia's public officials, lawmakers and the public at large should
     scrutinize the means used to enforce drug laws and then assess the
     necessity of these means in light of the state's drug objectives.  The
     inquiry should consider how the current disparate racial impact could be
     reduced by adopting policy alternatives.  As part of this examination,
     officials should review reporting mechanisms and data collection to
     ascertain whether sufficient information has been compiled to be able to
     ascertain the racial impact of drug law enforcement.

Discrimination and Intolerance

--   Georgia should repeal O.C.G.A. Sec. 16-2-2 (the criminal prohibition of
     "sodomy").

--   Georgia communities should repeal all explicitly anti-gay ordinances and
     restrictions.

--   The U.S. Congress should pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act,
     which prohibits employment discrimination based on sexual orientation.

--   Freedom of expression should not be inhibited unnecessarily by
     individuals or groups who have been allowed to arbitrarily choose which
     artworks, books or theater productions are suitable for the community at
     large.

--   To ensure that artistic expression in Georgia is protected from
     political interference, Georgia lawmakers should reject content-based
     restrictions on funding or other forms of support for the arts.

International Human Rights Protections

--   The U.S. Congress should introduce implementing legislation for the
     International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention
     Against Torture and Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment and the
     International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial
     Discrimination, or enact legislation declaring these treaties to be
     self-executing.

--   The U.S. should ratify all relevant international human rights treaties
     not yet approved, including the Convention on the Elimination of All
     Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the American Convention on Human
     Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural
     Rights, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

     Human Rights Watch has published twenty-one previous reports on U.S.
human rights issues.

     Copies of Modern Capital of Human Rights? are available from the
Publications Department, Human Rights Watch, 485 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 
10017 for $18.00 (domestic) and $22.50 (international). Visa and MasterCard
accepted.

Human Rights Watch is a nongovernmental organization established in 1978 to
monitor and promote the observance of internationally recognized human rights
in Africa, the Americas, Asia, the Middle East and among the signatories of
the Helsinki accords.  It is supported by contributions from private
individuals and foundations  worldwide.  It accepts no government funds,
directly or indirectly.  The staff includes Kenneth Roth, executive director;
Cynthia Brown, program director; Holly J. Burkhalter, advocacy director;
Barbara Guglielmo, finance and administration director; Robert Kimzey,
publications director; Jeri Laber, special advisor;  Lotte Leicht, Brussels
office director; Juan Mndez, general counsel; Susan Osnos, communications
director; Jemera Rone, counsel; and Joanna Weschler, United Nations
representative.  Robert L. Bernstein is the chair of the board and Adrian W.
DeWind is vice chair. 

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-- 
Doug Holton <dlh@cc.gatech.edu>