President Mubarak steps down: Foreign Aid to Military Should Depend on Immediate Reform, End to Emergency Rule - Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's speech to the nation on February 10, 2011, failed to address the human rights crisis fuelling the popular protests, Human Rights Watch said today.

Egypt's international partners, including the United States and European Union members, should make clear that continued assistance to Egypt's security forces depends on immediate progress towards full respect for human rights and a democratic transition.

In a televised address to the nation on February 10, Mubarak suggested he is delegating some unspecified powers to the vice president but did not announce any changes that would enable a genuine democratic transition. He referred vaguely to possible reforms to several repressive articles of the constitution, including sections that affect anti-terrorism powers and emergency regulations in place since 1981, and another that severely limits candidates for the presidency.

"Mubarak's speech is far from the needed break with the abusive system of the past 30 years," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "Cosmetic changes are not enough to meet the Egyptian people's demands for democracy and human rights. The US and EU governments should use their influence and their aid to encourage real reform."
 

Army and Navy Abuses, Cover-Ups Should be Prosecuted in Civilian Justice System - Military and police officers were implicated in a series of deaths and disappearances in the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon, Human Rights Watch said today. Federal and state prosecutors should take immediate steps to prosecute those responsible, Human Rights Watch said.

In a recent fact-finding mission to Nuevo Leon, Human Rights Watch investigated eight killings during 2010 that evidence indicates were the result of unlawful use of lethal force by army and navy officers. Human Rights Watch also documented more than a dozen enforced disappearances in Nuevo Leon since 2007 in which the evidence points to the involvement of the army, navy, and police.

"Failing to prosecute soldiers and police officers who kill, carry out enforced disappearances, and commit other grave violations sends a message that these abuses are acceptable tactics for combating organized crime," said Jose Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. "While it is true Nuevo Leon is experiencing unprecedented levels of violence, such abuses only undermine public security efforts and worsen an atmosphere of lawlessness."

Victims' families told Human Rights Watch that they had complained to state and federal authorities, and that in most cases investigations had been formally opened. But no one has been held accountable for any of the crimes Human Rights Watch documented in Nuevo Leon, according to the families.
 

Democracy Advocate in his Mid-70s Detained - Syrian authorities should immediately free Ghassan al-Najjar, leader of a small group called the Islamic Democratic Current, Human Rights Watch said today.

Security services arrested him at his home on the morning of February 4, 2011, and detained him. Al-Najjar, who is in his mid-70s, had issued public calls in the last week for Syrians in Aleppo to demonstrate to demand more freedoms in their country.

His arrest comes amid other measures by security services to pre-empt any public gathering after Syrian activists issued calls on Facebook and Twitter for large protests in the country on February 4 and 5. Syria's security services have summoned more than 10 activists in the last 48 hours, to pressure them not to demonstrate, a Syrian activist told Human Rights Watch.

Security officials also detained three young demonstrators for a few hours on February 3 after the youths took part in a Damascus protest against corruption and high cell phone communication costs.
 

When my translator and I arrived at the main morgue in Alexandria on Saturday morning to try and figure out how many people had died the previous day in the violent clashes that engulfed the city, officials held us back. We needed official permission, they said, and couldn't give us any information without that.

As we walked around looking for the hospital director, his colleagues whispered to us that he was hiding, afraid of the consequences of letting a foreigner into the morgue.

But the relatives of the dead had had enough. They shouted at the officials, grabbed us by the arms and pushed us inside.Suddenly we were in the cold room surrounded by corpses. A woman pulled back the bloodstained sheet from her son's body, wailing, "Look at my Mustafa, look at how beautiful he was. My dear Mustafa, show them, let them hear your beautiful voice. Oh my darling, my darling, how you always looked after your mother." Mustafa Shaaban, just 21, we learned, had been shot in the stomach as he came to the assistance of a wounded protester on Friday.

The room was full of corpses, 13 in all, killed, we were told, on the previous day in the clashes. I saw men with massive head wounds from tear-gas canisters we were told had been fired directly at their heads at close range, men with fatal bullet wounds and bodies with marks of brutal beatings. A room filled with grief.
 

Haiti should arrest and prosecute former dictator Jean‑Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier for grave violations of human rights, Human Rights Watch said today. Duvalier returned to Haiti yesterday from France where he has lived in exile since 1986.

"Duvalier's return to Haiti should be for one purpose only: to face justice," said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas Director of Human Rights Watch. "Under the presidency of Duvalier and his Tonton Macoutes, thousands were killed and tortured, and hundreds of thousands of Haitians fled into exile. His time to be held accountable is long overdue."

Jean‑Claude Duvalier was Haiti's "president for life" from 1971 to 1986, succeeding his father François "Papa Doc" Duvalier. The Duvaliers are estimated to have ordered the deaths of between twenty and thirty thousand Haitian civilians. The brutality of their government created the modern Haitian diaspora, driving hundreds of thousands of Haitians into exile in Canada, France, the United States, the Dominican Republic, and elsewhere.

Official torture and murder were commonplace under both father and son, Human Rights Watch said. The Duvaliers stunted civil society with harsh repression of any signs of independence among political parties, trade unions, and the press.
 

On Dec. 17, Mohamed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old university Tunisian graduate who took to selling vegetables when he was unable to find work, set himself on fire after police confiscated his unlicensed vegetable cart.

His desperate act has caused a spontaneous outpouring of public anger in Tunisia over economic conditions and the ruling family's endemic corruption. The riots started in Bouazizi's hometown, Sidi Bouzid, deep in Tunisia's interior, and spread across the country to Tunis, Sousse, Sfax, Meknassi, and other cities.

Thousands marched in solidarity with the residents of Sidi Bouzid, demanding jobs, better living conditions, and an end to uneven economic development and the corruption that drives it. 

In the days that followed Bouazizi's tragic act, violence erupted, and police killed an 18-year-old youth as they shot into a crowd of protesters around a police station. Then, on Dec. 22, Neji Felhi, 24, climbed an electrical pole in the same town and shouted, "No to misery! No to unemployment!" then touched the 30,000-megawatt pole, killing himself. Two more of Tunisia's young, disenfranchised and unemployed attempted to end their own lives in similar ways in the days that followed.