2005 / $20 / 0-9753150-2-1 / 240 pp.
Hate crimes are on the rise in Europe and North America. Targeting individuals based on their origins, the color of their skin, their religion, their sexual orientation, or other similar attributes, such violent crimes undermine the security of everyone in our society. Everyday Fears, written by Michael McClintock of Human Rights First, is a ground-breaking study of the relationship between both small- and large-scale hate crimes and the everyday fears that they generate.
In addition to documenting specific offenses, Everyday Fears highlights the need for governments to protect against hate crimes through legislation and improved monitoring and reporting. To this end, the book includes a first ever comprehensive survey of existing laws on hate crimes in the fifty-five countries of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. By addressing the inequalities of enforcement and deficiencies in effective monitoring, Human Rights First urges governments to take concrete actions to prevent bias crimes and, ultimately, to ease the everyday fears that result when these crimes go unchallenged.
(2005) $10 / ISBN: 0-9753150-0-5 / 24 pp.
The political prisoners of today “… are in the same situation as the dissidents from Soviet days. Just as Mr. Putin carries on the traditions of his KGB predecessors, they stand up bravely to repression.”
— Dr. Yelena Bonner, human rights activist
“If they keep up these methods of so-called ‘anti-terrorism’, I think the problem will spread right through the region … the Russians are creating terrorists.”
— Timur Akiev, Memorial, Russian human rights organization
Human rights defenders and other nonviolent critics of the government face growing repression in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The New Dissidents questions the Russian government’s justification of ever increasing constraints on its nonviolent critics, including human rights defenders, as necessary in the fight against terrorism.
(2004) $15 / ISBN: 0-9753150-1-3 / 110 pp.
This report tracks recent anti-Jewish violence and government responses across the breadth of Europe. The attacks come from organized movements of the extreme right, racist "skinheads," and assailants who invoke the Middle East conflict to demonize Jews and Jewish institutions. Only a handful of European governments systematically monitor and publicly report on antisemitic violence. Few governments have created official monitoring bodies to track antisemitic acts. Instead most European governments contribute to the climate of escalating violence by failing to monitor these crimes, and to enact and enforce laws punishing hate crimes. Official indifference has been the norm. Antisemitism is now squarely on the international human rights agenda. This report focuses on the problem, sets it in the context of other forms of racism and discrimination, and makes concrete recommendations on what needs to be done to combat it.
(2004) ISBN 0-934143-46-3 / 68 pp. / OUT OF STOCK
The United States has a long tradition of providing refuge to victims of religious, political and other forms of persecution. This tradition has been eroded, beginning with harsh federal legislation in 1996 and accelerating in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Asylum seekers have been caught up in a web of new laws, regulations and policies advanced in the name of national security that have transformed the immigration system – and left refugees more vulnerable than ever. The lack of basic safeguards in the U.S. asylum detention system has meant that victims of religious and political persecution, rape and torture are unnecessarily detained for months and sometimes years in the United States.
Imbalance of Powers: How Changes to U.S. Law and Security Since 9/11 Erode Human Rights and Civil Liberties
(2003) $10 / ISBN 0-934143-98-6 / 132 pp.
This report is a six-month update to “A Year of Loss” and covers September 2002 to March 2003.
Imbalance of Powers – Abridged
(2003) / 40 pp.
This report is a concise (40 pages), popularly written version of the more detailed Imbalance of Powers report listed above (132 pages). This digest is ideal for non-specialists.
Holding the Line: A Critique of the Department of State’s Annual Country Reports (for 2002) on Human Rights Practices
(2003) / ISBN 0-934143-85-4 / $15 / 86pp /
Holding the Lineshows how the United States government’s annual report on human rights around the world reflects the special strains of the “war against terrorism.” Special measures taken by allies in the name of counter-terrorism often overstep the line-flouting standards long upheld by the United States but now being eroded at home. These include the use of emergency laws and special courts; detention without trial; and secret arrests and incommunicado detention. Has the United States lowered the standards to which it holds its partners abroad? The findings are mixed. Coverage of some countries that are allies in the war on terrorism is frank and fair, and to a large extent the Department of State has held the line on international standards. But coverage of some key allies lacks this full objectivity. An instruction to embassies preparing the 2002 country reports may account for blind spots in the coverage: “Actions by governments taken at the request of the United States or with the expressed support of the United States should not be included in the report.”
This review includes profiles on Afghanistan, China, Colombia, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, and Uzbekistan. Holding the Line also assesses coverage of antisemitism and anti-immigrant violence in Western Europe and Russia.
(2003) $15 / 148pp.
Assessing the New Normal, the third in a series of reports, documents the continuing erosion of basic human rights protections under U.S. law and policy since September 11. Today, two years after the attacks, it is no longer possible to view these changes as aberrant parts of an emergency response. Rather, the expansion of executive power and abandonment of established civil and criminal procedures have become part of a “new normal” in American life. The new normal, defined in part by the loss of particular freedoms for some, is as troubling for its detachment from the rule of law as a whole. The U.S. government can no longer promise that individuals will be governed by known principles of conduct, applied equally in all cases, and administered by independent courts. As this report shows, in a growing number of cases, legal safeguards are now observed only insofar as they are consistent with the chosen ends of power.
(2002) $20 / ISBN 0-934143-94-3 / 77 pp.
In the 12 months after the September 11 attacks, the U.S. government took a series of actions that eroded basic human rights protections in the United States, fundamental guarantees that have been central to the U.S. constitutional system for more than 200 years. Viewed separately, some of the changes may not have seemed extreme, especially when viewed as a response to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But when you connect the dots, a different picture emerges. The composite picture outlined by this report shows that too often the U.S. government’s mode of operations in the year after September 11 has been at odds with core American and international human rights principles. Human Rights First’s “A Year of Loss” covers September 2001 to September 2002. Human Rights First has also completed “Imbalance of Powers: How Changes to U.S. Law and Security Since 9/11 Erode Human Rights and Civil Liberties.” This report is a six-month update to “A Year of Loss” and covers September 2002 to March 2003.
(2003) $20 / ISBN 0-934143-97-8 / 116 pp.
Patrick Finucane was a highly effective human rights lawyer who gained international recognition in the 1980s for representing people arrested under Northern Ireland’s antiterrorism laws. On February 12, 1989, masked gunmen broke into his Belfast home and shot him 14 times in front of his wife and three children. Although the Ulster Defense Association, a loyalist paramilitary group, claimed responsibility for the killing, strong evidence has emerged linking three separate U.K. intelligence agencies to the murder. Despite this, the results of the official investigations into the case have remained largely classified, and no one has ever been successfully prosecuted for the killing. With Beyond Collusion, Human Rights First provides a comprehensive account of the Finucane case on the 14th anniversary of his murder. Drawing on Lawyers Committee’s investigative missions to Northern Ireland, the report pieces together the extensive evidence of state involvement that has emerged in the many years since the killing.