[AMCC-News] Macedonia: Rights Defenders Under Attack

[Mentor Cana]

http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/01/macedonia_0119.htm

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Macedonia: Rights Defenders Under Attack
Campaign to Intimidate the Helsinki Committee

(New York, January 19, 2002) - In letters sent today to the President
and Prime Minister of Macedonia, Human Rights Watch denounced a recent
campaign to discredit and intimidate the Macedonian Helsinki Committee,
a local human rights organization.

In statements by government officials and government-controlled media,
the Helsinki Committee and its president Mirjana Najcevska have been
branded "state enemies" because of their human rights reporting,
especially on violations by the Macedonian police.  The Minister of the
Interior, Ljube Boskovski, has been leading these verbal assaults.

"These attacks are a threat to the rights of all Macedonians," said
Elizabeth Andersen, executive director of the Europe and Central Asia
division of Human Rights Watch.  "They come from the highest levels of
the Macedonian government and have a clear aim:  to silence the critical
reporting of a leading human rights group."

Although this is not the first time Macedonian authorities have targeted
human rights organizations, this recent wave of intimidation seems to
have been triggered by leaks of the Helsinki Committee's forthcoming
annual report.

Minister Boskovski and others have been particularly hostile to the
Helsinki Committee's work on the protection of rights of Macedonia's
ethnic Albanian citizens.  Human rights groups have criticized the
Macedonian police for numerous rights violations, including unlawful
arrests, torture, and mistreatment of ethnic Albanians.  Boskovski has
direct authority over the Macedonian police forces.

The conflict over the Helsinki Committee's work comes at a time when
many Macedonians and the international community are trying to address
long-standing minority rights and other human rights problems through
implementation of the Ohrid peace agreement.

Human Rights Watch has conveyed its concerns to representatives of the
international community, including the Chair-in-Office of the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Portuguese Foreign
Minister Jaime Gama, who visits Skopje today.

For further information, please contact:
In New York, Darian Pavli: (office) +1-212-216-1268, (mobile)
+1-917-250-2920
In Brussels, Jean-Paul Marthoz: +32-2-736-7838

The letters are available on the Human Rights Watch website at:
http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/01/georglet0118.htm
http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/01/trajlet0118.htm