Haiti: Abuse of human rights: political violence as the 200th anniversary of independence approaches

Index Number: AMR 36/007/2003
Date Published: 7 October 2003
Categories: Americas, Haiti

With the Bicentennial celebration of its independence just a few months away, the human rights challenges facing Haiti have increased. The major issues are: impunity, attacks on freedom of expression, violations by security forces and abuses by political partisans and illegal armed groups linked to government officials, A more recent set of concerns include abuses committed by unofficial, apparently politically-motivated groups during armed attacks against government supporters. The Haitian National Police (HNP) have also been accused of human rights violations. In this report Amnesty International makes a series of concrete recommendations, to the Haitian authorities as well as to leaders of political parties and other groups, in order to ensure that human rights are protected in a context of apparently growing political violence.