Deepen my world knowledge.

November 1, 2007 7:16 AM

Human rights violations around the world. What are countries with histories of major modern human rights violations that I may not think of?

We all know about Rwanda, Nazi Germany, Saddam's Iraq, Burma over the past fifty years, Japan during WWII, China, the Sudan, Sierra Leone, Northern Uganda, Liberia, Argentina, Chile, Guatemala, South Africa, El Salvador, etc. But what are some countries with histories of human rights violations in living memory that are less well known?

For example, I recently heard that SWAPO committed thousands of human rights violations during the Namibian independence struggle, and I would never have associated Namibia with human rights violations.

posted by n'muakolo to law & government (38 comments total)

Segregation?
posted by dead_ at 7:23 AM on November 1, 2007

Indonesia -- East Timor.
Papua New Guinea -- Bougainvillea.
posted by aramaic at 7:29 AM on November 1, 2007

You'd probably have to look very hard to find any country that doesn't have humans rights violations in some capacity or another. Maybe a few tiny sovereign island nations or Monaco perhaps.

Spain wasn't on your list, but some of the things that happened during the Spanish Civil War are beyond awful. Same with Italy and Mussolini's rise to power. Nearly every country in South America has been run by a military junta or a drug cartel at some point (Pablo Escobar was as ruthless and brutal as Pinochet or Noriega). Australia was pretty mean to the natives for quite some time.

It's a little depressing, but you don't look very hard to find human rights violations just about anywhere.
posted by Nelsormensch at 7:34 AM on November 1, 2007

France, during the Algerian war
The US, during the "war on terror"
Cuba, right now
posted by caddis at 7:34 AM on November 1, 2007

The Ottoman Empire's slaughter of the Armenians, although that was a century ago.
posted by caddis at 7:36 AM on November 1, 2007

Here is a page for the UN office of the high commissioner for human rights. there is a link for each country and you can click through to country-by-country reports which you can then summarize here before the thread closes in a month.

UNHCHR is a bit controversial, but I cant find a good link for that right now.
posted by shothotbot at 7:38 AM on November 1, 2007

Ethiopia. One example is the 2005 police massacres.

Depending on your perspective, Ethiopia and Eritrea's 30 year war and continuing border disputes might fall into this category.
posted by carabiner at 7:42 AM on November 1, 2007

There are probably hundreds of examples in the U.S. alone. One that I only recently found out about, and was appalled that I knew nothing of it previously, were the Indian boarding schools:

[M]ore than 100,000 Native Americans [were] forced by the U.S. government to attend Christian schools. The system, which began with President Ulysses Grant's 1869 “Peace Policy,” continued well into the 20th century. Church officials, missionaries, and local authorities took children as young as five from their parents and shipped them off to Christian boarding schools; they forced others to enroll in Christian day schools on reservations. Those sent to boarding school were separated from their families for most of the year, sometimes without a single family visit. Parents caught trying to hide their children lost food rations.

Virtually imprisoned in the schools, children experienced a devastating litany of abuses, from forced assimilation and grueling labor to widespread sexual and physical abuse. Scholars and activists have only begun to analyze what Joseph Gone (Gros Ventre), a psychology professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, calls “the cumulative effects of these historical experiences across gender and generation upon tribal communities today.”
posted by occhiblu at 7:46 AM on November 1, 2007

Guantanamo？Camp X-Ray?　CIA　Prisons in Europe?
posted by dead_ at 7:47 AM on November 1, 2007

Australia's Stolen Generation, the century-long policy of forcibly removing mixed-race children from Aboriginal familes and placing them in internment camps.
posted by afx237vi at 7:51 AM on November 1, 2007

Israel. But don't say that out loud -- they're an ally.
posted by limon at 7:53 AM on November 1, 2007 [1 favorite]

We all know about Rwanda, Nazi Germany, Saddam's Iraq, Burma over the past fifty years, Japan during WWII, China, the Sudan, Sierra Leone, Northern Uganda, Liberia, Argentina, Chile, Guatemala, South Africa, El Salvador, etc. But what are some countries with histories of human rights violations in living memory that are less well known?

As Nelsormensch noted, Italy. Nazi Germany is always mentioned, but their Axis partner fascist Italy almost never. How about Spain, Greece, and Portugal - all fascist dictatorships until the 1970s?

You'd never know it today and maybe this is why these histories are less well-advertised.
posted by three blind mice at 7:54 AM on November 1, 2007

The US in the first Gulf War.

I guess what I'm getting at is that America is a country that violates and continues to violate standard human rights conventions, yet still somehow doesn't make any of the worst offender lists, not even this one by the OP. In the past 30 years, from Vietnam to South America, some of the worst atrocities have been committed under the good old stars and stripes, yet are conveniently forgotten. (I see you note El Salvador in your list, but really, the CIA belongs next to them in the list)

If you want to find human rights violations, pick up a US history textbook and read between the lines--even our modern history is littered with unspeakables.
posted by dead_ at 8:01 AM on November 1, 2007 [1 favorite]

Racist police, led by a former Vichy collaborator, went nuts on a demonstration in Paris in 1961, killing up to 200 Algerians and others. Eyewitnesses report that the bodies of people beaten to death in the street were thrown into the Seine to float away.

Up to 300 or so more were killed in the ensuing twelve weeks.
posted by genghis at 8:02 AM on November 1, 2007

Tuskegee Syphilis Studies in the US.
posted by anaelith at 8:05 AM on November 1, 2007

The Armenian Genocide in the early 1900s.
posted by unreasonable at 8:08 AM on November 1, 2007

Japanese American internment during World War II.
posted by Durin's Bane at 8:13 AM on November 1, 2007

I love it, Australia, the US, Israel. Over the last 100 years, certainly the most relevant examples in response to the question. Don't forget Canada, Lichtenstein, Belgium and New Zealand on the list of human rights abusers. They should certainly be in the same conversation as Iraq and China.

Anyways, try this list, as everyone seems to have collectively forgotten about the commies and the Arabs:

The USSR
Yugoslavia
Romania
Poland
Czechoslovakia
East Germany
Albania
Bulgaria
Hungary
Cuba
North Korea
Iran
Jordan
Saudi Arabia
Kuwait
UAE
Yemen
Egypt
Libya
posted by loquax at 8:25 AM on November 1, 2007

What about the British in India?.
posted by lemonpillows at 8:25 AM on November 1, 2007

Canada also forced Native kids to attend residential schools, where in addition to suffering the loss of their families and culture, many were sexually and physically abused. There have been many court cases, and reparations are being payed. The residential school system only ended in the mid-70s; there are approximately 80,000 people still living who attended the schools.
posted by rtha at 8:32 AM on November 1, 2007

Concentration camps for isei and nisei in the United States during world war II. concentration camps! let's see, we've also got the tuskeegee syph studies, as somebody else pointed out; treaty-breaking, kidnapping, land theft, and genocide of native americans/american indians/first nations well into the 20th century; continued use of landmines during warfare; use of chemical weapons that are banned for international use (read: warfare) on its own citizens on a regular basis; a growing and profit-driven system of incarceration; the death penalty; oh, how the list goes on...

that's right, folks, it's the good ol' united states.
posted by entropone at 8:42 AM on November 1, 2007

Great stuff. You already have me thinking....

Ok, yes, the US. I thought about mentioning it in my list because there are countless examples of human rights violations in the US. I left it off because for my personal purposes the US is irrelevant, but I know you can't read my mind, and it may be of interest to others.
posted by n'muakolo at 8:45 AM on November 1, 2007

I was just going to mention the Canadian residential schools but rtha beat me to it. Canada's Indian Act is still sexist and racist.

People of Japanese heritage were interned in Canada as well as the US during WWII. My friend's mother's family recently received reparations for their internment during WWII; they were Canadian citizens and the children had been born in Canada, but they were forced to give up their property and live in an internment camp.

I find there's a lot of resistance to talking about these periods in our history, but these events happened, and the effects are still being felt, particularly with aboriginal people. George Santayana had it right.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 8:51 AM on November 1, 2007

You'd probably have to look very hard to find any country that doesn't have humans rights violations in some capacity or another. Maybe a few tiny sovereign island nations or Monaco perhaps.

Bingo. Alas it is human nature. The more obvious brutal oppressors get the bad press because they are obviously brutal. The big bad offenders today, (like the good Ole USA, China, etc.) get the most press because they are big and bad today and are such easy targets, but...

The big and bad of yesterday - like pretty much every Western European country or Japan - certainly doesn't have much to lecture the rest of the world about - and that was the case as recently as the 60s. Britain, France, Germany - pick any one and their track record is frightful.

But pretty much any country, people, race, tribe, hunter-gatherer band, whatever, picked on and brutalized the weaker neighbors if they could get away with it. Look at the history of blond, socialist, calm Scandinavia. And I am not talking about the Vikings. Sweden fighting Russia for Baltic domination. Danes massacring Swedes in a bunch of wars.
posted by xetere at 8:52 AM on November 1, 2007

I agree that you'd be hard-pressed to find a country that has a clean record. Can you be more specific, as in "human rights crimes that are largely attributable to the government" (as opposed to warlords, criminals, etc.) or "human rights crimes by a present administration" or "human rights crimes that have not been acknowledged/prosecuted"?

IMHO, it makes a difference (although not an excuse or anything, obviously...)
posted by sarahkeebs at 8:53 AM on November 1, 2007

I see no mention so far of Pol Pot's regime in Cambodia.
posted by Dr. Wu at 8:55 AM on November 1, 2007

Seems that some people are confusing "human rights" for "things they don't like". I'd love to see a ranking of countries based on the UDHR. My bet: the US isn't a "Big bad offender" along with China.

Seems like people are also confusing relatively isolated instances of "human rights" violations with systemic, institutionalized denial of the most basic and fundamental rights. Every country has done bad things at some time in its history. To mention some in the same breath as others is ignorant and naive.

The only systemic, institutionalized violation of human rights by the US is of Article 24. Oh that other countries would be so great.
posted by loquax at 8:56 AM on November 1, 2007 [1 favorite]

The NYPD's track record of brutality during the 90s raised a few human rights eyebrows.
posted by deadmessenger at 9:04 AM on November 1, 2007

I agree that you'd be hard-pressed to find a country that has a clean record. Can you be more specific, as in "human rights crimes that are largely attributable to the government" (as opposed to warlords, criminals, etc.) or "human rights crimes by a present administration" or "human rights crimes that have not been acknowledged/prosecuted"?

Sure - I'll try to be more precise. I'm mainly interested in (1) human rights violations that occurred over the past ~50 years (2) mainly attributable to the government, or to a group controlling a region/country so strongly that they might as well be the government, (3) that are not the ones that immediately come to mind. I listed the countries that sprang to my mind, forgetting a few that I consider obvious (Cambodia, Afghanistan, East Timor). I am not very interested in criminal gangs, no matter how horrible they are. I am mainly interested in human rights violations that have been pretty conclusively established, but that just don't get much press, for whatever reason.

I guess I'm looking for the medium-scale human rights violations, as opposed to the very localized ones, or the very well-known ones.
posted by n'muakolo at 9:08 AM on November 1, 2007

payed? WTF? Obviously, I meant paid. Off for more coffee...
posted by rtha at 9:09 AM on November 1, 2007

Dubai.
posted by rtha at 9:10 AM on November 1, 2007

I'd love to see a ranking of countries based on the UDHR.

Bingo - me too. Or not even a list, but at least examples, so that I can delve deeper. I know how to research current human rights crises, but don't know how to research older crises without knowing more (e.g. which country & what time period.)
posted by n'muakolo at 9:12 AM on November 1, 2007

The Democratic Republic of the Congo. It's not really a great time to be a woman there, in particular, but it also had a pretty bad reputation when it was still Zaire.

As others have mentioned, practically no state has a clean track record, not even after filtering with your more precise criteria. Practically every place has got its own skeletons in the past (or, in many cases, the present).

Skeletons in the past? Does that even make sense?
posted by Cassilda at 9:26 AM on November 1, 2007

University of Minnesota Human Rights Library. See the Bibliographies and Pathfinders.

Also, Crimes of War Project (link is to the archive).
posted by MLIS at 9:28 AM on November 1, 2007

Amnesty International's 2007 Human Rights report tracks current issues pretty well.
posted by Paragon at 1:27 PM on November 1, 2007

Uzbekistan
Togo
Zimbabwe
Mauritania

Latvia and Estonia, with regards to citizenship issues and disenfranchisement for people of Russian origin

El Salvador, with regards to women's reproductive rights
posted by mdonley at 4:05 PM on November 1, 2007

tibet
posted by taff at 3:45 AM on November 2, 2007

On interesting argument made by Singh in Reinterpreting Human Rights: a Third World Perspective is that, in essence, human rights violations are something that "only happen" in the third world. In developed countries, they're usually called "civil rights" violations. The relatively new field of third world perspectives on human rights is very interesting. In general, most cultural aspects of Western culture mesh easily with Western norms on human rights, which tend to center on the rights of the individual. In the South, where there is more group identity, some of these rights don't necessarily mesh quite so well.

You also have the issue of private vs. public h uman rights, and how local culture (such as FGM) interferes and interacts with human rights.
posted by Deathalicious at 5:54 AM on November 2, 2007