“We are seriously concerned over reported acts of killings, torture, arbitrary detention, gender-based violence, enforced disappearances, ‘mob justice’ and the pervasive climate of insecurity and the absence of the rule of law which have prevailed in the country in the last five months,” the human rights experts said, urging authorities to take immediate steps to put an end to all human rights violations and ensure there is no impunity for the perpetrators.

Violence erupted this past December in CAR – which has been marked by decades of instability and fighting – when the Séléka rebel coalition launched a series of attacks. A peace agreement was reached in January, but the rebels again seized the capital, Bangui, in March, forcing President François Bozizé to flee. At present, CAR is governed by a National Transitional Council headed by Michel Djotodia and a transitional government formed in June.

“There have been a number of killings, sometimes in retaliation for incidents of ‘mob justice’ against members of the Séléka coalition. Some 46 cases are allegedly documented,” said the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Christof Heyns. “I call for a thorough, transparent and independent investigation of all suspected cases of arbitrary executions to identify and bring to justice those responsible.”

The Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Juan E. Méndez, warned that “torture seems to be widespread in the country,” and called on authorities to make sure that every allegation of torture or of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment is investigated by law enforcement officers.

Rashida Manjoo, the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, stressed that there have been numerous cases of sexual abuse and rape reported in all of the localities that Séléka combatants have passed through.

“The State has a responsibility to exercise due diligence to prevent, investigate and punish acts of violence against women, whether those acts are perpetrated by the State or by private persons,” Ms. Manjoo said. “Women and girls must be provided with access to medical, psychological, social and other assistance as well as to effective mechanisms of justice and to just and effective remedies for the harm that they have suffered.”

The UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearances said it had also received allegations that a number of civilians as well as officers and soldiers of the official army (FACA) had been abducted by armed Séléka groups. On 14 April, a staff sergeant of the amphibious battalion and a first class soldier of the ex-presidential guard were reportedly arrested and brought to an unknown destination.

“Any act of enforced disappearance is an offence to human dignity and no circumstances whatsoever may be invoked to justify this heinous crime,” the Working Group underscored.

Special rapporteurs are appointed by the Council to examine and report back on a country situation or a specific human rights theme. The positions are honorary and the experts are not UN staff, nor are they paid for their work.

The investigations need to be conducted by the civilian judiciary, independent both institutionally and practically from the military chain of command.

Witnesses described a sequence of events on July 8, in which the military and police used unnecessary force, leading to the deaths of 51 protesters. Prosecutors have investigated only Muslim Brotherhood supporters and leaders for their alleged roles in the clashes, but not the military and police forces.

“The military has a track record of resorting quickly and excessively with lethal force to break up protests,” said Joe Stork, acting Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Witness after witness described the military shooting into the crowd, including at unarmed people. The government needs to find out who was responsible and ensure they are held accountable if it hopes to show it will respect basic rights during this interim period.”

On July 8, army troops and police moved just before dawn to break up a peaceful sit-in of Muslim Brotherhood supporters. Violence broke out over the next six hours with military officers, including snipers posted on military building rooftops, shooting live ammunition, in many cases killing and wounding unarmed protesters. Protesters threw stones, Molotov cocktails, and in some cases shot guns. By the end of the morning, fifty-one protesters, three security force members, two police officers, and one military member were dead, according to the Health and Defense ministries.

The military spokesman, Col. Ahmad Ali, claimed that protesters tried to storm the Republican Guard building. Butthe military has not made public any evidence supporting its claim and Human Rights Watch found no evidence that this occurred, finding instead that protesters were peacefully praying or gathering when the military and police moved in to break up the sit-in.

Muslim Brotherhood members and supporters had gathered outside the Republican Guard headquarters on Salah Salem Street starting on July 5, and their numbers grew after the group called for a sit-in there on July 7.

Human Rights Watch spoke to 24 witnesses, including protesters and neighborhood residentsand interviewed seven doctors. Human Rights Watch also visited the site of the incident, four hospitals where dead and injured were taken, and the morgue, and reviewed video footage obtained from protesters and news outlets that Human Rights Watch considered credible. All those interviewed who witnessed the start of the violence agreed, and video evidence also suggested, that just before dawn on July 8, military troops and Central Security Forces, Egypt’s riot police, moved in to break-up the peaceful sit-in, simultaneously approaching protesters outside the Republican Guard building at one end of the street and outside the Mostafa Mosque, at the other end.

Security forces fired teargas and blanks into the air, and moved in on protesters from two sides by foot and with more than a dozen armored vehicles. The protesters backed off and scattered down side streets. Over the next four hours, the witnesses said, many protesters responded with rocks and Molotov cocktails as army troops shot live ammunition and the riot police fired birdshot into the crowd, which at that point numbered in the thousands. Witnesses as well as video footage viewed by Human Rights Watch confirmed that at least a few Muslim Brotherhood supporters had guns, and fired both live ammunition and birdshot. Military snipers stationed on nearby rooftops, and officers positioned elsewhere, shot a number of unarmed protesters or bystanders. It is not clear from the footage which side used live ammunition first.

In response to the killings, President Mansour ordered an investigation by a civilian “judicial panel,” but authorities have made no further information available about its composition and powers. The Constitutional Declaration announced by Mansour on July 8 gives the military justice system exclusive jurisdiction over crimes involving military personnel, meaning that this civilian panel could not investigate and try army officers involved in the violence. To deal with this and other incidents, President Mansour should issue another declaration to authorize independent civilian courts to investigate military personnel in the case of serious human rights abuses in which the victims are civilians, Human Rights Watch said.

“We have seen again and again how Egypt’s military justice system cannot investigate serious human rights abuses with any impartiality,” Stork said. “Military prosecutors and judges remain in the same line of command as those they are investigating, making independence and impartiality impossible.”

Prosecutors have announced only that they are investigating 206 Muslim Brotherhood supporters arrested at the scene and still in detention. Prosecutors issued arrest warrants for 10 Muslim Brotherhood leaders, including the group’s supreme guide, Mohamed Badie, on charges of inciting violence in connection with the incident. No investigation of army or police personnel has been announced to date, though the vast majority those who died were among the protesters.

It is impossible to say precisely which of the lethal shootings may have been lawful – that is, where those killed were armed and shooting at security forces, Human Rights Watch said. What is clear from the death toll and witness evidence is that the army responded with lethal force that far exceeded any apparent threat to the lives of military personnel.

All of the deaths – protesters, bystanders, and security forces – should be investigated and those responsible for unlawful use of force should be prosecuted, Human Rights Watch said.

“This is the single bloodiest incident that Egypt has seen since the uprising against Mubarak, and it comes at a moment of extreme political polarization,” Stork said. “President Mansour should issue a constitutional declaration that will give independent civilian judges the authority to examine the responsibility of the military and police at all levels of command as well as demonstrators, and issue criminal indictments against those found responsible for using excessive or otherwise unlawful force and violence.”

“Journalists must be able to carry out their work safely as they play an essential role in ensuring that a well-informed public can exercise its democratic rights,” stated Irina Bokova, Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), who deplored the killings and voiced deep concern about the safety of media professionals in these countries.

On Tuesday, Akhmednabi Akhmednabiyev, deputy editor of the Novoye Delo weekly newspaper, was shot dead in his car near his home on the outskirts of Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan province.

Akhmednabiyev, the second journalist to be killed in Russia this year, survived an assassination attempt in January and had received numerous threats to his life, UNESCO said in a news release.

“Using violence to silence journalists who inform society about the problems it is facing does not make those problems go away; it simply reduces a society’s ability to tackle them,” said Ms. Bokova. “I therefore trust that the authorities will spare no effort to bring to justice those responsible for a crime against a man and a profession that is important for democracy.”

The killing of Liban Abdullahi Farah on 7 July has once again highlighted concerns about the safety of journalists in Somalia, which continues to be one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a media professional.

“This killing marks another black day for journalists trying to carry out their professional duties in Somalia,” stated Ms. Bokova. “All too many media workers in the country have paid with their lives for our right to be kept informed. I pay tribute to their dedication and call on the authorities to spare no effort to stop these killings.”

Farah, a reporter for Bossasso-based Somali Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) and London-based Kalsan TV, was killed when three unidentified assailants opened fire on him in the Barahley neighborhood of Galkayo town.

Bokova also called on the Mexican authorities to investigate the death of Mario Ricardo Chávez Jorge, a journalist for El Ciudadano newspaper. His body was found in the state of Tamaulipas near the United States border on 26 June – two weeks after he was abducted as he was leaving a cinema with his family in Ciudad Victoria.

“It is important that the authorities investigate this killing and bring those responsible for it to trial,” said the Director-General.

The Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Irina Bokova, said she was “appalled” at the killing of Musab Mohamed Said Al-Oudaallah, who is reported to have been killed in his home in the Syrian capital of Damascus on 22 August.

“Once again, I call on all those fighting in Syria to respect the civilian status of reporters and the basic human right of freedom of expression,” she stated in a news release. Journalists must be able to perform their duties and keep the public informed without fearing for their lives.

Al-Oudaallah was a journalist for the arts and culture section of the government newspaper Tishreen. According to the non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders, he also published articles critical of the Government under a pseudonym.

At least 28 local and international journalists have been killed this year in Syria, which has been wracked by violence since an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began 18 months ago.

More than 18,000 people, mostly civilians, have died since fighting broke out and reports indicate a major escalation of violence in recent weeks in many towns and villages, as well as the country’s two biggest cities, Aleppo and Damascus.

Bokova also spoke out over the death of Dawit Habtemichael, Mattewos Habteab and Wedi Itay, who were reported to have been arrested separately in 2001 and kept in a prison camp in Eritrea for over a decade.

She urged the authorities to respect journalists’ fundamental rights to freedom of expression and free those detained over issues related to these rights.

“I deplore the detention of journalists in Eritrea, whose only offence is that they tried to exercise the inalienable human right of freedom of expression. I call on the Eritrean authorities to free all such prisoners,” said the Director-General.

“Journalists must be able to perform their duties and keep the public informed without fearing for their lives,” she added.

Those responsible for the serious human rights violations committed after the September 1980 military coup and against the Kurdish civilian population in the 1990s, during the conflict between the state and the armed outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), have never been held to account.

Hundreds of deaths in custody and summary executions by the security forces risk being deemed time-barred for prosecution because of a 20-year limitation on murder investigations contained in Turkey’s previous penal code. Thousands more state-perpetrated killings of Kurds from the early 1990s could be similarly excluded from prosecution and trial in the coming three years.

“Old laws that curtail investigations into serious human rights abuses in Turkey have allowed the security forces and public officials to get away with murder and torture,” said Emma Sinclair-Webb, senior Turkey researcher at Human Rights Watch. “It is vital that Turkish authorities act now to ensure there are no time bars on victims getting justice.”

The 67-page report “Time for Justice: Ending Impunity for Killings and Disappearances in 1990s Turkey” looks at the lessons on obstacles to accountability from the ongoing trial of retired Colonel Cemal Temizöz and six others for the murder and disappearance of 20 men and boys between 1993 and 1995. It is the first such trial of a senior member of the gendarmerie for serious human rights violations committed in the course of the conflict between the state and the PKK.

The report builds on interviews with 55 individuals in Şırnak province, whose relatives were murdered or disappeared by suspected state perpetrators in the early 1990s.

Relatives of victims repeatedly told Human Rights Watch that they wanted to see perpetrators brought to trial for the murders and disappearances of their loved ones. Harun Padır was 17 years old in 1994 when security forces detained him with his father İzzet Padır and uncle Abdullah Özdemir, who were never seen again. He expressed a sentiment shared by all the relatives of the victims Human Rights Watch interviewed for the report: “For us compensation means nothing. We just want justice.”

Human Rights Watch’s interviews and the Diyarbakır trial highlight the climate of fear among relatives of victims that prevailed in the southeast region until very recently, compounded by a complete absence of effective investigation of killings and disappearances in the region at the time and subsequently.

One witness in the Temizöz case, İsmet Uykur, saw the murder of his father Ramazan Uykur in Cizre town in broad daylight in February 1994. He told the Diyarbakır court: “Fear triumphed in Cizre. In those days we were unable to go and lodge complaints because there were many unresolved killings… there were people who had seen the incidents in the region but at that time they wouldn’t be witnesses because of their fear; in those days we were afraid of the gendarmerie and the village guards.”

Human Rights Watch spoke to dozens of relatives of victims who confirmed either that they had, for many years, been too afraid to pursue complaints or that, if they did, there was a complete absence of any effective investigation. Their words reinforce the European Court of Human Rights’ many judgments against Turkey recording violations of the right to life through a pattern of failure to carry out effective investigations.

Witnesses reported that security forces abducted and later killed Ömer Candoruk, Yahya Akman, and two cousins, Süleyman Gasyak and Abdulaziz Gasyak, after they passed by car through a gendarmerie checkpoint on the road to Silopi in March 1994. Sabri Gasyak, Abdulaziz’s brother, told Human Rights Watch: “We couldn’t have pursued complaints back then or sought justice. I’d have been arrested if I’d pursued the case. In the late 80s our village in Siirt’s Pervari district was burnt down by the state and emptied. We were taken in and tortured; hundreds of our animals were killed. In 1994 after Süleyman and Abdulaziz were killed, many of our family went to Zahko in northern Iraq.”

The Temizöz case has provided important lessons about the possible obstacles to justice likely to arise in thousands more cases of abuse by members of the security forces and state officials in provinces throughout the southeast of Turkey and also in major cities.

Drawing on these lessons, Time for Justice calls on the Turkish government, courts, and prosecutors to develop a model of victim-centered justice in Turkey. Prosecutors and courts need to offer vulnerable witnesses, relatives of victims, and their lawyers more effective protection from intimidation and attacks in and out of court when they are testifying in trials against defendants who are members of the security forces, village guards, or state officials. Action is also needed to shorten proceedings, which stretch out over months and years making intimidation more likely.

“The climate of fear among victims’ relatives and witnesses persists to this day,” said Sinclair-Webb. “To give them the confidence to come forward, prosecutors and courts need to adopt more effective witness protection and a victim-centered approach to justice.”

The report contains concrete recommendations to strengthen justice for crimes by state actors, including:

- Increasing the speed and efficiency of trials, including by holding hearings on consecutive days;

- Designating prosecutors to focus on the investigation of past abuses;

- Directing prosecutors to fully investigate chain of command responsibility for human rights abuses;

Strenuous efforts should be made by prosecutors and courts to identify members of the security forces to whom witnesses refer only by their code names so that prosecutors can call them to testify as possible suspects;

Witness protection measures should be improved and courts should ensure they take action to sanction intimidation of witnesses and victims’ relatives.

The report recommends that the Turkish parliament establish an independent truth commission to examine past abuses. It also builds on earlier recommendations by the UN, the Council of Europe, and other international bodies calling on the government to pursue a comprehensive plan to dismantle the village guard system operating in provinces of southeast Turkey. The report finds the village guard system, deeply embedded in the social and political fabric of local communities, to be a major obstacle to justice in the region.

“I am appalled by news of the violent death of Mohamud Ali Keyre,” the Executive Director of the Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Irina Bokova, said in a news release.

“It is essential that the authorities do all in their power to stem the violence that is claiming so many civilian lives in Somalia, including a shocking number of media workers,” Bokova added.

Mohamud Ali Keyre was killed on 12 August in Mogadishu, the country’s capital, by a single bullet to the head. The 23-year-old reporter wrote for the website horyaalmedia.com and had previously worked for the Mogadishu-based radio broadcaster Voice of Democracy, before fleeing to Kenya because of threats against his life.

According to media reports, Ali Keyre decided to return to Mogadishu after deeming the security situation in the city to be improved.

After decades of warfare, Somalia has been undergoing a peace and national reconciliation process, with the country winding down its transitional federal governing arrangements. Until last year, most of the capital, Mogadishu, was, for several years, riven by a fluid frontline dividing the two sides – fighters belonging to the Al Shabaab militant group and troops belonging to the Somalia Government, with the latter supported by the UN-backed African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM).

In her statement, Bokova urged local authorities to implement measures improving the safety of media personnel across Somalia, while pointing out that press freedom was an intrinsic to Somalia’s growth into a full-fledged democracy.

“Journalists must be able to keep the public informed without fearing for their lives,” continued Ms. Bokova. “A free and independent press is an essential contribution to dialogue and national reconciliation in Somalia. It is also necessary to democracy and the rule of law.”

Since 2009, 18 journalists have been killed in Somalia. Their lives and work are commemorated on the website UNESCO Condemns the Killing of Journalists.

“Our staff and partners in Uganda, Rwanda and eastern DRC have been receiving regular and extensive reports of widespread human rights violations and abuses,” a spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Andrej Mahecic, told reporters in Geneva.

“These include indiscriminate and summary killings of civilians, rape and other sexual abuse, torture, arbitrary arrests, assaults, looting, extortion of food and money, destruction of property, forced labour, forced military recruitment, including children, and ethnically-motivated violence,” he added.

DRC troops have been fighting the so-called M23, a group of former national army soldiers who mutinied in April, and have since been moving in north-eastern parts of the country, including in the provinces of North Kivu and Province Orientale. The DRC troops have received support from peacekeepers serving with the UN Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO).

UN officials and the Security Council have condemned the M23’s attacks, with the Council demanding that all forms of support to it and other armed groups in the country cease immediately.

The violence is believed to have displaced more than 470,000 people in eastern DRC. This includes some 220,000 people in North Kivu, 200,000 in South Kivu province, and more than 51,000 who have fled to neighbouring Uganda and Rwanda.

“UNHCR urges parties to the conflict to avoid targeting the civilian population and populated areas,” said Mahecic. “We call on all parties to the conflict to take all steps to protect the civilian population and to prevent indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks.”

As the fighting continues, large areas of North Kivu have been left without an adequate security presence, according to UNHCR. In the province’s Masisi and Walikale territories, several armed groups have taken advantage of the power vacuum to attack villages as well as settlements for internally displaced persons (IDPs). The armed groups have destroyed and looted houses, killed people belonging to ethnic groups seen as hostile, and subjected entire communities to extortion.

UNHCR says that forced recruitment is also widespread. Earlier this month, for example, an armed group in the town of Rutshuru, in North Kivu, forced 145 people to transport their ammunition. Some IDPs were beaten and injured for refusing to join another armed group.

Then refugee agency and its partners are providing shelter, protection, medical and psycho-social counselling for victims of violence in the camps and settlements of Uganda and Rwanda, but the deteriorating security situation in eastern DRC is severely affecting the agency’s capacity to deliver assistance outside the established IDP camps north and west of Goma, the capital of North Kivu.

According to Syrian opposition sources, scores of people were killed on Thursday morning when the Syrian army and security forces along with pro-government militia known as Shabiha, attacked al-Treimseh near the city of Hama. Syrian state-run media have blamed “terrorist groups” for the killings.

UN mission chief Major General Robert Mood said today that UN observers are ready to go to Treimseh when a ceasefire is in place. He confirmed continuous fighting yesterday in the area of Treimseh, including the use of mechanized units, indirect fire and helicopters and said that observers were ready to go and seek verification of the facts if and when there was a credible ceasefire.

“The UN must be allowed unfettered access to investigate such incidents,” said Ann Harrison, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Deputy Programme Director. “Without an independent presence to investigate the facts, it is impossible to verify what really happened.”

“Nonetheless, we know that a pattern of abuses has been widely reported in many areas where government forces have indiscriminately shelled towns and villages, unlawfully killing civilians, followed by incursions by the shabiha militia who have killed not only opposition fighters, but also many civilians, mainly men and boys.

“The findings of our recent field investigations in Syria, verified this pattern. Amnesty International documented evidence of grave violations, including crimes against humanity and war crimes, committed by the Syrian army in towns and villages around Idlib, Aleppo, Jebel al-Zawiyah and Jebel al-Wastani areas.”

Amnesty International said that the resolution renewing the United Nations Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS) should explicitly include a strong and adequately staffed human rights component, providing the mission with sufficient expertise, including gender and children’s rights experts, and other resources to document and report on crimes against humanity, war crimes and other grave human rights abuses committed by all sides.

“UN human rights monitors should have a rapid reaction capability to investigate specific incidents and a permanent presence in cities outside Damascus,” said Harrison.

“The UN Security Council should also require UNSMIS to regularly and publicly publish its findings on human rights violations and provide the human rights component with the necessary capacity to do so.”

“The UN Security Council must refer the situation to the prosecutor of the ICC. It has been evident for months that crimes under international law are being committed on a mass scale. An ICC referral will make clear to all sides that those who order or carry out war crimes and crimes against humanity will be brought to justice,” said Ann Harrison.