DATE=4/7/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=U-N / SUMMARY EXECUTIONS (L-ONLY)
NUMBER=2-261056
BYLINE=LISA SCHLEIN
DATELINE=GENEVA
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:

INTRO:  A United Nations special investigator says 
there has been an increase in extra-judicial killings 
by governments and armed groups around the world.  
Lisa Schlein reports the investigator submitted her 
findings to the U-N Human Rights Commission in Geneva.

TEXT:  The U-N investigator, Pakistani lawyer Asma 
Jahangir, says she believes the cases brought to her 
attention are only a fraction of the increasing number 
of extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions.  

In the past year, she says she sent urgent warnings 
about possible threats to hundreds of people in more 
than 40 countries. 

Ms. Jahangir says the chief targets of extra-judicial 
killings include human rights and political activists, 
journalists and members of various minorities.  She 
says more and more oppressive governments are using 
what she calls "non-state actors" -- unofficial 
militant forces -- to deal with individuals or groups 
who challenge their authority.

                ///  JAHANGIR ACT ONE ///

      Sometimes it's very difficult to link them to 
      governments, [to] the role of the intelligence 
      services that actually support and patronize 
      these non-state actors who are now being used to 
      violate -- and the governments use them very 
      successfully -- to get away from being 
      accountable to what is happening. 

                    ///  END ACT  ///

Ms. Jahangir says there is evidence that more and more 
countries are permitting so-called "honor killings" -- 
cases in which women are killed because they are 
perceived to have shamed their families.  She says she 
has received reports of honor killings in Pakistan, 
India, Bangladesh, Turkey, Peru, Jordan and Israel, 
among others.  

The U-N investigator says she has reports of about 25 
honor killings a year in Jordan, and 300 a year in 
Pakistan.

                 ///  JAHANGIR ACT TWO  ///

      In Pakistan, the situation has not changed on 
      the ground at all.  There is almost every single 
      day, one honor killing.  And, every third day 
      there is rhetoric about doing something about 
      honor killing.  But, to this day, nothing has 
      been done. 

                     ///  END ACT  ///

In 90 percent of the cases, Ms. Jahangir says, people 
are killed by or on orders from their own family.  And 
usually, she says, the killers go free.  

She says honor killings also have been reported in 
some western countries, notably Norway, Britain and 
Italy.  She says these largely non-Muslim countries do 
little to outlaw the practice, because of so-called 
"cultural sensitivity."  She says the western 
countries bow to perceived traditional values of 
Islamic countries, which she says is  not  correct.
(Signed)

NEB/LS/JWH/WTW



07-Apr-2000 15:11 PM EDT (07-Apr-2000 1911 UTC)
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Source: Voice of America
.