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Amnesty report on Europe

01 July 2003

The annual report of Amnesty International says that: "1992 was an appalling year for human rights in Europe" and that in many cases the root cause was racism. In France, for example, there were allegations of ill-treatment in police custody, often concerning immigrants or French citizens of North African origin. Jacques Cherigui, of Franco-Algerian parentage, was reportedly kicked and punched by police officers, who subjected him to racial abuse. No judicial inquiry has been made into his official complaints and there has been no result from an internal police inquiry.

Roma (travellers) were frequent victims of police racism the report says. In Bulgaria in June 1992 police officers allegedly tortured and ill-treated Roma when they surrounded a Romany community to search houses for arms and check identification. They allegedly used truncheons and sticks to beat men, women and children indiscriminately and the inhabitants of one house were made to stand against a wall and told they would be shot. In Romania and the Czech and Slovak Republics there were reports of security forces torturing and ill-treating Roma.

In Portugal, Spain and Italy allegations of torture and ill- treatment in police custody or prisons became more frequent and many appear to have been inadequately investigated. In Greece several conscientious objectors to military service were reported to have been ill-treated while in detention and in September 1992 Manolis Tsapelis died a month after police headbutted him in the stomach. An autopsy recorded the cause of death as an embolism following an operation on a spleen injured in a fall or beating.

In Turkey, torture continued to be a "very serious problem" and at least 13 people died in custody reportedly as a result of torture. More than 200 people were killed in "extrajudicial executions" mainly in the Kurdish southeast of Turkey.