Incident Reports

Progress on transitional justice precious little: AI

2017-02-23

Nepal

Amnesty International (AI) says the progress made on transitional justice process to address the concerns of conflict victims in Nepal has been precious little. The State of the World’s Human Rights, a report released globally on Wednesday by AI, says the two commissions formed to look into war-era cases still lack legal frameworks event two years after their formation to initiate investigation into human rights abuses committed during the decade-long insurgency. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons (CIEDP) in their two year terms have received over 60,000 complaints from conflict victims. The government is supposed to amend the transitional justice act in line with the Supreme Court order and international laws. The government has not even tabled the amendment bill in Parliament for deliberation even extending two commissions’ terms on February 9. “Officials of both commissions have raised concerns about government delays and non-cooperation, lack of resources and unrealistically short deadline for filing the cases,” says the report. The commissions have committed that they will continue to register the complaints even after they formally start detailed investigation into the complaints. The detailed investigation is expected to begin next month. The AI report has also raised the issue of mistreatment to migrant workers by recruiting agencies, excessive forces against protesters in Madhes movement, torture in detention and attack on freedom of expression. Nepal’s economy is propped up by remittance sent by migrant workers, who are subjected to expensive recruiting fee and labour trafficking. “Labour migration law and policy were ineffective, and there was little improvement in protection mechanism for migrant workers,” reads the report. The report has also pointed out delayed reconstruction works that forced thousands of earthquake survivors spend the nights out in the open for two consecutive years. The National Reconstruction Authority, formed nine months after the April earthquake that killed over 8,000 people, destroyed half a million households, failed to expedite the grant distribution to reconstruct their houses, forcing millions of people spend the nights in the open for two consecutive years. In July, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child had expressed concerns about the earthquake’s impact on children and internally displaced people without adequate access to food, safe drinking water, sanitation, health and education. The AI’s report is considered one of the most comprehensive analyses of the state of human rights around the world. The report has covered 159 countries. AI, a leading global rights organisation, has warned against growing “us vs them” rhetoric setting the agenda in Europe, the United States and elsewhere is fuelling a global pushback against human rights.

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