a1575: Fwd: Dominican Republic: Deportations Conducted Unfairly (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Mark Schuller <marky@umail.ucsb.edu>


Dominican Republic: Deportations Conducted Unfairly
Report Details Deportation of Dominico-Haitians

(Santo Domingo, April 4, 2002) The Dominican Republic should revise its
deportation policies to ensure due process and to avoid race-based
discrimination, Human Rights Watch urged in a new report released today.
Human Rights Watch also called on the government to protect Dominicans
of Haitian descent from deportation, consistent with the constitution's
rule of citizenship by birth.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

"ILLEGAL PEOPLE": Haitians And Dominico-Haitians In The Dominican
Republic
available at: http://hrw.org/reports/2002/domrep/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------


Targeted because their skin color is often darker, "Haitian-looking"
people are frequently deported to Haiti within hours of their detention,
causing families to be separated and children to be left behind.
Suspected undocumented Haitians -including Dominicans of Haitian descent
- have no fair opportunity to challenge their expulsion.

Acknowledging recent steps toward reform, Human Rights Watch commended
the government of President Hip?ito Mej? for showing an unprecedented
willingness to bring its treatment of Haitians and Dominico-Haitians
into compliance with international human rights standards.

"The Dominican government needs to fully implement its own constitution
and laws," said Jos?Miguel Vivanco, executive director of the Americas
Division of Human Rights Watch. "It would make real human rights
progress if its practice conformed to its rules."

The 34-page report, "'Illegal People': Haitians and Dominico-Haitians in
the Dominican Republic," is based on research conducted in 2001 and
includes extensive testimony from Haitian and Dominico-Haitian
deportees, families denied proof of citizenship, lawyers, government
officials, and human rights advocates.

Dominico-Haitians face great difficulties in proving their entitlement
to remain in their own country, with the result that generations of
ethnic Haitians are denied recognition as citizens, leaving them in what
the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has described as
"permanent illegality."

The report describes the terrible impact of this denial of citizenship,
particularly on the right of children to an education. Some children of
Haitian descent have been barred from the classroom, particularly beyond
the primary school level.

While recognizing the Dominican Republic's sovereign right to control
immigration, Human Rights Watch called on the Dominican government to
remedy its abusive practices. With this in mind, it commended the
government's September 2001 decision to grant birth certificates to two
Dominico-Haitian children whose citizenship had been in dispute.

"This was a good first step, but thousands of other people face the same
problem," said Vivanco.

Human Rights Watch also hailed the government's agreement last week to
establish a joint committee to monitor compliance with the rulings of
the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, a move announced after
negotiations in a case involving Haitians and Dominico-Haitians
currently pending in the Inter-American human rights system. Human
Rights Watch expressed concern, however, about an apparent nationalist
backlash against the creation of the body, including anti-Haitian
graffiti that has appeared in recent days in the streets of Santo
Domingo.

"The government's recent initiatives in the Inter-American human rights
system are extremely encouraging," said Vivanco. "Although the question
of illegal immigration is a difficult one, I'm hopeful that the
government will continue making progress toward handling it in a fair
and non-discriminatory way."

Selected cases from the report:

Detained by Dominican immigration officials in February 2001, Luc?
Fran?is was not allowed to collect her two youngest children, ages four
and six, before being deported to Haiti. When Human Rights Watch
interviewed her six months later, she had still not seen nor spoken to
them. Unable to return to the Dominican Republic, where her children
were born, and with no possibility of telephone contact, Fran?is was
totally cut off from her two girls. "I haven't been able to talk to
anyone from home," Fran?is told Human Rights Watch. "I don't know if
they're dead or alive . . . . Every day, when I wake up, I'm thinking
about my kids."

By age twenty-three, Jorge Rene M?dez, a third-generation Dominican of
Haitian descent, had been deported from the Dominican Republic to Haiti
twice. The first time, in March 1999, Dominican migration agents picked
M?dez up on M?imo G?ez Street in Santo Domingo and put him on a bus
holding about fifty other detainees, not asking to see his documents or
questioning him about his legal status. The second time he was deported,
in February 2000, the officials ripped up the photocopy of his
identification that he showed them. Both times he ended up in Haiti
penniless, having to beg for food and shelter.

==^================================================================
This email was sent to: marky@umail.ucsb.edu

EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://igc.topica.com/u/?aVximV.a2jfID
Or send an email to: hrw-news-americas-unsubscribe@igc.topica.com

T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail!
http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register
==^================================================================


----- End forwarded message -----


-- 
Mark  :0

L'UNION FAIT LA FORCE
Who's the terrorist?