Human rights get a mixed score card

Namibia's National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) on Tuesday gave the government a mixed report card, saying that while human rights violations in the north of the country had stopped, the overall rights situation had deteriorated over the last year. In 2002 the NSHR raised concerns over civil rights abuses in the volatile northern Caprivi, Kavango and Ohangwena regions, where the security forces battled cross-border attacks by UNITA rebels from Angola. The latest annual NSHR report found that of eight acts of summary execution reported between July 2002 and July 2003, four were allegedly committed by the Namibian armed forces against "perceived opponents" of the government, while the Angolan Army (FAA) was also implicated in the executions, it alleged. The advocacy group said economic, social and cultural rights had worsened due to HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. According to recent official figures, some 260,000 Namibians were living with HIV/AIDS. Almost 400,000 cases of malaria were reported annually - between July 2002 and July 2003, some 700 people had reportedly died from the disease. The NSHR noted that the 2003 UN Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development findings showed Namibia had slipped from 111 to 124 in the human development index (HDI). The HDI takes into account such factors as life expectancy at birth, adult literacy rate, and economic performance. This socio-economic deterioration could be attributed to "bad governance, lack of transparency and accountability", the NSHR report charged. Moreover, freedom of expression in the media had been attacked by the government no less than 34 times in the period under review, with President Sam Nujoma responsible for at least 10 such attacks. The daily Namibian newspaper had been reprimanded on three occasions, the human right group [said]. The NSHR also slammed conditions in the country's prisons, saying its Windhoek headquarters had received around 180 complaints from convicted prisoners and detainees, most of whom claimed they had either been subjected to physical torture or had witnessed fellow prisoners being tortured.