Release of 2008 Country Reports on Human Rights

February 26, 2009

The U.S. Department of State released its annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices on Wednesday, February 25th in Washington, DC.; The congressionally mandated reports cover internationally recognized individual, civil, political, and worker rights, as set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Releasing the report in Washington D.C., Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the United States will pursue greater respect for human rights as we engage other nations and peoples around the world. We will make this a global effort that reaches beyond governments alone. I intend for us to work with nongovernmental organizations, businesses, religious leaders, schools and universities as well as individual citizens, all of whom can play a vital role in creating a world where human rights are accepted, respected, and protected.

Some highlights of the 2008 Report for Nepal are listed below:

• Members of the security forces committed some human rights abuses during the year, and the Maoists, the Maoist-affiliated Young Communist League (YCL), and members of other small, often ethnically based armed groups committed numerous grave human rights abuses.
• Members of the Nepal Police (NP) and Armed Police Force (APF) occasionally used excessive and lethal force in response to continued demonstrations throughout the country.
• Numerous armed groups, largely in the Terai region in the lowland area near the Indian border, engaged in attacks against various entities, including civilians, government officials, members of particular ethnic groups, each other, or Maoists.
• Impunity for human rights violators, threats against the media, arbitrary arrest, and lengthy pretrial detention were serious problems.
• Violence against women and trafficking in persons, mainly women and girls, continued.

The Nepal chapter of the report can be accessed at the U.S. Embassy website: http://nepal.usembassy.gov as well as on the Department of State’s main website at http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008/sca/119138.htm.; The Nepali language translation of the report will be posted on the Embassy website within one month’s time.