(HRW/IFEX) – The following is a 27 January 1999 HRW press release: For immediate release Wednesday, January 27, 1999 Washington, D.C. Rights group urges Dominican government to investigate shootings, lift impediments to meetings Human Rights Watch today condemned police shootings in the Dominican Republic and called on President Leonel Fernández to order immediate investigations of […]
(HRW/IFEX) – The following is a 27 January 1999 HRW press release:
For immediate release
Wednesday, January 27, 1999
Washington, D.C.
Rights group urges Dominican government to investigate shootings, lift
impediments to meetings
Human Rights Watch today condemned police shootings in the Dominican
Republic and called on President Leonel Fernández to order immediate
investigations of the violence in the capital. On Monday, Dominican police
reportedly fired shotguns at political protesters, wounding two opposition
party senators, three journalists, and two others. The police, who had
sealed off the Dominican Municipal League (a national mayors’ organization),
apparently fired when a group of opposition politicians attempted to break
police lines and enter the Municipal League building. Police reportedly also
beat some demonstrators with rifle butts. Police and soldiers blocked
access to the Congress on Tuesday.
“We are shocked by this seemingly indiscriminate use of force,” said José
Miguel Vivanco, executive director of the Americas division of Human Rights
Watch. “These police actions violate basic freedoms of assembly, association
and movement.”
On Monday January 25, Dominican police cordoned off the Municipal League
building, posting hundreds of police outside and cutting off power, water,
and telephone service. Several opposition politicians reportedly remain
trapped inside the building. Yesterday, the police sealed off access to the
Congress, which had convened an extraordinary session to address the
government’s measures, barring the entry of several opposition senators.
Human Rights Watch urges President Fernández to investigate these measures
and to take immediate steps to ensure that Dominican police do not impede
the full enjoyment of citizens’ fundamental rights, particularly the right
to peaceful assembly.
Background Information
The Municipal League is a national association of mayors charged with
dispersing approximately 4 percent of the national budget at the local
level. Currently, the opposition party, the Dominican Revolutionary Party
(Partido Revolucionario Dominicano, PRD) controls a clear majority of
municipalities. In recent weeks, President Fernández’s ruling Dominican
Liberation Party (Partido de Liberacion Dominicano, PLD) and its ally, the
Reformist Social Christian Party (Partido Reformista Social Cristiano,
PRSC), have claimed to control a majority of votes needed to select a new
leader of the Dominican Municipal League. Dominican law required the
selection of a new Municipal League leader yesterday. When police impeded
the convocation of the PRD-backed Municipal League meeting at its Santo
Domingo headquarters, the organization’s executive secretary moved the
meeting to a hotel, where the group named a new president. Meanwhile, the
ruling party, under the direction of the Secretary of Interior and Police
Ramon Andrés Blanco Fernández (whose role in the Municipal League remains
the subject of legal dispute), convened a parallel meeting in San Pedro de
Macorís and also chose a new league president.
