The following article was culled from the PANA website.  The Secretariat of
the African Commission is based in Fajara, The Gambia.


Africa's Human Rights Situation Is Cause For Concern
November 15, 1999


KIGALI, Rwanda (PANA) - Africa's human rights situation is continuing to
arouse a great deal of concern in several countries, noted the 26th ordinary
session of the African Commission of Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) which
ended on Monday in Kigali.

The 26-point communique adopted at the end of the proceedings, stated that
various non-governmental organisations expressed "their concern" about the
human rights situation in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Algeria, Chad, Sudan,
Djibouti, Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Uganda, DR Congo, Burundi, Congo
Brazzaville, Cameroon and Angola.

The communiqu denounced "summary and arbitrary extra-judicial executions,
humanitarian conditions of imprisonment and detention, mass population
movements, obstacles to freedom of expression, movement and association,
forced disappearances, and the violations that women, children, the disabled
and the elderly in particular, fall victim to in countries engaged in armed
conflict".

The commission also decided to send missions to Sierra Leone, Djibouti,
Kenya and Burundi "to inquire about human rights in these countries."

The commission, which decided to hold its next session from 27 April to 11
May 2000 in Algeria, considered and adopted an additional draft protocol to
the African Charter concerning women's rights in Africa.

It decided to send this draft document to the general secretariat of the OAU
to enable it to "take appropriate follow- up action".

Rwandan Justice Minster Jean de Dieu Muco, who officially closed the
proceedings, repeated his country's promise to ratify the protocol creating
the African Court of Human Rights "in the very near future".




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