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". ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This site is part of AFRICA NEWS ONLINE. Send your thoughts to [log in to unmask] for our Readers' Forum. When commenting on a story, please indicate the article name and date. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------