  2003 Annual Report |
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Asia |
| Europe |
| Mid-East/Africa |
| Americas |
In past years we have written on behalf of the forensic scientists in this country who have been exhuming the bodies of victims of the counter-insurgency campaign of the early 1980's. In 2003, anthropologists working for the Forensic Anthropology Foundation (FAFG) and the Center of Forensic Anthropology and Applied Sciences (CAFCA) once again experienced a surge of threats, intimidation, and attacks. Employees of FAFG were robbed of their cell phones and the phones' address books were used to make threatening calls. In April alone, the house of the director of FAFG, Freddy Peccerelli, was burglarized, shots were fired at the house, and some female members of his household were trailed by unknown men and harassed. We wrote again to the authorities to request that investigations of all these incidents be carried out with thoroughness and dispatch.
Colombia
The physician Dr. Ciro Alejandro Pena, arrested in January 2003, was accused of having treated a female patient allegedly related to an armed rebel group. Apparently the woman was neither a member of the rebel group nor in any way connected with it, but of course, her political connections should not have had an influence on her right to medical treatment. It is possible that Dr. Pena's arrest may have been connected with his past medical activity implicating the Colombian military in the death of 18 campesinos in 1998, itself a grave violation of international human-rights standards. We wrote in protest at this shocking and illegal action on the part of the police.
Cuba
Recent events in Cuba stunned the world by their harshness. In March 2003, more than 70 dissidents were arrested en masse; most of them were given lengthy sentences running from 15 to 30 years.
We took particular interest in the fate of the economist Marta Beatriz Roque of the Working Group for the Analysis of the Cuban Socio-Economic Situation, winner of the 2003 Pagels Prize from the NYAS and someone on whose behalf we have written repeatedly. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison and has been kept under extremely harsh conditions ever since. Her health has deteriorated, she is denied medical attention, and many of her friends are deeply concerned about her physical survival.
We appealed on Dr. Roque's behalf not only to President Castro but to Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations, several times. We wrote to Mr. Annan in the wake of the election of Cuba to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, pointing out that the credibility of the commission was compromised by such egregious human-rights violations committed by one of its own members.
We also wrote letters on behalf of other scientific colleagues who were taken in the March mass arrests. They included the economists Oscar Espinosa Chepe, Arnaldo Ramos Lauzarrique, and Victor Rolando Arroyo; the physician Dr. Luis Milan Miro; and the medical workers Ariel Sigler Amaya, Guido Sigler Amaya, and Miguel Sigler Amaya.
Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, another colleague whose situation we have followed for a number of years, suffers from brutal physical conditions. He is kept in solitary confinement and denied family visits. Dr. Oscar Espinosa Chepe has severe health problems, but his 20-year sentence remains in effect. For both these individuals, we wrote several letters of appeal.
United States
Dr. Branislav Djordjevic, a physicist from the former Yugoslavia, was arrested in July 2003 and faces deportation. Because of misconduct by his former attorneys, who dropped his case without informing him and did not tell him that a request for asylum had been denied, he had been ignorant of the status of his case until the deadline had passed for leaving the country or appealing. We wrote protesting the severe treatment of Dr. Djordjevic, and especially the denial of bail, since his wife and two small children suffered greatly from his ongoing incarceration. On December 23 he was released on bond, but his predicament remains.
