Ancient site to open near Jerusalem shrine
Israel
JERUSALEM -- Israel will soon open to the public an underground archeological site near Jerusalem's most sensitive shrine, in an area where the inauguration of an exhibit in 1996 led to bloodshed, an official said. The site, a Jewish ritual bath dating to the first century, will be opened in an area running parallel to Judaism's Western Wall in the Israeli-annexed Old City of Jerusalem. Palestinians have long opposed Israeli excavations in the area, citing dangers to the foundations of al-Haram al-Sharif, the site of the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosques. In 1996, Israel's opening of an archeological tunnel near al-Haram al-Sharif sparked Palestinian violence in which 61 Arabs and 15 Israeli soldiers were killed. (Reuters)
Turkey
Report alleges abuse of psychiatric patients
ANKARA -- A Washington-based human rights group has accused Turkey of subjecting mental health patients to serious abuses, including electric shock treatment without anesthesia, and is urging the European Union to demand an end to the practices. Mental Disability Rights International published the report days before Turkey is scheduled to start negotiations to join the European Union. Human rights will be included in the discussions, which begin Monday. People with mental or psychiatric disorders are ''subjected to treatment practices that are tantamount to torture," the report said. The group said electric shock therapy were ''massively overused in Turkish psychiatric facilities in cases for which there is no clinically proven justification," and that they were used as a form of punishment. (AP)
The Netherlands
Railway apologizes for Nazi collaboration
AMSTERDAM --Sixty years after the end of World War II, the Dutch national railway company apologized yesterday for its role in deporting thousands of Jews to Nazi concentration camps. Aad Veenman, chief executive of Nederlandse Spoorwegen, acknowledged for the first time that his firm had collaborated with Nazi occupiers by deporting 107,000 Dutch Jews -- 70 percent of the country's Jewish community -- to death camps in Germany and Poland. ''On behalf of the company and from the bottom of my heart, I sincerely apologize for what happened during the war," Veenman said at a ceremony that launched an antiracism poster campaign across 66 Dutch railway stations. (Reuters)
Afghanistan
Mass graves found, linked to candidates
KABUL -- Afghan police have found mass graves of hundreds of communist troops killed after surrendering to mujahideen forces in the 1980s, a crime in which at least two election candidates are implicated, officials said yesterday. The graves were discovered about three weeks ago in Saraqala, a remote part of the province of Paktika, said a provincial police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity. ''It's believed that these people were killed in 1989," he said. ''There was a government brigade that went missing, and they captured them. There are at least 300 to 500 people -- we have counted from their belts, uniforms, boots and bones." (Reuters)
Belgium
Arrest warrant issued for Chad's ex-leader
BRUSSELS -- Belgium has issued an international arrest warrant for Chad's former leader, Hissene Habre, charging him with atrocities during his 1982-to-1990 rule, the Justice Ministry said yesterday. Human rights campaigners said the decision would serve as a precedent for the prosecution of other exiled leaders accused of abuses. Habre, who lives in exile in Senegal, is being pursued under a Belgian law that allows prosecutions for war crimes committed outside the country. ''This is a great day for Habre's thousands of victims and a milestone in the fight to hold the perpetrators of atrocities accountable for their crimes," said Reed Brody of Human Rights Watch.
