1,500 Slain in Haiti Repression, Rights Group Says
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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — More than 1,500 people have been killed in Haiti in a campaign of political repression since the military coup in September, Amnesty International has reported.
The London-based human rights group issued a lengthy report that blames security forces for massacres in Haitian slums, political arrests, torture, disappearances and regular attacks on labor, community and church groups.
The estimate may be low, the report says, because “the climate of fear and repression (has) meant that many human rights violations go unreported.”
Interim Prime Minister Jean-Jacques Honorat has denied the charges, saying the military-backed provisional government is working to improve political and civil freedoms.
A repressive network of regional political bosses was blamed for widespread human rights abuse in the Haitian countryside for decades. Amnesty International says that system has been revived.
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide dismantled the system before army troops ousted his government on Sept. 30.
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