BiH, Nepal: TRIAL submits two new cases to the Human Rights Committee

TRIAL has recently submitted two individual communications to the United Nations Human Rights Committee regarding the enforced disappearance and torture of Jit Man Basnet in Nepal in February 2004 and regarding the arbitrary arrest, ill-treatment and execution of Ermin Kadiric in Bosnia-Herzegovina July 1992.

Jit Man Basnet is a journalist and a lawyer in Kathmandu. On 4 February 2004, he was arrested by security forces and brought to a detention camp known as Bairabnath Battalion barracks.

During the first three days of detention Jit Man Basnet was extensively tortured and beaten. There was no fixed routine, the soldiers would come for him at any time of night or day. Beyond the physical pain inflicted by the severe beatings, not knowing when they would come again provoked an ongoing mental distress. The guard accused him having contacts with the Maoists, when he explained he had no information about Maoists, the torture would only get worse. The detention conditions were inhuman. During 258 days Jit Man Basnet was continuously blindfolded and handcuffed.

From 2001, he recourse to enforced disappearances, torture, summary executions and arbitrary detentions by State agents and Maoists was generalized. Arbitrary detention and torture were used years after the end of the state of emergency against all those suspected of affiliation with the Maoists. It is within this context that Jit Man Basnet was detained and disappeared for over 8 months.

• For more information on the Basnet case, please click here.

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In January 2011, TRIAL submitted an application concerning the case of Ermin Kadirić who was arrested by members of the Bosnian Serb forces (Vojska Republike Srpske – VRS) and of paramilitary groups in July 1992. Together with other men from the neighborhood, he was ill-treated for hours and eventually executed by members of the VRS. In son and wife have been living in a lacerating situation of uncertainty as they were never informed about his whereabouts, as his body has disappeared, nor about the progress and results of any investigation.

• For more information on the Kadirić case, please click here.