Credible evidence uncovered by a United Nations panel and featured in The New York Times proves that the Sri Lankan Army targeted civilians, shelled hospitals, and attacked aid workers in the final months of the country’s 26 year-long civil war. According to the report, the "government shelled on a large scale in three consecutive no-fire zones, where it had encouraged the civilian population to concentrate, even after indicating that it would cease the use of heavy weapons."

The Sri Lankan government long claimed it had a zero-tolerance policy on civilian casualties, despite reports of mass casualties and indiscriminate shelling of rebel strongholds.

PHR called for an international Commission of Inquiry in May 2009 to investigate possible war crimes in Sri Lanka. PHR sources on the ground revealed that only 25,000 out of a total 125,000 internally displaced Tamil persons in Sri Lanka received any sort of government protection prior to a deadly government offensive in Tamil territory. New UN documentation proves that fears for the safety of these Tamil IPDs were well-founded.

In October 2011, more than 120 representatives from Afghanistan's government and civil society joined members of the international community to discuss how Afghanistan can move from conflict to peace and stability. One of the first steps in the process of transitional justice involves using forensic science to create an accurate record of past atrocities.

Last week brought good news to the family of Francisco Castañeda, the former immigration detainee who died of cancer that detention health authorities failed to diagnose and treat.

Mr. Castañeda’s family’s lawsuit against the federal government was settled on April 7 for a total of $1.95 million in damages, which will help support Mr. Castañeda’s daughter and other survivors. The Los Angeles Times responded to the news, and stated that the settlement and other efforts are not yet enough.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers did the right thing by acknowledging their missteps in Mr. Castañeda’s case, and by changing the policy that led to his death: the requirement that a reviewing nurse, who had never seen the detainee, agree with the treating physician’s recommendation before authorizing additional testing and treatment.

ICE is still making it difficult, however, for detainees to win redress for their medical complaints before it is too late. As the Times notes, the Obama Administration has so far rebuffed calls to make immigration detention standards binding laws. If detention standards were written into law rather than existing solely in contracts for each detention center, expectations would be clear. More importantly, detainees would have options available for enforcing their basic human rights.

Admitting wrongdoing after the fact helps, but it cannot erase the irreparable harm done to Mr. Castañeda and his family. To best honor Mr. Castañeda’s memory, President Obama and DHS should commit to providing decent health care to those who cannot provide it for themselves. It is within the administration’s power to decide that the immigration detention network will be subject to meaningful, enforceable standards. Physicians for Human Rights enthusiastically joins the Times’ call to the relevant authorities to do everything necessary to prevent tragedies like Mr. Castañeda’s untimely death.

Derek Mitchell, the current Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific affairs, is set to become the first US special envoy to Burma according to sources at foreignpolicy.com. The position of Special Envoy is mandated in the Tom Lantos Block Burmese JADE Act of 2008 (P.L. 110–286). The now-expected submission of a candidate for Senate confirmation is long-overdue and was held up for over two years by the Obama Administration as it engaged on a diplomatic “honeymoon” course with the Burmese regime, spear-headed by Kurt Campbell, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. This ill-fated engagement policy failed to achieve any human rights progress and seems to have come to an end amidst the sham elections held by the Burmese regime in November 2010. Mitchell has served as a foreign policy advisor to the Obama campaign and has met with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. In a 2007 article in Foreign Policy Mitchell wrote, “Regimes like the SPDC do not improve with age; therefore, the Burma problem must be addressed urgently. All parties with a stake in its resolution need to adjust their positions and start coordinating their approach to the problem.” In the article, Mitchell called for the US to lead an effort of “coordinated engagement” with the SPDC, and suggested that sanctions could coexist with engagement. Mitchell’s early goals of engagement would be the release of political prisoners, including NLD members and ethnic leaders. However, he acknowledged that the country’s new constitution doesn’t provide a mechanism to realize their release. PHR has previously called attention to the serious flaws of the constitution, which perpetuates military rule and codifies impunity for even the most heinous crimes. In January, PHR released a report that revealed crimes against humanity in Burma perpetrated by the junta against the people of Chin State, western Burma. In order to stem these abuses and initiate accountability mechanisms, the international community must increase calls for a UN Commission of Inquiry (COI) to investigate the human rights violations outlined in the report. As the United States now supports a UN Commission of Inquiry for Burma, PHR calls on the Senate to ensure during the confirmation hearings that any candidate would be fully committed to unequivocally supporting an independent and robust Commission and to undertaking all diplomatic efforts to achieve its establishment at the U.N. PHR supports Aung San Suu Kyi’s call for continued sanctions against Burma and encourages the new Special Envoy to call for targeted financial sanctions to further limit the junta’s ability to commit crimes against its people. PHR hopes that Derek Mitchell realizes the urgency and importance of his mission and the promise his position holds for improving US policy toward Burma.

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) joined partner organizations in applauding the United States government’s announcement to pursue a second term on the UN Human Rights Council. The Council is a key international body that addresses human rights violations and crisis situations worldwide. In recent weeks alone the Human Rights Council has taken swift action to respond to human rights violations in Libya and passed a resolution appointing a Special Rapporteur for Iran. US leadership on the Council has been instrumental in securing these important successes as well as defeating dangerous resolutions including one designed to curtail freedom of speech. Continued US involvement with the Council will usher in future human rights advances, hopefully in areas in which the Council has been slow to act. Regarding Burma, for example, the US can and should take a proactive role to encourage fellow Council members to pass a resolution establishing a Commission of Inquiry to investigate international crimes in Burma. Concerted US pressure on this issue will help the Human Rights Council take a strong stance against criminality and impunity in the country. While US involvement has positively shaped the Council’s actions, there is some domestic political resistance to this important body. House Republican leaders have called on the US to withdraw from the Human Rights Council. PHR is glad the Administration is not bowing to this criticism and is staying the course on human rights by remaining an influential player on the Council. The US commitment to seek a second term on the Council signals to the international community that the US will continue to press the Council to address serious human rights violations. PHR will continue to monitor US involvement at the Council and will encourage the Administration to continue pressing for strong human rights protections worldwide.

A letter to the Editor on immigration, by PHR’s Asylum Program Director, Christy Fujio, appeared on April 1 in the New York Times.

To the Editor: Re “Southern Lawmakers Focus on Illegal Immigrants” (news article, March 26):The overreaching attempts of lawmakers in several states to “fix” perceived immigration problems are shortsighted and dangerous. Many proposals, including those that would bar undocumented people from attending college or marrying United States citizens, are alarmingly reminiscent of the segregation laws that plagued our country and set an embarrassingly recent precedent for institutionalized discrimination. South Carolina’s proposed bill, which would make it illegal to transport immigrants anywhere, including to a hospital, is particularly egregious because it could effectively deny critically needed medical care to thousands of people. This not only threatens the health of individuals, but also the public health of the entire state. Additionally, it would place emergency medical technicians in the untenable position of having to act as immigration enforcement officers rather than healers. Health professionals’ first duty is to provide their patients with the best care possible; they cannot do that if the state forces them into an enforcement role. CHRISTY FUJIO Asylum Program Director Physicians for Human Rights Cambridge, Mass., March 26, 2011

Persecuted Rohingya Muslims seeking refuge in Bangladesh face a new grave threat to their safety and security: institutional discrimination in the form of a mandatory, country-wide ID card policy. The Rohingya population is the most persecuted ethnic minority of Burma. Rohingya individuals, fleeing their country from widespread and systematic persecution, do not deserve the inhumane treatment they receive in Bangladesh today. As the United Nations highlighted this week, Bangladesh’s new ID card policy will make it illegal for a person of Rohingya descent to hold employment in Bangladesh. This policy will create harsher living conditions for these persons deserving of protection, not discrimination. Under the existing system of identification in Bangladesh, over 200,000 unregistered Rohingyas were unable to enroll their children in school. PHR’s March 2010 emergency report, Stateless and Starving: Persecuted Rohingya Flee Burma and Starve in Bangladesh, assessed dire conditions faced by persecuted Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, including arbitrary arrest and forced expulsion by Bangladeshi authorities. PHR is concerned that these new, harsh identification policies may further infringe upon their basic human rights. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, only 28,000 out of some 400,000 Rohingyas in Bangladesh are recognized refugees. PHR strongly urges the Bangladeshi government to end arbitrary arrests and forced expulsions of these individuals, and to begin individual status determination of these legitimate refugees.

One day after releasing our report on how a health professional’s dual loyalty can negatively impact the provision of health care in immigration detention, we secured a meeting with Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to discuss our findings and recommendations. Eight representatives of DHS joined the 1.5-hour briefing held at DHS headquarters in DC. While there remain some issues of disagreement as to how we can best care for this huge detained population, DHS unequivocally affirmed its commitment to continue working with PHR and other NGOs to improve access to health services in immigration detention centers across the country.To its credit, DHS has undertaken a number of measures over the past few years aimed at improving the quality and availability of health services to immigrants in detention. In particular, DHS pointed to its overhaul of the covered services package (which had previously resulted in denial of necessary medical care to many detainees) as one area where it has made improvements that will save lives. We agree that this change was critically important, and we applaud DHS’ willingness to work with us, as well as their commitment to full implementation of revised clinical guidelines and treatment authorization systems. Although many areas of policy-making in DC have become increasingly polarized in recent years, the DHS staff engaged in immigration detention reform have remained unfailingly accessible and open to dialogue with NGOs. Given their receptiveness to listen and discuss our recommendations on an ongoing basis, we are confident that we can continue to work with them to implement much-needed reform to the immigration detention system.

A report on the difficulty of providing quality health care to detainees in the United States immigration detention system was released today by PHR. The report, “Dual Loyalties: The Challenges of Providing Professional Health Care to Immigration Detainees,” highlights the conflicts that arise when health professionals are torn between their duties to their patients and their obligations to an employer, government, insurer, or the military – a common problem in immigration detention centers, prisons, and other secure environments. The consequences of dual loyalties can be devastating for patients. The report chronicles the story of one immigrant from Ecuador who sought medical help for persistent headaches that lasted more than a month while in detention. After only receiving Tylenol from medical staff and no other treatment or screening, she fell from a bunk bed and was taken to a local hospital. At the hospital she was diagnosed with an infection of the brain that is common among Latin American immigrants, and died shortly after. A simple screening might have prevented her untimely death, but for reasons that remain unclear, the medical staff never ordered one for her. Read all about “dual loyalty” conflicts in the Bradley Manning case in The Guardian’s article which quotes PHR’s Christy Fujio.