On April 9, 1989, troops from the Soviet Ministries of Defense and Interior used entrenching spades and, it was alleged, toxic gas, to break up a peaceful demonstration of 8,000 to 10,000 people in Tbilisi, Soviet Georgia. Sixteen people were known to have been killed on the scene. Another four people later died from injuries sustained on that day. Hundreds of people were injured and admitted to hospitals.

Physicians for Human Rights was asked by Dr. Andrei Sakharov and Dr. Irakli Menagarishvili, Minister of Public Health for Soviet Georgia, to provide technical expertise in assessing the possibility that toxic gas or gases had been used against the crowd. After weeks of attempting to obtain travel visas, on May 17, 1989, a team of three PHR physicians arrived in Tbilisi.

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In June 1989, PHR sent a medical mission to El Salvador to investigate and report on allegations of violations of medical neutrality and other human rights abuses committed by both sides in the civil war. This report documents the obstruction of health care to the civilian population; the assault, intimidation, arrest, torture, and execution of health workers; attacks on hospitals and clinics; and the impact of ten years of civil war on the country’s medical institutions.

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PHR is the first human rights organization to be allowed into Czechoslovakia to examine political prisoners. This joint report with Helsinki Watch, entitled “Medical Mission to Czechoslovakia” calls international attention to the country’s poor prison conditions as well as the wrongful imprisonment of political dissidents. 

Between July 11 and July 18, 1987, five public health specialists, organized by PHR, visited Seoul, South Korea, to study the effects of an unprecedented use of tear gas in that country against civilians in June and into July, 1987. This report details their findings.

Download the full report here.