AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT 2016/17

economic need rather than soaring violence
and homicides, not to mention the daily
threats, extortion and intimidation that most
of the population faced under struggles for
territorial control from gangs.
In the USA, tens of thousands of
unaccompanied children, as well as people
travelling with their families, were
apprehended when attempting to cross the
southern border during the year. Families
were detained for months, many without
proper access to medical care and legal
counsel.
Throughout the year, the IACHR expressed
concern about the situation of Cuban and
Haitian migrants attempting to reach the
USA.
Elsewhere, migrants and their families
faced pervasive discrimination, exclusion and
ill-treatment. In the Bahamas, there was
widespread ill-treatment of undocumented
migrants from countries including Haiti and
Cuba. The Dominican Republic deported
thousands of people of Haitian descent –
including Dominican-born people who were
effectively rendered stateless – while often
failing to respect international law and
standards on deportations. Upon arrival to
Haiti, many people who had been deported
settled in makeshift camps, where they lived
in appalling conditions.
Despite a commitment from newly elected
authorities in the Dominican Republic to
address the situation of stateless individuals,
tens of thousands of people remained
stateless following a 2013 Constitutional
Court ruling which retroactively and arbitrarily
deprived them of their nationality. In
February, the IACHR described a “situation
of statelessness… of a magnitude never
before seen in the Americas”.
More than 30,000 Syrian refugees were
resettled in Canada, with a further 12,000
resettled in the USA.
PUBLIC SECURITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS
Non-state actors – including corporations and
criminal networks – wielded growing
influence and were responsible for increasing
levels of violence and human rights abuses.
Overall, however, states mostly failed to
respond to the situation in a way that
complied with international standards, with
significant human rights violations resulting
from a tendency to militarize public security.
Some states responded to social unrest –
and particularly peaceful protests – with an
increased use of the army to undertake
public security operations, and adopted
military techniques, training and equipment
for use by the police and other law
enforcement agencies. Although tackling
organized crime was frequently used as
justification for militarized responses, in
reality they enabled states to further violate
human rights rather than address the root
causes of violence. In countries such as
Venezuela, for example, military action in
response to protests was often followed by
torture and other ill-treatment of protesters.
Protests across the USA – which followed
the deadly shooting by police in July of
Philando Castile in Minnesota and Alton
Sterling in Louisiana – saw police use heavyduty
riot gear and military-grade weapons in
response, raising concerns about
demonstrators’ right to peaceful assembly.
There were also concerns about the degree
of force police used against largely peaceful
protests opposing the proposed Dakota
Access Pipeline near the Standing Rock
Sioux Reservation in North Dakota.
Meanwhile, the US authorities again failed to
track the exact number of people killed by
law enforcement officials; media reports put
the numbers at almost 1,000 in 2016, and at
least 21 people died after police used
electric-shock weapons on them.
The Olympic Games hosted by Brazil in
August were marred by human rights
violations by security forces, with the
authorities and the event’s organizers failing
to implement effective measures to prevent
abuses. Police killings in Rio de Janeiro
increased as the city prepared to host the
Games. Violent police operations took place
throughout the event with severe repression
of protests, including through unnecessary
and excessive use of force. Throughout the
year, the country’s counter-narcotic
28 Amnesty International Report 2016/17