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TITLE:  DOMINICAN REPUBLIC HUMAN RIGHTS PRACTICES, 1994
AUTHOR:  U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DATE:  FEBRUARY 1995

                       DOMINICAN REPUBLIC


The Constitution of the Dominican Republic provides for a
popularly elected President and a bicameral Congress.  In
practice, the system heavily favors the executive branch,
headed by seven-term President Joaquin Balaguer.  The President
appoints justices to the Supreme Court, which heads an only
nominally independent judiciary.  International observers found
significant irregularities in the May elections, including the
disfranchisement of tens of thousands of voters.  Despite an
inconclusive investigation of fraud charges, the Central
Electoral Board declared incumbent President Balaguer the
winner.  After lengthy negotiations between the parties and the
candidates, it was agreed that President Balaguer would serve a
reduced term of 18 months.  However, the Congress, controlled
by Balaguer's party, set the next presidential elections for
May 1996, providing him a 2-year term instead of the normal 4
years.

The National Police (PN), the National Department of
Investigations (DNI), the National Drug Control Directorate
(DNCD), and the military (army, air force, and navy) form the
security services.  The Government controls all the security
services, which are generally responsive to civilian executive
branch authority.  However, some members of the security forces
continued to commit human rights abuses, with the tacit
acquiescence of the civil authorities.

Once heavily dependent on sugar, the economy has grown more
diverse; tourism and export processing zones are now major
sources of income and employment.  State-owned firms such as
the State Sugar Council, the Consortium of State Enterprises,
and the Dominican Electricity Corporation continue to be
heavily involved in the economy, and the financial and
administrative difficulties of these firms still impede
economic growth.

Human rights problems included electoral disfranchisement,
continuing instances of police killings of civilians, arbitrary
detentions (particularly during the tense post-electoral
period), beating of suspects, security services' refusal to
obey judicial orders, judicial corruption, maladministration of
the courts, and abuses against migrant workers.  Workers in the
state-owned sugar plantations and mills continued to labor
under deplorable conditions.  Workers in the country's export
processing zones achieved some gains with the signing of
collective contracts and other agreements.  Prostitution and
domestic violence are also serious problems.

RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Section 1  Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including
           Freedom from:

     a.  Political and Other Extrajudicial Killing

There were no reports of political killings.

Police and military personnel carried out extrajudicial
killings which resulted in the death of at least half a dozen
civilians.  Some killings occurred as a result of personal
disputes but others clearly were the result of excessive force
while in custody.  In July the authorities charged a police
lieutenant colonel and three lieutenants with killing four
persons arrested for robbery.  In September the colonel
allegedly bribed the civilian judge to gain his freedom and
fled the country.

Military courts try military personnel charged with
extrajudicial killings.  Police personnel accused of such
killings are subject to dismissal from the police force, and
can be remanded to civilian courts for trial.  Police tribunals
have on occasion tried, convicted, and sentenced personnel
charged with extrajudicial killings.  In March a police
tribunal sentenced a lieutenant to 2 years in prison for the
"voluntary homicide of an individual."  In July a tribunal
sentenced a police corporal to 5 months' imprisonment for the
"fatal wounding" of another person.  Of the over 200 cases
pending in the police tribunal at year's end, 39 percent
involved "deliberate bullet wound", 15 percent involved death,
and 13 percent were listed as "violence against persons."

     b.  Disappearance

In May a professor at the Autonomous University of Santo
Domingo, Narciso Gonzalez, disappeared.  Police investigators
verified the professor's last known whereabouts on May 26, and
pursued numerous unfruitful leads but never determined what
happened to him.  Many Dominicans, including the professor's
close associates, believe that the Government ordered the
professor's disappearance because of his accusations against
members of the Government, including President Balaguer, in
lectures and in a magazine article published near the time of
his disappearance.  The case remained unresolved at year's end.

     c.  Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading
         Treatment or Punishment

Although torture and other forms of physical abuse are illegal,
security service personnel continued to abuse detainees.  The
authorities usually order little or no punishment for
perpetrators of such abuse.  Although punishment may range up
to 5 years' incarceration for serious cases of abuse, as a rule
the courts have given convicted officials sentences ranging
from a 1-month suspension to 6 months in jail.  In September a
police appeals tribunal upheld the conviction of a lieutenant
colonel found guilty of heading a torture ring in police
headquarters.  The court sentenced the officer to 2 years'
imprisonment.

Prisons are overcrowded, and health and sanitary conditions are
substandard.  Some prison personnel reportedly engage in
extortion and other corrupt activities, and most prisoners find
it necessary to rely on relatives or their own finances in
order to obtain sufficient food.  Medical care suffers from a
lack of supplies.  In some instances, minors have been
incarcerated in adult prisons (see Section 5).  The Commandant
of La Victoria prison was dismissed in November, following a
riot over prison conditions.

     d.  Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, or Exile

The Constitution stipulates that the authorities may detain
suspects for a maximum of 48 hours for investigation before
arraignment, after which they must charge or release them.
However, in special circumstances, the authorities may detain
suspects for longer periods with the approval of the
prosecutor's office.  Security services routinely violated
constitutional provisions by detaining witnesses as well as
suspects for "investigation" or "interrogation" beyond the
prescribed 48-hour limit.  Civil authorities' efforts to
address these widespread abuses have not yet produced any
results.

Military officers occasionally violated legal provisions
against military detention of civilians.  The DNCD and National
Police continued to engage in indiscriminate roundups of people
in poorer neighborhoods.  In September, for example, police
detained more than 200 persons in one roundup in the country's
capital.  They released most detainees after several hours in
custody.  The security services also occasionally detain
relatives of suspected criminals with the aim of coercing
suspects to surrender.  Civil authorities have taken no action
to curb these widespread abuses.

The authorities detained hundreds of persons, among them
supporters of the leading opposition party, members of other
antigovernment groups, and journalists, in the period following
the May elections.  In some cases, they carried out these
detentions ostensibly to foil possible violent demonstrations.
Various organizations had called for strikes and demonstrations
to demand annulment of the May elections and to call for new
elections.  They also asked that the authorities produce
missing university professor Gonzalez (see Section l.b.).

While the law does not prohibit exile, there are no known
current cases of Dominican citizens in forced exile.

     e.  Denial of Fair Public Trial

Although the Constitution stipulates an independent judiciary,
in practice interference from public and private entities,
including the executive branch, substantially undermines
judicial independence.  The President appoints justices to the
Supreme Court, and the Senate appoints justices to all other
courts with the exception of military and police tribunals.
Their terms of office correspond roughly to those of the
President and other elected officials.  A newly elected Senate
can either replace the judges or reconfirm them, and may remove
or transfer them by a majority vote.  Senators customarily
nominate judges on political grounds rather than for their
competence as jurists.  A number of corrupt and incompetent
prosecutors and judges also undermine the system.  Furthermore,
the judicial authorities are ineffectual in the administrative
supervision of judges and prosecutors.  A 1994 constitutional
reform gave the judiciary a fixed percentage of the national
budget, thereby diminishing legislative control, and created a
National Judicial Council which is to begin naming judges after
passage of the judicial career law.

The Constitution provides for public trial.  Statutes provide
for public defenders in all criminal cases, but the number
employed is insufficient.  The courts normally appoint lawyers
or law students at public expense to defend indigents in felony
criminal cases, but only as available in misdemeanor cases.
Chronic delays plagued the judicial process; of the penal
system's approximately 11,000 detainees, the courts have tried
and convicted only about 10 percent.  Although the right to
judicial determination of the legality of detention exists,
pretrial detention is legal and commonly employed.  This
custom, coupled with a lack of administrative and financial
support for the system, creates a major backlog of cases, which
in turn causes suspects to suffer long periods of pretrial
detention that sometimes exceed possible criminal penalties.

More than 250 persons, among them more than 50 persons without
official charges against them, remained incarcerated in Santo
Domingo's La Victoria prison despite having judicial orders for
their release, according to a group of human rights monitors.
These prisoners have been in custody for periods ranging from
1 month to more than 5 years.  Minors constitute more than half
the group.  The Attorney General for Santo Domingo called for
the release of these prisoners.  However, the National Police
and the DNCD persisted in their refusals to release some
prisoners and detainees who had been granted judicial release
orders, alleging judicial corruption and the seriousness of the
alleged crimes as justification for this noncompliance.  No
higher authority has taken action to force the prison
authorities to comply with the release orders.

The judicial system provides for bail.  However, cases in which
bail is posted rarely come to trial, circumventing the intended
purpose of bail.

Military or police courts have jurisdiction over members of the
armed forces and police, but a military or police board
frequently remands cases to civilian courts after review.

There is no evidence that the Government holds political
prisoners.

     f.  Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or
         Correspondence

The Government does not arbitrarily interfere with the private
lives of persons or families and generally observes
constitutional provisions against invasion of the home.  The
authorities may not search a residence except in the presence
of a prosecutor or an assistant prosecutor, in instances of
"hot pursuit," or when there is probable cause to believe that
a crime is in progress.  During the 1994 electoral campaign and
the post-electoral crisis, there were numerous credible
allegations of widescale interception of telephone
conversations and surveillance of individuals which may have
involved the Government as well as political parties.  In
addition, opposition politicians charged that government raids
on their homes, ostensibly to search for firearms, were
politically motivated.  They also charged that the security
service officials who rounded up many of the detainees
mentioned in Section 1.d. employed illegal raids on their homes
to capture them.

Section 2  Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:

     a.  Freedom of Speech and Press

The law provides for these freedoms and the Government
generally respected them in practice.  However, there were
instances in which the authorities abused these rights.

Dominicans of most political persuasions exercise freedom of
speech, but a 1971 law prohibits foreign language broadcasts.
The numerous privately owned radio and television stations
broadcast all political points of view.

The Government controls one television station but no major
newspapers.  Newspapers freely reflect independent and
opposition points of view.  Although journalists operate in a
relatively tolerant environment, they practice a certain amount
of self-censorship for fear of retaliation ranging from loss of
influence to loss of a job.  Soon after the May elections, the
Foreign Ministry issued a note warning the authorities would
take action accordingly against journalists deemed to have
violated national security.  Economic considerations also
inhibit free expression, as powerful economic consortiums or
wealthy, influential families own all the principal media
outlets.  Some journalists solicit, or are responsive to,
bribes in order to generate reports.

In July the executive committee of the College of Dominican
Journalists denounced police infringement of activities by
journalists during the postelectoral period.  During the
ensuing months, the authorities temporarily jailed a number of
journalists, beat some, and damaged their equipment.

Public and private universities enjoy broad academic freedom.
The Government exerts no control over private universities
except for the preservation of standards, and teachers appear
to be free to voice their own theories without government
oversight.

     b.  Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association

The Constitution provides for these freedoms, which the
Government generally respects in practice.  The Government
requires permits for outdoor public marches and meetings, and
the authorities usually granted them.  However, in the
postelectoral period, the authorities preempted antigovernment
demonstrations by illegally detaining organizers.

Political parties freely affiliate with their foreign
counterpart organizations.  Professional organizations of
lawyers, doctors, teachers, and others function freely and can
maintain relations with counterpart international bodies of
diverse political philosophies.

     c.  Freedom of Religion

The Constitution prohibits discrimination on religious grounds,
and the Government does not interfere with the free practice of
religion.

     d.  Freedom of Movement Within the Country, Foreign
         Travel, Emigration, and Repatriation

Citizens face no unusual legal restrictions on travel within or
outside the country.

In 1994 the authorities forcibly repatriated between several
hundred to a few thousand Haitians believed to be in the
country illegally, according to various sources.  Some of these
were legal resident Haitians and persons of Haitian ancestry
who may have claims to Dominican citizenship.  The authorities
did not allow the Haitians opportunity to establish their
possible claims to legal residence.   Although somewhat
diminished in comparison with earlier years (see Section 6.c.),
there was continued forced recruitment and detention of
Haitians to work on sugar plantations.

Since the 1991 coup in Haiti, the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) accorded refugee status to
1,341 Haitians who fled to the Dominican Republic.  Although
the Government began processing petitions for Dominican
recognition of the refugee status of the Haitian UNHCR wards in
1991, only 10 percent have been granted such status thus far.

Section 3  Respect for Political Rights:  The Right of Citizens
           to Change Their Government

Citizens have the constitutional right to change their
government in free and fair elections, but there were
allegations of a level of fraud in the national elections which
effectively infringed this right.  Although people voted in
record numbers in the May 16 elections, international observers
identified significant irregularities, including the
disfranchisement of tens of thousands of voters (primarily
supporters of the leading opposition party), evidence of double
voting, and voting by ineligible persons.  An investigation
commission appointed by the Central Electoral Board (an
independent body appointed by the Senate with the approval of
the major parties) largely confirmed the irregularities, noting
that they placed in dispute a number of votes potentially
larger than the margin of victory.  Despite the irregularities,
the Central Electoral Board declared incumbent President
Joaquin Balaguer the winner by 22,000 votes.

The Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD), led by presidential
candidate Jose Francisco Pena Gomez, strongly resisted this
decision, considering it an attempt to steal the election.
Faced with an explosive political crisis, President Balaguer
negotiated a political agreement with Pena Gomez, leaders of
the next largest party, the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD),
and other political and civil figures.  The agreement included
several constitutional reforms, most notably shortening
Balaguer's new term to 18 months (meaning elections in November
1995) as well as prohibition of presidential reelection.  In
accordance with this pact, Congress ratified the Central
Electoral Board's decision.  However, the Congress, dominated
by Balaguer's party, set the next presidential elections for
May 1996, providing Balaguer a 2-year term.  After boycotting
the new Congress for a month in protest, the opposition
legislators took their seats based on a promise of future
political considerations.

The Constitution calls for the President and all 150 members of
the Senate and Chamber of Deputies to be elected every 4 years.
Elections are by secret ballot with universal suffrage for
citizens age 18 and above (except for active duty military and
police, who may not vote).  The President appoints the
governors of the 29 provinces.

Although the nation has a functioning multiparty system, in
practice the President dominates public policy formulation and
implementation.  He exercises his authority through use of the
veto, discretion to act by decree, and influence as the leader
of his party.  The Congress traditionally has had limited
powers and seldom disapproves actions by the executive branch.
The governing Reformed Christian Socialist Party (PRSC) has a
2-vote working majority in the 30-seat Senate when it combines
its 14 votes with 1 vote from the PLD and 1 vote from the
Democratic Union.  Similarly, in coalition with the PLD, it has
a working plurality in the Chamber of Deputies.  Four Senate
races and eight deputy races were close enough that they may
have been affected by the election irregularities in favor of
the ruling PRSC.

Women and minorities confront no legal or practical impediments
to political participation.  Women hold 8 of the country's 29
appointed governorships, 5 cabinet-level executive branch
positions, 14 seats in the 120-member House of Deputies, and
1 seat in the Senate.

Section 4  Governmental Attitude Regarding International and
           Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Violations
           of Human Rights

Nongovernmental human rights organizations operate freely
without government interference.  In addition to the Dominican
Human Rights Committee (CDH), several other Haitian, church,
and labor groups exist.  The Government has been slow to
acknowledge criticism and requests for information from some
international human rights organizations.  It has not responded
to criticisms leveled by the U.N. Human Rights Commission in
1993 regarding treatment of Haitian refugees.

Section 5  Discrimination Based on Race, Sex, Religion,
           Disability, Language, or Social Status

The law prohibits discrimination based on race or sex.  Such
discrimination exists in society, but the Government has not
acknowledged its existence or made efforts to combat it.

     Women

Women traditionally have not shared equal social and economic
status or opportunity with men, and men hold the overwhelming
majority of leadership positions in all sectors.  In many
instances, women are paid less than men in jobs of equal
content and equal skill level.  According to one study, women
are the head of the household in 37 percent of the families in
the capital.  Either spouse can easily obtain a divorce, and
women can hold property in their own names apart from their
husbands.  Congress did not act on legislative proposals
introduced in 1993 to modify women's status under the Civil and
Penal Code.

Domestic violence and sexual harassment are widespread.
According to one report, approximately 7,000 rapes occur
annually, but victims report only 1,500 to the police.  Spousal
abuse itself is not a crime, and is rarely reported.

Dominican women are victims of rings which smuggle third world
women to Europe to work as prostitutes in conditions rife with
exploitation and mistreatment.  The Government does not
vigorously enforce prostitution laws, but does periodically
prosecute organized alien smuggling rings.  Corruption and a
reluctance to restrict emigration hinder enforcement of the law.

     Children

The Government has not supported its professed commitment to
child welfare with financial or human resources.  Despite the
existence of government institutions dedicated to child
welfare, private social and religious organizations carry the
principal burden.  The most serious abuse involving children is
the failure of the justice system to respect the status of
minors in criminal cases; there are more than 150 minors in the
country's main prison.  Especially in narcotics cases, the
authorities sometimes treat minors as adults and incarcerate
them in prisons rather than juvenile detention centers.

According to local human rights monitors, the incidence of
child abuse is underreported because of traditional beliefs
that family problems should be handled within the family.
Sporadic instances of Haitian child labor on sugar plantations
continued to occur (see Section 6.d.).  A new Minor's Code went
into effect on January 1, 1995.  The Code contains provisions
against child abuse, including physical and emotional
mistreatment, sexual exploitation, and child labor.  It also
provides for removal of a mistreated or delinquent child to a
protective environment.

     National/Racial/Ethnic Minorities

Dominicans are strongly prejudiced against Haitians, who
constitute a significant percentage of the unskilled manual
labor force.  This often translates into discrimination against
those with darker skin.  In election campaigning, President
Balaguer's PRSC sought to undermine PRD candidate Pena Gomez by
characterizing the latter's dark skin as a Haitian attribute.
The Government does not acknowledge the existence of this
discrimination nor make any efforts to combat it.  Dark-skinned
Dominicans also face strong informal barriers to social and
economic advancement.

Credible sources charge that the Government continues to refuse
to recognize individuals of Haitian ancestry born in the
country as Dominican citizens, as it has for many years.  Lack
of documentation also sometimes hinders the ability of children
of Haitian descent to attend school; some parents fail to seek
documentation for fear of being deported.

     People with Disabilities

Disabled persons encounter discrimination in employment and the
provision of other services.  Although a September 1991 law
mandates certain provisions for physical access for the
disabled for all new public and private buildings, the
authorities have not enforced it.

Section 6  Worker Rights

     a.  The Right of Association

The Constitution provides for the freedom to organize labor
unions and also for the rights of workers to strike (and for
private sector employers to lock out workers).  All workers,
except military and police, are free to organize and workers in
all sectors exercise this right.  Requirements for calling a
strike include the support of an absolute majority of the
workers of the company, a prior attempt to resolve the conflict
through arbitration, written notification to the Labor
Secretariat, and a 10-day waiting period following notification
before proceeding with the strike.  The 1992 Labor Code also
eliminated previous prohibitions against political and sympathy
strikes.  The Government respects association rights and places
no obstacles to union registration, affiliations, or the
ability to engage in legal strikes.  The Government has not
established an adequate court system to enforce the Labor Code.

A number of strikes occurred in 1994, principally in the public
sector.  The Labor Code specifies in detail the steps legally
required to establish a union, federation, and confederation.
The Code calls for automatic recognition of a union if the
Government has not acted on its application within a specific
time.  In practice, the Government has readily facilitated
recognition of labor organizations.  Organized labor represents
between 10 and 15 percent of the work force and is divided
among three large confederations, three minor confederations,
and a number of independent unions.  The International Labor
Organization's Committee of Experts considers the two-thirds
majority vote required to form confederations is too high.

Unions are independent of the Government and political
parties.  Labor unions can and do freely affiliate regionally
and internationally.

     b.  The Right to Organize and Bargain Collectively

Although collective bargaining is lawful and may take place in
firms in which a union has gained the support of an absolute
majority of the workers, only a minority of companies have
collective bargaining pacts.  The Labor Code stipulates that
workers cannot be dismissed because of their trade union
membership or activities.  The previous Code allowed arbitrary
termination of a worker so long as severance pay was provided;
the 1992 Code exempts from dismissal specific numbers of union
organizers and officials.  The number of union organizers or
officials given protection from layoffs can total up to 20
members of a union in formation, between 5 and 10 members of a
union executive council (depending on the size of the work
force), and up to 3 members of a collective bargaining
negotiating committee.  The new Code established a new system
of labor courts for dealing with labor disputes.  The new
courts are located in the two jurisdictions with the most labor
activity, but the juridical problems which the courts were
established to address still prevail in the rest of the
country.  Violations of freedom of association, the minimum
wage, and overtime pay continue.

The State Sugar Council (CEA) employs workers from over 100
unions.  Dominican workers predominate in the unions, although
between two and five unions are Haitian-dominated.  The CEA
tolerates existing unions but has steadily resisted additional
union organizing activity.

The Labor Code applies in the 26 established export processing
zones (EPZ's) comprised of over 400, mostly U.S.-owned or
associated, companies employing more than 170,000 workers,
mostly women.  In 1994 four EPZ companies concluded collective
bargaining agreements with unions.  Some EPZ companies have a
history of discharging workers who attempt to organize unions.
Although the Government registered more than 50 unions in the
EPZ's since the new Labor Code went into effect in 1992, fewer
than 10 of these unions still have their membership intact.
Some unions apparently ceased to function due to firings of
union members, while others may have dissolved because of
voluntary resignations or company closure.  The Secretariat of
Labor has brought criminal charges against 55 EPZ firms for
Labor Code violations involving worker rights.  The courts
found in favor of management in the majority of cases
concluded.  The unions won two cases.  A number of cases were
under appeal and others still pending at year's end.

     c.  Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor