Minorities body acts on hostage-taking, death penalty, other matters.

• Position: UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities - Includes related articles on UN reports

Calls for prevention of hostage-taking, protection journalists, abolition of the death penalty for persons under the age of 18, and combating environmental pollution were among the actions taken by the UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities (Geneva, 7 August-1 September). Forty-eight resolutions and 11 decisions were adopted at its forty-first session.

A study of problems and causes of discrimination against people infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or people with acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) was authorized.

Work continued on a draft declaration on the right to leave and to return to one's home country and on a draft universal declaration on indigenous rights and a draft declaration on enforced or involuntary disappearances. The Sub-Commission recommended that 1993 be designated as the International Year for Indigenous Rights.

The 26-member body, a subsidiary of the Commission on Human Rights, also approved texts with regard to the human rights situations in southern Africa, Israeli-occupied territories, Lebanon, China, East Timor, El Salvador, Guatemala and Iran.

Higgins murder cited

The Sub-Commission condemned hostage-taking and the torture and murder which frequently accompanied such practice, specifically citing the "brutal murder" of Lt.-Col. William R. Higgins of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO). It asked States to bring to trial any who might participate in hostage-taking.

The Sub-Commission called on journalists and other mass media personnel to carry out their mission to expose gross human rights violations and to inform public opinion with maximum neutrality, fairness and objectivity. Governments were asked to provide journalists and mass media personnel with maximum protection of their human rights and support in their endeavours to reveal gross human rights violations.

The Commission on Human Rights was to urge the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to negotiate with the Organization of African Unity (OAU) a global solution to the problem of transboundary movement of hazardous wastes and their disposal.

Debt crisis examined

The Sub-Commission affirmed that any foreign debt strategy must help ensure an adequate growth level for debtor developing countries so their social and economic needs would be met. The economic growth and development of those countries must be revived, it said.

Expressing concern over "recent events in...