Human Rights Leaders urge President-Elect Obama to renew U.S. Commitments to Human Rights by The Carter Center 5:04am 3rd Dec, 2008   Dec 3, 2008    An international group of human rights organizations and human rights defenders meeting at The Carter Center today issued an urgent appeal for President-elect Barack Obama to renew U.S. commitments to human rights principles and practices that have been abandoned since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks against the United States.    "In our efforts to defend ourselves against terror, the United States has abandoned the human rights principles it has long championed," said former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. "We must renew our national commitment to human rights and encourage the international community to support the work of human rights defenders worldwide, whose efforts have been undermined by the U.S. example in recent years."    The groups specific recommendations, coming on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Dec. 10, included:    Ending the policy of indefinite detention without due process for detainees at Guantánamo Bay by trying those who accused of committing crimes and repatriating and resettling those cleared for release, as well as abolishing military commissions.    Issuing an Executive Order to enforce existing law prohibiting torture by any agent of the U.S. government that mandates that interrogations be carried out in a manner consistent with the Army Field Manual.    Establishing an independent nonpartisan commission to examine U.S. interrogation and detention practices.    Once the United States takes these steps, it will be able to regain a position of leadership so badly needed to address human rights calamities unfolding in Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, and elsewhere.    The United States should place human rights issues at the center of its bi-lateral relationships with other countries, with an emphasis on the protection of human rights defenders.    The United States should engage in robust engagement with the U.N. Human Rights Council, which must be the pre-eminent forum for human rights.    Human rights defenders attending the forum were on the one hand daunted by the precipitous deterioration of rights in their countries yet cautiously optimistic by the transformational figure they see in President-elect Obama.    While their experiences are quite different, their calls to the new president resonate with many common themes concerning the promotion and protection of human rights and are summarized in the following report.    They also made very specific proposals for U.S. policy toward their countries that will be incorporated into a full conference report and forwarded to the incoming Obama administration.    "The United States and other governments have expanded executive power at the expense of the legislature and the courts. Experience shows that if checks and balances are not adequate the margin of abuse is high. There is a clear need to protect them, " added U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay, who co-chaired the meeting with President Carter.    The Carter Center forum brought together some of the most effective human rights defenders from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, Israel, Syria, Indonesia, Columbia Brazil, Zimbabwe, Uganda, and Nigeria, as well as leaders of Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, The Constitution Project, International Center for Transitional Justice, Physicians for Human Rights, The Open Society Institute, Center for Victims of Torture, Center for Constitutional Rights, national Religious Campaign against torture, and others.    * Visit the link below for more details. Visit the related web page
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