Governments around the world betrayed their commitment to human rights in 2004 by Amnesty International / AFP / BBC News 10:08pm 25th May, 2005   25 May 2005    AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL PRESS RELEASE    Report 2005: A dangerous new agenda    (London) Governments are betraying their promise of a world order based on human rights and are pursuing a dangerous new agenda, said Amnesty International today as it launched its annual assessment of global human rights.    Speaking at the launch of the Amnesty International Report 2005, the organization's Secretary General Irene Khan said that governments had failed to show principled leadership and must be held to account.    "Governments are betraying their promises on human rights. A new agenda is in the making with the language of freedom and justice being used to pursue policies of fear and insecurity. This includes cynical attempts to redefine and sanitise torture," said Irene Khan.    This new agenda, combined with the indifference and paralysis of the international community, failed countless thousands of people in humanitarian crises and forgotten conflicts throughout 2004.    In Darfur, the Sudanese government generated a human rights catastrophe and the international community did too little too late to address the crisis, betraying hundreds of thousands of people.    In Haiti, individuals responsible for serious human rights violations were allowed to regain positions of power. In the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo there was no effective response to the systematic rape of tens of thousands of women, children and even babies. Despite the holding of elections, Afghanistan slipped into a downward spiral of lawlessness and instability. Violence was endemic in Iraq.    At a national level governments betrayed human rights at terrible cost to ordinary people. Russian soldiers reportedly tortured, raped and sexually abused Chechen women with impunity. Zimbabwe's government manipulated food shortages for political reasons.    The betrayal of human rights by governments was accompanied by increasingly horrific acts of terrorism as armed groups stooped to new levels of brutality.    "The televised beheading of captives in Iraq, the taking of over a thousand people hostage including hundreds of children in a school in Beslan and the massacre of hundreds of commuters in Madrid shocked the world. Yet governments are failing to confront their lack of success in addressing terrorism, persisting with failed but politically-convenient strategies. Four years after 9/11, the promise to make the world a safer place remains hollow," said Ms Khan.    The US administration's attempts to dilute the absolute ban on torture through new policies and quasi-management speak such as "environmental manipulation", "stress positions" and "sensory manipulation", was one of the most damaging assaults on global values.    Despite the US administration's repeated use of the language of justice and freedom there was a huge gap between rhetoric and reality. This was starkly illustrated by the failure to conduct a full and independent investigation into the appalling torture and ill-treatment of detainees by US soldiers in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and the failure to hold senior individuals to account.    "The USA, as the unrivalled political, military and economic hyper-power, sets the tone for governmental behaviour worldwide. When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a licence to others to commit abuse with impunity," said Irene Khan.    Many governments showed a shocking contempt for the rule of law. Nigeria granted Charles Taylor, former President of Liberia, refugee status despite his indictment for killings, mutilations and rape. Israel's construction of a barrier inside the occupied West Bank ignored the International Court of Justice opinion that this violated international human rights and humanitarian law. Arbitrary detentions and unfair trials took place under security legislation in a number of countries.    There were also signs of hope in 2004 said Ms Khan.    Legal challenges to the new agenda included US Supreme Court judgements on Guantánamo detainees and the ruling by the UK Law Lords on indefinite detention without charge or trial of "terrorist suspects". Public pressure included the spontaneous turnout of millions of people in Spain protesting against the Madrid bombings, popular uprisings in Georgia and Ukraine and the growing debate on political change in the Middle East.    "Increasingly, the duplicity of governments and the brutality of armed groups are being challenged - by judicial decisions, popular resistance, public pressure and UN reform initiatives. The challenge for the human rights movement is to harness the power of civil society and push governments to deliver on their human rights promises," said Irene Khan.    May 25, 2005. (AFP)    Amnesty slams governments over anti-terror tactics.    Tactics to fight terrorism in Asia, Africa, the Americas and Europe have failed to prevent horrific attacks on civilians, although they have encouraged rampant abuse of human rights, Amnesty International has charged.    Amnesty's annual report skewered governments for adhering stubbornly to "politically convenient" but inefficient tactics in 2004, despite spectacular acts of violence including the Beslan hostage siege in Russia, the Madrid train bombings and the televised beheadings of captives in Iraq.    "Governments are failing to confront their lack of success in addressing terrorism, persisting with failed but politically convenient strategies," the group's secretary-general, Irene Khan, said at the report launch in London.    "Four years after September 11, the promise to make the world a safer place remains hollow."    In its wide-ranging more than 300-page review of 131 countries and five world regions, Amnesty found that the United States, due to its selective disregard for international law and reported abuses of detainees, had sent a "permissive signal to abusive governments".    Many countries used anti-terror rhetoric to justify arbitrary detentions and unfair trials, it said, citing China's arrest of thousands of ethnic Uighurs and similar acts in India, Malaysia, Nepal and Pakistan.    In the central Asian republic of Uzbekistan - the site of a military crackdown 10 days ago - the hardline Government conducted "sweeping arbitrary detentions of hundreds" under the guise of stamping out Islamic extremism, while reports of torture, killings and disappearances abounded in the Russian republic of Chechnya.    In Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the US base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, thousands were held without charge and torture and ill-treatment were widely reported, Amnesty recalled.    But most governments have staunchly refused to accept that their extreme tactics have not stopped insurgent activity, the London-based group said.    "Despite widespread 'counter-terrorist' measures aimed at securing nation states and their citizens, armed groups in many countries launched appalling acts of violence designed to increase levels of insecurity," it said.    Since the September 11 attacks sparked a global anti-terror drive, "the framework of human rights standards has been attacked and undermined by both governments and armed groups."    Russia's no-compromise showdown with Chechen militants has not quelled attacks.    In February, Moscow blamed Chechens for explosions that killed dozens in the Moscow metro.    The Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev claimed two other spectacular strikes - the collision of two passenger planes in central Russia in August, which killed around 90 people, and the September hostage-taking at the Beslan public school in North Ossetia, in which an estimated 350 people died.    In Spain, 191 people were killed and more than 1,600 injured in simultaneous bombings on March 11 commuter trains, allegedly staged by Al-Qaeda militants.    Amnesty argued it was time for a "sober reappraisal" of the world's commitment to human rights, including a rethink of how to combat armed groups without sacrificing universal values.    "Not only is it a moral and legal imperative to observe fundamental human rights all the more stringently in the face of such security threats, in practice it is far more likely to be effective in the long term," it said.    The United Nations and its member states must reaffirm human rights and "acknowledge them as the basis for our common security, not a barrier to it."    25 May, 2005 (BBC News)    Governments around the world betrayed their commitment to human rights in 2004, Amnesty International says.    In a 300-page annual report, the group also accused the US government of damaging human rights over its attitude to torture and treatment of detainees. This encouraged and fuelled abuses by governments in all regions of the world, the human rights advocates said.    The report also criticised the world as a whole for failing to act over crises, notably in Sudan's Darfur region.    Afghanistan was slipping into a "downward spiral of lawlessness and instability", it added.    The report, published on Wednesday, accused governments of adhering stubbornly to "politically convenient" but inefficient tactics in 2004, despite their lack of success.    The televised beheading of captives in Iraq, the bombing of commuter trains in Madrid and the siege at a school in Beslan in Russia showed that "four years after 9/11, the promise to make the world a safer place remains hollow", secretary general Irene Khan said.    In Iraq some of the violence could be blamed on armed groups but the report also blamed US-led coalition forces for "unlawful killings, torture and other violations". .. "Torture and ill-treatment by US-led forces were widely reported," it added.    The report also highlighted the London-based organisation's concerns about:    * A lack of accountability for human rights violations in Haiti and in the Democratic Republic of Congo    * Reported abuses by Russian forces in Chechnya    * New levels of brutality against civilians by armed groups in places like Iraq    * Slow progress in achieving the Millennium Development goals    * Indifference to violence against women    * Lack of a full independent investigation into abuses against detainees in US custody in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.    In its wide-ranging review of 131 countries and five world regions, Amnesty International said the US government's selective disregard for international law and reported abuses of detainees was sending a "permissive signal to abusive governments".    The administration was seeking "to dilute the absolute ban on torture", Ms Khan said.    Many countries used anti-terror rhetoric to justify arbitrary detentions and unfair trials, it said, citing China's arrest of thousands of ethnic Uighurs and similar acts in India, Malaysia, Nepal and Pakistan.    Ms Khan also condemned the United Nations Commission on Human Rights for failing to stand up for those supposedly in its care. "The UN Commission of Human Rights has become a forum for horse-trading on human rights," she said. "Last year the commission dropped Iraq from scrutiny, could not agree on action on Chechnya, Nepal or Zimbabwe and was silent on Guantanamo Bay." Visit the related web page
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