 Amnesty International launched a scathing attack on the United States today, accusing it of trampling on human rights, and using the world as “a giant battlefield” in its War on Terror. The criticism came in Amnesty's 2007 worldwide report, in which the human rights watchdog complained of a return to the geopolitical polarisation of the Cold War era and said that the global agenda was being largely driven by fear. "Like the Cold War times, the agenda is being driven by fear - instigated, encouraged and sustained by unpincipled leaders."
Amnesty International launched a scathing attack on the United States today,
accusing it of trampling on human rights, and using the world as “a giant
battlefield” in its War on Terror.
The criticism came in Amnesty's 2007 worldwide report, in which the human rights
watchdog complained of a return to the geopolitical polarisation of the Cold War
era and said that the global agenda was being largely driven by fear.
"Human rights - those global values, universal principles and common standards
that are meant to unite us - are being bartered away in the name of security,"
wrote Irene Khan, Amnesty's secretary-general, in a foreword to the report.
"Like the Cold War times, the agenda is being driven by fear - instigated,
encouraged and sustained by unpincipled leaders."
Amnesty said that President Bush had invoked the fear of terrorism to bolster
his executive power after the attacks of September 11, 2001, "without
Congressional oversight or judicial scrutiny".
But he was not alone - John Howard, the Australian Prime Minister, was accused
of portraying asylum-seekers as a threat to national security to help secure his
re-election. The Sudanese President, Omar al-Bashir, "whipped up fear among his
supporters and in the Arab world that the deployment of UN peacekeepers in
Darfur would be a pretext for an Iraq-style, US-led invasion".
"Meanwhile," it added, "his armed forces and militia allies continued to kill
rape and plunder with impunity."
The report, focusing on the events of 2006, was highly critical of China, for
its repression of dissent and religious freedom and for its widespread use of
the death penalty. Russia was criticised for its crackdown on journalists, its
failure to tackle racism and discrimination and for grave violations in
Chechnya, where "impunity remained the norm for those who committed human rights
abuses".
But it was Amnesty's criticisms of the United States - far stronger than those
levelled against any other major Western democracy - which will grab most
attention.
"Unfettered discretionary executive power is being purused relentlessly by the
US administration, which treats the world as one big battlefield for its 'war on
terror': kidnapping, arresting, detaining or torturing suspects either directly
or with the help of countries as far apart as Pakistan and Gambia, Afghanistan
and Jordan," Ms Khan said.
"In September 2006, President Bush finally admitted what Amnesty International
has long known - that the CIA had been running secret detention centres in
circumstances that amount to international crimes," she added.
Amnesty said that international investigations had shown that hundreds of people
had been unlawfully transferred by the US and its allies to countries such as
Syria, Jordan and Egypt - out of the reach of legal protection.
"The US administration's double-speak has been breathtakingly shameless. It has
condemned Syria as part of the 'axis of evil', yet it has transferred a Canadia
national, Maher Arar, to the Syrian security forces to be interrogated, knowing
full well that he risked being tortured."
Yet Washington remains deaf to international pleas to shut down its remote
military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where many of those subjected to
'extraordinary rendition' have ended up, held without charge or trial, virtually
incommunicado.
Ms Khan also lambasted the "misguided military adventure in Iraq", where human
rights standards had fallen by the wayside.
“The Iraqi police forces, heavily infiltrated by sectarian militia, are feeding
violations rather than restraining them," she wrote. “The Iraqi justice system
is woefully inadequate, as former president Saddam Hussein’s flawed trial and
grotesque execution confirmed."
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