gelatik
29.05.02, 22:42
WASHINGTON, May 29 – Human rights violations committed by the U.S. in actions
taken after September 11 undermine the credibility and leadership of
the “superpower,” according to a world report released Tuesday, May 28, by
Amnesty International.
Of the 152 countries covered by the 2002 Annual Report – released 41 years to
the day of Amnesty’s founding – the U.S., along with many other countries, was
found to have taken actions in the name of security that weakened its own
foreign policy.
“Citizens around the world suffer the consequences when the U.S. defaults on
its responsibility to promote human rights,” Amnesty’s U.S. executive director
William Schulz said in a press release anticipating the report last week.
"How can we pressure the Saudis to extradite Idi Amin when the U.S. government
fails to prosecute or extradite known torturers on American soil?,” Shulz
said. “How can the U.S. condemn Russia's violations of the Geneva Conventions
in Chechnya after selectively applying them to detainees in Guantanamo Bay?”
After the deadly terrorist attacks on September 11, Amnesty was one of many
human rights organizations and other activist groups that urged the U.S.
government to avoid trampling human rights and civil liberties in its quest for
justice at home and abroad, and to maintain uncompromising standards of human
rights with respect to other governments that also cracked down on their own
populations in the name of “security.”
Amnesty’s concerns since then, and since the U.S. bombing campaign of
Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, have ranged from violating international
humanitarian law in the military campaign to specific violations of the Geneva
Conventions in the treatment of Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners in Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba.
Specific U.S. actions named in the report include “widespread detention of
foreigners post-September 11; use of the death penalty; failure to prosecute
known torturers seeking safe haven in the US; pending use of military
tribunals; export of torture devices; exceptionalism to international treaties;
mistreatment of asylum-seekers; and selective recognition of Geneva Conventions
protections.”
Each of these, Amnesty contends, limits the U.S. ability to criticize other
countries for similar practices.
"The U.S. government fails to understand that human rights are far from an
impediment to national security - they are the foundation," Schulz said in the
press release. "By sacrificing human rights in the name of national security,
the U.S. government loses the moral authority to criticize blatant
transgressions by allies who usually are responsive to U.S. pressure on human
rights.”
Amidst other concerns about the use of the death penalty and conditions in U.S.
prisons, the report’s U.S. section focused on the aftermath of September 11,
specifically regarding the passage of anti-terror legislation that enhanced
executive and federal powers, the detention of more than 1,200 non-citizens
after the attacks, the authorization of secret military tribunals to try
foreign terrorism suspects and possible violations of international law during
the Afghanistan campaign.
The 300-page report details many other problems in other parts of the world as
well, but the overriding theme laid out in the foreword, written by Amnesty’s
Secretary General Irene Khan, is a warning not to trade in human rights for
security in the worldwide rush to combat terrorism after September 11.
“We must reject the subjective yardstick of terrorism’, by which states condemn
the violence of their opponents and condone that of their allies,” Khan
said. “No cause can justify the abuse of human rights, regardless of whether
the abuses are committed by a government, an armed political group,
international criminals or people acting in the name of religion.”
She insisted that human rights are a key rather than an obstacle to achieving
peace and security, and that the examples provided in the report of the
sacrifice of human rights for security prove that such a sacrifice will never
provide security.
“The challenge to states therefore is not security versus human rights, but
rather to ensure respect for the full range of human rights,” she said. “There
can be no trade-off between human rights and security, between justice and
impunity.
“A human rights approach – an approach which puts the security of people,
rather than states, first - may seem more difficult at first glance, but in
these troubled times it is the only one that offers any real hope for the way
forward.”
