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Amnesty: World must act on rights

May 28 2008

Amnesty: World must act on rights

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CULTURE

By Agencies

Irene Khan, general-secretary of Amnesty, urged the next US president to close Guantanamo Bay [EPA]

Amnesty International, a human rights group, has said that 60 years after world leaders signed the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, their record on the issue is dismal and that urgent action is needed to prevent global chaos.

In its annual report, Amnesty said: "There is a growing demand from people for justice, freedom and equality."

The London-based organisation called on several world powers, including the United States, China and the European Union to set an example on the issue.

Amnesty challenged the countries "to set a new paradigm for collective leadership based on the principles of the [declaration]".

'Moral compass'

The report, published on Wednesday, said the US had failed to take a moral lead for its international peers to follow.

This year it criticised Washington for supporting Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president, when he imposed a state of emergency, imposed media restrictions and sacked judges.

The report said: "As the world's most powerful state, the USA sets the standard for government behaviour globally. [The US] has distinguished itself in recent years through its defiance of international law."

As in the past, the US detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was criticised by Amnesty.

Irene Khan, Amnesty's secretary-general, urged the next US president, due to be elected in November, to announce Guantanamo's closure on December 10, 2008, the 60th anniversary of the UN declaration.

The US state department made no immediate comment on the report, but it has previously complained that the group uses the US as "a convenient ideological punching bag".

Activists presecuted

The report also criticised China's record on human rights, saying the Chinese government continues to persecute human rights activists.

It said Beijing had continued shipping weapons to Sudan in defiance of a UN arms embargo and was trading with countries accused of rights abuses, such as Myanmar and Zimbabwe.

Amnesty said China continued to persecute human rights activists [AFP]

It noted that what it called China's suppressive media censorship remains in place.

Amnesty also accused China of expanding its "re-education through labour" programme, which allows the government to arrest people and sentence them to manual labour without trial.

But the report said that it had detected a shift in China's position.

It pointed out that in 2007, the country persuaded the Sudanese government to allow UN peacekeepers into Darfur and pressured Myanmar to accept the visit of a UN special envoy.

Khan said: "China is clearly a global power... With that comes global responsibility for human rights. It needs to recognise that economic growth is not enough."

China has rejected previous such reports and says its human rights record has improved in recent years.

Europe warned

With regard to Russia, Amnesty expressed concern about human rights in the country, emphasising a rise iin race discrimination.

The group said that the right to freedom of assemblies and associations had come "under a lot of pressure" over the last couple of years.

The report also said the European Union must investigate its member states' alleged involvement in "extraordinary renditions" of terror suspects.

The EU should set the same bar on human rights for its own members as it does for other countries, Amnesty said.

The organisation said that people across the world are still tortured or ill-treated in at least 81 countries, that men and women face unfair trials in at least 54 countries and that they are denied free speech in at least 77.