TOGO REJECTS ABUSE REPORT

A PARLIAMENTARY leader in the west African state of Togo says an international report detailing widespread human rights abuses in the country is both biased and untrue. He also said the report would have no effect on the country’s government. The report said there had been “systematic abuses of human rights” following an election in Togo in 1998. It was drawn up by a commission of inquiry created in June 2000 by the UN and the OAU, after the London-based Amnesty International said several hundred people had been killed by Togolese security forces and their bodies thrown into the sea. – AFP