Fears stoked by the post-9/11 ”war on terror” are increasingly dividing the world, Amnesty International said on Wednesday, while rapping rights abuses from China to Darfur and Russia to the Middle East.
The gap between Muslims and non-Muslims notably deepened, fuelled by discriminatory counter-terrorism strategies in Western countries, warned the rights group in its annual report.
Human rights are also routinely flouted in Iraq and Afghanistan, on the front line of the United States-led crackdown on international extremism since the September 11 2001 attacks, which triggered a profound geopolitical shift.
”The politics of fear are fuelling a downward spiral of human rights abuse in which no right is sacrosanct and no person safe,” said Amnesty International chief Irene Kahn.
”The ‘war on terror’ and the war in Iraq, with their catalogue of human rights abuses, have created deep divisions that cast a shadow on international relations”, making it harder to resolve conflicts and protect civilians.
The 320-page report, covering rights abuses worldwide in 2006, focused particular attention on violence against women, as well as torture, terror and the death penalty, which Amnesty fiercely opposes.
While noting that 144 states have ratified the United Nations Convention Against Torture, it documented abuse and ill-treatment by security forces in 102 states worldwide.
The US detention camp at Guantánamo Bay came in for particular criticism: Amnesty said 400 detainees from more than 30 countries are still held in what it called ”the public symbol of the injustices in the ‘war on terror”’.
As for violence against women, it said one in three women is subjected to intimate abuse by a partner during their lifetime, while 70% of casualties in recent conflicts are civilians — mostly women and children.
Regional conflicts around the globe provide the context for much of the abuse documented in the report.
Sudan’s Darfur region is near the top of areas for particular concern.
”Darfur is a bleeding wound on world conscience,” said its authors, adding that the UN Security Council ”is hampered by distrust and double-dealing of its most powerful members”.
Last year’s war between Israel and Lebanon brought shame on the international community, with the UN taking ”weeks … to muster the will to call for a ceasefire” in a conflict that saw 1 200 civilians killed.
In Iraq ”the worst practices of the Saddam [Hussein] regime — torture, unfair trials, capital punishment and rape with impunity — remained very much alive” last year, it said.
Russia has seen ”widespread” hate crimes against foreigners”.
Elsewhere the report condemned clampdowns on human rights defenders in China, Zimbabwe and Iran, ”repression” in Egypt and a ”potential threat” to free speech in the form of new counter-terrorism laws in Britain.
Specifically, the report identified ”an arc of instability” extending from the borders of Pakistan to the Horn of Africa, where armed groups were flexing their muscles.
”Unless governments address the grievances on which these groups feed, unless they provide effective leadership to bring these groups to account … the prognosis for human rights is dire,” said Khan.
But the US-led ”war on terror” provided an over-arching theme of the report’s criticism.
”Five years after 9/11, new evidence came to light in 2006 of the way in which the US administration treated the world as one giant battlefield for its ‘war on terror’,” said Khan, singling out ”extraordinary renditions” that also implicated countries including Italy, Pakistan, Germany and Kenya.
”Ill-conceived counter-terrorism strategies have done little to reduce the threat of violence or ensure justice for victims of terrorism but much to damage human rights and the rule of law globally,” she added. — Sapa-AFP