In a 300-page annual report released today, Amnesty International state that human rights are in retreat worldwide and that the United States bears most responsibility.
All over the world governments are increasingly rolling back the rule of law, taking their cue from the U.S.-led war on terror, the report said.
“The USA as the unrivalled political, military and economic hyper-power sets the tone for governmental behavior worldwide,” Secretary General Irene Khan said in the foreword to Amnesty International’s 2005 annual report.
“When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a licence to others to commit abuse with impunity,” she said.
“The detention facility at Guantanamo Bay has become the gulag of our times, entrenching the practice of arbitrary and indefinite detention in violation of international law,” Khan said.
She also noted Washington’s attempts to re-define torture, circumvent its own ban on the use of it as well as restrict the application of the Geneva convention.
The report also accused Israel of committing abuses that constitute crimes against humanity and war crimes.
It criticised the Israeli use of Palestinians as human shields, extra-judicial killings, systematic house demolitions, torture, collective punishment and closures and deliberate killing of civilians.
Some 700 Palestinians were killed by Israeli occupying forces last year alone, an increase from the previous year’s figure of 600, according to the report. About 150 of these were children, many killed deliberately and unlawfully.
[More: Amnesty International, CNN, BBC News, Al Jazeera]
A very important and fair report, that I hope would help improve the conditions of prisoners and civilians in the 2 mentioned countries as well as other countries suffering under their occupation.
I loved Irene Khan’s note: “”When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a licence to others to commit abuse with impunity”, it’s just perfect!
Sad but true. With the US redefining what torture is, who is going to stay with the more constraining old definition. If you do not get permanent invalidity from what they are doing to you it’s just fine now… Oh and that way they actually manage to kill people in detention.
I’m not going to say Israel is any better, but there are differences with the US, Israel hasn’t really changed its policy in years in opposition to the US, and Israel is at a war for a while on their land (and the land of others but within a few kilometers from their own land). On the reverse the US used the first excuse (ok a real one) to bring war as far from their country as they could.
So Israel has been pretty bad at respecting human rights for a while, and now that the US are getting in the torture train, who’s going to push in the right direction ? There isn’t much (super)power left on the side that defends the humans rights, besides maybe old Europe but so weakly…