In their
latest annual report on the state of global human rights, Human
Rights Watch says that US support for torture severely undermines human
rights worldwide: (quotes:)
- Abusive interrogation cannot be reduced to the misdeeds of a few
low-ranking soldiers, but was a conscious policy choice by senior U.S.
government officials. - Britain sought to send suspects to governments likely to torture
them based on meaningless assurances of good treatment. - Canada sought to dilute a new treaty outlawing enforced
disappearances. - EU continued to degrade human rights in its relationships with
Russia, China and Saudi Arabia. - Uzbekistan, Russia and China used the ‘war on terrorism” to
attack their political opponents. - Severe repression continued in Burma, North Korea, Turkmenistan,
and Tibet and Xinjiang in China, while Syria and Vietnam maintained
tight restrictions on civil society and Zimbabwe conducted massive,
politically motivated forced evictions.
The good news:
- Efforts to uphold human rights by the Western powers in Burma and
North Korea. - India suspended most military aid to Nepal after the king's coup
- Association of Southeast Asian Nations forced Burma to relinquish
its 2006 chairmanship because of its appalling human rights record - Mexico took the lead in convincing the United Nations to maintain
a special rapporteur on protecting human rights while countering
terrorism - Kyrgyzstan withstood intense pressure from Uzbekistan to rescue
all but four of 443 refugees from the Andijan massacre, and Romania
gave them temporary refuge.
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