US Rights Report Glosses Over Terror War Abuses

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0308-02.htm

US Rights Report Glosses Over Terror War Abuses
by Eli Clifton

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U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice speaks at the release of the 2006 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices at the State Department in Washington, March 6, 2007. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
The report starts with an admission that actions taken by the U.S. in the "Global War on Terror" have taken a toll on the United States' reputation as a proponent of the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

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"While Amnesty International welcomes the reports' emphasis on accountability, until the United States changes its own policies of holding detainees indefinitely, in secret prisons and without basic rights, it cannot credibly be viewed as a world human rights leader," said Amnesty International USA executive director Larry Cox, in a press release. "Human rights abuses must not be hidden behind a façade of national security rhetoric."

Criticisms of countries' treatment of prisoners and interrogation techniques do raise questions about the U.S.'s own treatment of prisoners and detainees. "There is a disconnect between the words of the report and America's actions in the world," Tom Malinowski, the Washington director of Human Rights Watch, told IPS.

"Today's reports provide useful data that should be factored into foreign policy decisions," said Cox. "However, if the Bush administration persists in allowing other considerations to trump human rights concerns, the real-world impact of these reports will be greatly diminished."

Countries that have made dramatic steps backwards in both human rights and democratic government included: Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and East Timor.

The world's most systematic human rights abusers, according to the State Department, continue to be those states where power remains concentrated in the hands of "unaccountable rulers."

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