US leadership in promoting human rights will be vital, Human Rights Watch said, because at present the most energetic and organized diplomacy addressing human rights is negative – conducted by nations trying to avoid scrutiny of their own and their allies’ abuses. And the human rights crisis in Gaza, where hundreds of civilians have been killed in fighting between Israel and Hamas, underscores the need for concerted international attention to the rights abuses that plague today’s armed conflicts, Human Rights Watch said.
“For the first time in nearly a decade, the US has a chance to regain its global credibility by turning the page on the abusive policies of the Bush administration,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “And not a moment too late. Today, the most energetic diplomacy on human rights comes from such places as Algiers, Cairo, and Islamabad, with backing from Beijing and Moscow, but these ‘spoilers’ are pushing in the wrong direction.”
The 564-page World Report 2009, Human Rights Watch’s 19th annual review of human rights practices around the globe, summarizes major human rights issues in more than 90 countries, reflecting the extensive investigative work carried out in 2008 by Human Rights Watch staff.
The report documents ongoing human rights abuses by states and non-state armed groups across the globe, including attacks on civilians in conflicts in Afghanistan, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Georgia, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Somalia, Sri Lanka, and Sudan, and political repression in countries such as Burma, the People´s Republic of China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, and Zimbabwe. It also highlights violations by governments trying to curb terrorism, including in France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The report also addresses abuses against women, children, refugees, workers, gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people, among others.
The introductory essay by Roth outlines steps the United States and other governments that purport to support human rights should take if they want to reclaim the initiative for human rights from the “spoiler” nations that today so aggressively and effectively oppose them.
“As a vital first step, Barack Obama and his team should radically rethink how they fight terrorism,” Roth said. “It’s not only wrong but ineffectual to commit abuses in the name of fighting terrorism or to excuse abuses by repressive governments simply because they’re thought to be allies in countering terror.”
