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Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 06:13:04 -0700
From: Monique J Lemaitre <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED],
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: IPS/ Amnesty International Puts U.S. on List of Violators
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Commandante Null wrote:
>
> Human Rights: Amnesty International Puts U.S. on List of Violators
>
> Inter Press Service 23-MAR-99
>
> GENEVA, (Mar. 22) IPS - Amnesty International caused a stir among human
> rights circles today by including the United States on its list of
> persistent human rights violators, and excluding China and Cuba.
>
> Amnesty's list was made public today, the opening day of the annual
> sessions of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
>
> Amnesty International Secretary-General Pierre Sane said that during the
> current period of sessions, to run through Apr. 30, his organization would
> highlight the cases of Algeria, Cambodia, Turkey, and the Great Lakes
> region of Africa, along with the United States.
>
> In the United States, "a persistent and widespread pattern of human rights
> violations appears to disproportionately affect people of racial or ethnic
> minority backgrounds," Sane told a news briefing in Geneva today.
>
> He added that "the United States of America, despite its claims to
> international leadership in the field of human rights and its many
> institutions to protect individual civil liberties, is failing to deliver
> the fundamental promise of rights for all."
>
> Mistreatment in detention and police brutality are common throughout the
> country, he pointed out. And asylum-seekers are increasingly arrested
> without judicial review, and are frequently held in jails with criminals.
>
> The number of women arrested has also increased, and female inmates are not
> exempt from the violence in U.S. prisons, said Sane.
>
> The application of the death penalty, meanwhile, fails to meet minimum
> international standards, said Amnesty, which demanded that the Commission
> on Human Rights urge that the United States declare an immediate moratorium
> on executions, with a view to totally abolishing capital punishment.
>
> In spite of the exclusion of China from the list of the worst human rights
> violators, Amnesty called on the Commission to express concern over the
> widespread rights violations which continue in China "despite the
> government's expressed commitment to the realization of all human rights."
>
> The report drawn up by Amnesty for the 1999 session of the Commission on
> Human Rights left out any reference to the situation in Cuba, which last
> year drummed up the votes needed in order to be left off this year's
> agenda. The document refers, however, to violations committed in Indonesia
> and East Timor, as well as Colombia, Mexico, Russia and Saudi Arabia.
>
> At the inauguration of the Commission's sessions, U.N. High Commissioner
> for Human Rights Mary Robinson called for greater emphasis on prevention
> and protection in a world where armed conflicts "are so grave in their
> effects, and so vast in their scale, that they create a sense of
> powerlessness."
>
> She underlined that 90 percent of the victims of armed conflicts -- civil
> wars or fighting between states -- were civilians.
>
> The Commission's rotating chair was occupied by Irish Ambassador Anne
> Anderson, who succeeded South Africa's Jacob Selebi.
>
> The Bureau will also be comprised of vice-presidents Shambu Ram Simkhada of
> Nepal, Romans Baumanis of Latvia, and Luis Alberto Padilla of Guatemala.
> Raouf Catty of Tunisia will act as rapporteur.
>
> The Commission began today to discuss the most serious rights abuses
> committed in the world today, as well as proposed reforms of the Commission
> itself.
>
> Selebi, who sponsored the reforms designed to depoliticize the Commission,
> underlined that debate on the proposed reforms should not eclipse
> assessment of the most serious violations.
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> NPC Information Associates
> "Intelligence for the Underdog!"
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 770-457-6758
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