Amnesty: Economic crisis fuels rights "time bomb" (Reuters)

[struggle4progress]

By Adrian Croft

LONDON (Reuters) - The global economic downturn has aggravated human rights violations and distracted attention from abuses, Amnesty International said on Thursday.

The world faced a grave danger that "rising poverty and desperate economic and social conditions could lead to political instability and mass violence," the rights group's secretary-general, Irene Khan, wrote in its annual report.

As governments struggled to resuscitate their economies, human rights were being "relegated to the back seat," she said, calling for a "new global deal on human rights ... to defuse the human rights time bomb".

This new deal was about governments living up to their obligations on human rights, rather than creating new treaties, she told Reuters in an interview ...

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE54R0SW20090528

[Double T]

1. Greed is destroying the human rights of the masses.

We should expect further deterioration of human rights as the world population increases and national economies continue to decline.

[struggle4progress]

2. Amnesty slams G20 over human rights

Amnesty slams G20 over human rights
Doug Conway
May 28, 2009 - 3:19PM

Amnesty International has slammed the world's most powerful G20 countries for their sometimes "horrific" human rights record ...

... the list of human rights abuses in the G20 countries collectively is "depressingly long", Amnesty International says.

The human rights group cites arbitrary detention without charge or trial in 14 of the G20 nations, unfair trials in nine, and torture or grave ill-treatment during interrogation in 15.

Five of the G20 countries - China, Saudi Arabia, the USA, Indonesia and Japan - are also singled out for carrying out 78 per cent of all state executions across the world ...

http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/amnesty-slams-g20-over-human-rights-20090528-bolc.html

[struggle4progress]

3. Amnesty calls Obama's anti-terror record 'mixed'

WASHINGTON (AFP) — ... "On counter-terrorism detention policies ... the record of the new administration has been mixed," the rights group said in its annual report to be released on Thursday.

Highlighting the "widespread expectation of change" brought by Obama's swearing-in in January following eight years of George W. Bush's presidency, Amnesty said "early promise and initial important steps to redress violations have been followed by limited action."

The rights group pointed to positives such as Obama's declaration in January that he would end policies called "enhanced interrogation" techniques by the Bush administration, which critics say amount to torture of detainees, as well as his pledge to close the prison camp on the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

But Amnesty lamented the Obama administration's "limited action towards ensuring detentions are brought into line with the USA?s international obligations," and said that "a lack of accountability and remedy for past human rights violations remains entrenched" ...

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hl3S6axdR1yUXoyGFHiWasm9rKHg

[struggle4progress]

4. Amnesty calls for new deal on human rights (Guardian)

Group urges a new global deal where world leaders "invest in human rights as purposefully as they are investing in the economy"
* Julian Borger
Diplomatic editor
* guardian.co.uk, Thursday 28 May 2009 05.38 BST

... "There has been a lot of attention spent on fixing the economic system, forgetting that there is also a human rights crisis, both linked to that system and aggravated by that system," Irene Khan, Amnesty's secretary general, said.

The global slump is expected to push 53 million more people around the world into poverty.

"Many people are very much on the edge of survival. In most cases, the poorest are also the most marginalised the most discriminated against. Discrimination, together with deprivation, is having a huge impact on the lives of these people," Khan said.

Khan said US president Barack Obama's administration had sent mixed signals on human rights. He had begun well by announcing the closure of the Guantánamo Bay prison camp within a year and publishing internal Bush administration memos on the use of torture ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/28/amnesty-calls-for-new-deal-human-rights