US falls silent on Malaysia abuses: rights group

[Eugene]

US falls silent on Malaysia abuses: rights group

Tue Sep 27,12:31 PM ET

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - The United States has quietly dropped its
push for major trading partner Malaysia to improve its human rights
record, shamed by its own recent record at Guantanamo Bay, a
U.S.-based rights group said on Wednesday.

Human Rights Watch, in a report condemning Malaysia's detention
without trial of people deemed security threats, quoted an unnamed
U.S. State Department official as saying Washington had quit putting
pressure on Malaysia by the end of 2003.

"With what we're doing in Guantanamo, we're on thin ice to push on
this," the report quoted the senior State Department official as
telling Human Rights Watch in December 2003.

<snip>

This silence is taken by Malaysia as a green light to continue
detaining people indefinitely without charge, it said, citing
eyewitness allegations of ill-treatment of over 25 people in
Malaysia's Kamunting detention center in December 2004.

<snip>

Full article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050927/wl_nm/rights_malaysia_dc