The US-led war on terror, which has led to charges of torture and inhumane treatment of detainees, is fuelling erosion of human rights across the globe, Human Rights Watch said.
US disregard for basic human rights standards in the name of combating terrorism had triggered a “copy cat phenomenon around the world,” Kenneth Roth, the executive director of the independent US monitor told a media conference while launching an annual report documenting rights issues in 68 nations.
Roth said he had queried Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif last year about the rounding up and alleged torture of suspects following a bomb blast and “he said to me, really without batting an eyelash: ‘What do you want? That is what the United States does.’”
New evidence shows that torture and mistreatment are a deliberate part of the Bush administration’s counterterrorism strategy, hampering Washington’s ability to pressure other states into respecting international rights laws, the New York-based group said in the report.
The Bush administration has a deliberate strategy of abusing terror suspects during interrogations, Human Rights Watch said, basing its conclusions mostly on statements by senior administration officials in the past year, and said President Bush’s reassurances that the United States does not torture suspects were deceptive and rang hollow.
“In 2005 it became disturbingly clear that the abuse of detainees had become a deliberate, central part of the Bush administration’s strategy of interrogating terrorist suspects,” the report said.
On a trip to Europe last month, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told foreign leaders that cruel and degrading interrogation methods were forbidden for all U.S. personnel at home and abroad. She provided little detail, however, about which practices were banned and other specifics.
“There is an enormous problem that when a government as influential as the United States flouts basic human rights standards, it undermines the standards and gives green light to other governments to do the same,” Roth said.
Many countries - Uzbekistan, Russia and China among them - used the war on terror to “attack their political opponents, branding them as Islamic terrorists,” Human Rights Watch said.
It cited Malaysia’s defense of its arbitrary detention law, the Internal Security Act, based on the US example of detaining people indefinitely without trial.
“Malaysia is justifying its Internal Security Act on the basis of Guantanamo and that is, if the United States is detaining people without trial, who are you to protest Malaysia detaining people without trial?,” Roth said.
The controversial US naval base at Guantanamo Bay is a detention center for war on terror prisoners.
Roth said that in respect to US policy, Malaysia had a point but added that “it is important to stress that the United States is not the arbiter of international standards.
“There is international law which everybody should abide by and there is no excuse for Malaysia.”
Roth said the “biggest blind spot” in terms of Washington’s policy towards Asia has been Indonesia, another US anti-terror ally.
He said Washington lifted a congressional ban on military aid to Indonesia even though not a single senior military official had been prosecuted for atrocities in the province of now-independent East Timor.
“There is a sense that because (Indonesian President Susilo Bambang) Yudhoyono is elected that therefore Indonesia’s human rights problem is solved, when, in fact, the president has very little control of military.
“The military continues to largely self finance through its own business activity and it has absolutely blocked efforts to hold military officials accountable,” he said.
“So, it was utterly premature to lift the congressional ban ... but Indonesia is an ally in the fight against terror.”
Pakistan was cited as another example where Washington looked the other way, being a top ally in US counterterrorism efforts.
Roth said President Pervez Musharraf broke his promise to step down as army chief and then came to the United States in September and boasted: “Let me assure you that President Bush never talks about ‘when are you taking your uniform off?’”
There was no US rebuttal over that statement, he said.
“The US, in fact, today rarely speaks in terms of human rights when it addresses the conduct of other governments around the world. It prefers warmer, vaguer, buzzier words like democracy and freedom,” Roth said.
Human Rights Watch said while there was a need for vigorous enforcement of human rights norms by other powerful nations, Britain and Canada compounded the lack of leadership by trying to undermine critical international rights protections.
Britain sought to send suspects to governments likely to torture them based on “meaningless assurances of good treatment” while Canada moved to dilute a new treaty outlawing enforced disappearances, it said.
The European Union continued to subordinate human rights in its relationship with others deemed useful in fighting terrorism, such as Russia, China and Saudi Arabia, it said.
HRW also criticises Britain for its policy of sending foreign terrorist suspects to their native countries where torture is routine.
The Human Rights Watch report usually concentrates on countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, but the prime targets of the latest one are the US and European countries.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Wednesday he had only seen news accounts of the report, but he rejected its conclusions.
Human Rights Watch has criticized the Bush administration’s war against terrorism before, registering concern that abuses in the name of fighting terrorism were unjustified and counterproductive.
In other reports, the group has protested that the Bush administration’s promotion of democracy was applied narrowly and missed allies, such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, that were due criticism.
US disregard for basic human rights standards in the name of combating terrorism had triggered a “copy cat phenomenon around the world,” Kenneth Roth, the executive director of the independent US monitor told a media conference while launching an annual report documenting rights issues in 68 nations.
Roth said he had queried Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif last year about the rounding up and alleged torture of suspects following a bomb blast and “he said to me, really without batting an eyelash: ‘What do you want? That is what the United States does.’”
New evidence shows that torture and mistreatment are a deliberate part of the Bush administration’s counterterrorism strategy, hampering Washington’s ability to pressure other states into respecting international rights laws, the New York-based group said in the report.
The Bush administration has a deliberate strategy of abusing terror suspects during interrogations, Human Rights Watch said, basing its conclusions mostly on statements by senior administration officials in the past year, and said President Bush’s reassurances that the United States does not torture suspects were deceptive and rang hollow.
“In 2005 it became disturbingly clear that the abuse of detainees had become a deliberate, central part of the Bush administration’s strategy of interrogating terrorist suspects,” the report said.
On a trip to Europe last month, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told foreign leaders that cruel and degrading interrogation methods were forbidden for all U.S. personnel at home and abroad. She provided little detail, however, about which practices were banned and other specifics.
“There is an enormous problem that when a government as influential as the United States flouts basic human rights standards, it undermines the standards and gives green light to other governments to do the same,” Roth said.
Many countries - Uzbekistan, Russia and China among them - used the war on terror to “attack their political opponents, branding them as Islamic terrorists,” Human Rights Watch said.
It cited Malaysia’s defense of its arbitrary detention law, the Internal Security Act, based on the US example of detaining people indefinitely without trial.
“Malaysia is justifying its Internal Security Act on the basis of Guantanamo and that is, if the United States is detaining people without trial, who are you to protest Malaysia detaining people without trial?,” Roth said.
The controversial US naval base at Guantanamo Bay is a detention center for war on terror prisoners.
Roth said that in respect to US policy, Malaysia had a point but added that “it is important to stress that the United States is not the arbiter of international standards.
“There is international law which everybody should abide by and there is no excuse for Malaysia.”
Roth said the “biggest blind spot” in terms of Washington’s policy towards Asia has been Indonesia, another US anti-terror ally.
He said Washington lifted a congressional ban on military aid to Indonesia even though not a single senior military official had been prosecuted for atrocities in the province of now-independent East Timor.
“There is a sense that because (Indonesian President Susilo Bambang) Yudhoyono is elected that therefore Indonesia’s human rights problem is solved, when, in fact, the president has very little control of military.
“The military continues to largely self finance through its own business activity and it has absolutely blocked efforts to hold military officials accountable,” he said.
“So, it was utterly premature to lift the congressional ban ... but Indonesia is an ally in the fight against terror.”
Pakistan was cited as another example where Washington looked the other way, being a top ally in US counterterrorism efforts.
Roth said President Pervez Musharraf broke his promise to step down as army chief and then came to the United States in September and boasted: “Let me assure you that President Bush never talks about ‘when are you taking your uniform off?’”
There was no US rebuttal over that statement, he said.
“The US, in fact, today rarely speaks in terms of human rights when it addresses the conduct of other governments around the world. It prefers warmer, vaguer, buzzier words like democracy and freedom,” Roth said.
Human Rights Watch said while there was a need for vigorous enforcement of human rights norms by other powerful nations, Britain and Canada compounded the lack of leadership by trying to undermine critical international rights protections.
Britain sought to send suspects to governments likely to torture them based on “meaningless assurances of good treatment” while Canada moved to dilute a new treaty outlawing enforced disappearances, it said.
The European Union continued to subordinate human rights in its relationship with others deemed useful in fighting terrorism, such as Russia, China and Saudi Arabia, it said.
HRW also criticises Britain for its policy of sending foreign terrorist suspects to their native countries where torture is routine.
The Human Rights Watch report usually concentrates on countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, but the prime targets of the latest one are the US and European countries.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Wednesday he had only seen news accounts of the report, but he rejected its conclusions.
Human Rights Watch has criticized the Bush administration’s war against terrorism before, registering concern that abuses in the name of fighting terrorism were unjustified and counterproductive.
In other reports, the group has protested that the Bush administration’s promotion of democracy was applied narrowly and missed allies, such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, that were due criticism.
