Amnesty Says Abuse Flourishes

ONDON -- The governments of scores of countries imprison, torture and kill their political opponents while the United Nations fails to act, Amnesty International said in an annual report published Thursday. Country by country, the London-based human rights watchdog chronicled a world in which many governments suppress their citizens from the cradle to the often-premature grave. Governments in European countries -- former Yugoslavia in particular but also the ex-Soviet republics -- were criticized for failing to ease the plights of refugees displaced by civil wars.Regimes in Africa, South and Central America, the Middle East and Asia figured prominently in denying their citizens the right to dissent or democracy. The 352-page survey criticized the human-rights records of 151 countries, including the United States for the execution of 38 death-row inmates in 1993."There was a lot of official talk about human rights in 1993. ... But even as" UN representatives "were making worthy declarations, the people at the sharp end -- the activists who daily defend human rights -- were being threatened, imprisoned, tortured and gunned down," the report said in its introduction. The group called for the release of political prisoners, the end to death penalties for criminal offenses, and explanations for the "disappearances" of civilians and political activists worldwide. The report listed that in 1993: ?Sixty-three countries imprisoned political opponents; ?More than 100,000 people were jailed without charge or trial in 53 countries; ?At least 112 governments tortured or abused their civilians; ?About 2,000 prisoners were executed in 32 countries, and more than 8,200 others waited on death rows; ?Politically motivated killings claimed the lives of more than 10,000 people in 62 countries, mostly in Africa. Focusing on Europe, the report said,"Violent internal conflicts and civil wars led to political killings, 'disappearances' and other abuses."The former Yugoslavia topped the list of places making headlines for human rights problems. "All three sides in the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina killed unarmed civilians; hundreds of men, women and children were mercilessly slaughtered," the report said. "At least 15,000 people, many of them prisoners of conscience, were held in detention camps, often in appalling conditions."Amnesty pointed to other, less-publicized conflicts in places like the former Soviet republics of Tajikistan and Georgia, especially the Abkhazia region, and said disappearances, torture and executions without trial were reported. But legitimate governments and those appointed to keep the peace contributed to abuses also, it said. "In many European countries, from France, Germany and Italy to Bulgaria, Romania and Yugoslavia, racist ill-treatment by police was a growing problem. Governments throughout the region proved unwilling to deal firmly with their own law-enforcement personnel, creating a climate of impunity in which racist assaults persisted and spread," the report said. Turning to Asia, the report said, "Torture and ill-treatment of political detainees, peaceful protesters and criminal suspects was common in 19 Asian countries, including China and Indonesia." It said China killed an estimated 1,400 suspected criminals last year. In India, the group said security forces held political prisoners without trial and routinely tortured them. Elsewhere, the group criticized human-rights abuses meted out by both government and opposition forces. The section on Israel and the occupied territories blamed Israeli authorities for continuing to torture and ill-treat Palestinians during interrogation. "Common methods included beatings, hooding with dirty sacks, sleep deprivation, solitary confinement and prolonged shackling to a small chair," it said. Israel denied the allegations. The report also criticized armed Palestinians for committing "grave human rights abuses, including torture and deliberate and arbitrary killings."The report did not assess the recent bloodletting in Rwanda, where an estimated 200,000 to 500,000 people have been slain in three months of civil war. But Amnesty International deputy director Derek Evans said the organization has reported four times on political massacres in Rwanda and neighboring Burundi since the early 1960s. For the first time Northern Ireland's paramilitary groups -- the IRA and pro-British "loyalist" gangs -- earned more space than British soldiers and police.