A report by Amnesty International indicts the U.S. and other nations for pursuing raw power and security in the name of waging a war on terrorism. This narrow pursuit, Amnesty writes in its 2006 annual report, is causing governments to ignore and exacerbate human rights crises across the globe.
"There is no doubt that it (the war on terror) has given a new lease on life to old-fashioned repression," Irene Khan, Amnesty International's secretary general, told a news conference.
The human rights watchdog called on the United Nations to address abuses in Darfur, where violence has killed more than 180,000 people and displaced 2.5 million since 2003. Many of the atrocities are blamed on the so-called Janjaweed, a disparate group of Arab militiamen allegedly backed by the Sudanese government.
"(The United States) has basically mortgaged its moral authority on the streets of Fallujah and Baghdad -- and lost moral authority to speak on this issue," Khan told AP Television News in regard to Darfur.
Amnesty also called for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, and for full disclosure on prisoners implicated elsewhere in the "war on terror." It also asked for the U.N. Human Rights Council to insist on equal standards "whether in Darfur, Guantanamo, Chechnya or China."
"Guantanamo prison camp is an aberration under international law," Khan told AP. "It places people outside the rule of law. And it sends a message to other regimes around the world -- like Egypt or China -- that they too can ignore human rights. They too can lock people up in the name of national security."
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