Posted on 05/31/2005 2:56:32 PM PDT by Cornpone
CAIRO, May 31, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – An international human rights watchdog said on Tuesday, May 31, that the European Union’s awkward anti-terror policies have led to breaches of human rights.
“In surveying the multitude of counter-terrorist initiatives at EU level in the criminal law sphere since 11 September 2001, it is clear that the lack of concrete safeguards is not only leading to breaches of human rights, but has created legal confusion and uncertainty,” Amnesty International said in a new report posted on its Web site.
The London-based group accused European countries of undermining justice through abuse of human rights, warning that this jeopardizes effective cooperation to counter terrorism and puts Europe’s security at risk.
“The European Union has always been clear in asserting that there can be no security without human rights. However, in practice the EU and its Member States are too often prepared to remain silent on breaches of rights protection within or outside the EU,” the report said.
The EU launched a drive against terrorism after the 9/11 attacks and stepped it up after the Madrid train bombings 14 months ago.
Muslim minorities have taken the brunt of the anti-terror measures, which include predawn raids and stop-and-search campaigns, for no reason other than being Muslims.
Just this month, Europe’s main rights and democracy watchdog, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), expressed concern at increasing Dutch intolerance towards Muslims and the “climate of fear” under which the minority was living.
In France, a report by an independent French committee said last month that racist acts by French police have dramatically risen in 2004, particularly against French citizens of North African origin.
A recent report by the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) said that Muslim minorities across Europe have been experiencing growing distrust, hostility and discrimination since the 9/11 attacks.
Legal Safeguards
Amnesty said EU measures such as blacklists for terrorists, a pan-European arrest warrant and its definition of terrorism had led to rights breaches, legal confusion and uncertainty.
It said the 25-member bloc has to do more to ensure meeting international human-rights obligations and provide legal safeguards for people suspected of taking part in terrorism.
The report also recommends that all future agreements with third countries set clear parameters for the respect of human rights that meet the standards that the EU is always preaching.
“There is a general assumption that the human rights of terrorist suspects will be protected within the EU’s own Area of Freedom, Security and Justice, while little attention is given to credible concerns that serious human rights abuses may occur when those suspects are transported to countries outside its borders,” the report said.
The American Human Rights Watch (HRW) said earlier in the month that dozens of alleged “Islamic militants” are shipped and ferried blindfolded from some European countries -- with the help of the US in some cases -- to Egypt, where they are tortured and held incommunicado.
Last week, Amnesty said that human rights were in retreat worldwide because of Washington's so-called war on terror which gave other countries an excuse to roll back the rule of law.
Ping...
I am suspicious though, of what the EU means by 'anti-terror' - the EU can't be trusted!
I understand and appreciate your concern...thanks!
Clueless twits... when will they wake up and realize that all across the world, ISLAM IS A BREACH OF HUMAN RIGHTS!
I have not followed the Amnesty International story much but from what I gather, they claimed the only gulag in the modern world is run by the US.
They should investigate Cuba, North Korea, and China to find political prisoners. Check all them commie nations first.
"ISLAM IS A BREACH OF HUMAN RIGHTS!"
Only if you are not an Islamic male.
The rhetoric of the EU is highly elaborate - it's propaganda is directed at Euroskeptics, and can say the opposite to it's true intentions - the 'constitution' is for example, is designed to hand power over to the State - the reverse of the American Constitution.
As for AI, they are telling the Garda Siochana [Irish police] what to do:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1410993/posts
AI = Artificial Insinuation!!!!
I put together an independent committee in my neighborhood and we issued a report yesterday which said that Muslims are not welcome in our neighborhood, and if they ever come here they will be beheaded. We will scream 'Allah Akbar' as we sever their heads in keeping with the long tradition of 'the religion of peace'.
The IHF stated that Muslims across Europe were experiencing distrust, hostility and discrimination. And the IHF is what? Maybe the IMF should ask the people of Europe where all this distrust and hostility is based. Maybe the people of Europe are like everyone else in a civilized society and they understand the inherent evil in the fanaticism that spawned the attacks against innocent women and children. The people decide and wait for their stupid governments to respond. The EU vote NON should tell us all that the people do not want someone else deciding how they choose to react to Muslim Terrorism. The people want autonomy of the own nation until this international menace is eradicated. Just like us. The people will not trust an EU to protect them just as Americans will never trust the UN to protect us.
The UN should have quit when Esperanto quit.
Muslim women should learn to say "Not now dear, I have a headache." Say it often and say it with conviction and things may change for the better.
You mean Amn. Int. hasn't yet demanded that we burn our Bibles, cast away our crosses, rosaries and crucifixes, and place our fatty necks on the chopping block to be executed at swordpoint?
I'm dismayed at their lack of proactivity - they're really slipping. {/end sarcasm}
A.A.C.
Avowed Infidel enemy of the ArabianArchPaedophiliac
Information for Journalists
Irene Khan - Biography
Irene Zubaida Khan joined Amnesty International as the organization’s seventh Secretary General in August 2001.
Taking the helm in Amnesty International as the first woman, the first Asian and the first Muslim to guide the world’s largest human rights organization, Irene brought a new perspective to the organization. As an individual, she brought experience and enthusiasm for putting people at the heart of policy.
Irene took up the leadership of Amnesty International in its 40th anniversary year as the organization began a process of change and renewal to address the complex nature of contemporary human rights violations, and confronted the challenging developments in the wake of the attacks of 11 September.
In her first year in office, Irene reformed AI’s response to crisis situations, personally leading high level missions to Pakistan during the bombing of Afghanistan, to Israel/Occupied Territories just after the Israeli occupation of Jenin, and to Colombia before the Presidential elections in May 2003. Deeply concerned about violence against women, she called for better protection of women’s human rights in meetings with President Musharraf of Pakistan, President Lahoud of Lebanon and Prime Minister Khaleda Zia of Bangladesh. She has initiated a process of consultations with women activists to design a global campaign by Amnesty International against violence on women.
Irene has been keen to draw attention to hidden human rights violations. In Australia, she drew attention to the plight of asylum seekers in detention. In Burundi, she met with victims of massacres and urged President Buyoya and other parties to the conflict to end the cycle of human rights abuse. In Bulgaria, she led a campaign to end discrimination of those suffering from mental disabilities.
Interested in working directly with people to change their lives, Irene helped to found the development organization, Concern Universal, in 1977, and began her work as a human rights activist with the International Commission of Jurists in 1979.
Irene joined the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 1980, and worked in a variety of positions at Headquarters and in field operations to promote the international protection of refugees. From 1991-95 she was Senior Executive Officer to Mrs. Sadako Ogata, then UN High Commissioner for Refugees. She was appointed as the UNHCR Chief of Mission in India in 1995, the youngest UNHCR country representative at that time, and in 1998 headed the UNHCR Centre for Research and Documentation. She led the UNHCR team in Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia during the Kosovo crisis in 1999, and was appointed Deputy Director of International Protection later that year.
Irene studied law at the University of Manchester and Harvard Law School, specialising in public international law and human rights. She is the recipient of several academic awards, a Ford Foundation Fellowship, and the Pilkington "Woman of the Year" Award 2002.
Public Document
Irene Khan actively participated in the following events:
May 26, 2004 Torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere
In its annual report, titled “Why human rights matter,” Amnesty International says that America's war on terrorism has “made the world a more dangerous place.” This is the consequence of “the US seeking to put itself outside the ambit of judicial scrutiny,” the organization says. Furthermore, “[s]acrificing human rights in the name of security at home, turning a blind eye to abuses abroad, and using pre-emptive military force where and when it chooses, have neither increased security nor ensured liberty,” the report adds. Practicing and apparently condoning torture, according to Amnesty International's Secretary General Irene Khan, has resulted in the US having “lost its high moral ground and its ability to lead on peace and elsewhere.” The practice of violating human rights and the war in Iraq is believed to have a broader influence than on the immediate victims. “The war in Iraq,” the report says, “has diverted global attention from other human rights abuses around the world.” [BBC, 5/26/2004 Sources: ACLU et al. v. Department of Defense et al., 7/6/2004]
People and organizations involved: Amnesty International, Irene Khan
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/
I didn't notice those bits where she mobilised A.I.'s resources to combat the multitudinous worldwide human rights abuses by Islam. I must have just missed her coming to the aid of the 19 women killed in Islamic "honour killings" in 2004. Or the documented case of the woman whose brother-in-law doused her with lighter fluid and set her ablaze for becoming pregnant...or the tens of thousands of Sudanese Christian women raped, killed and otherwise brutalised by muslim militia - many of whom weren't even themselves Sudanese...
Damnit, Fred...did I miss all those good deeds?
Or did peerless leader, Irene Khan?!
In the immortal words of Gilda Radner's 'Rosanne Rosanna-Danna' character, "Nevermind."
A.A.C.
"Avowed Infidel enemy of the ArabianArchPaedophile"
Indeed...
Nice catch Fred, I had no idea who was leading this group of whining fifth column maroons (like I cared), but their role in perpetuating the myth of the "Jenin massacre" (Palestinian hoax), and their support for the terrorist sympathizing, weapons tunnel protecting "St Pancake" (aka "Rachel Corrie"), and the Gitmo Jihadis, still ticks me off...
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