RI's rights record in Aceh, Papua worsens

RI's rights record in Aceh, Papua worsens

Agencies, London

Indonesian authorities intensified repression of independence
movements in Aceh and Papua last year with hundreds of cases of
killings, torture and unlawful arrest, Amnesty International said
Tuesday.

The international rights group, in its annual report, said
police and troops also destroyed houses and means of livelihood
as a form of collective punishment following attacks by
opposition groups on security forces.

Amnesty said no one had been brought to justice for the
massacre in August 2001 of 31 plantation workers and their
families in Aceh, although evidence collected by local rights
monitors suggested the army may have been to blame.

Human rights defenders were increasingly targeted, mainly in
Aceh and Papua.

They were subject to execution, unlawful arrest and torture as
well as threats and harassment by the police and military,
Amnesty said. The Free Aceh Movement, an armed separatist group,
was also guilty of harassing rights monitors.

Elsewhere in the country, Amnesty said excessive force by
police and troops caused deaths or injuries to striking workers
and protesters and in areas of ethnic and religious conflict.

"Impunity continued: there were no credible investigations
into allegations of human rights violations," it said.

Indonesia this year set up a human right court to try cases of
attacks on independence supporters in East Timor in 1999. Pro-
Jakarta militias, organized and armed in some cases by the
Indonesian Army, carried out the attacks.

Amnesty criticized a presidential decree restricting the
court's jurisdiction to just two month in 1999 and said senior
police and military officers who were named as suspects remained
on active service.

According to Amnesty, in general, human rights are facing a
strong challenge from antiterrorism measures rushed through after
the Sept. 11 attacks.

"The universality of human rights is facing the strongest
challenge yet. Double standards and selectivity are becoming the
norm," Amnesty Secretary-General Irene Khan said.

Khan reserved special criticism for the United States and
Britain.

Britain and the U.S. had used Sept. 11 as an excuse to "ride
roughshod" over human rights.

Fears over national security and the drive for an
international coalition against terrorism, with the two countries
at the helm, had led to "hypocrisy, selectivity and double
standards", Khan said.

"They have created a shadow criminal justice system that
deliberately goes around the principles of human rights with
great secrecy and that is very dangerous," she said.

Amnesty said there was sufficient leeway within the existing
criminal justice systems in Britain and the U.S. to deal with any
security threats, and new emergency legislation was unnecessary.

In general, a number of governments had jumped on the "anti-
terrorism" bandwagon and seized the moment to step up repression,
undermine human rights protection and stifle political dissent
after the attacks on New York and Washington.

Measures rushed through by governments included indefinite
detention without trial, special courts based on secret evidence
and cultural and religious restrictions, the report said.

There was also "a greater reluctance by governments to
criticize others' domestic policies".

"Security cannot and must not take precedence over human
rights. The biggest danger to human rights is when political and
economic interests are allowed to drive the human rights agenda,"
Khan said.

In the report Amnesty detailed human rights violations in 152
countries.

It highlighted the "escalation of old and festering situations
such as the Middle East, Afghanistan and Colombia".

The report documents extrajudicial executions in 47 countries,
judicial executions in 27 countries, "disappearances" in 35
countries, torture and ill-treatment in 111 countries and the
holding of prisoners of conscience in at least 56 countries.

Amnesty said the true figures were much higher.

Racism had increased in a climate of suspicion in which
foreigners were portrayed as a source of terrorism, it said.

In Israel and the occupied territories, unlawful killings,
both by the Israel Defense Force and by Palestinian armed groups,
torture of detainees and unfair trials continued unabated, it
said.

Refugees fleeing conflict and abuse had been refused entry
into neighboring countries, and the rights of asylum-seekers had
come under severe attack.

Amnesty highlighted the treatment of detainees on the U.S.
base at Guantanamo Bay and said this appeared "to have prompted
some governments to believe that the inhumane treatment of
prisoners is now acceptable".

The organization also urged a wide interpretation of rights to
take in not only traditional civil and political rights, but also
economic, social and cultural rights.

"As globalization spreads, bringing greater wealth to some and
destitution and despair to others, human rights activists must
promote not just legal justice but also social justice," Khan
said.

"An ethical approach to globalization can mean nothing less
than a rights-based approach to development," Khan said.

The full report in English, French, Arabic and Spanish is
published at http://www.news.amnesty.org.