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.