Amnesty sees 2012 as second bleak year for human rights
Regime change in Mideast hasn’t put an end to violence and repression, report says
The Media Line
More than a year after the Arab Spring first erupted, the state of human rights in the region has shown few signs of improving, and 2012 looks to be shaping up into another year of repression and state violence, Amnesty International said on Monday.
The London-based human rights organization despaired at the extent to which governments in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), even those that have ostensibly replaced repressive regimes, employed “extreme violence” against their own people.
Neither the old regimes that have survived nor the new governments that have emerged in some countries recognize how much the political landscape has changed over the year, said James Lynch, Amnesty’s spokesman.
“One of our findings is that many governments in the region haven’t grasped the scale of the challenge and demands they are faced with. Many of them are trying to offer piecemeal reform or to roll back the gains that have been made, such as in Egypt,” Lynch told The Media Line. “Others are just engaging in brutal repression. Survival of the regime in many cases remains the ultimate goal.”
In an 80-page report, “Year of Rebellion: State of Human Rights in the Middle East and North Africa,” the organization offers a long wish list of human rights initiatives it said must be undertaken this year. They include independent and impartial investigations of abuses under old regimes, reform of their security forces and justice systems, and human rights training for police and army personnel.
It also called on governments outside the region to examine their sale of arms to Mena-area governments.
“As the year drew to a close, some arms supplying states wanted to resume business as usual with these countries, despite the lack of evidence of a clear process for change, real reform of the security apparatus and an end to impunity,” Amnesty said.
Rebellions against regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain took close to 1,200 lives; in Libya, causalities reached into uncounted thousands. Ongoing fighting in Syria cost another 5,000 lives, while in Yemen, 200 protesters were killed and untold hundreds died in fighting. Violence and political repression continues, albeit on a smaller scale, even in countries where new governments have come to power.
In Egypt, since the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) took over from ousted president Hosni Mubarak, some 70 people have been killed in two major assaults on protesters in October and November. While Amnesty praised SAF for disbanding the security police, allowing more political parties and recognizing independent trade unions, it criticized the generals for expanding the powers of the hated Emergency Laws, tightening restrictions on the media and convicting some 12,000 civilians in military courts.
In Libya, freedom of expression has improved and an August constitutional declaration enshrines basic rights, even if those commitments remain untested. However, armed militias continued to operate with impunity, holding prisoners and engaging in extrajudicial executions.
But Syria was the most serious violator of human rights, the report said, citing abuses ranging from a ban on foreign media in the country, to 190 people dying in custody and hospital patients being abused and beaten. Syrian President Bashar Assad undertook some reforms, but Amnesty dismissed them as having no evident effect on the crackdown.
“The level and gravity of the human rights violations committed in Syria in 2011 signaled not just a dramatic deterioration in the human rights situation, but also amounted to crimes against humanity. The abuses were part of a widespread and systematic attack against civilians, carried out deliberately as state policy and in an organized manner,” the report said.
One relative bright spot was Tunisia, which has seen relatively little violence since Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was forced into exile and which has moved quickly to elect an interim government.
While security forces have continued to use violence against protesters and the state of emergency was renewed in August, restrictions have been lifted on the media, political parties once banned have been legalized, and the judicial system was given greater independence, Amnesty noted.
Amnesty faulted international and regional organizations such as the United Nations, the Arab League and the European Union for being inconsistent in making human rights demands of Mena-region leaders.
Backed by the UN, NATO countries intervened militarily in Libya to help bring down the regime of Muammar Gaddafi. But in Syria, Russia and China blocked more serious action by the Security Council. While the Arab League suspended Libya and Syria and sent a team of observers, it remained quiet when Saudi troops helped the Bahraini government to crush opposition protests.
Nevertheless, Amnesty said that on the whole, attitudes had changed for the better.
“The demonstrations and protests – their resilience and determination – have changed the context,” said Lynch. “In the past you might have had some international bodies or allies of states in the region accepting a degree of internal repression in the name of security.... The old excuses, the old reasons given for not taking action are no longer seen as acceptable.”
Amnesty held back from making any comments on the Islamist parties that have come to power in Tunisia and have led Egyptian elections by wide margins. In a question-andanswer page accompanying the report, the organization said it was “disappointed” that Islamist parties in Egypt and Tunisia had declined to sign on to a human rights pledge it had written.
“We cannot speculate on what any political group will do in government,” the organization said in the Q&A. “We expect them to introduce and sustain fundamental human rights reforms, including introducing legal provisions to protect women from discrimination and gender-based violence.”