Amnesty Says Governments Aid Rights Abuses

Powerful governments and political expediency are helping to perpetuate torture, war crimes and other human rights abuses around the world, Amnesty International said Thursday in its annual report.

“Too many perpetrators are getting away with some of the worst crimes known to humanity,” said Claudio Cordone, the interim secretary general of the organization.

Governments were among the worst of the offenders, according to the group’s 2010 report, which surveyed conditions in 159 countries last year. People were tortured in 111 nations, Amnesty International reported, as “human rights abusers enjoyed impunity for torture in at least 61 countries.”

The report sharply criticized some of the world’s largest and most powerful nations for not fully signing up to the International Criminal Court — notably the United States, China, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Russia.

So far, 111 nations have signed onto the court, leaving 81 non-signees, including 7 of the Group 0f 20 leading industrial powers. By refusing to join, Mr. Cordone said, “they undermine the court.”

Cases brought before the court, he added, are increasingly being “seen for what they are: serious crimes to be investigated and prosecuted, as opposed to political issues to be resolved through diplomatic channels.”

The Amnesty report applauded the court for issuing an arrest warrant for the Sudanese president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, charging him with war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Darfur region. It was the first warrant issued for a sitting president.

But the report said the refusal of the African Union to cooperate with the court on Darfur was “a stark example of governmental failure to put justice before politics.”