13 - 19 December 2001
Issue No.564
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 13 - 19 December 2001 Issue No.564 |
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Rituals of immolation
Bahiyeddin Hassan * argues that human rights are the principal victims of the war on terror
On 11 September, war was declared on human rights. Three months after the event, on World Human Rights Day, the war continues. The second round may take place in Somalia, according to the Observer. Then again, the next victim may be Iraq, as a number of US officials suggested last week. Meanwhile, the European Union is discussing a new anti-terrorism bill that, if passed, will entail violating the European Convention on Human Rights.
In Milan, racist demonstrations are being held to demand the expulsion of Arabs and Muslims. In India, the government has prepared a new law, under the pretext of combating terrorism, that gives the security forces a free hand in assaulting civil liberties and the freedom of the press. And the Afghan refugees continue to suffer as the frosts draw in.
In the Arab world, a number of governments jumped on the bandwagon, stepping up their oppression of moderate Islamist groups and suspected members of armed Islamist groups. Newspapers are being censored, members of parliament and opposition leaders prosecuted. It was Israel, however, that first seized the opportunity. Describing Arafat as Bin Laden, Sharon has launched the cruelest of Israel's brutal campaigns against the Palestinian people, to a deafening silence. The sound of gunfire has drowned out the victims' screams of agony -- even within the US. Kenneth Roth, director of the New York-based organisation Human Rights Watch, says: "It is easy to promote human rights when nothing is at stake. My feeling is that it is at moments of crisis like this, in times of a national security threat, that our voice is the most unpopular, and also the most important."
The anti-terrorism legislation passed in the US is harsher than laws in many Third World states. The Department of Defence can now hold secret military trials to prosecute civilians merely on the basis of their nationality. No one knows the identity of the men rounded up since 11 September. They have not been allowed to see lawyers -- a serious breach of the US Constitution.
These men, of course, are either recent immigrants or are not Americans. The bill President Bush signed into law on 26 October, however, expands the government's ability to spy on its own citizens too. Investigations, once slowed by federal search warrants, are now unfettered by even minimal checks and balances.
The vice-president of the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee told Al-Quds newspaper that these anti-terror measures would marginalise the judiciary, creating an imbalance with the other two branches of government. Still, most Americans -- not to mention lobbies promoting the interests of other nations -- are demanding that the government place national security requirements before civil rights and freedoms, as if the two considerations were mutually exclusive. Security bodies have taken advantage of this climate to expand and intensify their authority, moving into fields that have been closed to them historically.
The US attorney-general responded to the outcry by US human rights groups by resorting to a lexicon with which Third World interior ministers are familiar. He questioned the intentions of those who criticise US domestic policy, warning that they were encouraging terrorism.
It is only natural, then, that the US administration would be keen to cover up the war crimes committed by the Northern Alliance, and in which the complicity -- not to say cooperation -- of US troops is well documented.
The media, too, are trumpeting the administration's cause (again, in the manner to which their Third World counterparts are accustomed), suppressing news of atrocities in Afghanistan, frantically waving the flag and excoriating all those who do not salute the administration obediently.
Meanwhile, Sharon bulldozes on, destroying Palestinian lives wantonly; and, while the US administration could not wait for 34 days after the 11 September attacks, it is caressing him with kid gloves and criticising his Palestinian victims for not enduring 34 years of occupation and 53 years of suffering in silence.
In Geneva recently, a delegation including the heads of two Palestinian human rights NGOs (Khedr Shukirat and Raji Sourani) met with UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson the day after the conference of the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention drew to a close. The conference had issued a rhetorical statement reaffirming a fact the whole world, apart from Israel, recognises: to wit, that this convention applies to the occupied territories. The participating states, however, did nothing to force Israel to abide by its obligations. As we told Ms Robinson, the message this statement conveyed to the Palestinian people was indifference on the part of the international community. The Palestinians, therefore, have no alternative but to obtain their rights themselves, by any means available.
The international community needed only six months to force Iraq out of Kuwait, a few months to intervene in Kosovo, and 26 days to launch the war against Afghanistan; yet it lacks the political will to enforce resolutions adopted over half a century ago.
The international community has never tolerated such blackmail; today, it is hostage to a state that threatens international security, starts wars, occupies land, and imposes a racist segregation on the people it occupies. For some unfathomable reason, it does not answer to the same standards of accountability as the rest of the world.
At the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, we gave trainees of different nationalities a questionnaire designed to evaluate an awareness course they had taken. One simple question -- "Do you believe that international resolutions and agreements are binding on their signatories?' -- received an unexpected answer from several respondents: "No."
Since the Declaration on Human Rights was issued on 10 December 1948, it has been breached all over the world, in legislation and in practice. Never, however, has it been placed in the balance so recklessly. For the first time, its very credibility is in question. Does the world still need these values and ideals? Are human rights truly universal?
Those who believe that humanity shares certain higher interests will say yes. Since most governments have shown their eagerness to sacrifice the most elementary human rights principles to the "war against terrorism," however, this reply is no longer sufficient. Blind faith in the triumph of good over evil is meaningless.
Every year, the US administration publishes a report on the state of human rights worldwide. If it does so in 2002, nobody will bother to read it seriously. Is US practice not sufficient evidence of how human rights are faring? The human rights movement, all over the world, must respond to this challenge.
* The writer is director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies.
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