Amnesty says EU minimalist on human rights role

BRUSSELS - The 2006 Amnesty International report criticises the EU for a "minimalist concept of its domestic human rights role," while highlighting the harmful effects of tough UK counter-terrorism laws.

The annual report analysing the situation in 150 countries, published on Tuesday (24 May), says western governments continued to violate human rights in the name of security, including through torture.

Amnesty's secretary general Irene Khan commented "You cannot extinguish fire with petrol."

Great Britain received special criticism for "some of the toughest anti-terrorism laws in the region" and for its practise of signing deals with countries like Lebanon, Jordan, and Libya to deport terror suspects despite reports they would be tortured or killed there.

Ms Khan scorned the diplomatic assurance from those countries that London is using to defend its policies, asking authorities to look at their human rights records and decide "whether these diplomatic assurances are worth the paper they are written on."

Amnesty also slammed Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Kazakhstan, Malta, Russia and Spain for "unlawfully" expelling asylum seekers before their claims could be heard.

"The fact that EU member states were among those doing this illustrated the EU's failure to acknowledge that it faced a crisis of protection, rather than of asylum," writes the report.

Other cases of concern by the human rights group involved racism and discrimination, mainly against Jews, Muslims and Roma across Europe, but also intolerance against lesbians and gays in Latvia, Poland and Romania.

The human rights group stressed that "While the process of accession to the EU continued to encourage human rights progress in some states, institutionally the EU continued to have a minimalist concept of its domestic human rights role."

It added that the proposed new Agency for Fundamental Rights could become "a significant step forward in overcoming EU complacency towards observance and fulfilment of human rights within its own borders."

But the process of its drafting "has showed a limited and ad hoc approach to human rights policy – with abuses by member states largely excluded from its remit."