U.S. Friendly With Abusive Gov'ts

Tens of thousands of people across the world suffered last year at the hands of repressive governments, some of them friendly to the United States, the State Department said Monday in its annual critique of the state of human rights in the world.

From gigantic China, where a wave of detentions targeted writers and political commentators, to Iran with executions and Burma with a ruling junta not bound by constitutional restrictions, man's inhumanity to man was a recurrent theme.

There were scattered positive developments. Saudi Arabia sponsored a conference on women's rights, and the monarchy permitted formation of the first human rights group in the kingdom.

Some other bright spots in Monday's human rights report: Terrorism fell off in post-Taliban Afghanistan; respect for human rights in Ukraine rose with the staging of free elections; and the department said prospects for peace had improved in Iraq that helped "create momentum for the improvement of human rights practices."

Overall, however, the findings were similar to those in three decades of annual human rights reports to Congress. "Freedom and the ability to choose one's government still elude many people and many portions of the globe," Undersecretary of State Paula Dobriansky said.

A total of 196 countries were monitored by the State Department, but not the United States.

The United States, whose rights record is not monitored in the report, was the target of widespread criticism from abroad in the past year, in part because of abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where terror suspects have been held.

"It's not that we're against being scrutinized, and indeed we are scrutinized by many other organizations," said Michael Kozak, assistant secretary of state for human rights, in response to a query why the United States was not written up. At any rate, he said, "The events at Abu Ghraib were a stain on the honor of the U.S. There's no two ways about it."

In the report, Egypt, a close ally of the United States in Middle East peacemaking, was accused of torturing prisoners and of routinely making mass arrests. Iran's "poor human rights record worsened," the report said. Summary executions, political killings, disappearances, amputations and flogging were among cited abuses in Iran.

North Korea, which President Bush has denounced as part of an "axis of evil" with Iraq and Saddam Hussein's Iraq, is one of the world's most repressive and brutal regimes, the report said. An estimated 150,000 to 200,000 people are believed housed in detention camps, and defectors report many have died from torture, starvation and disease.

China, described as an authoritarian state, denies its citizens freedom to oppose the political system, the report said. The Chinese government used war against terror as a pretext for cracking down on peaceful Uighur separatists and does not permit outsiders to monitor human rights in the country, the report to Congress said.

Syria's human rights record was poor, the report said. "Continuing serious abuses included the use of torture in detention, which at times resulted in death," unfair trials and arbitrary arrests.

In Indonesia, security forces murdered, tortured, raped, beat and arbitrarily detained civilians and members of separatist movements, especially in Aceh and in Papua, the report said.

In Jakarta, meanwhile, human rights groups condemned a U.S. decision to resume limited ties with the Indonesian military. "This shows that the United States places its strategic interests ahead of human rights concerns," said Hendardi, a prominent human rights lawyer who goes by a single name.

Russia was credited with generally respecting the human rights of its citizens. But the Federal Security Service there operates with little oversight, security forces committed "numerous and serious human rights abuses," President Vladimir Putin strengthened his power over regional governors and restrictions were imposed on the media, the report said.

"By anybody's account, Russia has moved backward in the past year," Kozak told reporters.

Last week, at a summit meeting in Bratislava, Slovakia, Putin responded to criticism from Bush with a statement that Russia was committed to democracy.

Israel drew high marks for its actions within its pre-1967 borders, but in the territories captured during that year's Six Day War, killings by Palestinian and Israeli security forces and by Israeli settlers and Palestinian militant groups posed serious problems, the report said.

The Palestinian Authority's overall human rights record remained poor, and there were credible reports its officers engaged in torture and abused prisoners, the report said.

By Barry Schweid