Amnesty head criticises Irish failure at UN

The secretary general of Amnesty International has criticised Ireland's failure to raise human rights at the United Nations Security Council.

On a visit to Dublin, Ms Irene Khan suggested Ireland's voice had "not been heard very loudly" on the council on human rights.

Ms Khan, an Irish-educated Bangladeshi who became head of Amnesty last year, said there was a huge responsibility on Ireland and other members of the Security Council to press for an adherence by all countries to international standards of human rights.

"If some countries are seen to be blatantly violating international standards, that creates cynicism in other parts of the world that human rights are being applied selectively and hypocritically," she said, referring to the response of Western countries to the September 11th attacks.

Ms Khan also criticised Ireland for following other European countries in introducing new restrictions to prevent people arriving here to apply for asylum. She called on the Government to live up to its obligations under the Geneva Convention and to deal with refugee issues in a humanitarian way.

Ms Khan is no stranger to Ireland. As a teenager, she studied for A Levels at St Louis convent school in Kilkeel, Co Down. That was in the mid-1970s, when the Northern Troubles were at their worst, but for the schoolgirl arriving from Bangladesh's civil war, violence was not unusual.

"My parents didn't realise I was going from one civil war to another. But for me it seemed rather mild. After all, 200,000 people had died in Bangladesh. There were bomb alerts all the time, but in my country people just threw bombs without warning."

After studying law in Manchester and Harvard, Ms Khan joined the International Commission of Jurists and then the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). In a 21-year stint, she served in Palestine, South Asia and India. As the UNHCR representative for Britain and Ireland in the 1980s, her brief covered the handful of refugees then seeking asylum in Ireland.

Amnesty has 1.2 million members in 115 countries. Best known for its campaigns against torture, executions and other human rights abuses, the organisation under Ms Khan plans to place greater emphasis on economic and social rights. "I think the lesson of September 11th is that issues such as imprisonment and torture remain important, but you also have to address the economic and cultural issues as well."

She cites the example of a South African woman who told Ms Khan she wanted a barring order against her husband, but couldn't afford the $2 she needed to travel and obtain one from a magistrate in a nearby village. "This shows that simply protecting people against violence while ignoring other issues leaves them vulnerable."

Ms Khan said the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs Robinson, had been a very good advocate for human rights. However, more needed to be done to put the issue on the agenda of governments.