Amnesty warns of Middle East repression

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL has warned that violent repression could continue in countries affected by the Arab Spring during 2012 if governments and external players fail to grasp the dramatic changes people demand.

In an 80-page report, Year of Rebellion: State of Human Rights in the Middle East and North Africa, Amnesty describes brutal means used by governments to suppress popular calls for reform.

“With few exceptions, governments have failed to recognise that everything has changed,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty’s interim regional director who pointed out that people power had “proved astonishingly resilient in the face of . . . staggering repression”.

Tunisia, the country where the Arab uprising began with the ousting of its veteran ruler, has seen “significant improvements in human rights, but many consider that the pace of change has been too slow”, said Amnesty.

“There is concern too about continuing rights violations by the security forces, albeit on a much reduced scale than under the [former] regime.”

Following the uprising, “prisoners of conscience and other political prisoners were released, and civil society organisations, the media and political parties were freed” to register and operate. Tunisia’s key task is to draft a new constitution that ensures “protection of human rights and equality under the law”.

Amnesty says that a year on from the uprising “there are good grounds for hope that the period of transition will bring a better future for all Tunisians”.

In Egypt, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which assumed presidential power on the fall of Hosni Mubarak, has promised to meet demands for freedom, accountability and an end to corruption and repression. Instead, the council maintained martial law and suppressed protests, killing at least 84 people during the last quarter of 2011. Detention, torture, trial in military courts and humiliation of women continue while rights organisations are raided and closed down.

“Journalists, bloggers and judges were investigated by military prosecutors or imprisoned by military courts for criticising the army’s human rights violations . . . and the lack of reform,” says Amnesty. Millions of Egyptians “continue to live in slums and in poverty, and wait for their voices to be heard”.

Libya, subjected to a devastating civil war as the price for regime change, has suffered thousands of casualties on both sides. However, Amnesty argues that the conflict “ended a long period of repressive rule” under Muammar Gadafy.

“The new authorities . . . have an unprecedented opportunity to address and remedy the main wrongs of the past and to build effective safeguards against their repetition.”

In Yemen and Syria, Amnesty said, governments are prepared to use extreme repression to remain in power and predicted this will continue. The “human rights situation in Bahrain has deteriorated significantly” because of the ruling family’s efforts to suppress protests for equal rights and reforms, deepening the gulf between the privileged Sunni minority and Shia majority.

Amnesty has accused the international community of applying double standards, ignoring people displaced by conflict and selling arms to governments cracking down on protesters.