'Politics of fear' on rise

The politics of fear, fomented by powerful governments, is being used to trample fundamental rights across the world, the latest report on human rights in 153 countries from Amnesty International says.

Amnesty's secretary general, Irene Khan, in her foreword to Report 2007: The State of The World's Human Rights, says fear of immigrants, of crime, of terrorism and of dissent are being used by regimes to repress rights.

"Asylum procedures have become a means for exclusion rather than protection," she says. "Across Europe refugee recognition rates have fallen dramatically . . . although the reasons for seeking asylum - violence and persecution - remain as high as ever."

Growing fear among the better-off about crime is "leading many governments to adopt policies that are purportedly tough on crime but in reality criminalise the poor, exposing them to the double jeopardy of gang violence and brutal policing."

Pointing to the failure of Brazil's army to stamp out gun crime in Rio de Janeiro, Ms Khan writes: "Providing security to one group of people at the expense of the rights of another does not work."

Speaking at the publication of the report in Dublin yesterday, the Irish section's director of programmes, Noeleen Hartigan, particularly mentioned Darfur, which she describes as a "bleeding wound on the world conscience".

"The UN Security Council is hampered by the double-dealing of some of the most powerful members. The Sudanese government is running rings around the UN, while 200,000 people have died, more than 10 times that number have been displaced and militia attacks are now spreading to Chad and the Central African Republic." Ms Khan describes the treatment of Roma people as an "acid test" of the EU's commitment to anti-discrimination as it expands east. "From Dublin to Bratislava, anti-Roma attitudes remain entrenched."

While people have a right to feel secure and governments have a duty to provide security, ill-conceived counter-terrorism strategies have "done little to reduce the threat of violence . . . and much to damage human rights and the rule of law".

The British government has "resorted increasingly to deportation, or to 'control orders' that allow the Home Secretary effectively to place people under house arrest without criminal prosecution", while the US is "relentlessly" using "unfettered executive . . . power" to treat the world as "one big battlefield for its war on terror".

The full report can be viewed at www.amnesty.org.