LONDON (ABP) — The head of Amnesty International welcomed President Obama's decision to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center and said millions of people around the world view his election as signaling a new era in human rights.
Announcing the release of Amnesty International's 2009 report May 28, Irene Khan, secretary general of the international non-governmental organization, called for a "New Deal" for human rights around the globe.
The report said the global economic downturn is fueling "a social, political and economic human-rights time bomb," as governments look the other way at rights abuses in the name of economic recovery.
Khan said leaders are focusing on attempts to revive the global economy but neglecting deadly conflicts that are spawning massive human-rights abuses.
"From Gaza to Darfur and from eastern DRC [Democratic Republic of Congo] to northern Sri Lanka, the human toll of conflict has been horrendous, and the lukewarm response of the international community shocking," she said.
"Huge resources are being dedicated to fight piracy off the coast of Somalia, but not to stop the flow of arms that kill civilians in that country," she said. "Military action is being stepped up in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but the human-rights and humanitarian implications of the conflicts are being underplayed."
Khan urged global leaders to work as hard on human rights as they are working on the economy.
"Ignoring one crisis to focus on another is a recipe for aggravating both," she said. "Economic recovery will be neither sustainable nor equitable if governments fail to tackle abuses that drive and deepen poverty, or armed conflicts that generate new violations."
The Amnesty International report said up to 300,000 Afghans have been forced to flee their homes because of fighting and lack of food. It called for increased national and international action to provide security, food, water, shelter and medicine to the displaced people of Afghanistan.
A similar humanitarian crisis is occurring in Sri Lanka, site of a long-running civil war. The United Nations removed its staff from Sri Lanka in 2008 citing their safety, despite a number of people who had gathered outside the gates of the U.N. compound to plead with them not to leave.
The report also criticized Israel for attacks on Gaza in late December and early January that killed 1,400 Palestinians, including about 300 children. During the same 22-day period, the report said, armed Palestinian groups killed three Israeli civilians and six soldiers.
Amnesty International also announced a new international campaign to give a voice to people living in deprivation. Khan called them "prisoners of poverty."
The Demand Dignity campaign seeks to empower people living in poverty to claim their rights and seek accountability from governments and industries for abuses that push people deeper into poverty.
It will focus on slums, calling for an end to forced evictions, and on maternal mortality.
The 2009 report also focuses on Sierra Leone, which has one of the worst rates of maternal mortality in the world. The risk for a woman in Sierra Leone of dying as the result of childbirth is about one in six, compared to one in 4,500 in developed countries.
"Maternal mortality is a health emergency that is not being dealt with as an emergency by either the government in Sierra Leone or the donor community," the report said. "Sierra Leone has the obligation to take concrete steps to guarantee the right to the highest attainable standard of health to the maximum of its available resources."
The campaign also promotes respect for all human rights.
"Our first demand in our new campaign is to the U.S.A. and China," Khan said. "The United States does not accept the notion of economic, cultural and social rights, while China does not respect civil and political rights. Both governments must sign up to all human rights for all."
The Demand Dignity campaign calls on the United States to ratify the U.N. Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and for China to ratify the U.N. Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
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Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.