Pubdate: Tuesday, 13 October, 1998
Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Contact:  (c) 1998 The Seattle Times Company
Website: http://www.seattletimes.com/

U.S. FORCED TO CONFRONT HUMAN-RIGHTS ABUSES

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe
free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send these, the homeless,
tempest-tossed, to me:

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

- - Emma Lazarus

THE United States of America loves its image as the land of the free
and home of the brave. For the most part, it earns that image. Behind
the golden door lies due process, free speech and the countless
provisions for individual freedom so easily taken for granted.

Far beneath the surface, however, is a seamy undercurrent of abuse and
neglect of the country's weakest and least powerful. This undercurrent
has prompted Amnesty International's first-ever comprehensive probe of
human rights in the United States. It is a strangely necessary campaign.

London-based Amnesty International's initial report portrays the
United States as a humane place with pockets of inhumanity where
refugees are treated like prisoners, police officers use unnecessary
force and restraints, and Death Row swells with more than 3,300
prisoners waiting execution. Minorities are overrepresented in all
categories.

Perhaps the most vulnerable are those who once were the subject of
Emma Lazarus' beloved poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty.
Thousands of people seeking asylum in the United States have found
themselves detained as prisoners for months before seeing a judge or
even finding counsel. Hundreds are women fleeing gender-based violence
in other countries, from genital mutilation to politically motivated
rape. Some of their children end up housed with dangerous juveniles in
detention, according to a joint study by Amnesty International and the
Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children.

Shocking incidences of police brutality overshadow the daily good work
of officers. From New York to Los Angeles, the baton has been used as
first option rather than last resort; new weapons like stun belts and
pepper spray have made unseemly debuts. Even the National Association
of Chiefs of Police has admitted that independent oversight is necessary.

The yearlong focus will force the United States to explain its
inconsistent stances about human rights in other countries. Sometimes,
the State Department thunders about abuses; other times, it remains
silent. Some genocide is deemed worthy of intervention; other genocide
is explained away as a cultural conflict. And in the midst of strong
words about human rights, the U.S. is oddly reluctant to sign basic
statements of humanity - even the Convention on the Rights of the
Child, ratified by every country in the world except Somalia and the
United States.

This campaign is a prime opportunity for U.S. citizens to examine
their own governments' treatment of society's weakest. The full report
is available at http://www.amnesty.org

Abuse of power usually starts with the powerless, and abuse left
unchecked is guaranteed to spread - and begin to seem normal.
- ---
Checked-by: Patrick Henry