Casualties of 911: Rights, Liberty & Justice Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Casualties of 911: Rights, Liberty & Justice USA Today - May 28, 2002 http://www.usatoday.com/news/comment/columnists/wickham/2002-05-28-wickham.htm Bush administration retreats from civil rights By DeWayne Wickham When Ralph Boyd Jr. appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, a lot of people were looking at his nose. The betting was that the longer he spoke, the longer it would get. Boyd is the assistant attorney general for civil rights and the point man in the Bush administration's effort to convince civil rights activists and their congressional supporters that they can't believe their eyes. He was summoned before the Senate panel to explain away the mounting evidence that what the administration says about civil rights doesn't jibe with what it does. But before the critics could weigh in on him, Boyd knocked them off balance. The Justice Department, he said during his testimony, will charge three Florida counties with committing voting rights violations during the 2000 presidential election. It was a grandstand play by an administration that has been slow to take a meaningful stand on civil rights. Not surprisingly, Boyd said he wouldn't seek to overturn the results of Florida's flawed election -- the contest that propelled Bush into the White House. Boyd has mastered the art of doublespeak. "Racial discrimination continues to be a problem that must be confronted in our country," Boyd said last August in an address to a United Nations' organization. "As U.S. assistant attorney general for civil rights, my job is to help lead the fight against such discrimination, and I plan to do so vigorously." But by February he was retreating from that fight. In a letter to the general counsel of the Adam's Mark Hotel chain, a company Justice accused in 1999 of "engaging in a pattern of discrimination against non-white guests," Boyd said he would consider cutting short the four-year consent agreement the Missouri-based firm entered into 10 months before George W. Bush took office. The deal requires Adam's Mark -- headed by Fred Kummer, a friend of Attorney General John Ashcroft -- to improve its treatment of African-American guests and workers. When this leaked to the media, Boyd fell on his sword for his boss. "The attorney general and his office have had no involvement in the case at all, either directly or indirectly," he said. In fact, Ashcroft received two letters from Kummer last year requesting a meeting with Boyd to get early relief from the decree. Boyd met with Kummer after those letters. Three months later, Boyd signaled his willingness to let the hotel chain off the hook. But the Adam's Mark withdrew its request when his decision became national news. Boyd's office recently retreated from a settlement that the Justice Department had imposed in a New York City employment discrimination case. The deal gave promotions and added seniority to 59 minorities who are employed as custodians by the city's school board. The workers, Justice Department lawyers claimed at the time of the 1999 settlement, had been victims of discriminatory employment and promotional tests. But when the deal was challenged by a group of white custodians represented by the Center for Individual Rights, a conservative legal group, Boyd's office backed away from the settlement. "The change of administration in Washington does not entitle the Department of Justice to simply walk away from the legal positions it espoused and the obligations it entered into under a previous administration," New York's Corporation Counsel's office complained. Boyd refused to comment directly, but a spokesman said Justice isn't backing away from enforcing the consent decree but rather rethinking how many of the 59 minority workers actually were victimized by the alleged discrimination and so are entitled to benefit from the settlement. Boyd soon will get another chance to stake out a position on affirmative action. A recent appeals court decision upholding the University of Michigan's affirmative action program will be challenged. This would be a good time for Boyd to "lead the fight," as he promised. So far, he's retreating. [DeWayne Wickham writes weekly for USA TODAY.] * The Guardian - May 28, 2002 http://www.guardian.co.uk/humanrights/story/0,7369,723680,00.html Human rights 'sidelined' since September 11 by Sarah Left Amnesty International today condemned the very governments which had set up human rights statutes for undermining them in the name of anti-terrorism measures after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington. Launching its annual report on human rights around the world, the organisation said governments fearing terrorism have been "increasingly sidelining human rights in name of security" and claimed that democracies, rather than dictatorships, had been taking the lead in curbing civil liberties. The UK was criticised for passing the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act, which allows for the indefinite detention of foreign nationals without charge or trial. "Our fears were realised as a shadow criminal justice system was created in the UK without the essential safeguards of the formal system, and up to nine people are now being held within it," the report said. A Home Office spokeswoman today defended the act, saying: "We believe it is a proportionate response to a change in the landscape after September 11." She confirmed that a total of 11 foreign nationals had been detained, eight in December, one in February and two last month. Nine remain in custody under the terms of the act, but two have voluntarily left the UK. The spokeswoman said that the suspects had been detained rather than deported because they could face torture, death or abuse of their human rights in their home nation. The report said a number of governments had passed similar measures, including the creation of special courts based on secret evidence that in some cases amounted to "shadow criminal justice systems". Amnesty also pointed to long-standing human rights agreements, such as the Geneva Convention, which it claimed had been set to one side during the war in Afghanistan. Singling out the US refusal to categorise the detainees held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as prisoners of war, the organisation said: "The treatment of detainees in Guantanamo appears to have prompted some governments to believe that the inhumane treatment of prisoners is now acceptable." The report also highlighted an increase in racist and anti-Semitic attacks in wake of September 11. Amnesty said that government restrictions on the rights of foreigners had stoked racist notions that certain types of people were terrorists. "People were attacked in the USA, Europe, Canada, parts of Asia and Africa not for what they did but for who they were," the report said. The report lists human rights abuses in 152 countries, including illegal executions in 47 countries and torture in 111. The report also lists disappearances and imprisonment without trial around the world. In Europe, some of the worst abuses took place in the Balkan region, particularly in Macedonia, where the organisation reported that 140,000 civilians were displaced between March and August. Both the Macedonian security forces and armed ethnic Albanians were accused of killing civilians. * CNN Online - May 28, 2002 http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/05/28/amnesty.report/index.html Amnesty report raps post-Sept.11 policies by Tim Scheiderer and Elise Labott WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States has lost its "moral authority" as a defender of human rights because of violations the Bush administration has committed in the war on terrorism, Amnesty International claims in its annual report on human rights released Tuesday. William F. Schulz, executive director of the organization's U.S. branch, told reporters Tuesday that while President Bush was a "bulldog" on fighting terrorism, he has become a "lap dog" in protecting human rights in the United States and around the globe. "The world-shattering events of the past year -- the tragic September 11 attacks, the war on terrorism, and the constant carnage in the Middle East -- have tested our resolve as a nation and, similarly, they have been a test of the Bush's administration's commitment to human rights," Schulz said. "It is a test our government has largely failed." The 300-page Amnesty International Report 2002 (covering events in 2001) assesses human rights abuses in 152 countries and territories around the world. Amnesty says America has used the September 11 attacks as an excuse to stray from its promise to treat people humanely, effectively trading human rights in the interest of security. The group identifies eight human rights failings on the part of the U.S. government. In addition to its long-standing complaint about the U.S. use of the death penalty, the organization criticizes the Bush administration's plans to use military tribunals for suspected terrorists and its selective adherence to Geneva Conventions for prisoners at its naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. "The failure of the U.S. government to fully apply the protections afforded by the Geneva Conventions to the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay makes it far less likely that we will criticize allies for picking and choosing which treaties they will uphold," Schulz said. The report criticizes the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan and charges that the killing of civilians, collateral damage to civilian homes and the death of prisoners near Mazar e-Sharif last November constituted human rights abuses that border on violating international law. Amnesty claims the United States and other countries have taken sweeping measures since September 11 that violate human rights, such as detaining foreign nationals for unlimited periods of time and passing legislation which curtails civil liberties. "When it comes to confronting terrorism, President Bush is a bulldog. But when it comes to confronting the human rights violations of our allies in the war against terrorism, he turns into a lap dog," Schulz said. "And when the government gives a de facto green light for others to ignore fundamental human rights standards it places tens of thousands of lives at risk around the globe." The Amnesty report charges the United States has given a pass to its allies in the war on terrorism, failing to criticize abuses by Russia in Chechnya and by Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan and Colombia. The report calls Colombia "a deepening human rights crisis ... another tragic example of the Administration's unwillingness to provide moral leadership on human rights." It says an average of 12 people were killed or "disappeared" for political reasons each day last year in Colombia. It criticizes the United States for failing to push Israel to stop human rights abuses against Palestinians during incursions into the West Bank. "We have joined the president in his unreserved condemnation of suicide bombings ... but we have also spoken out about President Bush's apparent inability or unwillingness to firmly and consistently insist that Israeli forces end incursions that lead to human rights violations," Schulz said. "As Israel is the single largest recipient of U.S. military aid, including weapons that were used over the past months in the commission of human rights violations, the United States has an obligation to insist that international law be upheld." A synopsis of the report can be found at http://www.amnesty.org ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytrc-05.29.02-01:17:41-2626