US human rights report invites scorn

WASHINGTON: Unprecedented scepticism and scorn accompanied the release by the United States on Monday of its annual human rights report amid charges of hypocrisy and double standards arising from the ongoing war on terrorism. Read this story in...
Washington’s kid glove treatment of its so-called allies such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan came up for withering scrutiny at a briefing to release the 2001 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, an annual administrative exercise mandated by the Congress that many feel has increasingly become a meaningless ritual.

Amid widespread domestic criticism over curtailment of civil liberties, US officials laboured to convince a disbelieving press corps that the exercise was evenhanded. The report does not look at the state of human rights in the US itself because, in the words of one official, “that wouldn’t be fair.”