U.S. no longer a legitimate human rights defender, watchdog group declares

Human Rights Watch has taken the U.S. government to task for significant backsliding in its defense of human rights, The Washington Post reported today. The accusations were made yesterday by Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth upon release of the watchdog group’s World Report 2007. Roth was critical of the Bush administration’s post-September 11th counterterrorism efforts – citing acts of torture, questionable methods of interrogation by the CIA, mistreatment of alleged enemy combatants, and capricious detentions – and their implications.

“This catastrophic path has left the United States incapable of defending some of the most basic rights,” Roth wrote in the report.

Roth called on the new Democratic-controlled Congress and the European Union to help redress past wrongs, saying that the “trend is bleak, but not irreversible.”

The report also cited the governments of Burma, Ethiopia, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Turkmenistan as being among the worst oppressors of human rights.

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