U.S. issues delayed human rights report Release was held because of prison abuse scandal From Elise Labott CNN Washington Bureau Monday, May 17, 2004 Posted: 10:52 PM EDT (0252 GMT) WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Amid allegations the United States violated international conventions protecting the rights of prisoners, the U.S. State Department released a report Monday on what the country was doing to promote human rights around the world. The second annual report was to have been released earlier this month, but it was delayed in part because State Department officials believed it would not be taken seriously amid stories of abuse of detainees by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The report, which covers U.S. efforts in 101 countries to promote press and religious freedoms, advance democratic institutions, and stop torture and other abuses, is a companion to a country-by-country study of conditions issued in February. Both reports are made to Congress as required by law. Charges in the report against countries who abuse prisoners bear striking similarities to those being leveled against the United States around the world. For example, the report summarized Saudi Arabia's "poor" human rights record with these words: "Security forces continued to torture and abuse detainees and prisoners, arbitrarily arrest and detain persons and detain them incommunicado." Many countries and human rights groups likewise have criticized the United States for holding detainees at the naval station in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, without access to counsel. (Full story) The report also criticizes many countries for restricting freedom of the press at a time the Coalition Provisional Authority has taken to task such Arabic-language media outlets as Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya for what it said were inflammatory, misleading reports against the U.S. military. (Full story) The authority sparked outrage in March when it closed for 60 days the Baghdad newspaper Al Hawse, published by followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, accusing it of inciting violence against coalition troops. Al-Jazeera also has accused U.S. troops of targeting its reporters, an allegation the authority denies. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who made the decision to delay the report, said that in the midst of the prison abuse scandal "we must not forget how much is at stake here at home and around the world." "I'm pleased to have the opportunity to release this report today at a time when so much of world attention is focused on the conduct of American soldiers at Abu Ghraib and rightly so," Armitage said. "When President Bush expressed his deep disgust and regret, it wasn't just his personal reaction as a man of principle, it was also his reaction as the head of state of a country that holds itself to a higher standard both at home and in our conduct in the world." Although there were some production delays that contributed to the delay, officials said, the United States first wanted to demonstrate it is just as committed to fixing its own problems as it is to promoting human rights abroad. "The Abu Ghraib scandal was a cloud that was obscuring what we try to do, what I try to do and what the secretary and the president try to do on democracy issues," said Lorne Craner, the State Department's assistant secretary for democracy, human rights and labor. "And we want to punch through the cloud and to say we're not going to give up on democracy and human rights promotion. "We've done things wrong, we're going to fix it, we're going to hold people accountable, and yes, we're going to try and advance these principles abroad," Craner said. Craner said while he was personally disgusted by what happened at Abu Ghraib, the fact the United States was dealing with the prison abuse was proof the country maintains credibility in promoting and defending human rights around the world. "The point here is that we have institutions that hold people to account if they go wrong. And as I said before, other people don't have that," Craner said. "You know, when there is a new Tashkent Times that can carry pictures of torture in Uzbekistan, or when the Sudanese parliament can call a defense minister and grill him for six hours, or when a Burmese president publicly condemns and holds people accountable for torture in Burma, then we're going to be getting somewhere."
