Amnesty International Report 2006: Concerns Over Ireland

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL RELEASED it’s 2006 Annual Report today and contained within the many pages are specific references to Ireland and concerns raised over the blatant refusal of the Irish Government to search alleged CIA rendition flights at Shannon airport. This is a full Amnesty International report so it covers off a lot of areas, but I’m going to focus in specifically on the Irish section for now.

One quote I particularly liked from the report is from the Amnesty Internation (Irish Section) by Secretary General Colm Ó Cuanacháin :-

“Governments collectively and individually paralysed international institutions and squandered public resources in pursuit of narrow security interests, sacrificed principles in the name of the “war on terror” and turned a blind eye to massive human rights violations. As a result, the world has paid a heavy price, in terms of erosion of fundamental principles and in the enormous damage done to the lives and livelihoods of ordinary people”.

The report goes on to raise concerns specifically about the Irish Governement but also about the EU facilitation of many violations of human rights within their borders (some countries offending more than others), however there is another quote which I quite like as follows:-

“When the United States ignores the absolute prohibition on torture, when European governments – including Ireland – evade their responsibilities on renditions, they risk undermining their own moral authority to champion human rights elsewhere in the world.”

Other hot-spots on the globe are covered (Darfur, Iraq etc.) and for anyone interested in human rights this is a must read. We can only hope that eventually people will take notice of the slide towards state sponsored human rights violations in the name of ‘security‘ and the so-called ‘war on terror’ and eventually get off their collective arses and do something about it.