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WASHINGTON: The United States ranked North Korea and
Myanmar on Tuesday among the world’s worst violators of human
rights and took other Asian countries to task for alleged abuses.
The State Department’s 2007
Human Rights Report also scored the Philippines’ human rights
record, saying, “Arbitrary, unlawful, and extrajudicial killings
by elements of the security services and political killings,
including killings of journalists, by a variety of actors continued
to be a major problem.”
But the State Department dropped
China from the category of worst violators—even while denouncing
its poor record—and noted progress in Thailand’s return to
democracy after a coup there in 2006.
It hailed multiparty democracies,
such as India and Indonesia, for generally respecting citizens’
rights, while still pointing out major problems.
“Countries in which power was
concentrated in the hands of unaccountable rulers remained the
world’s most systematic human-rights violators,” the report
said, singling out Myanmar and North Korea for this category—which
also included Zimbabwe, Iran and Cuba.
The North Korean regime of Kim
Jong Il “continued to control almost all aspects of citizens’
lives, denying freedom of speech, press, assembly, and association,
and restricting freedom of movement and workers’ rights,” it
added.
The State Department cited
reports of extrajudicial killings, disappearances and arbitrary
detention in other countries, besides the Philippines.
It said Myanmar’s “abysmal
human rights record” only worsened in the past year, adding that
the ruling military junta “continued to commit extrajudicial
killings and was responsible for disappearances, arbitrary and
indefinite detentions, rape, and torture.”
The report highlighted the
crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in September 2007, saying
security forces killed at least 30 demonstrators and detained over
3,000 others.
In Thailand, the report noted the
interim government held a referendum on a new constitution, calling
it “an important benchmark in Thailand’s return to democracy”
after the 2006 coup that ousted former Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra.
The parliamentary elections held
in December “were generally considered free and fair,” it said.
In Indonesia, the report also
noted that the government under Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who became
the country’s first directly elected President in free and fair
elections in 2004, “generally respected the human rights of its
citizens.”
The report said the Malaysian
government “generally respected the human rights of its
citizens.”
It added, however, that the
government “abridged citizens’ right to change their government.
No independent body investigated deaths that occurred during
apprehension by police or while in police custody.”
--AFP
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