Jerusalem Post

Sunday August 19, 2001

British Jews slam 'biased and partial' Amnesty report By Douglas Davis

LONDON (August 19) - The Board of Deputies of British Jews has sharply criticized Amnesty International's report on Racism and the Administration of Justice as "biased and partial."

It accused the London-based human rights advocacy group of focusing on "alleged human rights abuses in Israel" and said it "makes virtually no mention of any of Israel's Arab neighbors."

The report has been produced in advance of the UN-sponsored World Conference on Racism, to be held in the South African city of Durban late this month. It is thought to conform to the general tenor of the gathering, where Israel is expected to be singled out for special abuse.

In a letter to Amnesty, board director-general Neville Nagler accused the organization of ignoring well-documented abuses of human rights in the Arab world, which are limited in the report to a critique of Iraq's treatment of the Kurds and Saudi Arabia's treatment of migrant workers.

"It passes belief that a report of this kind can virtually ignore the systematic abuses of human rights throughout the Arab world," said Nagler.

He noted that the section on ethnic conflict in the Middle East devotes 80 percent of its space to criticism of Israel, while it virtually ignores ethnic conflicts in other Middle East countries.

The chapter on the treatment of women also largely ignores the Arab world, while no mention is made of the Palestinian Authority's well-documented abuses of the rights of children in the current intifada.

He added that the chapter on torture offers no examples from the Arab world - "despite Amnesty's own reports of torture in Arab countries, let alone the crimes against humanity committed by the regimes in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq against their own populations." Nagler declared that "such biased and partial reporting is damaging to the status of Amnesty and detracts from the role which the organization ought to play in tackling the real abuse of human rights in many parts of the world."

-- Anonymous, August 19, 2001