The U.S. State Department report and human rights [Archives:2006/933/Opinion]
Abdulbari Taher
Since 1994, the U.S. Department of State has devoted part of its official report to Yemen's human rights and freedom situation. It prepared an agenda to hold symposiums and discussions on the report by concerned civil community organizations.
Actually, this report often sparks reactions and political controversy between the regime and the opposition. If the opposition receives it with good spirit and morale, official reactions seem to be characterized by denunciation and justification. During Amatalalim Al-Soswa's post, Yemen's Human Rights Ministry was moderate enough to welcome criticism.
Yemen's official response to the State Department report was expected to be sharp and more justified due to exacerbation of human rights in a country preparing for presidential and local elections. Yemen also is approaching parliamentary elections in response to the ruling party's desire.
While the government fluctuates between denouncing and justifying human rights abuses registered in the report, the opposition hesitates between condemning such abuses and criticizing U.S. official reports for not including all human rights abuses in Yemen.
The report is of great importance to a backward country like Yemen that has close links with dictatorship and totalitarianism. The report's roots extend back to pre-state times and the report writer has a well-heard word in the U.S. Administration. The report is characterized as containing shortcomings for criticizing partial violations and condoning the core of the problem causing harmful epidemics to human life and rights.
It is no wonder the report is not obliged to study and analyze the social phenomenon producing various types of oppression and violations. But the regime must not be labeled as democratic or undemocratic on the basis of its nearness to or distance from the U.S. line and concern for its interests.
The report's emphasis on the regime's democracy, plurality and respect of civil community organizations does not touch on the fact that there is no horizon for peaceful transfer of power. The poll-based judgment has only formal value and is influenced by vote fraud, in addition to standard duality. The poor type of democracy offered by the U.S. Administration in various parts of the world, as well as its absolute partiality toward Israel, invalidate the report's credibility.
Restrictions imposed on citizens' ability to change the government, confessed tortures, appalling jail conditions, arbitrary arrests, legislative weakness, press freedom, confining freedoms of affiliation, ideology and identity, women's discrimination and human rights respect are some of the topics tackled by the report.
The political opposition has the right to criticize the report's shortcomings. The U.S. Administration is thought of as the most able government on earth in terms of integrating its interests by adopting human needs and calls for freedom. But the obvious question being raised is “Do U.S. reports on Arab world situations contain authentic information or not?” We find ourselves before sharp criticism as official U.S. human rights reports missed some information while criticizing situations in the Arab world. Such situations trouble human conscience, for instance, Yemeni prisons, which the report revealed as involving terrible conditions in addition to human rights abuses.
The U.S. report discussed prisons controlled by influential sheikhs, but did not include juvenile and women's prisons in the Tihama, as these jails are beyond the state's control. Rather, they are houses owned by notorious individuals providing shelter for homeless women. The report confirmed all such illegal conducts to the Parliamentary Freedoms Committee.
The report indicated slight reduction in detentions torture, but never dealt with criminal investigation bureau torture and cuffing legs proved an inherited contrivance in Yemeni jails. Misconduct at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Afghanistan and other prisons weaken the influence of U.S. advocacy claiming to defend human rights.
The contrast between the State Department report and another report issued by the American Committee to Defend Press Freedoms (ACDPF) reveals a huge difference between defense by democratic and independent organizations and other types of defense affected by considerations, the most important of which are diplomatic interests and relations. The ACDPF report was the fruit of a field visit and meetings with many journalists exposed to threats, oppression, arbitrary trials, confiscation, kidnapping, arrest and beating.
The ACDPF report quoted senior officials' viewpoints and came out with results consolidating press freedom and defending journalists. The report's strongpoints are reflected in its being based on the Constitution and laws that are effective in the country. This makes Yemen appear as if it is a state that does not abide by the Constitution or respect the law. Yemen's government deals with its citizens as if they live in a pre-state era. According to the report, Yemen's Constitution contains an article approving political, party and intellectual multiplicity. The law interprets such content into specific articles, but actual practice seems totally different, as with journalists' kidnapping and beating, a phenomenon repeated dozens of times.
The ACDPF report contained information about the backwardness of Yemen's judiciary which lacks efficiency and independence. Yemen is the only country in the world where prosecution of simple cases lasts for decades, with courts sometimes issuing contradictory rulings in a single case, as well as fraudulent verdicts amounting to the death sentence.
The report included information about the Sa'ada events and the fact that Sa'ada and other eastern and northern Yemeni provinces actually seem to be isolated from the government. These provinces are deprived of basic services labeled within basic living needs.
Yemen's furious response to the report is ascribable to illegal practices and facts contained in it. The report does not permit us to practice crimes against citizens, similar to those committed by Israel and the U.S. We must protect human rights at the local level and defend them anytime and anywhere. The U.S. must not be looked at as the ideal example.
Abdulbari Taher is a Yemeni Journalist and the former chairman of Yemeni Journalists Syndicate
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[archive-e:933-v:14-y:2006-d:2006-03-30-p:opinion]
