Call for push on human rights
Séan Love, executive director of Amnesty International’s Irish section, said the EU must tackle the impact the war on terror is having on human rights.
“It relegates its interaction with some of the worst human rights offenders to the safe havens of ‘human rights dialogues’ and silent diplomacy,” he says.
And the EU is also failing to protect human rights within its own member states. Amnesty’s 2003 report showed a common and disturbing pattern of abuse by police forces throughout the EU, including Ireland.
“With ten new states joining the EU, and Turkey in the queue, the loopholes that allow governments to abuse human rights in the name of the ‘war on terror’ must be closed, and the flow of weapons around the world must be properly controlled,” he insists.
An obvious and immediate way for the Irish Government to make a difference would be for it to push EU states to promote a legally binding international arms trade treaty by 2006, and to improve the way arms deals are regulated.
