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Fear called greatest threat to human rights
Irene Zubaida Khan
(left) speaks to students in Makau Mutua’s (second from right)
human-rights class in the UB Law School.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF THE
UB LAW SCHOOL
By KEVIN FRYLING
Reporter Staff Writer
A prominent voice in the fight for international human rights told an audience in O'Brian Hall Oct. 25 that human rights and the rule of law are among the greatest casualties of the war on terror in the United States and abroad.
Irene Zubaida Khan, secretary general of Amnesty International, presented a lecture entitled "The Rule of Law and the Politics of Fear: Human Rights in the 21st Century" as part of the Mitchell Lecture Series in the UB Law School. Khan is the first woman, Asian and Muslim to achieve leadership of Amnesty International. In the audience were more than 100 students, faculty members and a camera crew from C-Span.
"I think today the biggest threat to human rights and the rule of law is fear," said Khan. "Fear of being swamped by immigrants, fear of the 'other,' fear of being blown up by terrorists, fear of rogue states, fear of weapons of mass destruction. Fear is the antithesis of empathy. It destroys our shared understanding and our shared humanity because it converts the other into a threat."
She pointed out that the rising role of "fear-mongering" in international politics has brought about increases in racism and xenophobia—including "Islamophobia" in the West and anti-Western sentiment in the East—as well as anti-Semitism, backlash against women's rights and attacks on human rights proponents in various parts of the world.
"For most people, fear severely restricts the ability to reason, to challenge," Khan added. "Playing on people's fears allows political leaders to consolidate their own power, create false certainties and escape accountability."
She cited numerous political leaders who use fear to distract the public, short-circuit debate and impose agendas, among them Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, who's playing on racial fears to grab land from white farmers in Africa; Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who's using fear of a Western invasion in Darfur to stall diplomatic and U.N. peacekeepers from entering the region; Russian President Vladimir Putin, who's playing to national xenophobia to consolidate popular support; and Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who used fear of a mass refugee invasion in order to win election in 2001.
"The worst and most specific manifestations of fear and what fear can do to human rights," however, come from "fear of terrorism and counterterrorism," according to Khan, who took the reins of Amnesty International in August 2001, only one month before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and remains critical of the Bush Administration's decision to respond to the event not as an international crime, but by pursuing regime change in Afghanistan and Iraq as part of a larger war on terror.
"By speaking of war, the administration seeks to deny the applicability of human rights," she said. "By speaking of terror, it's choosing to apply international humanitarian law rather selectively. And by combining the two—'war on terror'—it has created a concept through which it believes it can put its actions outside the realm of international law, as well as domestic judicial scrutiny."
The passage of the Military Commissions Act in September of 2006 represented the height of the administration's violation of international humanitarian law, Khan added, noting that the legislation amends the U.S. War Crimes Act in order to place restrictions on Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, including denying prisoners the right of habeas corpus, as well as status as POWs.
"The provisions of this act are fundamentally incompatible with international law, including trials by military commissions that violate due process standards," said Khan, noting that actions once considered war crimes under U.S. law are no longer viewed as such and pointing out the act sets a "terrible precedent" as the Geneva Conventions are the first set of treaties which have been ratified by all 194 countries in the world.
"If rule of law has been the casualty of the war on terror," she added, "collateral damage has been the moral authority of the United States."
Khan pointed out this erosion of moral authority has been a significant factor in the trouble the United States has had pushing for human-rights reform in such countries as China, Uzbekistan, Iran and Sudan, since lack of access to prisoners, arbitrary detentions, secret detainments and unfair trials are all also accusations that America itself is facing.
Several "benchmarks" for which she proposed the U.S. strive in order to reverse this trend include the closure of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the release or trial of its prisoners in proper courts and under fair trial rules—as well as putting an end to secret detentions and "impunity for torture and ill treatment."
"The struggle against global terrorism is not a military struggle," said Khan. "It's about winning the hearts and minds of people and that's why it's very important that human rights are not sacrificed in the name of counterterrorism. Global values and standards help to create a sense of solidarity and actually help create stable societies."