UF Govt criticised for failing to advance human rights in India

WASHINGTON, DEC 5: The Human Rights Watch (HRW), a New York-based group, has criticised India’s United Front Government for its “failure” to make progress in advancing human rights in the country, during this year.Its annual report, released here yesterday, says “Prime Minister I K Gujral, who has a reputation for promoting better relations with neighbouring countries, raised hopes for a rapproachement with Pakistan.”“By the year’s end, however, there had been no major breakthrough in relations between the two countries and artillery exchanges across the border had resulted in a number of civilian casualties,” it adds.

Although India signed the convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in October, the report points out, the UN special rapporteur on torture in 1997 report noted with regret “the reluctance of the government to invite him to visit the country.”India’s long delayed report on compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights also downplayed a number of serious violations, and India was one of the most prominent nations to state that it would not sign a new global treaty banning the use of anti-personnel mines, it adds.The HRW document points out, that among most serious abuses were the result of local police practices that had the sanction of state officials. Deaths in policy custody and custodial abuse remained a major problem throughout the country.

It says the restoration of an elected government in Jammu and Kashmir in October 1996, did not translate into improved human rights conditions.The report has also drawn attention to the abuses by militant groups in Kashmir. It also complains that progress in prosecuting police responsible for abuses in some states was offset by official indifference or endorsement of abuse in others. With the economic crisis in Asia, the invocation of “Asian values” to justify repression lost much of its resonance but the marked tendency of the major powers to ignore human rights when they proved inconvenient to economic or strategic interests posed a growing threat to universality of human right, says the HRW report.

In addition, the US Govt actively obstructed the strengthening of international human rights standards and institutions and remained unwilling to permit the application of existing international standards at home, it adds.