Double standards on rights

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THE Annual Report for 1982 of the international human rights organisation Amnesty International attacks governments for hypocrisy and double standards on human rights. Many governments manipulate public opinion by covering up torture and killings while themselves making political propaganda about such abuses elsewhere.

Governments had used "deception, distortion and disinformatin on human rights questions", Amnesty International said. They had jailed human rights activists, stifled information and used different standards in reacting to violations in different countries, the human rights movement said.

The 351-page report describes the movement's efforts to stop the imprisonment of people for their ideas or origins and its campaigns against torture the death penalty.

In a preface which underlines obstacles to protecting human rights, the report deals with the reactions of governments of all types to the politically explosive aspects of human rights.

•Statements about human rights have been misused to make political propaganda," it says. Among examples, the report cites: reporting by Soviet news media on Poland; statements by US officials on Central America; and the sudden attention given in Britain during its conflict with Argentina to torture and "disappearances" in that country.

•The concealment the dissemination of half-truths or lies and other forms of manipulation of public opinion by governments must be challenged," the report says.

It stresses the need for accurate, unbiased information and "a single, universal standard for the protection of rights everywhere, regardless of politics or nationality.

The report makes no comparisons or rankings of countries' human rights records. It explains that this is partly because of the difficulty of obtaining complete information, as well as the impossibility of comparing types of repression or suffering. Any comparisons would be open to political misuse, it says, and could obscure the principle that violations of human rights must be confronted wherever they occur. down on it, the whole issue of what way I should put it across. In fact, the RUC did all the writing. They read it over to me, then I signed it"

Concocted

In reply to a question asking if they had specified particular people whom they wished to remove, Lean said that they 'wanted Gerry Adams badly' '. He said they concocted a statement of an alleged meeting he had attended with Adams and a number of other men, which discussed the end of IRA punishment shootings [kneecapping etc.).

However, Lean said he would not have confronted Gerry Adams in Castlereagh because 'I have a lot of respect for Gerry Adams and also I didn't want to put unnecessary pressure on my family; he's a very popular person in West Belfast"

Asked how he now felt about he knew she was safe, as he received all the newspapers, but that he was already certain that no harm would come to him or his wife from the Republican Movement if he retracted.

"I knew the policy of Sinn Fein and the Republican Move. ment. They understand that people can be intimidated and threatened, and they've been trying to prove it these past lot of months. It was stated many times in AP/RN of the IRA's stand on 'supergrasses' , that nobody has any fear if they retract their evidence. I believe that this is the case"

In describing how he was treated in RUC custody and the events leading to his escape, Lean said that the RUC told him - without mentioning specific sums of money - that he would be "resettled in a country of my own choosing and get 'pen. sioned-off' ". There would not be any large amounts though":

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