Amnesty International criticizes US, urges China to fight for human rights

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
The United States is shirking its duty to provide the world with moral leadership, and China is letting its business interests trump human rights concerns in Myanmar and Sudan, a human rights group said Wednesday. Amnesty International's annual report on the state of the world's human rights accused the United States of failing to provide a moral compass for its international peers, a long-standing complaint the London-based group has had against the North American superpower. This year it criticized the US for supporting President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan when he imposed a state of emergency, clamped down on the media and sacked judges. "As the world's most powerful state, the USA sets the standard for government behavior globally," the report said, complaining that the US "had distinguished itself in recent years through its defiance of international law." As in the past, the US detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, came in for criticism. Irene Khan, Amnesty's secretary-general, urged the new US president - due to be elected in November - to announce Guantanamo's closure on Dec. 10, 2008, the 60th anniversary of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights.