Terrorism war guise for minority crackdown - report

Terrorism war guise for minority crackdown - report
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Terrorism war guise for minority crackdown - report

By Reuters
Wednesday March 21, 12:40 AM
By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Pakistan, Turkey and Israel are using the U.S.-led war on terrorism as an excuse to crack down on minority groups, a rights group said on Tuesday.

A study by Minority Rights Group International also found that minority peoples living on the front lines for the war on terrorism were among the world's most-threatened, with Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan ranking in a global top 10.

"Some governments around the world are pinning their hopes on the fact that if they are allies with the United States then it will allow them to do certain things against minority communities within their own borders," Ishbel Matheson, spokeswoman for the London-based advocacy group, said.

"I think that is completely unacceptable and the United States should be alive to it and condemn it, unfortunately I don't think that's what they do," she told a news conference.

The group's report "State of the World's Minorities 2007" singled out Pakistan, Turkey and Israel for "intensified repression of particular ethnic communities in 2006."

It ranked Pakistan No. 8 on a list of countries where minorities are most under threat and said Islamabad oppressed groups including Ahmadis, Hindus, Baluchis, Mohhajirs, Pashtuns and Sindhis.

Turkey came in at number 39 for its treatment of Kurds and Roma, while Israel was ranked 54 for its behavior toward Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and Israeli Palestinians.

"U.S. allies have managed to barter their support for the war on terror in return for having their human-rights record ignored," Mark Lattimer, the director of Minority Rights Group International, said in a statement.

"The debate continues to rage about whether the 'war on terror' has made the world a safer place for the West, but it has certainly made it a much more dangerous place for minorities," he said.

The report said the war of terrorism had also given rise to Islamophobia throughout Europe, with some governments adopting laws that curb the rights of all citizens but particularly target Muslim communities, leaving them feeling increasingly "intimidated and persecuted."

Somalia, Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, Burma, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Pakistan, Angola and Russia make up the top 10 countries identified by the report as places where minority peoples are most under threat.

African states make up half the report's top 20 list.

The biggest jump in the list was by Sri Lanka, which soared 47 places to be ranked 14 in the 2007 list of some 70 countries after fighting between the Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eelam, who want an independent state in the country's north and east, and the government intensified during the past year.

Three countries fell out of the report's top 20 -- Indonesia, where an Aceh peace agreement has so far held, and Liberia and Algeria, which both continue to recover from devastating wars during the 1990s.