Amnesty International (AI) has challenged world leaders to apologize for six decades of human rights failure and re-commit themselves to deliver concrete improvements.
"The human rights flashpoints in Darfur, Zimbabwe, Gaza, Iraq and Myanmar demand immediate action," said Irene Khan, AI secretary-general, when launching he agency's annual report on the state of the world’s human rights on Thursday.
"Injustice, inequality and impunity are the hallmarks of our world today. Governments must act now to close the yawning gap between promise and performance."
The reports shows that 60 years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations (UN), people are still tortured or ill-treated in at least 81 countries, face unfair trials in at least 54 countries and are not allowed to speak freely in at least 77 countries.

AI’s latest report on Malta
In its latest report on Malta, AI complained on the detention of migrants “automatically on arrival to the island, contrary to their international obligations”
“They also failed to adequately protect people stranded at sea. The Council of Europe criticized Malta for its policies regarding detention of migrants, the AI report said.
The AI report described how the Maltese authorities failed to protect the right to life of people stranded at sea on at least two occasions this year.
“On 21 May, officers in a Maltese Armed Forces aircraft spotted 53 people in a sinking boat approximately 88 nautical miles south of Malta. According to reports, it took 12 hours for a rescue vessel to reach the boat, by which time it had disappeared.
“The individuals on the boat, who may have been seeking international protection, reportedly managed to return to Libya where they were detained at the Al Zoura detention centre.
“On 24 May, a Maltese fishing boat failed to take on board 27 migrants and asylum-seekers whose boat had sunk. The ship-master did allow them to hold onto a tuna cage to prevent them from drowning, and eventually let them on to the vessel.
“The Maltese authorities failed to rescue them or ensure their safety. They were finally rescued by an Italian vessel, the AI report charged.
The Maltese authorities strongly rebutted these allegations, arguing that the incident occurred in Libya’s search and rescue zone and was therefore not Malta’s responsibility. But regarding AI’s other complaints, especially about Malta’s continued policy of automatically detaining migrants and asylum-seekers, the government has been silent.
“At the end of June, approximately 3,000 migrants and asylum-seekers were detained in Malta, more than 1,300 of them in closed detention facilities,” the AI report continues. “Detention conditions remained poor, including at the Hal Far open migration detention centre, which migrants are allowed to leave, where up to 800 migrants were housed in approximately 25 tents, some of them with holes in them.
“Those living in the faulty tents were directly exposed to rain, wind and cold temperatures, leading to sleep deprivation and ill health. Those housed at the Hal Far centre included pregnant women. The Maltese authorities said they had no intention of replacing the tents with other structures.”
NGO Médecins du Monde (MDM) reported that in August a heavily pregnant Somali woman had given birth in detention.
It also said that those detainees who asked for a doctor and found not to be sick, are often punished with solitary confinement.

Our Southern neighbours
On the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, aka Libya, the AI report noted that after years of diplomatic negotiations, a positive outcome was reached in a high-profile case of political imprisonment involving six foreign medics sentenced to death after being convicted of infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV.
Their release paved the way for Libya to conclude arms deals with France and a diplomatic memorandum of understanding with the EU, the report notes.
“Some media diversity was permitted, but freedom of expression continued to be severely restricted, exemplified by the absence of independent NGOs and repression of dissident voices.
“Refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants continued to be ill-treated in detention, but the government failed to address the legacy of past gross human rights violations,” the AI report charged.
With regard to the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria, the AI report noted that the situation is even worse, with “continuing political violence across the country left at least 491 people dead, an increase over 2006. Many were killed in bomb attacks, for which a group calling itself al-Qa’ida Organization in the Islamic Maghreb claimed responsibility.
“People suspected of links with terrorism were held incommunicado and in secret and were at risk of torture and other ill-treatment. Several terrorism suspects returned to Algeria by other states were sentenced to jail terms after proceedings which did not conform to international standards. Human rights defenders and journalists were harassed.
“The Government took encouraging steps towards addressing violence against women and abolishing the death penalty, but did nothing to break the shield of impunity protecting members of armed groups and Government security forces who committed gross human rights abuses during the internal conflict of the 1990s,” the AI report charged.
In the Kingdom of Morocco, the AI report said that “restrictions on freedom of expression, association and assembly continued, and criticism of the monarchy and other issues considered politically sensitive was penalized by the authorities.
“Human rights activists, journalists, members of the unauthorised political group Al-Adl wal-Ihsan, and Sahrawi opponents of continuing Moroccan rule in Western Sahara were arrested and prosecuted, and more than 100 Islamists were detained on suspicion of planning or participating in terrorism. Arrests and collective expulsions of migrants continued.
“Death sentences were passed but the Government maintained a de facto moratorium on executions. Violence against women continued, although the authorities launched a campaign to combat it, and men were imprisoned for ‘homosexual conduct’.
In the Arab Republic of Egypt, the AI report highlighted how the Constitutional amendments rushed through Parliament were the most serious setback for human rights since the state of emergency was reintroduced in 1981.
“The amendments cemented the sweeping powers of the police and entrenched in permanent law emergency powers that have been used systematically to violate human rights, including prolonged detention without charge, torture and other ill-treatment, restrictions on freedom of speech, association and assembly, and grossly unfair trials before military courts and special emergency courts.
“Around 18,000 administrative detainees – people held by order of the Interior Ministry – remained in prison in degrading and inhumane conditions.

The interrogation conundrum
AI’s report on Malta concentrated mainly on the plight of immigrants in detention. However, recent allegations of violence at the Police Depot in Floriana have also rekindled awkward memories of the human rights violations of the 1970s and 1980s.
To this day, persons under interrogation by the Maltese police are denied access to a lawyer, despite legal provisions passed through parliament six years ago.
Labour’s justice spokesman Gavin Gulia recently berated the Justice and Home Affairs Ministry for having dragged its feet over the implementation of a legal amendment agreed upon by both parties in 2002.
Amendment 355AT(1) provides that “a person arrested and held in police custody at a police station or other authorised place of detention shall, if he so requests, be allowed as soon as practicable to consult privately with a lawyer or legal procurator, in person or by telephone, for a period not exceeding one hour.”
However, the amendment remains inoperative to this day: six years after it was approved by Parliament.
“This legal provision cannot come into force before the government publishes the relevant legal notice,” Gulia complained in a press statement at the end of May.
“Many of the provisions of the Act are already in force, but government left this particular law to gather dust for six whole years.”
The scenario calls to mind the death of Nardu Debono in 1980. Debono was discovered dead after allegedly escaping from custody. Then Police Commissioner Larwence Pullicino was later convicted of manslaughter, after it transpired Debono had in fact been beaten to death under interrogation. Thirty years later, the police are once again in the spotlight on account of another mysterious fatality associated with detention procedures at the Floriana depot.
Nicholas Azzopardi died in Mater Dei hospital on April 22, shortly after claiming to have been severely beaten while in police custody, and thrown off a three-storey bastion.
On their part the police maintain that Azzopardi had jumped off the wall in an attempt to escape, and claim to possess video footage showing the victim crossing the depot courtyard, unaccompanied, in the direction of the bastion.
Justice and Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici said in an interview with MaltaToday that he was waiting for the results of the two ongoing inquiries before taking a decision on the matter.
“Given the way things happened, I am waiting for the two inquiries into the Nicholas Azzopardi case to see how they develop and the recommendations they will make.
“I want to do this peacefully because since the other amendments came in force in 2004, nobody mentioned this part. So it shouldn’t be a knee-jerk reaction. It might also include recordings of interrogations. I want to take up the recommendations that will come out of the inquiries and go discuss them in depth with the police.”

czahra@mediatoday.com.mt