AI's Global Human Rights Report

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Governments and opposition groups on every continent violate human rights every day. That's the clear message of this year's annual report from Amnesty International, issued June 14, 2000. This means that human rights abuses aren't limited just to "areas of crisis" that receive heavy media attention, such as Kosovo, Chechnya, and East Timor. Abuses are widespread, from the United States to Peru to the Xinjiang region of China.

The silver lining in all this is that major crises can be avoided if the international community will address problems early. According to the report:

   None of the human rights tragedies of recent years were unpredictable or
   unavoidable. It is only through a serious collective commitment to the
   day-to-day protection of human rights for all, wherever they live and
   whoever they are, that future human rights crises can be prevented.... The
   warning signs for the massive crises that struck Burundi, Chechnya, East
   Timor and Kosovo in 1999 were all there for the world to see and for
   governments to …