May 29, 2002	Wednesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 16,1423

LONDON, May 28: Torture is rife in a number of European countries, while security clampdowns after September 11 have led to human rights abuses, Amnesty International said in an annual report released Tuesday.

“Torture and ill treatment by state agents, often against members of ethnic minorities or foreigners, continued to be rife in Europe,” the human rights group said in its survey of last year’s world events.

In Macedonia, the human rights situation deteriorated as fighting escalated between Macedonian security forces and ethnic Albanian armed groups in the first part of the year, according to Amnesty.

It pointed to reports of indiscriminate killings of civilians by the security forces, and accusations of kidnapping civilians against the ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army (NLA).

Over 140,000 people were displaced between March and August 2001, mainly from villages that fell under NLA control, Amnesty said.

Both Russian and Chechen armed forces “continued to commit serious human rights abuses and to breach international humanitarian law”.

Violations by Russian forces included arbitrary detention in secret centres and in “pits in the ground”, torture and ill treatment, “disappearances” and extra-judicial executions.

Meanwhile Chechen troops attacked civilians working in the local administration in the separatist republic, and unlawfully killed captured Russian soldiers, Amnesty said.

Despite the transfer by the Serbian authorities of former president Slobodan Milosevic to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugloslavia in June, “many other indicted suspects remained at large and often in positions of power”.

In Bosnia, tens of thousands of “potential returnees” were unable to go back to their homes because they lacked security and suffered discrimination in jobs, education and social welfare.

At least a dozen people suspected of terrorism were detained incommunicado there without charge by SFOR, the NATO-led Stabilization Force.

Most of these detentions took place in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, Amnesty said.

Torture and ill treatment by state security forces were reported in 34 countries including Albania, Georgia, Lithuania, Romania and Spain.

In Turkey, torture and ill treatment of men, women and even children was “widespread and systematic”, mainly in police and para-military police stations during the days immediately after arrest.

Foreigners and members of ethnic minorities including asylum seekers were the targets of race-related abuse and ill treatment in western European countries including Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland.

Police ill treated Roma, and in some cases failed to protect them from abuse in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Slovakia and Yugoslavia.

Amnesty said it was also concerned at the excessive use of force by the authorities during demonstrations, pointing to the fatal shooting of a protester during anti-globalization marches in the Italian city of Genoa last July.

In Britain, new security laws passed after September 11 that allow authorities to indefinitely detain suspected international terrorists without charge “opened the door to human rights violations”.

Britain was the only country in Europe to deploy soldiers aged under 18 into armed conflict situations — in Afghanistan and in Macedonia. —AFP