Rights body accuses states of failure to provide a world without cruelty

Amnesty International is seeking one million signatures in Ireland in support of "the world's best-kept secret", the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, on its 50th anniversary.

Part of a campaign to rally support for the declaration, it will culminate in the presentation of the world's biggest petition to the UN Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, next December.

At the release of its 1998 annual report yesterday, Amnesty accused governments of failing to provide the world without cruelty and violence they promised on launching the declaration in 1948.

The report, which covers human rights abuses in 141 countries last year, details atrocities committed by governments and armed opposition groups, including unlawful killings, torture, "disappearances" and the jailing of prisoners of conscience. Extra-judicial executions were carried out in 55 countries, and judicial executions in 40 countries. At least 87 countries kept prisoners of conscience in jail.

Amnesty recorded cases of torture in 117 countries and "disappearances" in 31 countries, but it believes the true figures for all categories of human rights violations are much higher.

For the first time in a number of years, the Republic is not listed in the human rights violations in the report. The entry for the UK included a number of incidents and allegation which occurred in Northern Ireland, including attacks and a shooting by undercover soldiers, reports of ill-treatment by the security forces, and the killing of 19 people by the IRA and other armed groups. The case of Ms Roisin McAliskey and the uncovering of new evidence about Bloody Sunday are also mentioned.

"Governments continue to deny their citizens the rights they are entitled to in order to stay in power and maintain their privileges. Self-interest rather than the protection of their citizens is the rule," Ms Mary Lawlor, director of Amnesty's Irish section, said.

Ms Lawlor said it was "deeply worrying" that some governments were trying to excuse their behaviour by challenging the notion that human rights are universal. "Economic, civil, cultural, political, and social rights are all interdependent. You can't grade them. The issue is not whether torture is more important than starvation - human rights are universal and indivisible."

However, the report says it is vital to address the imbalance between economic rights and other human rights. Amnesty, with its mandate geared to civil and political rights, has been part of this imbalance, the report concedes.

Amnesty's secretary general, Mr Pierre Sane, said that for most people the rights in the declaration were: "Promises which have not been fulfilled for the 1.3 billion people who struggle to survive on less than $1 a day; for the 35,000 people who die of malnutrition and preventable diseases every day; for the billion adults, most of them women, who cannot read or write; for the prisoners of conscience jailed in nearly half the world's countries; and for the victims of torture in close to two-thirds of the world's countries."