HUMAN rights will remain a "key element" in US foreign policy, the new Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, said yesterday after her department issued its annual human rights report.
She said she had a particular concern about religious persecution, especially in China where the practice had increased. "In too many countries, from Sudan to Vietnam to Iran, this form of repression persists," she said.
The rights record of Cuba worsened last year and the suppression of dissent increased, the State Department said earlier in its survey. It cited a crackdown on prodemocracy forces, the shooting down of two US civilian aircraft and increased reports of deaths due to excessive police force.
Turning to South Korea, the report said violence against women there was a serious problem. Some 6,173 rape cases were reported in 1994, the last year statistics were available. The report also discussed how "key worker rights provisions were either delayed or deleted" from South Korean labour laws in December.
The report said Israel's withdrawal from parts of the West Bank had improved the rights situation there, but there were "credible reports that Israeli authorities continue to abuse and torture Palestinian detainees and prisoners", while the Palestinian Authority "continues to abuse and torture detainees", four of whom had died in its custody last year.
The State Department found the Algerian government's human rights performance "improved somewhat" but said there were "continued serious human rights abuses". Security forces carried out "extra judicial killings", were irresponsible for numerous disappearances, routinely tortured detainees and arbitrarily arrested people. Opposition groups also committed numerous serious abuses, killing thousands of civilians.
Iraq's Ba'athist government "exercises absolute dictatorial authority", while "repressive regimes in Iran, Syria and Libya are responsible for the systematic denial of their citizens' basic human rights", the US survey said.
Washington's alliance with Saudi Arabia did not prevent sharp criticism of the kingdom's practices. The Saudi government, it said, "commits and tolerates serious human rights abuses".
Russia's human rights record showed little progress last, with Russian forces using indiscriminate and disproportionate" force in Chechnya, the survey claimed.
It said Turkey had serious human rights problems in 1996 and its record had deteriorated.