US report on human rights blasts Arabs
ASSOCIATED PRESS AND JPOST ^ | Mar. 9, 2006
The annual US State Department report on human rights detailed Israeli transgressions, citing discrimination, violence, and corruption, while still maintaining that the Israeli government respects the rights of its citizens.
The report said discrimination was directed mostly at the disabled, women, and foreign workers, as well as at Israeli-Arabs.
Security prison facilities are in poor condition, and a small minority of security workers harass Palestinian prisoners, the report stated.
The government also discriminates against non-Orthodox Israeli Jews, the US State Department claimed.
In the Palestinian Authority, there is a lack of proper supervision over security forces, allowing excessive violence to be employed by its members.
The State Department called the human rights records of key Arab allies poor or problematic on Wednesday, citing flawed elections and torture of prisoners in Egypt, beatings, arbitrary arrests and a lack of religious freedom in Saudi Arabia, and flogging as punishment for adultery or drug abuse in the United Arab Emirates.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited all three last month and called each a strategic partner or stalwart ally that wields regional influence or helps in such areas as anti-terror investigations. |
