Rights to Silence

The Guardian notes a report by Human Rights Watch which castigates the British government, among others, for publicly espousing the cause of democracy while cuddling up to such paragons as Pervez Musharraf, Vladimir Putin and Hosni Mubarak. The report also criticises the international community for recognising the dubious popular mandates of certain leaders: "It seems Washington and European governments will accept even the most dubious election so long as the 'victor' is a strategic or commercial ally", according to HRW's executive director. The British government was "castigated ... for its pioneering policy of allowing terrorism suspects to be transferred to the care of brutal regimes on receipt of what the group termed 'empty promises of humane treatment'"; apparently Putin's Russia, where human rights must be nearly as much of a concern as in Bush's America, is now happy to accept such promises from the charming regime in Uzbekistan, thanks to our example when deporting people to places like Algeria, Egypt and Libya.

Strangely enough, the Guardian has placed the story in the "World News" section; presumably because Human Rights Watch is based in the US and because the HRW report also has a lot of stuff in it about the doings of nasty foreigners, some of whom might not even be friends of ours. Even stranger, the Guardian's story contains no comment, explanation or rebuttal from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Ministry of Justice, the Department for International Development, or indeed any other department of the British government or their shadows or anonymous spokesbeings. Imagine that.