US ignores plight of minorities in allied countries: report | World News - Hindustan Times
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US ignores plight of minorities in allied countries: report

None | ByPK Balachandran, Colombo
Mar 20, 2007 04:49 PM IST

This was stated by London-based Minority Rights Group, reports PK Balachandran.

The United States is turning a blind eye to the plight of the minorities in countries which are part of its alliance against terror, says the latest global report of the London-based Minority Rights Group (MRG).

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"US allies have managed to barter their support for the war on terror in return for having their human rights record ignored," says Mark Lattimer, Director of MRG.

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Key allies of the US in its "war on terror", including the governments of Pakistan, Turkey and Israel, have intensified their repression of particular ethnic communities.

Pakistan is in the 'top 20' and Turkey and Israel have both shown a major rise in their ranks as compared to the previous year.

"The debate continues to rage about whether the war on terror has made the world a safer place for the West, but it has certainly made it a much more dangerous place for minorities," Lattimer says.

Sri Lanka, where fighting resumed in 2006, Tamil and Muslim minorities face abductions, forced disappearances and displacement.

Sri Lanka has moved 47 places up in the ladder, to be 14 th in the list of offending countries, the report says.

One of the main spin offs of the war on terror has been the rise in Islamophobia in the EU, including the UK, affecting millions of ethnic Arab and other Muslim communities.

However, the minorities are really in a bad way not in Europe or Asia but in some countries in Africa. African countries constitute about half of the "top 20" in this regard.

Somalia, the MRG says, is the most dangerous place for the minorities, upstaging even Iraq. Sudan is in the top three.

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