Amnesty calls on EU, India to protect human rights in South Asia

Nov 6, 2009, 8:54 GMT

   New Delhi - The European Union and India should work together at the United Nations to protect human rights in places of crisis, particularly in the South Asian region, Amnesty International said Friday.

   The call came in a letter sent to Swedish Prime Minister Frederik Reinfeldt, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, ahead of the EU-India Summit in New Delhi.

   Amnesty addressed the EU's handling of the displacement crisis following the internal armed conflict in Sri Lanka, human rights violations in Myanmar, corporate accountability over the Bhopal gas leak disaster and India's use of the death penalty.

   'As global actors, both the EU and India have a responsibility to play an active role in the protection of human rights internationally, regionally and at home,' Amnesty said in a statement.

   'On the world stage, the voice of the UN is particularly important in the promotion and protection of international human rights; both the EU and Indian government should ensure that they support the UN in this role as effectively as possible.'

   The UN's 'poor handling' of the human rights situation in Sri Lanka during the internal armed conflict, particularly at its end, was cited by Amnesty International as a recent example of the need for cooperation on crisis situation.

   The organization said while the human rights and humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka had 'long been foreseeable,' earlier this year there were 'few signs of cooperation between the EU and India to address the human rights situation in Sri Lanka at the UN.'

   The EU was also urged to use its talks with India to engage strongly with Myanmar to end 'serious and systematic human rights violations, including detentions of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience, often in appalling and sometimes isolated conditions.'

   With the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal gas leak disaster, Amnesty also urged the EU to use the summit to call the Indian government to take urgent action to address the long-term impacts of the disaster, including a proper clean-up of the factory site, adequate medical care and a regular supply of safe water to the affected communities and their economic rehabilitation.

   More than 15,000 people were killed in a methyl isocyanate gas leak at a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal in central India in 1984 in one of India's worst industrial disasters.