West urged to pressure dictators

WASHINGTON - Authoritarian rulers are violating human rights and getting away with it largely because U.S., European and other established democracies accept their assertions that merely holding elections makes them democratic, Human Rights Watch said yesterday.

By failing to demand that offenders honor their citizens' civil and political rights and other requirements of true democracy, Western democracies risk undermining human rights everywhere, the international rights watchdog said in its annual review.

Still, Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch's executive director, wrote in a segment of the report called Despots Masquerading as Democrats: "It is a sign of hope that even dictators have come to believe that the route to legitimacy runs by way of democratic credentials."

Among countries named as major violators of their democratic credentials in 2007 were Kenya, Pakistan, Bahrain, Jordan, Nigeria, Russia and Thailand. The report covered the year through November. In December, Thailand's military government allowed elections and was voted out of power by a large majority to end 16 months of rule by the junta.

The annual report is the 18th compiled by Human Rights Watch. It summarizes human-rights shortcomings in more than 75 countries.

Among other countries listed as abusers were Chad, Colombia, Congo, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Libya, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam. It spoke of abuses by the United States, France and Britain, along with Pakistan, in the name of a war on terror.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and other European leaders were criticized for their reluctance to allow Turkey to join the European Union, despite its improved human-rights record.

The report said the EU "lost leverage itself and diminished the clout of those in Turkey who have cited the prospect of EU membership as a reason for reform."