On Wednesday, the UN Civil Rights Commission published its annual list of the world's worst violators of civil rights, and once
again the people's states of the world led the list.
Leading the list of countries from which you would be most likely to risk your life trying to escape, Iraq was rebuked for "all-pervasive repression." In an extremely unusual show of unanimity, the council voted 31-0 to condemn Iraq, accusing the regime of widespread terror.
Cuba was condemned for its civil rights violations, an accusation which had all the shock value of criticizing the US government
for being in debt.
As an indication of how brutal the competition for the worst human rights abuses is, China and Rwanda did not even make the final list. (Rwanda is the central African nation that killed half a million Tutsi tribal members in a genocide that would be legendary if it had happened anywhere but Africa.) Another African nation, Nigeria, was also censured.
The criticism of Indonesia is largely based on its domination of East Timor, which it invaded in 1975. In order to quell dissent over Indonesian rule, the commission said that the Indonesian army had been engaged in "extra judicial killings, disappearances, torture and arbitrary detention."
(Source: CNN.)
