ECONOMIS AND POLITICAL EXPLANATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS

VIOLATIONS

Governments, organize police forces and armies to protect their citizens, build
schools and hospitals to educate and care for them, and provide financial assistance
for the old and unemployed, but governments also kill, torture and imprison their
citizens. This dark side government knows no geographic, economic, ideological, or
political boundary in the middle East, for example, Iraq has morbidly placed a
“welcome” doormat at the entrance to its torture chamber- a place where prisoners
are burned with cigarettes and electric hot plate, where electric shocks are
administered to them, and where they are hanged from the ceiling. In central
America, the government of Guatemala tolerates the torture and killing of three
church workers who were assisting refugees, In Africa, the Cameroons allows eight
prisoners to die of malnutrition; South Africa, through its policy of apartheid,
systematically violates the rights of its nonwhite citizens, In Asia, Burmese army units
operating in Karen state use local civilians as minesweepers, In eastern Europe, the
Soviet Union dissenters to psychiatric hospitals. In the western Europe, the residents
of Northern Ireland are subjected to trials that fail to conform to international
standards, and civilians are shot by the security forces. The list goes on.
Unfortunately, this type of governmental behavior is, even in the late 20ty century, a
dismal characteristics of contemporary politics. Most of the world´s countries hold
some “prisoners of conscience”