2006年VOA标准英语-Amnesty Sees Duplicity in 'War on Terror'

By Michael Drudge¹
London
23 May 2006

Amnesty International has accused the United States and other major powers setting aside human rights protections in the war on terror.  The London-based human rights group has released its annual report.

-----------------------------------------------

 
Amnesty International's Secretary General Irene Khan, presents a copy of the organization's annual report for 2006 during a news conference in central London, Tuesday May 23, 2006
  

The secretary-general of Amnesty International, Irene Khan, told a London news conference the world's biggest powers have much to answer for in the field of human rights.

"Powerful governments are playing a dangerous game with human rights," Ms. Khan says. "Those with power and influence - the United States, European Union members, China and Russia - have been either complicit or compromised by human-rights violations² in 2005, at home and abroad."

Ms. Khan has singled out the United States for particular criticism over the detention³ of suspected terrorists at a military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"Some 460 people of around 40 different nationalities remain in Guantanamo," Ms. Khan says. "And their desperation is evident in the number of suicide attempts - in one case 12 times - and hunger strikes.  Guantanamo is a powder keg, waiting to explode."

The United States denies human-rights abuses occur at Guantanamo.  American officials say the United States would like to close Guantanamo and repatriate⁴ the prisoners, but in some cases their home countries are reluctant to take them back.

Another of Amnesty International's big concerns is the conflict in Sudan's Darfur region, where two million people have been displaced and hundreds of thousand have died.  The group says it wants the United Nations and the African Union to address the conflict and end human-rights abuses in Darfur. 

Ms. Khan says the conduct of Russia and China in Sudan is especially troublesome.

"U.N. Security Council members did not just doze⁵ through the killings⁶ in Sudan," Ms. Khan says. "Two of them - Russia and China - actively⁷ worked to preserve their own economic interests there, of oil and arms trade.  And the United States was keen and active to seek redress⁸ in Darfur, but its capacity was sapped by Iraq and its moral authority tarnished⁹ by the war on terror."

The Amnesty International report covers 150 countries, and catalogues a wide range of human-rights abuses from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.

Not all the news from 2005 was bad.  Amnesty says the number of armed conflicts around the world continues to decline, and it praises the United Nations for overhauling¹⁰ its human-rights monitoring agency.

The report also repeated Amnesty International's desire for a global treaty to govern the trade of small arms. 

1 drudge   

n.劳碌的人；v.做苦工，操劳

参考例句：

• I feel like a real drudge--I've done nothing but clean all day!我觉得自己像个做苦工的--整天都在做清洁工作！
• I'm a poor,miserable,forlorn drudge;I shall only drag you down with me.我是一个贫穷，倒运，走投无路的苦力，只会拖累你。

2 violations   

违反( violation的名词复数 )； 冒犯； 违反（行为、事例）； 强奸

参考例句：

• This is one of the commonest traffic violations. 这是常见的违反交通规则之例。
• These violations of the code must cease forthwith. 这些违犯法规的行为必须立即停止。

3 detention   

n.滞留，停留；拘留，扣留；(教育)留下

参考例句：

• He was kept in detention by the police.他被警察扣留了。
• He was in detention in connection with the bribery affair.他因与贿赂事件有牵连而被拘留了。

4 repatriate   

v.遣返；返回；n.被遣返回国者

参考例句：

• The government safely repatriates victims.政府安全遣返了受害者。
• In this part,you need to formulate in detail repatriate the plan.在这一部分，你需要制定详细的归国计划。

5 doze   

v.打瞌睡；n.打盹，假寐

参考例句：

• He likes to have a doze after lunch.他喜欢午饭后打个盹。
• While the adults doze,the young play.大人们在打瞌睡，而孩子们在玩耍。

6 killings   

谋杀( killing的名词复数 )； 突然发大财，暴发

参考例句：

• His statement was seen as an allusion to the recent drug-related killings. 他的声明被视为暗指最近与毒品有关的多起凶杀案。
• The government issued a statement condemning the killings. 政府发表声明谴责这些凶杀事件。

7 actively   

adv.积极地，勤奋地

参考例句：

• During this period all the students were actively participating.在这节课中所有的学生都积极参加。
• We are actively intervening to settle a quarrel.我们正在积极调解争执。

8 redress   

n.赔偿，救济，矫正；v.纠正，匡正，革除

参考例句：

• He did all that he possibly could to redress the wrongs.他尽了一切努力革除弊端。
• Any man deserves redress if he has been injured unfairly.任何人若蒙受不公平的损害都应获得赔偿。

9 tarnished   

（通常指金属）（使）失去光泽，（使）变灰暗( tarnish的过去式和过去分词 )； 玷污，败坏

参考例句：

• The mirrors had tarnished with age. 这些镜子因年深日久而照影不清楚。
• His bad behaviour has tarnished the good name of the school. 他行为不轨，败坏了学校的声誉。

10 overhauling   

n.大修；拆修；卸修；翻修v.彻底检查( overhaul的现在分词 )；大修；赶上；超越

参考例句：

• I had no chance of overhauling him. 我没有赶上他的可能。 来自辞典例句
• Some sites need little alterations but some need total overhauling. 有些网站需要做出细微修改，而有些网站就需要整体改版。 来自互联网