Human Rights Abuse Quotes

It was traumatic for my children to see the British army en masse coming into our home and searching the house. I recall on one occasion, when our home was raided, my youngest son was standing at the top of the stairs - he would probably have been only three years of age - in his pyjamas. The soldiers came up the stairs, and he peed himself.

Assad's suspected chemical weapons attack shows he is willing to go to barbaric lengths to hold onto power.

From 1945 to 2003, the United States attempted to overthrow more than 40 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements fighting against intolerable regimes. In the process, the US bombed some 25 countries, caused the end of life for several million people, and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair.

My government cannot remain indifferent in view of such a violent and aggressive seizure of a portion of its territory by a nation which arrogated to itself the title of champion of oppressed nations. …. I denounce these acts before the world, in order that the conscience of mankind may pronounce its infallible verdict as to who are true oppressors of nations and the tormentors of mankind

By the age of 24, I found myself convicted in prison in Egypt, being blacklisted from three countries in the world for attempting to overthrow their governments, being subjected to torture in Egyptian jails, and sentenced to five years as a prisoner of conscience.

Musharraf has just gone against the constitution and displayed contempt of court and has shown that he has no respect for the rule of law.

What is wrong with inciting intense dislike of a religion if the activities or teachings of that religion are so outrageous, irrational or abusive of human rights that they deserve to be intensely disliked?

... the Saudis have never shown any respect for human rights, either now or in the past. Even a petty burglar faces having one of his hands chopped off. The liberal press in America prefers to ignore all this, although they don't hesitate to blacken the reputation of Iran..

A reckless and unprincipled tyrant has invaded your soil. Abraham Lincoln, regardless of all moral, legal, and constitutional restraints, has thrown his abolition hosts among you, who are murdering and imprisoning your citizens, confiscating and destroying your property, and committing other acts of violence and outrage too shocking and revolting to humanity to be enumerated. All rules of civilized warfare are abandoned...

The Turkish Army will not allow itself to be bound hand and foot by democracy and human rights.

Yasser Arafat is the Palestinian Papa Doc Duvalier.

One should also remember that the U.S. is the biggest exporter of torture weapons in the world, though the U.K. is not far behind in the league table. We never stopped, even under Robin Cook's supposedly ethical foreign policy.

The conflict in Darfur could escalate to where we're seeing 100,000 victims per month.

When Saddam Hussein militarily attacked Iran, the rest of the countries all supported him. And at that time, there were mass executions in Iraq. In order to continue to support Saddam Hussein, they issued a lot of reports about human-rights abuse in Iran. And they put Iran in the black list of human-rights violators. But at the same time they took Iraq off the black list.

Let us recognize that we can no longer tolerate violent oppression of women in the name of religion and culture any more than we would tolerate violent oppression espoused by any other bully in the name of a twisted rationale.

The prohibitions of international law are largely toothless, especially when the abusive governments remain in power. The international community has established criminal tribunals to try abusers, but those who remain in power are ordinarily shielded from prosecution by their governments and its protection.

For thousands to do to death a few hundreds is no bravery. It is worse than cowardice. It is unworthy of nationalism, of any religion.

I stared at her in amazement. "How do you even live with yourself?"..."You're willing to sell children to a foreign government so they can be used as weapons, possibly against other Americans. I don't get it. Were you hiding behind a door on morals and ethics day?...You couldn't mother someone if they shot five gallons of estrogen into your veins.

I have known men who have been sold and bought a hundred times, who have only got very fat and very comfortable in the process of exchange.

the Distress of our oppressed Country, which now unjustly feels the baneful Effects of arbitrary Power.

Suharto, the genocidal kleptocrat who was one of the 20th Century’s worst mass murderers and whose 1960s’ slaughter of anywhere up to a million “Communists” was actively aided and abetted by the US Central Intelligence Agency

Since I know that about a million people have been killed by the government of Iraq, I do not need much those weapons of mass destruction.

Israel has gone mad. It's attacking, doing the same thing to the Palestinian and Lebanese people that they have criticised - and with reason - the Holocaust . But this is a new Holocaust.

When I have been travelling up and down on our boats, or about on my collecting tours, and reflected that every brutal, disgusting, mean, low-lived fellow I met, was allowed by our laws to become absolute despot of as many men, women and children, as he could cheat, steal, or gamble money enough to buy,-when I have seen such men in actual ownership of helpless children, of young girls and women,-I have been ready to curse my country, to curse the human race!

We Americans have a sense of ourselves as a moral people. We have led the way in the fight for human rights in the world. Mistreating prisoners makes the world see our moral claims as hypocrisy.