It is a depressing commentary on our times that even in the waning years of the 20th century, a majority of the Earth`s nations still feel compelled to imprison, torture and kill citizens who speak out against them.
Amnesty International, the human rights group that documents mistreatment of political prisoners, has released its annual report. It is another chronicle of human misery, pain and injustice that spares few governments from indictment.
No less than 135 nations were accused of abusing human rights in 1987 -- the most since Amnesty was founded in 1961. At least 760 political prisoners in 39 countries were executed, but the report said the number probably was much higher because of secret executions.
``In at least half the countries of the world,`` the report said, ``people are locked away for speaking their minds, often after trials that are no more than a sham. In at least a third of the world`s nations, men, women and even children are tortured. In scores of countries, governments pursue their goals by kidnapping and murdering their own citizens.``
While the report singled out the Middle East as the region where political imprisonment and torture was most prevalent, it also pointed a finger at the United States for the Louisiana execution of a mentally retarded man who had raped and murdered a child.
No region was exempt from condemnation. The Soviet Union, which released 259 political prisoners, received no praise in the report because they had been unjustly arrested in the first place.
China, Haiti, Iraq, Iran, South Africa and Israel came in for special censure. Even Great Britain, which suppressed the findings of a police inquiry into the killing of six unarmed Irish guerrillas, was cited by the report.
But Amnesty International, which received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977, did find some reason for hope. It noted that more than 1,000 groups committed to human rights recently have sprung up around the world. It also cited a proliferation of new laws to protect the rights of prisoners.
By shining its spotlight of worldwide publicity on human rights abuses by governments, Amnesty International serves as a kind of global conscience.
That its spotlight is required at all is a sad admission that despite centuries of cultural and technological accomplishments, mankind has not yet progressed far beyond Dark-Ages barbarism in its treatment of disagreeable people.