Drawing frequent applause and chuckles from an audience of well over 100 students and faculty, Amnesty International USA’s Executive Director spoke Monday on the importance of reasserting human rights in a war-torn world.
Dr. William Schulz criticized the Bush Administration’s alleged transgressions against human rights both at home and abroad, and called for a more multi-lateral approach to fighting terrorism. It is in America’s best interest to promote human rights internationally, he said. “The U.S. government must realize that certain rights are pathways to a safer world,” he said.
Allegations of mistreatment of immigrants and Muslims by the government in post-Sept. 11 America formed the focus of Schulz’s speech. By limiting civil liberties through the Patriot Act, secretly arresting accused terrorists, and aggressively scrutinizing Muslim immigrants to this country, he said, America has undermined the basic tenets it was founded on. “Practices like these hand fodder to our enemies, and, in the end, don’t make for a safer world, but a more dangerous one,” Schulz said.
In an example that roused much laughter, he criticized the government’s decision to create and maintain a secret list of people who are not allowed to fly on commercial airlines for security reasons. “So far the no-fly list has snagged a 78-year-old nun and the chairman of Maine’s Green Party,” he said.
With such aggressive posturing, he argued, the government unintentionally fosters anti-American sentiment abroad and sympathy with Islamic terrorists. “The number of active terrorists in the world is relatively small. The number of gals and girls who remain undecided, however, stretches into the millions,” he said.
Even as he criticized what he saw as the Bush Administration’s excesses, however, Schulz said he recognized America’s need to defend itself and criticized what he saw as shortcomings in the human rights community.
“I have been critical of human rights organizations to the extent that we have failed to mobilize against terrorism in the same way that we have mobilized against transgressions of individual rights,” he said.
Audience members described the speech as fair and eloquent. “He’s one of the few human rights activists who puts forward a clear philosophy of why the defense of human rights is beneficial for all of us,” said Dominic Nardi (SFS ‘05), President of Georgetown’s chapter of Amnesty .
The speech was part of the Pacem in Terris lecture series. Over half of the audience on Monday consisted of students from “Human Rights: A Culture in Crisis,” a spring semester government course offered at Georgetown. Dr. Anthony Arend, who teaches the course along with Dr. Daniel Porterfield, invited Schulz to come speak on campus . “I thought it was extremely useful in thinking of the United States as a place where human rights are still a major concern.”
