\n Amnesty International on Wednesday condemned countries in southern Africa for treating anti-government activists as \"criminals\" while hosting leaders accused of genocide such as Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Whilst activists in Angola, Swaziland and Zimbabwe were rounded up on the streets, Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir was permitted to travel unhindered to the AU (African Union) conference in South Africa,\" the rights agency said in its annual report.\n<\/p>\n
\n Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes related to the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan.\n<\/p>\n
\n South Africa, which is a member of the Hague-based ICC, did not arrest Bashir during the summit in Johannesburg last June on grounds that he had immunity.\n<\/p>\n
\n But a court in the city ruled that the authorities were legally bound to arrest him.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Something is clearly wrong when human rights defenders are treated like criminals, whilst those wanted by the ICC for genocide are treated like dignitaries,\" said Amnesty.\n<\/p>\n
\n During their last AU summit in January in Addis Ababa, African leaders backed a Kenyan proposal urging a pullout from the ICC on the grounds that it unfairly targeted the continent.\n<\/p>\n
\n But Amnesty's research director for Africa, Netsanet Belay, said that the \"threats of withdrawing will only undermine justice for victims.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n \"African countries were founding fathers of (the) ICC. South Africa can't afford to betray those victims,\" said Belay.\n<\/p>\n
\n Amnesty International also deplored rights violations in many of the southern African countries, notably Zimbabwe and Angola.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"In Zimbabwe, freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly continued to be severely restricted,\" said Muleya Mwananyanda, the deputy director of Amnesty International in southern Africa.\n<\/p>\n
\n In Angola, Amnesty said the government of President Jose Eduardo dos Santos was using defamation laws and state security legislation to \"harass, intimidate, arrest and detain those peacefully expressing their views\".<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Amnesty International on Wednesday condemned countries in southern Africa for treating anti-government activists as \"criminals\" while hosting leaders accused of genocide such as Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. \"Whilst activists in Angola, Swaziland and Zimbabwe were rounded up on the streets, Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir was permitted to travel unhindered to the AU (African Union) conference […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-26146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n