Latin Refugees Hit Hardest, Amnesty International Says : U.S., Europe Assailed on Asylum Curbs

The governments of North America and Western Europe, including the United States, “have become increasingly restrictive in granting asylum” to political refugees, Amnesty International said Tuesday.

Where the problem is “most critical,” the London-based human rights organization’s refugee coordinator, Nicholas J. Rizza, said in a news conference in Los Angeles, is in the efforts of political refugees from El Salvador and Guatemala to seek asylum in the United States.

“We are setting up Berlin Walls to keep out refugees,” Rizza said.

Similar news conferences were held in New York and London as Amnesty International released its annual report alleging human rights abuses last year in 129 countries, including most of the members of the United Nations and by groups ranging across the political spectrum.

The 392-page report contained thousands of allegations, including charges of government-backed torture and mass killings in Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

743 Executions

Worldwide, the report said, 743 prisoners were known to have been executed in 39 countries and 1,272 were sentenced to death in 67 countries.

“Thousands of men, women and children have become victims of human rights abuses as governments of every political persuasion have imprisoned their citizens for holding dissenting views, tried them unfairly or detained them without any trial at all, often in appalling conditions,” a summary of the report said.

“Victims have also ‘disappeared’ or been tortured or subjected to cruel and inhuman treatment that included judicial whippings and mutilations.” “While in 1986, we have seen encouraging developments, in reality, the report presents a very grim view as far as human rights are concerned,” Amnesty International spokeswoman Carline Windall told reporters in London.

On the positive side, the report noted improvements during 1986 in the human rights records of several countries, including the Philippines, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Zaire and Guatemala.

At a Washington briefing on the report, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Dante B. Fascell (D-Fla.) lauded Amnesty International, saying that its effort to advance human rights in the last 26 years has been “such an important part in the lives of so many people who don’t have it so good . . . to give them some hope.”

Won Nobel Prize

However, despite efforts that earned Amnesty International a Nobel Peace Prize in 1977, “the sad fact is . . . (abuse) is still there, and it continues,” Fascell said.

In Los Angeles, refugee coordinator Rizza cited government statistics showing that between June, 1983, and September, 1986, only 2.6% of political asylum refugees from El Salvador and 0.9% from Guatemala were granted permission to remain in the United States. Increasingly, he said, even though human rights violations have “been as bad as it can get in those two countries,” Washington has treated those refugee applications “as ‘frivolous’ or ‘manifestly unfounded.’ ”

In contrast, Rizza pointed out that in the same time frame, refugees from Iran were approved at a rate of better than 60% and that similar high levels were enjoyed by refugees from several Eastern European countries, Vietnam, China and the Philippines.

Asked to respond, a spokesman for the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Washington said that Amnesty International’s figures were misleading because the U.S. treats each refugee “on a case-by-case situation” and does not have a blanket policy toward particular countries.

He conceded, however, that those granted political asylum last year amounted to only one-third of the 11,627 who received asylum in the peak year, 1984.

Opposes Death Penalty

On other points, the report:

-- Noted that in the United States, the group is primarily concerned about the administration of the death penalty, which it opposes as cruel and inhumane. It cited 18 executions in the United States in 1986 and a record 1,838 prisoners on death row.

-- Declared that despite Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s moves toward social reforms, Soviet political prisoners still faced harsh treatment for speaking out on politically sensitive and controversial topics. More than 500 prisoners of conscience remained imprisoned in the Soviet Union, the report said.

-- Underscored that many Asian governments are still trampling on human rights. It cited reports of mass arrests in India, executions in China and massacres by Soviet and Afghan forces in Afghanistan.

-- Cited the South African government for using its state of emergency to detain without trial more than 20,000 critics and opponents of the government, “including children as young as 11 or 12. . . .” Additionally, it said that the death penalty remained a major concern and that there were 121 executions in Pretoria Central Prison last year.

-- Charged that political killings, torture, mutilations, disappearances and the use of clandestine forces to terrorize political opposition were still widely used in Latin America, although there appeared to be an overall improvement in the human rights situation in Central America.