EU told to improve human rights record

The European Union, which prides itself on being a beacon of democracy, needs to work on stamping out police brutality and even torture within its own borders, Amnesty International said yesterday.

Amnesty's criticism follows a European Parliament report this week which said at least 10 people had died at police hands in 2002 due to "disproportionate force" and highlighted areas of discrimination and brutality within the western European bloc.

"We have been criticising for some time the complete contradiction of the EU's human rights posturing outside (the bloc) but its ignorance of rights abuses within its own borders," Amnesty's Brussels director Dirk Oosting said.

Parliament's wide-ranging annual report on fundamental rights highlighted ill-treatment of ethnic minorities like the Roma, overcrowding in prisons and delays in adopting an EU-wide asylum and immigration policy.

Amnesty welcomed the report, but said it needed to be matched by a monitoring process to ensure EU states respected basic rights, something national governments have resisted on the grounds that the EU should not interfere in such matters.

Amnesty said the need for a monitoring body would get more important with the bloc's planned enlargement from 15 to 25 states next year, as the EU demands human rights standards from candidate countries but not from those who have already joined.

"Why should the new member states bother if they see the old ones don't?" Oosting said, adding that the human rights group was likely to step up its campaign for better human rights within the EU.