It is unfortunate that Amnesty International Secretary General Irene Khan used a word in the media rlease of the 2005 report that has captured attention and polical noise. It serves to drown out what is important.

The focus on this statement gives people an opportunity to inqore substance.

The detention facility at Guantánamo Bay has become the gulag of our times, entrenching the practice of arbitrary and indefinite detention in violation of international law.

Reaction has been swift. President Bush dismissed AI. Google the statement and you’ll find hundreds of protest and dismissals from various US sources.

“It’s absurd. It’s an absurd allegation. The United States is a country that promotes freedom around the world,” Bush said of the Amnesty International report that compared Guantanamo to a Soviet-era gulag.

Words matter. AI’s 2005 report could be lost in the media attention of the poor and inaccurate use of a word that has been known to represent one of the worst human rights abuses of the past century.

Gulag: [n] a Russian prison camp for political prisoners

Gulag also is understood to mean: internment camp, POW camp, prison camp, prisoner of war camp

Will the whole report be ignored and dismissed by the average citizen?
AI’s 2005 report also focus on improvements in human rights around the world. In 2004:

- Legal challenges to the new agenda included US Supreme Court judgements on Guantánamo Bay detainees and the ruling by the UK Law Lords on indefinite detention without charge or trial of “terrorist suspects”.

- Public pressure included the spontaneous turnout of millions of people in Spain protesting against the Madrid bombings, popular uprisings in Georgia and Ukraine and the growing debate on political change in the Middle East.

“Increasingly, the duplicity of governments and the brutality of armed groups are being challenged - by judicial decisions, popular resistance, public pressure and UN reform initiatives. The challenge for the human rights movement is to harness the power of civil society and push governments to deliver on their human rights promises,” said Irene Khan.