Amnesty's political bias
From Mr Paul Banks Sir: Although Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) frequently assert their impartiality (Letters, 22 June), a comparison of their behaviour in relation to Augusto Pinochet and Yasser Arafat casts doubt on these claims.
When Pinochet visited Britain in 1998, Amnesty and HRW campaigned for him to he arrested and put on trial for torture. They even took part in the legal proceedings that led to Pinochet losing the immunity as a former head of state that he had previously enjoyed.
Arafat has also visited Britain on a number of occasions, most recently in October 2001, when he was invited to Downing Street. He has never been a head of state and would not be entitled to immunity of any kind. However, although Amnesty and HRW have both accused the Palestinian Authority's security forces of carrying out numerous acts of torture, they did not, as far as I am aware, call for Arafat to be arrested and put on trial.
It is hard to see how this inconsistency can be explained other than by political bias.
Paul Banks
Epping. Essex
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