Amnesty slams Gulf rights record:

"The US-led 'War on Terror' has had a 'profound and far-reaching impact' on human rights in the Gulf region, says an Amnesty International report. The organisation says Gulf states, along with the US, show a 'disturbing disregard for the rule of law and fundamental human rights standards'.

It says a region whose rights record had been improving was now using the war as a cover for repression.
The by-products of the war are torture and extra-judicial killings, it says.

Amnesty says the US, particularly at its detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, has kept people without charges or access to a lawyer, ill-treated them and denied them visits or correspondence with their families.

The impact of Guantanamo Bay is particularly felt in the Gulf region, it says, because more than a third of inmates came from Gulf countries. Of all the Gulf states, only Kuwait has been allowed to send a delegation to the prison because of its close ties with the US, Amnesty says.

But some regional governments are accused of their own human rights abuses. The report says hundreds of people have been detained during crackdowns on Islamic militants justified by the war on terror. It says the worst abuses include torture and ill-treatment, and apparent extra-judicial killings. "