Human rights group calls on Donald Trump to 'abandon hateful rhetoric'

'As president, Donald Trump must... commit to protecting human rights for everyone'

Donald Trump and family pose at the end of an inauguration concert (Getty Images)

Human rights groups are bracing for the worst under the presidency of Donald Trump - with one group calling for him to "abandon hateful rhetoric".

Rights group Amnesty International has called on Trump to publicly repudiate the use of torture and to close the detention centre at Guantánamo Bay. The human rights group also said it had “serious concerns” about Mr Trump’s proposed "Muslim registry" and his numerous statements on women, people of colour, the disabled, LGBTI people, activists and journalists.

“As president, Donald Trump must abandon the hateful rhetoric that riddled his campaign and commit to protecting human rights for everyone,” said USA’s Executive Director Margaret Huang in a statement.

Amnesty International joins numerous other civil rights and human rights groups that have sounded the alarm bell on either Mr Trump’s policy positions or ones backed by members of his proposed cabinet.

Human Rights Watch issued a 687 report earlier this week that called Trump “a threat to human rights”.

“(Trump’s) campaign floated proposals that would harm millions of people, including plans to engage in massive deportations of immigrants, to curtail women’s rights and media freedoms, and to use torture,” the report said, quoting Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth.

Both groups called on Trump to publicly repudiate the use of torture and to close the US detention centre at Guantánamo Bay.

Mr Trump’s proposed DHS Secretary, Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly said during confirmation hearings that he would abide by US laws on waterboarding and that he thought the United States should abide by the Geneva Conventions.

“I don't think we should ever come close to crossing a line that is beyond what we as Americans would expect to follow in terms of interrogation techniques,” Mr Kelly told the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

Closing Guantánamo Bay is unlikely to happen, especially now that Mr Trump is president. Mr Trump has vowed to keep the detention facility open.

President Barack Obama took action on his third day of office in 2009 to shut down the notorious prison. But the question of where to transfer Guantánamo’s prisoners as well as restrictions from Congress on transferring the prisoners to the United States has made shutting down the military detention facility more difficult than anticipated. If the State Department is not able to find another nation willing to take the prisoners, they must remain in Guantánamo.

A total of 45 prisoners remain in the detention centre, although four more have been scheduled for release it was announced on Thursday. That is down from the 240 prisoners when Mr Obama first came into office in 2009.

“There should be no further releases from Gitmo,” Mr Trump tweeted in January. “These are extremely dangerous people and should not be allowed back onto the battlefield.”

The idea of a “Muslim ban” and a “Muslim registry” has been raised several times during confirmation hearings of Mr Trump’s proposed cabinet members. Mr Trump’s proposed DHS Secretary, Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly, has said that he is against creating a registry or imposing a ban on the basis of religion alone. Mr Trump’s pick to head the Justice Department, Sen. Jeff Sessions rejected the idea of a Muslim registry in last week’s confirmation hearings but suggested that religious institutions such as mosques could be put under surveillance if there was reason to suspect illegal activity.

Mr Trump’s transition team has maintained that the proposed “Muslim” ban on new immigrants would not be on the basis of religion, but instead target countries with high incidents of terrorism. The programme established shortly after 9/11 by the Bush administration—the National Security Entry Exit Registration System—also used country of origin as its qualifier. Under NSEERS, all males 16 and older from the following countries were required to register: Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Egypt, Eritrea, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

NSEERS didn’t affect US citizens, permanent residents, or those who were applying to settle in the United States permanently under a visa program.

The Obama administration dismantled the NSEERS registry in December, declaring that it no longer provided an increase in security in light of DHS’s evolving abilities to assess terrorism.

The wealth of data available online in 2016 —from social media like Facebook to public records to the intelligence already gathered by marketing firms— has raised speculation that the Mr Trump administration would easily be able to build a larger “Muslim” registry from scratch.

“It’s absolutely the case that the data can be used in ways that identify and target minorities,” Cindy Cohn, executive director of EFF told Quartz. “It won’t be perfect, but it doesn’t have to be perfect to be problematic. The human rights costs are huge whether it’s perfect or not.”