Amnesty names child-killers

LONDON (Reuter) - Governments are targeting children for human rights violations, and are torturing, killing or arbitrarily detaining them, Amnesty International said yesterday.

The human rights organisation named many countries where violations were carried out, including the United States, South Africa, Brazil, India, Guatemala, Israel, Turkey, Syria and Peru. Over the past 10 years, seven countries were known to have executed young people for crimes they committed when juveniles, Amnesty said.

The highest number of confirmed executions, five, was in the US. In February this year, the state of Texas executed Johnny Garrett, who was 'mentally impaired', for a crime committed when he was 17.