Out of self-interest, many Western countries ignore brutal acts by some of their close allies, countries that are democracies in name only, Human Rights Watch charges in a sweeping report.

'It's now too easy for autocrats to get away with mounting a sham democracy. That's because too many Western governments insist on elections and leave it at that.'—Kenneth Roth

In its annual assessment of human rights throughout the world, the U.S.-based non-governmental organization (NGO) scrutinizes more than 75 countries in such areas as press freedom, voters' rights, incarceration, refugee protection and torture.

The organization finds that supposedly democratic countries like Russia, Thailand, Kenya and Pakistan are only superficially so, but they still enjoy the backing of Europe and the United States.

"In 2007, too many governments, including Bahrain, Jordan, Nigeria, Russia and Thailand, acted as if simply holding a vote is enough to prove a nation 'democratic,' and Washington, Brussels and European capitals played along," Human Rights Watch says.

The NGO's executive director, Kenneth Roth, added in a statement: "It's now too easy for autocrats to get away with mounting a sham democracy. That's because too many Western governments insist on elections and leave it at that.

"They don't press governments on the key human rights issues that make democracy function — a free press, peaceful assembly, and a functioning civil society that can really challenge power."

Thailand, the report says, actively censors the internet and continues to impose martial law in many parts of the country, including the south, site of a separatist insurgency.

"The armed conflict in southern border provinces escalated in 2007 with brutal violence — much of it targeting civilians — by separatists and continuing counterinsurgency abuses by government forces," Human Rights Watch says.

Egypt, Israel among those criticized

Russia is criticized for beating peaceful political demonstrators, harassing non-governmental organizations, and torturing and illegally imprisoning people suspected of having ties to Chechen insurgents.

Close U.S. allies Egypt and Israel, which respectively receive about $2 billion and $2.5 billion US a year in military and economic aid, are singled out in the report for stymieing opposition election candidates, discriminating against minorities and, in the case of Egypt, torturing suspected criminals.

The report also upbraids the Palestinian groups Fatah and Hamas for failing to investigate and punish attacks against Israeli citizens and for summarily executing each other's militants.

The situation in Turkey, a NATO member, has worsened, Human Rights Watch says, with a diminution of freedom of speech, increased harassment of pro-Kurdish politicians and Armenians, and the meddling of the military in national politics. Turkey has received billions in U.S. military and economic aid.

"Rarely has democracy been so acclaimed yet so breached, so promoted yet so disrespected, so important yet so disappointing," the report says.

U.S. criticized on several fronts

The United States itself comes in for harsh criticism, in several areas:

• 275 prisoners are still being held at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, without being charged with any offence. Many have been there for six years, and several were cleared long ago of wrongdoing but simply not released.
• The CIA continues to assert, with White House backing, that it is not bound by key U.S. anti-torture rules.
• Secret prisons that were closed in 2006 appear to have been reopened.
• Under U.S. anti-terrorism laws, authorities have denied refugee protections "to persons who fit the refugee definition under international law, including rape victims forced into domestic servitude by rebel groups," the report says.

Canada was not one of the 75-plus countries that the report focused on.

Human Rights Watch was founded in 1978 and has produced an annual global survey of human rights for the last 18 years.