Very interesting opinion by Pavel Litvinov who knows about Gulags. I believe this was published in the US earlier when I was unable to blog and felt it worth mentioning.
Several days ago I received a telephone call from an old friend who is a long-time Amnesty International staff member. He asked me whether I, as a former Soviet 'prisoner of conscience' adopted by Amnesty, would support the statement by Amnesty's executive director, Irene Khan, that the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba is the 'gulag of our time'.
'Don't you think that there's an enormous difference?' I asked him. 'Sure,' he said, 'but after all, it attracts attention to the problem of Guantanamo detainees.'
[...]
There is ample reason for Amnesty to be critical of certain US actions. But by using hyperbole and muddling the difference between repressive regimes and the imperfections of democracy, Amnesty's spokesmen put its authority at risk. US human rights violations seem almost trifling in comparison with those committed by Cuba, South Korea, Pakistan or Saudi Arabia.
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