Again at Westminster Cathedral, the pope smiled broadly in the presence of young Britons, bowing to him in adoration and zeal — the kind of visual antidote to the associations that have come to prevail of priests acting with impunity to abuse those who placed innocent trust in their pastors.
These include widespread poverty, corruption, longstanding impunity, and abuse by security forces. .
In such cases, as when a mainstream feminist writer compares the ideal female body to that of a "Brazilian transsexual," for example, our law and practice should allow for trust -- not the kind of trust that leads to impunity and abuse but the kind of trust in which the first reaction to sub-par communication isn't to assume intentional insult but to educate and inform.
"Only by ensuring that Musharraf faces the well-documented outstanding charges against him can Pakistan put an end to the military's impunity for abuses".
"The verdict should go some way in arresting the impunity for abuses by Pakistan's trigger-happy security and paramilitary agencies," said Ali Dayan Hasan, Pakistan director at Human Rights Watch.
The committee, concluding its two-week session, said it was concerned about the "climate of impunity" for abuses by Indonesian security forces because many victims were afraid to complain or failed to get a fair hearing.
The Obama administration should stress that whatever and wherever the threat or provocation, an alliance with the US means first rejecting torture, attacks on civilians, and impunity for abuses that have continued far too long.
The United States must make sure that forces it trains and equips do not commit abuses with impunity, screening out abusive units using the Leahy Law and where gross abuses are pervasive and unpunished, suspending assistance to a nation's security forces.
The failure to address these abuses will only exacerbate the general breakdown in law and order in the country by sending the signal that there is total impunity for any abuse justified as a protection of religious sentiments.
