UN: Absolute Ban On Sending People To Be Tortured

[struggle4progress]

Tuesday, 28 June 2005, 9:11 am
Press Release: United Nations

Annan Stresses Treaty Ban On Sending Suspects To Countries Where They Risk Torture

The prohibition of torture is non-negotiable, and that includes an absolute ban on transferring anybody to another jurisdiction where there are reasonable grounds to believe that the person is at risk of torture, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a message on the International Day in Support for Victims of Torture.

“Torture, in all its forms, and in all contexts, is unacceptable and cannot be tolerated,” Mr. Annan declared in the message marking the Day, held annually on 26 June.

“For the United Nations, whose founders reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights and the dignity of the human person, preventing and stamping out torture is a vital objective,” he added.

Mr. Annan emphasized Article 3 of the Convention against Torture entailing an absolute ban on transferring people to other jurisdictions where they could face torture. <snip>

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0506/S00468.htm

[aquart]

1. So can we please arrest Rummy and Georgie?

[Warpy]

4. You'll have to arrest GHW Bush and Clinton

because the appalling policy of "rendition," wherein prisoners were transferred to countries that weren't quite so fastidious about torture specifically to be tortured, started and continued under both presidencies. You can bet they knew about it, too. GHW Bush started it.

[Roland99]

7. Nab 'em all.

[darkism]

2. Oh no! What's America to do now?

You know we can't POSSIBLY win the "war on terra" without connecting people to batteries. :sarcasm:

[indepat]

3. None of this crap applies to the USA when a Repug is president for

the mindset of the Repug-controlled Congress, the conservative Supreme Court, the MSM and all the RW religious zealots and other RW ideologues is a Repug president must be allowed to do absolutely anything he wants, damn the law, damn the Constitution, damn the UN Charter, damn all the naysayers, damn the torpedoes EOS.

[teach1st]

5. Oops - deleted

posted in wrong thread.

[Jack Rabbit]

6. Convention against Torture/Article 3

Here is the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Do something Bush, Rumsfeld and Gonzales apparently haven't done: read it.

Article 3:

1. No State Party shall expel, return ("refouler") or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.

2. For the purpose of determining whether there are such grounds, the competent authorities shall take into account all relevant considerations including, where applicable, the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights.

So, if the war criminals in the Bush regime think they can get around the treaty by outsourcing torture to Egypt, they've got another guess coming.

[mom cat]

8. Also the following from Article 2

2. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political in stability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.

3. An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.

I guess Alberto Gonzales also thinks that these are quaint.

[Jack Rabbit]

9. Mr. Gonzales does indeed

Perhaps he'll think its quaint when the chief judge at an international tribunal sentences him to thirty years for crimes against humnaity.

[Seabiscuit]

16. ... and then ships him off to Egypt.

[mom cat]

23. That would be real real quaint!

[oxbow]

10. Any chance of this getting reported on US media? nt.

[gordianot]

11. Wow, the U.N. is on the job torture is going to stop everywhere now.

End result someday Bush will have the chance to speak U.N. about how his United States opposes torture in all of its forms. Then he can link that with some platitudes about spreading democracy.

[Jack Rabbit]

12. Point taken

. . . unfortunately.

[Nothing Without Hope]

13. Extraordinary rendition is a standard CIA practice and is well-documented

See this thread and the links in it:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1740193

A recent kidnapping in Italy is one of these, and it's really pissed off the Italians, as if they already had any love for the Bush Administration left:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/25/international/europe/25milan.html?th&emc=th

Thirteen With the C.I.A. Sought by Italy in a Kidnapping

By STEPHEN GREY and DON VAN NATTA
Published: June 25, 2005

MILAN, June 24 - An Italian judge has ordered the arrest of 13 officers and operatives of the Central Intelligence Agency on charges that they seized an Egyptian cleric on a Milan street two years ago and flew him to Egypt for questioning, Italian prosecutors and investigators said Friday.

The judge, Chiara Nobili of Milan, signed the arrest warrants on Wednesday for 13 C.I.A. operatives who are suspected of seizing an imam named Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, as he walked to his mosque here for noon prayers on Feb. 17, 2003.

It is unclear what prompted the issuance of the warrants, but Judge Guido Salvini said in May that it was "certain" that Mr. Nasr had been seized by "people belonging to foreign intelligence networks interested in interrogating him and neutralizing him, to then hand him over to Egyptian authorities."

Mr. Nasr, who was under investigation before his disappearance for possible links to Al Qaeda, is still missing, and his family and friends say he was tortured repeatedly by Egyptian jailers.

(snip)

I will be posting a thread with a link to an MP3 file of a BBC radio program on extraordinary rendition soon. It's one of those horrible national scandals that has slipped under the radar among so many other scandals in this country but is well known elsewhere in the world. A criminal practice? Absolutely. It happens all over the world - Canadian citizens, Italian citizens, anyone they want. They're kidnapped and whisked off to a country where torture and even death won't be so visible to the pesky human-rights organizations.

There needs to be a lot more coverage of this. It's not only criminal, it's more proof to the rest of the world that the US is now nothing but a lawless rogue power to be hated and feared.

[Jayhawk]

14. What about sending prisoners to be raped by UN Peacekeepers?

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[struggle4progress]

19. Security Council exposed and denounced that two months ago, with ..

.. the US officially taking the position that the individual countries are responsible for their own soldiers:

The .. Security Council on Tuesday condemned .. sexual abuse among peacekeepers after being told .. members ignored .. exploitation .., fearing exposure of their own soldiers' wrongdoing. The United Nations .. accused peacekeepers and .. staff in the .. Congo of rape, pedophilia, and enticing hungry children with food or money in exchange for sex. Sexual abuse on a smaller scale was discovered in other missions. A U.S.-drafted statement .. urged all nations to adopt recent proposals .. to end and prevent sexual abuse. But it says .. countries contributing troops have primary responsibility for the conduct of their soldiers. "The Security Council condemns .. all acts of sexual abuse and exploitation committed by U.N. .. personnel," the council's statement said. "The distinguished and honorable record of accomplishment in U.N. peacekeeping is being tarnished by the acts of a few individuals."
By Evelyn Leopold
Tue May 31, 2005 06:14 PM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=8657692

Welcome to DU :hi:

[Seabiscuit]

15. Gee, ya think maybe Kofi's aiming another broadside at Dubya?

[Burried News]

22. No - W has Khofi's Dice in the Vice

With the Oil for Food Scandal. I look ar Khofi as a prisoner of war himself - he is inside the wire and acting up a tad. I like him but he's been badly damaged.

[dArKeR]

20. watched by US Park Police in front of the White House

A man wearing a prision jumpsuit and a black bag over his head is watched by US Park Police in front of the White House in Washington on Sunday in an act of civil disobedience to mark the 8th annual UN International Day in Support of Torture Victims and Survivors. Supporters planned a 24-hour protest to call attention to politically motivated torture that occurs in countries.



http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/photo/2005/06/28/2005038070

[Name removed]

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