|
In
the Press This Week
US Tortures Detainees
(December 21-28
2002)
|
By
V&A Editorial Staff
|
29/12/2002
|
From
The Washington Post
“Those
who refuse to cooperate inside this secret CIA interrogation
center are sometimes kept standing or kneeling for hours, in
black hoods or spray-painted goggles… At times they are held
in awkward, painful positions and deprived of sleep with a
24-hour bombardment of lights -- subject to what are known as
‘stress and duress’ techniques…
“Some
who do not cooperate are turned over… to foreign intelligence
services whose practice of torture has been documented by the
U.S. government and human rights organizations…
“In
other cases… the CIA hands them to foreign intelligence
services -- notably those of Jordan, Egypt and Morocco -- with a
list of questions the agency wants answered. These
‘extraordinary renditions’ are done without resort to legal
process and usually involve countries with security services
known for using brutal means…
“According
to Americans with direct knowledge and others who have witnessed
the treatment, captives are often "softened up" by MPs
and U.S. Army Special Forces troops who beat them up and confine
them in tiny rooms. The alleged terrorists are commonly
blindfolded and thrown into walls, bound in painful positions,
subjected to loud noises and deprived of sleep. The tone of
intimidation and fear is the beginning, they said, of a process
of piercing a prisoner's resistance.”
U.S.
Decries Abuse but Defends Interrogations
From
The Guardian Observer
“‘I
think there needs to be a clear statement from the US government
that they are abiding by the Geneva convention with the
treatment of detainees,’ James Ross, a senior legal adviser at
Human Rights Watch, said yesterday.
“‘Turning
people over to another government to do something that would
amount to torture is a problem. It is torture by proxy, and the
US should not be doing that…’
Reports
that there could be abuse of detainees at Diego Garcia could
also prove embarrassing for Britain. The Indian Ocean atoll is a
British dependency and houses joint US and British air and naval
facilities.
"If
they know about this, and torture and mistreatment are taking
place in Diego Garcia, British officials could also be viewed as
taking part in torture," Mr Ross said…
US
laws apparently do not apply at the centres, where CIA agents
oversee - or take part in - the interrogations. While the US
publicly denounces torture, the Post says each of the 10 serving
national security officials interviewed by the paper defended
the use of violence against captives.”
CIA
accused of torture at Bagram base
From
The Independent
“Several
present and former CIA counter-intelligence officials told the
newspaper that al-Qa'ida members have been roughed up on arrest,
deliberately disoriented and, if wounded, denied access to pain
medication…
“As
one official directly involved in the process put it: ‘We send
them to other countries so they can kick the [expletive] out of
them.’ Another suggested – probably accurately – that US
public opinion was more interested in results than in playing by
the rules. ‘If you don't violate someone's human rights some
of the time, you probably aren't doing your job,’ one official
was quoted saying.”
US
'is using torture techniques' to interrogate top al-Qa'ida
prisoners
From
The International Herald Tribune
“When
Israel had a policy of applying what it euphemistically termed
"moderate physical pressure" to detainees suspected of
terrorist links, the United States knew what to call it.
"Israeli security forces abuse, and in some cases torture,
Palestinians suspected of security offenses," reads the
State Department's human rights report for 1998. Times have
changed… [T]he United States - suddenly engaged in a struggle
against Islamic terrorism - now has detained thousands of
suspected Islamic terrorists abroad. And suddenly, practices
that bear a striking resemblance to the old Israeli policy are
taking on an American face.
“The
U.S. government, in fact, denies it is torturing anyone,
insisting that all detainees are being held in a manner
consistent with the principles of international law. But what,
then, to make of anonymous comments from officials involved in
the detentions?
“…[T]here
are certain things democracies don't do, even under duress, and
torture is high on the list… Without knowing more about what
exactly is happening, it's hard to judge. But beating prisoners
is entirely out of bounds. The critical first step is for the
administration to clarify what tactics it is using and which are
still off limits. If administration officials have decided that
moderate physical pressure - once an abuse - is now to be the
norm in terrorism cases, the American people ought to know and
ought to be able to respond through their representatives and
through individual and organizational voices. It shouldn't be
the administration's unilateral call.”
Torture
is not an option
|
