A Visit with the UN's Torture Cop
As we approach the anti-torture month that June has been designated I am going to continue to highlight cases of torture that are happening around the world.
I make no apology for this. I think those of us who signed up for Bloggers Against Torture have a duty to make people more aware of how commonplace it is becoming and how insidious and degrading it is to the population of every state that indulges in such a vile practice.
These actions are being carried out in our name and it is out solemn duty to expose them and denounce them. Silence is complicity.
Today I want to highlight the work of Manfred Nowak, the United Nations special rapporteur on torture.
This is merely a quote from an article on his work. Read the whole article here.
Sometimes bare fists ram into defenseless bodies, sometimes rifle butts come crushing down on heads. Little could be more painful than when genitalia are wired up to electric currents. Burning cigarettes dig into raw flesh. And sometimes revolver barrels are thrust into open mouths of prisoners -- the trigger is pulled in a mock execution, putting the victim in a total state of mental agony.He has worked all over the world from Tbilisi in Georgia to Chile, Egypt, Algeria and Syria.
But can torture be reduced to physical violence? There are subtler forms of the cruel craft, as the UN rapporteur has discovered repeatedly during his globetrotting travels. Like solitary confinement: In the Mongolian high-security prison Tahir Soyot, near Ulan Bator, the detainees are slowly and cruelly driven insane. The solitude of this rarely visited place, practically at the end of the planet, is infinite. For many detainees, Nowak is the first person they have spoken to in a long time. Nowak remembers how guards had to break open the cell of one death row prisoner. "They needed five minutes to open the security lock," the lawyer recounts, his voice quavering.
He was the first UN delegate to be given permission by Beijing to visit the countless penal institutions scattered across the country.
Now, shamefully, the actions of a country that used to lead the world in the advancement of civil liberties has come to his attention.
But these days, the human rights expert is directing his attention at a country that is not considered a so-called rogue state, but rather presents itself as the world's bastion of democracy and human rights: the United States of America. Nowak believes the US has lost its innocence since the terror attacks of September 11. Of greatest concern to Nowak are the intensified interrogation measures employed by the superpower in its war against terror. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized 24 "resistance-breaking" interrogation tactics specifically for the scandal-ridden prison in Abu Ghraib -- forcing prisoners to remain in physically painful positions, threatening them with dogs and questioning them when they were naked. All these methods are part of the repertoire of countries classically affiliated with torture.In this he is right. There is no need to debate moral equivalence here. Torture is wrong, no matter where it is happening, no matter who is perpetrating it.
Nowak has harshly criticized this "take the gloves off" policy, as it was described by former CIA anti-terrorism chief Cofer Black. "Washington tried to set new standards," he says. But it's a dangerous development and the UN expert fears that Washington's moves may encourage other countries to interpret the international torture ban more loosely. "It must be possible to fight terror within the framework of international law," he states categorically, adding that "torture is an injustice -- in every instance."
As a citizen of the UK I feel my government are complicit in the disgraceful actions of the US.
And for the US, the country that Reagan once described as the "shining city on the hill", to be engaging in such practices should be a source of shame to all right thinking Americans.
Click the title to read the full article - and then write to somebody - your Congressman, your Senator - anybody.
Just take some form of action.
Refuse to be complicit in this national disgrace.
Tags:
2 comments:
I wish it wasn't possible for this to be so much of a left vs right thing, as we should all find it deplorable.
Anyhow, just adding my vote of confidence, keep up the good work!
I actually don't think this is a right versus left thing.
There are some blogs who have signed up who I consider very right wing in most of their views.
Where it threatens to become a left/right issue is merely through certain Republicans finding it impossible to ever criticise anything the Bush administration does.
They offer knee jerk support for Bush no matter what action he is indulging in.
But I've been pleasantly surprised by the right wwing sites that I've discovered on the campaign.
Post a Comment