Court allows Abu Qatada to be deported to Jordan
The British government have been cleared by British courts to deport detainees to country's where torture may take place as long as those said country's provide reassurances to the British that they will not practice torture upon the named detainee.
Would one hand a child into the care of a child abuser if he reassured you that no abuse would place? Is there any appreciable level of trust that has been established that would reassure the government that torture will be avoided? No, there is not. What there is, is a poxy little piece of paper that allows the British government to wash it's hands of a troublesome detainee.The ruling by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Siac) in London was condemned by human rights groups who said it gave the Government the green light to deport non-British residents on the strength of "dodgy little assurances" from regimes that abuse human rights.
Amnesty International said it was "profoundly concerned" by the ruling.
And, one should never forget that they are handing these detainees over to people who "have form" so to speak. They are handing them to nations that are known to torture and accepting their word that they will not do so in this particular case.
The courts have given permission for Abu Qatada, once described as al-Qa'ida's ambassador in Europe, to be transferred to Jordan. A country with a horrendous record of torturing people.
A recent Amnesty International Report found that:
"Jordan appears to be a central hub in a global complex of secret detention centres operated by the US in coordination with foreign intelligence agencies," said Malcolm Smart, Director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Programme.It simply astounds me that the UK government can say it is "assured" that torture will not take place based on reassurances that are blatantly not worth the price of the paper that they are written on.
"It is into this complex that suspects 'disappear' -- and are held for interrogation indefinitely, outside any legal or administrative process." The General Intelligence Department (GID) -- a military security agency directly linked to the Jordanian prime minister -- is the primary instrument of abuse of political detainees and for obtaining forced "confessions".
According to former senior US intelligence officials, the GID receives secret funding from the US government.
Methods of torture and ill-treatment suffered by detainees in Jordanian places of detention and detailed in the Amnesty International report include "falaqa" -- whereby the soles of the victims feet are repeatedly beaten with a stick; beatings with sticks, cables, plastic pipes, ropes or whips; and "shabeh" ("the phantom"), whereby the victim is suspended for up to several hours by his handcuffed wrists, and then beaten.
We should not forget that the United States “sought assurances" in respect of the Canadian citizen, Maher Arar, shortly before they transferred him to Syria.
Syria, of course, reassured the United States that they would not torture him.
He was kept for ten months in a cell slightly larger than a coffin, and regularly beaten with a heavy metal bar. So much for Syrian "assurances".
However, we are reassured that, in this case, all will be different.
The Siac judges said: "We have concluded that there is no real risk of persecution of the appellant were he now to be returned with the safeguards and in the circumstances which now apply to him."
Siac's judgement said the Jordanians could be expected to observe the agreements in a "transparent and conscientious" way.
The court accepted that senior members of the Jordanian military police had probably "sanctioned or turned a blind eye" to torture in the past.
But it added: "The Jordanian government would have specific interest in not being seen by the UK Government or the public in Jordan ... as having breached its word."
So, even though he's abused children in the past, the court accepts it is not in the specific interest of the proposed adoptive parent to abuse this child as he has given us reassurances that he will not do so.
The casual way that torture is being accepted as a norm is one of the most horrendous aspects of this War on a Noun. Indeed, when the history of George Bush's presidency is written, it will be hard to imagine any serious examination of his time in office that does not include a chapter on torture and his decision to facilitate it. As I have covered here, here and here, torture - as we enter the 21st Century - is making a remarkable comeback. And it is doing so with the active encouragement of the George Bush regime.
And now we have British courts accepting the word of the Jordanians. And they are doing so despite the fact that United Nations say "the practice of torture is widespread in Jordan, and in some places routine."
But the British courts and the British government are reassured. Because the child molester has given his word that his behaviour will be different in this instance.
We have lost our moral compass.
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