The Morality of Torture

Andrew Sullivan posted an insightful and thought provoking piece on the slippery slope to the justification of torture:

The manner in which free societies lose their moral compass is always incremental. Step by step by step, certain core values are whittled away. There is rarely a moment at which a government stands up, and asks its people if they wish to abandon such "quaint" notions as the Geneva Conventions, the rule of law, humane interrogation or habeas corpus. These things are abandoned incrementally or secretly, slice by slice, euphemism by euphemism, the chronology always clearer in retrospect than at the time. And each incremental step is always portrayed as a small but essential temporary sacrifice for the sake of security in a time of great and imminent peril.

And so defenders of torture have long argued that is is essential to make torture legal - but only in the ticking time bomb scenario. And yet, such a scenario has not yet happened and the United States has still indisputably abused and dehumanized thousands of prisoners in its custody, "disappeared" and tortured hundreds, and seen more than a dozen die in "interrogation". We now know, moreover, the following undisputed facts: the president of the United States and his closest advisers devised, orchestrated and monitored interrogation methods banned by the Geneva Conventions at Guantanamo Bay and subsequently in every theater of combat; these techniques were used not only in the extra-legal no-man's land of Guantanamo Bay but also at the prison at Abu Ghraib where photographic evidence of many of the actual techniques explicitly authorized by the president - stress positions, hoods, mock-executions, etc. - was incontrovertible. We now know that those techniques that the president expressed "shock" at were already explicitly authorized for use by other agents by him long before Abu Ghraib was exposed.

It is worth a read.

"Dirty War" suspect arrested

The JURIST reports that a former police chief and mayor Luis Aberlardo Patti, wanted for torturing and killing several people during Argentina's "Dirty War", has been arrested:

Argentina has recently stepped up investigations into hundreds of human rights cases stemming from the "Dirty War," during which at least 9,000 Argentinians were tortured and "disappeared" by the Argentinean military government in an attempt to silence leftist criticism of the military regime. Some human rights groups say the death toll was closer to 30,000. In 2006, a key witness testifying against "Dirty War" suspects disappeared [IPS/GIN report] after implicating Patti with torturing him in the 70's. The testimony by Luis Gerez contributed to the delay to Patti taking up his Congressional seat. Gerez was the second of two "Dirty War" witnesses to disappear around the end of 2006, but he reappeared [BBC report] three days after his disappearance.

Read the story here.

International Coalition urges for Sudanese arrest

The BBC reports that an international coalition of 29 human rights group is calling for the arrest of 2 suspects for alleged war crimes. The coalition is asking for U.N. and E.U. pressure to bring a Sudanese government minister and a Janjaweed militia leader to trial:

Justice for Darfur, which includes groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, called on the UN Security Council to pass a resolution calling on Sudan to co-operate fully with the ICC.

Some 300,000 people are thought to have died in Darfur's five-year conflict, the UN says.

Mr Haroun was a minister responsible for the Darfur portfolio in 2003 and 2004.

According to the ICC he was responsible for organising and funding the Arab militia known as the Janjaweed.

Ali Kushayb is accused of ordering the murder, torture and mass rape of innocent civilians during attacks on villages near Kodoom, Bindisi Mukjar and Arawala in west Darfur.

In February 2007, the two men were named by the ICC as suspects in a total of 51 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity including the murder, rape, torture and persecution of civilians in Darfur.

Read more.

"The Visitor"

Last night we had the privilege of attending an advanced screening of "The Visitor", a new movie written and directed by Tom McCarthy ("The Station Agent").

The film focuses on Walter Vale (Richard Jenkins), a 60's something widower professor, who seemed to be totally unconnected with life and others. That is until he takes a trip to New York City to find two undocumented immigrants living in his apartment, Tarek (Haaz Sleiman), a drummer from Syria, and Zainab (Danai Gurira), his Senegalese girlfriend.

It is in this meeting that Walter's life is changed. Tarek begins to teach him the drum and Walter seems to have found joy again. That is until Tarek is arrested in the subway and taken to a detention center.

And this begins the sad story of detention centers in the U.S. "The Visitor" does an excellent job of showing the realities of our immigration system and the long and painful process many asylum seekers endure to come to America.

This film does an incredible job of revealing to us the importance of the global community. The lyrical beauty of the films script and character development make it a pleasure to watch.
If I have not convinced you to see this excellent movie, here are some people that agree with me.
The New York Times Review

The Salon Review

Watch the Preview

To find out more about immigrant detention centers in America, please visit our friends the Detention Watch Network.

Letters to the Editor

The New York Times published some interesting letters in response to the ABC report in which it was revealed that top government officials where intimately involved in the creation of "enhanced interrogation techniques."

Here is one letter that was published from Human Rights First President, Michale Posner:

Re “The Torture Sessions” (editorial, April 20):

You say that it will take a new president and Congress to finally see accountability on torture. With America’s global leadership and moral authority on the line, nine months is too long to wait.

Fortunately, the remaining presidential candidates are all on record opposing torture and official cruelty. Anyone who followed the early presidential debates — when many of the candidates sought to outdo one another on who was more in favor of abusive interrogation — knows that this outcome was not a given.

Human Rights First has had the privilege over the last few years of working with a growing number of retired senior military leaders to share their messages with candidates and the public. They believe, as we do, that human rights and national security are mutually reinforcing, and that resort to torture and cruel treatment is wrong and counterproductive.

The presidential candidates seem to have gotten the message. But ultimately, it is up to the American people to keep the pressure on all of our current and future elected officials to demand an end to torture and abuse.

Michael Posner

President, Human Rights First

New York, April 21, 2008

Read all the letters here.

The Pope calls for Human Rights

According to the Jurist, Pope Benedict XVI gave a speech to the United National general assembly in New York. The Pope highlighted the need for human rights all over the world:

Experience shows that legality often prevails over justice when the insistence upon rights makes them appear as the exclusive result of legislative enactments or normative decisions taken by the various agencies of those in power. When presented purely in terms of legality, rights risk becoming weak propositions divorced from the ethical and rational dimension which is their foundation and their goal. The Universal Declaration, rather, has reinforced the conviction that respect for human rights is principally rooted in unchanging justice, on which the binding force of international proclamations is also based. This aspect is often overlooked when the attempt is made to deprive rights of their true function in the name of a narrowly utilitarian perspective. Since rights and the resulting duties follow naturally from human interaction, it is easy to forget that they are the fruit of a commonly held sense of justice built primarily upon solidarity among the members of society, and hence valid at all times and for all peoples. This intuition was expressed as early as the fifth century by Augustine of Hippo, one of the masters of our intellectual heritage. He taught that the saying: Do not do to others what you would not want done to you "cannot in any way vary according to the different understandings that have arisen in the world" (De Doctrina Christiana, III, 14). Human rights, then, must be respected as an expression of justice, and not merely because they are enforceable through the will of the legislators.

See the article here.

Read the whole speech here.

Guantanamo Bay Detainees Allege Drugging

The Washington Post reports that at least 2 dozen former and current detainees claimed they were drugged or witnessed other inmates being drugged against their will:

"I'd fall asleep" after the shot, Nusairi, a former Saudi policeman captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan in 2002, recalled in an interview with his attorney at the military prison in Cuba, according to notes. After being roused, Nusairi eventually did talk, giving U.S. officials what he later described as a made-up confession to buy some peace.

Read the whole article.

Former Pinochet General sentenced to 15 years

The Jurist reports that Chilean ex-general Manuel Contreras, who commanded Pinochet's secret police has been found guilty of kidnapping:

A Chilean court Thursday sentenced a retired general to 15 years in prison for his role in the 1974 disappearance of a political dissident. General Manuel Contreras [TrialWatch profile], the secret police chief under former dictator Augusto Pinochet [JURIST news archive], is already serving a cumulative prison sentence of 57 years for several other convictions.

You can read the Jurist Report

Or the AP Report

Also more is at Trial Watch

Peru upholds prison sentence for former President.

The AFP has reported that Peru's Supreme Court has upheld the 6 year prison sentence for former President Fujimori. The charge is for ordering an illegal entry into a private home. Fujimori is also on trial for human rights abuses.

Besides the six-year prison sentence, the Supreme Court also upheld a 135,000-dollar fine against Fujimori for civil rights violations during the home invasion. He is also barred from holding public office for two years.

Tuesday's high court ruling was welcomed by prosectors in the death-squad killings case, because it "demolishes" Fujimori's lawyers' argument that, while in power, he had no authority over active-duty military officers.

"Fujimori gave an order to a lieutenant colonel to have him impersonate a prosecutor in an illegal operation aimed at recovering some videos implicating him in corruption," said prosecutor Avelino Guillen.

Prosecutors are trying to prove Fujimori was part of the chain of command that ordered atrocities during his rule, including two massacres blamed on an army hit squad known as the Colina Group.

Read more.

Philippines pledged to sign a UN protocol that aims to prevent torture

According to the Associated Press, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has promised to sign the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and other Crule, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. This protocol would allow for international inspections of detention facilities.

Human rights groups have urged the UN to take the Philippines to task for allegedly failing to prosecute soldiers suspected of involvement in a series of extrajudicial killings of left-wing activists.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita says President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo will soon order officials to take steps to formalize her government's accession to the United Nations' Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Cruel and Unusual Punishment.

The Jurist reminds us that the United States, Australia, China, and Israel are among the countries that have not signed this protocol.

Read the AP story

Read the Jurist story.

Obama Answers the Torture Question

The Compassion Forum

Last night CNN aired the Compassion Forum, a bipartisan presidential candidate forum where subjects such as faith, abortion, HIV/AIDS in Africa, and torture where discussed. Both Clinton and Obama attended.

Although Senator Clinton did not get posed a question on torture, Obama did. Here is what he said:

DAVID P. GUSHEE, MERCER UNIVERSITY: Senator Obama, recently yet another disturbing memo emerged from the Justice Department. This one said that not even interrogation methods that, quote, "shock the conscience" would be considered torture nor would they be considered illegal if they had been authorized by the president.

Senator Obama, this kind of reasoning shocks the conscience of many millions of Americans and many millions of people of faith here and around the world. Is there justification for policies on the part of our nation that permit physical and mental cruelty toward those who are in our custody?

OBAMA: We have to be clear and unequivocal. We do not torture, period. We don't torture.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: Our government does not torture. That should be our position. That should be our position. That will be my position as president. That includes, by the way, renditions. We don't farm out torture. We don't subcontract torture.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: And the reason this is important is not only because torture does not end up yielding good information -- most intelligence officers agree with that. I met with a group -- a distinguished group of former generals who have made it their mission to travel around and talk to presidential candidates and to talk in forums about how this degrades the discipline and the ethos of our military.

It is very hard for us when kids, you know, 19, 20, 21, 22 are in Iraq having to make difficult decisions, life or death decisions every day, and are being asked essentially to restrain themselves and operate within the law.

And then to find out that our own government is not abiding by these same laws that we are asking them to defend? That is not acceptable. And so my position is going to be absolutely clear.

And it is also important for our long-term security to send a message to the world that we will lead not just with our military might but we are going to lead with our values and our ideals.

That we are not a nation...

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: ... that gives away our civil liberties simply because we're scared. And we're always at our worst when we're fearful. And one of the things that my religious faith allows me to do, hopefully, is not to operate out of fear.

Fear is a bad counsel and I want to operate out of hope and out of faith.

To watch Obama's response to torture go here.

To read the transcript of the forum go here.

White House Officials Torture Talks

The Washington Post, Dan Froomkin, responds to the ABC report which revealed that top government officials were intimately involved in orchestrating the interrogation techniques of the CIA operatives:

Top Bush aides, including Vice President Cheney, micromanaged the torture of terrorist suspects from the White House basement, according to an ABC News report aired last night.

Discussions were so detailed, ABC's sources said, that some interrogation sessions were virtually choreographed by a White House advisory group. In addition to Cheney, the group included then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, then-secretary of state Colin Powell, then-CIA director George Tenet and then-attorney general John Ashcroft.

At least one member of the club had some qualms. ABC reports that Ashcroft "was troubled by the discussions. He agreed with the general policy decision to allow aggressive tactics and had repeatedly advised that they were legal. But he argued that senior White House advisers should not be involved in the grim details of interrogations, sources said.

"According to a top official, Ashcroft asked aloud after one meeting: 'Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly.'"

Read the whole article.

Watch the ABC Video.

Jolie Highlights the Plight of Iraqi Refugee Children

Voice of America reports that actress Angelina Jolie is speaking out about Iraqi refugee children:

Jolie again used her star power to speak out for children in war zones, on the day the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus testified before congressional committees.

Jolie has spent time with Iraqi refugee families and is concerned with the lack of assistance that is being offered for these families:

"I would think even [General David] Petraeus would agree that a surge does not just mean it works if you get numbers of violence down," she said. "It works if humanitarian aid is tarting to increase and changes are able to be made."

Half of the four million Iraqis forced out of their homes are internally displaced. Tens of thousands have fled to Syria and Jordan, and much smaller numbers of Iraqi refugees are in Egypt and Lebanon.

In addition to the trauma of being a refugee Jolie pointed out the fact that many of these refugees have also survived torture:

Jolie said the vast majority of Iraqi children have been traumatized by the horrors of war and now have special needs.

"These children are also traumatized," she said. "One in every five Iraqi registered in Syria is registered as a victim of torture or extreme violence. There was also a study done, that not surprisingly, 92 percent of the children in Iraq had learning impediments, due to a climate of fear."

Jolie said there are no easy solutions to improve access to education in Iraq, but efforts should focus on improving education infrastructure for refugees in host countries, providing books and supplies, recruiting teachers and integrating school dropouts, especially girls.

Read more.

Cambodian Artist Remembers the Horrors of the Khmer Rouge

CNN's Christiane Amanpour visited the S-21, Tuol Sleng Prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The prison was used for torture by the Khmer Rouge. Famous artist Van Nath was a prisoner at S-21 and after the regime fell created portraits of the horrors of the prison. Water-boarding was a tactic that the Khmer Rouge often used against its "enemies." Van Nath shares with Amanpour his views on the U.S. decision to water board suspects.

One of his paintings shows a prisoner blindfolded and hoisted onto a makeshift scaffold by two guards. He is then lowered head first into a massive barrel of water. Another shows a prisoner with cloth over his face, writhing as an interrogator pours water over his head.

Van Nath still remembers the accompanying screams: "It sounded like when we are really in pain, choking in water," he told me. "The sound was screaming, from the throat. I suppose they could not bear the torture.

"Whenever we heard the noises we were really shocked and scared. We thought one day they will do the same thing to us."

As he talked and showed me around, my mind raced to the debate in the United States over this same tactic used on its prisoners nearly 40 years later. I stared blankly at another of Van Nath's paintings. This time a prisoner is submerged in a life-size box full of water, handcuffed to the side so he cannot escape or raise his head to breathe. His interrogators, arrayed around him, are demanding information.

I asked Van Nath whether he had heard this was once used on America's terrorist suspects. He nodded his head. "It's not right," he said.

But I pressed him: Is it torture? "Yes," he said quietly, "it is severe torture. We could try it and see how we would react if we are choking under water for just two minutes. It is very serious."

Read the whole story here.

Celebration of Hope and Healing 2008

We want to extend a big thank you to our presenters Carlos Mauricio, the Owl and Panther Poetry Group, and William Aceves. This year's event was a great success and we wanted to share some of our photos with you here on the blog, enjoy!

Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas takes on torture

The Sacramento Bee reports that Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas has proposed a resolution that would notify California health professionals that they could lose their license and be prosecuted by the state if they are involved in the torture:

"California has the obligation, I believe, to notify its licensees of laws pertaining to torture that may result in prosecution," Ridley-Thomas said.

The senator said physicians have reportedly advised interrogators whether prisoners were fit enough to survive "physical maltreatment, informed interrogators about prisoners' phobias and other psychological vulnerabilities that could be exploited."

Invoking the Hippocratic oath that physicians traditionally take, he said the state can "withdraw its consent to torture by demanding that its health professionals remember their oath to first do no harm."

Yet some professionals do not agree that this is the best strategy in tackling the problem of health professionals involved in torture:

Dr. Vito Imbascini, state surgeon of the California National Guard, said "a few Californians were among the practitioners in the healing arts involved in torture" at U.S. military facilities at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

"But given the tiny number of renegade offenders, we think a more effective approach (than the resolution) would be to target those offenders," said Imbascini, who represented the 35,000-physician California Medical Association at the hearing.

Read the different views here.

Torture in Egyptian Prisons

The Jerusalem Post writes that Palestinian men from Gaza are reporting to have been tortured by Egyptian General Intelligence:

According to the Palestinians, who returned to the Gaza Strip last week, the torture methods included severe beatings, stripping naked, sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, electric shocks, whippings and verbal abuse.

The Gazans, who were suspected of membership in Hamas, entered Egypt during the 12 days after thousands of Palestinians knocked down the border fence on January 23.

They were detained without trial and without the possibility of seeing a lawyer or family members.

Read the whole story here.

Chinese Activist Convicted for Speaking out Against Torture

The Jurist reports that Chinese Activist Hu Jai has been convicted for 3 1/2 years for subversion.

[JURIST] Chinese human rights activist Hu Jia [advocacy blog] was sentenced Thursday to 3.5 years in prison on charges of inciting subversion of state power [JURIST news archive]. Hu's trial [HRW case history; JURIST report] began last month; he was formally charged in February after he made public [JURIST reports] letters and recordings from Chinese lawyer Gao Zhisheng alleging that Gao was tortured into confessing to subversion charges. Hu has 10 days to appeal his conviction.

Read the full Jurist Report here.

Read the AP story here.

Torture Memos Released.

Yesterday the 81-page "Torture Memo" written by John Yoo was publicly released.

The Justice Department sent a legal memorandum to the Pentagon in 2003 asserting that federal laws prohibiting assault, maiming and other crimes did not apply to military interrogators who questioned al-Qaeda captives because the president's ultimate authority as commander in chief overrode such statutes.

The 81-page memo, which was declassified and released publicly yesterday, argues that poking, slapping or shoving detainees would not give rise to criminal liability. The document also appears to defend the use of mind-altering drugs that do not produce "an extreme effect" calculated to "cause a profound disruption of the senses or personality."

Read the whole story here.

Murat Kurnaz

60 Minutes interviews Murat Kurnaz, a German citizen who was held at Guantanamo Bay for 3 1/2 years, despite the fact US and German intelligence declared his innocence: