Diplomats, Rights Groups Condemn U.S. Torture Outsourcing

by Thalif Deen

(IPS) UNITED NATIONS -- The United States, which pursues a widely-criticized policy of transferring terrorist suspects to countries known to routinely torture prisoners, has come under fire from UN diplomats and human rights organizations.

"If Bush's ambitious proposal to convert the world's repressive regimes to multi-party democracies becomes a reality," one Asian diplomat who declined to be named said sarcastically, "the United States will run out of countries where prisoners could be tortured."

Until then, he said, "we should name and shame governments that outsource torturing."

A coalition of eight international human rights groups did precisely that on Thursday, when it singled out seven North American and European countries for their policy of "rendition."

Under this policy, terrorist suspects have been transferred to countries such as Egypt, Morocco, Syria, Jordan, Yemen and Uzbekistan -- all praised by U.S. for steps toward "democracy" -- for "aggressive methods of persuasion" that are considered illegal in the United States.

The seven Western countries -- the United States, Canada, Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and Sweden -- have either attempted to transfer or have already transferred some of their prisoners to countries described in a coalition statement as "the most abusive (of human rights) in the world."

The eight non-governmental organizations -- including Human Rights Watch (HRW), Amnesty International, Association for the Prevention of Torture, and International Federation for Human Rights -- said that Western governments are undermining the global ban on torture by their policy of rendition.

The two most cited cases are those of Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian engineer, and Mamdouh Habib, an Egyptian holding Australian citizenship.

Arar was arrested as a suspected terrorist at New York's Kennedy airport and deported to Syria while transiting to Canada. Subsequently released by the Syrian authorities, Arar accused the Syrians of brutal interrogation, including torture.

Habib, the second alleged terrorist suspect, has accused the United States of not only torturing him at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba but also of transferring him to Egypt where he was beaten in prison.

HRW, in a report released May 11, documented over 63 cases in which alleged Islamic militants were transferred to Egypt for detention and interrogation. The practice dates back to 1994 and probably before but has accelerated since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, the report said.

Since the attacks, it added, the total number sent to Egypt could be as high as 200.

HRW's Veronika Szente Goldston told IPS that the coalition has appealed for action by the UN Committee Against Torture, in session in Geneva through May 20.

"This is a longstanding concern of ours," Goldston said, pointing out that Canada, one of the countries accused of this practice, is due to submit its own periodic report on torture to the UN committee's current session.

She said if the charges came to be proved, the seven countries would be in violation of the 1994 UN convention against torture, a legally binding treaty usually ignored by the powerful.

Last week, the United States submitted its own periodic report to the committee saying it is opposed to torture, despite the widespread abuse of prisoners in U.S.-run prisons in Iraq and elsewhere around the world

Torture could be justified "under no circumstance whatsoever, including war, the threat of war, internal political stability," the U.S. report said.

Goldston said the 200-page U.S. report would be discussed when the UN committee meets again in November. "We are studying the report and we will have a lot to comment on," she added.

In a newspaper interview last January, President Bush was unequivocal in denying U.S. use of torture and outsourcing of torture. "Torture is never acceptable, nor do we hand over people to countries that do torture," he said.

But several delegates at the recently-concluded meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva, said the United States had lost is moral authority to criticize other nations, judging by the widely publicized photos of torture and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison and at Guantanamo Bay.

In the May 12 joint statement, the advocates' coalition also called on governments to cease reliance on diplomatic assurances by governments receiving "rendered" U.S. detainees as a safeguard against torture and abuse. It described these as "empty promises of humane treatment upon return, sought only from governments with well-known records of torture."

The statement further urged the international community to make clear that the use of diplomatic assurances in the face of risk of torture violates the absolute prohibition in international law against torture and ill treatment.

"This prohibition includes the obligation not to transfer people to places where they face a risk of such abusive treatment," the coalition said.

No exceptions are allowed, even in times of war or public emergency, it added.

The coalition also said that the perceived need for assurances is in itself an acknowledgment that a risk of torture and ill treatment exists in the receiving country.

Moreover, the assurances are based on trust that a receiving state will uphold its promise not to ill-treat the person upon return when the state's record of torture demonstrates there is no basis for such trust, it added.