by Catherine Gordon

At the 2004 PC(USA) General Assembly, a resolution was passed on torture and abuse of prisoners, particularly the treatment of those incarcerated in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. The General Assembly called on members of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), as citizens of the United States, to "engage in repentance for these actions, even if their personal responsibility for them is minimal."  It further stated that efforts must be made to ensure that physical or mental torture or any other form of coercion inflicted on prisoners of war be eliminated from further practice. (Minutes, 2004, Part I, p. 903-904)

The assembly called on the U.S. Congress to direct an appropriate independent and formal inquiry to determine what led to these events. And, it urged government officials to develop safeguards that will prevent such behavior in the future.

Unfortunately, more than a year after the abuses at Abu Ghraib were reported (and two years after the torture began), measures to curb the practice of torture have still not been put in place and the practice of "extraordinary rendition" is still being practiced and defended by the Administration.  Extraordinary rendition involves kidnapping individuals, removing them from one nation without a judge's order or legal process, and delivering them to a foreign nation's detention facilities for interrogation. 

Wendy Patten, U.S. Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch, stated in a recent hearing on Capitol Hill that this practice "is an affront to the fundamental human right not to be subjected to torture.  This prohibition is absolute. Just as governments cannot torture people, they cannot send people to coun- tries where they are likely to be tortured. Rendition to torture is the legal and moral equivalent of engaging in torture directly."1

While the Bush Administration has repeatedly claimed that the U.S. government does not transfer detainees to countries that practice torture, the cases of rendition that have surfaced involve people being transferred to countries where torture is commonly practiced — such as Syria, Egypt and Jordan.

One such case is Maher Arar, a 34-year-old wireless technology consultant. Arar was born in Syria and came to Canada with his family at the age of 17. He became a Canadian citizen in 1991 and in 1997 moved to Ottawa.

In September 2002, Arar was in Tunisia, vacationing with his wife, Monia Mazigh, and their two small children. On September 26, while in transit in New York's JFK airport, he was detained by U.S. officials and interrogated about alleged links to al-Qaeda. Twelve days later, he was chained, shackled and flown to Jordan aboard a private plane and from there transferred to a Syrian prison.

In Syria, Arar was held in a tiny 'grave-like' cell for 10 months and 10 days before he was moved to a better cell in a different prison. He was beaten, tortured and forced to make a false confession. He was eventually released to the Canadian government. No charges were ever filed. 2

In another case, Mamdouh Habib, an Australian citizen, was transferred from Pakistan to Egypt where he was tortured, then transported to Afghanistan and later to the Guantanamo Bay facility. He was eventually released months later.3 A German citizen, Khaled el-Masri, was also subjected to extraordinary rendition. He was kidnapped while on vacation in Macedonia and tortured in Afghanistan, prior to his release on a deserted roadside outside Macedonia five months later. 4

Those who practice torture and use it as a means to achieve their ends usually justify it with the argument that it is necessary in order to defeat a perceived enemy. Israel legalized torture in 1987 because Israel's institutions and Israeli society saw physical and psychological coercion as acceptable in its fight against terrorism.  Palestinians, Lebanese and other non-Israeli nationals were seen as acceptable victims of torture. 5 Discrimination and fear help to support a policy of torture.

One need only look at Chile and Argentina. Their battle against communist insurgents resulted in the disappearance of tens of thousands of innocent people. In the Argentine report, the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons, Ernesto Sabato tells the tale of a member of the Red Brigades (who had kidnapped Italian stateman Aldo Moro in 1978), being captured in Italy. When a member of the security forces recommended that the terrorist be tortured, the general said, "Italy can survive the loss of Aldo Moro. It would not survive the introduction of torture." Sabato goes on to say, "The same cannot be said of our country. The armed forces responded to the terrorists' crimes with a terrorism far worse than the one they were combating . . . and they could count on the power and impunity of an absolute state, which they misused to abduct, torture and kill thousand of human beings . . . in the name of National Security, thousands upon thousands of human beings, usually young adults or even adolescents, fell into the sinister ghostly category of desaparecidos [the disappeared]." 6

Since September 11, 2001, the current Administration has been setting the conditions for torture and ill treatment of prisoners. 7 These conditions include: "the denial of habeas corpus; the use of incommunicado and secret detention; a pattern of official commentary on the presumed guilt of detainees; the sanctioning of harsh interrogation techniques in the pursuit of 'intelligence'; the blurring of the lines between powers of detention and interrogation; the setting up of military commissions which could admit coerced evidence; and a selective approach to international human rights and humanitarian law obligations."

What is clear is that the use of torture does not ultimately lead to reliable information. It does not increase our security but rather increases our insecurity. In a recent article in The New Yorker, Dan Coleman, an ex-FBI agent, commented on the mindset in the CIA after September 11, and on the use of torture. He states that the CIA "has seemed to think it's operating under different rules, that it has extralegal abilities outside the U.S."  Agents have told him that "they have their own enormous office of general counsel that rarely tells them no.  Whatever they do is all right.  It all takes place overseas." 

He goes on to say: "Have any of these guys ever tried to talk to someone who's been deprived of his clothes? He's going to be ashamed, humiliated, and cold. He'll tell you anything you want to hear to get his clothes back. There's no value in it."  Coleman states that he has learned to treat even the most despicable suspects as if there were a "personal relationship, even if you can't stand them." He said that many of the suspects he had interrogated expected to be tortured, and were stunned to learn that they had rights under the American system. Due process made detainees more compliant, not less.  He went on to say: "Brutalization doesn't work. We know that. Besides, you lose your soul." 8 

Amnesty International's 12-Point Program for the Prevention of Torture by Agents of the State

Torture is a fundamental violation of human rights, condemned by the international community as an offence to human dignity and prohibited in all circumstances under international law.

Yet torture persists, daily and across the globe. Immediate steps are needed to confront torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment wherever they occur and to eradicate them totally. 
 
Amnesty International calls on all governments to implement the following 12-Point Program for the Prevention of Torture by Agents of the State. It invites concerned individuals and organizations to ensure that they do so. Amnesty International believes that the implementation of these measures is a positive indication of a government's commitment to end torture and to work for its eradication worldwide. 

1. Condemn torture. The highest authorities of every country should demonstrate their total opposition to torture.
2. Ensure access to prisoners. Torture often takes place while prisoners are held incommunicado — unable to contact people outside who could help them or find out what is happening to them. The practice of incommunicado detention should be ended.
3. No secret detention. Governments should ensure that prisoners are held only in officially recognized places of detention and that accurate information about their arrest and whereabouts is made available immediately to relatives, lawyers and the courts.
4. Provide safeguards during detention and interrogation. All prisoners should be immediately informed of their rights. These include the right to lodge complaints about their treatment and to have a judge rule without delay on the lawfulness of their detention. There should be regular, independent, unannounced and unrestricted visits of inspection to all places of detention. 
5. Prohibit torture in law. Governments should adopt laws for the prohibition and prevention of torture incorporating the main elements of the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Convention against Torture) and other relevant international standards.
6. Investigate. All complaints and reports of torture should be promptly, impartially and effectively investigated by a body independent of the alleged perpetrators.
7. Prosecute. Those responsible for torture must be brought to justice.
8. No use of statements extracted under torture. Governments should ensure that statements and other evidence obtained through torture may not be invoked in any proceedings, except against a person accused of torture. 
9. Provide effective training. It should be made clear during the training of all officials involved in the custody, interrogation or medical care of prisoners that torture is a criminal act. Officials should be instructed that they have the right and duty to refuse to obey any order to torture. 
10. Provide reparation. Victims of torture and their dependants should be entitled to obtain prompt reparation from the state including restitution, fair and adequate financial compensation and appropriate medical care and rehabilitation. 
11. Ratify international treaties. All governments should ratify without reservations international treaties containing safeguards against torture, including the UN Convention against Torture with declarations providing for individual and inter-state complaints. Governments should comply with the recommendations of international bodies and experts on the prevention of torture. 
12. Exercise international responsibility. Governments should use all available channels to intercede with the governments of countries where torture is reported. They should ensure that transfers of training and equipment for military, security or police use do not facilitate torture. Governments must not forcibly return a person to a country where he or she risks being tortured.

Take Action for Human Rights

Please write to President Bush, in your own words, calling on him to put respect for human rights and international law at the heart of government, and to:

• Support a full commission on inquiry into all the USA's "war on terror" detention and interrogation policies and practices. Such a commission should be independent of government and have the powers to investigate all agencies and levels of government;  
• Bring an end to the USA's use of secret and incommunicado detentions in the "war on terror", clarify the identity, fate and whereabouts of all detainees in US custody, and work to end torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in compliance with international law and standards;
• Work to ensure that all US agents implicated in war crimes, "disappearances", secret detentions, torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment are brought to justice;
• Revoke the Military Order of 13 November 2001 and to drop all efforts to bring anyone to trial by military commission, including by dropping all appeals against District Judge James Robertson's 8 November 2004 order in Hamdan v Rumsfeld;
• Ensure that all detainees in Guantánamo are brought to trial in accordance with international standards, without resort to the death penalty, or else are released;
• Work to have the USA withdraw its reservations and other limiting conditions attached to its ratification of human rights treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

Footnotes

1. Statement on U.S. Rendition Legislation
2. "Extraordinary Rendition: Outsourcing Torture"
3. ibid
4. ibid
5. Read more from Amnesty International (See page 7 of document.)
6. Report of Conadep (National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons)
7. Same as #5
8. Mayer, Jane "Outsourcing Torture," The New Yorker, (Feb. 14 & 21, 2005): 110-112.
9. From Amnesty International