HRW: Dozens sent to Egypt to be "interrogated"

[paineinthearse]

RENDITION – DOZENS SENT TO EGYPT TO BE 'INTERROGATED': A Human Rights Watch report released yesterday contends that the "United States and other countries have forcibly sent dozens of terror suspects to Egypt," a country that even the State Department acknowledges "regularly uses extreme interrogation methods on detainees." Though HRW cites 63 documented cases since 1994, the transfers accelerated after the September 11th attacks and the report estimates that as many as 200 suspected Islamic militants have been sent since that date. American officials continue to deny that suspects have "been sent to another country for the purpose of torture" but do not " that people have been sent to countries where detainees are subjected to extreme interrogation tactics."





http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2005/05/11/egypt10603.htm

Egypt: Suspects Sent Back Face Torture
Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Yemen, and Other Countries Have Rendered Suspects to Egypt

(Washington, May 11, 2005)—Scores of alleged Islamist militants have been sent back to Egypt, where they have faced torture and serious mistreatment, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The United States is among the countries that have rendered such suspects to Egypt. The Egyptian government has held many of the suspects in prolonged incommunicado detention. In some cases, Egypt has refused to acknowledge the whereabouts of those persons, and even the fact that they were in custody, raising concerns that some of the suspects have been forcibly “disappeared.”

The 53-page report, “Black Hole: The Fate of Islamists Rendered to Egypt,” identifies some 60 individuals, mostly alleged Islamist militants of Egyptian origin, whom other states rendered to Egypt since 1994. The sending states have mainly been Arab and South Asian countries, but include Sweden as well as the United States. “Sending suspects to a country where they are likely to be tortured is strictly prohibited under international law,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Egypt’s terrible record of torturing prisoners means that no country should forcibly send a suspect there.”

Human Rights Watch said that sending wanted individuals to Egypt is a clear violation of the international law that prohibits extraditing or otherwise transferring persons to a country where they face likely torture. The report examines seven cases in detail, including two in which Egyptian security agents abducted Yemenis in Cairo, one of whom later ended up at the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Human Rights Watch cites cases, beginning in 1995, where the United States facilitated or played an operational role in sending wanted individuals to Egypt. A number of such cases happened since 2001 during U.S. President George W. Bush’s administration. Bush defended this practice at his press conference on April 28, without mentioning Egypt by name. “We operate within the law, and we send people to countries where they say they’re not going to torture the people,” he said.

The U.S. Department of State’s latest human rights report on Egypt, published in February, stated that “torture and abuse of detainees by police, security personnel, and prison guards remained common and persistent,” and detailed numerous cases. “The Bush administration knows full well that Egypt tortures people in custody, and that its promises not to torture a given suspect are not worth the paper they’re written on,” Stork said. “This fig leaf doesn’t hide U.S. complicity in the terrible abuses that await suspects sent to Egypt.”

By promoting renditions to places like Egypt, Washington also sends a message to other states, in effect saying “we don’t care how abusive you are.” In a report published April 15, Human Rights Watch documented extensively how diplomatic assurances from governments known to practice torture cannot be trusted. ”No government should seek or accept diplomatic assurances from Egypt when it comes to torture,” Stork said. “No state should send a wanted person to Egypt under any circumstances until it cleans up its act.”

Black Hole: The Fate of Islamists Rendered to Egypt will be available in English at:
http://hrw.org/reports/2005/egypt0505/

Attention media watchers - let's track this to see if it grows legs.

[katinmn]

1. kicking and recommended

[Nothing Without Hope]

2. This is extremely important. We CANNOT call ourselves progressives if

we ignore it.

For background on the "EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION" procedure by which people are kidnapped and shipped to secret locations for torture or "disappearance" by the CIA - all under the auspices of pseudo-legalistic hand-waving by people like Gonzales but out of sight of the American people and certainly out of sight of any conceivable code of legality, morality or humanity - see THIS THREAD:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1740193

It is mostly about the reports by Stephen Grey, a respected UK investigative journalist and an expert in these matters. His work has been the subject of a major BBC broadcast and many prominent articles in the European press. I view him as a sort of British Seymour Hersh. I recommend readng the ENTIRE THREAD - more information was added as it extended and it is ALL important and almost invisitble in the US press.

Edited to add: Recommended. We need to pay far more attention to this horrible, inhuman practice, which is now a routine procedure done in our name.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. Plausible deniability. "Gosh, we didn't think that they'd do that."

This after denying that they're sending the prisoners. Then saying that they know nothing about the methods used by the Egyptions. All the while, saying that it is being done to prevent the "terrorists" from coming to America. When the truth finally emerges they will send a letter to Mubarak saying that they disaprove of the methods.

By that time, whatever scant acknowledgement it gets in our heroic media will have sunk it to page 93.

[seemslikeadream]

4. I'm tracking it paineinthearse

Thanks

[Liberty Belle]

5. I'll publish this in my newsletter, the Liberty Belle Log.

Thanks for keeping us informed, PainintheHearse.

[paineinthearse]

8. Please post a link when up

Looking forward to reading your blog.

[Liberty Belle]

9. I don't have a blog yet, just an e-mailed newsletter.

Anyone who would like a free subscription may PM me.

[Tinoire]

6. Congress killed measures to ban U.S. use of torture

Congress killed measures to ban U.S. use of torture
By Douglas Jehl and David Johnston The New York Times Friday, January 14, 2005

White House opposed including restrictions

WASHINGTON At the urging of the White House, congressional leaders scrapped a legislative measure last month that would have imposed new restrictions on the use of extreme interrogation measures by U.S. intelligence officers, congressional officials say.
.
The defeat of the proposal affects one of the most shadowy arenas of the war on terrorism, involving the CIA's secret detention and interrogation of top terror leaders like Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the September 2001 attacks, and about three dozen other senior members of Al Qaeda and its offshoots.
.
The Senate had approved the new restrictions, by a 96-2 vote, as part of the intelligence reform legislation. The restrictions would have explicitly extended to intelligence officers a prohibition against the use of torture or inhumane treatment, and it would have required the CIA as well as the Pentagon to report to Congress about the methods they were using.
.
But in intense, closed-door negotiations, according to congressional officials, four senior lawmakers from the House and Senate deleted the restrictions from the final bill after the White House expressed opposition to the measure. Two congressional negotiators said in interviews that lawmakers had ultimately decided that the question of whether to extend the restrictions to intelligence officers was too complex to be included in the legislation.
.
In a letter to members of Congress, sent in October and made available by the White House on Wednesday, Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, expressed opposition to the measure on the ground that it "provides legal protections to foreign prisoners to which they are not now entitled under applicable law and policy."
.
(snip)

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/01/13/news/ban.html

(snip)

In addition to Collins and Harman, the lawmakers involved in the conference committee negotiations were Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., and Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich.

(snip)
http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/10643525.htm

Thread here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1154757

Read it and weep.

Totally disgusting but maddeningly not new. These are shameful days to be an American. Shameful days to whitewash what we allowed be done to Iraq and Afghanistan IN OUR NAME despite the disgust of the entire civilized world. Done in our name as we are told that the Dems who allow, support, excuse such atrocities are people we should work with. Every single one of the politicians accepting these need to be voted out.

Not in my name! NO MORE!

[kliljedahl]

7. To me "Torture" = "extreme interrogation tactics."

Is there a difference?





Keith’s Barbeque Central

[Nothing Without Hope]

10. KICK!!! n/t