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US openly tortures suspects, says report

President George W Bush's administration has a deliberate strategy of abusing terror suspects during interrogation, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday in an annual report on abuses in more than 70 countries.

Barry Schweid

Thursday, January 19, 2006


President George W Bush's administration has a deliberate strategy of abusing terror suspects during interrogation, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday in an annual report on abuses in more than 70 countries.
Based mostly on statements by administration officials in 2005, the rights group says Bush's reassurances that the United States does not torture suspects rang hollow.

"In 2005, it became disturbingly clear that the abuse of detainees had become a deliberate, central part of the Bush administration's strategy of interrogating terrorist suspects."

Bush's repeated assurances that US interrogators do not torture prisoners deceptively and studiously avoid mentioning that international law prohibits cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners, it says.

Last January, Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales claimed in Senate testimony the power to use cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment so long as the prisoner was not an American and was held outside the United States, the report notes.

"Other governments obviously subject detainees to such treatment or worse, but they do so clandestinely," Human Right Watch says. "The Bush administration is the only government in the world known to claim this power openly, as a matter of official policy, and to pretend that it is lawful."

A White House spokesman refused comment on the report, saying the president and other top officials had commented at length and on numerous occasions about the treatment that the US affords to those in its custody.

In recent years, the private Human Rights Watch has emphasized its conviction that abuses in the name of fighting terror were unjustified and counterproductive.

In December, Bush bowed to Congressional and international pressure and signed legislation sponsored by Senator John McCain - like Bush, a Republican - to forbid harsh treatment of detainees. He did so after initially threatening to veto such legislation, and Vice President Dick Cheney unsuccessfully lobbied legislators to exempt the Central Intelligence Agency from the restrictions.

Kenneth Roth, executive director of the Human Rights Watch, said that he remains worried that Bush in his signing statement suggested that he retains "commander-in-chief authority" to order abusive interrogations.

Evidence shows that abusive interrogation was a conscious policy choice by senior US officials and cannot be reduced to the misdeeds of a few low- ranking soldiers, the report says.

Roth said the tactics were fuelling terrorist recruitment, discouraging public assistance against counterterrorists and making prosecution of many detainees impossible.

The report also points out that Britain was threatening to send suspects to countries likely to torture them. Both the United States and Britain are claiming the practice - "rendition" - can be justified if the receiving country promises not to abuse the suspects.

"These promises of proper treatment are unenforceable," Roth said. "Any suspect who reveals mistreatment risks being sent back to the torture chamber."

In some of the report's sections, Human Rights Watch said:

The situation in Southeast Asia is generally dismal as 2006 begins, with people facing serious abuse from governments across the region.

Burma is ruled by a military junta that "continues to operate a strict police state and drastically restricts basic rights and freedoms."

The Thai administration of Thaksin Shinawatra was hit hard. The report says that a "steady erosion of respect for human rights that has characterized" Thaksin's time in office "reached a new low in 2005, with killings in the south by security forces and insurgents and the introduction of draconian new security legislation."

Thai authorities blame continuing violence in the southern provinces on Islamic separatists. Both anti-US insurgents and US-led international and Iraqi forces have caused the rights situation to deteriorate significantly in Iraq. Abuses of civilians "took place in the context of the US- led invasion of Iraq and the ensuing military occupation that resulted in tens of thousands of civilian deaths and sparked the emergence of insurgent groups." India is seen as a bright spot in a generally bleak assessment of South Asia. New Delhi is praised for playing a "constructive role in opposing" King Gyanendra's seizure of absolute power in neighboring Nepal and for setting up a committee to review an act that gives the army and paramilitary forces powers to battle militants, including the right to shoot or arrest people suspected of being rebels. But India is criticized for creating legislation that shields security forces from accountability and for allowing police to torture suspects during interrogations. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is said to have done little since he seized power in a military coup in 1999 to alleviate human rights problems. Women and religious minorities are discriminated against, political opponents are detained arbitrarily, and news media are intimidated and harassed. Sri Lanka's rights worsened after thousands died during the December 2004 tsunami as "sectarian interests hijacked aid distribution mechanisms, compromising the modest successes of the post-tsunami recovery and rehabilitation effort."

Tamil Tiger rebels, the report says, recruited child soldiers, killed Tamil opposition and allegedly assassinated former foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar.ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=17&art_id=10202&sid=6290019&con_typ...