Simon Reid-Henry: To Brush Aside Torture Is To Condone It

[Hissyspit]

http://opinion.independentminds.livejournal.com/831661.html

Simon Reid-Henry: To brush aside torture is to condone it
Posted by The Independent
Sunday, 31 May 2009 at 07:35 am

It is not hard to imagine why the Government might be unwilling to let these cases see the light of day.

- snip -

We know that MI5 has passed on information about British detainees to the CIA during the course of their interrogation. We know that the British government has received information likely to have been obtained under torture. And even if only half of what is being alleged in the cases of Rahman and Mohamed turns out to be true, then we are looking at a truly shocking breach of legal and moral rights by a supposedly democratic government.

Lawyers acting on behalf of those who allege British government complicity in their detention and mistreatment have, thus far, found it extremely hard to get hold of the relevant facts or, more worryingly, to be allowed to present them in the public domain. In place of a convincing response to claims that it is unreasonably seeking to prevent the release of such materials, the government merely points to its own reviews into the handling of detainees in more than 2,000 interrogations. Where these reviews have found substantive evidence to suggest UK agents' complicity in torture, we are assured that this has been limited to isolated cases in which there are usually mitigating circumstances. The effect, of course, is to focus attention on the individuals in question, rather than the system they work for. In order to obtain the truth of the matter, therefore, it seems clear that a full judicial inquiry is required. Such an inquiry will have to establish two things above all others: how complicit UK agents have been in the practice of torture, and how far up the chain of command knowledge of that complicity goes.

The government argues that there is no such systematic complicity. It paints a picture of adherence to the letter of the law, howsoever its agents may interpret that. These claims are hardly robust. As is clear from the testimony of the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, at last week's Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, the spirit and the letter of the law are not always coincident. But the Government has set perhaps a more dangerous trap for itself in leaving slightly ajar the door for accepting evidence obtained under torture. The Foreign Office's 2008 Annual Report on Human Rights, for example, asserts that: "We do not practise it , order it from others or condone it, and we investigate allegations of it." At the same, it floats the idea that: "Where there is intelligence that bears on threats to life, we cannot reject it out of hand."

Such ambiguity is surprising and untenable for a signatory country to both the European Convention on Human Rights and the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment. As the latter makes very clear, there are no situations – no ticking bomb scenarios – that can ever justify an act of torture or the use of its product...

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[JDPriestly]

1. This is the typical strategy of criminals:

If given a chance, they immunize themselves from prosecution by involving as many government officials and politicians as possible in their crimes, and if they cannot involve high level people in their crimes, they do favors for them. That is why gambling is such a threat to honest government. If someone who has political power becomes addicted to gambling and indebted to dishonest gambling syndicates, they can easily be used.

Here the UK is complicit because it has received information gained through torture. That makes it difficult for the UK to condemn the torturers. The same is probably true for a number of western governments. And so, torture will possibly become more and more an acceptable tool in dealing with, at first, believed terrorists, but eventually, with dissidents of various kinds. This is how it starts, folks. Just look at history if you do not believe me. Governments do not just institute massive torture programs. Little by little, after first introducing torture as a tool only in limited circumstances, the government uses it more widely to prevent dissent, to put fear in the hearts of potential dissenters.

[Psychic Consortium]

6. The best sociopaths don't break laws, they make them.

And yes you are correct about the bribery and blackmail
done by these criminals who ran our country.

[Solly Mack]

2. K&R

[leftstreet]

3. K&R

[Senator]

4. K&R

[Skittles]

5. LISTEN UP ALL YOU APOLOGISTS

[mmonk]

7. Yes it is. If you do nothing, than that is your default position.

You own it.

[pleah]

8. K&R