*Ø* Blogmanac | United States: Stop Handing Over Detainees to Torturers
Statement from Human Rights Watch
"President George W. Bush should end the transfer of detainees to countries that routinely engage in torture, such as Syria, if he is to fulfill his pledge to champion democracy and human rights in the Middle East and honor the United States' international legal obligations, Human Rights Watch said today.
"In a November 6 speech to the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, President Bush condemned the government of Syria, along with Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, for leaving its people "a legacy of torture, oppression, misery, and ruin."
"According to the U.S. State Department's annual human rights reports, Syria torture methods include beatings, administering electric shocks, pulling out of fingernails, forcing objects into the rectum, and bending detainees into the frame of a wheel and whipping their exposed body parts.
"Yet last year, the United States reportedly transferred Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen, to Syria after having detained him in New York as he was en route from Tunisia to Montreal. On November 4 in Ottawa, Arar publicly asserted that, while held in Syrian prisons for 10 months, he was repeatedly tortured by being whipped with a thick electric cable and threatened with electric shocks.
"Since September 11, 2001, the Bush administration has reportedly facilitated or participated directly in the transfer of numerous persons without extradition proceedings, a practice known as "irregular rendition," to countries in the Middle East known to practice torture routinely."
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Statement from Human Rights Watch
"President George W. Bush should end the transfer of detainees to countries that routinely engage in torture, such as Syria, if he is to fulfill his pledge to champion democracy and human rights in the Middle East and honor the United States' international legal obligations, Human Rights Watch said today.
"In a November 6 speech to the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, President Bush condemned the government of Syria, along with Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, for leaving its people "a legacy of torture, oppression, misery, and ruin."
"According to the U.S. State Department's annual human rights reports, Syria torture methods include beatings, administering electric shocks, pulling out of fingernails, forcing objects into the rectum, and bending detainees into the frame of a wheel and whipping their exposed body parts.
"Yet last year, the United States reportedly transferred Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen, to Syria after having detained him in New York as he was en route from Tunisia to Montreal. On November 4 in Ottawa, Arar publicly asserted that, while held in Syrian prisons for 10 months, he was repeatedly tortured by being whipped with a thick electric cable and threatened with electric shocks.
"Since September 11, 2001, the Bush administration has reportedly facilitated or participated directly in the transfer of numerous persons without extradition proceedings, a practice known as "irregular rendition," to countries in the Middle East known to practice torture routinely."
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