US Torture Condemned in European Court of Human Rights
Monday, December 24th, 2012“Today, the European court of human rights delivered a measure of justice to [Kaled] el-Masri, [a German national seized by the CIA and tortured]. It vindicated his account of his ill-treatment, and unanimously found that Macedonia [to which he was taken by the CIA for part of his torture] had violated his rights under the European Convention, including by transferring him to US custody in the face of a risk of ill-treatment, and facilitating and failing to prevent his being subjected to CIA ‘capture shock’ at Skopje airport.
“This is the first court to comprehensively and specifically find that the CIA’s rendition techniques amounted to torture. The decision stands in sharp contrast to the abject failure of US courts to deliver justice to victims of US torture and rendition.”
Read about this here and also here .
I hope this is the first of many legal condemnations of US torture and crimes against humanity and that the tide of US immunity from legal consequences of its torture will soon be at an end.
Though he recognizes that there is much working against justice any time soon, Andy Worthington writes about other events which show eroding immunity for US torture and crimes against humanity. He writes:
“While Khaled El-Masri was securing his victory in Strasbourg, another victim of ‘extraordinary rendition’ and torture, Sami al-Saadi, a Libyan and a former opponent of the former dictator Muammar Gaddafi, secured an important victory in the UK, when the British government agreed to pay him £2.23 million ($3.5 million) in an out-of-court settlement relating to the key role played by the UK, working with the US and Libya, in kidnapping Mr. al-Saadi and his family and rendering them to Col. Gaddafi, who then imprisoned and tortured him.”
Sami al-Saadi
Worthington continues:
“Again, the US is not directly implicated, but the reverberations from the settlement cannot be wished away by the US, and, it seems, there will be more to come in the case of Abdel Hakim Belhaj, who said of al-Saadi, ‘When my friend Sami al-Saadi was freed from Abu Salim prison on 23 August 2011, he weighed seven stone. He was close to death. It is a miracle he survived his ordeal and is home with his family'”
And Worthington remarks on a third event that shows some change in the status of US torture, the 6000 page report by the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He quotes Senator Dianne Feinstein as follows:
“’The report uncovers startling details about the CIA detention and interrogation program and raises critical questions about intelligence operations and oversight.’ She also stated, ‘I strongly believe that the creation of long-term, clandestine “black sites” and the use of so-called ‘enhanced-interrogation techniques’ were terrible mistakes. The majority of the Committee agrees.’”
Worthington concludes:
“… the best response, while repeatedly highlighting the case of Khaled El-Masri and the shame of rendering political opponents to Col. Gaddafi to secure his support and his oil, will be for President Obama and Congress to make sure that the Senate’s comprehensive torture report is released, and not hidden away, so that the torturers cannot continue to evade accountability for their crimes.
“Without accountability, the toxic virus of torture in America’s body politic will continue to infect the whole country with its poison. It is time for the denial to end.”
How many of us are in denial about the toxic virus of torture in the US? How can you know you are not in denial about it? What are you doing to stop it? If you are serious, there are things you can do. Organizations like World Can’t Wait, organize resistance to US torture. You can join with others to make your resistance known. Click here to go to the World Can’t Wait website for information on what you can do to stop the crimes of the US government.