[Mb-civic] Amnesty International Urges Nations to Probe U.S. Officials Over Torture

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/1851

Group Urges Nations to Probe U.S. Officials Over 
Torture

May 26 - Amnesty International called Wednesday on all countries that 
are signatories to the Geneva Conventions and the Convention against 
Torture to investigate top US officials suspected of developing or 
implementing interrogation techniques involving torture or cruel 
treatment of detainees.

The human rights group argued that the international community has 
an obligation to hold accountable those who allegedly formulated the 
US policies, including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Attorney 
General Alberto Gonzales, former CIA Director George Tenet and 
President George W. Bush.

Amnesty International asserted that more than 125 countries currently 
have laws allowing them to investigate and possibly arrest any foreign 
official traveling within their borders who has been implicated in such 
crimes. As an example, the organization pointed to the 1998 arrest in 
London of former Chilean President Augusto Pinochet, who was 
charged with human rights violations in connection with the torture and 
"disappearances" of thousands in his country between 1973 and 1990.

Irene Khan, Amnesty International's secretary general, said in the 
organization's 2005 Annual Report, that the fact that the US has 
punished more than 100 members of its armed forces while leaving 
alone those higher in the chain of command "grants a license to others 
to commit abuse with impunity and audacity."

In a related story, on Tuesday, Human Rights Watch, another 
international organization, accused FBI agents of threatening to 
transfer two US citizens being held in Pakistan to Guantánamo if they 
did not confess to being terrorists. The group further accused the FBI 
of failing to stop Pakistani authorities from torturing the men or provide 
the men with consular facilities while they were held for eight months 
without charges.
--Dave Reynolds

© 2005 The NewStandard. See our reprint policy.


-- 
You are currently on Mha Atma's Earth Action Network email list, 
option D (up to 3 emails/day).  To be removed, or to switch options 
(option A - 1x/week, option B - 3/wk, option C - up to 1x/day, option D - 
up to 3x/day) please reply and let us know!  If someone forwarded you 
this email and you want to be on our list, send an email to 
ean at sbcglobal.net and tell us which option you'd like.


"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
   ---   George Orwell


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.islandlists.com/pipermail/mb-civic/attachments/20050531/f4289a36/attachment.htm