Torture Undermined Civil Rights in US, Britain and Other Countries
This is not a positive sign.
By apparently backing away from investigating and prosecuting these crimes, the new administration abrogates a treaty the US signed and in arguing for Bush's invocations of state secrets to hide torture it intiates less that a stellar beginning in the area of human rights and prosecuting torture as a crime.
Now the International Commission of Jurists weighs in on this egregious stance and the ramifications of the seven years of Bushite torture policies.
From the Washington Post: "An international group of judges and lawyers is warning that systemic torture and other abuses in the global "war on terror" have "undermined cherished values" of civil rights in the United States, Britain and other nations.
"We have been shocked by the damage done over the past seven years by excessive or abusive counterterrorism measures in a wide range of countries around the world," said Arthur Chaskalson, a member of the International Commission of Jurists, in a statement announcing results of a three-year study of counterterrorism measures since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
"Many governments, ignoring the lessons of history, have allowed themselves to be rushed into hasty responses to terrorism that have undermined cherished values and violated human rights,'' said Chaskalson, a former chief justice of South Africa.
"The Geneva-based panel's conclusions, released Monday, were echoed by those of a former British domestic intelligence chief who said that people in Britain felt as if they were living in a "police state" because of the government's counterterrorism actions.
"Claiming that the United States was at war with terrorism gave the Bush administration "spurious justification to a range of human rights and humanitarian law violations," the report said.
"The panel, made up of more than 60 senior jurists from around the world, said prosecuting terrorism offenses should be handled largely in criminal justice systems rather than by military officials.
"The report called on the Obama administration to "immediately and publicly renounce" the characterization of counterterrorism activities as a "war."
"The panel also concluded that the United States' "official policy" seemed to be designed to circumvent laws prohibiting torture and other cruel treatment, which it called "one of the most deplorable consequences" of the "war" label.
"The panel called for the Obama administration to conduct an investigation into human rights abuses against terror suspects."
IPS News conducts an interview with one of the jurists, Pakistani lawyer and human rights activist Hina Jilani is a member of the Eminent Jurists Panel on Terrorism, Counter-terrorism and Human Rights, convened by the International Commission of Jurists (www.icj.org) to investigate counter-terrorism practices and human rights standards.:
"IPS: What are the other highlights of your report?
"HJ: Basically, the most significant thing that we highlight is the importance of due process, the right of every accused to know what evidence is being used against them - which doesn’t happen when secret evidence is brought into play. Because of this, several hundred people are detained without charge because there’s no evidence or intelligence against them, in Guantanamo and other places.
"HJ: Yes. We found that the regular criminal justice system, with some adjustments to ensure that intelligence is converted to credible evidence, has worked in many countries. The repercussions of not following the criminal justice system, taking extra-judicial measures and disregarding human rights conventions have been very negative. They have not been able to counter terrorism. At the same time they have resulted in eroding human rights values."
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