On Tuesday, March 10, Martin Scheinin, a United Nations special rapporteur and expert on international law, presented his annual report to the UN's Human Rights Council. The report alleges that the United States and some of our allies violated international law when we sent our terrorism suspects to other countries for interrogation, a process known as "extraordinary rendition". Many of the countries we've sent them to are notorious for their use of torture in interrogations. You know, let someone else do the dirty work.
Of course, the human rights community has been saying for years that it was wrong and illegal. That, of course, never stopped the Bush administration.
McClatchy Newspapers quotes Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, as saying it is "a fairly major black mark" for any country to be targeted in such a report.
Indeed. This is another of many black marks on the Bush administration's very dark record of human rights violations. Kidnapping and torture, paid for by my tax dollars.
Fortunately, the Obama administration has already taken some measures to reverse some of Bush's most egregious policies in the "war on terror". That will help to restore our credibility to the world.
Holding the perpetrators accountable would be another. But so far, aside from much talk, I don't see that particular light at the end of the tunnel.
>> Download the UN report. (PDF)
No comments:
Post a Comment