Subject: Amnesty response to Rumsfeld on prisoner abuse Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 08:11:17 -0500 Message-ID: <B14120EE5C432443B21102F7925DAD0202E3F37A@COKE.uwec.edu> From: "Grossman, Zoltan C." <GROSSMZC@uwec.edu>
Amnesty International's Response to Rumsfeld
Common Dreams NewsCenter
http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/0601-25.htm
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 1, 2005 1:31 PM
CONTACT: Amnesty International AIUSA Press Office:
202-544-0200 x 302
Statement of Dr. William F. Schulz, Executive Director,
Amnesty International USA
WASHINGTON--June 1--Donald Rumsfeld and the Bush
Administration ignored or dismissed Amnesty
International's reports on the abuse of detainees for
years, and senior officials continue to ignore the very
real plight of men detained without charge or trial.
Amnesty International first communicated its concerns
at the treatment of prisoners to Defense Secretary
Rumsfeld in January 2002 and continued to raise these
concerns at the highest levels as allegations of abuse
mounted from Afghanistan, Guantanamo and Iraq. The
response was to bar AI's human rights investigators
from visiting US detention facilities, in contrast to
countries as diverse as Libya and Sudan, where
governments have accepted the value of independent
monitoring.
Twenty years ago, Amnesty International was criticizing
Saddam Hussein's human rights abuses at the same time
Donald Rumsfeld was courting him. In 2003 Rumsfeld
apparently trusted our credibility on violations by
Iraq, but now that we are criticizing the US he has
lost his faith again. [see quotes below]
The deliberate policy of this administration is to
detain individuals without charge or trial in prisons
at Guantanamo Bay, Bagram Air Base and other locations,
where their treatment has not conformed to
international standards. Donald Rumsfeld personally
approved a December 2002 memorandum that permitted such
unlawful interrogation techniques as stress positions,
prolonged isolation, stripping, and the use of dogs at
Guantanamo Bay, and he should be held accountable, as
should all those responsible for torture, no matter how
senior.
There has yet to be a full independent investigation,
and the content of some of the government's own reports
into human rights violations in these prisons remain
classified and unseen. If this administration is
committed to transparency, it should immediately open
the network of detention centers operated by the US
around the world to scrutiny by independent human
rights groups. It is also worth noting that this
administration eagerly cites Amnesty International
research when we criticize Cuba and extensively quoted
our criticism of the violations in Iraq under Saddam
Hussein in the run up to the war.
Rumsfeld quotes (compiled by thinkprogress.org at
http://thinkprogress.org/index.php?p=979 )
On March 27, 2003, Rumsfeld said:
We know that it's a repressive regime?Anyone who has
read Amnesty International or any of the human rights
organizations about how the regime of Saddam Hussein
treats his people?
The next day, Rumsfeld cited his "careful reading" of
Amnesty:
[I]t seems to me a careful reading of Amnesty
International or the record of Saddam Hussein, having
used chemical weapons on his own people as well as his
neighbors, and the viciousness of that regime, which is
well known and documented by human rights
organizations, ought not to be surprised
And on April 1, 2003, Rumsfeld said once again:
[I]f you read the various human rights groups and
Amnesty International's description of what they know
has gone on, it's not a happy picture.
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