Tag: tortur

Glidebanen i aktion: Britisk politi anklaget for at waterboarde narkomistænkte

Faktisk ikke så meget “narko”, kun pot – men effekten er den samme:

Six members of London’s metropolitan police force are the focus of a criminal investigation after a corruption probe revealed allegations by a serving officer that detectives waterboarded suspects allegedly caught with a “large amount” of marijuana.

“The officers under investigation were among 10 based in Enfield, north London, who were suspended in February in one of the worst allegations of corruption to hit the Metropolitan police in recent years,” reported The Telegraph.

“The part of the inquiry focusing on alleged police brutality has been taken over by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC),” reported the Times Online. “It is examining the conduct of six officers connected to drug raids in November in which four men and a woman were arrested in Enfield and Tottenham.

The British publication added: “Police said they found a large amount of cannabis and the suspects were charged with importation of a class C drug. The case was abandoned four months later when the Crown Prosecution Service said ‘it would not have been in the public interest to proceed.’ It is understood that the trial, by revealing the torture claims, would have compromised the criminal investigation into the six officers.”

I gamle dage talte man om, hvordan “krigen mod stoffer” udgjorde en retspolitisk glidebane, fordi metoder, som man ellers ikke ville acceptere – ubegrænset isolationsfængsling, aflytninger uden dommerkendelse – pludselig blev acceptable, når det var disse væmmelige stoffer, det handlede om.

Og nu ser vi så, hvordan “krigen mod terror” har smittet af på bekæmpelsen af narkokriminalitet ved at gøre tortur acceptabelt blandt i hvert fald nogle politifolk. Måske denne udvanding af retspolitikken er det eneste formål, der nogen sinde har været med at proklamere noget så tåbeligt som en “krig mod terror”.

Link: UK cop accuses colleagues of waterboarding pot suspects (via Boing Boing)

Radiovært waterboardet – mener nu, det er tortur

Den højreorienterede radiovært Erich “Mancow” Muller ville bevise, at waterboarding ikke er tortur, så han prøvede det.

Eksperimentet gav ikke helt det ønskede resultat:

“The average person can take this for 14 seconds,” Marine Sergeant Clay South answered, adding, “He’s going to wiggle, he’s going to scream, he’s going to wish he never did this.”

Turns out the stunt wasn’t so funny. Witnesses said Muller thrashed on the table, and even instantly threw the toy cow he was holding as his emergency tool to signify when he wanted the experiment to stop.  He only lasted 6 or 7 seconds.

“It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that’s no joke,”Mancow said, likening it to a time when he nearly drowned as a child.  “It is such an odd feeling to have water poured down your nose with your head back…It was instantaneous…and I don’t want to say this: absolutely torture.”

“I wanted to prove it wasn’t torture,” Mancow said.  “They cut off our heads, we put water on their face…I got voted to do this but I really thought ‘I’m going to laugh this off.’ ”

Last year, Vanity Fair writer Christopher Hitchens endured the same experiment — and came to a similar conclusion.

Link: Mancow Waterboarded, Admits it’s Torture

Tortur: Obama, you can do better than that

Lad os endelig hindre sandheden om den amerikanske hærs tortur af sine fanger i at komme frem. Med Glenn Greenwalds ord:

The White House is actively supporting a new bill jointly sponsored by Sens. Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman — called The Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act of 2009 — that literally has no purpose other than to allow the government to suppress any “photograph taken between September 11, 2001 and January 22, 2009 relating to the treatment of individuals engaged, captured, or detained after September 11, 2001, by the Armed Forces of the United States in operations outside of the United States.”  As long as the Defense Secretary certifies — with no review possible — that disclosure would “endanger” American citizens or our troops, then the photographs can be suppressed even if FOIA requires disclosure.  The certification lasts 3 years and can be renewed indefinitely.  The Senate passed the bill as an amendment last week.

Just imagine if any other country did this.  Imagine if a foreign government were accused of systematically torturing and otherwise brutally abusing detainees in its custody for years, and there was ample photographic evidence proving the extent and brutality of the abuse.  Further imagine that the country’s judiciary — applying decades-old transparency laws — ruled that the government was legally required to make that evidence public.  But in response, that country’s President demanded that those transparency laws be retroactively changed for no reason other than to explicitly empower him to keep the photographic evidence suppressed, and a compliant Congress then immediately passed a new law empowering the President to suppress that evidence.  What kind of a country passes a law that has no purpose other than to empower its leader to suppress evidence of the torture it inflicted on people? Read the language of the bill; it doesn’t even hide the fact that its only objective is to empower the President to conceal evidence of war crimes.

Link: Obama’s support for the new Graham-Lieberman secrecy law

Tortur avler terrorister

“Anyone who served in Iraq knows that the foreign fighters did not come to Iraq en masse until after the revelations of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. I heard this from captured foreign fighters day in and day out when I was supervising interrogations in Iraq… Torture and abuse became Al Qaida’s number one recruiting tool and cost us American lives.”
— Matthew Alexander, senior interrogator in Iraq

fra slate

Danmark udliciterer tortur til Polen

Det er i hvert fald, hvad den danske statsborger Ignazio Howaniak kan fortælle. Howaniak har i to år været fængslet i Polen i den såkaldte “lejemordssag”, der ifølge ham selv er fri fantasi.

I morgen bliver han sendt tilbage til det fangehul, hvor han efter eget udsagn bliver presset og mishandlet:

Den danske statsborger, Iganzio Howaniak, der er anklagemyndighedens hovedvidne i den spektakulære og bizarre lejemordssag fra København sidder til dagligt varetægtsfængslet i Polen.

Her blev han anholdt i 2007 og sigtet efter polsk straffelov for at have medvirket i lejemordssagen i København.

Han er derimod ikke tiltalt for noget som helst i Danmark.

Han hævder, at behandlingen af ham minder om tortur.

»Jeg bliver presset mere og mere«, siger han.

»Jeg bliver truet med skydevåben og anbragt i en kælder uden vinduer og uden lys«.

Beskeden er, siger han, at sådan vil han fortsat blive behandlet, hvis han ikke samarbejder.

Til sidst var Ignazio Howaniak, ifølge sin egen beskrivelse, så mør, at han var parat til at tilstå mordet på John F. Kennedy og Oluf Palme, sagde han.

»Jeg sad i en celle på få kvadratmeter med toilet i hjørnet…«

Så brød han sammen.

Men anklageren levnede ham ingen ro.

Hun ville bore videre i de alvorlige beskyldninger, som hovedvidnet rejser mod dansk politi om at have fabrikeret falske beviser med det formål at fælde Store A.

»Beskyldninger!?«, råbte Ignazio Howaniak bittert.

»I skulle skamme jer. I skulle skamme jer. I har vidst det hele tiden«, råbte han mod anklageren.

Herefter skar retsformanden igennem med en pause.

Læs mere om det Kafkaske forløb i Politikens artikel om sagen. Det er en ganske ubehagelig historie.

Hvad der blev der af det gamle princip om, at Danmark ikke udleverer danske statsborgere? Og hvor OK er det lige, at dansk kriminalpoliti spiller på, at man kan få folk torteret i Polen? I mine øjne ikke særlig OK.

Link: Hovedvidne brød hulkende sammen

Torturhæleren Danmark

Danmark torterer ingen, i hvert fald kun dem, der kommer i isolationsfængsel – mere hårdhændede metoder accepteres ikke, hverken hos politiet eller PET. Og det er, som det skal være, bortset fra at vi gerne så den sidste og meget alvorlige rest af tortur afskaffet også.

Men hvad med de lande, PET samarbejder med? Det ved vi ikke og det er ikke noget problem, mener justitsministeren:

“Der skal ikke herske nogen tvivl om, at PET’s samarbejde med udenlandske samarbejdspartnere foregår i overensstemmelse med dansk og international ret,” fastslås det således gentagne gange i ministerens talepapir til samrådet.

At ministeren kan være så sikker på det, undrer ph.d. Peter Vedel Kessing fra Dansk Insitut for Menneskerettigheder. Han hæfter sig nemlig ved, at det af talepapiret også fremgår, at PET som oftest ikke aner, om oplysninger, som tjenesten modtager fra udenlandske samarbejdspartnere, er fremskaffet ved hjælp af tortur. Det er nemlig gængs praksis efterretningstjenesterne imellem, at man ikke oplyser den slags.

Ifølge PET er det derfor den “altovervejende hovedregel”, at det “ikke fremgår, hvordan oplysningerne er tilvejebragt”, som der står i talepapiret.

Ergo: hvis vore “samarbejdspartnere” – USA, Syrien, Irak, Pakistan, Jordan, … – ikke af sig selv siger, at de har brugt tortur, så ved PET ikke, om de har brugt tortur, og så har de nok ikke brugt tortur, og så er der ikke noget problem!

Politikens lederskribent er lidt mindre spag i mælet:

Når en irakisk mand, der i dag lever på tålt ophold i Danmark, nu kan fortælle, at han under tortur i Syrien fik detaljerede spørgsmål om folk i Danmark, og at det angiveligt var Danmark, der havde bedt syrerne om tage sig af ham, er der – uanset mandens mulige generalieblad – derfor grund til at føle ubehag fra dansk side.

Selvfølgelig vil Syrien til enhver tid bedyre, at regimet i Damaskus ikke krummer et eneste hår på fangers hoveder. Al erfaring viser dog, at Syrien praktiserer den mest bestialske tortur.  (…)

Politisk er det pinagtigt, hvis Danmark er ude i torturhæleri. Som bekendt er den såkaldte ’krig mod terror’ ved at opgive sin iboende tendens til principløshed – ikke mindst, fordi USA har fået ny præsident med en helt anden og mere retskaffen holdning til tortur end sin forgænger, som lokkede Danmark med i samarbejde med tvivlsomme stater.

Det vil derfor både tjene Danmarks interesser og retssamfundets værdier at få politisk markeret, at Danmark hverken direkte eller indirekte betjener sig af tortur.

Og i værste fald må de skyldige stilles for retten. Uvidenhed er ikke godt nok, hvis man helt bevidst lukker øjnene på de strategisk rigtige tidspunkter. Også det kunne det være rart at få afklaret.

Link: Danmark benytter sig af torturhæleri

Tortur er et symptom – ikke et middel

The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.”

George Orwell – 1984

Utroligt som journalister verden over konstant lader sig bruge som nyttige idioter af grusomme mennesker. Her der det David Trads på Berlingske der først citere Obama for at mene tortur er noget skidt og derefter giver Cheney lov til at forsvare uhyrlighederne!

Nej der er ikke to sider af tortur. Tortur er ikke et middel til at opnå noget som helst – det er som George Orwell pointere tortur for torturens skyld. Et symptom på et råddent system der foragter menneskeliv. Et system styret af sadister der nyder at se lidelse og død.

Roger Simon fra Politico.com har hudflettet den amerikanske holdning til tortur i et indlæg. Her er et kort uddrag:

Interrogator: Come on. It’s time for your waterboarding.

Detainee: Didn’t you do that already?

Interrogator: We’ve waterboarded you only 182 times so far this month. We have to get in one more before the next budget.

Detainee: I’ll tell you whatever you want to hear.

Interrogator: But we don’t know what we want to hear. That’s why we are waterboarding you.

Detainee: I thought a former U.S. government interrogator said there was “no actionable intelligence” you could gain from torture that you can’t gain “from regular tactics.”

Interrogator: But we have all this water on our hands. And all these boards. We’ve got to use them for something. The taxpayers don’t want their money wasted. Besides, the United States does not torture.

Detainee: It sure feels like torture.

Interrogator: You are mistaken. It feels like “harsh interrogation techniques” or “enhanced interrogation techniques” or “aggressive interrogation techniques.”

Detainee: But you have stripped me naked, slammed my head against the wall, deprived me of sleep and waterboarded me. That’s not torture?

Interrogator: The lawyers say it’s not. And lawyers are experts when it comes to torture. Besides, President George W. Bush said on Oct. 5, 2007:  “This government does not torture people.”

Snyd ikke dig selv for resten

Tortur brugt til at ‘påvise’ forbindelse mellem Irak og al-Qaeda

Tortur virker ikke, men kan bruges til at få folk til at bevise ting, de ikke har gjort.

Når de terrormistænkte Khalid Sheikh Mohammed og Abu Zubaydah blev waterboarded henholdsvis 183 og 83 gange, var det for at tvinge dem til at “tilstå” en forbindelse mellem al-Qaeda og Saddam Hussein, skriver Marjorie Cohn, formand for det amerikanske Advokatråd og professor i jura ved Thomas Jefferson School of Law:

Why the relentless waterboarding of these two men? It turns out that high Bush officials put heavy pressure on Pentagon interrogators to get Mohammed and Zubaydah to reveal a link between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 hijackers, in order to justify Bush’s illegal and unnecessary invasion of Iraq in 2003, according to the newly released report of the Senate Armed Services Committee. That link was never established.

In startlingly clinical and dispassionate terms, the authors of the newly-released torture memos describe and then rationalize why the devastating techniques the CIA sought to employ on human beings do not violate the Torture Statute (18 U.S.C. sec. 2340).

The memos justify 10 techniques, including banging heads into walls 30 times in a row, prolonged nudity, repeated slapping, dietary manipulation, and dousing with cold water as low as 41 degrees. They allow shackling in a standing position for 180 hours, sleep deprivation for 11 days, confinement of people in small dark boxes with insects for hours, and waterboarding to create the perception they are drowning. Moreover, the memos permit many of these techniques to be used in combination for a 30-day period. They find that none of these techniques constitute torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

Waterboarding, admittedly the most serious of the methods, is designed, according to Jay Bybee, to induce the perception of “suffocation and incipient panic, i.e. the perception of drowning.” But although Bybee finds that “the use of the waterboard constitutes a threat of imminent death,” he accepts the CIA’s claim that it does “not anticipate that any prolonged mental harm would result from the use of the waterboard.” One of Bradbury’s memos requires that a physician be on duty during waterboarding to perform a tracheotomy in case the victim doesn’t recover after being returned to an upright position.

Obama ønsker som bekendt at “se fremad” og lade de skyldige i disse forbrydelser slippe for retsforfølgelse og straf. Marjorie Cohn is having none of that:

Obama has made a political calculation to seek amnesty for the CIA torturers. However, good faith reliance on superior orders was rejected as a defense at Nuremberg and in Lt. Calley’s Vietnam-era trial for the My Lai Massacre. The Torture Convention provides unequivocally, “An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification for torture.”

The President must fulfill his constitutional duty to ensure that the laws are faithfully executed. Obama said that “nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.” He is wrong. There is more to gain from upholding the rule of law. It will make future leaders think twice before they authorize the cruel, illegal treatment of other human beings.

Link: Torture Used to Try to Link Saddam with 9/11