Illustration courtesy antiwarart.co.uk
From American Civil Liberties Union
February 11, 2010
The American Civil Liberties Union commended yesterday’s ruling by a British court that the British government must release evidence of torture in the case of British resident Binyam Mohamed, who was captured in Pakistan and detained in Morocco, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay as part of the Bush administration’s extraordinary rendition program. While in detention, Mohamed was subjected to physical and psychological abuse by his captors. Upon his release, Mohamed sought documents from the British government that would confirm that U.K. officials were aware of and complicit in his abuse by U.S. forces. Today’s ruling orders the disclosure of seven previously suppressed paragraphs from an earlier court ruling that summarize British government documents related to Mohamed’s detention and torture while under the control of U.S. authorities.
Mohamed is the lead plaintiff in the ACLU’s lawsuit against Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen DataPlan for its role in the extraordinary rendition program. The lawsuit charges that Jeppesen knowingly participated in the forcible disappearance and torture of Mohamed and four other men by providing critical flight planning and logistical support services to the aircraft and crews used by the CIA to carry out their extraordinary rendition. The U.S. government has sought to prevent the case from moving forward by invoking the state secrets privilege.
The following can be attributed to Ben Wizner, staff attorney for the ACLU National Security Project:
“The suppression of government documents confirming Binyam Mohamed’s rendition and torture by the United States has never been about protecting secrets; it has always been about preventing legal accountability for torture. There is absolutely nothing in the newly released documents that was not already widely known. The British court’s ruling will further undermine the Obama administration’s efforts to use dubious claims of state secrets to prevent accountability for torturers and justice for victims. After today’s developments, it would be a farce if Binyam Mohamed and other victims of U.S. torture policies were denied their day in court.”
More information about the ACLU’s lawsuit, Mohamed, et al. v. Jeppesen, is available online at: www.aclu.org/jeppesen
The Hunger Site
March 30, 2012 at 9:32 am
In my opinion Obama is cleaning up the mess that Bush left after long years in which a lot of questionable decisions were made
February 12, 2010 at 9:08 am
That’s it? That ends the whole issue? Like on don’t-ask-don’t-tell, Obama isn’t obligated to move on some knee-jerk leftist timetable. You folks need to reserve judgment on Obama until much later in his administration, instead of scoring gotcha points early in the game.
February 12, 2010 at 6:43 am
Sadly, a majority of Americans believe torture is okay. According to a June 3, 2009, Associated Press-GfK survey, 52 percent of Americans say torture is justified in some cases to thwart terrorists attacks. More than two-thirds of Republicans say torture can be justified compared with just over a third of Democrats. This poll came on the heels of former Vice President Cheney’s unctuous justifications that “enhanced interrogation techniques” (a euphemism for torture), sanctioned by the Bush administration, are not torture. Cheney dismissed criticism as “contrived indignation and phony moralizing.” This poll seems to indicate that, unfortunately, too many Americans are believing this big lie.
How could a country with a Judaic-Christian heritage consider torture justifiable? But then, I remember that many torture methods were invented during the Roman Catholic Church inquisitions beginning in the 1300s, that torture was used during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 and 1693, and more recently public lynchings of blacks during the 19th and 20th centuries often included burning and torture. Have we regressed as a society to where torture is yet again acceptable or never was unacceptable? Apparently so.
February 11, 2010 at 11:48 pm
Rob, the Obama administration has also used the “states secrets” argument to thwart the exposure of the US’ hand in using torture. So much for Obama using “political capital to clean up President Bush’s illegal policies on torture and Guantanamo.”
http://tinyurl.com/dfg86q
February 11, 2010 at 2:32 pm
Scott Horton has more on the important decision in Harper’s Magazine online:
http://harpers.org/archive/2010/02/hbc-90006521
President Obama is being forced to use political capital to clean up Preident Bush’s illegal policies on torture and Guantanamo.