LONDON, May 23: Double-speak by nations like the United States and Britain has undermined their own ‘war on terrorism’ and increased human rights violations from Colombia to North Korea, Amnesty International said in a report on Tuesday.
Accusations that the United States — with the complicity of some European nations — while banning torture at home had been flying prisoners around the world for interrogation by countries with no such qualms had dented their moral authority, it said.
“Duplicity and doublespeak have become the hallmark of the war on terror,” the human rights watchdog’s secretary general Irene Khan told a news conference to publish its annual report.
“There is evidence of widespread torture in US detention centres,” she said. “The United States outsources torture to countries like Morocco, Jordan and Syria.”
Rejecting the report, White House spokesman Tony Snow said the United States has been “straightforward in our attempts, not only to secure and guarantee human rights at Guantanamo (prison) and elsewhere but also to fight a war that was based on trying to ensure democracy, human rights and the path toward freedom in Iraq and also to roll back a dictator who killed hundreds of thousands of his own people.”
Khan said that at least seven European countries had sanctioned or turned a blind eye to the use of their airspace for so-called extraordinary rendition flights carrying prisoners for interrogation outside the United States.
Despite protests, the Guantanamo jail remained full of prisoners who had not been charged or tried, and many European governments had tried to wriggle out of their obligations, Amnesty said.—Reuters
