Getbig Main Boards > Politics and Political Issues Board

I guess the U.S. isn't the only country doing some ''bad'' things. the canucks..

(1/1)

rockyfortune:
Canada's practice of turning detainees over to Afghan security forces, widely accused of torture and abuse, violates international law and the Charter of Rights, Amnesty International and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association say.

The two groups will Wednesday file an application in Federal Court in Ottawa seeking judicial review of the military's controversial policy. Named as respondents in the action are Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor, General Rick Hillier, Canada's Chief of the Defence Staff, and Attorney-General Robert Nicholson.

The legal action will be announced today by Alex Neve, Amnesty International Canada's Secretary-General, and Shirley Heafey, a B.C. Civil Liberties Association board member.

“There's a very strong chance of it winding up in the Supreme Court,” said Paul Champ, who is acting on behalf of Amnesty and the BCCLA.

 The case will raise significant constitutional issues, including whether Canadian soldiers fighting abroad are legally bound by the Geneva Conventions even if generals insist that “enemy combatants” aren't entitled to Geneva rights, and whether Charter guarantees of due process extend to captives apprehended on battlefields halfway around the world.

“They are turning those people over to states that are likely to torture,” Mr. Champ said yesterday.

Under a deal Gen. Hillier and Afghanistan's Defence Minister signed in December, 2005, all terrorism suspects and Taliban fighters that Canadian Forces capture in Afghanistan are turned over to the Afghan police or military. Canada informs the International Committee of the Red Cross about the handover, but unlike other NATO countries in Afghanistan, notably Britain and the Netherlands, makes no effort to check on the condition of detainees.

“The current Canada-Afghanistan Detainee Agreement does not provide adequate safeguards to ensure that detainees will not be tortured by Afghan forces,” Amnesty and the BCCLA said yesterday.

Canada's treatment of captives is already under scrutiny. Last month, allegations of detainee abuse arose after the discovery that several Afghans suffered an odd pattern of injuries in the custody of Canadian soldiers in April.

A criminal investigation, a board of inquiry ordered by Gen. Hillier, and a probe by the independent Military Police Complaints Commission were all launched this month.

Now, the human-rights groups want Canada's courts to review the legality of turning detainees over to a country with a notorious record of torture and abuse, and a nascent government whose remit often extends only tentatively beyond the capital Kabul.

Handing detainees over to Afghan security forces violates “the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the National Defence Act and Canada's international obligations amongst others under the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment,” Amnesty and the BCCLA said.

Gen. Hillier has called the policy part of helping Afghanistan rebuild itself as a nation.

What happens to detainees once they are in Afghan hands remains largely unknown. But the murky network of Afghan jails — where some prisoners disappear, others are released after payment of bribes and only a few seem to be charged and tried — has been harshly criticized.

The most recent assessment of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, said there were “reports of prolonged detention without trial, extortion, torture, and systematic due process violations.”

The U.S. State Department annual report was similarly harsh.

“Afghanistan's human-rights record remained poor. There continued to be instances in which security and factional forces committed extrajudicial killings and torture,” it said.

Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission, in its own report last year, concluded, “The incidence of torture on detained or imprisoned persons was still occurring throughout the past year,” albeit at a declining rate.

The filing today will start a 30-day clock running.

By then, Amnesty and the BCCLA must file evidence buttressing their claim.

Then the government has 30 days to file its evidence.

Navigation

[0] Message Index