February 4, 2003 keralamonitor.com

U.S. Should Renounce Torture before Powell Speech to U.N.

(New York, February 3, 2003) – Before U.S. Secretary of State Colin
Powell presents evidence on Iraq's weapons programs and terror links to
the United Nations on Wednesday, the Bush administration should respond to
allegations that intelligence has been obtained from detainees through
torture, Human Rights Watch said.

Recent reports indicate that at least some of the evidence Secretary
Powell intends to present was derived from interrogations of detainees
held by the United States and its allies in the war on terrorism. A
December 26 article in the Washington Post quoted unnamed officials of
the Bush administration suggesting that al-Qaida suspects have been
tortured or mistreated in U.S. custody in Afghanistan, and that others
have been rendered to countries where the United States knew they would
likely be tortured. Since the publication of that article, no U.S.
official has disavowed its assertions or announced any corrective
measures.

In a letter to Secretary Powell, Human Rights Watch asked him to declare
that any U.S. official guilty of such practices will be held
accountable, that the United States has no interest in intelligence
obtained through torture and other internationally condemned techniques,
and that Washington will not turn over detainees to countries where they
are likely to receive such treatment.

“In his State of the Union address, President Bush said the Iraqi
government is ‘evil’ because it uses torture,” said Kenneth Roth,
executive director of Human Rights Watch. “But torture is evil no matter
who is using it. Secretary Powell should not lose this chance to
explicitly renounce the use of torture by the U.S. government and its
allies.”

The letter said that whatever the truth of the allegations reported by
the Washington Post, much of the world now believes the United States is
torturing or severely mistreating detainees.

“In our work around the world, Human Rights Watch has encountered many
government officials and ordinary citizens who are now convinced that
the United States is employing a method widely condemned as illegal,
immoral, and utterly unreliable for obtaining truthful information from
detainees,” said the letter, which is addressed to Secretary Powell and
signed by Mr. Roth. “Until this perception is changed, your presentation
to the Security Council – to the extent it relies on detainee
interrogations – will not inspire the confidence and trust you are
seeking.”
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