Home > UN investigator who exposed US army abuse forced out of his job
UN investigator who exposed US army abuse forced out of his job
by Open-Publishing - Monday 25 April 20053 comments
Wars and conflicts International Prison USA
The UN’s top human rights investigator in Afghanistan has been forced out under American pressure just days after he presented a report criticising the US military for detaining suspects without trial and holding them in secret prisons.
Cherif Bassiouni had needled the US military since his appointment a year ago, repeatedly trying, without success, to interview alleged Taliban and al-Qa’ida prisoners at the two biggest US bases in Afghanistan, Kandahar and Bagram.
Mr Bassiouni’s report had highlighted America’s policy of detaining prisoners without trial and lambasted coalition officials for barring independent human rights monitors from its bases.
Prisoners captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the region are held at US bases, often before being shipped to Guantanamo Bay. Human Rights Watch called on Saturday for a US special prosecutor to investigate the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and Charles Tenet, the former-CIA director, for torture and abuse of detainees in jails around the world, including Abu Ghraib in Iraq. They should be held responsible under the doctrine of "command responsibility," it said.
On Friday, the US army investigation into the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib cleared four out of five top officers of responsibility for the scandal which shocked the world when it broke a year ago. The only officer recommended for punishment is Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, who was in charge of Iraqi prisons at the time.
The UN eliminated Mr Bassiouni’s job last week after Washington had pressed for his mandate to be changed so that it would no longer cover the US military.
Just days earlier, the Egyptian-born law professor, now based in Chicago, had presented his criticisms in a 24-page report to the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva.
The report, based on a year spent travelling around Afghanistan interviewing Afghans, international agency staff and the Afghan Human Rights Commission, estimated that around 1,000 Afghans had been detained and accused US troops of breaking into homes, arresting residents and abusing them.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=632719
Forum posts
26 April 2005, 05:57
He shouldn’t have told.....he should have known better, in the era of Bush, loyalty is the only test for employment. Like most dictators, Bush does not tolerate anyone for long that isn’t able to keep his/her mouth shut about what really goes on. God forbid that the American public gets wind of what really goes on in our government.
26 April 2005, 06:05
The Russian bear was a Teddy bear. What America does is crime, crime and crime. The Nazi troops of America should be sued in the international court for war criminals.
27 April 2005, 22:49
The moment Bush took office, he tore up the International Court agreement that Clinton had signed. He knew that he was going to start illegal wars and that he intended to steal the resources of other countries so his first act was to drop out of the International Court so that he wouldn’t be tried like the Nazis who he has patterned his administration after.