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Outsourcing Torture

H

hipsterdufus

We've outsourced almost everything else - so torture seems like the next logical step. The full article about "The secret history of America’s “extraordinary rendition” program." is below. The article doesn't mention the new lawsuit filed against the US government by a German man.

On Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of a German citizen who says U.S. agents mistakenly kidnapped him and sent him to a secret prison in Afghanistan where he was tortured. We speak with British journalist Stehen Grey who helped expose the CIA rendition program of flying detainees to secret prisons around the world.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/07/1519249

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050214fa_fact6

Here's an excerpt.

On January 27th, President Bush, in an interview with the Times, assured the world that “torture is never acceptable, nor do we hand over people to countries that do torture.” Maher Arar, a Canadian engineer who was born in Syria, was surprised to learn of Bush’s statement. Two and a half years ago, American officials, suspecting Arar of being a terrorist, apprehended him in New York and sent him back to Syria, where he endured months of brutal interrogation, including torture. When Arar described his experience in a phone interview recently, he invoked an Arabic expression. The pain was so unbearable, he said, that “you forget the milk that you have been fed from the breast of your mother.”

Arar, a thirty-four-year-old graduate of McGill University whose family emigrated to Canada when he was a teen-ager, was arrested on September 26, 2002, at John F. Kennedy Airport. He was changing planes; he had been on vacation with his family in Tunisia, and was returning to Canada. Arar was detained because his name had been placed on the United States Watch List of terrorist suspects. He was held for the next thirteen days, as American officials questioned him about possible links to another suspected terrorist. Arar said that he barely knew the suspect, although he had worked with the man’s brother. Arar, who was not formally charged, was placed in handcuffs and leg irons by plainclothes officials and transferred to an executive jet. The plane flew to Washington, continued to Portland, Maine, stopped in Rome, Italy, then landed in Amman, Jordan.

During the flight, Arar said, he heard the pilots and crew identify themselves in radio communications as members of “the Special Removal Unit.” The Americans, he learned, planned to take him next to Syria. Having been told by his parents about the barbaric practices of the police in Syria, Arar begged crew members not to send him there, arguing that he would surely be tortured. His captors did not respond to his request; instead, they invited him to watch a spy thriller that was aired on board.
 
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