Archivo etiqueta «Tortura»
By Ariel Dorfman, a Chilean American novelist and playwright (THE GUARDIAN, 16/10/11):
It happened yesterday but it could well be today. A woman awaits the return of her husband as the sun goes down. The dictatorship that plagued her land has just fallen, and everything is uncertain. The woman is full of fear, gripped by a secret terror that she only shares with the man she loves. During the night and the day that follows she will have to confront that fear, she will bring to justice in her living room the doctor she believes is responsible for having … Seguir leyendo
By Clare Algar, executive director of Reprieve (THE GUARDIAN, 05/09/11):
The revelations from Libya show just how far we are from touching the bottom of British complicity in rendition and torture. For anyone who had hoped that, 10 years on from the catastrophic attacks on the United States which kicked off the “war on terror” we might be starting to come to terms with the abuses carried out in our name and put them behind us, the depressing news is that we seem to be further than ever from doing so.
With the caveat that these documents have yet to be fully … Seguir leyendo
By Charles Fried, who teaches at Harvard Law School and Gregory Fried, who is chairman of the philosophy department at Suffolk University, are the authors of Because It Is Wrong: Torture, Privacy and Presidential Power in the Age of Terror (THE WASHINGTON POST, 06/05/11):
The killing of Osama bin Laden after a fierce firefight in his Abbottabad compound is a great victory for our military and intelligence forces and for our civilian leadership. But the handwringing about whether it looked as though bin Laden was reaching for a gun or suicide belt, as if this were some who-is-the … Seguir leyendo
By Kate Allen, the director of Amnesty International UK (THE GUARDIAN, 13/09/10):
Barely noticed amid the fanfare surrounding the announcement of an end to US combat operations in Iraq, in July the US also handed the last of some 10,000 prisoners held on security grounds to the Iraqi authorities – though the US will continue to hold about 200 detainees deemed to be “high-risk”.
Remarkably, however, this mass transfer came with no formal guarantees over humane treatment or due process. Given recent instances of the discovery – including by US forces – of horrific abuse being meted out … Seguir leyendo
By Samer Muscati, a Middle East researcher at Human Rights Watch (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 05/05/10):
The man looked much older than his 24 years, in part because his front teeth had been smashed, he told us, during one of his interrogation sessions in the secret prison here. His emaciated body and trembling arms were those of a fragile hospital patient rather than the fearsome terrorist the security forces had accused him of being. His psychological wounds matched his physical state: He confided that after repeatedly being sodomized with a stick and a pistol, he frequently wets his bed … Seguir leyendo
By Leonard S. Rubenstein, a visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Stephen N. Xenakis, a psychiatrist and a retired Army brigadier general (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 01/03/10):
After five years of investigation, the Justice Department has released its findings regarding the government lawyers who authorized waterboarding and other forms of torture during the interrogation of suspected terrorists at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere. The report’s conclusion, that the lawyers exercised poor judgment but were not guilty of professional misconduct, is questionable at best. Still, the review reflects a commitment to a transparent … Seguir leyendo
By Marc Thiessen, the author of Courting Disaster (THE WASHINGTON POST, 22/02/10):
The CIA has been unsatisfied with the cooperation of Mullah Baradar, the Taliban military commander being interrogated in Pakistani custody, and has pushed for his transfer to an American-run prison in Afghanistan, the Los Angeles Times reported this past weekend. But even should that transfer occur, the United States may not have any greater success eliciting information from him — because President Obama eliminated the CIA’s enhanced interrogation program.
This raises an urgent question: Is there a reasonable middle ground that would allow the Obama administration to … Seguir leyendo
Por Timothy Garton Ash, catedrático de Estudios Europeos. Ocupa la cátedra Isaiah Berlin en St. Antony’s College, Oxford, y es profesor titular de la Hoover Institution, Stanford. Traducción de María Luisa Rodríguez Tapia (EL PAÍS, 21/02/10):
Pongamos nombre y avergoncemos a esos peligrosos, endebles, complacientes e hipócritas liberales que ponen en peligro la seguridad nacional del Reino Unido, sus intereses vitales y la seguridad personal de sus ciudadanos. ¿Quiénes son? Lord Igor Judge, juez-presidente del Tribunal de Apelaciones de Inglaterra y Gales; Lord Neuberger, Master of the Rolls, que preside la Sala Civil; Sir Anthony May, presidente de Queen’s Bench, … Seguir leyendo
By Matthew Alexander, the author of How to Break a Terrorist (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 20/01/10):
Tomorrow will be one year since President Obama signed an executive order outlawing torture, yet our debate about interrogation methods continues. Though the president deserves praise for improving matters, the changes were not as drastic as most Americans think, and elements of our interrogation policy continue to be both inhumane and counterproductive.
Americans can now boast that they no longer “torture” detainees, but they cannot say that detainees are not abused, or even that their treatment meets the minimum standards of humane treatment … Seguir leyendo
By Max Boot, the Jeane J. Kirkpatrick senior fellow in national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (THE WASHINGTON POST, 29/12/09):
Canada, one of the largest contributors of troops to the war in Afghanistan, is embroiled in a controversy over the treatment of prisoners captured by its army. Its policy has been to turn detainees over to the Afghans, whose prisons are not exactly run according to Amnesty International standards. Now the chief of the Canadian defense staff, Gen. Walter Natynczyk, has set off a political firestorm by admitting that a detainee who had been beaten … Seguir leyendo
By Colin Horgan, a Vancouver-based freelance writer (THE GUARDIAN, 22/11/09):
One man has Canada in an uproar. Former second-in-command at the Canadian embassy in Kabul, Richard Colvin, told a parliamentary committee in Ottawa that all detainees handed over to the Afghanistan government by Canadian soldiers were abused. The opposition parties have called for a public inquiry, but the Harper government has called Colvin’s testimony into question. Now, Canada must yet again have a serious discussion about its role in Afghanistan.
Colvin sat before the parliamentary committee and flatly stated: “According to our information, the likelihood … Seguir leyendo
By Ali H. Soufan, an F.B.I. special agent from 1997 to 2005 (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 06/09/09):
Public bravado aside, the defenders of the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques are fast running out of classified documents to hide behind. The three that were released recently by the C.I.A. — the 2004 report by the inspector general and two memos from 2004 and 2005 on intelligence gained from detainees — fail to show that the techniques stopped even a single imminent threat of terrorism.
The inspector general’s report distinguishes between intelligence gained from regular interrogation and from the harsher methods, which … Seguir leyendo
Por Ariel Dorfman, escritor chileno (EL PAÍS, 21/07/09):
¿Qué hará Barack Obama ante el diluvio de revelaciones que, día a día, se van acumulando en torno al maltrato que las agencias de inteligencia de Estados Unidos han venido dando a una multitud de prisioneros desde los ataques terroristas del 2001? ¿Tratará de “pasar página”, mirar hacia el futuro y no el pasado, como parece ser su deseo? ¿O la dura, empecinada verdad de los crímenes que se llevaron a cabo en nombre de la seguridad nacional terminará forzando la mano del presidente norteamericano y de su fiscal general (ministro … Seguir leyendo
By Andy Hull, senior research fellow on International Security at the ippr (THE GUARDIAN, 05/07/09):
Torture is terror. We must reject it: no ifs, no buts. In the words of General Lord Guthrie, former chief of defence staff and one of the members of Institute for Public Policy Research’s independent commission on national security, “Torture does violence to the defenceless, using their bodies against their souls. It is illegal, unethical, counter-productive and dumb”. We must recognise that its use in the ill-conceived “war on terror” is strategic folly. History reminds us that compromising our values in the hope … Seguir leyendo
Por Rosa Massagué, periodista (EL PERIÓDICO, 29/05/09):
A los jueces que, en 1630, condenaron en Milán a suplicios atroces a algunos acusados de haber propagado la peste con ciertos inventos tan toscos como horribles, les pareció que habían tenido un actuación tan memorable que, en la propia sentencia, después de decretar, además de los suplicios, la demolición de la casa de uno de aquellos desventurados, mandaron que en aquel lugar se elevase una columna que debería llamarse infame, con una inscripción que transmitiese a la posteridad la noticia del delito y de la pena. Y no se engañaron: aquel … Seguir leyendo