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Report 2005: Foreword By Irene Khan, Secretary General

international community allows this fundamental pillar to be eroded, it cannot hope to salvage the rest.

Condemn unequivocally human rights abuses by those who have taken humanity to new depths of bestiality and brutality by blowing up commuter trains in Madrid, taking school children hostage in Besian, and beheading humanitarian workers in Iraq, but stand firm on the governments' responsibility to bring them to justice within the rule of law and the framework of human rights. Respect for human rights is the best antidote for "terrorism".

Close the impunity and accountability deficit in human rights. At the national level, a full and independent investigation of the use of torture and other human rights abuses by US officials will go a long way to restoring confidence that true justice has no double standards. At the international level, the International Criminal Court must be supported to become an efficient deterrent for atrocious crimes and an effective lever to advance human rights.

Listen to the voices of the victims, and respond to their cry for justice. UN Security Council members should commit themselves not to use the veto in dealing with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes or other large-scale human rights abuses. They should promote an international treaty and other means to control the trade in small arms which kill half a million people every year.

Reform the UN's human rights machinery urgently and radically in order to improve its legitimacy, efficiency and effectiveness. In particular, strengthen the capacity of the UN and regional organizations to protect people at risk of human rights abuse.

Link the achievement of the quantitatively formulated Millennium Development Goals to the qualitative achievement of human rights, particularly economic and social rights, and equality for women. Bring corporate and financial actors into the framework of accountability for human rights.

Protect human rights activists who are increasingly threatened and labelled as subversives. The space for liberal thought is shrinking, and intolerance is on the rise. Be vigilant in protecting civil society, because the pursuit of freedom depends on it as much as on the rule of law, an independent judiciary, free media and elected governments.

Will governments and the UN take up this agenda? Now more than ever human rights
activists must play their part, mobilizing public opinion to put pressure on governments
and international organizations. In very different ways in the course of 2004, popular
mobilization for the victims of the Madrid bombings and the Indian Ocean tsunami
howed the power of ordinary people to promote hope over fear, action over inaction
nd solidarity over indifference. Amnesty International believes in the power of
rdinary people to bring about extraordinary change, and with our members and

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Report 2005: Foreword By Irene Khan, Secretary General

supporters we will continue in 2005 to campaign for justice and freedom for all. We remain the eternal hope-mongers.

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STATEMENT, ALEXANDRA ARRIAGA, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL,
"STOP OUTSOURCING OF TORTURE," MAY 10, 2005

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Thank you Congressman Markey for your leadership to end the practice of renditions and for your commitment to protecting freedom and human rights.

All governments have a duty to protect the safety of the public, to investigate crime, and to bring those responsible to justice. Amnesty International recognizes that governments must cooperate in their investigations and judicial proceedings where the threats or crimes in question cross national boundaries. But this must take place within the framework of national and international laws and standards, including standards for humane practices.

There is, however, mounting evidence of a wide-ranging US program to transfer detainees to countries outside the rule of law through "extraordinary renditions" that place individuals in direct threat of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Amnesty International has documented 30 individual cases in a recent report, but estimates in the press suggest the total number of rendered persons may be as high as 150 or more.

Renditions are a form of government cooperation that the US should not be party to. Renditions are immoral, illegal, impractical, and simply wrong. They violate fundamental human rights and international law and they obstruct the search for justice and quest for security. The arrest and detention of suspects should take place in courtrooms, not in clandestine flights: a Torture Express' operated by agents of the United States.

It is essential that the United States adopt new safeguards and tighter protections against the transfer of detainees to countries known to engage in torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Diplomatic assurances are sorely insufficient - what country would admit in advance that it intends to break the law and torture its detainees? US officials have already acceded that they are unable to follow up to ensure against electric shock, severe beatings, prolonged sleep deprivation, and

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other forms torture and ill treatment. Independent monitors, such as the International
Committee of the Red Cross or organizations such as Amnesty International and
others, must be given access to ensure detainees are treated humanely in accordance
with US and International law and standards. Violators must be subject to Investigation
and prosecution by an independent judicial process that meets US and international
standards of fairness. And the US government must withdraw the reservations and
understanding it placed upon ratifying the Convention Against Torture, and signal to
the world its unequivocal support for upholding the treaty obligations.

President Bush, in his inauguration address, stated that "all who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors." Sadly, it appears the United States is willing to ignore countries' records of torture when it delivers detainees into their prison cells and when it turns a blind eye to oppressors who torture their captives.

Congressman Markey has called this nefarious practice what it is: "morally repugnant." Many of us believe that the United States must do better and that the country's founders would roll over in their graves to know of such abuse. Congressman Markey, we applaud your initiative, support the principles your bill seeks to address, and look forward to working with you to find effective ways to end renditions and restore American leadership in international human rights.

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AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, GUANTANAMO—AN ICON OF LAWLESSNESS," JANUARY 6, 2005

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amnesty international

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Guantánamo - an icon of lawlessness1

6 January 2005 Imagine this.

Al Index: AMR 51/002/2005

ITundreds of US nationals are picked up around the world by a foreign government fighting a "war for national security". The government in question is reacting to evidence that a recent bombing on its territory which left thousands of civilians dead was instigated by a shadowy network based in the United States. The detainees, according to evidence the detaining power says it has but refuses to reveal, are in some way associated with this network. The detainees, a few of them children, are strapped, shackled and blindfolded, into transport planes. Some are forced to urinate and defecate on themselves during the long flights to an island military base. In this offshore prison camp they are held incommunicado in tiny cells, denied access to lawyers, relatives or the courts, and subjected to repeated interrogations and a punitive regime aimed at encouraging their "cooperation". A presidential order announces plans to try some of the detainees in front of executive bodies with the power to hand down death sentences against which there would be no right of appeal to any court.

The months turn into years. Allegations of torture and ill-treatment of the US detainees emerge from the island base, as do reports of psychological deterioration and suicide attempts among the detainees. Interrogation teams are said to have access to the medical files of the detainees in order to help them locate individual weaknesses. The detaining power admits to having authorized interrogation techniques including sleep deprivation, stress positions, isolation, hooding, sensory deprivation and the use of dogs to induce fear. Evidence mounts that these and other techniques have been more widely used than the authorities are willing to admit. It becomes known that the detaining power earlier discussed how its agents could avoid prosecution for torture and war crimes committed during interrogations in the "war for national security".

Some detainees are released back to the USA, appearing to have had no or only very tenuous links to the shadowy network. At every turn, the detaining power continues to resist efforts to have the lawfulness of the hundreds of remaining detentions challenged in court. All the time, it continues to profess its commitment to the rule of law and human rights. Its words are increasingly recognized as empty rhetoric, but some other governments begin to imitate its practices, using the "war for national security" as a pretext for their own repressive conduct.

Would the USA tolerate this treatment of its citizens by another government? Would the international community accept this threat to the rule of law and human rights? Surely not, and yet the USA continues to perpetrate just such abuscs in the far from hypothetical Guantánamo Bay prison camp in Cuba, where almost 550 detainees of more than 30 nationalities remain detained without charge or trial. On 11 January 2005, the Guantánamo prison will enter its fourth year. In its more than 1,000 days of executive detentions,

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