Originally published January 2 2006
Rights group analyzes the meaning of Rice's comments about U.S. torture policies
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Taking exception to Condoleezza Rice's recent comments to the press about the government's stance on torture, Human Rights Watch explains how careful political rhetoric acts to obscure practices that violate the rights of foreign prisoners of war.
A US human rights group said Monday that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "mischaracterized" US "renditions" of terror suspects to make them appear legal.
Human Rights Watch said that Rice, who defended US policy on detaining terror suspects Monday as she departed for Europe, wrongly implied that the US does not use any illegal methods in handling and treating detainees.
"Rice said the US government had not transported detainees to other countries 'for the purpose' of interrogation using torture, but she failed to mention that the United States has transported detainees to countries such as Egypt and Syria where it knows torture is commonplace," Human Rights Watch said in a statement.
"The Convention Against Torture, to which the United States is a party, outlaws such a practice," the group said.
The group assailed Rice's explanation of "renditions," in which the CIA has been accused of secretly removing detainees from one country to another and sometimes delivering them to covert prisons for interrogation and torture.
"Secretary Rice made extra-legal rendition sound like just another form of extradition," said Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director of Human Rights Watch.
"In fact, it's a form of kidnapping and 'disappearing' someone entirely outside the law," Malinowski said.
Human Rights Watch also disputed Rice's assertion that the US adheres to the Convention Against Torture in its interrogations.
"Its public knowledge that the CIA has used 'waterboarding', mock executions, extended sleep deprivations and other forms of severe mistreatment of detainees," said Malinowski.
"The Bush administration's statements that it doesn't use torture are simply meaningless," he said.
Rice left Washington Monday for a four-nation tour of Europe where she was expected to be confronted with questions on US renditions and the alleged existence of secret CIA prisons in Europe.
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