May 25, 2005: Amnesty International: Guantanamo the ‘Gulag of Our Time’

Human rights advocacy group Amnesty International reports that both the US and Britain are betraying the cause of human rights in their “war on terror.” Amnesty’s general secretary, Irene Khan, accuses both governments of condoning torture and twisting their interpretations of the law to justify and excuse torture. She says: “A new agenda is in the making, with the language of freedom and justice being used to pursue policies of fear and insecurity. This includes cynical attempts to redefine and sanitize torture.” The US’s most well-known detention facility, Guantanamo Bay, is “the gulag of our time,” she says. “The US administration attempted to dilute the absolute ban on torture through new policies and quasi-management speak such as ‘environmental manipulation,’ ‘stress positions,’ and ‘sensory manipulation,’” she says. And when these two countries justify torture, other countries follow suit. “When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a license to others to commit abuse with impunity. From Israel to Uzbekistan, Egypt to Nepal, governments have openly defied human rights and international humanitarian law in the name of national security and ‘counter-terrorism.’” [Guardian, 5/26/2005]