Human rights abuses: Bush’s policies continued
6 March 2010
Helen Patterson & Rupen Savoulian
In the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre, Republican President George W. Bush launched illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Bush enacted “anti-terrorism” policies under which people could be labelled “terror suspects” without evidence and abducted, jailed and tortured in secret.
“Extraordinary rendition” involves taking people on undocumented CIA flights either to black sites — a worldwide network of secret CIA jails — or to the torture chambers of US-allied dictatorships.
….Unfortunately, Obama’s Democrat administration is continuing many of the policies of its predecessor….
….Like the Bush regime, the Obama administration continues to operate secret prisons around the world, in which detainees are tortured and the International Committee for the Red Cross denied access.
Obama has resisted demands for investigations into the criminal activities of the previous government. The justice department has blocked lawsuits that demand release of evidence or seek civil penalties against US officials involved in human rights abuses….
….The US jail at Bagram airbase in occupied Afghanistan — described as worse than Guantanamo Bay by prisoners who have been detained in both — is being expanded.
…The murky world of “extraordinary rendition”, and the continuity between the policies of Bush and Obama, is highlighted by the case of Dr Aafia Siddiqui, a neuroscientist and US citizen of Pakistani origin. Siddiqui disappeared from Karachi in 2003 with her three young children. Pakistani newspapers reported that she had been arrested, with her children, for having terrorist links.
However, from 2004, US officials began claiming that she was not in their custody but was wanted for providing logistical support to al-Qaeda. She was accused of, among other crimes, smuggling diamonds in Liberia to raise funds for al-Qaeda in June 2001. However, in June 2001 she was in Boston running a play group.
In 2005, former Bagram detainees reported that there was a female prisoner being held in the jail, and that they had heard her being tortured. US officials denied any woman was being held in Bagram. On July 7, 2008, British journalist Yvonne Ridley held a press conference claiming that Siddiqui was indeed held in Bagram.
On August 4, 2008, US officials admitted that she was in US custody in Afghanistan….
…US authorities said that on July 18, while she was in custody, she grabbed the rifle of one of her US captors and attempted to kill them all. She was shot twice but survived.
It was for this alleged attempted murder that she was extradited to the US and went to trial on January 19. She was not charged with any offences related to the allegations made against her at the time of her disappearance. Neither was she charged over the chemicals and documents she was allegedly in possession of. These materials have never been produced.
On February 3, she was convicted of attempted murder, despite FBI experts testifying that the rifle she was alleged to have grabbed did not have her fingerprints on it and showed no evidence of being fired.
Siddiqui said she was held in Bagram from 2003 and tortured and raped. Her two youngest children have disappeared…
From: International News, Green Left Weekly
