Comments on: Eve Garrard responds

By: nick

nick — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 21:14:29 +0000

Eve really doesn’t know when to stop digging, does she?

By: J. Johnson

J. Johnson — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 17:58:48 +0000

Pepi, I agree with you that “refoulement” to places like Syria violates human rights conventions. What I cannot agree with is your contention that it “is about principles not just the numbers affected”. There are (unwritten) scales to measure human rights violations by which genocide rightly gets ranked as a more urgent matter than others (and that is a “universal” norm). Principles are theoretical; “numbers affected” are empirical. A key point of Ms. Khan’s letter was that that human rights violations committed in the name of the “war on terror” had quantifiable consequences.

By: pepi

pepi — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 17:19:10 +0000

j.johnson – but even considering only that case, even if you may have your reasons to be puzzled about the case – once it’s demonstrably clear that the procedures followed went against a convention protecting human rights to which the US is signatory, well, would that not qualify as violation of international law and human rights? What is there to be puzzled about, in that respect? We don’t have to know all the behind the scenes intelligence details that we’ll never know anyway, to assess wether there was a violation or not. If what we know already shows there was a series of illegalities, then it is serious, even if it’s just about one person and not hundreds of detainees. The concern is about the principles, not just the numbers affected. In other words, there are known unknowns, and unknown unknowns, but, er, once you got a known known…

By: Randy Paul

Randy Paul — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 16:11:40 +0000

J. Johnson: The refoulement of Maher Arar is not isolated. According to this article from the Washington Post illegal renditions are not a rare occurrence. Maher Arar is a microcosm example of this crime.

By: J. Johnson

J. Johnson — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 15:45:50 +0000

Had I carried out a comprehensive survey of such cases and thought about how to rank them, it is possible that my “top three” would be very different. Chris, Accepted (my previous post probably missed your reply because I hadn’t refreshed the page). And if you detect any snarkiness in my previous post, it was entirely inspired by the tone of Scott Martens’ “parable”, not anything you wrote. Personally, I am still puzzled by the Maher Arar case (a journalist friend is currently working on an investigative report and I have seen some of his research) and I consider it a dubious stick with which to beat the U.S. over human rights. This hardly ranks with Guantanamo and leaves you open to the familiar charge: “If this is all he can come up with…”

By: J. Johnson

J. Johnson — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 15:24:58 +0000

America’s recent behaviour may not represent such a new threat to international human rights, but if so, it is only because America’s claim to support such rights has been a farce for a long time. Are you then disputing Ms. Khan, Scott? Your analogy doesn’t tell us anything that we don’t already know about the Maher Arar case, save perhaps that you are suggesting that the U.S. knew that Syria considered Arar a political enemy and was trying to curry favour with Assad. And, despite your ardent prose, it certainly doesn’t tell us why this incident ended up on Chris’ top three list. Oh, wait, I forgot your concluding sentence (above); by this reasoning I guess any case would do.

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 15:18:14 +0000

J.Johnson: You are not entitled to conclude from my post that I consider this to be among the “top three” American violations of human rights. It formed part of a list of specimen cases where American committment to principles of human rights seemed weakened or abandoned. Had I carried out a comprehensive survey of such cases and thought about how to rank them, it is possible that my “top three” would be very different. The phrase “top three” is yours, not mine, and is not even weakly conversationally implied by my post.

By: J. Johnson

J. Johnson — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 14:53:41 +0000

Randy, Thanks for the clarification, but (having following the Maher Arar case fairly closely—I am practically a neighbour of the Arars) I am still mystified (and this is my main point) as to how this (still murky) incident got included on Chris’ top three list of American (for they are all clearly American) violations of human rights principles. What about this case does Chris know that I, or the Canadian press, don’t?

By: Scott Martens

Scott Martens — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 14:41:10 +0000

Johnson, pop quiz: A Cuban boat person who has lived in Miami for 20 years and who has not been involved in Cuban exile politics takes a trip to Toronto to visit his sister. When he arrives at the airport in Toronto to go home at the end of his trip, the RCMP grabs him and detains him, accusing him of being a member of some Miami-based anti-Castro terrorist movement, on the grounds that he used to work with Orlando Bosch’s brother-in-law and got him to loan him a few bucks back in the mid-90’s. Our hypothetical Miami Cuban is then denied his right to an attorney and his right to contact the US consulate. His family is not notified of his detention, and it remains unclear whether the RCMP has notified any American authorities about him, although it seems that they might have called the FBI and asked for his file. (Which he has because all immigrants to the US have an FBI record.) He is interrogated in secret and then deported to Cuba. Eventually, Cuba releases him to the US chargé d’affaires in Havana and he returns home via Mexico City. Canada has no agreement with Cuba under which Cuba agrees to torture suspects for the RCMP. Has a major human rights violation taken place? Is it a serious matter? I should think the answer to be yes and I am certain that the American columnists and bloggers so intent on defending the US from charges of attacking human rights would do the same. In this hypothetical case, Canada has disregarded the rights of suspects under the Canadian Charter of Rights and under the Vienna Convention. It would have also violated far more prosaic moral codes by deporting a suspect to a nation well known to regularly violate customary standards in detention, interogation and trial. Furthermore, by deporting someone with dual citizenship not to the nation in which they ordinarily reside but to a nation almost universally regarded as having a lower standard of human rights is suspicious. Furthermore, to do all this without any sort of extradition hearing, in secret and out of the public eye, is a serious breech of the principles of open and responsible government. Were this to happen, I would certainly regard it as a major human rights violation by Canada and a serious blow to any Canadian claim to support human rights internationally. Furthermore, I would regard such a blantant disregard for human rights and international law by the Canadian government to be a very serious blow to the international rule of law altogether. Canada has been a very important sponsor of increasingly codified international laws and standards for human rights, and a Canadian retreat from those principles would be a serious matter. Under such circumstances, I would gladly march with the most retrograde elements of the Miami Cuban community, even the ones who have blood on their own hands, in protest against my government. However, Canada doesn’t do these things, they are what the US did to Maher Arar. As I have recently discovered – not entriely to my surprise – I hold Canada to a higher standard of human rights than the US. So, you may be right. America’s recent behaviour may not represent such a new threat to international human rights, but if so, it is only because America’s claim to support such rights has been a farce for a long time.

By: Randy Paul

Randy Paul — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 14:27:19 +0000

J. Johnson: Aticle 3 of the Convention Against Torture: 1. No State Party shall expel, return (“refouler”) or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture. 2. For the purpose of determining whether there are such grounds, the competent authorities shall take into account all relevant considerations including, where applicable, the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights. Here is a link to the USDOS’s HR Report on Syria for 2002. In that report they state that “there was credible evidence that security forces continued to use torture, although to a lesser extent than in previous years.” If security forces continued to use torture and the USDOS makes that contention in their report, then it certainly seems that the DOJ could have consulted the State Department on Syria’s use of torture or gone to their website as I did and found a strong and “consistent pattern of gross violation of human rights.”

By: pepi

pepi — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 14:25:04 +0000

J.Johson – oh, I thought with that phrase you were referring to the wider “case” in point in this discussion, ie. Amnesty’s statements. I quoted your phrase, but was responding generally to how Garrard was qualifying the “bias” in the reports.

By: J. Johnson

J. Johnson — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 13:56:28 +0000

Pepi, thanks for your impassioned defence of points I (at least) wasn’t questioning. My question—I promise not to count the words of anyone’s reply—involves the Maher Arar case and why it figures, next to the Patriot Act, among Chris’ top three examples of American (Western?) violations of human rights principles.

By: pepi

pepi — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 13:45:03 +0000

“…your case that human rights principles are being undermined by the U.S” Nope, the wording is not “the US” but “governments” and “in the name of the war on terror” – as quoted in Chris’s first post:

The current framework of international law and multilateral action is undergoing the most sustained attack since its establishment half a century ago. International human rights and humanitarian law is being directly challenged as ineffective in responding to the security issues of the present and future. In the name of the “war on terror” governments are eroding human rights principles, standards and values.

(from the intro to the specific report on compliance with international law in the context of the ‘war on terror’) Sorry to be such a pedant as to actually expect that when criticising a case made by Amnesty (not Chris) one would refer to the actual case being made by Amnesty in its own words. More reading aid while I’m at it – List of governments named in the same page as passing laws or taking actions that have “raised human rights concerns”, in order of appearance: – Colombia – Russia (actions in Chechen Republic) – Philippines – Germany – Mauritius – Cuba – Morocco – Russian Federation, again – South Korea – Tunisia …and at number 11, finally!, aren’t you happy?, the US - for – Guantanamo – Yemen (…in 2002 the Yemeni authorities informed AI that the government had “no option” but to break its own laws and its human rights obligations in order to “fight terrorism” and contain the risk of a US military attack against Yemen… well at least Yemen admits to breaking laws, aren’t they generous) – Pakistan – China – Uzbekistan – United Kingdom – Guyana – India – Jordan – Morocco – the USA (oi, twice! that is so antiamerican) – Zimbabwe – China (twice for them too, could it be antichinism?) – Indonesia – Australia That’s a long list. 20-ish different countries. In all corners of the globe. Yet it’s all got to be about the US. With a little bit of effort, it even becomes anti-american or anti-western propaganda (or western-hating, or whatever she called it). This time, wordcounts are happily ignored.

By: J. Johnson

J. Johnson — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 13:24:36 +0000

Chris, Your first formulation was the export of a detainee for torture by Syria. This is far more definitive than whose actions have led to someone being tortured. But the question remains, were those “actions” the deportation of Maher Arar to Syria, and precisely what violation of human rights principles did they entail (that was serious enough to be picked for your top three examples)?

By: q

Wed, 09 Jun 2004 12:54:40 +0000

Eve’s first post was 1,050 words, this second post is 2,100 words to argue the same point. “Argument By Repetition (Argument Ad Nauseam)” = if you say something often enough, some people will begin to believe it, “Argument By Fast Talking” = if you go from one idea to the next quickly enough, the audience won’t have time to think, “Argument By Prestigious Jargon” = using big complicated words so that you will seem to be an expert, I predict 3,150 words attacking Amnesty International next time. Maybe the famous Dr Lobo could put his stamp of approval on it.