Jordanian Government Lies, AGAIN
We don’t do torture. We don’t receive secret prisoners from the CIA. We’re nobody’s bitches. Do you think they will believe us if we told the same lie over and over again?
Jordan is not the only country to which the CIA has sent prisoners for proxy detention. Egypt has held several such prisoners, and Morocco is believed to have held some. Yet the Jordanian intelligence service has long had an exceptionally close and cooperative relationship with the CIA, so the CIA relied heavily on Jordan for holding prisoners outside of the protection of the laws.
In an article on Salon, Joanne Mariner recounts her interviews with men who were held by Jordanian authorities and interrogated, and tortured, for the CIA, all secretly. Read the chilling account here, and if you don’t want to believe it, don’t. Rely on Jordanian newspapers to report the truth, as told by Naser Judeh.
We’re nobody’s bitches, you hear?
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April 10th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
It’s truly sad.
April 11th, 2008 at 3:15 am
A Yemeni, captured in Pakistan, and sent to Jordan by the CIA? This story has problems right from the start. Why would Pakistan hand over an Arab terrorist, to US intelligence services? And why would the CIA then sned him to Jordan? Sorry, Tololy, but it just doesn’t make sense to me. If it was Afghanistan… yeah, maybe. But Pakistan? Isn’t Pakistan capable of torturing its own prisoners?
<i>Sharqawi said that he had been delivered to Jordan by the CIA. Unknown to the outside world, he was held as a secret prisoner by the Jordanian intelligence service: unregistered, cut off from all communication and hidden during visits by representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross.</i>
Maybe a semantic issue here, but why would the Red Cross (a Christian agency) be sending representatives to visit with a Muslim prisoner in Jordan? Shouldn’t taht be the Red Cresecent? And another (not semantic) isssue is the argument this journalist makes that an agency that protects the Geneva Convention rights of prisoners of war would have any business (or any interest) getting itself involved involved in a civil criminal case in Jordan? Pakistan is not at war with anybody right now, so that Yemeni was clearly NOT a prisoner of war, whatever else he was or was not.
Sorry. I’m sure this is happening (CIA sending Arab terrorism suspects to Arab countries like Jordan) but this article does an exceedingly bad job of making the case proving it. The author would have been better off proving basic human rights violations, and foregoing trying to pin it all on America.
April 11th, 2008 at 6:48 am
Sorry Craig but the Red Cross is not a christian organisation. You are writing Tabout the International Committee of the Red Cross based in Geneva which visits prisons in all countries in the world. The Red Cross/Red Crescent Societies round the world are a different organisation although affiliated. For your interest the country with the largest population of Muslims is Indonesia and their local society is called the Indonesian Red Cross!
April 11th, 2008 at 10:35 am
T, I disagree with you about teh Red Cross being a Christian organization. It was founded as such. But that’s not what my challenge was based on. My challenge was based on the fact that visiting criminals in prison to ensure that they are recieving Geneva Convention protections is completely outside of the role this organization plays. Why, you might ask? Well, it’s simple, really.
CRIMINALS DO NOT HAVE GENEVA CONVENTION PROTECTIONS.
That is a major and fatal flaw in that article. It was either an example of the author’s dishonesty, or the author’s ignorance, to claim the prisoner was being denied visits from the Red Cross.
April 11th, 2008 at 10:37 am
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Committee_of_the_Red_Cross
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is a private humanitarian institution based in Geneva, Switzerland. The community of states has given the ICRC a unique role, based on international humanitarian law of the Geneva Conventions as well as customary international law, to protect the victims of international and internal armed conflicts. Such victims include war wounded, prisoners, refugees, civilians, and other non-combatants.
Obviously does not apply to Arab terrorists arrested in Pakistand by Pakistani police. Does it? Or, are we just making up the rules as we go along here? Because if that’s the case, I have some new rules of my own I want to put into effect :P
April 11th, 2008 at 10:48 am
And Tololy: The ICRG is just an administrative committee. They don’t actually do anything in the field, anyway. That is left to the national societees of the Red Cross/Red Crescent/etc in the countries in question. Does Jordan have a Red Cross society, or a Red Crescent Society?
Another error that journalist made. Sloppy work.
PS:
http://www.icrc.ch/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/jordan
Jordan doesn’t have a Red Cross society. Jordan has a Red Crescent society. Jordanian members of teh Red Crescent would have been the only ones authorized (under the terms of teh geneva Conventions) to visit this man in prison, if he was entiteld to Geneva Convention protections, which he’s not.
April 11th, 2008 at 10:55 am
And one more thing, T!
The Red Cross/Red Crescent Societies round the world are a different organisation although affiliated.
That is not true. The national societies (there are more than Red Cross/Red Crescent) are organized directly under the ICRG. Every country can only have ONE recognized national society that is authorized to perform humanitarian services in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. One. No more, and no less. The ICRG itself has no authority to do such humanitarian work itself, and functions only as an international oversight committee. To call the ICRG and the national societies who actually do the work of the ICRG merely “affiliated” is a ischaracterization. They are a single organization.
April 11th, 2008 at 11:01 am
Amd yet another thing! (sorry)
What is this about the “Indonesian Red Cross”? The national society in Indonesia is called ”Palang Merah Indonesia” (PMI).
April 11th, 2008 at 11:08 am
I am not “T.”
April 11th, 2008 at 11:13 am
Sorry, Tololy! I knew that! Just a typo :)
PPPPPPPPS to T:
The only nations who don’t use the symbol of the Red Cross for their national societies are Muslim nations, and that’s because they objected to the Christian symbolism. So, I think it’s a bit disingenuous to claim the Red Cross is not seen as “Christian”, in a Muslim country like Jordan. This journalist should have been aware of that. But wasn’t.
April 11th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Actually Israel uses the star of David for its national society instead of the red cross (Magen adom)
April 11th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Unfortunately, this blatant denial of facts has become a widespread practice of many governments of the world. It is a sad world that we live in.
April 11th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Craig - First of all the National Societies come under the IFRC NOT the ICRC. The IFRC is the International Federation of the Red Cross/Red Crescent Societies. As for the Indonesian Red Cross please look at their web site and you will see the Red Cross symbol in the corner. The ICRC DOES do humanitarian work. They put up campsites in Jordan during the first Gulf War. They trace missing persons and do a lot of other humanitarian work in Palestine and round the world. The red cross symbol was taken from the Swiss flag and the colours turned round and the crescent symbol is from the Turkish flags. I do agree that people take these symbols as religious ones but they were not intended as such. As for MDA in Israel, when they are overseas they now use the third symbol which is the Red Crystal.
The Jordan Red Crescent has no authority to go into prisons and inspect them it is given by governments to the ICRC. T
April 11th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
T, you are simply wrong. You’ve over-analyzed, and ghotten yourself confused. Reading this link may help you:
http://www.redcrosswesterncolorado.org/internationalredcross.html
However, I’ not going to argue this issue with you any further. It is off topic by two levels of abstraction. This man doesn’t have Geneva Convention protections, which was my first point. And my second was that Jordan doesn’t ahve a Red Cross society, but a Red Crescent society.
April 11th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
The ICRC DOES do humanitarian work. They put up campsites in Jordan during the first Gulf War. They trace missing persons and do a lot of other humanitarian work in Palestine and round the world.
Yes, they do. But they do that work as a private humanitarian organization. It isn’t part of the role that is defined for them in the Geneva Conventions. And it is the Geneva Conventions that we are talking about, here.
The red cross symbol was taken from the Swiss flag and the colours turned round and the crescent symbol is from the Turkish flags. I do agree that people take these symbols as religious ones but they were not intended as such.
And how did a cross come to be on the swiss flag!? Or a Crescent on the Turkish flag? People see these as religious symbols because they ARE religious symbols. And, they were intended to be religious symbols, all along. And most humanitarian agencies have their roots in religious charitable associations. International humanitarian agencies are prohibited by law from incorporating any religious beliefs into their missions, but those roots remain nontheless. OK, for real this time, I’d like to get back on topic if possible :)
April 13th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
so let me get this straight craig, you deny that the US ever used <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition>extraordinary rendition</a> and that <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_corpus>people who are not charged with any crime are criminals</a>, and they are <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Geneva_Convention#cite_note-3>not protected by the geneva convention </a>?
no point in arguing with that ! or is it ?
April 13th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
so let me get this straight craig, you deny that the US ever used extraordinary rendition and that people who are not charged with any crime are criminals, and they are not protected by the geneva convention ? no point in arguing with that ! or is it ? **editor didn’t translate HTML, sorry