Bush Charged in Canada with Torture
On November 30th, in Vancouver, Canada charges of criminal torture were laid against U.S. President George W. Bush.
Vancouver lawyer, Gail Davidson, co-chair of the Canadian based group Lawyers Against the War (LAW) filed the charges with the British Columbia Provincial Court, under the Canadian Criminal Code.
Copies of the charges filed are available for download on the LAW website (page 1, page 2), and they include seven counts of counselling, aiding and abetting torture of prisoners by the U.S. military at both the U.S. Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, and the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
LAW's argument for the charges stem from the well documented cases of abuse at both prisons, and they cite Canadian and American ratification of the U.N. Convention against Torture as the basis for their claim. In their press release LAW declared, "Canada has a duty under the Convention Against Torture to 'take effective measures to prevent torture'."
As of December 2nd, LAW applied to have the charges against Bush placed before a judge, who would determine if a warrant or summons should be issued against the U.S. President.
As Bush is not a Canadian citizen, the Canadian Attorney General, Irwin Cotler, is required, within eight days of the charges being filed, to provide consent for the proceedings to continue. Should the proceedings be allowed to continue the Canadian court will also have to resolve issues of Bush's diplomatic immunity.
This story has an interesting parallel to a complaint concurrently filed in Germany by the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, against U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Those charges also involved the incidents of torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. (click here for more on that story)
While it is unlikely that either Bush or Rumsfeld will actually have to face these charges in court, if the cases do proceed it will send a powerful message that even close U.S. allies are not looking kindly on what appears to be the Bush Administration's sanction of torture by the U.S. Military.
1 Comments:
This is off topic but it must be heard.
Kleenex is made out of ancient forests!
Can you believe it? Kimberly-Clark, the manufacturer of Kleenex brand tissue products, is destroying forests in Canada that have been around since the last Ice Age, 10,000 years ago, to make something that is used once and then flushed down the toilet or thrown away. It's insane.
Greenpeace has just launched a new campaign to pressure Kimberly-Clark to stop wiping away ancient forests. The website, which is full of info, is at www.kleercut.net.
At this site there's also a pretty good action center where you can send a free fax to Kimberly-Clark telling them that they should stop destroying ancient forests to create toilet paper and facial tissue. The action center is at www.kleercut.net/en/takeaction.
That's the last time I blow my nose with Kleenex.
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