Rendition Victims Seek Justice Before International Tribunal

[The Straight Story]

Rendition Victims Seek Justice Before International Tribunal

Four victims of “extraordinary rendition” — a Bush administration CIA-run program of abduction, enforced disappearance, and torture — are demanding justice in a case filed yesterday against the United States with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

On behalf of our clients — Binyam Mohamed, Bisher al-Rawi, Abou Elkassim Britel, and Mohamed Bashmilah — the petition seeks an apology for and acknowledgment of their forced disappearance and torture. The case also challenges the U.S. government’s misuse of the “state secrets” privilege in its effort to block the victims’ cases for redress from being heard in U.S. courts. The government used the “state secrets” privilege to persuade U.S. courts to dismiss the case previously brought in the federal courts by the ACLU on behalf of the same victims against Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc., a flight logistics company that facilitated CIA “torture flights” across the globe.

“I want to get justice for what the American CIA did to me, because they were responsible for everything that happened,” said Mohamed Bashmilah, when asked about his decision to pursue a claim before the human rights Commission.

.....

Although the Obama Administration has ended the practice of “extraordinary rendition” and shut down secret prisons, the U.S. government has waged a legal battle to keep survivors from having their day in U.S. court. As in the earlier cases of Maher Arar and Khaled El-Masri, the United States used claims of national security and the “state secrets” privilege to torpedo the litigation immediately after it had begun. Claiming that U.S. national security interests would be undermined if the government were forced to discuss the issues of these cases in court (despite the whole world being aware of much of the information related to their rendition and torture), the government has successfully blocked any U.S. court from ruling on the legality of the Bush administration’s torture program.

http://www.aclu.org/blog/human-rights-national-security/rendition-victims-seek-justice-international-tribunal

[annabanana]

1. The rot within festers. It won't "go away". It will only get worse.

When Ford pardoned Nixon, when Iran-Contra yielded no scalps, the word went out. "A Nation of Laws" was exposed as simple fraud. And we let it slide. Now we are, as a Country, collectively responsible for torture.