Nothing can justify torture
(republishing, copying, no restrictions)
By: Father Shay Cullen
The celebration of the Birth of Jesus Christ is to remind us to honor the dignity of the human person and the sacredness of every individual. His life of self sacrifice and teaching established the rights of every individual irrespective of race colour or creed. The world is plagued by injustice violence and brutality having rejected the way of peace and respect for the sacred human rights of every single individual.
The values that Christ brought to humanity are reflected in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the international convention against torture signed by almost every nation. However signing a convention does not stop the evil and inhumane practice however.
That's why the growing evidence pointing to the existence of secret prisons and torture cells where suspects are brought by the CIA is all the more troubling.
Lets not rush into any blanket criticisms of the American people or all their representatives in government. Thousands of patriotic Americans are working to oppose such hateful practices and defend the dignity and reputation of America.
Many Americans of conscience are speaking out against the inexplicable contradiction of the U.S. administration allegedly using torture to defend a constitution and tradition that condemns it. Many Americans oppose those who try to justify the violation of human rights supposedly in order to defend them. They stand against the suspension of due process and fair trial that protects all of us from unjust and arbitrary detention and abuse.
It is absolutely necessary to take a stand for human rights because there are those who are so misguided that they violate, in the name of defending liberty, the very rule of law that defends all liberty and freedom. When those laws are violated and trampled on no one is safe or protected. When the torturers have arrested taken away the prime suspects they can then come for you and me.
A German Citizen Khaled Masri has filed a lawsuit in the United States through the American Civil Liberties Union to support his claims that he was abducted and flown in a CIA plane to Afghanistan and tortured for five months before the U.S. officials realised they had the wrong man and released him.
The majority of Americans is decent, just and law abiding. They will be outraged when they come to know that rogues in the CIA are outsourcing torture and abducting and delivering suspects to secret torture cells around the world.
There is growing evidence of this as amateur plane spotters and human rights organisations have traced the planes and their flight plans. The Law Lords of Britain have categorically ruled that so called evidence extracted under torture is inadmissible in court. Rightly so, it is unreliable because victims being tortured will say anything to stop the agony inflicted on them.
US senator John McCain a republican and former aviator captured and tortured by the Vietnamese is proposing a widely supported bill that will outlaw all cruel and inhumane treatment of terror suspects in American custody but says nothing about forbidding others to do it for them. The White House has tried to get the Senator to compromise but he refuses. President George W. Bush has said we don't use torture, and Stephen Hadley, the National security advisor said, we are aggressive on terrorism and we don't move people around the world so that they can be tortured. But the evidence to the contrary is growing.
Data from German air traffic
controllers and U.S. Government industry sources showed that 26 planes
operated by the CIA made 307 flights in Europe since September 2001. 94
were in Germany, 76 in Britain and 33 in Ireland leading to the claims
that the secret torture cells are not only in Egypt, Afghanistan and
Iraq but in the heart of Europe.
Human rights advocates say let’s fight terrorism but don't inflict
terror and torture in doing so. How right they are. [End]
