Spanish Judge Wants to Persecute Bush Officials for Torture
A judge in Spain is considering whether or not to issue arrest warrants to Bush administration officials for violating the Geneva Convention as well as the Convention Against Torture signed in 1984.
The Spanish judge, Baltasar Garzon, believes he has authority to issue these warrants because four Spanish citizens were held at Guantanamo and say they were tortured.
The ABC news journalist, Hilary Brown, who reported on this, was quick to jump the gun and almost giddy that this was occurring. She added the following during her report:
Brown conceded it’s unlikely any arrest warrant would be enforced by the U.S., but she saw a benefit, nonetheless, as she suggested “this case may end up putting pressure on the Obama administration to open its own investigation, something it has resisted so far.”
The Geneva Convention would allow for the use of “torture” or water-boarding, which to me, is not so torturous in comparison to methods still in use today, but not advertised and methods used in the past. It is a known fact that those countries and societies that use harsh punishment also have lower crime rates (Singapore)… imagine that! Article IV of the Geneva Convention states that humane practices must be administered to uniformed armies of a government. Terrorists do not fit that bill.
The Convention Against Torture was signed by the United States in 1988 and ratified in 1994. This was a United Nations international human rights instrument that aims to prevent torture around the world. This instrument does not allow for the use of torture in any circumstance. So we should all just lay down and play dead if/when we are attacked. The U.N. may as well just kneel down and accept Sharia Law – The United Nations is a joke and that’s why this administration scares the socks off me – they believe in the United Nations… that should scare anyone.
Spain should be a little more careful as well. Do they not remember the Madrid train bombing or the fact that they have their own terrorist territory in their country, The Basque Country or Pais Vasco. Spaniards in the Basque country, ETA being the most recognizable group, want to be autonomous and separate from the rest of Spain and have been known to implant car bombs and set IEDs off around the country. And how Ironic:
Into the twentieth-first century, some support for ETA in the Basque heartlands was plummeting as there were pro-independent activists who did not see a future for “armed struggle” in the post-9/11 world and following the IRA’s decommissioning. Yet, with the roots of the conflict still unresolved and Spain’s refusal to recognise full Basque sovereignty, many Basques, and particularly Basque youth, continued to make sure support for ETA remained solid. There were also concerns that Spain’s “judicial offensive” against alleged ETA supporters (two Basque political parties and one NGO were banned in September 2008) constitute a threat to human rights. Strong evidence was seen than a legal network had grown so wide as lead to the arrest of a numerous innocent people. According to Amnesty International, torture was still “persistent,” though not “systematic.” Inroads could be undermined by judicial short-cuts and abuses human rights.
ETA members and supporters routinely claim torture at the hands of any police force. While these claims are hard to verify, some convictions are based on confessions obtained while prisoners are held incommunicado and without access to a lawyer of their choice, for a maximum of three days. These confessions are routinely repudiated by the defendants during trials as having been extracted under torture. There have been some successful prosecutions of proven tortures during the “dirty war” period of the mid-1980s, although the penalties have been considered by Amnesty International as unjustifiably light and lenient with co-conspirators and enablers. In this regard, Amnesty International has shown concern for the continuous disregard on the recommendations issued by the agency to prevent the alleged abuses to possibly take place. Martxelo Otamendi, the ex-director of the Basque newspaper Egunkaria, brought charges in September 2008 against the Spanish Government in Strasbourg Court for “not inspecting properly” torture denounced cases.
Anyone who was captured and taken prisoner and investigated can claim torture – so we believe those who have terrorist ties now, more than we do ally governments.
I lived in Spain, studying abroad for a little bit, this is upsetting to me since I did and still do love the country. Unfortunately, as in the United States, the major urban areas and cities are extremely progressive and liberal, while the majority of the population in Spain, living in the other autonomy’s are fairly conservative and extremely religious. Granted, I was there in the Spring of 2001 and a lot can change in 8 years. When I was there, Spain loved the United States and George Bush… things change.
