KK-Forum,
NTB (og tekst.TV) rapporterer i dag at fanger mistenkt for å tilhøre
al-Qaeda er ankommet Cuba (USA's Guantanamo-base) med hetter over hodet,
som de hadde på hele flyturen, dessuten var de låst fast i setene.
Dette er en form for tortur, jfr. denne fra Observer 6. januar. NTB synes
ikke det er nødvendig å minne om det.
Fra ZNet
http://www.zmag.org/sackit.htm
*********
The Observer (U.K.)
06 January 2002
Spare our blushes and put a sack on it
By Terry Jones
I was thrilled to see a photo in the New York Times last week showing US
troops guarding prisoners suspected of belonging to al-Qaeda in
Shibarghan, Afghanistan. The story that accompanied the picture described
how the 101st Airborne Division had been ordered to relieve the Marine
Corps in southern Afghanistan, paving the way for a long-term military
presence in the country. The photo also appeared in the Times here, but
neither paper mentioned the part of the photo that got me so excited as
President of the Humane Society for Putting Bags Over Suspects' Heads.
The photograph clearly showed that the prisoners suspected of belonging to
al-Qaeda had their arms pinioned behind them and had bags over their
heads, secured with metallic tape. We in HSPBOSH have been trying for
years to get more armies to put bags over the heads of anyone they suspect
of anything. For one thing, the placing of a bag over the heads of
suspects protects those of us who are not involved from unpleasant feelings
of sympathy for the prisoners. There is nothing more offensive to
ordinary, law-abiding newspaper-readers than seeing rows of sorry-looking
peasants being herded into the backs of cattle-trucks by our lads in the
Army. The prisoners often looked frightened, dejected and hungry, and how
can anyone eat a decent full breakfast over photos like that?
Once a bag has been placed over their heads, however, it is impossible to
feel much for them. They cease to be human-beings and as such make no
unreasonable call upon our emotions. The placing of a bag over the
suspects' head also has another highly desirable effect: it makes them all
look guilty. One cannot see a man with a bag over his head without feeling
that he must have deserved it, and that anything he has got coming to him
is only what he ought to expect.
The same probably goes for the person with the bag over their head. I've
never had it done to me personally, but I believe the effect is very
disorientating. A prisoner with the bag over his head ceases to feel human
as well as look it, and deprivation of sight, smell and balance encourages
him expect the worst.
And this, of course, brings us to the economic argument for putting heads
in bags. Once a suspect has been trussed-up, had the bag placed over their
head, and been driven around in the back of a cattle truck for a bit,
they'll usually confess to anything. This saves a lot of time, effort and
- most importantly - money in trying to sort out terrorists from ordinary
blokes whom the Army has rounded up because they had unpleasant beards and
bad haircuts.
This is one of the reasons why the British Government was so keen on
putting bags over the heads of IRA suspects in the early 1970s. It was
very economically effective. Of course those spoilsports at the European
Court of Human Rights put a spanner in the works in 1978 when they outlawed
the technique, claiming that it 'amounted to a practice of inhuman and
degrading treatment'. In other words they said it was a form of torture.
Luckily the US is not bound by any soft-centred decisions of the European
Court of Human Rights. In fact the US also needn't take any notice of the
United Nations Convention against Torture either, because it was one of
the few countries that had the sense not to sign the agreement in 1985.
Argentina, Belgium, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Dominican Republic,
Finland, France, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal,
Senegal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Uruguay made the mistake of
signing it, and subsequently Venezuela, Luxembourg, Panama, Austria and
even the UK and Afghanistan joined in, but America didn't.
Lucky for them. Now we can see how it's paying off. The US Army can put
bags over the heads of whoever they like. But what really excited us at
HSPBOSH was the fact that the editors of the New York Times and the London
Times could publish the photograph of Afghanistani suspects with bags over
their heads without making any comment at all.
Let's hope this means that the British and American public is finally
ready to accept the fact that the only faces that matter are British and
American faces. These are the only 'people' who count now, and - to be
quite honest - the rest of the world might has well go around with bags
over their heads. Which is great news for all of us here at HSPBOSH.
**************'
Knut Rognes
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