[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 90 (Friday, June 25, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1291]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      THE 2004 INTERNATIONAL DAY IN SUPPORT OF VICTIMS OF TORTURE

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. EDWARD J. MARKEY

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, June 25, 2004

  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow we will observe the seventh 
International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. The date June 26 is 
no accident: it was on June 26, 1987 that the International Convention 
Against Torture came into effect, and on June 26, 1945 the United 
Nations Charter was signed. Tragically, torture and other severe human 
rights abuses continue in many countries around the globe to this day.
  Even more tragically, the world has seen in the past few months that 
the United States is not as firmly placed as it should be among those 
nations that abhor and fully reject torture. The prison abuses at Abu 
Ghraib have disappointed all Americans. Although President Bush has 
asserted that ``the values of this country are such that torture is not 
a part of our soul and our being'' much of the world remains skeptical 
about the Bush administration's commitment to repudiation of torture in 
light of the recent revelations about internal administration legal 
memoranda which attempted to carve out broad exemptions from domestic 
and international prohibitions on torture based on the Presidential 
power as Commander-in-Chief.
  While the Abu Ghraib revelations were appalling, there is another 
practice going on right now which merits equal attention, and that is 
the outsourcing of torture by this administration. Under a practice 
known as ``extraordinary rendition,'' the CIA delivers terrorism 
suspects in U.S. custody both domestically and abroad to foreign 
governments known to use torture for the purpose of interrogation. This 
extra judicial practice has received little attention because of the 
great secrecy with which it occurs. Attention was drawn to the practice 
in September 2002 when Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen, was seized while 
in transit to Canada through JFK airport, and sent to Jordan and later 
Syria at the request of the CIA. While in Syria, Arar was tortured and 
held in a dark, 3-by-6-foot cell for nearly a year. He was ultimately 
released and detailed his story to the media upon his return to Canada.
  In October 2002, outgoing CIA director George Tenet testified to the 
9/11 Commission that over 70 people had been subject to extraordinary 
rendition before September 11, 2001. The numbers since then are 
classified. Human rights organizations including Amnesty International, 
Human Rights Watch, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the ACLU 
have detailed numerous cases of extraordinary rendition and are 
pursuing litigation in some of them. On June 21, the Canadian 
government launched an investigation into Arar's case.
  This practice is inconsistent with U.S. and international law and is 
a moral outrage. It must be stopped. If the Bush administration 
continues to permit this sort of outsourced, third-party torture, it is 
more likely that our own troops in Iraq could be subject to the same 
type of brutal treatment. I have recently introduced legislation, H.R. 
4674, that directs the State Department to compile a list of countries 
that commonly practice torture or cruel, inhumane or degrading 
treatment during detention and interrogation, and prohibits rendition 
to any nation on this list, unless the Secretary of State certifies 
that the nation has made significant progress in human rights. The bill 
explicitly permits legal, treaty-based extradition, in which suspects 
have the right to appeal in a U.S. court to block the proposed transfer 
based on the likelihood that they would be subjected to torture or 
other inhumane treatment.

  Extraordinary rendition to countries known to practice torture 
amounts to outsourcing torture. It is morally repugnant to allow such a 
practice to continue. H.R. 4674 is designed to ensure that we not only 
ban torture conducted by our own forces but we also stop the practice 
of contracting out torture to other nations. Torture enabled by 
extraordinary rendition is outrageous and could expose our own forces 
to the same type of treatment.
  It is also deeply foolish of the Bush administration to allow any 
questions to be raised as to America's rejection of torture. Quite 
simply, actions such as those at Abu Ghraib and the ongoing practice of 
extraordinary rendition endanger American soldiers and civilians who 
may be captured in Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere. By failing to firmly 
bar methods of torture with U.S. detainees, the Bush administration has 
increased the likelihood that Americans overseas will be tortured or 
subjected to inhumane treatment.

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