[Editorial] Can the US Talk About Human Rights?

The US Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) secret prisons for terror suspects that it has been operating since the 9/11 terror attacks are again becoming a subject of international interest. The European Union and International Red Cross are trying to find the truth behind recent news that around 100 people are being kept in 8 countries, including some Eastern European nations.

The very existence of CIA-operated prisons outside the US is itself a highly classified secret. "Neither confirming nor denying" anything, the Bush Administration has consistently ignored demands by civil rights groups asking that it disclose the truth behind the secret prisons, their legal basis, and information about harsh treatment of prisoners. The facilities were built so that they could avoid US domestic law, which prohibits detention and questioning without legal procedures. Since the locations were illegal from the start, the countries that allowed them have inevitably been hush-hush. The US has essentially used its strength to export facilities that go against human rights to countries it can easily do what it wants with, and it has turned those countries into accomplices in illegal activity.

The bigger problem is the human rights abuses and torture. Those who are being confined are mostly Muslim and they are who are being held illegally without legal procedures for months and years at a time. Being terror suspects they are not treated as prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention. The Bush Administration has approved of "enhanced interrogation techniques" that include 20 consecutive hours of questioning, the prohibition of religious considerations, the removal of clothing, and the use of military dogs to induce fear. It would have to be pretty serious for former US president Jimmy Carter to lament that the harsh treatment is a serious injury to American moral values.

They say that when US president George W. Bush heard about North Korea's concentration camps he asked, "Why isn't the international community angry about human rights abuses by the North Korean regime?" You want to ask whether he only cares when it matters for the US's security and interests. Those secret overseas prisons are the shame for the international community.

The Hankyoreh, 5 November 2005.

[Translations by Seoul Selection]