To confront torture, America must first apologize for its own mistakes

Published: 
Tuesday, June 26, 2012

(This op-ed first appeared in the June 20 edition of Real Change News)

Martin Niemoller’s well-known insight (“first they came for the Socialists, I was not one… when they came for me, there was no one left to speak up”) affirms the urgency of speaking out against torture and seeking remedy for torture victims and survivors around the world. To speak out against organized harm requires courageous naming, as observed by writer and rights advocate Marge Piercy, who wrote that “we must name the giant in whose belly we are chained.”

The International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, June 26, shines light on torture and insists torture – and those responsible for it – poses ethical and human rights concerns that have implications for public health. The specific date was selected because on June 26, 1987, the UN Convention Against Torture (CAT) was entered into force.

The Convention is ratified by more than 145 nations including the U.S.; governments are obligated to make redress that can include investigation, prosecution and access to medical care part of the remedy.  The UN Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture assures medical, psychological, legal and economic assistance to many of the 200 treatment centers in 50 nations.

Consider the situation of Maher Arar, a Canadian-Syrian survivor of torture, who is now a human rights advocate in Canada.  Arar, publisher of “Prism,” a magazine exploring security and human rights, was falsely viewed as a threat to national security, when he arrived at JFK Airport in New York, on his way home to Canada from a family visit in Tunisia.

Arar had immigrated from Syria years earlier because of the repressive features of the Syrian government, which is one of the 80 nations that practices torture.

Arar’s family members are Canadian citizens with advanced degrees from Canadian universities.

They both value the civil liberty and multicultural understanding of Canadian society. The U.S. subjected Arar to extraordinary rendition for interrogation. Arar was then confined in a tiny cell in Syria, where he was interrogated under torture for one year. The U.S. assisted in the questioning during the torture.

Although the initial few hours of the 2002 detention of Arar at JFK may conceivably have been an accident based on faulty information obtained by the U.S. from the Canadian authorities, the persistence of the U.S. to continue to detain him, the use of extraordinary rendition to Syria, and the systematic torture for one year were not simply careless accidents. These acts were deliberate policy as practiced by the U.S. with the governments of Canada and Syria in 2002-2003.

CAT requires a remedy be made to a torture survivor. Arar attempted a legal remedy in the U.S., but in 2009 the courts refused to hear the case. The Supreme Court denied his subsequent appeal for exoneration.

It’s necessary to apologize for the wrongs inflicted on Arar. It’s as necessary as the apology made in 1999 to the people of Guatemala by the U.S. for its role in the genocide of Guatemalans. It is as significant an apology as reparations legislation made by the U.S. in 1988 to 120,000 Japanese Americans, once ordered to live in internment camps.

Looking back is a way to move forward. The Canadian government already has recognized its wrongdoing and made restitution, which included a monetary settlement and a formal exoneration to Arar and his family.

President Obama and Congress can make a similar apology. I am one of some 60,000 people who signed statements that were presented to President Obama by Amnesty International USA, Center for Constitutional Rights, and National Religious Coalition to Oppose Torture. We are asking that the U.S. apologize to Maher Arar for the harms inflicted upon him. This apology is part of affirming the CAT and can contribute to Arar’s healing as a torture survivor.

You can join us. At 6 p.m. on June 26, Amnesty International, the Washington State Religious Campaign Against Oppose Torture, the ACLU of Washington, United Nations Association Greater Seattle Chapter will hold a vigil at the Jackson Federal Building, Second Ave. at Madison St. We welcome your support.

 

 

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