Is this Canada’s Abu Ghraib?

Apr 30, 2007 in the briar-wire by admin | No comments

That’s the question Derrick O’Keefe of Seven Oaks poses of Ottawa’s deepening torture scandal:

There are, to be sure, significant differences between the torture scandal currently engulfing Ottawa and the one that rocked the Bush administration three years ago. There are no gruesome photos and, unlike the U.S. abuse of Iraqi detainees, the torture in Afghanistan is being done by Canada’s local allies.

But in many ways this scandal is equal to the outrage of Abu Ghraib. With the photographic evidence of the abuse in Iraq, even old Donald Rumsfeld could not have pulled the straight-faced performance of Stephen Harper and Gordon O’Connor in the House of Commons this week.

Meanwhile, Dr. Michael Byers, writing in the Toronto Star, assesses the potential for war crimes prosecution of Canadian soldiers and politicians for complicity in the heinous crime of torture:

Any Canadian soldier who transfers a detainee into a known risk of torture could be prosecuted in the International Criminal Court. Or, because torture and complicity in torture give rise to “universal jurisdiction,” they could be prosecuted in the domestic courts of any country, anywhere.

The same applies to anyone “up the chain of command” who orders a transfer into a known risk of torture, either specifically or as a matter of policy.

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