Rules of the game

Human Rights Watch's London Director notes...

The [Blair] Government presents the latest proposal to deport [alleged terrorists and national security suspects] with supposed guarantees that they will not be tortured as though it were a new idea, devised as an emergency response to the bombings. In reality, it is a mendacious old idea. A year ago the Human Rights Watch report Empty Promises demonstrated clearly and in detail that diplomatic assurances are no guarantee against torture. Four months ago, a 90-page report Still at Risk, confirmed the point, with yet more evidence. Human Rights Watch and Liberty wrote to the Prime Minister, pressing the point...

The evidence shows clearly how flawed such agreements can be. Sweden sent two men back to Egypt in 2001, after receiving assurances that they would not be tortured. They were, of course, tortured. Bizarrely, the United States even claimed to believe Syria (a paid-up member, after all, of George Bush"s "axis of evil") when Washington received what it called "appropriate assurances" that Damascus would not torture Maher Arar, a Canadian-Syrian handed over in 2002. (Arar, too, was tortured.)

Read on.