Gonzales Fails to Answer Critical Questions on Torture (AI)

[struggle4progress]

(Washington, DC) - As Alberto Gonzales faced questions in his nomination hearing, prisoners at Guantánamo Bay face the start of their fourth year of detention without charge or trial. His failure to unequivocally answer several questions asked at today's hearing indicates that the Administration is still seeking to evade the absolute prohibition on torture and that prisoners held by the United States remain at risk of further ill-treatment.

While Amnesty International takes no position on the appointment of individual nominees, the organization believes that as nominee for Attorney General, the role of Mr. Gonzales in developing US policy on torture requires additional clarification. Detainees at Guantánamo Bay, as well as those held in Iraq and Afghanistan, are among those alleging ill-treatment and torture subsequent to the Administration's attempt to construct legal cover for the infliction of torture by agents of the United States.

Full judicial review of detention, and access to lawyers and independent human rights monitors, are basic safeguards against torture and ill-treatment, arbitrary detention, and "disappearance." Mr. Gonzales was a key participant in the process that set aside these protections in early 2002. Evidence that detainees held at Guantánamo and other locations have been tortured and ill-treated continues to mount, with FBI agents now added to the list of those making such allegations.

"Mr. Gonzales's responses today suggest he has not had a change of heart, and far from disavowing the effort to redefine torture to permit mock drowning and other abuses, Mr. Gonzales affirmed only that the President condemns torture, while refusing to define what constitutes torture or reject the torture techniques the Executive Branch considered permissible," said Alexandra Arriaga, Director of Government Relations for Amnesty International USA. "As a leading player who has sought to exempt US interrogators from the prohibition on all ill-treatment contained in the Convention against Torture, his glib statements today offer no reassurance whatsoever."

http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/document.do?id=1FDCEFE20579ECAC85256F81007AF908