Kenya: Americas Renditions are a Mockery of Human Rights
AllAfrica.com, Washington The Nation (Nairobi) John W. Harbeson Nairobi
I do not like extraordinary rendition, for if we “rend” our clothes we tear them apart. This is just what “rendition” can do to countries’ social and political fabrics.
Extraordinary rendition contravenes established international conventions against torture even as its practice constitutes dishonest and irresponsible snubbing of fundamental human rights which, these days, most nations endorse. Extraordinary rendition undermines the integrity of countries that claim to uphold these rights and that have worked to incorporate them in their political orders.
Many African countries have made explicit commitments and registered progress in honouring political and civil liberties, particularly over the past 15 years. They have done so in part on their own initiative and at the prodding of the international community, whose leading members claim to be exemplars of those rights. Extraordinary rendition makes a mockery of all those efforts.
So what exactly is this practice? Rendition is the involuntary transfer of people by State A to State B for secret interrogation by methods that violate human rights that the former wants the world to believe it upholds.
To be sure, rendition is torture by proxy. State A sends a detainee to another country where she or he can be tortured so that it does not dirty its own hands in human rights terms. Not only does State A obviously commit gross hypocrisy, but the cause of advancing human rights in State B is set back
The United Nations Convention Against Torture (UNCAT) established in 1984 explicitly outlaws extraordinary rendition for purposes of torture.
It provides that no State party shall expel, return or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he (or she) will be in danger of being subjected to torture. [more]