[R-G] Canadian FM puts Israel, U.S. on torture watch list

[Anthony Fenton]

Last update - 22:33 17/01/2008 			
Canadian FM puts Israel, U.S. on torture watch list
By Reuters
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml? 
itemNo=945830&contrassID=1&subContrassID=1


Canada's foreign ministry has put the United States and Israel on a  
watch list of countries where prisoners risk being tortured and also  
classifies some U.S. interrogation techniques as torture, according  
to a document obtained by Reuters on Thursday.

The revelation is likely to embarrass the minority Conservative  
government, which is a staunch ally of both the United States and  
Israel. Both nations denied they allowed torture in their jails.

The document - part of a training course on torture awareness given  
to diplomats - mistakenly provided the document to Amnesty  
International Canada as part of a court case the rights organization  
has launched against Ottawa over the treatment of detainees in  
Afghanistan.
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Amnesty Secretary-General Alex Neve told Reuters his group had very  
clear evidence of abuse in U.S. and Israeli jails.

"It's therefore reassuring and refreshing to see that ... both of  
those countries have been listed and that foreign policy  
considerations didn't trump the human rights concern and keep them  
off the list," he said.

Other countries on the watch list include Syria, China, Iran,  
Afghanistan, Mexico and Saudi Arabia.

"If Israel is included in the list in question, the ambassador of  
Israel would expect its removal," said Israeli embassy spokesman  
Michael Mendel.

Under "definition of torture" the document lists U.S. interrogation  
techniques such as forced nudity, isolation, sleep deprivation and  
blindfolding prisoners.

"The United States does not permit, tolerate, or condone torture  
under any circumstances," said a spokeswoman for the U.S. embassy in  
Ottawa.

A spokesman for Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier tried to distance  
Ottawa from the document.

"The training manual is not a policy document and does not reflect  
the views or policies of this government," he said.

The document mentions the U.S. jail at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba where a  
Canadian man is being held.

The man, Omar Khadr, is the only Canadian in Guantanamo. His  
defenders said the document made a mockery of Ottawa's claims that  
Khadr was not being mistreated.

Khadr has been in Guantanamo Bay for five years. He is accused of  
killing a U.S. soldier during a clash in Afghanistan in 2002, when he  
was 15.

Rights groups say Khadr should be repatriated to Canada, an idea that  
Prime Minister Stephen Harper rejects on the grounds that the man  
faces serious charges.

"At some point in the course of Omar Khadr's detention the Canadian  
government developed the suspicion he was being tortured," said  
William Kuebler, Khadr's U.S. lawyer.

"Yet it has not acted to obtain his release from Guantanamo Bay and  
protect his rights, unlike every other Western country that has had  
its nationals detained in Guantanamo Bay," he told CTV television.

The awareness course started after Ottawa was criticized for the way  
it handled the case of Canadian Maher Arar, who was deported from the  
United States to Syria in 2002.

Arar says he was tortured repeatedly during the year he spent in  
Damascus prisons. An inquiry into the case revealed that Canadian  
diplomats had not received any formal training into detecting whether  
detainees had been abused