Geneva, March 11: The UN’s independent expert on torture on Wednesday criticised the Obama administration for not investigating allegations of torture made when president George W. Bush was in power.
“This is my criticism of the Obama administration: There is not enough done to remedy what has been done in the past,” Manfred Nowak, UN special rapporteur on torture, told journalists.
“I think it’s a legal question,” he said.
“The US are a part of the UN Convention against Torture, but there are very clear legal obligations — wherever you have indications, complaints about torture, then you have to investigate them independently and effectively.”
Claims of torture and secret detention of suspects arose while the Bush administration was waging its so called “war on terror”.
These included extraordinary renditions, which involved abducting suspects without legal proceedings, and taking them to foreign countries or secret CIA prisons to be interrogated.
Human rights groups believe that these detainees were taken to countries where torture was practised, but the Bush administration claimed it never took a prisoner to a foreign country without first being assured that no torture would be used.
Nowak stressed that President Barack Obama and his administration had a “domestic obligation” to investigate complaints thoroughly, and to bring perpetrators to justice as well as to offer compensation to victims.
Overall, Nowak said that he had “deep respect” for Obama’s policy of change.
“I do think that much of it has been implemented,” he said, noting that even though Guantanamo Bay prison has yet to be shut, the blame did not fall squarely on Obama’s shoulders.
“We have major obstruction from the US Congress, and he didn’t receive the support from European allies,” he added.
Obama had vowed during the 2008 presidential campaign to close the notorious detention camp, and had signed the executive order to do so within two days of taking office.
However, the closure has been held up while the administration seeks host states that are ready to provide refuge for some of the detainees.
Nowak also said on Wednesday he was “fed up” with attacks on special rapporteurs over findings that did not flatter some UN Human Rights Council member states.
“If they are not satistifed with my work, they don’t have to appoint me,” said Nowak.
Nowak is appointed by the 47 member council, the UN’s top human rights assembly.
He highlighted the handling of a report on secret detentions he compiled together with the expert on counter-terrorism, as well as UN panels overseeing arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances.
Their report published in January listed 66 countries allegedly involved in secret detentions of terror suspects and warned that the practice could pave the way for charges of crimes against humanity.
“If the special rapporteur on human rights in the fight against terrorism has no mandate to look into such a serious human rights violation as secret detentions in the fight against terrorism… then I don’t know what his mandate is,” he pointed out.
Nowak said “prolonged secret detentions constitute torture.”
“There is no question that it is part of our mandate.”
The global study said that the “global war on terror,” which was launched Bush’s administration, had “reinvigorated” the use of secret detentions in an organised manner.
—Agencies