the modern day gulag debate
Rumsfeld and Amnesty International are exchanging press reports.
Rumsfeld called Amnesty’s comparison of Guatanamo Bay as the United State’s gulag “reprehensible” and said it “cannot be excused.” In response, Amnesty issued a statement noting that in the early weeks of the Iraq war, Rumsfeld at least three times cited Amnesty’s account of human rights violations by Iraq’s then-president, Saddam Hussein. The head of Amnesty USA, William Schulz said “Twenty years ago, Amnesty International was criticizing Saddam Hussein’s human rights abuses at the same time Donald Rumsfeld was courting him.”
“Donald Rumsfeld personally approved a December 2002 memorandum that permitted such unlawful interrogation techniques as stress positions, prolonged isolation, stripping, and the use of dogs at Guantanamo Bay, and he should be held accountable, as should all those responsible for torture, no matter how senior,” Schulz said.
In its annual report on global human rights, Amnesty stated, “The detention facility at Guantanamo Bay has become the gulag of our times, entrenching the practice of arbitrary and indefinite detention in violation of international law.”
Reuters
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