Slanted

White House Plays Hardball with Critics makes zero mention of "the gulag of our times".

(I listened to it with Real Alternative, which worked nicely)

Meanwhile, IRFAN HUSAIN writes Rights issues: Are Muslim countries any better?

A recent Amnesty International report on human rights abuses in American detention centres is devastating in its forthright criticism. Irene Khan, the director of the organisation, has lambasted the American military for running what she calls the ‘gulag for our times’. Her American colleague points out that the use of torture has lowered Washington’s moral authority in dealing with other violators of human rights around the world.

But there is a note of hypocrisy in some of the criticism emanating from the Muslim world. For instance, the Gulf News in its leader of May 22 thunders: 'All prisoners must have rights, wherever they are held, for whatever reason...'

This forthright demand will come as scant comfort for the thousands of prisoners routinely beaten and tortured from Turkey to Indonesia.

Of course American abuse of prisoners must be condemned by all of us. But at the same time, we need to take a hard look at what’s happening in our prisons. In its annual report for 2004, this is what Amnesty International says about Pakistan’s track record: 'Torture and ill-treatment by the police and prison officers remained routine and the perpetrators were rarely held to account. Several people died in custody.'

The report does not mention the role of our intelligence agencies in torturing suspects. However, from time to time, their hand is exposed. Recently, two Americans of Pakistani origin were released after eight months of illegal detention, and accused the Pakistani authorities of subjecting them to torture with FBI complicity.

Commenting on this case, the Asia director of Human Rights Watch, spoke of 'Pakistan’s dreadful record on illegal detentions and torture...'

Indeed, over the years, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other similar organisations have been compiling a woeful record of abuses in Pakistan as well as in other Muslim countries. It is precisely for this reason that Americans have been flying suspected terrorists to various Muslim nations in a process known as ‘rendering’. In order to avoid breaking their own laws, US agencies ‘outsource’ torture to friendly Muslim states where prisoners, contrary to the Gulf News’ editorial quoted earlier, have no rights.