Uzbekistan, our ally, and human rights violator

[Flying_Mollusk]

This is even more proof why we really dont do things for the well being of the people of a nation who are being tortured. People who are being tortured are just pawns for public relation manipulation.

 

Seven months before Sept. 11, 2001, the State Department issued a human rights report on Uzbekistan. It was a litany of horrors.

 

The police repeatedly tortured prisoners, State Department officials wrote, noting that the most common techniques were "beating, often with blunt weapons, and asphyxiation with a gas mask." Separately, international human rights groups had reported that torture in Uzbek jails included boiling of body parts, using electroshock on genitals and plucking off fingernails and toenails with pliers. Two prisoners were boiled to death, the groups reported. The February 2001 State Department report stated bluntly: "Uzbekistan is an authoritarian state with limited civil rights."

 

Immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, however, the Bush administration turned to Uzbekistan as a partner in the global fight against terrorism. The nation, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia, granted the United States the use of a military base for fighting the Taliban across the border in Afghanistan. President Bush welcomed President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan to the White House, and the United States has given Uzbekistan more than $500 million for border control and other security measures.

 

Now there is growing evidence that the United States has sent terror suspects to Uzbekistan for detention and interrogation, even as Uzbekistan's treatment of its own prisoners continues to earn it admonishments from around the world, including from the State Department.

 

The so-called rendition program, under which the Central Intelligence Agency transfers terror suspects to foreign countries to be held and interrogated, has linked the United States to other countries with poor human rights records. But the turnabout in relations with Uzbekistan is particularly sharp. Before Sept. 11, 2001, there was little high-level contact between Washington and Tashkent, the Uzbek capital, beyond the United States' criticism of Uzbekistan. (Emphasis added.)

 

 

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http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/internat...serland&emc=rss

[Beinfest4Prez]

The enemy of my enemy is my friend...

 

 

Disgusting. And people use human rights as the reason for going into Iraq.

[FutureGM]

The same things are true with regard to Pakistan, who are just our allies for a time, until the situation changes.

 

We have sent a lot of terror suspects to places like Morocco and Egypt for interrogation, since we don't want to be held responsible for torturing prisoners, even if they are terrorists.

[Flying_Mollusk]

And its not just the terror suspects. Its also the people of the nation who are being tortured. Maybe in 8 years we will get to hear Jeb Bush telling us how the government of Uzbekistan has tortured its people and how we need to go help them..now! (God help us).

[ToadLicker]

The US tortures and abuses prisoners too...or so I've been (repeatedly) told.

 

We also convict people on govt fabricated evidence and send them to jail for decades (recent ex. Edwin Wilson)

[Bradcore]

:plain

[Guest Juanky]

There are many countries with human rights violations around the globe. Some closer to us than others.