Saturday 3 November 2007

Extraordinary Rendition




Hossam el-Hamalawy on arabist.net drew my attention to an upcoming series on extraordinary rendition. You can see the preview at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz80NWS9vvE.




I am continually surprised by how many people have never heard of the shocking practice of "extraordinary rendition." Basically, "extraordinary rendition" occurs when countries such as the US fly individuals to a third country to be tortured and interrogated. In this way, the US can continue to claim that it does not condone the practice of torture (??!!) and can insist that torture does not occur on its own soil. For a detailed analysis with a good account of individual experiences of extraordinary rendition, and how the practice violates international human rights law, see: http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/hrj/iss19/weissbrodt.shtml

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