George W. Bush

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George W. Bush

Human rights activists of the Amnesty International demanded Canada on Wednesday to arrest former American president George W. Bush when he attends the economic summit next week in the Canadian province of Columbia.

Amnesty International accuses Bush junior of crimes that are punishable under international law, including torture. The international watchdog demanded that Canada either prosecutes or extradites him for violations of human rights that happened in the CIA prisons between 2002 and 2009.

Canadian authorities were presented with a 1,000-page memorandum to make the case against the former president of the United States. In a statement, Americas Director of the world organization Susan Lee said that Canada “is required by its international obligations” to arrest and prosecute Bush.

Canadian government responded with critical words for Amnesty International, saying that “Amnesty International cherry-pick cases” are based on ideology. The Canadian Minister of Citizenship and Immigration said that this stance of the watchdog would explain why many advocates of human rights walked away from it.

He also accused Amnesty International of taking sides, and having failed to request the same kind of action when it came to former Cuban leader Fidel Castro or Tongolese dictator, who traveled to Canada as well.

The minister also quoted the words of Salman Rushdie, the famous Indian writer who wrote a controversial book which drew criticism and a death sentence fatwa of the Iranian ayatollah. Rushdie is quoted to have said that “Amnesty International is in some sort of moral bankruptcy.”

To make his case, the Canadian minister also quoted the words of Christopher Hitchens, who spoke of “degeneration and politization” of the human rights body. However, the Canadian minister said that in the end it would be up to Canadian border authorities to decide whether to receive the former American president or not.

Amnesty International said that Canada was obligated to arrest George Bush under the UN Convention Against Torture, which Canada signed. Under this convention, Bush must be arrested, they say, because his administration’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” were cruel, inhuman and degrading treatments.

The failure to arrest him, Amnesty said, would be a violation by Canada of the UN Convention against Torture.

The need of the international community to step in, Amnesty says, is caused by the failure of the United States to bring him to justice.

Alex Neve, secretary general of the AI’s Canadian branch, said that the organization would pursue the case with the Canadian authorities and with the governments of other countries he may decide to visit.

Neve said that torture must be punished regardless that is practiced by “friend or foe,” in “extraordinary or ordinary times,” by “most or least powerful country” in the world. He added that not even the man who held the office of president of the most powerful country of the world should stand above the law.

George Bush had to cancel a trip to Switzerland in February, because of similar case made by the Amnesty International against him.

Since he completed the second term in office, George Bush traveled a lot but he never went to Europe, where there is a serious tradition of prosecuting those accused of such crimes.

Amnesty International and the Center for Constitutional Rights demanded Switzerland to act on the obligations that come from the UN Convention against Torture, which Switzerland signed.

Bush was protested against in Baghdad at the end of the mandate, when an Iraqi journalist threw a shoe at him, a gesture that in the Arab world is very demeaning.

Tony Blair, the political associate of the former American president, had his share of problems as a result of the implication in the Iraqi war in 2003. Blair had to cancel a book signing in London last year and was involved in incidents where people placed him symbolically under citizen’s arrest.

Enhanced interrogation techniques are defined as alternative procedures authorized by the Bush administration following the 9/11 attack and used by CIA and the Department of Defense to extract information of people arrested in the war on terror.

Some of these procedures were deemed by the Obama administration as torture in 2009, and were forbidden. The main techniques incriminated are: waterboarding, a technique by which water is poured on the face of the detainee, giving him the sensation of drowning; hypothermia, which means leaving a person naked in a freezing cell; stress positions; abdomen strikes, which is a slap over the abdomen; slapping, and striking.

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