Ouch! That's Gotta Leave A Mark
Adam Liptak's column in yesterday's NY Times was a real stunner, if only because this is the first reference to a month old story I've come across. It seems a Canadian federal judge has ruled that "that the United States had violated international conventions on torture and the rights of refugees."
Here's the backstory on the ruling:
... The case concerned a 2002 agreement between the United States and Canada on the treatment of people fleeing persecution from other places, and the agreement itself requires compliance with international conventions on refugees and torture.
Under the deal, which became effective three years ago this month, people from other countries entering Canada from the United States by land could no longer ask for asylum, on the theory that they should have done so in the United States. (The agreement works in reverse, too, but most refugee traffic moves north.)
You get one bite at the asylum apple, the agreement says, because you will get a fair shake in either country.
But the deal, known as the Safe Third Country Agreement, sets conditions based on the international conventions, and Justice Phelan said the United States had in recent years not lived up to them. ...
Justice Phelan declared the 2002 agreement invalid. [Emphasis added]
The opinion written by Justice Phelan, lengthy and apparently dry as dust, was based on some pretty obvious changes in American policy over the last seven years. It also referred to what those changes have meant in some specific incidences, one directly involving a Canadian citizen.
In his studiously technical 124-page decision, Justice Phelan found that a one-year deadline for filing asylum claims here, enacted by Congress in 1996, had been applied in recent years in ways that violated the international convention on refugees.
He found a similar flaw in a provision of the USA Patriot Act that, as interpreted by the Bush administration’s immigration courts, allows people to be excluded for providing material support to terrorists — even if the support was coerced or under duress.
In other words, providing food at gunpoint may be material support of terrorism, as is paying ransom for a kidnapped relative.
Justice Phelan’s decision also cited the findings of a Canadian commission in the case of Maher Arar, a Canadian whom the United States sent to Syria, where the commission said he was tortured.
Many of us have been horrified at what this administration has done these long seven years, from the suppression of our civil liberties, to the lies that led us into an illegal war, to the sanctioning of torture and kidnapping and unlimited detention without legal recourse. The evidence of the administration's malfeasance is all there, and, finally, someone has called the US on it.
What is shameful is that this story, a month old, was not reported in this country until Mr. Liptak's column.
Here's the backstory on the ruling:
... The case concerned a 2002 agreement between the United States and Canada on the treatment of people fleeing persecution from other places, and the agreement itself requires compliance with international conventions on refugees and torture.
Under the deal, which became effective three years ago this month, people from other countries entering Canada from the United States by land could no longer ask for asylum, on the theory that they should have done so in the United States. (The agreement works in reverse, too, but most refugee traffic moves north.)
You get one bite at the asylum apple, the agreement says, because you will get a fair shake in either country.
But the deal, known as the Safe Third Country Agreement, sets conditions based on the international conventions, and Justice Phelan said the United States had in recent years not lived up to them. ...
Justice Phelan declared the 2002 agreement invalid. [Emphasis added]
The opinion written by Justice Phelan, lengthy and apparently dry as dust, was based on some pretty obvious changes in American policy over the last seven years. It also referred to what those changes have meant in some specific incidences, one directly involving a Canadian citizen.
In his studiously technical 124-page decision, Justice Phelan found that a one-year deadline for filing asylum claims here, enacted by Congress in 1996, had been applied in recent years in ways that violated the international convention on refugees.
He found a similar flaw in a provision of the USA Patriot Act that, as interpreted by the Bush administration’s immigration courts, allows people to be excluded for providing material support to terrorists — even if the support was coerced or under duress.
In other words, providing food at gunpoint may be material support of terrorism, as is paying ransom for a kidnapped relative.
Justice Phelan’s decision also cited the findings of a Canadian commission in the case of Maher Arar, a Canadian whom the United States sent to Syria, where the commission said he was tortured.
Many of us have been horrified at what this administration has done these long seven years, from the suppression of our civil liberties, to the lies that led us into an illegal war, to the sanctioning of torture and kidnapping and unlimited detention without legal recourse. The evidence of the administration's malfeasance is all there, and, finally, someone has called the US on it.
What is shameful is that this story, a month old, was not reported in this country until Mr. Liptak's column.
Labels: Free Press
posted by Diane at 4:03 AM
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