INFO
DERNIERE
Source : l'Agence Reuters en ligne le 19 janvier


Canada removes U.S.,
Israel from torture watchlist
By David Ljunggren


OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's foreign ministry, responding to pressure from close allies, said on Saturday it would remove the United States and Israel from a watch list of countries where prisoners risk being tortured.
Both nations expressed unhappiness after it emerged they had been listed in a document that formed part of a training course manual on torture awareness given to Canadian diplomats.
Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier said he regretted the embarrassment caused by the public disclosure of the manual, which also classified some U.S. interrogation techniques as torture.
"It contains a list that wrongly includes some of our closest allies. I have directed that the manual be reviewed and rewritten," Bernier said in a statement.
"The manual is neither a policy document nor a statement of policy. As such, it does not convey the government's views or positions."
The document -- made available to Reuters and other media outlets -- embarrassed the minority Conservative government, which is a staunch ally of both the United States and Israel.
U.S. ambassador David Wilkins said the listing was absurd, while the Israeli envoy said he wanted his country removed.
Asked why the two countries had been put on the list, a spokesman for Bernier said: "The training manual purposely raised public issues to stimulate discussion and debate in the classroom."
The government mistakenly gave the document to Amnesty International as part of a court case the rights organization has launched against Ottawa over the treatment of detainees in Afghanistan.


AMPLE EVIDENCE OF ABUSE

Amnesty International Canada, which says it has ample evidence that prisoners are abused both in U.S. and Israeli jails, said it was disappointed by Bernier's announcement.
"When it comes to an issue like torture, the government's main concern should not be embarrassing allies," Alex Neve, the group's secretary-general, told Reuters. The U.S. embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Under "definition of torture," the document lists U.S. interrogation techniques such as forced nudity, isolation, sleep deprivation and blindfolding prisoners.
It also mentions the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, where a Canadian man is being held.
The man, Omar Khadr, has been in Guantanamo Bay for five years. He is accused of killing a U.S. soldier during a clash in Afghanistan in 2002, when he was 15.
Other countries on the watch list include Syria, China, Iran, Afghanistan, Mexico and Saudi Arabia.
The foreign ministry launched the torture awareness course after Ottawa was criticized for the way it handled the case of Canadian engineer Maher Arar, who was deported from the United States to Syria in 2002.
Arar says he was tortured repeatedly during the year he spent in Damascus prisons. An official inquiry into the affair showed Canadian diplomats had not been trained to detect whether detainees might have been abused.


(Editing by Philip Barbara)




L'INFORMATION QUE NOUS PUBLIONS CI-DESSOUS, EST CHRONOLOGIQUEMENT PARUE, LA PREMIERE, DANS LE MONDE
DATE DU 18 JANVIER


LES ETATS-UNIS ET ISRAEL
SUR UNE LISTE NOIRE AU CANADA

Le Ministère canadien des Affaires Etrangères a inscrit les Etats-Unis et Israël sur une liste de pays où les prisonniers risquent d'être torturés. Ces révélations risquent de mettrent dans l'embarras le gouvernement conservateur d'Ottawa, proche allié des Etats-Unis et d'Israël, lesquels se défendent d'avoir autorisé la torture dans leur prison.. Le docmuent -qui fait partie d'un cours de sensibilisation à la torture donné aux diplomates- mentionne la prison de Guantanamo, à Cuba, où est détenu Omar Kadr, un citoyen canadien. Les avocats de M. Kadr ont affirmé que le document tournait en dérision les allégations d'Ottawa selon lesquelles leur client ne serait pas mal traïté. Sous la "définition de tourture", le texte site des techniques américaines d'interrogations tel que la mise à nu, l'isolement, la privation de sommei et le maintien d'un bandeau sur les yeux. Le Ministre des Affaires Etrangères canadien, Maxime Bernier a tenté de minimiser sa portée en afirmant que "le manuel de formation ne reflète pas le pointe de vue ou la politique du gouvernement". Le gouvernement avait, par erreur, remis le document à Amnesty International dans le cadre d'une action intentée par le mouvement de défense des droits de l'homme contre Ottawa concernant le traîtement de détenus en Afghanistan.