Human rights and fighting terrorism

Written by Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP and published in Barking and Dagenham Recorder on Thu 2nd Feb 2006

Sarah taking part in an Amnesty International Demonstration - "Don't turn a blind eye to torture."

We cannot turn a blind eye to the human rights abuses the US-led "war on terror" is causing. I have several constituents held illegally in shocking conditions in Guantanamo Bay.

Allegations that the United States has been using European airports to ferry kidnapped terrorist suspects to secret jails where they might be tortured - possibly even in Eastern Europe - are truly appalling. Last week I was appointed vice-chair of a European Parliament committee which has been set up to find out the truth, including whether the British and other governments have colluded in abuses.

President Bush, during his 5 years in office, has discredited and demeaned the good name of the United States. We all felt on 9/11, with the terrible crimes of the plane crashes on the Twin Towers, an enormous solidarity with our cousins in America. But George Bush has frittered away that support and fellow-feeling.

His latest trick is the redefinition of "torture." He lives in an Alice-in-Wonderland world in which "waterboarding", when someone is strapped to a board and plunged headfirst into water until they believe they're drowning, is not torture! Before Bush came to power, any soldier guilty of this medieval practice would rightly have been court-martialled.

The committee of Euro-MPs will be inviting senior figures from the US as well as European governments to the European Parliament to answer questions on what the CIA is up to in Europe. If they refuse to come, that in itself will be significant and the public can draw conclusions.

Bush and Blair say "the rules of the game have changed". But if the law is not upheld across the board, then everyone could find themselves lacking protection from the abuse of state power. And if we betray our Western values, we descend to the level of Osama Bin Laden.