Bush Cancels Visit to Switzerland, Said to Be Fearing Arrest
Former U.S. President George W. Bush has called off a planned trip to Switzerland, fearing he would be arrested and that the Swiss government would begin a criminal investigation of him, according to human rights groups.
Bush planned to address a Jewish charity gala on Feb. 12, but rights groups were planning to file a 2,500-page criminal complaint against Bush alleging that he authorized illegal torture at Guantanamo Bay. Bush has admitted authorizing waterboarding.
A protest was also planned, leading gala organizers to announce the event was called off due to security concerns. Rights groups, however, say the cancellation is linked to the growing movement to hold Bush accountable for torture.
1. For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.
Article 2
2. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.
Article 3
1. No State Party shall expel, return ("refouler") or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.
Article 6
1. Upon being satisfied, after an examination of information available to it, that the circumstances so warrant, any State Party in whose territory a person alleged to have committed any offence referred to in article 4 is present, shall take him into custody or take other legal measures to ensure his presence. The custody and other legal measures shall be as provided in the law of that State but may be continued only for such time as is necessary to enable any criminal or extradition proceedings to be instituted.
The Supremacy Clause of The United States Constitution : Article 6 makes a treaty the law of the land equal to the Constitution in authority.
The United Nations Convention Against Torture is a treaty that the United States is signatory to, although has not ratified.
Under this United Nations convention violators can be and must be arrested tried in the countries that have adopted it.
Georgy and his ilk are virtually under house arrest in the United States.Places He can not go to without mandated arrest include Canada or Mexico.
Here is a list of countries that agree to the convention:
States which have Ratified the Convention Against Torture and made declaration, under Article 22, that they agree to allow individual complaints to the Committee against Torture Algeria Argentina Austria Canada Denmark Ecuador Finland France Greece Hungary Italy Liechtenstein Luxembourg Malta Monaco Netherlands New Zealand Norway Portugal Russia Spain Sweden Switzerland Togo Tunisia Turkey Uruguay Yugoslavia States which have Ratified the Convention Against Torture Australia Belize Brazil Cameroon Chile Colombia Cyprus Egypt Estonia Germany Guatemala Guinea Guyana Jordan Libya Mexico Nepal Panama Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Romania Senegal Somalia Uganda United Kingdom Venezuela Yemen States which have Ratified the Convention Against Torture and made declaration, under Article 28, that they do not recognize the competence of the Committee against Torture to investigate allegations of widespread torture within their boundaries Afghanistan Belarus Bulgaria China Czech Republic Slovakia Israel Ukraine States which have Signed but not yet Ratified the Convention Against Torture Belgium Bolivia Costa Rica Cuba Dominican Republic Gabon Gambia Iceland Indonesia Morocco Nicaragua Nigeria Sierra Leone Sudan United States of America
Dubya is now a prisoner of America, unable to leave the borders without fear of arrest and who knows what from there. Cheney is living under the same conditions if not even more of a threat of arrest. Makes me so sad....sad that they aren´t sitting in a 6x8ft cell rotting where they belong.
... how different on-line newspapers report on things. The article in the UK Telegraph about this says he has diplomatic immunity according to Swiss officials.
Guess it is important to note that it´s "only" the human rights groups who say that he is afraid of being arrested. Wishful thinking?
At the end of the day, it´s all something, someone, somewhere, typed on a keyboard.
Of Torture. He was held in The United Kingdom under an international arrest warrant. The House of Lords, the highest court of the United Kingdom ruled on Pinochet´s claimed immunity from prosecution as a former head of state under the State Immunity Act. This was rejected, as the Lords decreed that some international crimes, such as torture, could not be protected by former head-of-state immunity. Pinochet was then deported to Spain to stand trial for torture.
Some crimes do not deserve and are not granted immunity, torture being one of them.
Some people are above and way beyond the law. Wiki has exposed enough to send many to the grand hotel with bars for years. Just a few fall guys and the others walk free and have no guilt or conscience about their actions, they have friends in very high places pulling some very tough strings. Life as we know it now and life in the past!
You really think bush is the only leader in a country to authorize torture. Do you even think the leaders in your very own countries have not called for the very same atrocities. Blind cattle... Keep eating the corn meal youre fed.
People were also against giving "fair trials" to inmates at Guantanamo, too... As far as I´m concerned, a fair trial should be used to determine guilt "without a reasonable doubt," at which point, if they are PROVEN to be terrorists, etc, .... then they ARE the ones who "would do it to us," at which point, I would have to say "whatever it takes to save American lives....."
My problem is with the fact that many of these suspected terrorists have never been proven guilty, and in many cases, no evidence was ever procured to start with... And as far as I am concerned, that´s where our government really fell short on this issue.
