Torture revelations: Demand resignations of Hillier and O’Connor

April 23, 2007

If you have been watching CBC or have read the G&M today you will have seen a special report by the G&M’s Graeme Smith on torture of Canadian detainees handed over to the Afghan government. The individual stories are horrific.

The implications are appalling - the evidence gathered proves Canadian authorities - from soldiers, to their officers to O’Connor - are breaking international law and could be charged with war crimes.

It is extremely important to write a short, one paragraph letter demanding that the practice of handing over detainees end that both Hillier and O’Connor resign for violating international law and lying to the Canadian public.

See The Globe and Mail: Calls for Defence Minister ouster over Afghan detainees, April 23, 2007 story on the torture and see The Globe and Mail for a story about two human rights experts calling for the resignations of Hillier and O’Connor: From Canadian custody into cruel hands, April 23, 2007

IT IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT THAT AS MANY PEOPLE WRITE LETTERS AS POSSIBLE - THIS IS THE STRONGEST EVIDENCE YET THAT CANADA’S OFFICIAL POLICY MAKE WAR CRIMINALS OUT OF CANADIAN SOLDIERS AND MILITARY OFFICIALS.

FRAMING: Canada is becoming indistinguishable from the United States in its attitude towards human rights. Following the analysis of Michael Byers, from the above-referenced article, point out that under international law, the military is prohibited from transferring any prisoner to a situation in which they know torture will take place.

Demand an immediate halt to such transfers. Both Hillier and O’Connor have been and continue to follow a policy of knowingly transferring prisoners to torture. They should immediately resign.

NOTE: Copy all letters to the G&M [ letters@globeandmail.ca ] which should be sympathetic to them given it as their investigative story and that they wrote a strong editorial on the issue. Also, I see the list of all MPs' emails - copy them if you have the time.

• QUOTE FROM G&M “Under international law, you are prohibited from facilitating torture in any way,” said Mr. Byers, who teaches international law and politics at the University of British Columbia.
  
  “We're not simply speaking about the criminal responsibility of individual Canadian soldiers. We're speaking also of command responsibility, of criminal responsibility that continues up the chain of command, to any superior officer who knew of the risk of torture and who ordered or allowed our soldiers to transfer detainees nevertheless,”
  he said.

• By ordering our soldiers to turn over detainees we are ordering them to break the Geneva Convention and International Convention on torture - making them vulnerable to war crimes charges here or in other countries which now prosecute such crimes no matter where they are committed. (The G&M report makes clear that our soldiers behave very humanely with the prisoners).

• You might ask if O’Connor is going to “cross his fingers” again and hope there is no more torture (as he said following the deaths of 8
  soldiers)

• You could further argue that Hillier should also resign simply because he is incompetent - failing to see any of this despite years leading the military and failing to sign agreements that European nations signed allowing direct monitoring of prisoners

• Could make the point that we are behaving more and more like the Americans regarding human rights and the Geneva Convention. Att General Gonzales in the US said a few years ago that the Geneva Convention was “quaint” and “outdate.” Do Harper and O’Connor agree?

• in addition to the horrible human suffering, Harper and O'Connor are destroying Canada's reputation as a country once in the forefront of international human rights.
  

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