Monday, June 06, 2005

Those quaint (but convenient) Geneva Conventions

Maru on a calm day:
What #ucking nerve.

The misadministration has invoked the Geneva Convention to avoid releasing Abu Ghraib torture photos to the ACLU.

Fun fact: Up 'til now, anyway, the DoD has claimed the prisoners/detainees are "enemy combatants" and not "prisoners of war," hence the Geneva Conventions do not apply.

  post

(She lists the progress we're making in Iraq here.)

The Independent has the story on the photos...
05 June 2005

A US judge has ordered the Bush administration to release more than 100 new photographs and videos of abused prisoners at Abu Ghraib, creating a fresh public relations nightmare for government officials as they seek to rebut accusations that the US is sponsoring torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond.

[...]

Judge Alvin Hellerstein of the New York federal court granted a petition by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to release the materials after viewing eight sample photos last week. It is not known exactly what the 144 photographs and videos depict, but they are from the same sources as the graphic images of prisoners being piled up on top of each other, threatened by attack dogs and forced into sexually compromising positions that triggered scandal and outrage just over a year ago.

[...]

Government lawyers argued that releasing the photographs would reveal the prisoners' identities, a violation of their rights under the Geneva Conventions. But the ACLU said that objection could be easily overcome by blocking out the prisoners' faces. The judge agreed, and gave the White House until the end of the month to hand over the material.

More pointedly, the ACLU also said the government's reasoning was absurd because the violation of the Geneva Conventions began with the abuse, not with attempts to uncover it.

  UK Independent article

Buttie, take note: that is the proper use of the word "absurd".

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