February 7th, 2012
Tories ok with information extracted by torture
Saskatoon - NDP Leadership Candidate and former Foreign Affairs critic Paul Dewar strongly condemned the revelation that Public Safety Minister, Vic Toews, quietly directed CSIS in December of 2010 that it should use information derived from torture.
“I’m appalled at the moral bankruptcy of the Harper government. Torture has no place in a civilized world. We cannot condone torture and then talk to other nations about human rights,” said Dewar.
Justice Dennis O’Connor, who headed the 2006 federal inquiry into the torture of Canadian citizen Mahar Arar, in a Syrian jail, recommended that the government “eliminate any possible Canadian complicity in torture”.
Mahar Arar has endorsed Paul Dewar for NDP Leader because of Dewar’s strong position on human rights.
Dewar continued, “It is little wonder that Canada’s international reputation has sunk so low that we can’t gain a seat on the UN Security Council. Our government allows the use of torture extracted information and is taking unbalanced positions in regions like the Middle East, and undermines global action against climate change."
“When Mr. Harper and his government condone torture, they are putting Canada on the same moral ground as regimes like Syria that practice torture. Our country should be a beacon for human rights not an enabler of human rights abuses” stated Dewar.
No comments:
Post a Comment