Pooka
01-18-08, 06:13 PM
Canada's foreign ministry has placed the United States and Israel on a watch list of nations where prisoners risk being tortured.
It has also classified some interrogation methods used by the US as torture, including isolation, sleep deprivation and blindfolding, according to an official document obtained by Reuters news agency.
The information comes from a document that forms part of a training course for Canadian diplomats.
However, a foreign ministry spokesman said the paper was a manual for training purposes and not a policy document.
Guantanamo link
The manual also refers to the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba where a Canadian man, Omar Khadr, is being held on allegations that he killed a US soldier in Afghanistan.
Rights groups say he should be repatriated to Canada but the nation's conservative government, which is allied to Washington's Bush administration, has rejected the move.
Khadr's lawyers said on Thursday that the document countered claims by the Canadian government that he was not being mistreated at the prison.
"At some point ... the Canadian government developed the suspicion [Khadr] was being tortured, yet it has not acted to obtain his release from Guantanamo Bay and protect his rights, unlike every other Western country that has had its nationals detained in Guantanamo Bay," William Kuebler, Khadr's lawyer, told Canadian television.
Court case
The Canadian government mistakenly provided the document to Amnesty International Canada as part of a court case the rights organisation has launched against Ottawa over the treatment of detainees in Afghanistan.
The US embassy in Canada said it did not condone torture "under any circumstances", while an Israeli embassy spokesman said that if Israel were on the list the ambassador "would expect its removal".
Other countries on Canada's watchlist include Syria, China, Iran, Afghanistan, Mexico and Saudi Arabia.
Source (http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8F60A325-10EA-4104-AECD-FA03DC39E8DC.htm)
It has also classified some interrogation methods used by the US as torture, including isolation, sleep deprivation and blindfolding, according to an official document obtained by Reuters news agency.
The information comes from a document that forms part of a training course for Canadian diplomats.
However, a foreign ministry spokesman said the paper was a manual for training purposes and not a policy document.
Guantanamo link
The manual also refers to the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba where a Canadian man, Omar Khadr, is being held on allegations that he killed a US soldier in Afghanistan.
Rights groups say he should be repatriated to Canada but the nation's conservative government, which is allied to Washington's Bush administration, has rejected the move.
Khadr's lawyers said on Thursday that the document countered claims by the Canadian government that he was not being mistreated at the prison.
"At some point ... the Canadian government developed the suspicion [Khadr] was being tortured, yet it has not acted to obtain his release from Guantanamo Bay and protect his rights, unlike every other Western country that has had its nationals detained in Guantanamo Bay," William Kuebler, Khadr's lawyer, told Canadian television.
Court case
The Canadian government mistakenly provided the document to Amnesty International Canada as part of a court case the rights organisation has launched against Ottawa over the treatment of detainees in Afghanistan.
The US embassy in Canada said it did not condone torture "under any circumstances", while an Israeli embassy spokesman said that if Israel were on the list the ambassador "would expect its removal".
Other countries on Canada's watchlist include Syria, China, Iran, Afghanistan, Mexico and Saudi Arabia.
Source (http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8F60A325-10EA-4104-AECD-FA03DC39E8DC.htm)