This is from Scott Horton, a human rights activist deeply involved with the torture question:
Over the last ten years I have worked very extensively in Uzbekistan, on occasion spending up to a month at a time there on business for banking clients. During this time I became closely acquainted with a number of leading figures at the Uzbek bar and heard many gripping stories of abuse and mistreatment of ordinary citizens at the hands of President Karimov’s regime. Last year, a public commission which was looking into the situation there contacted me and I helped arrange a visit by commission members to Uzbekistan to look into freedom of conscience issues. I helped put them in touch with a Lutheran pastor who had been intimidated and mistreated, and several attorneys who represented Muslims who had been imprisoned and tortured. In Uzbekistan it is a grave offense to worship in any religious gathering which is not state-sponsored. As a result of US pressure, some room has opened up for Christians, but for Muslims, being caught worshipping other than at a state-sanctioned mosque is likely to be a life-altering experience. Severe beatings, lengthy “investigatory detention,” incarceration in TB-laden workcamps is the norm. A prisoner’s likelihood of survival at such camps is not much better than 50-50. And of course the famous cases of torture, such as boiling in water. All this reminds that the techniques of which Col Stoddart wrote so vividly in the 1840’s continue, with technological enhancements, under Islam Karimov. One of the commissioners apparently challenged President Bush about this when the commission had a meeting with the president. Couldn’t he issue an order prohibiting such renditions? Couldn’t he issue an unequivocal order against torture? The president, the commissioner said, reacted with near rage. He angrily snapped “Who said that? We do not practice torture!” The commissioner repeated that the president needed to send a clear message to the government that torture was a taboo. The president scowled and walked away in disgust.
The president, I’d say, is in an angry state of fraying denial. But why hasn’t the press corps been more aggressive than they have been? Open-ended questions about “rendition” don’t hack it. How about asking Bush directly how he can send terror suspects to Syria and Uzbekistan? How about asking him why he won’t allow a legislative ban on CIA torture? How about asking him directly whether he considers “water-boarding” to be torture? This is about as profound a moral issue as can be found in today’s politics. And yet the press lets the president off the hook. What gives? Are they really that afraid?
The Dish 