Amnesty International USA

Bilingual Newsletter

Stop Extraordinary Renditions and Disappearances

Extraordinary renditions involve the transfer of people from one country to another in ways that bypass all judicial and administrative due process. In the context of the "war on terror", this practice has usually been initiated by the United States and carried out with the collaboration, complicity or acquiescence of other governments. Its aim is to keep detainees away from any judicial oversight that might impede interrogation and the gathering of intelligence.

While U.S. laws and international treaties prohibit these types of transfers, the U.S. Government is reported to have sent or been complicit in sending individuals to countries such as Jordan, Morocco, Syria, and Egypt – countries the U.S. has criticized for practicing torture. The rendition program has also delivered people into U.S. custody, whether at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, detention centers in Iraq and Afghanistan, or secret CIA-run facilities known as "black sites" around the world.

Muhammad Faraj Ahmed Bashmilah

Yemeni national, Muhammad Faraj Ahmed Bashmilah, aged 37, also lived in Indonesia. In October 2003 he traveled to Jordan with his wife Zahra to be with his mother who was about to have medical treatment there. On arrival at Amman airport, Jordanian immigration authorities took his passport and told him to collect it three days later. When he tried to collect it he was detained by the General Intelligence Department (Da’irat al-Mukhabarat al-‘Amah) and was asked whether he had ever traveled to Afghanistan. He answered “yes”. From that moment, he didn’t see anyone except Jordanian and U.S. prison guards and interrogators until he was handed over to the Yemeni authorities more than a year and a half later. While in custody in Jordan, Muhammad Faraj Ahmed Bashmilah was tortured to the extent that he broke down in distress when asked about it by AI delegates in June 2005.

Extraordinary renditions involve multiple human rights violations:

Most victims have been detained illegally in the first place -- some were abducted, others were refused access to any legal process to challenge, for example, their transfer to countries where torture is rife.
Many of those illegally detained in one country and illegally transported to another have subsequently "disappeared", including in U.S. custody. Their whereabouts remain undisclosed.
Every one of the victims of rendition interviewed by Amnesty International has said they were tortured or otherwise ill-treated.

Because of the secrecy surrounding the practice of rendition, and because many of the victims have “disappeared”, it is difficult to estimate the scope of the program. Amnesty International believes there have been hundreds of victims of rendition. However, this is a minimum estimate. Rendition, like “disappearance”, is designed to evade public and judicial scrutiny, to hide the identity of the perpetrators and the fate of the victims.

Take Action: Congressman Edward Markey (MA) has sponsored the Torture Outsourcing Prevention Act (H.R. 952) in the House of Representatives and Senator Patrick Leahy (VT) has sponsored the “Convention Against Torture Implementation Act” (S. 654) in the Senate. Both would require:
- Annual reporting of countries that engage in torture and
- Prohibit the transfer or return of a detainee to a country that has a history of torture.; Urge your Members of Congress to cosponsor and pass H.R. 952/S. 654 or similar legislation, which is an important step in affirming U.S. commitments under both international and federal law to prevent torture, and helps restore U.S. credibility on human rights issues.