by Deanna Gorzynski,
World Can’t Wait Writer’s Group
Within days of being placed
by the Canadian Foreign Ministry on a list of countries that sanction torture,
the United States and Israel have
been removed. In a training manual for Canadian diplomats, the United States, along with Israel, had
been added to a watch list of countries that torture. We joined such stellar
members of the Human Rights community as Iran,
Mexico Afghanistan, Syria
and our “good friends” Saudi Arabia.
The manual lists US
interrogation techniques such as forced nudity, isolation, sleep deprivation
and the blindfolding of prisoners under its “definition of torture”.
The listing was criticized by the US and Israel, who demanded it be changed.
Responding
to this pressure from the United States
and Israel, the Canadian
foreign minister has apologized for including the US
and Israel
on a list of states where prisoners are at risk of torture.
Maxime Bernier said the list, which formed
part of a manual on torture awareness given to diplomats, “wrongly
includes some of our closest allies”.
Mr Bernier insisted the manual was not a
policy document and did not convey the official views of his government.
Sadly it is clear that we
were not removed from this notable list because we do not torture, but simply
because we have the power to rewrite history.