Animal Farm
Feb 19th, 2006 at 4:54 pm by Susie
This is no small thing. It should be interesting, to watch the fallout from this statement:
The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, has launched a passionate attack on President George Bush, saying his administration’s refusal to close the notorious Guantanamo Bay camp reflected “a society that is heading towards George Orwell’s Animal Farm”.
Dr Sentamu, the Church of England’s second in command, urged the UN Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) to take legal action against the US - through the US courts or the International Court of Justice at The Hague - should it fail to respond to a report, by five UN inspectors, advising that Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay should be shut immediately because prisoners there are being tortured. [...]
Dr Sentamu said the UNHRC should seek a writ of habeas corpus, compelling the US to bring those being detained at Guantanamo to court, to establish whether they are imprisoned lawfully and if they should be released.
“The American Government is breaking international law,” he told The Independent. “The main building block of a democratic society is that everyone is equal before the law, innocent until proved otherwise, and has the right to legal representation. If the guilt of the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay is beyond doubt, why are the Americans afraid to bring them to trial? Transparency and accountability are the other side of the coin of freedom and responsibility. We are all accountable for our actions in spite of circumstances. The events of 9/11 cannot erase the rule of law and international obligations.
See, now that’s what the clergy should be doing. I can’t understand why Christians aren’t opposing these criminals.
Bush propably has people looking into strings he may pull to get this guy to shut up. You are correct Morgaine Swann…there should be a chorus of clergy stepping out at this point.
Yet in America our clergy are riding the gravy train of fiscal investment this administration has made in them, and do not want to rock the boat. Besides, we are in the “Onward Christian Soliders” mode and human rights have never mattered before once that aggressive stance has been taken.