Canada to remove US from list of states where prisoners risk torture News
Canada to remove US from list of states where prisoners risk torture

[JURIST] Canadian Foreign Minster Maxime Bernier [official profile] said Saturday that the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade will remove the US from an internal document that lists countries that employ interrogation methods that amount to torture [JURIST report] and where prisoners risk being tortured. The document was part of a manual given to Canadian diplomats in a training course on torture awareness. In a statement [press release], Bernier said:

I regret the embarrassment caused by the public disclosure of the manual used in the department's torture awareness training. It contains a list that wrongly includes some of our closest allies. I have directed that the manual be reviewed and rewritten. The manual is neither a policy document nor a statement of policy. As such, it does not convey the Government's views or positions.

The document was mistakenly provided to Amnesty International Canada in a court case the organization filed over Canadian treatment of Afghan detainees [JURIST report]. It specifically mentions Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] as a detention facility that employs torture methods and reports Canadian citizen Omar Khadr [JURIST news archive] as saying that he has been tortured while detained there.

Other countries on the list provided to Canadian officials attending the training course include Afghanistan, China, Iran, Israel, and Syria. Reuters has more.

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