Torture by proxy

Torture by proxy is collusion by one government in the abuse of prisoners by another. The United States has "renditioned" prisoners to nations known to practice torture. In the case of the United Kingdom, the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair is alleged to have colluded in the torture of prisoners by Libya.

The US government practice of transferring prisoners to countries that practice torture has waxed and waned with different administrations. Before the September 11 attacks, renditions to countries that practice torture were sporadic and ad hoc. Afterwards the Bush administration created a dedicated rendition bureaucracy and streamlined procedures which radically expanded abductions for torture by proxy, most commonly sending victims to be abused in Egypt, sometimes to Syria and Morocco. Despite protestations that it does not condone torture, recently the Obama administration has been accused of transferring prisoners to face brutal treatment in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia.

Colluding governments use proxy torturers in order to support the deception that they have no knowledge of, or participation in, torture—that their hands are clean.

See also

• • Arbitrary arrest and detention
  • Black site
  • Central Intelligence Agency
  • Enhanced interrogation
  • Enemy combatant or Unlawful combatant
  • Extraordinary rendition
  • Extrajudicial punishment
  • Ghost detainee
  • Extraordinary Rendition, film by Jim Threapleton, starring Omar Berdouni & Andy Serkis
  • Mohamed et al. v. Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc.
  • Michael Scheuer
  • Rendition, film by Gavin Hood, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Reese Witherspoon & Meryl Streep
  • Nacht und Nebel (Nazi Germany)
  • Torture and the United States