The requests made to the US government by both the UNO and the EU to close down its prison camp at Guantanamo, in Cuba, where Afghan and Iraqi prisoners of the USA are being held, in conditions that violate human rights, arouse the comment of the Spanish daily El Paìs of 15/02, with an editorial entitled “ The base of shame“. “ Guantanamo has become a beacon of shame says the article -. Despite the fact that the USA has repatriated several hundred detainees to their countries of origin, the fact remains that several hundred prisoners have been held without trial in this camp since the invasion of Afghanistan, in October 2001, in a judicial no man’s land deplored on various occasions by the European Parliament and various organizations. The experts of the UNO maintain that in some cases torture and inhumane treatment have been practised at Guantanamo, that the religious and civil rights of detainees are being violated and that a hundred or so detainees who are on hunger strike are being force-fed”. But Guantanamo, points out El Paìs, “ is not an isolated case. Its existence fuels the hatred that provides the life blood of violent fanatics” and “the same goes for the CIA flights for the rendition of prisoners, who could be interrogated with brutality in the secret prisons of various countries, including Afghanistan“. “ The USA concludes the Spanish daily would gain in respectability and security if its detention centre were to be closed down and the detainees released, unless, as requested by the resolution of the European Parliament, they be put on trial in American territory with all the guarantees provided by the American legal system and without facing the death sentence“. On 15 February the Federal Constitutional Court in Germany ruled on the law on air navigation safety ( Luftsicherheitsgesetz), on the use of the armed forces within the country and on the legality of an intervention that would cause victims in order to save the life of others. In the specific hypothesis of a plane being hijacked by terrorists, the Constitutional Court ruled that the law is unconstitutional since it violates the fundamental right to life and the protection of the dignity of the human being. According to the Court, moreover, it is impossible to judicially regulate a hypothesis of this kind, since it would degrade to objects the persons on board the plane to be shot down to save other lives, thus depriving them of their rights. The option of amending the Constitution still remains open. On the sentence of the Court Reinhard Müller writes as follows in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (16/2): “ The law’s authorization to shoot is the expression of the new era that began on 11 September 2001. […] Regulating this emergency solution, expressing it in the abstract in words for a quantity of cases, is the sign of a new ‘normality’, characterised by a mixture of internal and external security due to a new threat, by the overcoming of the limits and sometimes by action.[…] But is not human life often degraded to an object? How can we otherwise explain the differences in the treatment of stem cells and foetuses? The German State can ask its own soldiers for their supreme sacrifice in pursuit of a higher end.[…] Even the most scrupulous rule of law must be able to act if it is a question of life and death, even if not all the actions it contemplates can be previously legalized“. Writing in the Frankfurter Rundschau, Thomas Kröter comments: “ The judgement of the Federal Constitutional Court is a slap in the face for the former federal government, especially for its Social Democratic part. It also represents a warning to the Minister of the Interior Wolfgang Schäuble and the forces of the current majority party, not to extend the scope for the use of the army within the country. Once again the judges in Karlsruhe have left no doubt that the dignity of the human being is inalienable“. The edition of the French Catholic daily “ La Croix” of Tuesday 14 February opens with a full-page photo of the huge numbers of people gathered at Porto Alegre for the 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches. The editorial by Michel Kubler under the title “ Churches, democracy and consensus” is also dedicated to the event, focusing on the delicate question about the method with which, within the Assembly, decisions are taken. This is a question Kubler recalls that had recently caused a strong remonstrance on the part of the Orthodox Churches that “ see their patriarchates having the same weighting as innumerable small churches scattered all over the world. The WCC then found a solution: essential questions, regarding faith and morals, will no longer be settled by a simple vote (since, according to the Orthodox, truth cannot be put to the vote), but must find a solution by consensus. This presupposes a lot of dialogue and prayer; more time will undoubtedly be needed and less furore will be caused in the media. But the full communion between the disciples of Jesus, the unity that he himself demands of them, probably requires this price“. ———————————————————————————————————– Sir Europa (English) N.ro assoluto : 1452 N.ro relativo : 12 Data pubblicazione : 17/02/2006
