
Portland Man: I was tortured in UAE for refusing to become an informant - beardless_sysad
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/16/portland-man-tortured-uae-behest-of-fbi
======
cryoshon
More evidence of the US supporting torture in its backwards client regimes.
This evidence has piled up for years and years, starting from well before the
School of the Americas.

On the topic of schools and supporting torture in client regimes, remember
that someone had to both negotiate with the UAE in order to convince them that
it would be in their best interest to do as the US says on the topic of
torturing foreigners, as well as teach UAE's security forces how to torture in
the US-approved way. That way, when someone the US wants information from
comes along, they can be tortured by the UAE so that US can keep its PR.

Think about that for a minute. The US is teaching third parties how to torture
effectively on its behalf because it wants the torturing done to the proper
standard and because it is afraid of the backlash that will occur when torture
is exposed. From this thought, we can say that the US has extensive internal
standards regarding what methods of torture are acceptable and useful for
clients to know, which are likely influenced by how bad and how directly
attributable these torture techniques will look when exposed.

A speculation: the US still tortures people directly in addition to third
party torture. They already have the secrecy, infrastructure, training,
standards, incentive, and targets in hand.

~~~
Zikes
> A speculation: the US still tortures people directly in addition to third
> party torture.

Gitmo?

~~~
olefoo
How about Chicago? [1]

There is always the impulse to torture suspects for any law enforcement
agency. We need to act as citizens to ensure that torture and the outsourcing
of torture are treated as the grand criminal matters that they are. Anyone in
the chain of command who participates in or tolerates torture needs to face
charges.

1\. [http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-
polic...](http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-police-
detain-americans-black-site)

------
lowleveldrone
This really should never happen, but sadly has happened before - famously to
Maher Arar, a dual-Syrian/Canadian citizen who was detained in the US and then
sent to Syria to be tortured (rather than returned to Canada, his destination)
[1]

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maher_Arar](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maher_Arar)

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codezero
This sucks, and what sucks more is that I assume it's true.

Also, what's the point of putting people on the no-fly list if they can take a
private charter jet and get in anyways?

~~~
rhino369
Sadly I don't think I can say that it's definitely not true, but this is
mostly speculation. UAE could have easily just gotten a memo from the FBI
about a terrorism suspect and they decided on their lonesome to torture him.

There are only 500 U.S. citizens on the no fly list, it doesn't appear like it
is being used a weapon of coercion on a wide scale.

The US has to share that sort of terrorism suspect list in order to get other
countries lists and to make connections.

That said, I'm not sure how the fuck the No-Fly list has survived so long. It
is boldly unconstitutional.

~~~
djf1
Do you have a source on the number of U.S. citizens on the no fly list?

I see a report from 2012 which cites 500 Americans, out of a total 21,000
([https://www.aclu.org/national-security/factsheet-aclus-
chall...](https://www.aclu.org/national-security/factsheet-aclus-challenge-us-
governments-no-fly-list)), and a report from 2014 which cites 47,000 total
([https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/08/05/watch-
commande...](https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/08/05/watch-commander/)),
so I would assume the number of U.S. citizens on the no fly list is at least
double the figure you list.

~~~
anonbanker
According to the end of CITIZENFOUR, 1.5 million Americans are on various
stages of the federal terrorist watch list.

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vijayr
No week passes by without a story like this, against many many governments -
something like crazy laws, little to no oversight, torture, illegal snooping
etc etc. AT this point, is there any western country who is _not_ doing stuff
like this?

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briandear
Does this story have any actual proof or is this just an allegation?

~~~
lucajona
I don't know why this was downvoted, it seems like a valid question. I suppose
I will get downvoted too, but I think it's worth discussing this now, since
it's made the front page even though it probably shouldn't have.

So what evidence is there that the US condoned Fikre's torture? The alleged
statement of a torturer? That doesn't seem very reliable. He couldn't prove
his story in Sweden, so how will he prove it in the US?

Isn't it possible that the UAE came to find out that Fikre had some
involvement with the FBI over the Portland mosque, wanted to know why, and
decided on torture on their own? Maybe they suspected that he had been turned
into an FBI informant.

It seems a bit far-fetched that the US would be outsourcing the torture of
suspected Muslim terrorists to a largely Islamic country, and just waiting for
suspects to travel there so that it can happen. And the State Department's
statement that they saw Fikre and he seemed ok seems strange if they had
anything to hide.

~~~
nindalf
By the standards you've asked, a great many crimes could never be proven.
Anyone tortured or raped would never have any evidence other than their word
that they had been assaulted. Should they be ignored then?

It seems far fetched to think that the UAE would take a sudden interest in the
security of Portland, Oregon but perhaps that's possible. What IS impossible
is that a country that's a client of the US would dare to hold, let alone
torture a US citizen for a 106 days without the explicit approval of the US.

You think the guy's story is far fetched because he just happened to be in the
UAE. Not so much, really. They keep track of the movements of many people
(1.5m according to Citizenfour) so they would have known that he was in the
UAE. At that point it would only have required one bright bulb at the FBI to
come with the idea "hey, why not we get our buddies in the UAE to have a chat
with him?"

~~~
lucajona
You're right, I think we should believe him when he says that he was tortured.
It's the part where he claims that it was at the direction of the FBI that
needs proof.

And I agree, I don't think the UAE cares about Portland. They might care that
US security services had taken an interest in this individual though. Are you
saying that the UAE security services are totally subordinate to the US and
just act as puppets when it comes to US citizens? I would have thought they'd
have a bit more independence than that, even if they do cooperate at some
level.

~~~
nindalf
If it was a German person making this claim against the FBI, I would be as
sceptical as you are. However, this is a US Citizen who was held without
charge and tortured. My only claim, and its a reasonable one, is that this
sort of thing can only be done with the tacit approval of the State Department
or the FBI.

It is possible that they took an interest in him out of the blue, but he had
done nothing suspicious in UAE to warrant such brutality. Suppose he had done
something suspicious in Dubai, does it seem likely that any client regime
would do this to a US Citizen to ask them "who was the bearded man you met
with last Thursday?" The story that he was asked about the mosque in Portland
is much more plausible.

Sadly, the US exercises enormous influence on small regimes like the one in
UAE.

~~~
briandear
"this is a US Citizen who was ALLEGEDLY held without charge and tortured"

There, fixed that for you.

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jensen123
It's of course bad that this sort of thing is happening (assuming it is true),
but I cannot say that I have that much sympathy for the guy. He's a muslim.
Islam is an intolerant religion (look at how they treat gays etc.).
Indirectly, this guy supports the mistreatment of other people.

Why is it bad that this sort of thing is happening then? Now it might just be
against muslims, but if this becomes a habit, it could soon start to be used
against other people, too.

