The U.S. government and China frequently condemn one another for human rights abuses. The 2007 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices  was issued in March 2008 by the U.S. Department of State described China’s human rights record as being “poor” and, as an example, listed the denial of religious freedon in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR). Specifically, the report stated that “serious human rights abuses included extrajudicial killings, torture and coerced confessions of prisoners, and the use of forced labor, including prison labor.” (emphasis added)

The Chinese government responded in kind with its own “Human Rights Record of the United States in 2007“which highlighted all sorts of problems with America’s legal system, law enforcement agencies, government, and military. Specifically, the report mentioned the War on Iraq, the War on Terror, and Guantanamo Bay.

What is interesting is not that the government’s engaged in a tis-for-tat flurry of allegations against one another which is merely reminiscent of the Cold War Era. Apparently, the two countries “teamed up” together to engage in torture against Muslim Uighurs in Guantanamo Bay. The following ABC report highlights how American military personnel “softened up” detainees for interrogation by Chinese officials or stood by and allowed them to get tortured by them and simply looked away. Detainees were kept awake for long periods, deprived of food and forced to endure cold for hours on end. While the Bush administration will definitely attempt to argue otherwise, such actions are undoubtedly torture.

Article 1 of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which the US Government has ratified, defines torture as: “. . . any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.” Article 4 charges that a person who is complicit in torture is guilty of the crime of torture as well. 

So here we have the U.S. government, which condemned China for human rights abuses against Uighurs, teaming up with China to engage in the very human rights abuses against the very same  people that they based their previous condemnation on. Talk about hypocrisy!

The situation got so shady, that even the FBI recognized what was going on as torture and reported the illegal activity.  (See CNN as well)

Here’s the ABC article that describes the details of the event:

Report: U.S. Soldiers Did ‘Dirty Work’ for Chinese Interrogators

Alleges Guantanamo Personnel Softened Up Detainees at Request of Chinese Intelligence

By JUSTIN ROOD
May 20, 2008

U.S. military personnel at Guantanamo Bay allegedly softened up detainees at the request of Chinese intelligence officials who had come to the island facility to interrogate the men — or they allowed the Chinese to dole out the treatment themselves, according to claims in a new government report.

Buried in a Department of Justice report released Tuesday are new allegations about a 2002 arrangement between the United States and China, which allowed Chinese intelligence to visit Guantanamo and interrogate Chinese Uighurs held there.

According to the report by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine, an FBI agent reported a detainee belonging to China’s ethnic Uighur minority and a Uighur translator told him Uighur detainees were kept awake for long periods, deprived of food and forced to endure cold for hours on end, just prior to questioning by Chinese interrogators.

Susan Manning, a lawyer who represents several Uighurs still held at Guantanamo, said Tuesday the allegations are all too familiar.

U.S. personnel “are engaging in abusive tactics on behalf of the Chinese,” she said Tuesday. When Uighur detainees refused to talk to Chinese interrogators in 2002, U.S. military personnel put them in solitary confinement as punishment, she said.

“Why are we doing China’s dirty work?” Manning said. “Surely we’re better than that.”

An official authorized to speak on behalf of the Defense Department but who declined to be named confirmed it was Pentagon policy to allow officials from other countries to have access to interview their nationals at Guantanamo but declined to discuss the specifics alleged in the report.

According to Fine’s report, the FBI agent said the Uighur detainee told him that the night before his interrogation by Chinese officials, “he was awakened at 15-minute intervals the entire night and into the next day.” The detainee also allegedly said he was “exposed to low room temperatures for long periods of time and was deprived of at least one meal.”

“The agent stated that he understood that the treatment of the Uighur detainees was either carried out by the Chinese interrogators or was carried out by U.S. personnel at the behest of Chinese interrogators,” the report by the Department of Justice inspector general stated.

U.S. forces captured roughly three dozen Uighurs in eastern Afghanistan shortly after invading the country in October 2001. The men said they were working there to earn money for families back home and to evade the Chinese government, which is known for taking a harsh and uncompromising line with separatist Uighurs.

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