For reasons no one needs to be reminded of, the Organization of American States prohibits forced disappearance, which it defines as “the act of depriving a person or persons of … their freedom, in whatever way, perpetrated by agents of the state … followed by an absence of information or a refusal to … give information on the whereabouts of that person, thereby impeding his or her recourse to the applicable legal remedies and procedural guarantees.” The U.N. General Assembly classified forced disappearance as a crime against humanity in 1992. I’m sure one of my many international-lawyer readers will correct me on this, but it looks to me like every time John Ashcroft refuses to answer a question about one of the 600-some people he is holding incommunicado, he adds another line to the eventual indictment at the Hague.
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