This is how Iraqis are being treated when they go to Jordan
Submitted by LJM on August 9, 2007 - 5:23am.
human rights | Iraqis | Jordan | Human Rights
This is a heartbreaking story of a young married Iraqi couple trying to see their relatives in Jordan for their anniversary. They weren't let into Jordan. The airport workers treated them inhumanely. Is Jordan a signatory to the Geneva Conventions?
http://last-of-iraqis.blogspot.com/
Please read it. I don't know what else to say.
I agree that the Iraqi civilians trying to enter Jordan are not covered by the Geneva conventions. But the situation does clearly come under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
As I read the fellows account of how he and his wife were treated when they tried to enter Jordan I had to remind myself that I wouldn't want the US judged on the basis of the conduct of a few ICE or TSA agents.
Barry
Are you safer today than you were six years ago?©
Evidently, Jordan was not one of the only (by my count) 42 original signatories to the (Third) Geneva Convention regarding the treatment of POWs:
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/geneva02.htm
The US Senate advised ratification in January, 1932 and Herbert Hoover did so in January of that year.
However, Jordan is one of the 194 states that have agreed to the August 12, 1949 (Fourth) Geneva Convention which relates to the protection of civilians during times of war in the hands of an enemy and under any occupation by a foreign power.
http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/WebSign?ReadForm&id=375&ps=P
In my opinion, the Iraqis in question were not protected by either of these two conventions, as they were neither POWs nor civilians in the hands of an enemy.
However, they should still have been afforded their full human rights under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the United Nations and acceded to by Jordan.
http://www.ohchr.org/english/about/publications/docs/fs2.htm
In this case, several of those rights were clearly infringed. For example, see #s 1, 5, 13.2, and 28.
http://www.amnestyusa.org/What_We_Fight_For/The_Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights/page.do?id=1031003&n1=2&n2=769&n3=770
Nick Kelly
Wes Clark will be the national security candidate.