Swiss ‘Not in America’s Pocket’; ‘Proud’ of Polanski Arrest: Le Temps, Switzerland
Oct 1st, 2009 | 12 responses
Continuing our foreign press coverage of the Roman Polanski saga, this news item from Switzerland’s Le Temps reports that an embarrassed Swiss foreign ministry is denying any deal related to the UBS scandal and that the people of Switzerland ‘can be proud’ that Polanski has been nabbed by Swiss authorities. The article also offers a description of how Polanski’s arrest was set in motion.
By correspondent Valentine Zubler, the Le Temps article says in part:
“’Our capacity to act was limited, because we can’t treat people who are well known differently than people who aren’t. That is, in Switzerland, we don’t accept this,’ emphasized Foreign Minister Calmy-Rey, adding that the country ‘can be proud.’ … Responding to, ‘the links drawn by some’ between the Polanski affair and UBS, Calmy-Rey forcefully rejected the allegations: ‘We are not in the pocket of the United States.’”
By Valentine Zubler
Translated By Lisa Cabrale
October 1, 2009
Switzerland – Le Temps – Original Article (French)
BERNE: The discomfort brought about by the arrest of Roman Polanski at the Zurich airport on Saturday night continues to spread. Yesterday, during a talk at the Diplomatic Press Club, Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey didn’t hide her embarrassment over the affair, and in passing, directed a cutting remark at the federal police and therefore, by extension, at [Justice Minister] Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf. “On the legal front, the procedure raises no doubts. But we could perhaps question the handling of the intervention,” said the foreign minister, for emphasis questioning the advisability of arresting the filmmaker while a festival specifically in his honor was being prepared.
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12 Responses to “Swiss ‘Not in America’s Pocket’; ‘Proud’ of Polanski Arrest: Le Temps, Switzerland”
This is the umpteenth post here about Polanski, with essentially zero commenters defending Polanski. Obviously child rape is not something either political pole here supports or defends.
However, it will be most interesting to see if the Swiss attitude about arrest and extradition will apply when there are extradition demands for indicted Bush admin officials for war crimes? Will we, too, say “we can’t treat people who are well known differently than people who aren’t.”? A famous person committed a past crime against a nonfamous citizen. Ditto with foreign nationals kidnapped, tortured and killed by the famous in our last administration. I'm glad there is such universal support for arrest and extradition of criminals. I'll bet there won't be when France, Germany, the UK, Australia or Italy demand that we capture and turn over someone accused of crimes against THEIR citizens.
“when there are extradition demands for indicted Bush admin officials for war crimes?”
Serious extradition demands are properly reserved for serious reasons, not for political extremism and law and court misuse.
DLS, there's nothing more serious than war crimes. The United States pushed hard for those laws. It is not for YOU to decide if kidnapping, torture and murder violate the laws of European nations. It's for their courts to decide. But we made VERY sure that those who order, lawyers who rationalize and those who carry out prohibited acts are ALL subject to prosecution. Switzerland did not decide whether or not Polanski is guilty of a crime. It is abiding by a valid request for extradition from an ally with which it has a treaty requiring it. If a Swiss citizen was victim of a crime, and a Swiss court demands a trial, we are similarly obligated to turn over the perpetrators for trial. That is the law. Your opinion of whether their laws are “court abuse” could not be less relevant.
Hey Green.
You had to expect a comment from me on this one (again). Ya gotta love it.
DLS is right, in that you cannot treat politically charged “war crimes” in the same arena as a specific individual crime. The problem with war crimes is that it is too generalized, I'm afraid. Where do you stop?
The Director of the CIA, the President?
You and I have sparred on this before successfully. If specific criminal activity happens, it should be prosecuted. This shouldn't count those acting within law – then becomes illegal after-the fact. It should include actual “trigger-men” and those given unlawful orders.
If you know of specifc names that should be prosecuted, list them and I will join you in demanding their prosecution (and just don't say “Bush Administration”)..
G W Bush
Dick Cheney
Porter Goss
George Tenet
All supporters of Kidnapping and Torture…
Rumsfeld, Addington, Yoo, Cheney and possibly Bush. If, as appears likely, they intentionally directed lawyers (as Hitler did) to create a legal “rationale” for torture, to go beyond the Geneva Conventions, they are guilty of ordering torture.
But let me remind you of something. I'm not talking about US prosecuting them. Rumsfeld has already been indicted in France, and in fact literally fled that country to avoid arrest. If we expect Switzerland to serve up Polanski for violating our laws, by what right do we refuse to deliver Rumsfeld to France?
I didn't know that about Rumsfeld. What did he do in France that makes them think he falls under their jurisdiction?
Also, many many nations were on board with waterboarding as a non-torture procedure. Until recently, it was legal not only here, but elsewhere in the world. Now it is (rightly) considered torture and I oppose it.
I just don't think that it should be a punishable crime for THAT procedure done in the past when it was legal.
As for what Don Quixote said above….. Arrest and interrogation does not (necessarily) mean kidnapping and torture. What he proposes is asking “Do you know where the bomb is?”. If they don't answer, we say “That's ok. You may leave.”.
And where do we draw the line as to what is torture. Is sleep deprivation torture? Is loud music torture? Is seeing naked pictures of Earnest Borgnine torture? The world needs to be more on the same page in that respect – beyond what has already been agreed upon at Geneva.
JD, there is considerable detail about what is torture and waterboarding is covered. That's according to an American court and Americans have been convicted of torture for using it.
“Ronald Reagan's Justice Department thought otherwise, prosecuting a Texas sheriff and three deputies for using the practice to get confessions.
Federal prosecutors secured a 10-year sentence against the sheriff and four years in prison for the deputies. But that 1983 case – which would seem to be directly on point for a legal analysis on waterboarding two decades later – was never mentioned in the four Bush administration opinions released last week.
The failure to cite the earlier waterboarding case and a half-dozen other precedents that dealt with torture is reportedly one of the critical findings of a Justice Department watchdog report that legal sources say faults former Bush administration lawyers – Jay Bybee, John Yoo and Steven Bradbury – for violating “professional standards.”
But let's take an open and shut case that was used MUCH more than waterboarding. Sound levels played at the pain threshold permanently damages hearing. “Organ damage” is spelled out specifically in the Geneva Conventions and in our own laws banning torture. Threats of death or dismemberment are clearly torture. Threatening one's loved ones is clearly torture. And of course shoving a broom handle up someone's ass is torture, as is hanging them by the wrists until they die. All of these were done. Some died of hyporthermia, naked, wet, shivering, alone. All of these were the result of an administration policy that encouraged our soldiers to “get tough” and “soften them up”.
Green,
I agree with you. None of those should ever be used by our government.
The main thing I warn of (and the courts must tread lightly here) is that of charging military/intelligence in the same manner as civilians.
For example. For me to shoot a automatic weapon at the enemy, horrifically killing him is legal on the battlefield. In downtown Detroit, it is not. For me to drop a 10,000 pound bomb on a munitions factory is legal on the battlefield, but in Oklahoma City is is not. Likewise, someone could presume along those lines that interrogations on the battlefield may not be the same as those in a civilian jail.
Now that's just me playing devil's advocate here. To give the courts free-reign over military actions is a very dangerous precedent. I'm not saying the military is above the law. Quite the contrary.
JD, I do understand the difference and agree that on the battlefield different rules apply. But with captives, there is grave opportunity for mistreatment and horrible inhumane practices. That's why we insisted on rules for prisoners of war, and I know you agree that we should abide by the rules we ourselves created and for which we fought hard. It is just especially disturbing to me now that neocons are rationalizing and justifying exactly the same deplorable practices used against John McCain and other American prisoners of war. Making up a new designation “enemy combatant” to avoid responsibility for humane treatment of prisoners is just so twisted. Plus, it's just OUR word. Other countries whose citizens were harmed have no obligation to abide by our rationalizations. They are only required to abide by the Geneva Conventions, and we should have, too.
One last comment before we make this thread too long…..
You and I agree 100% on everything with torture and treatment of POWs.
But in all fairness, many liberals want to move the proceedings with POWs into the civilian court. That is a very very dangerous precedent. We must keep the trials of war within the military courts system. The military (although mistrusted by many) is a very fair and honorable group. At least that's been my experience.
Ok, my last comment on this thread too. I agree with you about military court. Bush attempted to sleaze out of the Geneva Convention by claiming these are not POWs but “enemy combatants”. It is not the Democrats who argued that they should not be treated as POWs. As for military court, and I know you know this, there has never been a military court before in which the defendant couldn't confer privately with his lawyer, in which the case and charges against him did not have to be stated, in which the evidence could be hidden from the defendant and his attorney, in which even the defendant's wife and children need not be told their loved one has been incarcerated and for what.