euro|topics - Obama refuses to publish torture images

Main focus of Friday, May 15, 2009

Obama refuses to publish torture images

Going against earlier announcements, US President Barack Obama has now decided to withhold the publication of photos showing tortured prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan on the grounds that such images would incite anti-American sentiment and lead to attacks on US soldiers.

Etelä-Suomen-Sanomat - Finland

The question of whether the torture photos should be made public is the first major challenge to US President Barack Obama's idealism, writes the daily Etelä-Suomen-Sanomat: "Important decisions embed themselves in the consciousness of the general public. The closure of the notorious Guantánamo Bay prison camp within a year was a key point of Obama's election campaign. The order to close it was one of the first he gave after taking office. At the same time he forbade the use of torture methods on terrorist suspects. … Now the government and the army leadership have apparently reminded Obama of how damaging it was when pictures from the Abu Ghraib prison were published. Mocking US soldiers attacking and humiliating prisoners. According to reports the pictures from Guantánamo are similar. This would no doubt be embarrassing for the Americans. It seems for the first time Obama is confronting the hard realities that being the leader of a major power entails." (15/05/2009)

La Stampa - Italy

The liberal daily La Stampa criticises US President Barack Obama for gradually going back on his campaign pledges, commenting that after banning the publication of torture images the president has now revived the military commissions: "In his election campaign and on his arrival at the White House, the US president promised the greatest possiblie transparency. But in the past weeks Obama has had to make a series of decisions that have cast doubt on his previous statements and caused several embarrassing about-turns. ... Obama's decision ... to withdraw his agreement to the publication of photos documenting the torture of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan by American soldiers for 'security reasons' has disappointed human rights organisations. And the most transparent decision that Obama has taken until now, namely the publication of memos by the lawyers of the Bush government authorising the torture ... has turned into a boomerang for the new president." (15/05/2009)

die tageszeitung - Germany

With his decision to prevent the publication of further torture photographs from Abu Ghraib prison US President Barack Obama has gone back on his campaign promises, writes the left-leaning daily Die Tageszeitung: "His credibility as the renewer of American policy is showing its first major cracks. Who is going to believe that 2,000 further images, among them snapshots of US soldiers and medical photos of corpses reveal 'not the slightest new insight' for the documentation of torture and abuse, as Obama argues? Bush's successor is clinging to the version that has long been debunked as a fairy tale, namely that the excesses in Abu Ghraib in 2003 were committed by a small group of soldiers without the knowledge of their superiors. By deciding to withhold these images from publication, Obama is resisting the mounting pressure to have the Bush government criminally prosecuted for its human rights abuses. The activists from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) are strongly pushing for such a move, and of course firing angry salvoes at the tranformed Obama, who promised transparency and is now condoning cover-ups." (15/05/2009)

Der Standard - Austria

US President Barack Obama's decision not to publish the torture photos is more back-peddling on human rights and civic rights, the daily Der Standard writes. The president "is sparing those CIA agents who used torture practices from being punished. He wants to let the military tribunal for terrorist suspects continue with its work. And he refuses to allow full transparency in this unholy chapter in America's history. All this blatantly contradicts the positions adopted by Barack Obama with such vehemence during the election campaign. In this matter the former law professor's credibility, his principles, and not pragmatism, are at stake. After the dissoluteness of the Bush years - which former vice president Dick Cheney, acting as a kind of undercover opposition leader, is still defending on all TV stations - this is why a large proportion of the electorate voted for Obama." (15/05/2009)

» To the complete press review of Friday, May 15, 2009

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