Anatomy of a failed rendition | Hacker News Reader

Anatomy of a failed rendition

booktwo.org

62 pointsmgunes13 comments

I don't quite understand; why are they calling this a rendition? The guy was originally from Nigeria and they were trying to return him there.

I second this question. My understanding was that rendition was the forcible transfer of a person by the US to the intelligence agency of a third country (where they were likely to be tortured). This case is a person whose claim of asylum has been refused, being returned to their country of origin. These are two very different issues

You're thinking of extraordinary rendition.

"In law, rendition is a "surrender" or "handing over" of persons or property, particularly from one jurisdiction to another."

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendition_%28law%29

just before Amazon sucked all the air out of rational discourse with its absurd PR flim-flam about drone deliveries

WTF does that have to do with anything? I'm sorry, but to start a serious article with a self-righteous complaint about something totally unrelated in anyway to what the article is talking about annoyed me beyond belief.

I'm surprised the article also didn't complain about Nelson Mandela being so discourteous to die over the weekend too.

an aircraft with the registration G-WIRG, an Embraer Legacy private jet, arriving and leaving on the same day.... Embraer, the Brazilian manufacturer of G-WIRG, also produces the R-99, a military variant of the Legacy, used for remote sensing and AWACS missions. Brazil uses such jets to patrol the controversial Amazon Surveillance System, while the Greek Air Force deployed an R-99 to monitor the no-fly zone over Libya in 2011. Embraer recently announced it would start building drones.

Wow, even the plane manufacturer is in on the conspiracy!

We don’t know how far G-WIRG got.... what strange manoeuvres along designated air corridors between and across nations, climbing and banking to avoid thunderheads and moral accountability.

Seriously. It actually says "Climbing and banking to avoid avoid thunderheads and moral accountability." The drama is overwhelming.

Also, this isn't a rendition[1], it's just a "normal" deportation. One might not agree with it, but calling it something that it isn't lessens the impact that real rendition cases have.

Edit: actually, I'm wrong about this. It is a rendition[2], just not an extraordinary rendition. I still think using the term "rendition" lessens the impact of the illegal practice of extraordinary rendition.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendition_(law)

> WTF does that have to do with anything?

The author has been writing / working on the implications of drone technologies regularly in various contexts for the past few years. He didn't dedicate a separate piece to the Amazon news at the time, and the political underpinnings of drones (which he has most often dealt with in the military context) and extraordinary / unjust rendition are not at all unrelated.

I understand the author is interested in military drones. But that doesn't mean that Amazon's annoucement has anything at all to do with the story he is trying to write.

The story names the victim as Ifa Musawa. The correct spelling is apparently 'Isa Muazu'.

While not quite the point of the article, I'm wondering why they didn't just grant him asylum?

It seems the Home Secretary (Theresa May) is trying to pose as a hardliner against immigration (maybe wants to be the next Thatcher...)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10495965/...

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/dec/02/theresa-may-h...

Probably someone from Britain can comment more when they wake up

Could he try applying for asylum somewhere else?

Given that he sounds 3/4 dead and court orders are being ignored, I doubt he can manage. My opinion of the UK has been in free fall since the cattle-prods-for-use-on-humans exports a few years back (I can't find a good link right now), this hardly helps.

Not sure if it applies here, but the EU Charter states:

  When an individual enters the EU for the purpose of claiming asylum,
  s/he is required to claim in the first EU country that s/he seeks enters.

So probably not elsewhere in EU.

The people who get to make those descisions are the people who chase the jobs where they get to make those decisions. Now who do you suppose is the most motivated to get those jobs?

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