Human Rights Watch statement on the case of Khouzam v.Hogan

Human Rights Watch provided an expert affidavit to the United States District Court of Pennsylvania in July 2007 in the case of Khouzam v. Hogan, involving an appeal against the deportation of an Egyptian national from the United States in reliance upon diplomatic assurances against torture from the Egyptian government. This is a test case regarding US law on diplomatic assurances in the immigration context, which currently prohibits the person subject to deportation from seeing the assurances and from challenging them for reliability or sufficiency before an independent body. The affidavit includes a review of the use of diplomatic assurances worldwide, including the ability of persons to challenge the reliability of such guarantees in other countries; the history of Egypt's use of torture; examples of Egypt's failure to abide by diplomatic assurances in other cases; and the reasons why diplomatic assurances against torture from governments in countries where torture is routine do not provide adequate protection against such abuse.