UN report condemns Britain over torture cases
Britain is condemned today in a highly critical UN report for breaching basic human rights and "trying to conceal illegal acts" in the fight against terrorism.
The report is sharply critical of British co-operation in the transfer of detainees to places where they are likely to be tortured as part of the US rendition programme. It accuses British intelligence officers of interviewing detainees held incommunicado in Pakistan in "so-called safe houses where they were being tortured".
It adds that Britain, and a number of other countries, sent interrogators to Guantánamo Bay in a further example of what "can be reasonably understood as implicitly condoning" torture and ill-treatment. It said the US was able to create its system for moving terror suspects around foreign jails only with the support of its allies.
The document, drawn up for the UN general assembly by Martin Scheinen, the organisation's special rapporteur on the "promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism", is likely to add pressure on the government, which is facing demands from human rights groups and frontbench opposition MPs for an inquiry into the role of UK security and intelligence officials in the CIA's secret transfer of detainees to "dark prisons".
The UN report comes days after fresh disclosures about MI5 co-operation in the secret interrogation and torture of Binyam Mohamed, the UK resident recently released from Guantánamo Bay.
While the practice of extraordinary rendition was put in place by the US, it was only possible through collaboration from other countries, the report says. It identifies the UK, with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Croatia, Georgia, Indonesia, Kenya, Macedonia and Pakistan, as countries that provided "intelligence or have conducted the initial seizure of an individual before he was transferred to (mostly unacknowledged) detention centres in Afghanistan, Egypt, Ethiopia, Jordan, Pakistan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Syria, Thailand, Uzbekistan … or to one of the CIA covert detention centres, often referred to as 'black sites'".
The report continues: "The active or passive participation by states in the interrogation of persons held by another state constitutes an internationally wrongful act if the state knew or ought to have known that the person was facing a real risk of torture or other prohibited treatment."
It highlights concerns about "the increasing use of state secrecy provisions" and accuses the UK, along with the US, Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania and the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, of concealing "illegal acts from oversight bodies or judicial authorities".
The report says information that is inaccurate and wrongly recorded can lead to innocent people being identified as terrorist threats, referring to Bisher al-Rawi, a British resident seized in Gambia after MI5 tipped off the CIA.
Source: Groaniad
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/09/torture-guantanamo-rendition
HAHAH well technically my dad's first generation canadian- his fams from Wales. but i don't really talk about that ;) tea-slurping queen worshiping monkies :)
For a Canadian , you talk a lot of sense... Are you sure you don't have British blood in you ?
I brought up Canada because I'm Canadian.....so i know about some of things we do, more than i would about say, americans or brits. Also, I did a lot of work around security certificates (lovely little bits of canadian legislation that allows us to detain, without charges, anyone we like if we htink they may, possibly, perhaps, could have had something to do with someone or something that may possibly be defined perhaps as terrorism, without showing them the evidence against them, etc etc). What i'm getting at is there are many forms of torture, and i think for too long western countries have gotten away with hypocrisy because we just aren't as honest about our disregard for human rights.
I honestly think the worst thing to come out of the whole war on terror was how quickly we abandoned the idea of universal rights; the idea being that if it's OUR citizen there are one set of rules, but if it's someone elses? or better still, if it's someone living in our country without citizen ship, they can be denied the basic rights we grant everyone else- however since they aren't citizens, well hey, we didn't do anything wrong and can still crow smugly about our diplomatic excellence. to paraphrase Hannah Arendt there is nothing worse than being between the system.
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I think you have me confused with someone who gives a sh1t.
I totally agree that terrorists have to be confronted and brought to justice. However, we should not be party to such actions as renditioning.
While I agree that stopping the terror is the common goal, I disagree with torture in any form. I though Canada was multicultural till I went to London, what an eye opener, sheesh....
Canada is not the only country to do that.
Just that Britain has the effin crappy EU twats in brussels sticking their noses into our business,with their stupid human rights laws and all that.
If torturing a couple of people will stop thousands from dying in a bombing, then all well and good.
And dont forget, these so called " terrorists" dont play by the rules.
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I think you have me confused with someone who gives a sh1t.
Might I remind you that Canada has a great human rights record and I resent the implication that Canada purposefully sends people to be tortured. We have had one very publisized case just following the bombing of the twin towers in NY on 9/1/2001. Thats the only time I can think of in recent memory when someone deported (a Canadian citizen in fact) was sent to a country (his native land) and was tortured.
Canada accepts imigrants from all countries where people flee dictatorships and torture. So why do you centre out Canada? Why not the Americans who have been torturing people in GB (Cuba) for years now. Many countries freely torture their own people as well as prisoners of war. Please stop all the name calling, make your point without critizing and centering out a single country.
This is good. someone should be looking at this stuff! We like to be seen to condemn torture, however many many countries are implicitly involved in it- for example, Canada is in the habit of deporting people back to countries where we know they will be tortured, if they pinkie-promise not to do it...but we never follow up to ensure that actually happens.
it's huge hypocrisy- because we don't actively do anything to stop it, or make sure we don't participate in anyway, we're saying it's ok. as long as we don't have to get our hands dirty. which is, frankly, even worse- if we're going to jail people without trial, torture and kill them, lets at least have the balls to do it openly ourselves!