From the American Civil Liberties Union (08/05/2006)

The ACLU’s report to the Committee Against Torture is available here

The ACLU’s petition is available here

GENEVA — Today the American Civil Liberties Union delivered a petition with more than 51,000 signatures calling for the enforcement of the universal prohibition against torture to the U.S. State Department delegation at the meeting of the U.N. Committee Against Torture in Geneva. The ACLU has been monitoring the committee proceedings and providing information about U.S. sponsored policies and practices of torture and abuse at home and abroad. The U.S. delegation denied on Friday that incidents of detainee abuse are systemic.

“Instead of denying the systemic abuse of detainees confirmed by its own documents, the U.S. government must own up to the truth and take full responsibility,” said Amrit Singh, an attorney with the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project who is currently observing the committee’s examination of the U.S. report in Geneva. “We hope that the Committee Against Torture will hold the government accountable for the torture and abuse of detainees both within the United States and abroad.”

Addressed to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and delivered to John Bellinger, a Department of State legal advisor who is heading the U.S. delegation, the petition states: “Torture. Government kidnapping. Indefinite detention. These are not ideas we associate with the United States of America. They do not represent who we are as Americans. By promoting and condoning these practices in our military and intelligence forces, your administration has broken faith with the American values of freedom and fairness.”

The ACLU also expressed deep concern with many of the responses of the U.S. delegation to questions posed by committee members. In particular, the ACLU is concerned about the inadequacy of the measures taken to prevent torture and abuse, and the failure to hold military and civilian leaders accountable for the torture and inhuman treatment of persons in U.S. custody. In addition, the U.S. said that it can kidnap persons from outside the U.S. and transport them to third countries without violating the Convention. The ACLU charges that the U.S. has illegally rendered detainees to countries and places where torture and abuse are common, and that diplomatic assurances have failed to prevent their torture.

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From Amnesty International

Critical loopholes in the McCain amendment show that the once-clandestine practice of torture is now an official weapon in the War on Terror.

Click for multimedia presentation

BY ALFRED W. MCCOY

Alfred W. McCoy is professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is the author of several books, including the recently published “A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror,” “Closer Than Brothers” and “The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade.” He is also a member of Amnesty International USA.

Just before Christmas last, President Bush and Senator John McCain appeared in the Oval Office to announce an historic ban on torture by any U.S. agency, anywhere in the world. Looking straight into the cameras, the president declared with a steely gaze that this landmark legislation would make it ‘clear to the world that this government does not torture.’

This meeting was the culmination of a tangled legislative battle that had started six months before when Senator John McCain introduced an amendment to the must-pass Defense Appropriation Bill, calling for an absolute ban on ‘cruel, inhumane and degrading’ treatment. The White House fought back hard, sending Vice President Cheney to Capitol Hill for a wrecking effort so sustained, so determined that a Washington Post editorial branded him ‘The Vice President for Torture.’ At first, Cheney demanded that the amendment be dropped. The senator refused. Next, Cheney insisted on an exemption for the CIA. The senator stood his ground. Then, in a startling rebuke to the White House, the Senate passed the amendment last October by a 90-9 margin, a victory celebrated by Amnesty International and other rights groups. With the White House still threatening a veto, the appropriation gridlocked in an eyeball-to-eyeball standoff.

Then came that dramatic December 15th handshake between Bush and McCain, a veritable media mirage that concealed furious back-room maneuvering by the White House to undercut the amendment. A coalition of rights groups, including Amnesty International, had resisted the executive’s effort to punch loopholes in the torture ban but, in the end, the White House prevailed. With the help of key senate conservatives, the Bush administration succeeded in twisting what began as an unequivocal ban on torture into a legitimization of three controversial legal doctrines that the administration had originally used to justify torture right after 9/11.

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From Amnesty International

Amnesty International today made public a report detailing its concerns about torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners and detainees both in the US and in US detention sites around the world.

The report has already been sent to members of the UN Committee Against Torture, who will be examining the US compliance with the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment on 5 and 8 May in Geneva. The Convention against Torture prohibits the use of torture in all circumstances and requires states to take effective legal and other measures to prevent torture and to provide appropriate punishment for those who commit torture.

The US is reportedly sending a 30-strong delegation to Geneva to defend its record. In its written report to the Committee, the US government asserted its unequivocal opposition to the use or practice of torture under any circumstances — including war or public emergency.

“Although the US government continues to assert its condemnation of torture and ill-treatment, these statements contradict what is happening in practice,” said Curt Goering, Senior Deputy Executive Director Of Amnesty International USA. “The US government is not only failing to take steps to eradicate torture it is actually creating a climate in which torture and other ill-treatment can flourish — including by trying to narrow the definition of torture.”

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From Expatica

“This all looks like a poor B-movie,” said German Green MEP Cem Oezdemir, adding: “It doesn’t seem to be an appropriate behaviour for a country which wants to become an EU member.”

BRUSSELS – European Union lawmakers Thursday accused Macedonia of giving “very contradictory information” on what it knew about the alleged abduction by the CIA of a Lebanese-born German national on its territory.

“Macedonian officials had a well-prepared official version, but there were many contradictions, and many new questions arose during our trip,” said Sylvia-Yvonne Kaufmann, a German member of the European Parliament.

Members of a European Parliament committee investigating alleged CIA activities in Europe last week went to Macedonia to quiz top government officials on what they knew about – and if they were involved – in a high-profile case of the US-practice of extraordinary rendition or the secret transfers of a suspect to a third country for interrogation, often under torture.

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Gabor Rona, International Legal Director for Human Rights First, is in Geneva observing the United States’ presentations to the Committee and will also brief the Committee on several issues of concern.

His daily bog on the proceedings can be read here

From the Financial Times

Washington to defend record on torture before UN

Washington will on Friday be called upon to defend its record on torture before an international forum for the first time since the September 11 attacks on the US sparked the ‘war on terror’.

The US has sent a 30-strong delegation to Geneva to answer questions from the United Nations committee against torture concerning abusive treatment of detainees in Guant’namo Bay, Iraq and Afghanistan.

In what one UN human rights official said was ‘the longest list of issues I have ever seen’, the committee has also asked the US to supply detailed information about secret detention centres, ‘extraordinary renditions’ and other apparent violations of the UN convention on torture it ratified in 1994.

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From BBC Online

European MPs have flown to Macedonia to investigate claims by a German citizen that he was seized by US agents and taken to Afghanistan for interrogation. The MEPs are members of a committee probing allegations about secret CIA flights and prisons in Europe.

On Wednesday, MEPs said the CIA had run more than 1,000 flights within the EU since 2001, often transporting terror suspects for questioning overseas. The US admits to some of the flights but denies condoning torture.

‘Extraordinary rendition’

The MEPs are in Macedonia until Friday in order to investigate the case of Khaled al-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese origin. He was arrested in Macedonia in 2003. After that, what happened to him is not clear. He says he was handed over to the Americans and taken to Afghanistan, where he was interrogated and mistreated.

After several months he was taken to Albania and released without charge, he says. American officials did later acknowledge Mr Masri was mistaken for someone else and had been wrongly detained. He is now suing the CIA and the Bavarian state prosecutor is investigating his claims.

The MEPs will meet the Macedonian prime minister and other senior officials. However, the BBC’s Alix Kroeger in Brussels says Macedonia is balancing its interests. It has begun applying for EU membership but it is also keen to show itself to be an ally of the US in the war on terror, she says.

MEPs’ investigation

A European parliament report said many EU states had ignored the hundreds of CIA flights that had used their airports. The report’s author, Italian Socialist MEP Claudio Fava, singled out Sweden, Italy and Bosnia, which is not an EU member, for particular criticism. A string of former detainees have come forward with stories alleging kidnap and transport by the US for interrogation in third countries – a process known as “extraordinary rendition”. Some have provided detailed accounts of alleged torture carried out in secret prisons outside EU or US jurisdiction.

Mr Fava accused European governments of breaching the Chicago aviation convention, under which all flights used for police purposes have to declare their route, destination, the names of crew and passengers. None had been asked to do so by any European government. Moreover, the flight paths, confirmed by the European air safety organisation Eurocontrol, “seem rather bizarre”, he told the BBC.

According to Eurocontrol, the Boeing plane used for the abduction of Mr Masri flew on another occasion, between September 22-23, 2003, from Kabul to Poland to Romania to Morocco and to the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Mr Fava said. “It is hard to think that those stopovers were used simply to refuel,” he said.

The committee has until next January to complete its investigation.

The BBC’s Oana Lungescu in Brussels says the focus of the investigation will now shift to the possible existence of secret detention centres in Europe. The European Parliament has uncovered no evidence so far, and neither has the Council of Europe, the human rights body also investigating the allegations.

Last year, Human Rights Watch said such centres were based in Poland and Romania – but both countries have strenuously denied any involvement, as have all the other European governments.