From Times Online

The United States has lost its moral compass and fallen out of step with the rest of the world in the wake of September 11, the former United Nations human rights commissioner has warned. Mary Robinson expressed sadness and regret at America’s erosion of human rights as part of its “War on Terror”. In a speech in central London, Mrs Robinson praised the British courts for taking a global lead on interpreting international human rights laws.

Highlighting the US’s opposition last week to the creation of a new UN Human Rights Council, Mrs Robinson said: “It illustrates the seismic shift which has taken place in the relation of the US to global rule of law issues. Today, the US no longer leads, but is too often seen merely to march out of step with the rest of the world.”

She added that she hoped it was a “temporary loss of moral compass”.

Speaking at an event organised by human rights and law reform group Justice, Mrs Robinson – who is also the former President of Ireland – criticised government’s use of Big Brother-style language to cover up their activities. “Misuse of language has also led to Orwellian euphemisms, so that ‘coercive interrogation’ is used instead of torture, or cruel and inhuman treatment; kidnapping becomes ‘extraordinary rendition’,” she said.

The former Irish leader disputed the argument that the post 9/11 world meant that human rights could be curtailed in the name of security. This would lead to democracies “losing the moral high ground”, she said. “Almost five years after 9/11, I think we must be honest in recognising how far international commitment to human rights standards has slipped in such a short time,” she told an audience at Middle Temple Hall.

“In the US in particular, the ambivalence about torture, the use of extraordinary rendition and the extension of presidential powers have all had a powerful ‘knock on’ effect around the world, often in countries that lack the checks and balances of independent courts, a free press and vigorous non-governmental organisation and academic communities.

“The establishment of an off-shore prison in Guantanamo (and) its retention in the face of the most principled and sustained criticism … are all aspects of this situation.”

Mrs Robinson went on: “The tables have turned, and it is UK rather than US courts which are taking a lead as interpreters of fundamental human rights, on the basis of the European Convention and – by extension – the body of international human rights treaty law.

“This new situation is well illustrated by recent House of Lords decisions, most notably their ruling that evidence obtained through torture is inadmissible in any proceedings before UK courts.” But she warned that “political decisions” in Britain – such as pre-trial detention periods or limiting the right to peaceful demonstration – could become examples used to justify the behaviour by the state in less democratic countries.

From BBC Online

The transport secretary has revealed that aircraft allegedly operated by the CIA to take prisoners out of the USA landed at airports in Northern Ireland. The planes landed at Belfast International and City of Derry airports after January 2001.

Alistair Darling said the government had no information about the flights’ purposes as they were “non commercial”. Anti-Iraqi war campaigners said they were used to fly prisoners to states where torture was used.

A total of six US planes linked by campaigners to “extraordinary rendition” used UK airports 73 times since 2001, Mr Darling confirmed. Campaigners claim to have details of planes used by the CIA to transfer terror suspects to countries where they could be tortured.

Mr Darling confirmed the serial numbers of planes that had landed in the UK matched those on the campaigners’ list. But he said he had no evidence they were involved in rendition.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has denied the US uses torture, but insisted the practice of extraordinary rendition was not unlawful, adding: “Renditions take terrorists out of action, and save lives.”

By George B. Mickum in The Independent

Bisher al-Rawi and Jamil el-Banna are among eight British residents who remain prisoners at the U.S. Naval Air Station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They are jailed because British officials rendered them into the hands of the CIA in Africa, a fact that may explain why the British government refuses to intercede on their behalf. Bisher and Jamil have been wrongfully imprisoned now for more than three years. This is the story of their betrayal by the British government and their appalling treatment at the hands of the CIA and the U.S. military.

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The Lancet features again this week with the publication of a letter from over 250 Doctors, from seven countries, calling for the end to force feeding of prisoners at Guantanamo. Force feeding is carried out by strapping inmates into chairs and feeding through tubes inserted in their noses – a practice which is contrary to the code of the World Medical Association. The Lancet letter also calls for the American Medical Association to instigate disciplinary proceedings against any members known to have violated the code.

The Road to Guantanamo shows tonight on Channel 4 at 09:00 GMT

If you missed you can download it from here

A review from The Herald

Enemy Combatant. A British Muslim: Journey to Guantanamo and Back by Moazzam Begg with Victoria Brittain.

On that terrifying night in Islamabad in January 2002, normality drained from the life of Moazzam Begg, reducing him to a non-person. For the next three years he was invisible to all but his captors, his fellow internees and his interrogators, who interviewed him 300 times, never producing evidence of their terrorism accusations, never putting him on trial yet shackling and branding him as an enemy combatant, a threat to the United States.

If the words Guantanamo Bay were not so familiar we might think his was the story of a gulag in Soviet Russia. But it’s an ugly measure of our changed world that violating human rights is no longer the exclusive hallmark of barbarous regimes. It has crept into the unseen corners of George Bush’s war on terror.

One year on from the three in which he was held illegally by the American government ‘ first at the brutal holding camp of Bagram in Afghanistan and finally inside a steel cage at Guantanamo in Cuba ‘ Begg, a British Muslim from Birmingham, publishes his memoir today.

The book, remarkable for its lack of bitterness, coincides with increasing international pressure on the US to close Guantanamo. In Britain, politicians, judges, lawyers, human rights agencies and religious leaders have repeatedly denounced the camp for breaching the Geneva convention on the treatment of

military prisoners.

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By Andy McSmith in The Independent

The US camp at Guantanamo Bay should be closed before it undermines the cause of democracy worldwide, a Foreign Office minister has warned.

The remarks by Kim Howells yesterday coincided with one of the most direct appeals yet by a high-ranking American figure for British support over Guantanamo Bay’s continued existence. The Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, on a visit to London, said the that camp was lawful and necessary.

Mr Howells, the minister in charge of British policy in the Middle East, warned: “Our alliance with America is based on shared values. If those shared values are seen by the rest of the world to be terribly flawed that actually undermines the cause of democracy. If Guantanamo is undermining those shared values then it should go, it should close.” Mr Howells went on to claim that the US had a problem with the “time scale”.

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