Council of Europe: Secret CIA Prisons Confirmed

The obvious question from this blog's point of view is: can a nation that often calls itself Christian operate secret prisons? Can its leaders lie about the existence of such prisons to others? Can its people live in denial about the existence of such prisons?

By: Human Rights Watch
Published: Jun 8, 2007 at 07:58





The Central Intelligence Agency secretly operated illegal prisons for terrorism suspects in multiple locations in Poland and Romania from 2003 to 2005, according to a report released today by the Council of Europe, a European intergovernmental human rights body.

The result of an investigation initiated in November 2005 by the council's Parliamentary Assembly under the leadership of assembly member and Swiss senator Dick Marty, the report provides evidence confirming allegations first made by Human Rights Watch in 2005 (http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/11/07/usint11995.htm) that locations in Poland and Romania were among sites used by the CIA for secret detention.

It concludes that there is "now enough evidence to state that secret detention facilities run by the CIA did exist in Europe from 2003 to 2005, in particular in Poland and Romania." It also finds that prisoners in these facilities were subjected to "interrogation techniques tantamount to torture."

"Today's report confirms that Poland and Romania helped the CIA operate illegal detention sites on their territory in violation of international law," said Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counterterrorism director at Human Rights Watch. "It is now clear that US officials illegally conspired with intelligence officials in several European countries to ‘disappear,' interrogate and illegally transfer terrorism suspects, flouting basic human rights norms."

The report suggests that President Aleksander Kwasniewski of Poland and former President Ion Iliescu of Romania authorized the secret detentions.

The Council of Europe report castigates the US and several European countries for these abuses. It also deplores what it terms "obstruct[ion]" by many of the governments implicated in the abuses, who "have done everything to disguise the true nature and extent of their activities and are persistent in their uncooperative attitude." In this respect, the report singles out the United States, Poland, Romania, Macedonia, Italy and Germany for criticism.

The report provides new information – including from cross-referenced testimonies of over 30 current and former members of intelligence services in the US and Europe – about how the secret program operated in Poland and Romania. It contains details from civil aviation records about CIA-operated airplanes used for detainee transfers, showing airplanes in the period 2003 through 2005 landing at remote airstrips in Poland and Romania. It also describes how flights to Poland – including one that may have carried terrorism suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed from Kabul to Szymany on March 7, 2003 – were deliberately disguised using fake flight plans.

Human Rights Watch believes that detainees held in Poland were likely transferred there from Afghanistan in late 2003 and early 2004. Other detainees held in CIA custody in Afghanistan were transferred to military custody, and subsequently to Guantanamo.

CIA detainees were held in Poland until late 2005. They are believed to have been transferred out of the region after the Washington Post reported in November 2005 that the CIA was using detention sites in Eastern Europe and Human Rights Watch released information showing that Poland and Romania were likely among the sites used. ABC News, relying on sources within the CIA, reported in December 2005 that the detainees were flown to Morocco.

In September 2006, President George Bush publicly acknowledged the existence of the secret CIA detention system, and announced that 14 prisoners in secret CIA custody had been transferred to the US military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. Human Rights Watch believes that most of these 14 prisoners were among those held in Poland and Romania in the period 2003 through 2005.

In status hearings earlier this year, at least four of these 14 prisoners claimed that they had been tortured while in US custody.

For example, Zayn al Abidin Muhammed Husayn, a Palestinian whom ABC News claimed was held in Poland, submitted a statement during the hearing in which he described "months of torture." In broken English, he told the hearing officers how he had made statements under torture to please his interrogators. The presiding officer summed up Husayn's claims by saying that "during this treatment, you said things to make them stop, and these things were actually untrue." But the details of the "treatment" that Husayn underwent were censored from the transcript.

Many detainees who are believed to have been held in CIA custody remain missing. Human Rights Watch has done extensive research on detainees believed to have been held by the CIA, and earlier this week issued an updated list of missing detainees jointly with five other human rights groups. The list named 39 persons whose fate and whereabouts are unknown (http://hrw.org/backgrounder/usa/ct0607/).

Human Rights Watch deplored the fact that the CIA's illegal system of secret prisons is still operational. In 2007 alone, three detainees have been transferred to the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, and in all cases the CIA may have had custody of the detainees before their transfer. Indeed, the US government has confirmed that the CIA had custody of one detainee before his transfer, proving that the CIA detention program still operates.

"Shutting secret prisons down in one part of the world, only to open them in another, is not acceptable," Mariner said.

The Council of Europe report issued today also documents the involvement of European governments in CIA-facilitated illegal transfers of suspects to third countries, known as renditions. The report criticizes Italy and Germany's involvement in the illegal transfer of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, kidnapped in Milan in February 2003. Over 20 CIA agents have been indicted in Italy on kidnapping charges related to the Abu Omar case; their trial in absentia begins today.

The report also discusses the involvement of Macedonia in the illegal detention and transfer of a German citizen, Khalid el-Masri, who was abducted and flown out of Macedonia in January 2004 and held in a secret CIA prison in Afghanistan until his release in mid-2004.

The report, adopted by a Council of Europe parliamentary committee today, is also strongly critical of NATO, which it says "never replied to our correspondence." It notes that "strict observance of the rules of confidentiality laid down in the NATO framework" helped keep the CIA program secret for so long.

Human Rights Watch applauded Dick Marty on his investigation into the CIA's illegal activities in Europe, and urged European governments and parliaments to follow up by carrying out or finalizing their own public investigations, and by ensuring timely implementation of the recommendations the report makes to prevent the occurrence of further abuses.

Among the report's most urgent recommendations are the following:

· Establish enhanced control (through parliamentary oversight and judicial control) over the activities of secret services, both domestic and foreign;

· Establish enhanced safeguards and controls over aircraft transiting through member states;

· Ensure that state secrecy or national security cannot be invoked to shield governments or individual government officials from responsibility for serious human rights abuses;

· Ensure compensation and rehabilitation for the victims of secret detention and unlawful transfers; and,

· Set up a genuine European parliamentary inquiry mechanism with adequate investigative powers and resources, including the possibility of appointing a special investigator modeled on the rules governing the German Bundestag commissions of inquiry.

Human Rights Watch also reminded Council of Europe member states about their obligation to act on the conclusions of the inquiry initiated by the institution's secretary-general, Terry Davis. Nearly one year after the secretary-general issued his recommendations on measures to prevent future illegal practices, member states have yet to take action.

"Investigations by the Council of Europe and the European Parliament have been met by stonewalling," said Mariner. "It's time now for governments to face their responsibility and take concrete steps to ensure that illegal operations like these don't happen again."

Human Rights Watch also urged the US Congress to schedule hearings on CIA activities and detention practices, and work to pass legislation banning secret detention and rendition to torture.

For more Human Rights Watch reporting on CIA counterterrorism activities, please visit:

http://hrw.org/doc/?t=ct_cia

Pray for Aung San Suu Kyi

Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest by the Burmese military junta has been extended. She has already been detained for years. Please pray for her and for her country.




Burma's military leaders have extended their detention of Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi for another year, despite growing international pressure. Government sources say Burmese officials visited her residence Friday and read out the extension of her term. Ron Corben reports from Bangkok.

For weeks, there have been renewed international calls for the release of Burma opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The calls came from fellow Nobel Prize laureates, past and current world leaders, and human rights groups. The U.S. government has said that she should be freed and Burma should implement political reforms quickly.

The head of the National League for Democracy has been detained continuously since May 2003, when she was taken into custody after a pro-government mob attacked her supporters while she was visiting rural Burma. She has spent 11 of the past 17 years in confinement.

Debbie Stothardt, spokeswoman for the rights group the Alternative ASEAN Network, says the government fears releasing Aung San Suu Kyi could lead to unrest from her many supporters, and from rising public anger over the country's economic problems.

"The regime is definitely not releasing Aung San Suu Kyi. But it's not because of international pressure, it's because of their own fear of what could happen if Aung San Suu Kyi is released and there's a national uprising against them," said Stothardt.

Naing Aung, a former Burmese student leader and democracy rights advocate, says the government will detain Aung San Suu Kyi until a new constitution - now being drafted - is completed.

"The military regime doesn't want to have any dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi and they don't think that they need to talk to solve their problems together," he said.

Politicians from the Association of South East Asian Nations have demanded that regional governments push Burma to free more than 1,100 political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi.

Kraisak Choonhavan, a former Thai senator and rights advocate, says the ASEAN politicians have worked hard at raising the issue.

"We have been very diligent in persevering for the release of all political prisoners in Burma, and our agenda has been very, very consistent with our principles, but this extension of the detention of Aung San Suu Kyi is absolutely unacceptable, absolutely unacceptable," he said.

Stothardt of the Alternative ASEAN Network says rights groups will continue to work for change in Burma.

"We need an increase in domestic and international pressure on this regime so finally they have no choice but they have to release Aung San Suu Kyi and they have no choice but to democratize," said Stothardt.

The country has been under a military government since 1962. The National League for Democracy won a landside victory in elections in 1990, but the military refused to acknowledge the results. The government has promised general elections after a new constitution is drafted, but there is no indication of when that will be.

When bloggers are silenced, the world must speak for them

By Bridget Johnson



Democracy and the hunger for free speech are creeping across repressive societies, and the revolutionaries leading this charge are often the unlikeliest of soldiers — lone thinkers with minds for change and keyboards as their weapons. Linked to other warriors via the Internet, bloggers are finding that their views from politics to religion to pop culture share a unifying battle cry: a desire to speak freely.
Abdel Kareem Nabil Soliman, a 22-year-old Egyptian student, blogged under the name "Kareem Amer" starting in 2004. He captured authorities' attention the next year. Soliman denounced attacks he witnessed by Muslims on Coptic Christian establishments and panned extremist views taught at Al-Azhar University in Cairo — and risked his life in the process. Things only got worse for Soliman.

"It causes us to cry, be grieved, and be struck with frustration to find ourselves threatened with death," he wrote on May 7, 2006, after escaping 20 fellow students wielding knives, leather belts and sticks who had surrounded his taxi outside the university. "Not because we kill. Not because we loot others' property. Not because we transgress the limits of our freedom. But because we think!" In February, Soliman was sentenced to three years in prison for "insulting Islam" and one year for insulting President Hosni Mubarak. "I shall not recant, not even by an inch, from any word I have written," read Soliman's last blog post before his Nov. 6 arrest, when authorities were closing in. "These restrictions will not preclude my dream of obtaining my freedom."

And so he sits in a prison, disowned by the father who said his son should be executed under sharia law if he did not repent. Egypt has turned a deaf ear to the growing global chorus demanding his freedom. Even the U.S. State Department has issued appeals on his behalf, says spokeswoman Elise Bower at the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.

Now other bloggers in Egypt wonder whether they're next.

"The Kareem Amer case has both caused bloggers to become more wary about what they write and more militant about their right to write it," says Issandr El Amrani, the Cairo-based publisher of The Arabist, a cultural and political blog.

Bloggers face similar repression across the world. Reporters Without Borders tracks the number of imprisoned cyber dissidents at 65 (50 of them in China). An analysis by the Committee to Protect Journalists found that one in three imprisoned journalists operated on the Internet.

"The risks are real," says "Drima," aka The Sudanese Thinker, who writes a political blog. "I'm being pressured to stop blogging by people who are worried about my safety and by others who are very intolerant of my views." But he's unbowed. "I don't plan on stopping anytime soon."

As we mark World Press Freedom Day on Thursday, we unfortunately see that the United Nations body tasked with protecting rights — the Human Rights Council — has taken a giant step backward. On March 30, it passed a resolution urging the world to ban public defamation of religion, specifically Islam, thereby encouraging use of a charge under which Soliman was convicted. The council has passively allowed oppressive nations to stifle free speech and must change course or lose all credibility.

Council members that currently hold cyber dissidents in prison — China and Tunisia — should be removed from the panel. In addition, the U.N. should turn down Egypt's offer to host the Internet Governance Forum in 2009.

Freedom-loving nations around the world must support these bloggers both in one-on-one dealings with offending nations and by turning up the pressure within international bodies. Arab League members — all of them — must pledge to respect free expression.

Repression of speech has historically been a reliable tool in squelching dissent. Yet in the age of the Internet, such efforts will ultimately fail thanks to freedom-loving bloggers and governments bold enough to back up their principles with tough diplomacy — especially when it comes to protecting the freedom of speech.

The execution of a 16-year old girl for "crimes against chastity" - Purity vs Justice

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/5217424.stm

In church when I was growing up (it was a Methodist church, very evangelical), we had what we call cell groups, which were small groups that studied the Bible and offered each other support. At more than one meeting, I recall my cell group leader warning us with great passion to resist, at all costs, "homosexual temptations."

Now, I have a confession to make that may startle some. Despite my strong support for gay rights ... I haven't really experienced any homosexual temptations. And so, I nodded my head and resolved to resist such temptations if they ever hit me. Even later on, though, when I had met a lot of really hot gay guys, the heterosexual temptations are always much stronger. So I was always a little uncomfortable with and puzzled by my leader's vehemence.

And when I started questioning my church's teachings on homosexuality, I also wondered, why was not an equal amount of venom directed at social sins, like economic exploitation, environmental degradation, unjust imprisonments and phony trials? Why was the church so concerned about sexual sins? I've never heard Evangelical leaders, for example, say that those who commit multi billion-dollar corporate fraud and cheat investors of their life savings are in danger of hellfire (although it seems one moron priest compared Ken Lay to Jesus and to MLK: http://money.cnn.com/2006/07/12/news/newsmakers/lay.reut/ )

The above link details the story of Atefah Sahaaleh, hanged in a public square in Iran in 2004. Her death sentence was imposed for "crimes against chastity." She was 16, although the newspapers reported that she was 22 and the kangaroo courts that tried her did not determine her age.

To make matters worse, she was raped several times by a 51-year old married man, Ali Darabi. Darabi was investigated by the court, and received 95 lashes. Atefah had a difficult childhood, having to care for her grandparents, and was arrested at age 13, for being alone with a boy. She was arrested several more times, and the locals apparently saw her as a loose woman. The last time, she was arrested by religious police, not secular police, and was tried in a religious court. These courts do not answer to the Iranian parliament, and are inaccessible to human rights campaigners. And in courts that operate under the fundamentalist interpretation of shariah (Islamic law), proving a rape requires 4 adult men or 8 adult women as witnesses. Atefah confessed to the sexual abuse, but Darabi would have been able to say, "she encouraged me," or "she didn't dress modestly," and get off. Atefah realized her case was hopeless, and she shouted at the judge, Haji Rezai, and threw off her veil. This outburst was fatal. Rezai was a head of judiciary. He summarily condemned her to death.

To many Westerners the notion of religious courts with the power to execute people is anathema, but Muslims do not believe in separation of religion and state in the same manner as Westerners do. How they organize their societies to ensure justice for all is their business, not mine, to work out. My business, though, is to condemn people like Rezai who commit such atrocities in the name of God. Such people twist the words of God to suit their own small-minded ends. And generally, when they do so, they focus on issues of purity. We can see such twisting in the actions of the Religious Right in America, trying to outlaw gay marriage and abortion.

But God said, "For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings." (Hosea 6:6) Purity codes have their place. For the ancient Israelites, many aspects of their purity code kept them safe from infectious diseases - for example, you were unclean if you came into contact with a dead body. In modern hospitals, secular purity codes (washing, wearing gloves and masks, disinfection) keep us all safe from diseases as well. But purity codes have also been applied to oppress people. The Nazis did this with their race ideology, as did Americans before them. Much of Jesus' mission on earth was speaking out against the Pharisees' misues of the purity codes.

For Atefah Sahaaleh, I pray for eternal rest in the arms of a loving God. For Haji Rezai and others like him, I pray for mercy on the day of judgment, for liberation from power-over, the need to use power to dominate others, and for liberation from the misuse of the codes. And I pray for the safety of all those who find themselves at the wrong end of the purity codes.

Prisoner of Conscience of the month

Jesus himself was a prisoner of conscience. He was tried illegitimately and crucified by the Romans. In that spirit, every month (or two, or three, or whatever) I will highlight a prisoner of conscience. Not to compare them to Jesus, but to invite us to pray for their safety, their release, and the same for all other such prisoners.

Tayseer Alony Kate is a Syrian-born Spaniard, and a top reporter for Al-Jazeera. He somehow wrangled an interview with Osama bin Laden, a month after 9/11. His other reporting on al-Jazeera and CNN on civilian deaths caused by US raids embarrassed the Pentagon. He was sentenced to 7 years in isolation in a maximum-security Spanish prison, allegedly for aiding two terrorists. The Spanish government's evidence was somewhat dodgy. However, prosecutors failed to prove that he should have known that his contacts were terrorists, or that they were even instrumental in arranging the interview. All the evidence presented against him was tenuous and circumstantial.

Alony pressed bin Laden as to how a devout Muslim could justify indiscriminate murder. Bin Laden's justification was inadequate. He said that "good terrorism" deterred others from killing people in Palestine and in other places. As to the fact that innocent civilians died in the 9/11 attacks, bin Laden points only to the people who have been killed in Muslim lands for decades, that the Prophet's proscription of killing women and children is not "set in stone," that there are other writings that uphold it. Towards the end of the interview, his replies degenerated into threats and warnings against Muslim countries that "collaborated" with the enemy. Either way, Alony's interview with bin Laden did not exactly glorify terrorism. It merely exposed bin Laden as an idiot who is using the Palestinians as an excuse.

As for Alony, it does not look likely that he will be pardoned. To appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, his lawyers will have to prove that he was not given a fair trial in Spain. Mark Ellman, a british human rights lawyer who observed Alony's trial, said that it might be difficult to prove that Spanish legal procedure was violated. The Zapatero government is likelier than the last one to pardon him, but that will be difficult as well.

Information for this piece was taken from an article by Leslie Crawford in, of all places, the Financial Times. You should be able to find it on the FT website, but to view it, you'll need either a subscription or to take a free trial. Below is a prayer service in honor of nonviolent resistance that also offers intercession for political prisoners.


L. We pray for all people according to their needs ;
Response: God, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

L. We give thanks to those throughout history and today who have risked their freedom and their lives in the cause of justice:
For Jesus of Nazareth, who was imprisoned and executed by political authorities;
For Mahatma Gandhi;
For other prisoners and martyrs [invite people to name some...]
Rx.

L. We pray for all prisoners of conscience and political prisoners throughout the world; we pray for a free and just society open to hearing diverse political views without feeling threatened. And pray for the release of those whose only crime has been to speak the truth.
Rx.

L. We pray for all the political prisoners in this prison and in other prisons in Chiapas.
Rx.

L. For those imprisoned unjustly, and for those that languish in prison without due process; we pray for just treatment and the rule of law.
Rx.

L. We give thanks for the advances that Governor Pablo Salazar has made in releasing political prisoners and pray that further steps will be taken, especially on the federal level.
Rx.

L. We pray for all prisoners everywhere and for their families; that those who are incarcerated may feel God’s presence and see the light of hope even in the darkest places; that the families whose loved ones are imprisoned may know God’s comfort during the time of separation, and that God will grant them strength and resources to carry on under additional economic and psychological burdens.
Rx.

L. We pray for an end to violence, for the transformation of hearts of those that have used or would use violence, and for an infusion of God’s grace and peace into those hearts.
Rx.

L. We pray for forgiveness for our complicity with unjust structures and violent systems, and for a cleansing of violence and vengeance from our own hearts.
Rx.

L. We pray for all the poor and for thosse imprisoned by conditions of oppression and economic hardship, and pray for a just society under the reign of God in which all people will live togethere in freedom, gathering around the same table to enjoy the abundance of God’s gifts and grace.
Rx.

L. We pray for wisdom and courage to help bring in the Reign of God that Jesus proclaimed; to liberate the captives and the oppressed; to give sight to the blind, and to manifest a year of jubilee.
Rx.

L. We know that God hears our prayers, spoken and unspoken, and is near to all who call upon the name of God. In this assurance we commend all our prayers to the God of justice and Peace, who reigns over all creation now and forever.
Rx: Amen.



(Sponsored by: ECAP (Equipos Cristianos de Accion por la Paz). Tel. (in Chiapas): 678-5905; e-mail: cptmx@laneta.apc.org.
In conjunction with a vigil sponsored by SERPAJ (Servicio Paz y Justicia) – Morelos and students of UNAM, to be held in front of the National Palace, Mexico, D. F. on the same day)