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Torture Camp Watch

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Nov06/Petersen04.htm

The Reciprocity Principle: Questions That Need to be Asked

Why not hold the professed Christian administration of so-called United States president George Bush to the Golden Rule of Christianity? Jesus commanded, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Luke 6:31)

Bush and his colleagues have indicated their approval of waterboarding. But how would Americans react if the situation were reversed? What would Americans say if captured United States troops were tied to a board, their faces covered in cellophane, and water poured over them until the point of retching? Would Americans then agree that waterboarding is a legitimate means to try and gather information?

It would, surely, be considered barbaric. Americans would fulminate against the inhumane torture. The US regime would decry it as a violation of universal conventions against torture. But when the US regime has its willing agents carry out torture, dissent at home is palpably muted.

If such methods of interrogation are inappropriate for usage on Americans, then they are inappropriate to use on other humans. To state otherwise would be to submit to a racist ideology whereby other humans are considered a lower form of humanity unworthy of protection.

But why stop at waterboarding?

If a country had attacked the US for refusing to relinquish its massive arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and murdered 655,000 Americas, would Americans not be horrified? Considering that since the US-led aggression launched on 20 March 2003, 650,000 more people have died in Iraq than Americans died on 9-11, the answer must be “yes.” But to draw an equivalent comparison, taking into account the 26,783,383 people in Iraq and the 298,444,215 people in the US (July 2006 estimates from the CIA Factbook), the equivalent number of American civilians murdered by such an attack would be 7,298,591!

When Madeleine Albright opined that the deaths of over a half million Iraqi children was a price “worth it” to pursue the US “national interest” in Iraq, what would she have replied if sanctions had caused the deaths of over a half million US children (the Iraqi deaths being approximately equivalent to 5.5 million US children)? Would she have been so callous? Would not Americans have been outraged, if they knew?

What if “extraordinary rendition” happened to American prisoners? What if they were surreptitiously disappeared into third countries that practice torture? What if Canada sent an American citizen to be tortured in Syria? How would American citizens react?

Speaking of gulags abroad, how would Americans feel if an “enemy” government maintained a military base on US soil against US wishes? It is surprising how little comment is made about the US contravening the territorial integrity of Cuba at Guantánamo Bay or how the entire population of the Chagos archipelago was ethnically cleansed to set up and maintain a US military base there. But considering the US regime’s support for ethnic cleansing in the racist, supremacist state of Israel and its own history of ethnic cleansing, otherwise euphemistically referred to as “nation building,” perhaps it is well within the range of imperialistic normalcy.

If a military power had destroyed the economic and social infrastructure of the US -- power grid, water system, garbage collection, churches, hospitals, and schools -- how would Americans feel?

If the US were occupied by uninvited and unwanted foreign troops how would they react?

When the present becomes the long ago past, how will history judge US empire? How will it view the citizenry of empire?

The plutocrats of US empire luxuriate while the masses at home struggle and those abroad perish. With great power comes great responsibility. How a country wields its power carves out its legacy.

The US is not alone in the perfidy of empire. The regimes of the UK, Canada, much of the western world, Korea, and Japan remain in solidarity with the US regime. Most world regimes meekly shy away from denouncing the violence of hyper empire.

It is, however, up to the citizens at the seat of empire to determine the path of the empire -- be it one of righteousness or evil. It is difficult to look evil in the face and call it what it is when you are a part of that evil; for the reflection of empire is one that is drenched in the blood of many victims.
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niksativa said:
To recap then, the list includes:

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/conte.../050214fa_fact6
Quote:"The most common destinations for rendered suspects are
Egypt, Morocco, Syria, and Jordan

The story of a top secret document that has surfaced and implicated the US with these sites:
Romania, Poland, Ukraine, Kosovo, Macedonia and Bulgaria.
Quote:http://www.sundayherald.com/56171

and now add Afghanistan, Qatar, Thailand, the Indian island base of Diego Garcia to the list (Zamb's post and link).

I think your right about the inherent state of denial that exists - thats turning into a long list...
Click to expand...
Interesting developmetn around the story above run by the SUnday Herald -
A Swiss court has acquitted three Swiss journalists on charges of violating state secrecy requirements for publishing an intelligence intercept of the Swiss intelligence service that confirmed the existence of a CIA “blacksite” detention facility at the Mihail Kogalniceanu Base near the Black Sea city of Constanza in Romania.

Swiss intelligence put 23 Iraqi and Afghan citizens at the base and in the custody of the CIA. It states that Romania had made false official statements to European Parliamentary investigators in which the base was denied. It notes the existence of similar “blacksites” at the Szymany Air Base in Poland, in Ukraine, Kosovo, Macedonia and Bulgaria.

The transportation of Iraqi civilians captured in connection with U.S. military operations in Iraq to a location outside of that country would be a criminal act under article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Reports circulated earlier that such a program existed and that it had been approved by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, headed by Jack Goldsmith, now a professor at Harvard University.

A copy of a memo purporting to authorize the transportation of Iraqis out of the country by the CIA, dated March 19, 2004, was obtained and published by the Washington Post on October 24, 2004. The memo has been uniformly condemned by legal scholars, some of whom have suggested that the author might be subject to criminal prosecution.
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http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/04/horton-20070428qoso
 
On the last of this series of the Doha Debates, the subject was "This House believes that torture is only acceptable under legal supervision "

Vote Result: The motion was rejected

Even when the people arguing for the motion were arguing in favour of strict oversight by courts, rather than the hypocricy that exists today, they still failed to win. I found it interesting as one of the people arguing in favour was an army officer who had previously served here in NI.

http://clients.mediaondemand.net/thedohadebates/index.aspx?sessionid=24&bandwidth=hi
 
WE already spotted on this thread that Diego Garcia islands may well have been used as a site for CIA torture - but something that didnt twig with me was that this is technically British territory.

Looks like the slow-ass British legal system is starting to catch up with the news and is going to "investigate" the claims. Medals all round I suspect!

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,,2194798,00.html

llegations that the CIA held al-Qaida suspects for interrogation at a secret prison on sovereign British territory are to be investigated by MPs, the Guardian has learned. The all-party foreign affairs committee is to examine long-standing suspicions that the agency has operated one of its so-called "black site" prisons on Diego Garcia, the British overseas territory in the Indian Ocean that is home to a large US military base.

[..]

Barry McCaffrey, a retired four-star US general who is professor of international security studies at the West Point military academy, has twice spoken publicly about the use of Diego Garcia to detain suspects.

In May 2004 he said: "We're probably holding around 3,000 people, you know, Bagram air field, Diego Garcia, Guantánamo, 16 camps throughout Iraq." In December last year he repeated the claim: "They're behind bars...we've got them on Diego Garcia, in Bagram air field, in Guantánamo."
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73ob5vp.jpg


Incredible account of 19 months of brutality and psychological torture exprienced by innocent man Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah in a US torture camp.

Really recommend a flick through this piece:

Inside the CIA's notorious ''black sites''
 
Two bits of news - the US admitting it used Diego Garcia as a stop off for rendition flights - having lied to the UK about it - it being UK territory after all.

Only two? Yeah right.

Lets hope more of these cases come out, and would it be too much to ask for someone to get tried over this illegal practice?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/22/ciarendition.foreignpolicy1
Sorry to repeat myself, but it cant just be two people - this from a post above:
Barry McCaffrey, a retired four-star US general who is professor of international security studies at the West Point military academy, has twice spoken publicly about the use of Diego Garcia to detain suspects.

In May 2004 he said: "We're probably holding around 3,000 people, you know, Bagram air field, Diego Garcia, Guantánamo, 16 camps throughout Iraq." In December last year he repeated the claim: "They're behind bars...we've got them on Diego Garcia, in Bagram air field, in Guantánamo."
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newsnight film on the issue here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/...tm&news=1&nbwm=1&bbram=1&bbwm=1&nbram=1&asb=1

So what if it turns out that 100 have been through Diego Garcia - or even more? out of 3000, it must be at least a hundred. Lets hope the shit hits the fan over this - way too late, and at best symbolic for all the inbocents caught up in this.

This story also confirmed Morocco as a definite rendition site.

-----
meanwhile, the EU's investigation into rendition flights is confirming Poland and Romania's dirty role in all this.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/22/poland.eu
confirmed by the fact that "Neither country has responded in an adequate manner" to request for information - they are jsut burying their heads in the sand and hoping it will go away.
 
Hello, I have just found out this thread.... There was a big scandal in Greece during 2005, concering the kidnapping basically of Pakistanese immigrants from the police (they were not arrests as they were not charged with anything) and interrogating them about possible connections with Al Queda etc.... Hundreds of immigrants (about 22 only from my town Thebes) were kidnapped in this way during that period secretely and were moved to secret locations where they were interrogated. The immigrant community was also talking about tortures while these interrogatios were taking place. This scandal was connected with the "Air-CIA" case as it was mentioned, it is possible that some of these immigrants were even transfered to other countries for interrogations....

When this scandal finally reached the media on 2006, just after the London bombings, there were information coming through that CIA and british agents were during that period in Greece with a list of "suspects" and were cooperating with the greek intelligence services in order to arrest and interrogate those people. The president of the Pakistanese community in Greece who brought this subject to the attention of the media was hunted by the police as a suspect and a possible terrorist. On 6/11/2006 he got arrested and the Pakistanese government officially asked that he should be deported to Pakistan in order to pass from trial. Finally the greek higher court during 2007 denied to deport him to Pakistan.

The government officially denied that anything happened, an investigation of the events of that period did start because some immigrants started a lawsuit against the state, but on 20/06/2006 the greek parliament decided to decline an investigation if the government was officially involved on that case. On September 2007 though, a former greek secret agent said on an interview at a newspaper that these interrogations did happen and he was present himself on 13 of them.

Sadly this matter, has been forgotten now as it is normally happening in Greece. I don't know if the greek courts have finished the investigation on the case but I don't think so, as I cannot find any published verdict.

Edited to add: When the President of the Pakistaneze community was arrested, a lot of demonstrations took place in Athens in solidarity to him and against this pogrom. Members of the Pakistaneze community organized these demos and were attended by them as well as other immigrant communities, antiracist organizations, left political parties, anarchists and antiauthoritarians. The Pakistaneze embasy in Greece had direct orders from the Musaraf dictatorship to not let these demos to take place. The embassy officials together with the greek inteligence agencies made a list of about 280 Pakistaneze and were calling them on their mobile phones days before the demo threatening them if they attend. The Pakistaneze community says that this list still exists and it is in the hands of the greek authorities, under the name "LIST OF PAKISTANIS RECOMMENDED FOR BLACKLISTING". On the 18/02/2008 the lawyers of the pakistanis community sent a letter to the Chairman of the Greek Parliament, protesting for the existence of this list as well as for the cooperation of the greek authorities with the Dictatorship in Pakistan.

The investigation that our Justice System has allready started, up to now has announced that the interrogations DID happen and our government is lying and they are now investigating to find out which agents attended those.
 
Hi Dimitris - thanks for sharing this news with us

Dimitris said:
Hundreds of immigrants (about 22 only from my town Thebes) were kidnapped in this way during that period secretely and were moved to secret locations where they were interrogated. The immigrant community was also talking about tortures while these interrogatios were taking place. This scandal was connected with the "Air-CIA" case as it was mentioned, it is possible that some of these immigrants were even transfered to other countries for interrogations....
Click to expand...

Make no mistake, these people get tortured - that's why they get flown around the world to be taken to the so called "black sites" - if what they were doing was legal they could do it anywhere. The whole point of extraordinary rendition is to operate outside of the law - and torture at will.


Dimitris said:
Sadly this matter, has been forgotten now as it is normally happening in Greece.
Click to expand...
The media is the same the whole world over - not jsut greece. But hopefuly the investigation is still going on, and probably in 10 years time some finding will be made... and ignored. However, I think this whole extraordinary rendition story is far from finished. So far the US has been untouchable, but there is no reason that over time the truth will trickle out...

Dimitris said:
The investigation that our Justice System has allready started, up to now has announced that the interrogations DID happen and our government is lying and they are now investigating to find out which agents attended those.
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Let us know if you hear any news...
 
With the alleged news that Obama is going to order the black sight prisons to be lcosed, we should get to hear some conformation of where these torture camps really are. Consdiering that the US has denied the existence of the near 20 countries used (see above), how are they really going to be held accountable to not using them? AS it is its covered up...

If anyone comes across anything concrete on the supposed closing of these sights please post - ta.
 
niksativa said:
To recap then, the list includes:

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/conte.../050214fa_fact6
Quote:"The most common destinations for rendered suspects are
Egypt, Morocco, Syria, and Jordan

The story of a top secret document that has surfaced and implicated the US with these sites:
Romania, Poland, Ukraine, Kosovo, Macedonia and Bulgaria.
Quote:http://www.sundayherald.com/56171

and now add Afghanistan, Qatar, Thailand, the Indian island base of Diego Garcia to the list (Zamb's post and link).
Click to expand...

Why am I not fucking surprised?

:mad:
 
I was watching the UK doc 'Taking Liberties the other night, and it mentions the 'black sites'. What is interesting is that, as they are illegal, the US has vehemently denied their existence. Furthermore, the use of UK airports for refueling of the flights to the sites makes the UK utterly guilty of abetting torture - a war crime (or some such UN postWW2 law).

Obama's statement that he will close all the secret sites is interesting therefore, not only for its lack of any detail, but because as far as I can tell, it is the first time any US official (let alone the president) has admitted these sites exist.

Surely the admission that these sites exist amounts to an admission of guilt. I wonder if there is anyone out there working on bringing a legal case against the US administration on this - if so, they now have an admission of guilt to work with.
 
Amazing stuff- the US press is reporting that Obama, far from shutting these torture camps, is set to increase their use, to make up in the torture short fall resulting from his 'banning of torture' on native soil

While President Barack Obama reversed a number of the Bush Administration’s anti-terror excesses, the controversial tactic known as extraordinary rendition, the extralegal kidnapping and transportation of detainees, remains conspicuously legal. Only a cursory effort “to study and evaluate the practices of transferring individuals to other nations” (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/EnsuringLawfulInterrogations/) with a task force was offered for what has internationally been among America’s most infamous policies. In the end though, the new president has kept the practice legal.

According to the Los Angeles Times, unnamed officials of the administration are defending the decision, with one quoted as saying that “if done within certain parameters, it is an acceptable practice.” (http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/thatseemsfair/latimes0036.html) With those other avenues of torture now closed to them, some have speculated that the Obama Administration may rely even more on rendition than the Bush Administration has.

The move has the potential to strain relations with the European Union. In early 2007 the European Parliament issued a report accusing several nations of turning a blind eye to CIA kidnappings and rendition flights. The CIA used European airspace for over 1,200 such flights, according to the report.

In one of the most infamous incidents, CIA agents kidnapped a Muslim imam off the streets of Milan, Italy in 2003. He was later shipped to Egypt where he was held for four years, tortured, and finally released when they ruled his detention was “unfounded.” The incident caused enormous controversy in Italy and led to the summoning of the US ambassador.
http://news.antiwar.com/2009/02/01/renditions-may-expand-under-obamas-watch/
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In his first few days in office, Mr Obama was lauded for rejecting policies of the George W Bush era, but it has emerged the CIA still has the authority to carry out renditions in which suspects are picked up and often sent to a third country for questioning.

The practice caused outrage at the EU, after it was revealed the CIA had used secret prisons in Romania and Poland and airports such as Prestwick in Scotland to conduct up to 1,200 rendition flights. The European Parliament called renditions "an illegal instrument used by the United States".

According to a detailed reading of the executive orders signed by Mr Obama on Jan 22, renditions have not been outlawed, with the new administration deciding it needs to retain some devices in Mr Bush's anti-terror arsenal amid continued threats to US national security.

"Obviously you need to preserve some tools – you still have to go after the bad guys," an administration official told the Los Angeles Times.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...-allow-anti-terror-rendition-to-continue.html
 
INteresting article about the EU response to this - including producing a document that lists 1,200 torture flights through US airspace:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/feb/14/eu.usa

Unfortunately, what is 'interesting' is the way they fail to act, and to date despite all the evidence (including the testimony of the torutred) no prosecutions are taking place.
 
Some signs of progress for a legal case against the US here:
http://www.theage.com.au/world/defence-role-in-cias-secret-jails-20090213-875d.html
THREE human rights groups have obtained documents that confirm US Department of Defence involvement in the CIA's "ghost" detention program, and the existence of secret prisons at Bagram air base in Afghanistan and in Iraq.

The documents obtained as part of a long-running legal battle using freedom-of-information laws were released by the Department of Defence to Amnesty International USA, the Centre for Constitutional Rights and the Centre for Human Rights and Global Justice last week.

The groups received about 1000 documents from Defence out of more than 12,000 that have been identified as coming within their request but which are still being withheld by agencies including the CIA and the Department of Justice.

The groups said these documents confirm the existence of secret prisons at Bagram and in Iraq; affirm the Defence Department's co-operation with the CIA's "ghost" detention program; and show one case where Defence sought to delay the release of Guantanamo prisoners who were scheduled to be sent home by a month and a half in order to avoid bad press.
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The UN has started pointing the finger at Britain:

UN accuses Britain of condoning torture
UK hid illegal acts and breached basic human rights of detainees in US rendition programme, report finds
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/09/torture-guantanamo-rendition

This bit is interesting:
It identifies the UK, along with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Croatia, Georgia, Indonesia, Kenya, Macedonia and Pakistan, as states that have 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'".
Click to expand...

The list of rendition sites so far included:
ska invita said:
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/conte.../050214fa_fact6
Quote:"The most common destinations for rendered suspects are
Egypt, Morocco, Syria, and Jordan

The story of a top secret document that has surfaced and implicated the US with these sites:
Romania, Poland, Ukraine, Kosovo, Macedonia and Bulgaria.
Quote:http://www.sundayherald.com/56171

and now add Afghanistan, Qatar, Thailand, the Indian island base of Diego Garcia to the list (Zamb's post and link).
Click to expand...

Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Uzbekistan are new names to add to the list... :( with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Croatia, Georgia, Indonesia, Kenya, Macedonia and Pakistan, added as co-conspirators.
 
Slowly the web gets untangled. Will anyone ever get prosecuted for it? Don't hold your breath.

Poland admits role in CIA rendition programme
Warsaw air control service confirms that at least six CIA flights landed at disused military air base in northern Poland in 2003
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/22/poland-cia-rendition-flights
The-control-tower-of-the--001.jpg

The Polish authorities have for the first time admitted their involvement in the CIA's secret programme for the rendition of high-level terrorist suspects from Iraq and Afghanistan, it emerged today.

After years of stonewalling, Warsaw's air control service confirmed that at least six CIA flights had landed at a disused military air base in northern Poland in 2003.

"It is time for the authorities to provide a full accounting of Poland's role in rendition," Adam Bodnar, of the Warsaw-based Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, said.

"These flight records reinforce the troubling findings of official European inquiries and global human rights groups, showing complicity with CIA abuse across Europe."

For years, European and human rights investigators have believed Poland played a key role in the secret renditions programme, which became a human rights scandal for the George Bush administration.

An extensive Council of Europe investigation in 2007 found that "especially sensitive high-value detainees" were held at a prison facility, rented by the CIA from the Poles, near the Szymany airfield in northern Poland.

The Polish authorities told the investigators they were not aware of flight data that would reveal the traffic in kidnapping.

But following a freedom of information campaign from the Helsinki Foundation and the New York-based Open Society Justice Initiative, the Polish Air Navigation Services Agency released flight data showing that at least two of the aircraft used in the CIA operations flew from Kabul and Rabat, in Morocco, to Szymany at least six times between February and September 2003.

"We know that CIA detainees were held in those two locations in the period in question," the campaigners said.

The two aircraft, a Boeing 737 and a Gulfstream V, were US-registered and previously known to be part of the CIA operation.

"In the past, the Polish government denied its involvement in rendition. It failed to provide any of these flight records to previous investigations," the campaigners said.

Analysis of the flight logs also indicated an attempted joint coverup by the CIA and the Polish authorities, with the aviation authorities being told that several of the flights were destined not for Szymany but for Warsaw.

"The CIA filed 'dummy' and false flight plans, or no flight plans at all, for the incoming and outgoing flights of N379P," the campaigners added.

"[The Polish aviation authority] collaborated with the CIA by accepting the task of navigating these disguised flights into and out of Szymany airport without adhering to the requirements of international flight planning regulations.

"The most remarkable aspect is that the Polish government, which maintained for more than four years that no such records existed – or that, if they did, they were untraceable – has now provided an apparently comprehensive list of these landings, compiled and presented in an orderly and coherent fashion."
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Heres what seems to have happened today - incredible if so:

Today it was announced the British state will pay off innocent British tortured gunatanamo prisoners. This isnt out of some attempt to recompense them for wrong doing, its to be able to pay your way out of having to ever disclose anymore files on the subject. This ties in with the black site torture camps and britains role in them: Despite a range of enquiries into Britains role, nothing has come of it, and paying out the millions somehow this means they never have to put out another incriminating document in a court - absolutely jawdropping.

The process of disclosure would lead potentially to the publication of tens of thousands of documents, the intelligence agencies suggested. Documents already disclosed show how for years officials were privately discussing how to cope with a matter that they knew if disclosed to the public would cause serious problems. One document, dated January 2002, quoted officials as recording "no objection to American plans to transfer UK detainees". Early that year, British intelligence officers abroad warned London some prisoners were being mistreated. They asked for legal advice, the documents reveal.

Today's settlement means no more damaging documents or information will be released by the courts.
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Richard Norton Taylors round up
 
also heres a working key link for a piece that was run in the new yorker
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/02/14/050214fa_fact6
and its summary
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0207-12.htm
That piece implicated Egypt, Morocco, Syria, and Jordan.

The dead link for th Sunday Herald which implicated Romania, Poland, Ukraine, Kosovo, Macedonia and Bulgaria was based on an intercepted fax, which is still around on the net:
[EXCERPT]: The intercepted top-secret fax contained information that Amer ica never wanted the world to know – that the US was holding war-on-terror captives at clandestine "black site" prisons in eastern Europe.

The fax, datelined November 10, 2005, 8.24pm, was sent by the Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, in Cairo, to his ambassador in London. It revealed that the US had detained at least 23 Iraqi and Afghani captives at a military base called Mihail Kogalniceanu in Romania, and added that similar secret prisons were also to be found in Poland, Ukraine, Kosovo, Macedonia and Bulgaria.

The discovery of the fax seriously undermines the US’s denial that it has ever used secret detention facilities, breaching international law. It also adds to the pressure for the release of information on "extraordinary renditions". These rendition flights see kidnapped terror suspects taken by the CIA to countries where torture is common, such as Uzbekistan. British intelligence has supported this practice and UK airports, particulary Prestwick, have given CIA jets logistical support...

The fax, intercepted by Swiss intelligence, indicates that Egypt has such proof. It is headed: "The Egyptians have access to sources which confirm the existence of American secret prisons"...

The report noted: "The [Egyptian] embassy got the information from its own sources that 23 Iraqi and American citizens have actually been interrogated at the military base Mihail Kogalniceanu close to the [Romanian] city of Constanza at the Black Sea. Similar interrogation centres exist in Ukraine, Kosovo, Macedonia and Bulgaria."

The fax also referred to "prisoners being transported with American military planes from the base Salt Pit in Kabul to the Polish base Szymany and to the Romanian base on September 21 and 22, 2005."
Click to expand...
 
Dimitris said:
Hello, I have just found out this thread.... There was a big scandal in Greece during 2005, concering the kidnapping basically of Pakistanese immigrants from the police (they were not arrests as they were not charged with anything) and interrogating them about possible connections with Al Queda etc.... Hundreds of immigrants (about 22 only from my town Thebes) were kidnapped in this way during that period secretely and were moved to secret locations where they were interrogated. The immigrant community was also talking about tortures while these interrogatios were taking place. This scandal was connected with the "Air-CIA" case as it was mentioned, it is possible that some of these immigrants were even transfered to other countries for interrogations....

When this scandal finally reached the media on 2006, just after the London bombings, there were information coming through that CIA and british agents were during that period in Greece with a list of "suspects" and were cooperating with the greek intelligence services in order to arrest and interrogate those people. The president of the Pakistanese community in Greece who brought this subject to the attention of the media was hunted by the police as a suspect and a possible terrorist. On 6/11/2006 he got arrested and the Pakistanese government officially asked that he should be deported to Pakistan in order to pass from trial. Finally the greek higher court during 2007 denied to deport him to Pakistan.

The government officially denied that anything happened, an investigation of the events of that period did start because some immigrants started a lawsuit against the state, but on 20/06/2006 the greek parliament decided to decline an investigation if the government was officially involved on that case. On September 2007 though, a former greek secret agent said on an interview at a newspaper that these interrogations did happen and he was present himself on 13 of them.

Sadly this matter, has been forgotten now as it is normally happening in Greece. I don't know if the greek courts have finished the investigation on the case but I don't think so, as I cannot find any published verdict.

Edited to add: When the President of the Pakistaneze community was arrested, a lot of demonstrations took place in Athens in solidarity to him and against this pogrom. Members of the Pakistaneze community organized these demos and were attended by them as well as other immigrant communities, antiracist organizations, left political parties, anarchists and antiauthoritarians. The Pakistaneze embasy in Greece had direct orders from the Musaraf dictatorship to not let these demos to take place. The embassy officials together with the greek inteligence agencies made a list of about 280 Pakistaneze and were calling them on their mobile phones days before the demo threatening them if they attend. The Pakistaneze community says that this list still exists and it is in the hands of the greek authorities, under the name "LIST OF PAKISTANIS RECOMMENDED FOR BLACKLISTING". On the 18/02/2008 the lawyers of the pakistanis community sent a letter to the Chairman of the Greek Parliament, protesting for the existence of this list as well as for the cooperation of the greek authorities with the Dictatorship in Pakistan.

The investigation that our Justice System has allready started, up to now has announced that the interrogations DID happen and our government is lying and they are now investigating to find out which agents attended those.
Click to expand...

After a long time I came back on this thread for more news. Initially there was an investigation for 6 agents that took part in those interrogations. After the end of the first phase of the investigation though, the 4 of the 6 were said that did not take part in any interrogations and only 2 agents were still under investigation.

On 23/04/2010 the final verdict came up, basically saying that the case is closed because "there is no evidence that the Greek Intelligence Services (EYP) work in this way". According to the official report, 5432 immigrants were interrogated by 104 agents after the London bombings and 283 were Pakistanis but there is no evidence that tortures took place and no air transfers to other countries took place. The Pakistanis were claiming that they were transfered to EYP buildings in Parnitha (a mountain just outside Athens) but according to the verdict no EYP building exists there. The verdict also says that the Pakistanis that are witnesses were payed to give such information because of a conflict within the Pakistani community in Greece.

The Pakistani community said that this verdict is a big cover up, that the abductions did take place and that they will continue their struggle.
 
Well, a few months ago the Republicans (always with their finger on the pulse of penal policy and common sense, suggested that if Guantanamo Bay is to be closed that the US should transfer all the Gitmo detainees to...

*Rolls drums*

*Clears throat*

'Yes, you've guessed it, folks, the Republicans want to send them to... ALCATRAZ!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...uggest-Alcatraz-for-Guantanamo-prisoners.html

Yep, despite the facts that the legendary island jail known as 'The Rock' was closed as a Federal penitentiary in 1963, has been a tourist attraction since 1972 and that large parts of the prison buildings are now crumbling ruins, those jolly japesters in charge of the Republican Party still think that Alcatraz would still be an absolutely brilliant place to house what they would describe as the world's most dangerous inmates.

Supremely informed and rational thinking there from the Republicans, methinks.
 
Another confirmed country to add to this massive list, though only as a refuelling stop (same as the UK), thanks to a Wikileaked cable:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/17/wikileaks-cables-turkey-rendition-flights
Turkey allowed use of Incirlik airbase as refuelling stop, US embassy cable reveals, after Turkish denials of involvement

"The Turkish military had allowed us to use Incirlik as a refuelling stop for Operation Fundamental Justice detainee movement operations since 2002, but revoked this permission in February of this year. We understand OSD [office of the secretary of defence] and JCS [joint chiefs of staff] have been discussing whether to approach Turkey to seek to reverse this decision," the cable said.

"We recommend that you do not raise this issue with TGS [Turkish general staff] pending clarification from Washington on what approach state/OSD/JCS/NSC [national security council] wish to take."

The cable contradicts statements made at the time by Turkish officials. On 14 June 2006, a spokesman for Turkey's foreign ministry told reporters: "The Turkish government and state never played a part [in the secret transfers] ... and never will."

Turkey had just been named in a Council of Europe report among 14 European countries that colluded in or tolerated the covert transporting of prisoners.

Amnesty International strongly criticised the EU in November for failing to call to account member states, including Britain, for their complicity in the CIA's rendition and secret detention programme. Amnesty's report, Open Secret (pdf), outlined allegations of CIA renditions involving eight European countries – Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Sweden and the UK.
Click to expand...

The Council of Europe report mentined which implicates 14 EU countires can be read about here (may already have been in this thread)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/5054426.stm
1.jpg
 
Incredibly offending states might have their day in court
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/05/cia-rendition-report-uk-court

Up to two dozen European countries including the UK could face proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights from their involvement in the CIA's extraordinary rendition operations after 9/11, according to a human rights organisation that has documented worldwide secret support for the programme.

At least 54 different governments – more than a quarter of the world's total – were covertly engaged with the global kidnap, detention and torture programme, according to a report published on Tuesday by the Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI), a New York-based NGO. The greatest number – 25 – were in Europe, while 14 were in Asia and 13 in Africa.

lots more in the link
 
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