{"id":2062,"date":"2007-12-19T13:07:20","date_gmt":"2007-12-19T13:07:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/politics\/un-expresses-%e2%80%9cgrave-concern%e2%80%9d-over-cia-torture\/2062\/"},"modified":"2007-12-19T13:07:20","modified_gmt":"2007-12-19T13:07:20","slug":"un-expresses-%e2%80%9cgrave-concern%e2%80%9d-over-cia-torture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/politics\/un-expresses-%e2%80%9cgrave-concern%e2%80%9d-over-cia-torture\/","title":{"rendered":"UN expresses \u201cgrave concern\u201d over CIA torture"},"content":{"rendered":"

UN representative expresses \u201cgrave concern\u201d over CIA torture, Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo hearings<\/a><\/h2>\n
By Naomi Spencer<\/h5>\n

Following a visit earlier this month to the US military prison at Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo Bay, a United Nations human rights representative reported ongoing abuse, drumhead judicial proceedings, and other violations of international law. The report by the UN official, charging the US government with widespread criminality, has been almost entirely ignored by the US media.<\/p>\n

In a report to the UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva December 13, Special Rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism Martin Scheinin said he believed the CIA continues to engage in so-called \u201cextraordinary rendition,\u201d secret detentions and torture. Scheinin suggested that hundreds of detainees held at Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo were not being prosecuted to keep revelations of abuse from emerging. During his visit, he was not allowed to have unmonitored interaction with detainees.<\/p>\n

Of the 305 Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo detainees, about 80 have already been put through combatant status review tribunals (CSRT) and declared not to be \u201cenemy combatants,\u201d although they have not been released. The military has announced that it plans to hold these hearings for another 80 detainees, after which they could ostensibly be convicted by military trial. But for 150 so-called \u201chigh value\u201d prisoners, Scheinin said, \u201cThere is not enough evidence that could be presented, even to a military commission chaired by a military judge. Partly there may not be evidence and partly the risk of issues of torture being raised is too high.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBringing them to court would bring to the court\u2019s attention the method through which the evidence, including the confessions, were obtained,\u201d Scheinin told the press following his report.<\/p>\n

In addition to the recent revelations that the CIA had destroyed interrogation tapes, he said the indefinite detention without trial \u201cis one further affirmation of the conclusion that the CIA or others have been involved in methods of interrogation that are incompatible with international law.\u201d The CIA, Scheinin stated, \u201chas been involved and continues to be involved in the use of interrogation techniques that violate the absolute prohibition against torture.\u201d<\/p>\n

The destruction of the CIA interrogation tapes showing the torture of at least two prisoners underscores the basic fact that egregious human rights violations by the US are not isolated events. On the contrary, torture and illegal detentions have been the standard operating procedure for the CIA, with the cooperation of military brass and the support of the entire political establishment.<\/p>\n

Scheinin said that in a meeting with representatives of the CIA during his visit to the United States, \u201cthe CIA refused to engage in any meaningful interaction aimed at clarifying the means of compliance with international standards of methods of interrogation and accountability in respect of possible abuses.\u201d He also said the CIA refused to meet with him a second time. This stonewalling is yet further evidence of the lawlessness of the US government.<\/p>\n

Significantly, Scheinin noted that behavior by CIA officials \u201csupports the suspicion that the CIA has been involved and continues to be involved in the extraordinary rendition of terrorism suspects and possibly other persons.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moreover, the report concluded, \u201cIt is unlikely that the CIA would be able to run a global programme of rendition and detention of terrorist suspects without at least logistical support by the United States military authorities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the Bush administration declared that it held no other \u201chigh value\u201d detainees in secret detention after transferring 14 to Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo Bay from around the world in 2006, it reserved the possibility of resuming the practice whenever it wished, and has rendered at least one other detainee since then. Other suspected detainees remain missing.<\/p>\n

It should not be forgotten that, in addition to those detainees being held at Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo, the US continues to hold some 700 detainees in Afghanistan and approximately 18,000 detainees in Iraq. Many of these are classified by the US as \u201cunlawful enemy combatants\u201d in order to deny them fundamental legal rights.<\/p>\n

While at the Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo Bay prison, Scheinin observed the pre-trial military proceedings against Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the alleged former driver of Osama bin Laden. Hamdan, captured in Afghanistan in 2001, has been held at Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo since 2002.<\/p>\n

The drumhead character Hamdan\u2019s CSRT was evident. \u201cThe hearings provided graphic illustrations of the practical difficulties in providing fair trials at a distant military base, and confirmed the difficulties or even impossibility of the defense to provide evidence,\u201d Scheinin told the press. \u201cNeither witnesses from abroad or high-value detainees from the Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo detention facility next door could be heard, at least on this particular occasion.\u201d<\/p>\n

The written report is more specific: \u201cThese are administrative processes rather than judicial ones. Detainees are not provided with a lawyer during the course of hearings.\u201d Even if all charges are dropped, \u201cthe most that a reviewing court may do is to order reconsideration of a decision, not release.\u201d This violates international prohibitions on arbitrary detention, habeas corpus<\/em> rights, the right to a timely trial, and other fundamental legal protections.<\/p>\n

As could be expected, US media coverage of the report and the Hamdan CSRT has been nonexistent. Neither the New York Times<\/em>, Washington Post<\/em>, nor Los Angeles Times<\/em> published an article on the topic, with the main coverage in the US coming from brief wire reports from the AP and Reuters.<\/p>\n

Also typical, the response of the US government to the report has consisted largely of the attempt to dismiss and discredit it. Melanie Khanna, a US legal adviser, was quoted in both the AP and Reuters articles at some length. Khanna said that sections of Scheinin\u2019s report dealing with legal violations by the US \u201csimply catalogue well-known criticisms and fail even to acknowledge that there are multiple ways of approaching the difficult issues discussed…\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope that in future the work of the Special Rapporteur proceeds differently,\u201d Khanna said, claiming Scheinin\u2019s description of the combatant status reviews was \u201cin part misleading about the facts of the process, and revisits well-worn, ill-informed criticisms of military commissions hearings. The unfortunate fact is that a large part of the report again repeats unfair and oversimplified criticisms of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, the \u201cwell-worn\u201d arguments against the military tribunals have also been made by the US Supreme Court\u2013specifically in regard to the case of Hamdan\u2013before this decision was scuttled by Congress in the 2006 Military Commissions Act. In that case, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld<\/em>, the court ruled that President Bush did not have the authority to establish military commissions, and found them to be illegal under military law and the Geneva Conventions.<\/p>\n

When Hamdan was subject to another military commission in June 2007, charges of conspiracy and supporting terrorism were thrown out by the military judge, who ruled that the commission lacked jurisdiction because Hamdan had not been officially classified as an \u201cunlawful enemy combatant.\u201d<\/p>\n

The government appealed this decision, asking a military court to declare Hamdan an \u201cunlawful enemy combatant\u201d so he can be tried once again. A ruling has not been issued as of this writing. During the hearing, the defense was denied the request to call three \u201chigh value\u201d detainees held at Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo for testimony on the spurious grounds that the request was not timely because of the clearance required to access such prisoners. The detainees, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Ramzi Bin al-Shib and Abu Faraj al-Libi, have all been subjected to CIA interrogations and torture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UN representative expresses \u201cgrave concern\u201d over CIA torture, Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo hearings By Naomi Spencer Following a visit earlier this month to the US military prison at Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo Bay, a United Nations human rights representative reported ongoing abuse, drumhead judicial proceedings, and other violations of international law. The report by the UN official, charging the US government […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[53],"class_list":{"0":"post-2062","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-politics","7":"tag-un"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2062\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}