Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: ...disse il bue yanqui all'asino...

State Dept. Study Cites Torture of Prisoners
Rumsfeld Approved Similar Practices
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 1, 2005; Page A10
The State Department's annual human rights report released
yesterday criticized countries for a range of interrogation
practices it labeled as torture, including sleep deprivation
for detainees, confining prisoners in contorted positions,
stripping and blindfolding them and threatening them with
dogs -- methods similar to those approved at times by the
Bush administration for use on detainees in U.S. custody.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld approved in December
2002 a number of severe measures, including the stripping of
prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and using dogs to
frighten them. He later rescinded those tactics and signed
off on a shorter list of "exceptional techniques," including
20-hour interrogations, face slapping, stripping detainees
to create "a feeling of helplessness and dependence," and
using dogs to increase anxiety.
The State Department report also harshly attacked the
treatment of prisoners in such countries as Syria and Egypt,
where the United States has shipped terrorism suspects under
a practice known as "rendition." An Australian citizen has
alleged that under Egyptian detention he was hung by his
arms from hooks, repeatedly shocked, nearly drowned and
brutally beaten. Most of his fingernails were missing when
he later arrived at Guantanamo Bay.
Bush administration officials have said they never intend
for captives to be tortured and seek pledges from foreign
governments that they will treat detainees humanely.
Human rights advocates said yesterday the widespread reports
of harsh interrogation techniques by the U.S. military and
the CIA during the war on terrorism have undermined the
moral authority of the United States to comment on human
rights abuses in other parts of the world.
Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director of Human Rights
Watch, said autocrats can now push back and assert that the
tactics criticized by the State Department are routinely
used by the United States. "Throughout the debate on
detainee abuses, the administration has been in denial about
the international consequences of the legal decisions that
have been in made in the terrorism context," he said.
Michael Kozak, acting assistant secretary of state for
democracy, human rights and labor, said President Bush "has
been very clear on the issue of torture, which is we are
against it -- and torture by anyone's common-sense
definition of it, not some fancy definition."
But he acknowledged that the events at Abu Ghraib prison in
Iraq in particular "were a stain on the honor" of the United
States. "As we say to people, no country has a perfect human
rights record, and certainly not the United States. We have
problems, too, not just overseas but policemen here abuse
prisoners. It happens. We've seen some great cases of this
over the past few years."
Kozak said the question "is not whether you have human
rights abuses; it's what you do about them when they occur."
He noted that soldiers who abused prisoners at Abu Ghraib
are being court-martialed, and the tactics used at
Guantanamo "have now been challenged in our courts, and
successfully challenged in our courts."
In the lengthy report, the State Department described as
torture the interrogation techniques of a number of key U.S.
allies that appeared similar to the accusations involving
U.S. detainees -- though in many cases the other countries
also used more extreme methods.
In Egypt, the report said, the police and intelligence
service stripped and blindfolded victims and doused them
with cold water. Tunisia was accused of using sleep
deprivation and submerging the head in water, a technique
known as "water boarding" -- rumored to have been used in
some detentions of terrorism suspects. Saudi Arabia was
reported to have used sleep deprivation, along with beatings
and whippings.
Libya, which has resumed diplomatic contacts with the United
States, would chain prisoners to a wall for hours and
threaten to attack them with dogs -- part of a menu of
torture that included applying electric shock, pouring lemon
juice on wounds, and breaking fingers and letting them heal
without medical care.
Iran and North Korea, both labeled part of an "axis of evil"
by Bush, also used techniques similar to those employed in
U.S. terrorism detentions. Iran favored prolonged solitary
confinement with sensory deprivation, long confinement in
contorted positions and sleep deprivation. The "methods of
torture" used in North Korea included severe beatings,
prolonged periods of exposure, public nakedness and being
forced to stand up and sit down to the point of collapse,
the report said.

a practice known as "rendition."
Puttanata sostenuta dal nulla piu' assoluto al momento :)
-Stefano

 -Stefano
Memoria corta, eh Steffi? Postato il giorno stesso su IPI.
Am.
Britain accused over CIA's secret torture flights
UK airports are believed to be operational bases for two executive jets 
used by the CIA to carry out 'renditions' of terror suspects. Report by 
Stephen Grey and Andrew Buncombe
10 February 2005
 Britain's intelligence agencies have been accused of helping America in 
a secret operation that is sending terror suspects to Middle Eastern 
countries where prisoners are routinely tortured and abused.
Since 11 September 2001, the CIA has been systematically seizing 
suspects and sending them, without legal process, not only to Guantanamo 
Bay but to authorities in countries such as Egypt, Jordan and Syria. 
Human rights campaigners say the system, officially known as 
"extraordinary rendition" is a system of torture by proxy.
Britain maintains the main reason it will not deport prisoners being 
held without charge at Belmarsh prison is the fear they will be tortured 
or otherwise abused by their home country. But a series of cases has 
emerged which, critics say, exposes the Government's dishonesty by 
suggesting information provided by Britain about its citizens and 
residents has led to the capture and eventual torture of Islamic 
terrorist suspects.
Britain is also an operational base for two executive jets regularly 
used by the CIA to carry out so-called "renditions". One Gulfstream jet 
- used for taking prisoners to Egypt and Jordan from countries including 
Sweden and Indonesia - has called regularly at Luton, Glasgow, Prestwick 
and Northolt airports.
A Boeing 737 jet, used for the transfer of prisoners, passed through 
Glasgow airport on Monday morning on its way to Iraq. Both jets are 
white and unmarked, apart from their US civilian registration. Inquiries 
suggest they are owned by US companies that exist only on paper and 
which are almost certainly a front for the CIA.
Michael Ratner, the director of the Centre for Constitutional Rights, 
which is representing several former prisoners who were "renditioned", 
said: "It is a secret process. No one really knows what happens in the 
rendition process or in the gulag of secret CIA hellholes [where some 
prisoners are sent]."
One notorious rendition occurred in Sweden in December 2001 when a team 
of masked US agents arrived to transfer two Egyptian dissidents, both 
accused of terrorist involvement, to Cairo. Both complained later of 
torture.
But there is evidence that intelligence originating in Britain may have 
been behind the CIA's involvement in the seizure of at least one of the 
Egyptians, an asylum-seeker named Mohamed al-Zery, who, after months of 
torture, was eventually cleared and freed.
Yassir al-Sirri, an Islamic activist living in London who is accused by 
Egypt and America of having al-Qa'ida connections, said that, in the 
weeks before his own arrest in London in October 2001, he had been in 
touch with Mr Zery, who wanted help with collecting information for his 
asylum claim.
Speaking to BBC Radio's File on Four, Mr Sirri said that when British 
anti-terrorist officers raided his home, they took his computer and his 
fax records and those were passed to the Americans.
"Later in Sweden this man, Mr Zehry, was arrested and this information 
could only have come from the British authorities. They are completely 
responsible. It's criminal," Mr Sirri said.
Mr Sirri discovered later that, in the following weeks, many of his 
contacts around the world were seized. Mr Sirri, who runs an Islamic 
media centre devoted to exposing any human rights abuses, had contacts 
with many families of prisoners.
Mr Sirri had been arrested over accusations he was involved in the 
murder of the Afghan leader, Ahmed Shah Massood, but he was cleared when 
a UK judge described him as an "innocent fall guy". Efforts by both the 
US and Egypt to extradite him for alleged links to terrorism have failed.
In Stockholm, Kjell Jonsson, Mr Zehry's lawyer, said he also believed 
that information passed by Britain was the only explanation for his 
client's arrest and the involvement of American agents.
The practice of sending suspects abroad for coercive interrogation 
gathered pace after 11 September 2001, when a senior counter-terrorism 
officer, Cofer Black, openly admitted that after the al-Qa'ida attacks 
"the gloves came off'.
The procedure was supported by legal memos drafted by the White House 
Counsel, Alberto Gonzales, which claimed the Bush administration was not 
restricted by the Geneva Conventions when dealing with suspects from the 
so-called war on terror.
Michael Scheuer, a former senior CIA official involved in setting up the 
system, said: "The practice of capturing people and taking them to 
second or third countries arose because the Executive assigned the job 
of dismantling terrorist cells to the CIA.
"When the agency came back and said 'where do you want to take them?' 
The message was - 'that's your job'."
Mr Scheuer claims there was legal oversight in every renditioning case 
and yet he admitted suspects were tortured.
"The bottom line is, getting anyone off the street who you are confident 
has been involved, or is planning to be involved, in operations that 
could kill Americans is a worthwhile activity."
Just how many suspects have been subjected to renditioning is unclear.
Critics point out that the US does not permit suspects access to 
lawyers. They liken the secrecy to that which is surrounding the network 
of secret detention centres operated by the CIA around the world in 
places such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, on US ships and on any 
number of locations that have not been publicly disclosed.
But the planes used by the CIA have left a trail. The Gulfstream, then 
registered as N379P, was first spotted landing at Shannon airport, 
Ireland, in spring 2003. Its registration number, since changed, was 
logged by members of a peace camp. They only learnt that it was the 
rendition plane when they were later contacted by Swedish journalists 
investigating the torture of the two Egyptians. "It just looked like a 
civilian plane," said Edward Horgan, 59, from Limerick, one of the 
witnesses to its landing.
American journalists have revealed the plane is formally owned by Bayard 
Foreign Marketing, which lists its headquarters as the address of a 
lawyer in Portland, Oregon. There is no evidence that Thomas Bayard, 
whose signature appears on documents filed with the local authorities, 
is a real person. When The Independent called the firm, there was nobody 
there, just an answering machine.
The allegations that Britain is co-operating with the "rendition" system 
are also bolstered by arrests in Gambia, west Africa, where four British 
residents were arrested and questioned by US agents in November 2002, 
apparently after a tip-off from British authorities.
Wahab al Rawi, an engineer whose family fled persecution in Iraq, was 
surprised to be questioned in Gambia by US agents when he had already 
been interviewed and freed by Britain's security service, MI5, back in 
London.
They had been asking him about his family's friendship with Abu Qatada, 
a radical Islamic cleric now in detention at Belmarsh prison. When Mr 
Rawi asked to see the British high commissioner, he said he was told: 
"Who do you think ordered your arrest?"
Though Mr Rawi was released, his brother Bisher and a business partner, 
Jamil al-Banaa, were picked up by the Americans, apparently in the 
Gulfstream. They are still being held in Guantanamo Bay.
Another case pointing to Britain's involvement is the arrest of Martin 
Mubanga in Zambia. Last weekend, after being freed from Guantanamo Bay, 
he alleged his original arrest came after the involvement, and 
accusations made against him, of an MI6 officer.
Craig Murray, the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, has also 
accused Britain of complicity in torture, because of the use that MI6 
makes of the intelligence gathered in this way by CIA.
He said many prisoners of Uzbek origin captured by American forces were 
taken back to Uzbek jails where they suffered the most brutal torture. 
Information obtained from these interrogations ended up in MI6 reports 
that he received. "I was told by the Foreign Office's senior legal 
adviser that there was nothing in law to prevent us obtaining and using 
material which had been extracted under torture provided that we had not 
ourselves done the torture," he said. "And MI6 said they found the 
intelligence useful. I was shattered and disillusioned."
A Foreign Office spokesman said Britain condemned torture but could not 
ignore intelligence from sources. "Without the sharing of intelligence, 
there would have been many more bloody terrorist attacks that would have 
gone ahead, like the plan to bomb a Christmas market in Strasbourg.
"If you have an agreement to work together against terrorism with 
another country then it's obvious common sense that one has to have a 
certain amount of trust in that country and in the way it chooses to use 
that intelligence."
 ?
10 February 2005 06:59
?

Memoria corta, eh Steffi? Postato il giorno stesso su IPI.
Ed e' la solita puttanata sostenuta dal nulla piu' assoluto :)
-Stefano

 -Stefano
Originale!
Am.