Damning new report (via Open Society) reveals the extent of nations desperate to help Washington break laws and morality post 9/11. When our leaders speak about believing in human rights, the best response is to laugh in their faces. Via the Guardian:
The full extent of the… CIA‘s extraordinary… rendition… programme has been laid bare with the publication of a report showing there is evidence that more than a quarter of the world’s governments covertly offered support.
A 213-page report compiled by the… Open Society Justice Initiative… (OSJI), a New York-based… human rights… organisation, says that at least 54 countries co-operated with the global kidnap, detention and… torture… operation that was mounted after 9/11, many of them in Europe.
So widespread and extensive was the participation of governments across the world that it is now clear the CIA could not have operated its programme without their support, according to the OSJI.
“There is no doubt that high-ranking Bush administration officials bear responsibility for authorising human rights violations associated with secret detention and extraordinary rendition, and the impunity that they have enjoyed to date remains a matter of significant concern,” the report says.
“But responsibility for these violations does not end with the… United States. Secret detention and extraordinary rendition operations, designed to be conducted outside the United States under cover of secrecy, could not have been implemented without the active participation of foreign governments. These governments too must be held accountable.”
The states identified by the OSJI include those such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt and Jordan where the existence of secret prisons and the use of torture has been well documented for many years. But the OSJI’s rendition list also includes states such as Ireland, Iceland and Cyprus, which are accused of granting covert support for the programme by permitting the use of airspace and airports by aircraft involved in rendition flights.
Canada not only permitted the use of its airspace but provided information that led toone of its own nationals being taken to Syria… where he was held for a year and tortured, the report says.
Iran and Syria – two-thirds of George W Bush’s so-called… axis of evil… – are identified by the OSJI as having participated in the rendition programme. Syria is said to have been one of the “most common destinations for rendered suspects”, while Iran is said to have participated in the CIA’s programme by handing over 15 individuals to Kabul shortly after the US invasion of Afghanistan, in the full knowledge that they would fall under US control.
Other countries are conspicuous by their absence from the rendition list:… Sweden… and Finland are present, but there is no evidence of Norwegian involvement. Similarly, while many Middle Eastern countries did become involved in the rendition programme, Israel did not, according to the OSJI research.
Many of the countries on the list are European. Germany,… Spain, Portugal and Austria are among them, but France, the Netherlands and Hungary are not. Georgia stands accused of involvement in rendition, but Russia does not.
Some countries, such as Poland, Lithuania and Romania, hosted secret prisons on their territory.
The OSJI reports that the UK supported CIA rendition operations, interrogated people being secretly detained, allowed the use of British airports and airspace, arranged for one man, Sami al-Saadi, to be rendered to Libya… with his entire family, where he was subsequently tortured, and provided intelligence that allowed a second similar operation to take place.