On 5 February, the Open Society Justice initiative, a U.S based human rights advocacy group, released its report Globalizing Torture, CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition. The report gives a comprehensive account of the human rights abuses associated with CIA secret detention and extraordinary rendition operations.
Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City, the CIA embarked on a programme of secret detention and extraordinary rendition of terrorist suspects which put detainee interrogations beyond the reach of the law. Suspected terrorists were seized and flown in secret across borders to be interrogated by foreign governments, or by the CIA itself in “black sites” using torture techniques.
According to the report, responsibility for the abuses associated with these CIA programmes lies not only with the United States but with some 54 foreign governments that were complicit. These governments assisted by hosting detainees on their territories; detaining, interrogating and torturing CIA prisoners; assisting in the capture and transport of detainees; as well as permitting the use of domestic airspace and airports for secret flights transporting detainees.
The report observed that Ireland permitted the use of its airspace and airports for flights associated with the programme. Ireland covertly allowed the CIA to transport prisoners through its airspace and in some instances allowed the CIA to use airports. The majority of prisoners were being transferred to countries such as Syria, Egypt or Jordan where torture methods could be used without consequence. The evidence against Ireland was based on reports from the European Parliament, the Council of Europe and the United Nations who had earlier expressed concern about stopovers by CIA-operated aircrafts at Irish airports, mainly Shannon.
Commenting on the report, Colm O’Gorman, executive director of Amnesty International Ireland, said: "It is undeniable that the Irish Government knew rendition flights transited Ireland and that they knew this breached the legally binding international convention on torture. Yet they did nothing”.
The report is a definitive call to both U.S and foreign governments to end these illegal practices and secure accountability for the associated human rights abuses.
Bulletin readers may remember that in December 2012 the European Court of Human Rights,in El-Masri, found for the first time that standard CIA techniques amounted to torture. It has emerged that the plane used by the CIA to transfer El Masri landed at Shannon Airport on 17 January 2004 on its way to pick him up in Macedonia
Click here to read the report in full
Click here to read a press release from the Open Society Justice Initiative