Britio utiligas torturon

Kiel vi scias tion?

Michael!

From the British daily national newspaper The Guardian.(by Ian Cobain, Wednesday 8 July)


The last torture warrant in England was issued in 1641. Enraged by the mistreatment of religious dissenters and other enemies of King Charles I, parliament resolved to abolish the Star Chamber. The Habeas Corpus Act, passed that year, was to end forever what the lawmakers described as the "great and manifold mischeifes and inconveniencies" of that tribunal, which had "beene found to be an intollerable burthen to the subjects".

Today, however, there is mounting evidence that torture is still regarded by some agents of the British state as a useful and legitimate investigative tool. There is evidence too that in the post-9/11 world, government officials have been prepared to look the other way while British citizens, and others, have been tortured in secret prisons around the world. It is also clear that an official policy, devised to govern British intelligence officers while interrogating people held overseas, resulted in people being tortured.

The Guardian has established that Tony Blair, when prime minister, was aware of the existence of this policy. What he knew of its terrible consequences is less clear: he has repeatedly been asked, in a series of letters from the Guardian, what he believed to have happened to those who were subjected to the policy, but he has repeatedly failed to answer the question. There is a growing suspicion that Blair could not have been alone, and that other very senior figures in government may have been aware of the existence of Britain's secret interrogation policy. What did David Blunkett and Jack Straw, the ministers responsible for MI5 and MI6 at the time, know about the policy and its consequences for people detained in the so-called war on terror? They too have declined to say, stating that it is the British government's policy not to condone torture, but that they cannot comment further because of a number of forthcoming court cases.

Shoulder to shoulder with the US
The genesis of the policy can be traced to the first, febrile days following the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, when the British government was determined, in Blair's words, to stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States, and when our intelligence agencies were anxious to discover more about the threat that al-Qaida posed to the UK and its interests. With the US about to go to war to topple the Taliban government in Afghanistan, it was imperative that the British should question al-Qaida suspects captured on the battlefield or caught fleeing the country, both to support the US and to gather intelligence that could protect the British public.

According to evidence heard in secret by the intelligence and security committee (ISC), the Westminster body tasked with providing political oversight of the UK's intelligence agencies, it was decided that officers from the Security Service, MI5, would take the lead in questioning detainees, with the Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6, standing in only when nobody from MI5 was available. The work appears to have fallen to a section of MI5 known as the international terrorism-related agent running section.

With hundreds of British Muslims thought to have attended training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the clear possibility that some would be captured by US forces, in November 2001 MI5 consulted the Crown Prosecution Service, which reassured its senior officers that interrogating detainees overseas would not impede future prosecutions in Britain.

It appears that nobody thought to give officers from either agency any advice about the Geneva Conventions, and nor were they warned that in 1972 the British government had banned five techniques of mistreatment that had been employed by the British army in Northern Ireland - hooding, being forced to stand in a stressful position with arms outstretched against a wall, being subjected to loud noise, sleep deprivation, food and drink deprivation. But, as senior officers from both organisations later reassured the ISC, they "operate in a culture that respects human rights ..."

In the White House and at the Pentagon, such respect had evaporated completely. As Cofer Black, former head of counter-terrorism at the CIA was later to tell a congressional committee: "All you need to know: there was a before 9/11 and there was an after 9/11. After 9/11 the gloves came off."

There must have been some realisation of this new fact of life at the highest levels of the British government. Craig Murray, who was later removed from his post as ambassador to Uzbekistan after denouncing the use of intelligence extracted under torture, recently told parliament's joint committee on human rights (JCHR) he had been informed by a senior Foreign Office official that a decision that such intelligence should not be questioned was taken by Jack Straw, then the foreign secretary, following discussions with senior intelligence officials. Straw describes this claim as "entirely untrue". But when Michael Wood, the FO's senior legal advisor, was asked his opinion, he is known to have concluded it was not an offence in international law to receive or possess information extracted under torture, although it would not be admissible as evidence in court.

On 9 January 2002, a few hours after Blair became the first western leader to visit Afghanistan's new post-Taliban leader, Hamid Karzai, an aircraft carrying the first group of MI5 interrogators touched down at Bagram airfield, 32 miles north of Kabul. A number of MI6 officers were already in Afghanistan, however, and the following day one of them conducted the first British interrogation of a detainee held by US forces. Immediately after the interrogations ended, senior intelligence officers back in London received a clear signal that they and government ministers would need to find innovative ways of co-operating with their US allies in the new, gloves-off world.

The MI6 officer reported that the US military had mistreated the detainee before the questioning began. It is not clear what details he or she gave, but they were sufficient to provoke a remarkably rapid response. The next day clear instructions were sent to the officer - and copied to every other MI6 and MI5 officer in the field - explaining how to deal with this situation. The speed of the reaction could suggest that the solution devised by senior MI5 and MI6 officers and the agencies' lawyers had been rushed, and was possibly ill-thought out. Conversely, it could be a sign that the dilemma had been anticipated, and the remedy very carefully considered in advance.

"Under the various Geneva Conventions and protocols," London warned its intelligence and security officers, "all prisoners, however they are described, are entitled to the same levels of protection. You have commented on their treatment. It appears from your description that they may not be being treated in accordance with the appropriate standards. Given that they are not within our custody or control, the law does not require you to intervene to prevent this.

"That said, Her Majesty's Government's stated commitment to human rights makes it important that the Americans understand that we cannot be party to such ill treatment nor can we be seen to condone it. In no case should they be coerced during or in conjunction with an SIS [MI6] interview of them. If circumstances allow, you should consider drawing this to the attention of a suitably senior US official locally.

"It is important that you do not engage in any activity yourself that involves inhumane or degrading treatment of prisoners. As a representative of a UK public authority, you are obliged to act in accordance with the Human Rights Act 2000 which prohibits torture, or inhumane or degrading treatment. Also as a Crown Servant, you are bound by Section 31 of the Criminal Justice Act 1948, which makes acts carried out overseas in the course of your official duties subject to UK criminal law. In other words, your actions incur criminal liability in the same way as if you were carrying out those acts in the UK."

These instructions took no account of MI5 and MI6 officers' responsibilities under the UN Convention Against Torture. Philippe Sands QC, the professor of international law at University College London whose book Torture Team laid bare the origins of the Bush administration's torture policies, says the instructions fall far short of what is required in international law.

Sands points out that article 4 of the 1984 UN Convention Against Torture, to which the UK is a party, criminalises "an act by any person which constitutes complicity or participation in torture", and that the 1998 Rome statute of the international criminal court extends criminal responsibility where military commanders and civilian superiors "should have known" that international crimes were being committed but "failed to take all necessary and reasonable measures within his or her power to prevent or repress their commission". The meaning of complicity, he adds, is clarified by a 1998 judgment by the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Its appeal chamber treated "complicity" as being akin to "aiding and abetting" or "assistance" that could be "physical or in the form of moral support". A crime could be committed even if the abettor did not take any tangible action, provided the actions "directly and substantially" assisted and where there was "knowledge ... that torture is being practised".

According to Sands, the instructions "may have caused British personnel to cross a line into complicity", and that ministers who approved the policy may also be culpable.

On learning of these instructions, in a letter from MI6 in September 2004, the ISC recommended a few improvements in training for intelligence officers carrying out interrogations overseas, and suggested that the UK should seek agreement with its alli

"According to evidence heard in secret ..."

Chu tio ne iomete rememorigas al ni ke, en sekreta chambro che la Vatikano, estus "sekretaj" kaj plejgravaj dokumentoj kies ekziston neniu scias?

Michael,

I can list the sources of information for you:

The testimony of those arrested and tortured in Pakistan
Interviews given by Pakistani intelligence agencies
Evidence given in British courts by MI5 & MI6 officers
Evidence given by doctors and psychologists.

If what you read shatters your impressions of the British state, then all well and good. That was the reason in part why I penned the piece.

My main point, though, is that it is an outrage that something like this is happening - and that people in other countries ought to know about it.

The British state has never done anything to improve the feelings I have towards its policies since 1759 (conquest of Nouvelle-France). I just wonder why we talk so much about occasional cases of torture when the United Kingdom and the United States are involved, and so little about human heads that radical Islamism wields proudly on television.

Dear Michael,

You ask why I am so concerned about human rights violations by Western countries but am apparently unconcerned about the terrible abuses by Muslim fundamentalists.

In the crudest terms I can answer in this way. I believe in secular liberal-democratic ideals and therefore it concerns me when our countries betray these values. I despise the religious and social policies of radical political Islam, and writing articles saying that beheadings or stonings are wrong is utterly pointless.

I have pasted much of the original article from The Guardian below, but the last part is missing. Perhaps the easiest thing is for me to give you the link to the paper.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jul/08/mi5-mi6-acccused-of-torture

The Guardian is not the only paper covering the story.

Esta ege ampleksa artikolo kaj daŭros kelkaj semajnoj antaŭ ol mi tralegis ĝin helpe de vortaro.

Tamen io, kio iom cerbumigas min jam nun estas la bildo, kiun vi prezentas apud via originala teksto. Mi ne trovas similan bildon en la angla artikolo.

Do kio estas la rilato inter la artikolo kaj la fotografio?

Temas la artikolo pri torturo. Temas la bildo pri torturo. La bildo ne montras la torturon de brita civitano en Pakistano.

Bone, Eble estus bone se vi estus menciinta tion en via artikolo. :-)

Everyone knows the truth: MI6 officers sat around or strolled the corridors while British citizens were being tortured for them. Perhaps curiosity never got the better of these agents and they never peeped in as the finger nails came out; I tend to doubt that.

Miliband lied when he claimed the government never participated in or condoned torture. The truth is that New Labour are as intensely relaxed about electric shocks applied to the genitals as they are about corruption and income inequality.

Next to the crimes which British government ministers, MI6 and its specific agents have committed (all three share culpability) the so-called guidelines under which these people were supposedly operating are almost irrelevant.

"Tamen, ĉar la britaj oficiale kontraŭas torturon, la britaj policanoj ne povas esti en la tortur-ĉambro; ili sidas en najbara ĉambro. Kiam la arestanto parolas, li estas portanta al la britaj; se la respondo ne estas sufiĉe bone, li reiras al la tortur-ĉambro."
Tio memorigas la konduton de la fifama Sankta Inkvizicio : oficiale tiujn bonaj kristianoj ne torturis, ne bruligis, nur kiam ili juĝis homon kulpa, ili enmanigis lin al la povo "sekulara brako", kiu zorgis pri la ekzekuto !