Human rights and extraordinary rendition

Written by Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP and published in Liberal Democrat European Group Newsletter on Tue 30th May 2006

On 23rd May 2006, Amnesty International published its yearly report on "the state of the world's human rights." The first line of the UK's entry says that in 2005, "the government continued to erode fundamental human rights, the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary, including by persisting with attempts to undermine the ban on torture at home and abroad".

The events of recent weeks have demonstrated just how accurate an assessment this is: Tony Blair, backed by "The Sun", is talking about rewriting his own Human Rights Act, and John Reid, our new Home Secretary, has proposed a new form of summary justice for the legal system which would allow victims of crime a say in the fate of the perpetrator.

However, the UK is not alone in flouting its human rights obligations. Since January this year I have been 1st vice-chair of a European Parliament temporary committee investigating alleged "extraordinary rendition" - the illegal kidnap, transport, detention and torture of prisoners by the CIA. Evidence uncovered so far suggests that the CIA and other American agencies have constructed an intricate web of front companies, aircraft registrations and airports through which to operate unmonitored "torture flights", seeking to escape international rules on control of state aircraft by badging them as civilian flights.

Typically, terror suspects are seized directly by the CIA or maybe US army special forces (or by proxies who hand them over) without any judicial process, access to lawyers, charges or trial. They are sent shackled and blindfolded on long journeys with several stops before detention and interrogation, allegedly under torture, either in American-controlled known (like Guantanamo Bay) or secret prisons (allegedly including venues in Poland, Romania and possibly Balkan countries) or outsourced to 'friendly' Middle Eastern countries like Syria, Egypt and Jordan. There is plenty of scope for dodgy information, revenge, incentive payments or sheer confusion to finger people wrongly as suspected terrorists, especially in Afghanistan.

Based on evidence from hearings the MEP committee has held and flight logs we have seen, it seems that perhaps 1000 'CIA' flights have transited the EU since September 11th 2001. Some of those may have been carrying US personnel only, but we believe strongly that many had prisoners on board and that European citizens and residents have been among the hundreds who have been "extraordinarily rendered." There are reckoned by human rights NGOs to be dozens of 'ghost detainees' whose existence is unacknowledged and to whom even the Red Cross is refused access.

It goes without saying that such a practice is a gross and shameful violation of international human rights law by the US authorities, for which I hope they will in time be held to account, not least by the US Congress. However, as a European Parliament Committee, our primary task is to find out exactly what EU governments' role has been in this sorry story. Under Article 6 of the EU Treaty all member states are required to uphold the European Convention on Human Rights, which, needless to say, includes the ban on removal to places where there is risk of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Advice given by eminent members of the legal profession repeatedly stresses that states are under a positive obligation to investigate possible breaches of human rights where there is cause for concern. Our committee will eventually have to consider whether to call for sanctions, up to loss of voting rights, on those Member States which have breached human rights.

The key question facing our committee then is just how much our governments have known of what is going on in their territory, and what they have done about it. When the Council Secretary- General and High Representative for Foreign Policy Javier Solana addressed our committee, he shocked MEPs by asserting that he had no authority to call Member States to account regarding their human rights commitments (I said he gave a pathetic image of the EU).

The picture slowly emerging shows that it would simply stretch credibility for European governments to claim they knew nothing. Aside from the sheer volume of flights transiting European airspace, specific cases have demonstrated not merely awareness but active collaboration in the extraordinary rendition of several individuals. Abu Omar, for example, was a terrorist suspect kidnapped in Italy in 2003 and transported to Egypt where he was interrogated under torture. Despite claims by the Italian authorities that they knew nothing of the case, an Italian policeman has recently come forward to admit that he was personally involved in the kidnap. Similarly, German citizen Khaled al-Masri was kidnapped whilst holidaying in Macedonia, drugged, flown to Afghanistan where he was tortured for 5 months. Mr al-Masri, it seems, was a victim of either mistaken identity or unjustified allegations, for upon his release the US admitted to the German authorities that it had made an error. Several unanswered questions remain as to whether German officials were involved. Closer to home, the British government has recently been forced to admit the extensive involvement of the MI5 in the case of British resident Bisher al-Rawi, a constituent of mine who was kidnapped in the Gambia and is currently languishing in Guantanamo Bay.

Unsurprisingly, EU and other governments are extremely unwilling to cooperate with our enquiry. While we unfortunately have no formal power to force them to do so, we are hopeful of some cooperation in the second stage of our work. During a recent trip to Washington government officials acknowledged that rendition operations had been undertaken since 2001 (though they deny the torture) and they hint that these would not have been possible without the knowledge of European governments (the phrase used is 'we respect their sovereignty') .

Just how deep that involvement has been remains to be seen. However, I personally believe that we are witnessing a furious attempt by EU member states and others to cover up ill-measured, panic-stricken responses to the events of September 11th 2001, when they failed to take account of their human rights obligations and purposefully did not ask the right questions of the US administration. In the case of smaller states, such as Macedonia, the pressure from the Bush administration, with its bullying "if you're not with us, you're with the terrorists" attitude, may have been simply to much to bear. We know that Rumsfeld and co saw eastern Europe as helpful 'new Europe' in the 'war on terror'. One clue is to look at which countries' leaders got rewarded with White House visits and Bush handshakes!

As well as building up an accurate picture of what has been going on, we must ensure that safeguards are put in place to prevent such abuses in the future. When the full Parliament votes on the report of our committee in July this year I hope they will include a call for new European and international rules governing the use of airspace and airports. The remarks of Terry Davies, secretary-general of the EU's sister organisation the Council of Europe, that Europe is a "happy hunting ground for foreign intelligence services" also needs to be urgently addressed.

But the most important change of all that is needed is for human rights to once again be given the supremacy they deserve. For if a person has a right to life, liberty and security of person purely by virtue of being human, then it follows that all humans must possess the same rights. To start suggesting that some people's rights are worth more than others, is a chilling reminder of George Orwell's famous words "all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others." MEPs are determined to uphold those values which separate us from the true terrorists, and ensure that we do their job for them by undermining the very foundations of our own societies.