Archive for category News & Clippings
A rotten debate in the state of Denmark
Posted by IRCT in Europe, News & Clippings on 15/03/2012
Both former Prime Minister (and current Secretary-General of NATO) Anders Fogh Rasmussen and current Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning Schmidt have publicly stated their support for the use of information obtained through torture, despite its prohibition in the UN Convention against Torture, to which Denmark has ratified. Left photo by Jose Sena Goulao, and right photo by Arbeiderpartiet; both available via Flickr through Creative Commons License.
The Danish debate on torture has continued this week since our first post on the matter. And it has revealed a disturbing level of acceptance of torture at all levels of society – from the general public to heads of state – within this Scandinavian nation.
While many are retracting and doubling-back on public statements, Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt has agreed* that Denmark may use information obtained through the use of torture.
Earlier this week, journalists asked Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former Danish Prime Minister and current Secretary-General of NATO, about his opinion on the debate – should Denmark use information obtained through torture by third-parties? Despite all NATO states having ratified the UN Convention against Torture, which clearly prohibits this practice, Rasmussen invoked the faulty “ticking bomb” argument and stated that it may be a necessary practice to fight terrorism.
IRCT Secretary-General Brita Sydhoff found that abhorrent.
“This is nonsense. In your position, you really should know better than this, Mr Rasmussen. Courts around the world know it. Intelligence services know it. The armies in many countries deplore its use. Torture is counterproductive, harmful and it creates victims who often suffer for a lifetime. Torture solves nothing.
“While the “ticking bomb” scenario continues to be invoked in such arguments, it has, countless times been discredited [PDF].
“Moreover, torture is illegal. At all times. In all places. The use of information obtained through torture is also illegal under the terms of the United Nations Convention Against Torture, to which Denmark along with all other NATO countries, has ratified.
“If you don’t understand the Convention, or the rationale behind it, I, and my colleagues throughout our worldwide movement of 150 rehabilitation centres in over 70 countries, can help you. Our doors are always open to you for dialogue. They can also show your our work with survivors of this deplorable act.”
Everyone has begun weighing in. Danish Conservative Party spokesman Tom Benke stated that Denmark’s police force should be ready to use torture if necessary. He later amended this statement.
Shockingly – and most disappointingly - these state officials are not alone in this opinion. A Gallup poll this week found only 57% of Danes say torture should never be used to obtain information. In 2004, 68% of Danes agreed with that statement; this is a disturbing trend, but not so surprising given the mixed messages coming from those in positions of power.
*Note: Almost all links are in Danish.
Denmark may use information obtained through torture
Posted by IRCT in News & Clippings on 12/03/2012
Danish Foreign Minister Villy Søvndal had to step back from comments he made promising that the Danish state would never use information from torture. As such, the status quo remains, and Denmark's intelligence services may use such information. Photo available through Creative Commons license, via Flickr.
“Information obtained through torturing suspects in other countries will from now on be banned in investigations undertaken by Danish authorities,” said Danish Foreign Minister, Villy Søvndal, in an interview on Sunday morning to national Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende.
The very same evening, Søvndal retracted this in a joint statement with the Danish Minister for Justice, Morten Bødskov in which they stated that Danish authorities must be able to exchange information with countries that “use methods of interrogation that may contradict Danish principles of justice” – in other words information that has been obtained via torture.
Under Denmark’s former government, the Danish police intelligence unit (PET) was permitted to use information obtained through torture under the guise of anti-terror policies.
For a brief moment, following Søvndal’s statement, it seemed that this policy would come to an end, However, the withdrawal of Søvndal’s initial statement leaves Denmark with the status quo whereby information obtained by torture can be used in investigation procedures by the Danish authorities.
Denmark has often been described as a country at the forefront in the fight against torture, not least because the Danish founder of IRCT, and it’s local member centre the RCT, Inge Genefke, devoted her life to fight this horrific practice.
Today, the hypothetical “ticking bomb” scenario, a fantasy of Hollywood movies, was recited in Danish newspapers as an argument in support of the use of torture. The legal spokesman from the Danish Conservative Party, Tom Behnke, said: “If the intelligence unit from a rogue state informs the Danish police intelligence unit (PET) that a terror attack has been planned against the Danish Opera then PET, of course, has to be able to use this information”.
The anti-torture movement has countered the “ticking bomb” scenario with facts and good reason countless times. It should be commonly understood by now, especially among high-level politicians, that information obtained through torture is completely and utterly unreliable. The pain and suffering that torture inflicts upon a person will make him/her say anything to end the pain; additionally, the anguish and distress during the torture disrupts a persons’ sense of reality and truth so that the victim cannot differentiate between the two, as Danish IRCT member centre RCT also stated today.
Accepting information obtained through torture effectively legitimises the regimes around the world that maintain their grip on power and terrorise their populations through the use of torture. To give a current high-profile example, it is tantamount to legitimising Assad’s Syria.
If any thing good can be said about this developing news story, it is that a renewed debate on Denmark’s slippery position on the use of torture has gained the renewed interest of the public. In case people didn’t know before, they know now: yes, Danish authorities may accept evidence obtained through torture. And yes, this contradicts the United Nations Convention Against Torture (CAT), to which Denmark is a signatory. Should there be doubts about the applicability of this particular debate, Article 15 specifically stipulates that:
“Each State Party shall ensure that any statement, which is established to have been made as a result of torture shall not be invoked as evidence in any proceedings.”
Freedom from torture: a right for all
Posted by IRCT in News & Clippings on 22/02/2012
Abu Qatada case shows how principles of human rights and freedom from torture extend to all – even the despised
The British press have been quite excitable in their coverage of Abu Qatada’s deportation case recently.
The 51-year-old preacher has been excused of providing religious backing to terrorism, including the September 11 attacks on the U.S.; others allege he has been closely connected with the Al Qaeda terror network.
He has lived in the UK since 1993, when he entered on a fraudulent passport. And many seem to want him out.
As such, for the last 10 years, the British government has been trying to deport Qatada to Jordan, where he stands accused in military trials of assisting in terrorism attacks.
The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Qatada cannot be deported to Jordan because of the risk he may be tortured and that evidence from torture may be used in his trial there.
And while many British newspapers have focused on the issue of torture – and many more on the millions of pounds it has cost the UK to monitor, detain, and process Qatada – the principles of ‘non-refoulement’ at the basis of the Courts decision remain hazy amidst the outcry.
Non-refoulement is proscribed in the UN Convention against Torture – which both the UK and Jordan have ratified. Basically, it means that a country may not deport a person to a country: where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.
While the Prince of Jordan has made public assertions that it is “illogical” to believe Qatada would be tortured if deported to Jordan, the European Court is not of the same opinion.
Atlas of Torture, a project of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights in Vienna, provides profiles of countries human rights and torture records based on reports from UN Special Rapporteurs, the UN Committee against Torture, and the Sub-committee for the Prevention of Torture. Of Jordan, they state that: “It was alleged that torture was commonly practised to extract confessions or to obtain intelligence between the time of arrest and transfer to pre-trial detention… The Special Rapporteur thus concluded that the practice of torture was widespread in Jordan and that torture was routinely used…”
To circumvent its obligations as regards non-refoulment, the UK Home Office has sought assurances from Jordan that Qatada will not be tortured, a naïve undertaking at best. Some members of parliament have gone so far as to suggest that the UK should simply temporarily withdraw from the human rights treaty to thus continue with the deportation.
These are all outrageous suggestions. The UK has deported Tamils and Congolese to their home countries when there was evidence they would be tortured, when nearly at the same moment, during the announcement of the Detainee Inquiry, Prime Minister David Cameron stated, “Our reputation as a country that believes in human rights, fairness and the rule of law – indeed for much of what the services exist to protect – risks being tarnished.”
The rule of law, the UN Convention against Torture, is not something one can simply ignore – or withdraw from – temporarily.
Tessa is communications assistant at the IRCT
After the cloud of tear gas
Posted by IRCT in Middle East North Africa, News & Clippings on 14/02/2012
Focus on Bahrain needed to prevent more human rights violations
Today, as the protesters have made their way from the suburbs of Manama, Bahrain, undoubtedly heading to Pearl roundabout, the security forces quickly made it known – through their sheer presence, the eventual dispersal of tear gas – that they would try to stem the tide of demonstrators at the infamous site. And in the days leading up, the government has continued crackdown and suppression efforts, denying foreigners and foreign press access to Bahrain and hiring public relations firms.
Today marks a year since protesters gathered at Pearl roundabout in Manama, demonstrating against the undemocratic monarchy of Bahrain and calling for reform. Yet, unlike other Arab Spring movements, Bahrain’s demonstrators have often been ‘shouting in the dark’, to employ the title of an Al Jazeera English documentary that chronicled the protests and the resulting crackdown.
Instead of democratic reforms, Bahrainis have faced severe repression, torture, and arbitrary detention. Just last week, Bahrain and Danish citizen and human rights defender Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja wrote a letter to the Danish Foreign Ministry from prison calling for them to push for his release:
Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja’s letter to the Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs from prison, 8 Feb 2012http://www.scribd.com/embeds/81440913/content?start_page=1&view_mode=list
In it, he points to an official 500-page government inquiry in Bahrain that documented cases of torture. In addition, there was the highly publicized cases of over a dozen doctors, surgeons, and nurses at a Manama hospital who were sentenced to several years in prison after being tortured to confess. Their alleged ‘crime’: Doing their job as doctors and treating the wounded and dying protesters coming from Pearl roundabout after security forces cracked down.
All these cases, and yet it seems the torture continues in Bahrain. Within the last year, demonstrators have continued to take to the streets; and many are apprehended, detained, and torture by security forces. We hope on this anniversary that the international world focuses on Bahrain.
“What Bahrainis need is international pressure, international attention to stop the torture, stop the human rights violations; then, we can fight for democracy ourselves,” said Maryam Al-Khawaja, daugher of Abdulhadi and current foreign affairs officer from the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, during a panel discussion last year.
In Haiti – and U.S. – impunity must end
Posted by IRCT in Justice, Latin America & the Caribbean, News & Clippings, North America on 06/02/2012
Jean-Claude 'Baby Doc' Duvalier was president of Haiti from 1971-1986, during which thousands of Haitians were brutally tortured, killed, or 'disappeared' during his 15-year regime. Photo under Creative Commons license, by a-birdie.
“Moving forward” and “learning lessons” cannot be done without holding perpetrators of torture to account
After 25 years in exile, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, the former ‘president for life’ responsible for the deaths of over 30,000 Haitians, returned to his country and was promptly put on trial.
However, much to the likely devastation of the survivors of his torturous regime and the families of victims killed during his term, he has only been charged with corruption and embezzlement. There are to be no charges for the torture, extrajudicial killings, and ‘disappearances’ that the victims of his crimes deserve to see him held accountable for.
And both expectantly and deservedly, the condemnations of the Haitian decision have come flooding in. From the Washington Post Editorial Board to the UN High Commission for Human Rights, the magistrate responsible for the decision has been unanimously vilified for allowing Duvalier impunity for his most heinous crimes and human rights violations. I agree that Duvalier should be held accountable and that this recent decision was rightfully worthy of condemnation.
However, a common from Haiti’s current president caught my attention: Asked about the Duvalier case, President Martelly told The Washington Post: “It is part of the past. We need to learn our lessons and move forward.”
President Martelly’s language is markedly similar to another leader a little to the north of the island nation. The current U.S. administration has refused to pursue an investigation or charges against top Bush Administration officials for allegations of torture committed during the so-called ‘war on terror’, with Obama saying in a statement that it is a “time for reflection, not retribution”. These crimes too have been swept under the carpet, despite international obligations to properly investigate and hold perpetrators to account.
Yet both Duvalier and U.S. government officials need to be held to account for their crimes. Sweeping the responsibility for these crimes under the rug not only fails the state’s obligations to the survivors and victims’ families; it perpetuates a cycle of impunity, and gives a free rein for torturers to continue.
Tessa is a communications assistant at the IRCT.
Global crime: The horror of child torture
Posted by IRCT in News & Clippings, Voices on 31/01/2012
A Google search on “child torture” today, the 31st of January 2012 yields headlines like these: Children tortured, killed during Syrian regime’s crackdown: UN; UN: ‘Numerous’ reports of child torture by Syria; UN: Syrian forces killed, tortured 256 children.
Torture of children is not a “new” thing, but a thing that rarely surfaces in such a clear form as in the news on Syria. The situation in Syria has attracted the attention of high-level segments in the international community – with good reason. Syria is in the hot spot, so hot that headlines have (finally) placed the words “children and torture” in the same sentence. In the world of international politics and policies, this connection is not a common sight – especially in headlines.
One of the aims of the IRCT’s ongoing project on children is to bring more attention to the fact that children are being tortured, and headlines like those on Syria make one want to grasp the opportunity to raise the issue: torture of children is not only happening in Syria but in many places of the world. Everyday. It needs to be said loud and clear and more and more. If not, I worry that we will not be able to address it for what it is.
This is not to say that no-one is saying anything about children being tortured – data on the torture of children exists (all PDFs). However, it is often drowned in a wider discourse on violence against children in which distinctions between child abuse and child torture are blurred. All violence against children is inexcusable and horrific, no doubt about that, but we need to call it what it is in order to better fight it. Violence against children in detention, care and justice institutions, and police lock-ups amounts to torture because these institutions are run by public authorities.
The controversy of placing the words children and torture in the same sentence makes the issue a delicate and difficult one to address – this also makes it difficult to fundraise for. It is alarming to say that children are being tortured. The uneven balance of power that exists between a torturer and the tortured becomes incomprehensible when imagining that the tortured is a child.
Children are in a developmental stage of their lives and have yet to develop the coping skills of adults. The threshold of pain and suffering in particular makes this horrific act, when committed against a child, all the more chilling. It is commonly held that the special vulnerability of children renders them more susceptible to the physical and psychological effects of torture. Younger children, in particular, have a lower threshold of pain; and physical or mental abuse may have a much more profound impact on the body and mind of a developing child than on an adult.
The deployment of a Special Representative on Violence Against Children in 2009 has generated new and needed attention to the scope of violence committed against children in the world of today. This said, a review of NGO reports to the Committee on the Rights of the Child concluded that the availability of information from NGOs on violence against children is “uneven“. There is need to improve the reporting of this crime. And it needs to happen now.
Children are also fighters and survivors – and children who have been tortured can overcome the horrors, if they receive proper and timely treatment. The main objectives of IRCT’s project on children and torture is to raise awareness of the fact we need to improve documentation on cases of child torture and to develop child-appropriate rehabilitation for child survivors of torture. Not least we need to prevent it from happening. In order to do this, we first need to recognize the awful truth: that it exists and is widespread.
Line, a sociologist specialising in human rights, implements the research project on children and torture in Asia.
(Not) “Only incompetent investigation officers believe in torture”
Posted by IRCT in Asia, News & Clippings on 24/01/2012
While the HRW reports a disastrous year for human rights in Pakistan, positive signals are arriving from Punjab. The province’s police have been instructed to stop torturing suspects in custody after the Senate Functional Committee on Human Rights took note of media reports of an ‘increasing trend of police torture’ in the province. Read the news here.
We welcome the news that the committee seem to have convinced the police to revise their investigation methods and concentrate on collecting physical evidence using forensic techniques rather than coercing suspects into making confessions. It also called for improvements in the recruitment and training of police and other law enforcement personnel.
According to the committee “Only incompetent investigation officers believe in torture”. Yet sadly, it’s not just incompetent police officers who torture. Despite being a gross violation of human rights, which has many times been proved inefficient, many prison officers and detention staff, military personnel, paramilitary forces, state-controlled contra-guerilla forces, and even some health and legal professionals still believe in it. Read more about who the perpetrators of torture are.
No more shameful anniversaries – 10 years of Guantánamo
Posted by IRCT in News & Clippings, North America on 11/01/2012
London protesters demand the closure of Guantanamo, which has been open 10 years today. Photo by casmaron through Creative Commons license.
Ten years ago today, the first detainees arrived in Guantánamo. Between now and then, the detention centre has become more than just a symbol of human rights violations, but the site of crimes of torture and arbitrary, indefinite detention. Look at the figures provided here by the American Civil Liberties Union, a US-based organisation that focuses on civil rights.
Compiled by the ACLU, source.
As such, we have released a statement condemning the prison, requesting its immediate closure, and the trying or release of the current 171 detainees (note: no detainees have been released in the last year despite almost 90 being cleared for release).
The naval base and prison, which sits on less than 120 square kilometers of land at the southern tip of Cuba, is more than just a symbol of the continued human rights violations of the United States, but the site of “continuous crimes of torture and ill-treatment amounting to shocking human rights concerns,” says IRCT Secretary General Brita Sydhoff.
As today marks 10 years after the first detainees arrived at the base, the IRCT joins other organisations and human rights defenders around the world in calling for the closure of Guantánamo Bay, and either trying detainees or releasing them.
Despite President Obama’s pledge to close the infamous prison, two years have passed since his deadline, and there is no indication from authorities or Congress that they will do so. Instead, on 31 January 2011, Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which included an amendment that authorized indefinite detention.
“Rather than make good on his promise to close Guantánamo, the NDAA has codified the abhorrent practices in place for the last 10 years,” Sydhoff says. “This anniversary, the ongoing arbitrary detention of prisoners, and the complete lack of accountability for the crimes committed within the last decade speak to the failure of the U.S. and the Obama administration to live up to their human rights obligations.”
“No more unfortunate anniversaries should pass before the U.S. affirms its commitment to human rights, closing the doors on Guantánamo and bringing the perpetrators of crimes committed there to justice.”
To get to the truth, there needs to be reform
Posted by IRCT in News & Clippings on 09/01/2012
If you have been following the sprawling UK inquiry into detainees rendered during the so-called ‘war on terror’, you may have noticed the announcement this Friday that Abdul Hakim Belhadj, a former Libyan rebel leader who just last month announced he would take legal action against the UK government for his alleged torture, would not take part in the inquiry.
He says the inquiry lacks sufficient powers “to get to the truth of Britain’s involvement” in abuses. We agree.
The IRCT has joined other human rights organisations, two former UN special rapporteurs on torture, and other international experts in calling for reform of the UK ‘Detainee Inquiry’:
We contend that fundamental problems plague the inquiry, thus, leaving it open for a lack of credibility.
“Without substantial changes, it will not get to the truth of Britain’s involvement or ensure such abuses do not occur again,” the letter states.
Read our entire statement here, and the open letter to UK Prime Minister Cameron here (PDF).
