Team Brian GB
07-11-2006, 07:05 PM
WORLD ORGANIZATION FOR HUMAN RIGHTS USA
Formerly the World Organization Against Torture USA
June 15, 2006
The World Organization for Human Rights USA (Human Rights USA), the U.S. affiliate
of the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) submits this brief update to the 87th
Session of the United Nations Human Rights Committee to inform the Committee of
recent developments concerning U.S. non-compliance with the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in the context of Government efforts to combat
terrorism.
We have presented several reports and briefings to the Committee, including reports
and testimony filed in connection with the special briefing of Committee members by
U.S. NGOs at the March meeting in New York, and a "shadow" report that we filed
critiquing the US Government’s 2005 submission to the Committee. In these reports,
we have outlined our concerns related to the policy and practice of "rendition to torture
or "extraordinary rendition," the arbitrary, indefinite detentions of suspected terrorists at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the existence of secret detention facilities abroad and the
Government’s failure to hold accountable high-level government officials who command
and remain complicit in these abuses. This update outlines our concerns related to:
• the Government’s ongoing use of torture and degrading treatment at
Guantanamo Bay,
• the Government’s continued operation of an illegal rendition to torture program,
• its plans to transfer a majority of the detainees held at Guantanamo to U.S.-built
facilities abroad, where the practice of arbitrary, indefinite detention without
charges would be maintained by other nations with the support and complicity of
the U.S. government,
• the Government’s continued assertion that it is exempt from basic human rights
standards in its pursuit and interrogation of terror suspects.
As a supplement to this report, we will present testimony before the Committee’s 87
th
Session in Geneva during formal hearings and informal briefings in July of this year.
The Government Continues Using Interrogation Tactics Amounting to Torture and
Cruel and Inhumane Treatment at Guantanamo Bay
Recent news releases reveal that the U.S. Government continues subjecting
Guantanamo Bay detainees to treatment amounting to torture. In February, General
Bantz J. Craddock admitted that the military regularly force feeds detainees at
Guantanamo who participate in hunger strikes.
1
As described by one detainee, Emad
Hassan:
The head is immobilized by a strap so it can't be moved, their hands are cuffed to
the chair and the legs are shackled . . . They ask, 'Are you going to eat or not?'
2
and if not, they insert the tube. People have been urinating and defecating on
themselves in these feedings and vomiting and bleeding. They ask to be allowed
to go to the bathroom, but they will not let them go. They have sometimes put
diapers on them.
2
Forced feeding is well-recognized as degrading treatment amounting torture where the
victim experiences severe pain or suffering.
3
Due to continued despair as to the
conditions and length of their confinement, three Guantanamo Bay detainees committed
suicide last week.
4
In light of the increasing climate of despair among Guantanamo Bay detainees and the
U.S. Government’s seemingly shameless willingness to engage in interrogation and
detention tactics amounting to torture and degrading treatment, Human Rights USA
urges the Committee to:
• ask the U.S. government how its use of forced-feeding in Guantanamo comports
with its obligations under Article 7 of the ICCPR.
The Government Continues Operating an Illegal Rendition to Torture Program
Recent reports indicate that the United States government continues operating an illegal
rendition to torture program, in violation of Articles 6, 7, 9, and 10 of the ICCPR, and
enjoys the cooperation of several European nations. While speaking at the European
Parliament, State Department Legal Adviser Mr. Bellinger admitted that the U.S.
“extraordinary rendition” program is still operative.
5
A recent report issued by the
Council of Europe catalogued over a thousand suspected rendition flights in European
airspace,
6
on which up to 500 people were moved across the continent to jails in third
countries where they faced torture and other abuses.
7
The U.S. Government, in recent hearings before the Committee Against Torture,
attempted to absolve its liability for the torture of victims of its rendition program by
hailing its reliance on so-called ‘diplomatic assurances.’ The Committee Against
Torture criticized the U.S.’ reliance on diplomatic assurances, due to “the secrecy of
such procedures including the absence of judicial scrutiny and the lack of monitoring
mechanisms put in place to assess if the assurances have been honoured.”
8
The
Committee Against Torture continued:
[T]he State party should only rely on ‘diplomatic assurances’ in regard to States
which do not systematically violate the Convention’s provisions, and after a
thorough examination of the merits of each individual case. The State party
should establish and implement clear procedures for obtaining such assurances,
with adequate judicial mechanisms for review, and effective post-return
monitoring arrangements.
9
Several international bodies have flatly rejected the use of diplomatic assurances in the
context of the rendition of terror suspects. For example, the Committee Against Torture
in the case of Agiza v. Sweden flatly rejected Sweden’s reliance of diplomatic
assurances in deporting a terror suspect to Egypt and held that Swedish authorities
knew or ought to have known of the risk of torture to Mr. Agiza in Egypt.
10
The primary basis for the Committee’s rejection of diplomatic assurances was the “absence of any
avenue of judicial or independent administrative review of the Government’s decision to
expel the complainant” and the fact that there was “no mechanism for [the]
enforcement” of the diplomatic assurances.
11
The use of diplomatic assurances in the context of the transfer of terror suspects has
also been rejected by the United Kingdom Parliament Joint Committee on Human
Rights,
12
and the Council of Europe.
13
The Human Rights Committee has also set forth
guidelines on the appropriate use of diplomatic assurances in the extradition context.
“When a State party expels a person to another State on the basis of assurances as to
that person's treatment by the receiving State, it must institute credible mechanisms for
ensuring compliance of the receiving State with these assurances from the moment of
expulsion.”
14
Accordingly, international jurisprudence sets forth clear legal standards requiring state
parties to 1) refrain from relying on diplomatic assurances given by states that
systematically torture their detainees and 2) institute clear and credible mechanisms for
following up on the status of detainees once transferred.
Despite these clear standards, the U.S. Government 1) refuses to enact an accountable
and uniform process for following up on the status of detainees once transferred, 2)
accepts diplomatic assurances from countries that routinely torture their detainees such
as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and 3) relies on a highly subjective, individualized process
for evaluating diplomatic assurances. This evaluation process uses detainees as
carrots and sticks in a complex game of diplomacy, taking into consideration, as the
Government admits, factors such as whether the transfer of the detainee will foster
goodwill between the U.S. government and the receiving state.
15
This kind of analysis
and approach to transfer runs directly counter to ICCPR mandates that the likelihood of
torture or ill treatment to the detainee should be the primary consideration when
considering transfer.
It is clear that the U.S. continues operating an illegal rendition to torture program, and its
unwillingness to accept responsibility for the torture of detainees transferred under this
program. Accordingly, Human Rights USA urges the Committee to:
• reject the U.S.’s reliance on diplomatic assurances as a justification for
continuing its rendition to torture program,
• request that the U.S. cease seeking and using diplomatic assurances for the
purpose of transferring terror suspects, and
• require the U.S. government to provide detailed information on all cases since 11
September 2001 where the U.S. has relied on diplomatic assurances in
transferring detainees suspected of links to terrorism.
The Government Plans to Transfer a Majority of the Guantanamo Bay Detainees
to Black Sites Abroad
As an extension of the Government’s extensive rendition to torture program, the
Government has recently announced plans to transfer the majority of the Guantanamo
Bay detainees to prison facilities in their countries of origin, built and operated by the
U.S.
16
Rather than providing for the regular repatriation for these men, the plans will
assure their continued arbitrary and indefinite detention in sites that would be out of the
jurisdiction of U.S. courts and away from U.S. media attention.
Under the proposed detention plans, the U.S. has agreed to transfer 110 prisoners from
the Cuban facility to Afghanistan, and is working on similar arrangements to transfer
129 detainees to Saudi Arabia and 107 detainees to Yemen. The agreement with
Afghanistan includes handing over 350 detainees currently held without charge by the
U.S. at Baghram air base near Kabul.
17
If implemented, these transfer agreements will dramatically reduce the Guantanamo
Bay detainee population from 490 at the time of writing to 164. The remaining
prisoners, thought to form the highest security risks, are expected to be held at
Guantanamo indefinitely and apparently without facing charges. According to recent
reports, of the 759 current or former detainees only 10 have been charged with a
crime,
18
after 4 years of the facility’s existence.
These transfer agreements, as concluded with Afghanistan, Yemen and Saudi Arabia,
will likely seriously aggravate the detainees’ situation. It has become clear that many
transferred or released Guantanamo Bay detainees can no longer be traced and
accounted for.
Given the substantial likelihood that a large number of the detainees currently held at
the Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba will continued to be held on an arbitrary and
indefinite basis as a result of the Government’s transfer efforts, Human Rights USA
urges the Committee to:
• require the Government to provide detailed information about this planned
transfer arrangement, including:
o the names of the detainees who will likely be transferred,
o the location of the facilities where each detainee will be held, and
o whether the ICRC will have access to each detainee upon transfer.
The Government Continues Asserting Exemption from Basic Human Rights
Obligations in the Context of its Efforts to Combat Terrorism
The U.S. government continues to assert that its efforts to combat terrorism are exempt
from basic human rights standards enshrined in the ICCPR and the Convention Against
Torture. In addition to taking the position that the ICCPR does not apply in Iraq,
Afghanistan, or Guantanamo Bay (all territories under the direct and effective control of
the U.S. government), the Government now asserts that it is exempt from basic and
fundamental prohibitions against torture and refoulement to torture enshrined in the
Convention Against Torture.
At the most recent hearing before the Committee Against Torture, the U.S. government
asserted that Article Three of the Convention Against Torture, which enshrines the
fundamental prohibition against refoulement, does not apply to individuals outside of
U.S. territory.
19
This latest effort by the Government to draw loopholes into human
rights documents illustrates the lengths to which the Government will go to evade
accountability under the most basic human rights standards.
Given the U.S. Government’s continued efforts to create or rely on imaginary loopholes
to avoid its basic legal obligations, Human Rights USA urges the Committee to:
• reiterate the Committee’s position that the ICCPR applies in all territories under
the effective control of the U.S. government.
Conclusion
Despite widespread and growing condemnation by individual states and international
bodies of human rights abuses committed in the context of efforts to combat terrorism,
the U.S. government continues acting shamelessly in its disregard for the rule of law
that it promotes abroad.
The Government now admits to force-feeding Guantanamo Bay detainees through
gastric feeding tubes, a practice that is well-recognized as amounting to torture or
degrading treatment. The Government continues operating an illegal rendition to torture
program, relying on faulty and problematic diplomatic assurances, while turning a blind
eye to the pragmatic reality that a substantial number of detainees transferred under the
program are tortured by their receiving countries. The Government also plans to extend
its rendition efforts by transferring a majority of the detainees currently held at
Guantanamo Bay to U.S.-built and operated prison facilities abroad. This transfer plan
can only be seen as an attempt to maintain the arbitrary and indefinite detention of
hundreds of men who have never been charged with a crime. The Government further
refuses to comply with simply requests made by United Nations Rapporteurs to have
free, private access to detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, in spite of the fact that the
Government insists that these standards be accepted by other nations.
In light of the Government’s failure to alter its practices in the face of condemnations by
an increasing number of international bodies, it is critical that the Human Rights
Committee reiterate well-settled human rights legal principles, and instruct the U.S.
Government to immediately cease activities that constitute violations of the ICCPR.
Formerly the World Organization Against Torture USA
June 15, 2006
The World Organization for Human Rights USA (Human Rights USA), the U.S. affiliate
of the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) submits this brief update to the 87th
Session of the United Nations Human Rights Committee to inform the Committee of
recent developments concerning U.S. non-compliance with the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in the context of Government efforts to combat
terrorism.
We have presented several reports and briefings to the Committee, including reports
and testimony filed in connection with the special briefing of Committee members by
U.S. NGOs at the March meeting in New York, and a "shadow" report that we filed
critiquing the US Government’s 2005 submission to the Committee. In these reports,
we have outlined our concerns related to the policy and practice of "rendition to torture
or "extraordinary rendition," the arbitrary, indefinite detentions of suspected terrorists at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the existence of secret detention facilities abroad and the
Government’s failure to hold accountable high-level government officials who command
and remain complicit in these abuses. This update outlines our concerns related to:
• the Government’s ongoing use of torture and degrading treatment at
Guantanamo Bay,
• the Government’s continued operation of an illegal rendition to torture program,
• its plans to transfer a majority of the detainees held at Guantanamo to U.S.-built
facilities abroad, where the practice of arbitrary, indefinite detention without
charges would be maintained by other nations with the support and complicity of
the U.S. government,
• the Government’s continued assertion that it is exempt from basic human rights
standards in its pursuit and interrogation of terror suspects.
As a supplement to this report, we will present testimony before the Committee’s 87
th
Session in Geneva during formal hearings and informal briefings in July of this year.
The Government Continues Using Interrogation Tactics Amounting to Torture and
Cruel and Inhumane Treatment at Guantanamo Bay
Recent news releases reveal that the U.S. Government continues subjecting
Guantanamo Bay detainees to treatment amounting to torture. In February, General
Bantz J. Craddock admitted that the military regularly force feeds detainees at
Guantanamo who participate in hunger strikes.
1
As described by one detainee, Emad
Hassan:
The head is immobilized by a strap so it can't be moved, their hands are cuffed to
the chair and the legs are shackled . . . They ask, 'Are you going to eat or not?'
2
and if not, they insert the tube. People have been urinating and defecating on
themselves in these feedings and vomiting and bleeding. They ask to be allowed
to go to the bathroom, but they will not let them go. They have sometimes put
diapers on them.
2
Forced feeding is well-recognized as degrading treatment amounting torture where the
victim experiences severe pain or suffering.
3
Due to continued despair as to the
conditions and length of their confinement, three Guantanamo Bay detainees committed
suicide last week.
4
In light of the increasing climate of despair among Guantanamo Bay detainees and the
U.S. Government’s seemingly shameless willingness to engage in interrogation and
detention tactics amounting to torture and degrading treatment, Human Rights USA
urges the Committee to:
• ask the U.S. government how its use of forced-feeding in Guantanamo comports
with its obligations under Article 7 of the ICCPR.
The Government Continues Operating an Illegal Rendition to Torture Program
Recent reports indicate that the United States government continues operating an illegal
rendition to torture program, in violation of Articles 6, 7, 9, and 10 of the ICCPR, and
enjoys the cooperation of several European nations. While speaking at the European
Parliament, State Department Legal Adviser Mr. Bellinger admitted that the U.S.
“extraordinary rendition” program is still operative.
5
A recent report issued by the
Council of Europe catalogued over a thousand suspected rendition flights in European
airspace,
6
on which up to 500 people were moved across the continent to jails in third
countries where they faced torture and other abuses.
7
The U.S. Government, in recent hearings before the Committee Against Torture,
attempted to absolve its liability for the torture of victims of its rendition program by
hailing its reliance on so-called ‘diplomatic assurances.’ The Committee Against
Torture criticized the U.S.’ reliance on diplomatic assurances, due to “the secrecy of
such procedures including the absence of judicial scrutiny and the lack of monitoring
mechanisms put in place to assess if the assurances have been honoured.”
8
The
Committee Against Torture continued:
[T]he State party should only rely on ‘diplomatic assurances’ in regard to States
which do not systematically violate the Convention’s provisions, and after a
thorough examination of the merits of each individual case. The State party
should establish and implement clear procedures for obtaining such assurances,
with adequate judicial mechanisms for review, and effective post-return
monitoring arrangements.
9
Several international bodies have flatly rejected the use of diplomatic assurances in the
context of the rendition of terror suspects. For example, the Committee Against Torture
in the case of Agiza v. Sweden flatly rejected Sweden’s reliance of diplomatic
assurances in deporting a terror suspect to Egypt and held that Swedish authorities
knew or ought to have known of the risk of torture to Mr. Agiza in Egypt.
10
The primary basis for the Committee’s rejection of diplomatic assurances was the “absence of any
avenue of judicial or independent administrative review of the Government’s decision to
expel the complainant” and the fact that there was “no mechanism for [the]
enforcement” of the diplomatic assurances.
11
The use of diplomatic assurances in the context of the transfer of terror suspects has
also been rejected by the United Kingdom Parliament Joint Committee on Human
Rights,
12
and the Council of Europe.
13
The Human Rights Committee has also set forth
guidelines on the appropriate use of diplomatic assurances in the extradition context.
“When a State party expels a person to another State on the basis of assurances as to
that person's treatment by the receiving State, it must institute credible mechanisms for
ensuring compliance of the receiving State with these assurances from the moment of
expulsion.”
14
Accordingly, international jurisprudence sets forth clear legal standards requiring state
parties to 1) refrain from relying on diplomatic assurances given by states that
systematically torture their detainees and 2) institute clear and credible mechanisms for
following up on the status of detainees once transferred.
Despite these clear standards, the U.S. Government 1) refuses to enact an accountable
and uniform process for following up on the status of detainees once transferred, 2)
accepts diplomatic assurances from countries that routinely torture their detainees such
as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and 3) relies on a highly subjective, individualized process
for evaluating diplomatic assurances. This evaluation process uses detainees as
carrots and sticks in a complex game of diplomacy, taking into consideration, as the
Government admits, factors such as whether the transfer of the detainee will foster
goodwill between the U.S. government and the receiving state.
15
This kind of analysis
and approach to transfer runs directly counter to ICCPR mandates that the likelihood of
torture or ill treatment to the detainee should be the primary consideration when
considering transfer.
It is clear that the U.S. continues operating an illegal rendition to torture program, and its
unwillingness to accept responsibility for the torture of detainees transferred under this
program. Accordingly, Human Rights USA urges the Committee to:
• reject the U.S.’s reliance on diplomatic assurances as a justification for
continuing its rendition to torture program,
• request that the U.S. cease seeking and using diplomatic assurances for the
purpose of transferring terror suspects, and
• require the U.S. government to provide detailed information on all cases since 11
September 2001 where the U.S. has relied on diplomatic assurances in
transferring detainees suspected of links to terrorism.
The Government Plans to Transfer a Majority of the Guantanamo Bay Detainees
to Black Sites Abroad
As an extension of the Government’s extensive rendition to torture program, the
Government has recently announced plans to transfer the majority of the Guantanamo
Bay detainees to prison facilities in their countries of origin, built and operated by the
U.S.
16
Rather than providing for the regular repatriation for these men, the plans will
assure their continued arbitrary and indefinite detention in sites that would be out of the
jurisdiction of U.S. courts and away from U.S. media attention.
Under the proposed detention plans, the U.S. has agreed to transfer 110 prisoners from
the Cuban facility to Afghanistan, and is working on similar arrangements to transfer
129 detainees to Saudi Arabia and 107 detainees to Yemen. The agreement with
Afghanistan includes handing over 350 detainees currently held without charge by the
U.S. at Baghram air base near Kabul.
17
If implemented, these transfer agreements will dramatically reduce the Guantanamo
Bay detainee population from 490 at the time of writing to 164. The remaining
prisoners, thought to form the highest security risks, are expected to be held at
Guantanamo indefinitely and apparently without facing charges. According to recent
reports, of the 759 current or former detainees only 10 have been charged with a
crime,
18
after 4 years of the facility’s existence.
These transfer agreements, as concluded with Afghanistan, Yemen and Saudi Arabia,
will likely seriously aggravate the detainees’ situation. It has become clear that many
transferred or released Guantanamo Bay detainees can no longer be traced and
accounted for.
Given the substantial likelihood that a large number of the detainees currently held at
the Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba will continued to be held on an arbitrary and
indefinite basis as a result of the Government’s transfer efforts, Human Rights USA
urges the Committee to:
• require the Government to provide detailed information about this planned
transfer arrangement, including:
o the names of the detainees who will likely be transferred,
o the location of the facilities where each detainee will be held, and
o whether the ICRC will have access to each detainee upon transfer.
The Government Continues Asserting Exemption from Basic Human Rights
Obligations in the Context of its Efforts to Combat Terrorism
The U.S. government continues to assert that its efforts to combat terrorism are exempt
from basic human rights standards enshrined in the ICCPR and the Convention Against
Torture. In addition to taking the position that the ICCPR does not apply in Iraq,
Afghanistan, or Guantanamo Bay (all territories under the direct and effective control of
the U.S. government), the Government now asserts that it is exempt from basic and
fundamental prohibitions against torture and refoulement to torture enshrined in the
Convention Against Torture.
At the most recent hearing before the Committee Against Torture, the U.S. government
asserted that Article Three of the Convention Against Torture, which enshrines the
fundamental prohibition against refoulement, does not apply to individuals outside of
U.S. territory.
19
This latest effort by the Government to draw loopholes into human
rights documents illustrates the lengths to which the Government will go to evade
accountability under the most basic human rights standards.
Given the U.S. Government’s continued efforts to create or rely on imaginary loopholes
to avoid its basic legal obligations, Human Rights USA urges the Committee to:
• reiterate the Committee’s position that the ICCPR applies in all territories under
the effective control of the U.S. government.
Conclusion
Despite widespread and growing condemnation by individual states and international
bodies of human rights abuses committed in the context of efforts to combat terrorism,
the U.S. government continues acting shamelessly in its disregard for the rule of law
that it promotes abroad.
The Government now admits to force-feeding Guantanamo Bay detainees through
gastric feeding tubes, a practice that is well-recognized as amounting to torture or
degrading treatment. The Government continues operating an illegal rendition to torture
program, relying on faulty and problematic diplomatic assurances, while turning a blind
eye to the pragmatic reality that a substantial number of detainees transferred under the
program are tortured by their receiving countries. The Government also plans to extend
its rendition efforts by transferring a majority of the detainees currently held at
Guantanamo Bay to U.S.-built and operated prison facilities abroad. This transfer plan
can only be seen as an attempt to maintain the arbitrary and indefinite detention of
hundreds of men who have never been charged with a crime. The Government further
refuses to comply with simply requests made by United Nations Rapporteurs to have
free, private access to detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, in spite of the fact that the
Government insists that these standards be accepted by other nations.
In light of the Government’s failure to alter its practices in the face of condemnations by
an increasing number of international bodies, it is critical that the Human Rights
Committee reiterate well-settled human rights legal principles, and instruct the U.S.
Government to immediately cease activities that constitute violations of the ICCPR.