UPDATE 1115 GMT: Spectacle has posted the video of an interview with Omar Deghayes, speaking about his interrogation by British Intelligence agents while detained in Islamabad, Pakistan and Bagram, Afghanistan. – Long-time EA readers will know that I have been none-too-happy with the evasions of the British Government over torture in the War on Terror, criticising Foreign Secretary David Miliband for using deceptions as well as court action to prevent the truth from emerging.
This week Human Rights Watch brought out a bit of that truth, publishing a 46-page report on Britain’s involvement (not observation, involvement) in the torture of detainees in Pakistan. This is the summary, followed by a link to the full report:
A key lesson from the past eight years of global efforts to combat terrorism is that the use of torture and ill-treatment is deeply counterproductive. It undermines the moral legitimacy of governments who rely on it and serves as a recruiting sergeant for terrorist organizations. This is recognized in the UK government’s counterterrorism strategy, “CONTEST II,” which asserts that the protection of human rights is central and that the UK’s response to terrorism will be based on the rule of law.
However, this principled and pragmatic assertion of core values is being undermined by the official whitewash surrounding the complicity of UK intelligence and security agencies in torture in Pakistan, with ministers repeatedly rejecting calls for an independent judicial inquiry from a cross-party parliamentary committee and human rights nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) alike. Research by Human Rights Watch and path-breaking investigative reporting by The Guardian newspaper makes it clear that British hands are not clean. The refusal of the government to order an independent and transparent investigation has been an important missed opportunity. Read the rest of this entry »
In recent weeks, we’ve paid close attentions to allegations of abuse by Iranian authorities in the post-election conflict. Perhaps as a timely reminder, Duncan Gardham writes in The Daily Telegraph on Tuesday that “torture” is not the exclusive practice of Tehran:
[Britain's] Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights said the structures for supervision were woefully deficient and accused ministers of refusing to give adequate answers to its detailed questions about torture.
It said “ministers are determined to avoid Parliamentary scrutiny and accountability” over allegations of complicity in torture, and concluded: “In view of the large number of unanswered questions… there is now no other way to restore public confidence in the intelligence services than by setting up an independent inquiry.”
The committee urged ministers to publish the instructions given to security service officers on the detention and interviewing of detainees overseas.
Ministers have refused to give oral evidence to the committee on allegations of torture or have given only general answers to detailed questions about the treatment of individual detainees.
Seven former Guantanamo detainees, including Binyam Mohamed, are suing MI5, MI6, the Attorney General, the Foreign Office and the Home Office over their treatment.
The BBC, freed from its caution by the Parliamentary report, is adding a claim by Craig Murray, the former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan: he was told in March 2003 that Britain had accepted torture as part of its campaign in the War on Terror.
A major piece by Ian Cobain in today’s Guardian examines the significant part torture has played in Britain’s post-9/11 anti-terrorism policy:
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.
In a series of case studies Cobain shows how torture has become a standard method of interrogation for the British intelligence services, and how everyone involved- from personnel on the ground to high-ranking government ministers- may be complicit.
The Observer of London has seen an advance copy of a report by Human Rights Watch, to be released next month, which finds that the British domestic intelligence service MI5 had a “systemic” modus operandi in which different agents were deployed to Pakistan to interview different British suspects, many of whom alleged that before interrogation by MI5 they were tortured by the Pakistanis.
At least 10 Britons are identified in the report, which is based on sources within Pakistan’s intelligence bureaus. Human Rights Watch outlined its concerns last October to the Foreign Office but has not received a response.
In a separate article in The Observer, lawyers for Binyam Mohamed (pictured), the British resident still held at Guantanamo Bay, revealed the extent of the “dozens” of beatings he has received at the US detention facility.
UK agents ‘colluded with torture in Pakistan’
MARK TOWNSEND
A shocking new report alleges widespread complicity between British security agents and their Pakistani counterparts who have routinely engaged in the torture of suspects.
Stella Rimington (pictured), the former head of MI5, the British domestic intelligence service, has launched a scathing attack on the “security” measures adopted in the US and Britain after the attacks of 11 September 2001:
It would be better that the Government recognised that there are risks, rather than frightening people in order to be able to pass laws which restrict civil liberties, precisely one of the objects of terrorism: that we live in fear and under a police state.
Rimington singled out the American “enhanced interrogation” regime for criticism: “The US has gone too far with Guantánamo and the tortures…It has achieved the opposite effect: there are more and more suicide terrorists finding a greater justification.”
Rimington’s charges are given substance by the International Commission of Jurists, which has issued a report after a three-year investigation of measures in more than 40 countries. The lead judge of the study summarises, “We have been shocked by the extent of the damage done over the past seven years by excessive or abusive counterterrorism measures.”
Particularly pertinent is the Commission’s identification of the case of British resident Binyam Mohamed, still held at Guantanamo Bay:
UK security services facilitated in various ways the questioning of Binyam Mohamed in Pakistan and the US detention, while being held incommunicado and subjected to ill-treatment. The relationship between the UK government and the US authorities was far beyond that of a bystander or witness to the alleged wrongdoing.
Whitehall devised torture policy for terror detainees
A policy governing the interrogation of terrorism suspects in Pakistan that led to British citizens and residents being tortured was devised by MI5 lawyers and figures in government, according to evidence heard in court. Read the rest of this entry »
UPDATE 1115 GMT: Spectacle has posted the video of an interview with Omar Deghayes, speaking about his interrogation by British Intelligence agents while detained in Islamabad, Pakistan and Bagram, Afghanistan. 
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Stella Rimington (pictured), the former head of MI5, the British domestic intelligence service, 
Bravo to Ian Cobain and Richard Norton-Taylor. Amidst 
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