Category: stop torture

UK’s involvement in torture


One of the fundamental components of the Human Rights Act is the freedom from torture. It was abandoned in the seventeenth century in the UK. It is rarely effective since the information derived is likely to be what the questioners want to hear rather than the truth. The UK government has long maintained that it does not use these practices overseas nor uses other countries as proxy torturers on our behalf. This has been shown to be untrue: Guantanamo prisoners have testified to UK personnel being present during torture sessions carried out by the Americans, and after the fall of Ghedaffi in Libya, documents revealing MI6’s involvement in torture were discovered. We were also complicit in the use of UK airfields used by the Americans to fly prisoners to ‘black sites’ in eastern Europe.

The Overseas Operations Bill is important therefore in this context. Yesterday, the House of Lords voted in favour of the amendment supported by several agencies.  When it was first introduced last year, the Bill risked effectively decriminalising torture committed by UK personnel. The amendment means prosecution for torture – as well as genocide and other serious international crimes – could go ahead without facing roadblocks originally included in the Bill.  It also seeks to apply a 5 year limitation on actions which is contrary to international law. There should be no time limit on actions regarding the use of torture.

The background to the Bill has been a campaign against so-called ‘vexatious’ legal claims against British soldiers overseas. Politicians and some sections of the media have painted a picture of innocent soldiers being pursued through the courts whilst doing their duty for their country and serving in conditions of great danger. If innocent soldiers are being pursued in this way it is very much to be regretted. But there is plentiful evidence of bad behaviour which should be investigated. Eight years ago Lt Col Mercer, who left the Army because of what he witnessed, spoke at an Amnesty service in the Cathedral. His was first hand testimony of the mistreatment and sometimes death suffered by some prisoners at the hands of Army interrogators.

Yesterday, 333 Lords voted in favour of the amendment to the Bill – a majority of 105. The amendment we fought for was tabled by former Defence Secretary and Secretary General to NATO Lord Robertson.  This is an important win: the UK helped build the ban on torture in the Geneva Conventions. This amendment ensures it doesn’t roll-back now. 

The battle is not over however and we still need to make sure the changes are kept in the final version of the Bill when it goes to the House of Commons and is voted into law. 

It is depressing to read of these and other retrograde plans by the government.

Sources: Reprieve; Amnesty International; Independent

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Torture back on the agenda


Donald Trump’s favourable comments on the use of torture have put this topic back on the agenda

As early as the third century A.D, the great Roman Jurist Ulpian noted that information obtained through torture was not to be trusted because some people are “so susceptible to pain that they will tell any lie rather than suffer it”.

President Trump said last week that ‘torture absolutely works’ and threatened its use at Guantanamo.  I want to do everything within the bounds of what you’re allowed to do legally but do I feel it works? Absolutely I feel it works.”  It now seems he is resiling from this after an outcry.

Amnesty disagrees that torture works.  And here’s five reasons why…

1: Torture is illegal under international law.  It reflects the widespread belief that torture is cruel, inhumane and morally wrong.  The physical and psychological damage it causes is often permanent. Even if it was effective, it would still be wrong.

2: No ends justify torture as a means. You might be able get useful information out of torture in the short term, but in the long term it’s counter-productive.  It does more damage to the reputation of the country that commits torture than any criminal or terrorist. Statistics prove that American use of torture is Al Qaeda’s number one recruiting tool.

3: Torture produces false intelligence.  Some victims will say anything to make the torture stop.  At best this wastes only time and resources.  At worst people may be implicated and even convicted for crimes they did not commit, on the basis of false evidence.

4: While it remains illegal, information extracted through torture cannot be used as evidence in court of law.  It actually makes it harder to bring people to justice for any crime they have committed.

5: You can’t condone torture even in ‘special cases’, otherwise it becomes normalised and a “torture culture” emerges across the chain of command. In the USA the CIA used waterboarding on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times, and low-ranking soldiers tortured for sport in grotesque ways in Abu Ghraib prison, in Iraq.

Of the more than 700 men held at Guantanamo Bay since 2002, many are now acknowledged as ‘merely guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.’ Originally described as “the worst of the worst,” by Vice President Cheney, many were subjected to torture particularly waterboarding.  More than 400 of these men have now been released or cleared for release (Center for Constitutional Rights, 2009).

A common justification for the use of torture is the implausible ticking-time-bomb scenario.  This is beloved by Hollywood and was the opening scene in the TV series 24 staring Kiefer Sutherland.  It rests on several questionable assumptions: that a specific piece of “actionable” information could be used to avert the disaster; that somehow interrogators know for certain that the suspect possesses specific information about the location of the bomb; that the threat is imminent; that only torture would lead to disclosure of the information; and that torture is the fastest means of extracting this valid, actionable information. 

Of course, part of the appeal of this scenario is that it also portrays the torturer as a principled, heroic figure who reluctantly uses torture to save innocent lives. This carefully rigged, forced-choice scenario pits the temporary pain of one evil person against the deaths of thousands (or even millions) of innocent people.  And, once we have acknowledged that there might possibly be a situation where torture could yield precious, life-saving information, it is then a small step to conclude that we are sometimes morally obliged to use torture.  While this scenario might provide a useful stimulus for discussion in college ethics courses, or an interesting plot device for a television drama, there seems no evidence that it has ever occurred.  As one scholar put it, “Even though torture is not, on balance, effective or rational, it persists through its deep psychological appeal, to the powerful and the powerless alike, in times of crisis. The reality of torture is unpleasant as one FBI agent put it:

On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they had urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18 to 24 hours or more.  FBI agent on visiting Guantanamo

CIA report

Picture: Washington Post

The Inspector General of the CIA conducted a review in 2004 and although great chunks of the report were redacted, they found that interrogators assumed detainees were withholding valuable information but this was not always supported by objective evaluation of available information.  Guilt was assumed despite the dubious nature of their capture.  Very little actionable information was obtained and there was little evidence to show that it could not have been got by ordinary means.

Morality

Setting aside its effectiveness – or rather lack of it – the main objection is morality.  Around the world governments and the various agencies working for them, use torture sometimes routinely to brutalise, suborn, humiliate and coerce their citizens.  Amnesty has credible evidence that it is used by 141 countries.  As the leader of the free world, America should be setting an example not joining with the sordid list of countries still carrying out this barbaric practice.

We hope President Trump’s change of mind is permanent.

Sources: Amnesty International; CIA, Inspector General Report, 2004; New York Times

The Effects and Effectiveness of Using Torture and an Interrogation Device: Using Research to Inform the Policy Debate Costanzo, Mark, Gerrity Ellen, in Social Issues and Policy Review, Vol 3, No: 9 2009

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UK complicity in torture


Independent judge-led inquiry into UK complicity in torture needed

No one should be subject to torture
Article 5: No one should be subject to torture. Image from the tapestry

Amnesty International believes that there is credible evidence that the UK has been involved in grave human rights violations perpetrated against people held overseas by other authorities since the attacks in the USA on 11 September 2001.

The UN Convention Against Torture states that ‘no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture’.  It also states there should be a prompt and impartial investigation wherever there is reasonable ground to believe an act of torture has been committed.

The Human Rights Act 1998 also prohibits torture under any circumstances, and that obligation implicitly requires a prompt independent investigation of credible allegations – the more so when there appears to be a ‘systemic’ problem.   The existence of evidence requires the establishment of an independent, impartial and thorough judge-led inquiry, now.  Credible allegations implicate the UK in torture or other ill-treatment, unlawful detentions and renditions.  Over the years, Amnesty International and others have documented cases of the UK’s involvement in these abuses, including:

  • UK personnel were present at interrogations of detainees held unlawfully overseas in circumstances in which the UK knew, or ought to have known, that the detainees concerned had been or were at risk of being tortured and/or whose detention was unlawful and even that they participated in such interrogations  
  • UK personnel provided information (e.g. telegrams sent by UK intelligence personnel to intelligence services of other countries) that led the USA and other countries to apprehend and detain individuals when the UK knew or ought to have known that these people would then be at risk of torture and/or unlawful detention    
  • The UK was involved in the US-led programme of renditions and secret detentions through, for example, the use of UK territory (e.g. Diego Garcia) and/or airspace    
  • UK personnel forwarded questions to be put to individuals detained by other countries in circumstances in which the UK knew or ought to have known that the detainees concerned had been or were at risk of being tortured and/or whose detention was unlawful 
  • The UK systematically received information extracted from people detained overseas in circumstances in which it knew or ought to have known that the detainees concerned had been or were at risk of torture and/or whose detention was unlawful.

Testimony
A number of individuals – including former Guantánamo Bay detainees – have spoken publicly about UK involvement in their mistreatment.  Shaker Aamer, who was released from Guantánamo in October 2015, after nearly 14 years without charge or trial, has said for example that a UK official was in the room when his head was beaten against a wall.

Binyam Mohamed
Binyam Mohamed

In 2008 the High Court confirmed that the UK, through its security service MI5, had facilitated the interrogation of Binyam Mohamed in the knowledge that his initial detention in Pakistan was unlawful. Then, during a two-year period, the UK continued to facilitate interviews conducted on behalf of the US authorities when it must have realised that Binyam Mohamed was being held unlawfully by a third country and knew or ought to have known that there was a real risk that he was being tortured.

Proper investigation needed

stop torture
Image: Amnesty Paris

The Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) has now been given the task of investigating allegations of UK complicity in torture, but Amnesty International, along with many other anti-torture organisations including the UN, believes that the ISC is wholly unsuited to the task in hand.  The structural limitations of the ISC, particularly its lack of power and independence from government, means that any investigation the ISC conducts is unlikely to get to the truth, and cannot satisfy the UK’s human rights obligations. The ISC is not a traditional Parliamentary committee, even though it is made up of parliamentarians.  Ministers ultimately decide what evidence the Committee can see, with the Prime Minister controlling what it can publish and even who can be a member. Crucially, the government retains the right to withhold information considered to be “sensitive” or on grounds of national security from the ISC.  The definition of what constitutes sensitive information is extremely broad and notably includes information provided by a foreign intelligence agency which can object to further disclosure of that information.  Any Secretary of State can determine material is sensitive and in the interests of national security should not be disclosed to the ISC.

Poor record
The ISC has a poor record in holding the intelligence services to account. In 2007, three years after the rendition of the Libyan families, the ISC produced a report which said that there was “no evidence that the UK Agencies were complicit in any “Extraordinary Rendition” operations.”

Historical context
In July 2010, the Prime Minister promised to establish an independent inquiry into allegations of UK involvement in torture and other human rights violations with respect to individuals detained abroad in the context of counter-terrorism operations.  At the time, David Cameron specifically ruled out the possibility of the ISC carrying out the investigation, recognising that an inquiry led by a judge who is “fully independent of Parliament, party and Government” was required “to get to the bottom of the case”.

In 2011 the Detainee Inquiry was established, led by the retired judge Sir Peter Gibson.  Amnesty International and a number of other organisations felt that the Detainee Inquiry fell short of the UK’s international human rights obligations and domestic obligations under the Human Rights Act to fully and independently investigate allegations of UK involvement in torture and other ill-treatment.  Of most concern was that the government retained final say on what material could be disclosed to the public and that the protocol did not provide for an independent mechanism to decide on disclosure of national security material.

In January 2012 the Detainee Inquiry was suspended, after Scotland Yard announced a criminal investigation into joint UK/Libyan operations which had resulted in the rendition of Libyan opposition figures. Those investigations are ongoing.

In December 2013 the Detainee Inquiry interim report was published.  It highlighted that the evidence it had received indicated that UK agents were aware of abuse of some detainees by other governments and that the UK government may have been involved in rendition.  It outlined 27 separate issues that should be subjected to further investigation. Amnesty and others expected this to be followed by a proper full judge led inquiry.

Dominic Grieve QC MP
Dominic Grieve QC MP

Instead, on 19 December 2013, it was announced that the ISC had been tasked with examining allegations of UK complicity in torture and other ill-treatment of detainees held overseas, which had previously been the subject of the Detainee Inquiry.  In September 2015 Dominic Grieve was appointed as the new Chair of the ISC.  There is as yet no news on its work in this area.

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China torture report


No end in sight

This is the title of a report produced by Amnesty International concerning the use of torture in China.  It was only last month that China’s president received a red carpet treatment on his visit to Britain with smiles all round.  The subject of human rights was taboo and was not to be mentioned during the course of his visit.  The aim was to boost trade and to secure deals such as the nuclear power plant investment.

Human rights infringements are a major issue for China and there is always the hope that there will be a steady improvement over time.  Indeed, it is a favourite argument by politicians that engagement – whether through trade, culture, sport or otherwise – is the best way to effect improvements in countries still practising torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading punishments.

Only it doesn’t seem to be working in places like Saudi Arabia or China despite the huge effort put into engagement with their leaders.  Amnesty has just published No End in Sight which shows that if anything, it is getting worse.  Despite having signed up to UN Charter against torture, it is still widely practised in all its medieval brutality.

Tiger bench
Tiger bench

The rot seems to start in police stations and the system of securing confessions acts as an incentive to extract one, by force if necessary.  The methods are extremely unpleasant and the least graphic (though no lest brutal) is the ‘tiger bench’ illustrated left.

The report explains the weak nature of the justice system which means no meaningful enquiries are made and that lawyers are themselves coerced or threatened if they try too hard to stop it.

It is alarming that this major nation, which is a member of the Security Council and is thus in a position to influence a lot of what happens in the world, should be steadily getting worse not better as far as human rights are concerned.  It is disappointing that the opportunity to express our concerns was apparently not taken during President Xi’s visit.

Sources

The Independent;

The Guardian;

Amnesty report

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Stop torture campaign – Minister’s letter


Arms-Fair---share-assets-email-Sep-2015Amnesty has been pursuing the ‘stop torture’ campaign for some time now and expressed concern a few months ago at the DSEI exhibition.  Amnesty was barred from entering and there were concerns that torture equipment makers would be present.

Large numbers of people wrote to the Minister and we are pleased to note she has responded.  A copy of her reply is below.

Minister’s letter

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Saudi arms sales and human rights


An about turn

Over the last three months we have been in correspondence with our local MP Mr John Glen over the issue of arms sales to Saudi Arabia.  This arose because the French President spoke out publicly against the increased use of the death penalty in Saudi and the barbaric way in which they are carried out.  We also expressed concerns about human rights generally, the use of torture and the dreadful treatment of women.

Mr Glen replied and arranged for a Foreign Office minister to reply as well.  The burden of their replies was that the government took the issue of human rights very seriously and raised the issue of human rights with the Saudis at every available opportunity.  It began to unwind because it was revealed that the Foreign Office had removed the abolition of the death penalty as one of its objectives.  This was only a matter of days following assurances to the contrary from one if its junior ministers in his letter to us.  Earlier this month Sir Simon McDonald, head of the FCO, told the Foreign Affairs Select Committee that:

economic prosperity was further up his list of priorities than human rights.

Following the news that a Saudi had been elected to the UN’s human rights council – an astonishing fact in itself – it was discovered shortly afterwards that our own government had facilitated this.  The British government had used its influence to secure the position of someone, patently against human rights, onto the human rights council.  This was a quid pro quo arrangement apparently but since no one was objecting to our application, why it should be necessary was never explained.

We noted that George Osborne had pleased and apparently surprised his Chinese hosts by not mentioning human rights on his recent visit there.  China executes more than any other country in the world and has been arresting and detaining large numbers of people involved in human rights in a major crackdown.  We are shortly to play host to the President of China, Xi-Jinping, who has expressed a wish that human rights are not mentioned during his visit.  Despite their lamentable human rights record he will get the red carpet treatment nevertheless.

Then came the news that a Briton, Karl Andree, was to receive 360 lashes for alcohol offences for which he has already served a prison term.  It might be thought that the Saudi administration would be sensitive to how this might play in the UK.  With the UK government falling over themselves to sell them arms and the Kingdom in an increasingly rocky state financially because of low oil prices, to flog a British national in public is not exactly good PR.

The government responded by cancelling a £9.5m contract to train prison staff.  Again, one might ask what on earth are we doing helping a regime which tortures its prisoners more or less as a matter of routine.  And it has to be noted that this is not an arms contract so its effect is unlikely to be keenly felt.  So it seems that where a Briton is involved the government is willing to react reportedly after a huge ministerial row.  Otherwise, it is business as usual.

On the BBC’s Profile programme (18 October) it was concluded that the deal is that Saudi provides oil and security information in exchange for legitimacy and keeping quiet on human rights abuses.

The statement ‘the government will continue to work towards the complete abolition of the death penalty using all the tools at its disposal’ is unconvincing in the light of these actions.

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News about Moses Akatugba from Nigeria


stop_tortureWe have featured Moses before on this site since news of his release has been received.  Briefly, he was arrested for allegedly stealing some mobile phones.  He was then brutally tortured and the confession extracted from him was used to sentence him to death.  He has been in prison for 10 years but a world wide campaign has resulted in his release.  The Salisbury group was active on his behalf and over 400 signatures were collected and a petition sent to the Nigerian Embassy in London.

Moses has written a description of his release and how he was reunited with his family and this can be read here:

Article by Moses

An item on Moses and the involvement of the Salisbury Group appeared in the Salisbury Journal on 2 July which unfortunately does not appear to be available on line.

Moses’ piece ends thus:

If I have my way, and can stop torture, I will be the happiest man on earth. I don’t want any future generation to go through what I went through in that torture chamber.

On 28 May 2015, Moses was pardoned after nearly 10 years in jail. Over 800,000 of you around the world took action demanding justice. 

Nigeria fact sheet prepared at the time of the campaign.

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#Morocco film


UPDATE 25TH MARCH

The film Bastards (12A) was shown this Wednesday 25 March starting at 7.30 and the audience reaction was very positive indeed.  There were many questions to the producer Deborah Perkin.

This is a fascinating and highly-acclaimed documentary about one Moroccan woman’s struggle to legitimise her daughter and the director, Deborah Perkin will be there to answer questions.  The film follows an illiterate young woman who took on her own family and the Moroccan justice system for the sake of her illegitimate child.   It is a gripping, moving and uplifting documentary from the cutting edge of Islam.
Deborah Perkin is the first person to film in a court in Morocco, a country which leads the world in its legal efforts to give women and children more rights under Sharia law.

In Morocco, as in all Muslim countries, sex outside marriage is illegal and women bear the brunt of society’s disapproval.  But what is the fate of the children of those single mothers?  They cannot attend the better schools, are turned away from infant immunisation clinics and refused government posts.  Jobs, housing and a huge range of social advantages are denied them.  They are despised outcasts, condemned to a life of discrimination.  Bastards is the first film to tell this story from a mother’s point of view.

stop_tortureWe shall have a petition to sign about torture in Morocco.  Morocco is one of the five countries highlighted by Amnesty International in its #StopTorture campaign.  We are pleased to say many people signed our petitions at the end of the showing.  Thanks to the Arts Centre.
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