Washington: In a hard
hitting report, a US human rights organisation has asked the Obama
administration to repudiate the CIA's practice of extraordinary
rendition and stop transferring individuals to foreign countries
on the basis of "diplomatic assurances" against torture.
At least 54 countries, including Pakistan, Afghanistan Syria,
Iran, Canada and Britain, offered CIA "covert support" to detain,
transport, interrogate and torture suspects in the years following
the 9/11 attacks, according to the report authored by Indian Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh's daughter, Amrit Singh.
The 213-page report was released by the Open Society Justice
Initiative (OSJI), part of New York-based Open Society Foundation
(OSF), where Amrit Singh works as senior legal officer, National
Security and Counterterrorism.
The report, titled "Globalising Torture: CIA Secret Detention and
Extraordinary Rendition", documents wide-ranging international
involvement in the American campaign against Al Qaeda.
It provides a detailed account of other countries covertly helping
the US to run secret prisons, also known as "black sites" on their
territory and allowing the CIA to use national airports for
refueling while transporting prisoners.
"Both the secret detention programme and the extraordinary
rendition programme were highly classified, conducted outside the
US, and designed to place detainee interrogations beyond the reach
of the law," it said.
"Torture was a hallmark of both," the report said noting the
administration of President George W. Bush embraced the "dark
side", a new paradigm for countering terrorism with little regard
for the constraints of domestic and international law.
"There can be no doubt that in today's world, intergovernmental
cooperation is necessary for combating terrorism," it said.
"But such cooperation must be effected in a manner that is
consistent with the rule of law."
Noting that under the Obama administration the US government's
position on torture and rendition has changed substantively, the
report asks the US to repudiate the CIA's practice of
extraordinary rendition and cease reliance on "diplomatic
assurances" against torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment or punishment, as a basis for transferring individuals
to foreign countries.
Asking the administration to reaffirm and extend the commitment to
close secret CIA detention facilities by prohibiting secret
detention, it also wants the US to conduct an effective and
thorough criminal investigation into human rights abuses
associated with CIA secret detention and extraordinary rendition
operations.
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