The United Nations Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, Martin Scheinin, has accused the UK of condoning torture. Is anyone going to be brought to justice in the British government for these crimes?
Richard Norton-Taylor writes in the Guardian:
Richard Norton-Taylor writes in the Guardian:
Britain has been condemned in a highly critical United Nations report for breaching basic human rights and "trying to conceal illegal acts" in the fight against terrorism.On Tuesday 10 March the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights will discuss whether or not to hear Craig Murray's evidence on the UK government's policy of using intelligence from torture. The government is lobbying hard for my exclusion. Send an email to jchr@parliament.uk to urge that I should be allowed to give evidence. Just a one-liner would be fine. If you are able to add some comment on the import of my evidence, or indicate that you have heard me speak or read my work, that may help. Please copy your email to: craigjmurray@tiscali.co.uk.
The report is sharply critical of British co-operation in the transfer of detainees to places where they are likely to be tortured as part of the US rendition programme.
The report accuses British intelligence officers of interviewing detainees held incommunicado in Pakistan in "so-called safe houses where they were being tortured".
It adds that Britain, with a number of countries, has sent interrogators to Guantánamo Bay in a further example of what it says "can be reasonably understood as implicitly condoning" torture and ill-treatment, adding that the US was able to create its system for moving terror suspects around foreign jails only with the support of its allies.
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