The Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly is scheduled to receive a preliminary report into US run torture camps on European soil and “extraordinary renditions”on January 23rd. This posting is a preliminary briefing for readers.
- Several investigations are now underway in Europe both into the so-called “extraordinary rendition” and the presence on European soil of America run Soviet style interrogation camps. Of these the most important is the investigation by Swiss Senator Marty for the Council of Europe.
- The Council of Europe is Europe’s oldest political organisation, founded in 1949.It comprises 46 countries, including 21 from eastern and central Europe.
- The Strasbourg-based Council is separate and independent from the 25-nation European Union.The Council defends human rights and parliamentary democracy.
- Senator Marty* is due to present a preliminary report to the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe on January 23.
- The Washington Post reported on November 2 that the US has used “Soviet-style” prison camps to interrogate suspected terrorists in eastern Europe, most likely Poland and Romania.US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has labelled the movement of suspected terrorists as “renditions”.
* Senator Marty - Briefing
- Born in Lugano, Ticino January 7, 1945.
- Ticino public prosecutor 1975. He gained a reputation as formidable investigator and came to wider attention during a drug trafficking probe, when his enquiries implicated a company for which Hans W Kopp Swiss justice minister’s, Elisabeth Kopp was a director. Elisabeth Kopp was forced to resign once it was revealed that she had warned her husband about the enquiry.
- Awarded the US justice department’s “Award of Honor” for his efforts to combat drug trafficking 1987.
- Member of Ticino government 1989-1995.
- Elected to the Swiss Senate 1995 (for Switzerland’s centre-right Radical Party) he has a reputation within the Senate as highly effective legislator and debater. He has a strong human rights record and is on recrd as saying that excuses or exceptions are unacceptable. He voted against tightening the asylum law in Switzerland, and was sceptical of government calls for new measures to curb hooliganism in sport.
- Appointed to investigate allegations of CIA prisons in Europe November 2005. He is on record as having said that Europe didn’t spend hundreds of years ridding itself of such practices, “only to see them return overnight.”
- Senator Marty’s site (Italian language) is here.
Key Quotes:
“If people are detained, transported and tortured without reference to the law, what are the values of our continent worth?”
In related news the EU parliamentary assembly and Irish unease over rendition flights continue to gather momentum.
Concerns grow in Ireland over use of Shannon airport as US military stopover
- 330,000 US troops passed through airport in 2005
- State denies knowledge of CIA rendition flights
Angelique Chrisafis, Ireland correspondent
Saturday January 21, 2006
The Guardian
Irish politicians and human rights activists are voicing growing concern at the US military’s use of Shannon airport after it emerged that an average of 900 soldiers a day passed through the commercial west coast airport last year.
[snip]
Edward Horgan, a former Irish soldier* who served with UN peacekeeping missions for 22 years before leading a campaign against US military use of Shannon, said up to 100 peace activists had been prosecuted in Ireland since 2002.
After two retrials, Mary Kelly, an Irish nurse, was found guilty of criminal damage for taking an axe to a plane at Shannon. She plans to appeal. Five protesters accused of damaging another US plane at Shannon are awaiting their third trial after the second collapsed when defence lawyers suggested that the judge had been invited to both George Bush’s presidential inaugurations and attended the first one in 2000. (Emphasis added.)
Full story here
Two Irish MEPs Eoin Ryan (FF) and Simon Coveney (FG) are taking part the EU special committee inquiry into CIA ‘torture flights’ and the allegations that some camps within the ‘US gulag’ are located on EU soil.
“It will investigate allegations about the transport and illegal detention of prisoners by the CIA in European countries.
The committee will try to establish if people were obtained or abducted from inside the European Union, if these people were tortured and whether countries were facilitating rendition flights.”
(Belfast Telegraph) More coverage from the BBC here .
* Horgan rose to the rank of commandant. Like many Irish officers with experience as peacekeepers he opposes breaches of Ireland’s neutrality and has recently testified before the Oireachtas (Irish Parliament) Committee on foreign affairs that Ireland is in breach of several of her convention obligations.
No tag for this post.“Constitutionally, Ireland doesn’t have to be neutral, but having publicly declared internationally that Ireland is neutral, we are obliged to comply with our neutrality obligations, the most basic one of which is that foreign troops on their way to war may not be allowed to pass through our territory.”
Your usual great job of putting into context and connecting the dots. I’ve sent the URL of this to Padhraic Dempsey and a few of the other lads who served with us. Expect some flack :-)
Maybe I’ll turn commenting off :-)
I’d heard about this all the way “down under” and wondered if it was the same Ed Horgan thanks.
Interesting thanks. I wonder if there’s anyone who was a peacekeeper that isn’t in favour of our neutrality with the way things stand now. I know you want us to join up fully to the WEU when and if they ever get out from under but that’s not going to happen until the US and UK screw it up so badly that the rest of us say “hump this.” Any thoughts?
How’ya Gus!
I’d be interested to get your reaction to that too. I think that NATO is too under the Yanks thumbs. Time we got them out of Europe.
Given our own history it’s quite scandalous that the Irish Government has turned a blind eye to rendition flights passing in and out of Shannon. I’m quite sure somewhere down the line vast sums of money have changed hands!
Oh yes there are all sorts of scandals about that place. All of which can be traced to the fact that it makes a fortune for Ireland.
Let me give you an example of a case in which I was (peripherally) involved. A while back (pre-glasnost pre-fall of USSR) a gay Cuban was being deported from the then Soviet Union. He was suspected of being gay, not proved, just suspected. So they chucked him out. He was understandably terrified as what happens to gays who get “found out” in Cuba is …. horrible doesn’t begin to describe it.
Anyway he managed to get off the Aeroflot flight back to Havana. Once he was off the plane he was on Irish soil he was entitled to claim refugeee status and did. The prospects were bleak so I got in touch with David Norris who was then a Senator. He raised it with the minister and just to shut us up (because I’d filed and got separate motions of certiorari, quo warranto, habeas, mandamus, and everything else I could think of, in the High Court,) the minister was forced to overrule the Aliens Office.
The Cubans and the Soviets were furious and threatened to withold money for landing and refueling rights but the minister was able say “High Court Order can’t do anything sorry chaps.”
The last I heard the chap in question had built a successful practice as a free lance engineer and has settled down with a boyfriend. But there’s no doubt that if we hadn’t made a fuss he’d have been sent back.
BTW when did the practice change whereby US troops who refueled at Shannon actually were allowed off the plane? Seems to me in the old days personnel stayed on board!
Cyber hi-5s for helping out the Cuban gentleman!
I’m not sure of the exact date. Early last year if remember correctly but I’m open to correction on that.
“BTW when did the practice change whereby US troops who refueled at Shannon actually were allowed off the plane? Seems to me in the old days personnel stayed on board!”
You’re right that is was how it was but the poor little darlings can’t stand being cooped up on their way to “liberate” Arabs the yanks complained so it got changed - two years ago almost to the day curse the foolishness.
Hey! I kept it clean why isn’t it showing up?
Well feck it anyway they’re still not there. Either the man who started off the conversation with the SLA officer by telling him that the only thing smaller than than his brain was his mickey has become a prissy little bollicks since you left the four green fields and went off to funny foreign places or your comments system is shagged.
For Christ’s sake deco would you ever scroll up to the top of the page after posting a comment?
LMAO
I noticed some interesting material on freestater.blogspot.com - see entry for 1/16 re Shannon and rendition flights. I don’t have time to read it right now - yeah supposed to be working. But I thought I’s pass it on.