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Pro Torture - Anti Civilisation

Columnist Bruce Anderson runs up the flag for torture in today's Independent with a column that does no credit to the paper. Anderson makes much of the ticking bomb dilemma –He recalls that before 9/11, he debated the issue in front of some lawyers and argued that the government would not only have a right to use torture: it would have a duty to use it.The liberal lawyer Sydney Kentridge got up and challenged Anderson with this: "Let's take your hypothesis a bit further. We have captured a terrorist, but he is a hardened character. We cannot be certain that he will crack in time. We have also captured his wife and children."Anderson happily admits that he could not think his way round this. "I have come to the conclusion that there is only one answer to Sydney's question. Torture the wife and children. It is a disgusting idea. It is almost a tragedy that we even have to discuss it, let alone think of acting upon it."

UK Coalition Government`s Green Light for Torture

The Equalities and Human Rights Commission threatened legal action against the government today over new guidance on torture which it labelled "illegal." In a letter to Prime Minister David Cameron and the heads of MI5 and MI6 the commission (EHRC) expressed "serious concerns" that the guidance could be in breach of British and international law and the UN Convention on Torture. EHRC said it would consider taking legal action against the government unless it rethinks the guidelines.

Torture and Rendition Enquiry Expected To Expose Officials Who Colluded

The judicial inquiry announced by the foreign secretary into Britain's role in torture and rendition since September 2001 is poised to shed extraordinary light on one of the darkest episodes in the country's recent history.

It is expected to expose not only details of the activities of the security and intelligence officials alleged to have colluded in torture since 9/11, but also the identities of the senior figures in government who authorised those activities. William Hague's decision follows a series of reports in the Guardian and other media over the last five years about the manner in which British intelligence officers were told they could interrogate terrorism suspects they knew were being tortured, and the way in which that secret policy was used in effect to subcontract torture to overseas intelligence agencies.

Ex-Guantanamo inmates take on M15 and MI6 over courtoom secrecy

An attempt by MI5 and MI6 to extend courtroom secrecy has led to a legal battle at the supreme court, with lawyers representing former Guantánamo inmates and the media denouncing the proposal as "unconstitutional and excessive".

The bid follows high court proceedings brought by former detainees at the US prison which prompted the disclosure of classified documents revealing the depth of UK involvement in the post 9/11 rendition programme, despite ministers being warned that detainees were being tortured. Lawyers for the intelligence agencies, the Foreign Office and Home Office, are arguing that the special advocate process should be extended to the civil courts. The process is used in control-order cases and some terrorism-related immigration cases.

Why Britain Turns a Blind Eye to Torture

The torture debate is once again raising the ugliest of heads. Following the revelations of MI5's knowledge of torture in the Binyam Mohamed case, ministers have been hot in denial of any collusion in torture with the US or other allies. Jonathan Evans, head of MI5, told us that Master of the Rolls Lord Neuberger's assessment of the culture of suppression in MI5 was “the opposite of the truth”. That constitutes an extraordinary attack on our second-most-senior judge by the head of MI5. At the same time, Alan Johnson and David Miliband joined forces to proclaim that the allegation that our security forces collude in torture is “disgraceful, and untrue”. Not everybody is convinced. Lord Goldsmith has called for a public inquiry, and so has the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights. I am particularly unconvinced, because I was sacked as British Ambassador to Uzbekistan more than five years ago for pointing out our complicity in torture

M15 Line On Torture Cannot Be Trusted Says Appeal Court Judge

Some MI5 officers were today accused of having a “dubious record” over telling the truth as the Court of Appeal published full details of a controversial ruling on the case of Binyam Mohamed. The judgment, by the Master of the Rolls Lord Neuberger, also states that there is “reason for distrusting” statements on the former Guantanamo Bay detainee's case based on information from the Security Service.

It further warns that MI5 has an interest in the “suppression” of evidence about the mistreatment of the Mr Mohamed and suggests that several officers might have been involved in both his abuse and its concealment.

The Government Can Kidnap and Torture You and Then Hide it Under "State Secrets"

A decision in the Jeppesen Dataplan suit upholding the government’s invocation of state secrets–is really bad news. Basically, the government can kidnap you and send you to be tortured–as they did with Binyam Mohamed.

Yet even if your contractors acknowledge what they were doing, if the government wants to call their own law-breaking a secret, the most liberal Circuit Court in the country agrees they can..

U.S Court Approves Torture and Rendition

when asked to rule on whether these five men should have their day in court, or whether the government should be allowed to dismiss their lawsuit by claiming that the exposure of any information relating to “extraordinary rendition” and torture threatened the national security of the United States, American justice contemplated looking at itself squarely in the mirror, telling truth to power, and allowing these men the opportunity to address what had happened to them in a court of law, but, at the last minute, flinched and turned away.

By six votes to five, the Court decided that, in the interests of national security, the men’s day in court would be denied.

Italian Court Increases Sentences for 23 CIA Agents

An Italian court upped the sentences for 23 CIA agents convicted in absentia of abducting an Egyptian imam in one of the biggest cases against the US "extraordinary rendition" programme.

The 23 CIA agents, originally sentenced in November 2009 to five to eight years in prison, had their sentences increased to seven to nine years on appeal in what one of the defence lawyers described as a "shocking blow" for the US. They were also ordered to pay 1.5 million euros (two million dollars) in damages to the imam and his wife for the 2003 abduction.

American torture methods - designed to target Muslim honour

"As I saw the photographs taken by U.S. soldiers in Abu Ghraib which shocked the world a few weeks ago, I immediately knew that I had seen comparable documents in Algeria in the 1950s," journalist Jacques Duquesne told IPS. The French army used extensive torture and summary executions in a fruitless effort to break the freedom movement. France accepted Algerian independence in 1962 under Gen. Charles de Gaulle.

"In Algeria, the French army widely employed what our soldiers called la gegene, electroshocks in the genitals," Duquesne recalled. "The photos from Abu Ghraib could have been taken in Algeria." The French military campaign in Algeria was seen by many as the first experiment in anti-guerrilla warfare, and it influenced U.S. army methods in Vietnam and in Latin America.