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	Europe and renditions by ICJ / IHT / The Guardian   27 June 2006   Twelve Steps to End Renditions and Secret Detentions in Europe.   Joint Statement by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International Commission of Jurists and the Association for the Prevention of Torture.   The Report of Senator Dick Marty to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, along with the investigations of the EU Parliament, non-governmental organisations and journalists has demonstrated compellingly that officials in certain European states have tolerated, and in some cases actively supported, the US-initiated system of renditions and secret detentions. As a result, people have been detained and transferred abroad, without due legal process, to places where they have been subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Some have been handed over for interrogation to states that routinely use torture. Some have been held secretly, including in Europe, and Senator Marty’s report notes that “serious indications continue to exist and grow stronger” that the US has operated secret detention centres in Council of Europe member states. Many of these cases amount to enforced disappearance, a crime under international law.   People held within this system are left with no avenues for legal redress, and with no mechanism for assessing their guilt or innocence, contrary to the most basic principles of respect for the rule of law, human dignity and fairness. It is unacceptable and unlawful for European states to actively participate, or to acquiesce, in renditions or secret detentions. Where they do so, they breach their fundamental human rights obligations.   European states have clear human rights obligations which prohibit their participation in renditions and secret detentions, in particular where they involve arbitrary detention, torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or enforced disappearances. European states are required to prohibit US or other foreign intelligence services from engaging in such serious human rights violations on their territory or anywhere within their jurisdiction; to take active steps to prevent torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment by US or other foreign intelligence services on their territory or anywhere within their jurisdiction; and to prevent the removal of persons from their territory or anywhere within their jurisdiction to places where they risk torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. They must not allow people to be held in detention on their territory without a legal basis for that detention, or without recourse to courts, lawyers or family members.   While it is important to maintain effective international co-operation in countering terrorism, Senator Marty’s report demonstrates the dangers of participating in activity that subverts the rule of law and breaches human rights in the name of counter-terrorism. In light of the available evidence on renditions and secret detentions, European states must now take positive steps to ensure that international counter-terrorism measures do not lead to further human rights violations on their territory, and to ensure that no one is rendered from the state to face violations of their human rights abroad. Human Rights Watch, the International Commission of Jurists, Amnesty International and the Association for the Prevention of Torture therefore call upon all European states to:   Cease all involvement in renditions or illegal detentions. Issue clear instructions to the intelligence services, law enforcement and transport agencies not to provide any assistance in renditions or illegal detentions, and to report any information on rendition or illegal detention on the territory or in the jurisdiction of the state.   Establish independent public inquiries with full investigative powers to examine whether the co-operation of government agents with foreign intelligence and law enforcement agencies has led to violations of human rights. Require all government agencies -- including intelligence agencies -- to disclose relevant records to these inquiries.   Make unequivocal public representations to the United States government urging it to cease practices of rendition and illegal detention anywhere in the world, and hold to account those who have been involved in such practices.   Enforce and respect the prohibition on returning people to states where they face a risk of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or other gross human rights violation, and do not seek or rely on diplomatic assurances against torture or inhuman or degrading treatment.   Review the terms of status of forces or other similar agreements to allow for adequate powers to investigate allegations of human rights violations, including if necessary powers to search military bases.   Establish or maintain effective and independent national institutions that have a right of immediate access to all places where persons are or may be deprived of their liberty.   Enforce the criminal law effectively against illegal activity of national and foreign intelligence officials operating on the territory of the State, and bring such officials to justice where they have participated in criminal activity, including illegal detention, or crimes of torture or enforced disappearance.   Ensure that all victims of rendition and secret detention have access to an effective remedy and receive adequate, effective and prompt reparation, including restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition.   Insist that any airplane or helicopter used by foreign military, law enforcement or intelligence agencies be identified as a state aircraft, even if the aircraft in question is chartered from a private company.   Require operators of non-scheduled flights landing or seeking permission to land in the territory of the State to indicate whether any passengers on board are deprived of their liberty and provide information on their status, destination and legal basis for their transfer.   Ensure, where necessary by imposing conditions on landing permission, that when a non-scheduled flight landing in the State is being used to transport detainees, or where there are grounds for believing that this is the case, it will be subject to boarding for inspection by law enforcement agents. Instruct law enforcement agents to verify the legality of any detention and if verification or inspection raises reasonable suspicion that the flight is being used for unlawful transfers, hold the flight until appropriate law enforcement action is taken.   Instruct all government officials, including officials from the intelligence services, to cooperate fully with any further inquiries by the Council of Europe, and with the European Parliament investigation on the transport and illegal detention of prisoners, including by making all relevant persons available and providing all relevant documents to those inquiries.   We consider these measures to be essential to uphold the protection of human rights and the rule of law in Europe. The institutions of the Council of Europe and the European Union also have a vital role in upholding human rights protection in counter-terrorism law and policy in Europe, and must continue to investigate and monitor allegations of rendition and secret detention. They must put in place mechanisms to scrutinise national implementation of the recommendations arising out of Senator Marty’s report, and in particular must monitor national level investigations and assess progress in making the necessary changes to national law and policy. European institutions must be afforded the powers and resources to carry out these tasks effectively. The violations of fundamental human rights facilitated by European governments’ involvement in renditions and secret detentions must not be allowed to happen again.   June 11, 2006   Europe and renditions. (International Herald Tribune)   Officials of countries named in the Council of Europe"s latest report on European participation in U.S. "extraordinary renditions," the practice of secretly sending suspected terrorists to third countries for interrogation, detention or trial, have promptly and loudly declared that the allegations are old and unproved. That is partly true: Dick Marty, the Swiss senator responsible for the report, does not pretend that he has proof "in the classical meaning of the term," nor that the allegations are new.   But these are not valid excuses to dismiss the report. The Council of Europe is the continent"s oldest human-rights organization, and Marty has amassed more than enough circumstantial evidence to justify making a strong case that the United States has woven a secret "spider"s web" of disappearances, secret detentions and illegal interstate transfers.   According to the report, 14 Council of Europe member states either collaborated in or tolerated the operations, and two of them - Poland and Romania - may have harbored CIA detention centers. "Pure speculation," sniffed Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz of Poland. "Absolutely nothing new," said Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain. "No real facts," said Sean McCormack of the State Department. If Marty"s report is short on facts, it is because he did not have the legal powers to coerce any of the countries to cooperate, and he had to rely largely on flight logs provided by the European air traffic agency, on statements from people who said they had been victims of renditions, and judicial or parliamentary inquiries in some of the countries.   But it was not the Council of Europe"s responsibility to act as judge; that, as Marty told a press conference in Paris, is the job of the governments implicated. Nor does Marty need to prove that renditions have taken place - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice publicly acknowledged them back in December, arguing that the practice is old and legal, and that prisoners are not sent abroad to be tortured. That is a claim the American public should closely examine, especially in light of other dubious practices the Bush administration has decreed to be legal, such as the indefinite detentions at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, or the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq.   In much of Europe, renditions are illegal. In any case, they are wrong and counterproductive, since they only confirm the terrorists" depiction of Western societies as hypocritical in their claims to a rule of law. The Council of Europe has produced a strong indictment; European leaders would do well to hold the haughty sniffs and instead to find out what really happened.   June 7, 2006   Rendition "massively damaging" to counter-terrorism effort, James Sturcke. (The Guardian/ UK)   The British government"s apparent support of CIA rendition flights is "massively damaging" in the battle against international terrorism, a former Foreign Office minister said today.   Tony Lloyd demanded that the Bush administration give "proper and definitive" answers to allegations that it has been kidnapping terrorist suspects and transferring them to countries where they could be tortured.   "If these things are born out, this process is really damaging to any attempt to combat terrorism in our society," he said. "It leads to the suspicion that what we are doing is the wrong tactic and even as bad as the terrorists themselves."   Mr Lloyd, a foreign office minister between 1997-99, told the BBC"s Today programme that the word "rendition" was a euphemism for "kidnapping" and as such would be illegal under British law.   William Hague, shadow foreign secretary, said: "It is very important that the war against terror is conducted within the rule of law. Otherwise those of us fighting terrorism lose our moral authority."   Mr Hague told Sky News he had warned the US administration on a recent trip to Washington about the dangers of clandestine tactics in the war on terror.   The human rights group, Amnesty International UK, welcomed the report and criticised European countries and the US for operating "contrary to basic legal principles".   "The USA and all European countries must put an end to renditions and must conduct independent and thorough investigations into the practice. They absolutely must ensure accountability of their own and foreign intelligence services," the group"s rendition campaigner, Sara MacNeice, said.   Allegations that CIA agents shipped prisoners through European airports to secret detention centres, including compounds in eastern Europe, were first reported in November by The Washington Post.
	Islam not Violent, Toronto Muslims Say by CBC News Canada   05 Jun 2006   Muslim leaders and police took pains Sunday to distinguish between the religion of Islam and the 17 Muslim men and youth accused of plotting bomb attacks in Ontario.   Police had earlier said the suspects — who were rounded up in a series of raids in Southern Ontario on the weekend and charged under the Anti-Terrorism Act — adhered to a radical ideology and were inspired by al-Qaeda.   "Canadian Muslims absolutely condemn an act of violence or threat of violence," Muhammad Alam, president of the Islamic Foundation of Toronto, told a joint news conference in Toronto on Sunday afternoon.   "This is not about religion or faith," but about political and social situations around the world, he said.   Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair agreed, saying the accused were motivated by an ideology based on politics and violence, not by faith. "This is not the action of the Muslim community."   Vandals who damaged a Toronto mosque overnight may have been motivated by hatred after the arrests earlier in the weekend, Blair said.   The Muslim leaders thanked Blair for his assurances that the police would try to protect Muslims from an angry backlash to the alleged bomb plot.   Sheik Hussein Patel, representing the Canadian Council of Muslim Theologians, a group of more than 100 scholars, thanked the police for making the arrests.   "Any threat to Canada poses a threat to Muslims in Canada as well," he said, adding that the group is concerned that the accused were resorting to "anti-Islamic behaviour."   On its website, the group posted a statement saying if the allegations are true, "then this is a wake-up call, especially for Muslim leaders and parents, that more must be done to ensure that our children do not get involved in activities that are contrary to the teachings of Islam."   In all, 12 men and five youths were arrested. The accused are charged with knowingly participating in a terrorist group and either receiving or providing terrorist training in Ontario.
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