CIA flights scandal peaks
Claudia Fava, spokesman of The temporary committee of the European Parliament investigating allegations that CIA illegally transported prisoners around Europe , informed the public of preliminary results on a press conference yesterday.
According to the Committee's investigation, Governments of EU countries have cooperated actively with the CIA in kidnapping European citizens and flown them to torture in third countries. Furthermore, a number of EU countries have consciously closed their eyes to the illegal CIA operations on their territories, even though these activities are in blatant contradiction to the European human rights convention.
The committee published a preliminary report on April 26th on the committee's findings. The information is derived from interviews with some of the abductees. Interrogations have taken place in corrupt authoritarian countries in the Middle East and Central Asia.
According to the report, CIA has made hundreds of such flights with illegally arrested persons since the "war on terror" started in 2001. None of the national security authorities have tried to get the CIA to clarify what the purpose of the abductions and the flights are.
It is a temporary report. The final report is pending disagreement in the committee. Some of the members of the committee do not found it proved that governments participated actively with the CIA.
The terms "globalisation" and "a world without borders", the "global village", etc, seem to have taken on new meanings with these CIA activities. The world seems to be equipped with one authority that can move across borders and make arrests with impunity in weak European states. It is characteristic that the work with clearing up various EU members' responsibility in the matter has got stuck. The EU's anti-terror boss, Gijs de Vries, has claimed that there is a lack of of evidence "beyond reasonable doubt". Mary McCarthy from the CIA has been dismissed for leaking information to Washington Post journalist Dana Priest about CIA's secret prisons in Eastern Europe. This is further proof that the information in the Post articles is correct.
posted by Cosmic Duck at 2:30 AM
4 Comments:
According to UN convention against torture, countries who know, collaborate or help in torturing a person are in violation of the convention. I would like this matter to come more to light. There is a moral issue here that EU countries seem to ignore. What do they need as more facts to start acting in this dossier ?
Sophia.
Danish media report today that work with clearing up various EU members' responsibility in the matter has got stuck.
The EU's anti-terror boss, Gijs de Vries, has claimed that there is a lack of evidence "beyond reasonable doubt".
Mary McCarthy from the CIA has been dismissed for leaking information to the Washington Post journalist Dana Priest about CIA's secret prisons in Eastern Europe. This is further proof that the information in the Post articles is correct.
But you're right. EU countries cannot do with only window dressing now. It is not enough that
Angela Merkel say to Bush "We are concerned about these reports". Some action is needed now. Otherwise EU governments lose credibility in the eyes of the European population. This is a breach of human rights gone too far. Now is the time for European governments to demonstrate that they're more than just puppets of Uncle Sam.
Cosmic, if you have not visited Angry Arab today, he had this link that might interest you. It is about Sweden and Israel.
http://www.sr.se/cgi-bin/International/
nyhetssidor/artikel.asp?ProgramID=
2054&Nyheter=&artikel=844844
Sophia.
Thank you. The text of the Swedish radio broadcast says: "The Swedish government has suddenly cancelled plans to take part in international air force exercises because Israel will also be participating.
The exercises take place in Italy in two weeks. The goal is to train for future international peacekeeping missions.
But the Swedish Foreign Ministry says given the political situation in the Middle East, it is unlikely that Israel would take part in actual peacekeeping missions of this type."
So the Swedes also want to take a more independent stance in its foreign policy line towards the Middle East.
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