By William Fisher
A leading human rights organization is charging that an American Psychological Association (APA) task force formed to advise the U.S. military on prisoner interrogations was “stacked with Defense Department and Bush Administration officials” and “rushed to conclusions that violated the Geneva Convention.”
In the wake of newly released internal APA documents indicating that the organization’s 2005 ethics task force on national security interrogations developed its policy to conform to Pentagon guidelines governing psychologist participation in interrogations, said Physicians for Human Rights (PHR).
The organization is calling for an independent, outside investigation of the APA and a probe by the Defense Department’s Inspector General into whether any federal employees exerted influence over the APA's Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security (PENS).
The director of PHR's Campaign Against Torture, Nathaniel Raymond told us, “The APA’s ethics task force on national security interrogations produced a report that was rushed, secret, and being driven to already-reached conclusions – conclusions that violated the Geneva Convention.”
“The APA made ethics subservient to law by following guidelines set out by the Pentagon. Members of the task force had long-standing ties to the Pentagon, and the task force was stacked with Defense Department and Bush Administration officials. There were clear conflicts of interest,” he said, adding, “The APA needs to explain how that happened. And the Pentagon’s Inspector General needs to look into how this was allowed to happen.”
The charges of APA conflicts of interest came after a series of task force emails were posted online by Salon.com and ProPublica, a not-for-profit investigative journalism organization.
PHR said the emails indicate that the APA's ethics task force developed its ethics policy to conform to Pentagon guidelines.
"These serious allegations require an independent investigation to determine whether APA leadership engaged in unethical conduct," said Steven Reisner, Ph.D., PHR Advisor for Psychological Ethics. "The American public deserves to know if there were inappropriate contacts or conflicts of interest between APA officials and the Pentagon," he said.
The task force found it to be "consistent with the APA Ethics Code" for psychologists to consult with interrogators in the interests of national security. While noting that psychologists do not participate in torture and have a responsibility to report it, and should be committed to the APA ethics code whenever they "encounter conflicts between ethics and law," the task force
decided that "if the conflict cannot be resolved ... psychologists may adhere to the requirements of the law."
PHR has been a longstanding and outspoken critic of the APA's PENS policy governing psychologist involvement in interrogations, calling for a "bright line" prohibition against health professional participation in interrogations. Though the APA membership passed a 2008 referendum banning psychologists from facilities that violate US and international human rights law, PHR believes that the PENS policy must be immediately revoked.
Riesner said it was time to “put a psychologist's ethical obligations to human rights principles ahead of following orders."
The recently released Senate Armed Services Committee report detailing detainee abuse by the Department of Defense confirms that psychologists rationalized, designed, supervised, and implemented the Bush Administration's torture program.
"The Senate Armed Services Committee report confirms that psychologists were central to the Bush Administration's use of torture," said PHR’s Raymond.
"In the context of these revelations, the American public needs to know why a supposedly independent ethics policy was written by some of the very personnel allegedly implicated in detainee abuse," he said.
Stephen Soldz, a board member and spokesman for another advocacy group, Psychologists for Social Responsibility, said, "These emails show that several of the military psychologists formulating APA ethics policy were giving themselves get-out-of-jail-free cards.”
He charged that their report concluded that it was ethical to follow military policy while the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memos allowing torture were still in effect.".
The memoranda prepared by OLC lawyers provided the rationale for the Bush Administration’s assertion that “enhanced interrogation techniques” were legal.
PHR has repeatedly called for an end to the use of the SERE tactics by U.S. personnel, the dismantling of the Behavioral Science Consultation Teams (BSCT) teams, and a full Congressional investigation of the use of psychological torture by the U.S. Government.
SERE, the military's “Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape program” was developed to train American soldiers to cope with torture if captured by the enemy. Its developers warned officials as early as 2002 that “reverse-engineering” SERE techniques for use on detainees could be ineffective and dangerous, a recent Senate Armed Services Committee report revealed,
The report also noted that the same psychologists who helped develop the SERE program were complicit in the very interrogation policies and practices they warned against.
Dr. Jeffrey Kaye, a San-Francisco-based psychologist who has written extensively on the role played by medical professionals in prisoner treatment, told us, “APA's ties to the Pentagon are of long-standing, going back at least to the Cold War.”
He said, “Any inquiry should make the historical connection between the work of CIA and SERE psychologists and the role of coercive interrogation used in psychologically ‘breaking down’ a human being.”
He said that there is a long history of collaboration between psychologists and the military, which includes several former APA presidents. These men were the “institutional godfathers” for a later generation of psychologists who continue to be deeply involved in interrogation techniques, he said.
In an article accompanying ProPublica’s publication of the APA task force’s extensive email exchanges, Sheri Fink of ProPublica posed the question, “Is it possible for psychologists to uphold the ethical tenets of their profession while working within a system of interrogation that violates those tenets? Does it matter if they raised objections to the system of interrogation but cooperated with it anyway?”
The Senate report said that in 2002, a psychiatrist and a psychologist who worked at the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, prepared a list of harsh interrogation techniques that ended up influencing interrogation policy not only at Guantánamo, but also in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In the same memo, they warned that these methods were likely to result in inaccurate tips and could harm detainees. Those warnings disappeared as the memo moved up the chain of command.
The board of the APA, the largest membership organization for psychologists, who are employed in great numbers by the Department of Defense, quickly adopted the task force's report as the organization's official policy.
But last year, members of the APA successfully petitioned for a vote on whether to ban psychologists from working in detention settings where international law or the U.S. Constitution are violated. The membership passed the proposal.
Some psychologists have filed complaints with the APA and state licensing boards against colleagues who were allegedly involved in abusive interrogations.
Thursday, May 07, 2009
WATCHLIST HITS A MILLION PLUS
By William Fisher
Hundreds of thousands of people are being wrongly identified because of the government’s wasteful and inefficient management of the nation’s one million-strong terrorist watchlist, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
The organization cited a recent report by the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (OIG), which found that the part of the watchlist maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) may contain a 35 percent error rate.
The OIG audit also revealed that large portions of the list are governed by no formal processes for updating or removing records.
The ACLU says the audit “confirms that the nation’s watchlist system is massively broken.”
The audit confirmed estimates that the terror watchlist contains 1.1 million names as of December 2008, and that many of them are out of date.
OIG auditors reviewed 68,669 of those identities and found 24,000 out of date. In a closer inspection of the out of date records, the auditors found a majority of this sample did not belong on a watchlist.
Attorney General Eric Holder, whose Justice Department oversees the FBI, told a Senate subcommittee this morning that he has not yet read the IG report, but has been told by the FBI that all of the concerns and problems raised in the report have been addressed.
“I am a bit skeptical about claims the FBI addressed all of the concerns and problems raised in the FBI Inspector General’s audit report on the terrorist watchlist,” Chris Calabrese, an attorney with the ACLU Technology and Liberty Project, told us.
“Are they saying that the FBI has reviewed 24,000 watchlist records to determine how many (likely a majority) need to be removed from the watchlist? Has the FBI completely streamlined a process for reviewing records so that people are removed from the watchlist within 10 days? The audit reports the average amount of time to remove an identity from the list is 60 days. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.”
The OIG report documents a widespread failure to scrub the lists by removing names after cases have been closed. For example, one subject stayed on the watchlist for almost five years after the case was resolved; two people on the list were dead. The FBI attempted to place one individual on the watchlist by reclassifying that person as an international terrorist after already having been cleared of wrongdoing by an FBI investigation.
It identified more than 50,000 records with no explanation of why they were on the list, making it impossible to remove them. It described the controls for placing many names on the list as “weak or nonexistent.”
The watchlist has existed since 2003, when then President George W. Bush issued a presidential directive mandating the development of a consolidated terrorist watchlist and required all federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies with terrorism information to share such information. The consolidated terrorist watchlist is known as the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB).
The Terrorist Screening Center, which also began operations in 2003 and is managed by the FBI, was established to serve as the U.S. government’s consolidation point for information about known or suspected international and domestic terrorists.
“This IG report reveals just what a comedy of errors the watchlist is,” said Chris Calabrese, attorney with the ACLU Technology and Liberty Program. “But we did not need this report to know there is a problem with the effectiveness of any terrorist watchlist that includes over a million names. It certainly explains why Congressman John Lewis and Senator Edward Kennedy have problems when they try to fly.”
And Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office, said "Members of Congress, nuns, war heroes and other 'suspicious characters,' with names like Robert Johnson and Gary Smith, have become trapped in the Kafkaesque clutches of this list, with little hope of escape."
"Congress needs to fix it, the Terrorist Screening Center needs to fix it, or the next president needs to fix it, but it has to be done soon, " she urged, adding,
“This report strongly suggests that hundreds of thousands of people are being wrongly identified as terrorists,” said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “This is yet more confirmation of what we’ve been saying for years – that the watchlist is not only unfair for travelers, but it is also a waste of scarce resources. It is time for Congress to haul the watchlist policymakers up to Capitol Hill to answer some tough questions.”
The ACLU is recommending a series of controls on the watch lists. These include due process, a right to access and challenge data upon which listing is based, tight criteria for adding names to the lists, and rigorous procedures for updating and cleansing names from the lists.
The group also called on the president to issue an executive order requiring the lists to be reviewed and limited to only those for whom there is credible evidence of terrorist ties or activities. The review should be concluded within 3 months, the group said.
The OIG report also found that putting people on the watchlist was as problematic as getting them off. The Inspector General’s recommendations included establishing timeframe requirements for headquarters units to process watchlist nominations, modifications, and removals; reevaluation of watchlist records that are not sourced to a current terrorism case, and creation of a process to modify and remove known or suspected terrorists placed on the watchlist.
“We believe that the FBI’s failure to consistently nominate subjects of international and domestic terrorism investigations to the terrorist watchlist could pose a risk to national security,” the OIG report said, adding that “FBI field offices’ frequent failure to modify watchlist records indicates a problem with training on and understanding of the importance of the watchlist process.”
Hundreds of thousands of people are being wrongly identified because of the government’s wasteful and inefficient management of the nation’s one million-strong terrorist watchlist, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
The organization cited a recent report by the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (OIG), which found that the part of the watchlist maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) may contain a 35 percent error rate.
The OIG audit also revealed that large portions of the list are governed by no formal processes for updating or removing records.
The ACLU says the audit “confirms that the nation’s watchlist system is massively broken.”
The audit confirmed estimates that the terror watchlist contains 1.1 million names as of December 2008, and that many of them are out of date.
OIG auditors reviewed 68,669 of those identities and found 24,000 out of date. In a closer inspection of the out of date records, the auditors found a majority of this sample did not belong on a watchlist.
Attorney General Eric Holder, whose Justice Department oversees the FBI, told a Senate subcommittee this morning that he has not yet read the IG report, but has been told by the FBI that all of the concerns and problems raised in the report have been addressed.
“I am a bit skeptical about claims the FBI addressed all of the concerns and problems raised in the FBI Inspector General’s audit report on the terrorist watchlist,” Chris Calabrese, an attorney with the ACLU Technology and Liberty Project, told us.
“Are they saying that the FBI has reviewed 24,000 watchlist records to determine how many (likely a majority) need to be removed from the watchlist? Has the FBI completely streamlined a process for reviewing records so that people are removed from the watchlist within 10 days? The audit reports the average amount of time to remove an identity from the list is 60 days. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.”
The OIG report documents a widespread failure to scrub the lists by removing names after cases have been closed. For example, one subject stayed on the watchlist for almost five years after the case was resolved; two people on the list were dead. The FBI attempted to place one individual on the watchlist by reclassifying that person as an international terrorist after already having been cleared of wrongdoing by an FBI investigation.
It identified more than 50,000 records with no explanation of why they were on the list, making it impossible to remove them. It described the controls for placing many names on the list as “weak or nonexistent.”
The watchlist has existed since 2003, when then President George W. Bush issued a presidential directive mandating the development of a consolidated terrorist watchlist and required all federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies with terrorism information to share such information. The consolidated terrorist watchlist is known as the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB).
The Terrorist Screening Center, which also began operations in 2003 and is managed by the FBI, was established to serve as the U.S. government’s consolidation point for information about known or suspected international and domestic terrorists.
“This IG report reveals just what a comedy of errors the watchlist is,” said Chris Calabrese, attorney with the ACLU Technology and Liberty Program. “But we did not need this report to know there is a problem with the effectiveness of any terrorist watchlist that includes over a million names. It certainly explains why Congressman John Lewis and Senator Edward Kennedy have problems when they try to fly.”
And Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office, said "Members of Congress, nuns, war heroes and other 'suspicious characters,' with names like Robert Johnson and Gary Smith, have become trapped in the Kafkaesque clutches of this list, with little hope of escape."
"Congress needs to fix it, the Terrorist Screening Center needs to fix it, or the next president needs to fix it, but it has to be done soon, " she urged, adding,
“This report strongly suggests that hundreds of thousands of people are being wrongly identified as terrorists,” said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “This is yet more confirmation of what we’ve been saying for years – that the watchlist is not only unfair for travelers, but it is also a waste of scarce resources. It is time for Congress to haul the watchlist policymakers up to Capitol Hill to answer some tough questions.”
The ACLU is recommending a series of controls on the watch lists. These include due process, a right to access and challenge data upon which listing is based, tight criteria for adding names to the lists, and rigorous procedures for updating and cleansing names from the lists.
The group also called on the president to issue an executive order requiring the lists to be reviewed and limited to only those for whom there is credible evidence of terrorist ties or activities. The review should be concluded within 3 months, the group said.
The OIG report also found that putting people on the watchlist was as problematic as getting them off. The Inspector General’s recommendations included establishing timeframe requirements for headquarters units to process watchlist nominations, modifications, and removals; reevaluation of watchlist records that are not sourced to a current terrorism case, and creation of a process to modify and remove known or suspected terrorists placed on the watchlist.
“We believe that the FBI’s failure to consistently nominate subjects of international and domestic terrorism investigations to the terrorist watchlist could pose a risk to national security,” the OIG report said, adding that “FBI field offices’ frequent failure to modify watchlist records indicates a problem with training on and understanding of the importance of the watchlist process.”
Psychologists Complicit in Torture, Physicians’ Group Charges
By William Fisher
A leading human rights organization is charging that an American Psychological Association (APA) task force formed to advise the U.S. military on prisoner interrogations was “stacked with Defense Department and Bush Administration officials” and “rushed to conclusions that violated the Geneva Convention.”
In the wake of newly released internal APA documents indicating that the organization’s 2005 ethics task force on national security interrogations developed its policy to conform to Pentagon guidelines governing psychologist participation in interrogations, said Physicians for Human Rights (PHR).
The organization is calling for an independent, outside investigation of the APA and a probe by the Defense Department’s Inspector General into whether any federal employees exerted influence over the APA's Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security (PENS).
PHR Director Nathaniel Raymond told us, “The APA’s ethics task force on national security interrogations produced a report that was rushed, secret, and being driven to already-reached conclusions – conclusions that violated the Geneva Convention.”
“The APA made ethics subservient to law by following guidelines set out by the Pentagon. Members of the task force had long-standing ties to the Pentagon, and the task force was stacked with Defense Department and Bush Administration officials. There were clear conflicts of interest,” he said, adding, “The APA needs to explain how that happened. And the Pentagon’s Inspector General needs to look into how this was allowed to happen.”
The charges of APA conflicts of interest came after a series of task force emails were posted online by Salon.com and ProPublica, a not-for-profit investigative journalism organization.
PHR said the emails indicate that the APA's ethics task force developed its ethics policy to conform to Pentagon guidelines.
"These serious allegations require an independent investigation to determine whether APA leadership engaged in unethical conduct," said Steven Reisner, Ph.D., PHR Advisor for Psychological Ethics. "The American public deserves to know if there were inappropriate contacts or conflicts of interest between APA officials and the Pentagon," he said.
The task force found it to be "consistent with the APA Ethics Code" for psychologists to consult with interrogators in the interests of national security. While noting that psychologists do not participate in torture and have a responsibility to report it, and should be committed to the APA ethics code whenever they "encounter conflicts between ethics and law," the task force decided that "if the conflict cannot be resolved ... psychologists may adhere to the requirements of the law."
PHR has been a longstanding and outspoken critic of the APA's PENS policy governing psychologist involvement in interrogations, calling for a "bright line" prohibition against health professional participation in interrogations. Though the APA membership passed a 2008 referendum banning psychologists from facilities that violate US and international human rights law, PHR believes that the PENS policy must be immediately revoked.
Riesner said it was time to “put a psychologist's ethical obligations to human rights principles ahead of following orders."
The recently released Senate Armed Services Committee report detailing detainee abuse by the Department of Defense confirms that psychologists rationalized, designed, supervised, and implemented the Bush Administration's torture program.
"The Senate Armed Services Committee report confirms that psychologists were central to the Bush Administration's use of torture," said PHR’s Raymond.
"In the context of these revelations, the American public needs to know why a supposedly independent ethics policy was written by some of the very personnel allegedly implicated in detainee abuse," he said.
Stephen Soldz, a board member and spokesman for another advocacy group, Psychologists for Social Responsibility, said, "These emails show that several of the military psychologists formulating APA ethics policy were giving themselves get-out-of-jail-free cards.”
He charged that their report concluded that it was ethical to follow military policy while the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memos allowing torture were still in effect.".
The memoranda prepared by OLC lawyers provided the rationale for the Bush Administration’s assertion that “enhanced interrogation techniques” were legal.
PHR has repeatedly called for an end to the use of the SERE tactics by U.S. personnel, the dismantling of the Behavioral Science Consultation Teams (BSCT) teams, and a full Congressional investigation of the use of psychological torture by the U.S. Government.
SERE, the military's “Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape program” was developed to train American soldiers to cope with torture if captured by the enemy. Its developers warned officials as early as 2002 that “reverse-engineering” SERE techniques for use on detainees could be ineffective and dangerous, a recent Senate Armed Services Committee report revealed,
The report also noted that the same psychologists who helped develop the SERE program were complicit in the very interrogation policies and practices they warned against.
Dr. Jeffrey Kaye, a San-Francisco-based psychologist who has written extensively on the role played by medical professionals in prisoner treatment, told us, “APA's ties to the Pentagon are of long-standing, going back at least to the Cold War.”
He said, “Any inquiry should make the historical connection between the work of CIA and SERE psychologists and the role of coercive interrogation used in psychologically ‘breaking down’ a human being.”
He said that there is a long history of collaboration between psychologists and the military, which includes several former APA presidents. These men were the “institutional godfathers” for a later generation of psychologists who continue to be deeply involved in interrogation techniques, he said.
In an article accompanying ProPublica’s publication of the APA task force’s extensive email exchanges, Sheri Fink of ProPublica posed the question, “Is it possible for psychologists to uphold the ethical tenets of their profession while working within a system of interrogation that violates those tenets? Does it matter if they raised objections to the system of interrogation but cooperated with it anyway?”
The Senate report said that in 2002, a psychiatrist and a psychologist who worked at the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, prepared a list of harsh interrogation techniques that ended up influencing interrogation policy not only at Guantánamo, but also in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In the same memo, they warned that these methods were likely to result in inaccurate tips and could harm detainees. Those warnings disappeared as the memo moved up the chain of command.
The board of the APA, the largest membership organization for psychologists, who are employed in great numbers by the Department of Defense, quickly adopted the task force's report as the organization's official policy.
But last year, members of the APA successfully petitioned for a vote on whether to ban psychologists from working in detention settings where international law or the U.S. Constitution are violated. The membership passed the proposal.
Some psychologists have filed complaints with the APA and state licensing boards against colleagues who were allegedly involved in abusive interrogations.
A leading human rights organization is charging that an American Psychological Association (APA) task force formed to advise the U.S. military on prisoner interrogations was “stacked with Defense Department and Bush Administration officials” and “rushed to conclusions that violated the Geneva Convention.”
In the wake of newly released internal APA documents indicating that the organization’s 2005 ethics task force on national security interrogations developed its policy to conform to Pentagon guidelines governing psychologist participation in interrogations, said Physicians for Human Rights (PHR).
The organization is calling for an independent, outside investigation of the APA and a probe by the Defense Department’s Inspector General into whether any federal employees exerted influence over the APA's Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security (PENS).
PHR Director Nathaniel Raymond told us, “The APA’s ethics task force on national security interrogations produced a report that was rushed, secret, and being driven to already-reached conclusions – conclusions that violated the Geneva Convention.”
“The APA made ethics subservient to law by following guidelines set out by the Pentagon. Members of the task force had long-standing ties to the Pentagon, and the task force was stacked with Defense Department and Bush Administration officials. There were clear conflicts of interest,” he said, adding, “The APA needs to explain how that happened. And the Pentagon’s Inspector General needs to look into how this was allowed to happen.”
The charges of APA conflicts of interest came after a series of task force emails were posted online by Salon.com and ProPublica, a not-for-profit investigative journalism organization.
PHR said the emails indicate that the APA's ethics task force developed its ethics policy to conform to Pentagon guidelines.
"These serious allegations require an independent investigation to determine whether APA leadership engaged in unethical conduct," said Steven Reisner, Ph.D., PHR Advisor for Psychological Ethics. "The American public deserves to know if there were inappropriate contacts or conflicts of interest between APA officials and the Pentagon," he said.
The task force found it to be "consistent with the APA Ethics Code" for psychologists to consult with interrogators in the interests of national security. While noting that psychologists do not participate in torture and have a responsibility to report it, and should be committed to the APA ethics code whenever they "encounter conflicts between ethics and law," the task force decided that "if the conflict cannot be resolved ... psychologists may adhere to the requirements of the law."
PHR has been a longstanding and outspoken critic of the APA's PENS policy governing psychologist involvement in interrogations, calling for a "bright line" prohibition against health professional participation in interrogations. Though the APA membership passed a 2008 referendum banning psychologists from facilities that violate US and international human rights law, PHR believes that the PENS policy must be immediately revoked.
Riesner said it was time to “put a psychologist's ethical obligations to human rights principles ahead of following orders."
The recently released Senate Armed Services Committee report detailing detainee abuse by the Department of Defense confirms that psychologists rationalized, designed, supervised, and implemented the Bush Administration's torture program.
"The Senate Armed Services Committee report confirms that psychologists were central to the Bush Administration's use of torture," said PHR’s Raymond.
"In the context of these revelations, the American public needs to know why a supposedly independent ethics policy was written by some of the very personnel allegedly implicated in detainee abuse," he said.
Stephen Soldz, a board member and spokesman for another advocacy group, Psychologists for Social Responsibility, said, "These emails show that several of the military psychologists formulating APA ethics policy were giving themselves get-out-of-jail-free cards.”
He charged that their report concluded that it was ethical to follow military policy while the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memos allowing torture were still in effect.".
The memoranda prepared by OLC lawyers provided the rationale for the Bush Administration’s assertion that “enhanced interrogation techniques” were legal.
PHR has repeatedly called for an end to the use of the SERE tactics by U.S. personnel, the dismantling of the Behavioral Science Consultation Teams (BSCT) teams, and a full Congressional investigation of the use of psychological torture by the U.S. Government.
SERE, the military's “Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape program” was developed to train American soldiers to cope with torture if captured by the enemy. Its developers warned officials as early as 2002 that “reverse-engineering” SERE techniques for use on detainees could be ineffective and dangerous, a recent Senate Armed Services Committee report revealed,
The report also noted that the same psychologists who helped develop the SERE program were complicit in the very interrogation policies and practices they warned against.
Dr. Jeffrey Kaye, a San-Francisco-based psychologist who has written extensively on the role played by medical professionals in prisoner treatment, told us, “APA's ties to the Pentagon are of long-standing, going back at least to the Cold War.”
He said, “Any inquiry should make the historical connection between the work of CIA and SERE psychologists and the role of coercive interrogation used in psychologically ‘breaking down’ a human being.”
He said that there is a long history of collaboration between psychologists and the military, which includes several former APA presidents. These men were the “institutional godfathers” for a later generation of psychologists who continue to be deeply involved in interrogation techniques, he said.
In an article accompanying ProPublica’s publication of the APA task force’s extensive email exchanges, Sheri Fink of ProPublica posed the question, “Is it possible for psychologists to uphold the ethical tenets of their profession while working within a system of interrogation that violates those tenets? Does it matter if they raised objections to the system of interrogation but cooperated with it anyway?”
The Senate report said that in 2002, a psychiatrist and a psychologist who worked at the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, prepared a list of harsh interrogation techniques that ended up influencing interrogation policy not only at Guantánamo, but also in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In the same memo, they warned that these methods were likely to result in inaccurate tips and could harm detainees. Those warnings disappeared as the memo moved up the chain of command.
The board of the APA, the largest membership organization for psychologists, who are employed in great numbers by the Department of Defense, quickly adopted the task force's report as the organization's official policy.
But last year, members of the APA successfully petitioned for a vote on whether to ban psychologists from working in detention settings where international law or the U.S. Constitution are violated. The membership passed the proposal.
Some psychologists have filed complaints with the APA and state licensing boards against colleagues who were allegedly involved in abusive interrogations.
Monday, May 04, 2009
Torture Detainees = Shoot Obama in Foot
By William Fisher
The Pentagon says there are up to 100 prisoners in Guantanamo who are too dangerous to release but who cannot be tried in U.S. federal courts.
They cannot be tried because much of the evidence against them is based on hearsay, which judges would likely refuse to allow. Or because they were held illegally as “enemy combatants” while being stripped of any rights they may have had. Or because what we know about these people and their plans was learned through the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” (have you ever heard of a less descriptive euphemism?). Chances are most Federal judges would also find such “evidence” inadmissible.
Former Vice President Cheney tells us the government’s use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” (including waterboarding) was NOT torture (didn’t the memos from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel tell us so?). He also claims these techniques yielded actionable intelligence that disrupted numerous terrorist plots to kill more Americans.
So far, we have not seen a shred of evidence to prove that claim. We have only the word of the former Veep. And, given the magnitude of the lies he and the rest of the Bushies have sold us over the past eight years, why on earth would any of us believe a single thing Cheney had to say?
The result of W’s presidential power-grab is that we are now faced with the prospect of being unable to prosecute accused terrorists in our Federal justice system, or of having to obtain plea deals that will greatly lighten the sentences meted out to these miscreants.
The al-Marri case illustrates the point. As noted in a Washington Post editorial this morning, “Nearly six years ago, President George W. Bush declared Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri an enemy combatant and had him swept out of federal court and into a U.S. Navy brig so he could be interrogated without the legal protections afforded by the criminal justice system. Bush said the Qatari national, arrested as a material witness in Illinois in December 2001, possessed critical intelligence that ‘would aid U.S. efforts to prevent attacks by al-Qaeda on the United States’."
The consequence of Bush’s action? Instead of being put on trial for providing material support for terrorism – and facing a 30-year prison sentence – Marri was allowed to plead guilty only to conspiracy to provide material support, which carries a 15-year sentence (and even less if he is given credit for the five years he spent in the Navy brig).
Why did the Justice Department have to accept this plea deal?
Because government lawyers were concerned about the release of classified evidence and the impact of possible testimony regarding Marri's mental state after prolonged solitary confinement.
Because he was interrogated using those famous “enhanced interrogation techniques” --defense lawyers said in court papers that interrogators threatened Marri, telling him he would be transferred to Saudi Arabia or Egypt, where he would be sodomized and forced to watch the rape of his wife.
And because Marri was allegedly recruited to come to the U.S. by no less a storied figure than Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, to organize a terrorist sleeper cell. KSM would have been a likely witness for Marri if the case were ever to find its way into a courtroom.
And speaking of KSM, it is also questionable that he will ever see the inside of a Federal courtroom. That’s not because anyone’s afraid that a jury would be sympathetic to him, but because of the headlines he would make by describing his own torture in U.S. custody. It’s likely that KSM and many other defendants would use the courts as platforms from which to expose yet more sensational details about their treatment.
So what to do with the hundred or so detainees at Guantanamo who the Pentagon says are too dangerous to release but who, like Marri and probably KSM, cannot be tried in civilian courts?
The Obama Administration was quick to declare the “enemy combatant” designation as illegal and to order an end to “enhanced interrogation techniques.” But the genie is out of the bottle and can’t be stuffed back in. The likely consequence is that most of the victims of these techniques will never be tried in civilian courts – even though our criminal justice system is demonstrably well-equipped to try them.
So what federal prosecutors are left with now is the grim reality of trying to reach plea deals with the accused, or freeing them, or trying them in settings where the rules of evidence are less stringent.
Less stringent? Read Military Commissions 2.0. -- some tweaked version of the totally failed system that produced exactly two convictions in eight years.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has acknowledged that a return the commissions remains an option. But most legal scholars and human rights advocates say there is no amount of tweaking that will repair this deeply flawed system.
And, as if this Obama Administration legal migraine wasn’t enough, it is also having to deal with the question of where to put these prisoners as they await trial?
Gates has already asked Congress for $50 million to build a new prison – a new GITMO.
But where? Virtually every voice in Congress is already belting out the NIMBY aria. You can bet that every member of Congress will be running, not walking, away from the opportunity to make an earmark out of this new construction project.
Mercifully, George W. Bush couldn’t run for reelection last November. But he still managed to shoot the Obama Administration – and all the rest of us -- in the foot.
The Pentagon says there are up to 100 prisoners in Guantanamo who are too dangerous to release but who cannot be tried in U.S. federal courts.
They cannot be tried because much of the evidence against them is based on hearsay, which judges would likely refuse to allow. Or because they were held illegally as “enemy combatants” while being stripped of any rights they may have had. Or because what we know about these people and their plans was learned through the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” (have you ever heard of a less descriptive euphemism?). Chances are most Federal judges would also find such “evidence” inadmissible.
Former Vice President Cheney tells us the government’s use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” (including waterboarding) was NOT torture (didn’t the memos from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel tell us so?). He also claims these techniques yielded actionable intelligence that disrupted numerous terrorist plots to kill more Americans.
So far, we have not seen a shred of evidence to prove that claim. We have only the word of the former Veep. And, given the magnitude of the lies he and the rest of the Bushies have sold us over the past eight years, why on earth would any of us believe a single thing Cheney had to say?
The result of W’s presidential power-grab is that we are now faced with the prospect of being unable to prosecute accused terrorists in our Federal justice system, or of having to obtain plea deals that will greatly lighten the sentences meted out to these miscreants.
The al-Marri case illustrates the point. As noted in a Washington Post editorial this morning, “Nearly six years ago, President George W. Bush declared Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri an enemy combatant and had him swept out of federal court and into a U.S. Navy brig so he could be interrogated without the legal protections afforded by the criminal justice system. Bush said the Qatari national, arrested as a material witness in Illinois in December 2001, possessed critical intelligence that ‘would aid U.S. efforts to prevent attacks by al-Qaeda on the United States’."
The consequence of Bush’s action? Instead of being put on trial for providing material support for terrorism – and facing a 30-year prison sentence – Marri was allowed to plead guilty only to conspiracy to provide material support, which carries a 15-year sentence (and even less if he is given credit for the five years he spent in the Navy brig).
Why did the Justice Department have to accept this plea deal?
Because government lawyers were concerned about the release of classified evidence and the impact of possible testimony regarding Marri's mental state after prolonged solitary confinement.
Because he was interrogated using those famous “enhanced interrogation techniques” --defense lawyers said in court papers that interrogators threatened Marri, telling him he would be transferred to Saudi Arabia or Egypt, where he would be sodomized and forced to watch the rape of his wife.
And because Marri was allegedly recruited to come to the U.S. by no less a storied figure than Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, to organize a terrorist sleeper cell. KSM would have been a likely witness for Marri if the case were ever to find its way into a courtroom.
And speaking of KSM, it is also questionable that he will ever see the inside of a Federal courtroom. That’s not because anyone’s afraid that a jury would be sympathetic to him, but because of the headlines he would make by describing his own torture in U.S. custody. It’s likely that KSM and many other defendants would use the courts as platforms from which to expose yet more sensational details about their treatment.
So what to do with the hundred or so detainees at Guantanamo who the Pentagon says are too dangerous to release but who, like Marri and probably KSM, cannot be tried in civilian courts?
The Obama Administration was quick to declare the “enemy combatant” designation as illegal and to order an end to “enhanced interrogation techniques.” But the genie is out of the bottle and can’t be stuffed back in. The likely consequence is that most of the victims of these techniques will never be tried in civilian courts – even though our criminal justice system is demonstrably well-equipped to try them.
So what federal prosecutors are left with now is the grim reality of trying to reach plea deals with the accused, or freeing them, or trying them in settings where the rules of evidence are less stringent.
Less stringent? Read Military Commissions 2.0. -- some tweaked version of the totally failed system that produced exactly two convictions in eight years.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has acknowledged that a return the commissions remains an option. But most legal scholars and human rights advocates say there is no amount of tweaking that will repair this deeply flawed system.
And, as if this Obama Administration legal migraine wasn’t enough, it is also having to deal with the question of where to put these prisoners as they await trial?
Gates has already asked Congress for $50 million to build a new prison – a new GITMO.
But where? Virtually every voice in Congress is already belting out the NIMBY aria. You can bet that every member of Congress will be running, not walking, away from the opportunity to make an earmark out of this new construction project.
Mercifully, George W. Bush couldn’t run for reelection last November. But he still managed to shoot the Obama Administration – and all the rest of us -- in the foot.
BRITS TRY TO BLOCK RENDITION CASE
By William Fisher
British High Court judges are expected to rule this week on whether a document by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency can be publicly disclosed, thus opening the courthouse door to a lawsuit charging that the U.K. Government was complicit in facilitating the rendition of a British resident by the CIA, which tortured and secretly imprisoned him at Guantánamo Bay.
Lawyers acting for David Miliband, the British foreign secretary, last week made a last-ditch attempt to block the release of the CIA information, which reportedly shows what British authorities knew about the mistreatment of British resident Binyam Mohamed.
The information is a seven-paragraph summary of CIA documents, described earlier by Lord Justice Thomas and Mr. Justice Lloyd Jones as containing nothing, which could "possibly be described as 'highly sensitive classified U.S. intelligence'".
In a ruling earlier this year, the High Court judges said: "Indeed we did not consider that a democracy governed by the rule of law would expect a court in another democracy to suppress a summary of the evidence contained in reports by its own officials ... relevant to allegations of torture and cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment, politically embarrassing though it might be."
However, David Mackie, a senior government lawyer, told the two judges that Miliband had been told by Obama administration officials that the disclosure of the seven paragraphs "could likely result in serious damage to U.K. and U.S. national security".
The claim was made despite Obama's recent decision to release detailed information about CIA interrogation techniques, including waterboarding.
Lawyers for Mohamed say Obama's action means it is highly unlikely that the president would object to the disclosure of the CIA summary.
This latest move in the long-running case in the High Court comes as a federal appeals court in the U.S. gave the legal green light to a case brought there by five men including Mohamed and another UK resident, Bisher al-Rawi, who say they were tortured under the CIA's extraordinary rendition program.
The five former Guantánamo Bay detainees are suing Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen Dataplan for allegedly providing flights to secret prisons overseas, where the abuse is said to have happened.
In what may become a landmark decision, a federal appeals court recently ruled that the “state secrets privilege” – routinely used by the government to block lawsuits against its officials – can only be used to contest specific evidence, but not to dismiss an entire suit.
The ruling, which was hailed by human rights advocates, came in connection with a lawsuit against a company known as Jeppesen DataPlan for its role in the government’s “extraordinary rendition” program during the administration of former President George W. Bush.
"This is a tremendous step forward," said Mohamed’s lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, director of the U.K.-based legal charity Reprieve, referring to the decision in the U.S. case.
"Binyam Mohamed, Bisher al-Rawi (another plaintiff) and perhaps many others, are one step closer to making the CEOs of these companies stop and think before they commit criminal acts for profit," he told IPS.
Reprieve’s renditions investigator Clara Gutteridge said: "It is inconceivable that Jeppesen acted alone. People in the highest echelons of the U.S. – and in some cases the U.K. – governments have authorized illegal rendition flights and must also be held accountable."
The U.S. suit charges that Jeppesen knowingly participated in the rendition program by providing critical flight planning and logistical support services to aircraft and crews used by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to forcibly “disappear” the five men to U.S.-run prisons or foreign intelligence agencies overseas where they were interrogated under torture. Jeppesen is a subsidiary of aerospace giant Boeing. The lawsuit was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
During the Bush administration, the government intervened when the case first came before a lower court in 2007, successfully asserting the "state secrets" privilege to have the case thrown out in February 2008. On appeal, the administration of President Barack Obama followed the same road as its predecessor. The appeals court has now reversed that decision.
But lawyers for the men who brought the case also sounded a note of caution. "This historic decision marks the beginning, not the end, of this litigation," Ben Wizner, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) National Security Project, told IPS. Wizner argued the case for the plaintiffs.
"Our clients, who are among the hundreds of victims of torture under the Bush administration, have waited for years just to get a foot in the courthouse door. Now, at long last, they will have their day in court. Today's ruling demolishes once and for all the legal fiction, advanced by the Bush administration and continued by the Obama administration, that facts known throughout the world could be deemed 'secrets' in a court of law," he said.
In its ruling, the court wrote that "the Executive's national security prerogatives are not the only weighty constitutional values at stake,” adding that security depends on the "freedom from arbitrary and unlawful restraint and the personal liberty that is secured by adhering to the separation of powers."
"According to the government's theory, the judiciary should effectively cordon off all secret government actions from judicial scrutiny, immunizing the CIA and its partners from the demands and limits of the law," Judge Michael Hawkins wrote.
Allowing the government to shield its conduct from court review simply because classified information is involved "would ... perversely encourage the president to classify politically embarrassing information simply to place it beyond the reach of judicial process," Hawkins said.
"The extraordinary rendition program is well known throughout the world," said Steven Watt, a staff attorney with the ACLU Human Rights Program. "The only place it hasn't been discussed is where it most cries out for examination – in a U.S. court of law. Allowing this case to go forward is an important step toward reaffirming our commitment to domestic and international human rights law and restoring an America we can be proud of. Victims of extraordinary rendition deserve their day in court."
The U.S. Appeals Court ruling means that the government can assert the “state secrets” privilege for specific pieces of evidence, but not to end a case before it begins.
That means that the privilege is primarily an evidentiary privilege, a definition civil libertarians have long sought. The State Secrets Protection Act, now pending in Congress, would turn that definition into law.
The Obama Administration now has three options. It can do nothing, which will mean the case will finally go before a U.S. court. It can ask the entire Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to rehear the case. Or it can appeal the case to the Supreme Court.
If the case goes to trial, the government can still argue that disclosing anything about Jeppesen's relationship with the United States government would jeopardize national security secrets. But now it can no longer simply “assert” that privilege; it will have to convince a judge by arguing the point in court.
During the administration of former President George W. Bush, the government asserted the “state secrets” claim with increasing regularity in an attempt to throw out lawsuits and justify withholding information from the public about the rendition program and also about illegal wiretapping, torture and other breaches of U.S. and international law.
British High Court judges are expected to rule this week on whether a document by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency can be publicly disclosed, thus opening the courthouse door to a lawsuit charging that the U.K. Government was complicit in facilitating the rendition of a British resident by the CIA, which tortured and secretly imprisoned him at Guantánamo Bay.
Lawyers acting for David Miliband, the British foreign secretary, last week made a last-ditch attempt to block the release of the CIA information, which reportedly shows what British authorities knew about the mistreatment of British resident Binyam Mohamed.
The information is a seven-paragraph summary of CIA documents, described earlier by Lord Justice Thomas and Mr. Justice Lloyd Jones as containing nothing, which could "possibly be described as 'highly sensitive classified U.S. intelligence'".
In a ruling earlier this year, the High Court judges said: "Indeed we did not consider that a democracy governed by the rule of law would expect a court in another democracy to suppress a summary of the evidence contained in reports by its own officials ... relevant to allegations of torture and cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment, politically embarrassing though it might be."
However, David Mackie, a senior government lawyer, told the two judges that Miliband had been told by Obama administration officials that the disclosure of the seven paragraphs "could likely result in serious damage to U.K. and U.S. national security".
The claim was made despite Obama's recent decision to release detailed information about CIA interrogation techniques, including waterboarding.
Lawyers for Mohamed say Obama's action means it is highly unlikely that the president would object to the disclosure of the CIA summary.
This latest move in the long-running case in the High Court comes as a federal appeals court in the U.S. gave the legal green light to a case brought there by five men including Mohamed and another UK resident, Bisher al-Rawi, who say they were tortured under the CIA's extraordinary rendition program.
The five former Guantánamo Bay detainees are suing Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen Dataplan for allegedly providing flights to secret prisons overseas, where the abuse is said to have happened.
In what may become a landmark decision, a federal appeals court recently ruled that the “state secrets privilege” – routinely used by the government to block lawsuits against its officials – can only be used to contest specific evidence, but not to dismiss an entire suit.
The ruling, which was hailed by human rights advocates, came in connection with a lawsuit against a company known as Jeppesen DataPlan for its role in the government’s “extraordinary rendition” program during the administration of former President George W. Bush.
"This is a tremendous step forward," said Mohamed’s lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, director of the U.K.-based legal charity Reprieve, referring to the decision in the U.S. case.
"Binyam Mohamed, Bisher al-Rawi (another plaintiff) and perhaps many others, are one step closer to making the CEOs of these companies stop and think before they commit criminal acts for profit," he told IPS.
Reprieve’s renditions investigator Clara Gutteridge said: "It is inconceivable that Jeppesen acted alone. People in the highest echelons of the U.S. – and in some cases the U.K. – governments have authorized illegal rendition flights and must also be held accountable."
The U.S. suit charges that Jeppesen knowingly participated in the rendition program by providing critical flight planning and logistical support services to aircraft and crews used by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to forcibly “disappear” the five men to U.S.-run prisons or foreign intelligence agencies overseas where they were interrogated under torture. Jeppesen is a subsidiary of aerospace giant Boeing. The lawsuit was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
During the Bush administration, the government intervened when the case first came before a lower court in 2007, successfully asserting the "state secrets" privilege to have the case thrown out in February 2008. On appeal, the administration of President Barack Obama followed the same road as its predecessor. The appeals court has now reversed that decision.
But lawyers for the men who brought the case also sounded a note of caution. "This historic decision marks the beginning, not the end, of this litigation," Ben Wizner, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) National Security Project, told IPS. Wizner argued the case for the plaintiffs.
"Our clients, who are among the hundreds of victims of torture under the Bush administration, have waited for years just to get a foot in the courthouse door. Now, at long last, they will have their day in court. Today's ruling demolishes once and for all the legal fiction, advanced by the Bush administration and continued by the Obama administration, that facts known throughout the world could be deemed 'secrets' in a court of law," he said.
In its ruling, the court wrote that "the Executive's national security prerogatives are not the only weighty constitutional values at stake,” adding that security depends on the "freedom from arbitrary and unlawful restraint and the personal liberty that is secured by adhering to the separation of powers."
"According to the government's theory, the judiciary should effectively cordon off all secret government actions from judicial scrutiny, immunizing the CIA and its partners from the demands and limits of the law," Judge Michael Hawkins wrote.
Allowing the government to shield its conduct from court review simply because classified information is involved "would ... perversely encourage the president to classify politically embarrassing information simply to place it beyond the reach of judicial process," Hawkins said.
"The extraordinary rendition program is well known throughout the world," said Steven Watt, a staff attorney with the ACLU Human Rights Program. "The only place it hasn't been discussed is where it most cries out for examination – in a U.S. court of law. Allowing this case to go forward is an important step toward reaffirming our commitment to domestic and international human rights law and restoring an America we can be proud of. Victims of extraordinary rendition deserve their day in court."
The U.S. Appeals Court ruling means that the government can assert the “state secrets” privilege for specific pieces of evidence, but not to end a case before it begins.
That means that the privilege is primarily an evidentiary privilege, a definition civil libertarians have long sought. The State Secrets Protection Act, now pending in Congress, would turn that definition into law.
The Obama Administration now has three options. It can do nothing, which will mean the case will finally go before a U.S. court. It can ask the entire Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to rehear the case. Or it can appeal the case to the Supreme Court.
If the case goes to trial, the government can still argue that disclosing anything about Jeppesen's relationship with the United States government would jeopardize national security secrets. But now it can no longer simply “assert” that privilege; it will have to convince a judge by arguing the point in court.
During the administration of former President George W. Bush, the government asserted the “state secrets” claim with increasing regularity in an attempt to throw out lawsuits and justify withholding information from the public about the rendition program and also about illegal wiretapping, torture and other breaches of U.S. and international law.
OBAMA’S UIGHUR PROBLEM
By William Fisher
The probability that some Guantanamo detainees will soon be released into the U.S. will place the administration of President Barack Obama in the eye of a major political hurricane.
Republicans and some Democrats in Congress have expressed strong opposition to the administration’s reported plan to allow some of the 17 Chinese Uighurs to resettle in the U.S. as part of Obama’s pledge to shut down the controversial prison within a year.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has confirmed the plan for the first time, though he added that a final decision had not been made. He said he understood that almost any administration move on Guantanamo was likely to be controversial. Seven has been the reported as the number of Uighurs the administration wants to release into the U.S.
Gates told a Senate appropriations subcommittee last week, "I fully expect to have 535 pieces of legislation before this is over saying, 'Not in my district, not in my state,' " He was referring to the number of senators and members of the House.
But Gates said the Uighurs would face persecution if they were returned to China. He added, "It's difficult for the State Department to make the argument to other countries they should take these people that we have deemed in this case not to be dangerous if we won't take any of them ourselves."
There are currently 17 Uighurs who have been imprisoned at Guantanamo since they were arrested in Pakistan in 2002. While these Muslim men have been declared to pose no threat to U.S. security and have been cleared for release, they remain at the notorious prison because no other countries have offered them asylum. A U.S. appeals court has ruled that admission to the U.S. is a matter of immigration law over which regular U.S. courts have no jurisdiction. That decision has been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is now considering the matter.
The Uighurs are primarily from northwestern China. China has been criticized for repressing Uighur religious rights and freedoms.
Before their capture, the Uighurs had traveled to Afghanistan, where they received firearms training at a camp reportedly run by a Uighur separatist.
There are about 240 inmates at Guantánamo. As many as 60, if freed, cannot go back to their homelands because they could face abuse, imprisonment or death. They are from Azerbaijan, Algeria, Afghanistan, Chad, China, Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
Several European nations, including Portugal and Lithuania, have said they will consider taking such detainees. Some nations, such as Germany, are divided on the issue. France has recently agreed to accept one prisoner and the European Union has said it would consider accepting others. British Justice Secretary Jack Straw said last week that his country would consider taking Guantánamo Bay detainees if the U.S. asks for such help to close the detention center.
''We will do our best to help and support the policy of the Obama administration to close Guantánamo Bay,'' Straw said. ''If we're asked, of course we'll consider'' accepting detainees, he said.
Some European leaders argue that if the detainees are to be released anywhere, it should first be in the United States.
Many legal scholars and most human rights advocates are pressing the Obama Administration to release cleared prisoners into the U.S.
Professor Francis A. Boyle of the University of Chicago Law School told IPS, “Obviously the United States government cannot return them to China, where they will be persecuted, which would violate our obligations under international law. And they certainly cannot be detained indefinitely, which would violate their international human rights, which the Bush administration has already done grievously now for a number of years. The lawful and humanitarian alternative would be to grant them political asylum and admit them into the United States.”
And Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, told IPS, "It is a violation of basic human rights and our Constitution that the United States is continuing to imprison people, such as the Uighurs, who it acknowledges are innocent and present no danger. These men were swept up by mistake, sold to the U.S. for bounty, and rendered to Guantanamo where they have spent years in prison under often brutal conditions."
He added, "If we are to restore the rule of law, the Uighurs must be released in the United States. Keeping innocent people behind bars at an off-shore prison undermines not only our core values but our security as well."
Release of cleared prisoners is seen as a crucial step to the Obama Administration’s plans to close the prison and relocate the detainees.
To win their freedom, the Uighurs filed suit against the government. Last year, a U.S. district court ordered their release. The decision was appealed by the Bush administration, and was overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals. Lawyers for the Uighurs have now appealed to the Supreme Court.
Members of a Uighur community in Northern Virginia have offered to help the detainees to resettle there.
In 2006, the U.S. released five Uighurs to Albania. After pressure from Beijing, which also urged other countries with Uighur communities not to accept the released detainees, Albania declined to take any more. Four remain in Albania and one has recently been granted asylum in Sweden.
Within Guantanamo, Uighurs are not considered a grave threat and are allowed privileges such as television, that are not available to other detainees.
Meanwhile, the Obama Administration is continuing to struggle with the issue of what to do with the 50 to 100 detainees at Guantanamo who Secretary Gates told Congress were considered too dangerous to release but could not be tried in U.S. civilian courts because evidence against them was based on hearsay or was obtained through torture.
Gates told Congress that the administration might continue to use the controversial military commissions set up by former President Bush, and later approved by Congress, to prosecute some of the detainees. President Obama ordered a 120-day halt to all military commission trials during his first days in office. That moratorium comes to an end in mid-May.
Lawmakers of both political parties have become increasingly vocal in asserting that the administration announced it would close Guantánamo before it had a plan for housing and prosecuting some detainees and releasing others.
“The question of where the terrorists at Guantánamo will be sent is no joking matter,” according to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader. “The administration needs to tell the American people how it will keep the terrorists at Guantánamo out of our neighborhoods and off of the battlefield.”
Members of Congress were already playing the NIMBY (Not in My Backyard) game, pleading with Gates not to send the detainees to their states. “Please not at Leavenworth,” said Senator Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas. “This is a hot topic in my state.”
Gates has asked for $50 million in case a facility needs to be built quickly to house the detainees. He said he is aware that such a facility would be unpopular with lawmakers.
Republicans in Congress say Guantánamo should remain in operation and are mobilizing to fight the release of any detainees into the United States.
Critics of the administration’s actions have tended to label all Guantanamo detainees as “terrorists,” although many have been cleared for release and there is substantial evidence that other detainees were “sold” to the U.S. military for cash while others were simply “in the wrong place at the wrong time” and should never have been imprisoned in the first place.
The probability that some Guantanamo detainees will soon be released into the U.S. will place the administration of President Barack Obama in the eye of a major political hurricane.
Republicans and some Democrats in Congress have expressed strong opposition to the administration’s reported plan to allow some of the 17 Chinese Uighurs to resettle in the U.S. as part of Obama’s pledge to shut down the controversial prison within a year.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has confirmed the plan for the first time, though he added that a final decision had not been made. He said he understood that almost any administration move on Guantanamo was likely to be controversial. Seven has been the reported as the number of Uighurs the administration wants to release into the U.S.
Gates told a Senate appropriations subcommittee last week, "I fully expect to have 535 pieces of legislation before this is over saying, 'Not in my district, not in my state,' " He was referring to the number of senators and members of the House.
But Gates said the Uighurs would face persecution if they were returned to China. He added, "It's difficult for the State Department to make the argument to other countries they should take these people that we have deemed in this case not to be dangerous if we won't take any of them ourselves."
There are currently 17 Uighurs who have been imprisoned at Guantanamo since they were arrested in Pakistan in 2002. While these Muslim men have been declared to pose no threat to U.S. security and have been cleared for release, they remain at the notorious prison because no other countries have offered them asylum. A U.S. appeals court has ruled that admission to the U.S. is a matter of immigration law over which regular U.S. courts have no jurisdiction. That decision has been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is now considering the matter.
The Uighurs are primarily from northwestern China. China has been criticized for repressing Uighur religious rights and freedoms.
Before their capture, the Uighurs had traveled to Afghanistan, where they received firearms training at a camp reportedly run by a Uighur separatist.
There are about 240 inmates at Guantánamo. As many as 60, if freed, cannot go back to their homelands because they could face abuse, imprisonment or death. They are from Azerbaijan, Algeria, Afghanistan, Chad, China, Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
Several European nations, including Portugal and Lithuania, have said they will consider taking such detainees. Some nations, such as Germany, are divided on the issue. France has recently agreed to accept one prisoner and the European Union has said it would consider accepting others. British Justice Secretary Jack Straw said last week that his country would consider taking Guantánamo Bay detainees if the U.S. asks for such help to close the detention center.
''We will do our best to help and support the policy of the Obama administration to close Guantánamo Bay,'' Straw said. ''If we're asked, of course we'll consider'' accepting detainees, he said.
Some European leaders argue that if the detainees are to be released anywhere, it should first be in the United States.
Many legal scholars and most human rights advocates are pressing the Obama Administration to release cleared prisoners into the U.S.
Professor Francis A. Boyle of the University of Chicago Law School told IPS, “Obviously the United States government cannot return them to China, where they will be persecuted, which would violate our obligations under international law. And they certainly cannot be detained indefinitely, which would violate their international human rights, which the Bush administration has already done grievously now for a number of years. The lawful and humanitarian alternative would be to grant them political asylum and admit them into the United States.”
And Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, told IPS, "It is a violation of basic human rights and our Constitution that the United States is continuing to imprison people, such as the Uighurs, who it acknowledges are innocent and present no danger. These men were swept up by mistake, sold to the U.S. for bounty, and rendered to Guantanamo where they have spent years in prison under often brutal conditions."
He added, "If we are to restore the rule of law, the Uighurs must be released in the United States. Keeping innocent people behind bars at an off-shore prison undermines not only our core values but our security as well."
Release of cleared prisoners is seen as a crucial step to the Obama Administration’s plans to close the prison and relocate the detainees.
To win their freedom, the Uighurs filed suit against the government. Last year, a U.S. district court ordered their release. The decision was appealed by the Bush administration, and was overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals. Lawyers for the Uighurs have now appealed to the Supreme Court.
Members of a Uighur community in Northern Virginia have offered to help the detainees to resettle there.
In 2006, the U.S. released five Uighurs to Albania. After pressure from Beijing, which also urged other countries with Uighur communities not to accept the released detainees, Albania declined to take any more. Four remain in Albania and one has recently been granted asylum in Sweden.
Within Guantanamo, Uighurs are not considered a grave threat and are allowed privileges such as television, that are not available to other detainees.
Meanwhile, the Obama Administration is continuing to struggle with the issue of what to do with the 50 to 100 detainees at Guantanamo who Secretary Gates told Congress were considered too dangerous to release but could not be tried in U.S. civilian courts because evidence against them was based on hearsay or was obtained through torture.
Gates told Congress that the administration might continue to use the controversial military commissions set up by former President Bush, and later approved by Congress, to prosecute some of the detainees. President Obama ordered a 120-day halt to all military commission trials during his first days in office. That moratorium comes to an end in mid-May.
Lawmakers of both political parties have become increasingly vocal in asserting that the administration announced it would close Guantánamo before it had a plan for housing and prosecuting some detainees and releasing others.
“The question of where the terrorists at Guantánamo will be sent is no joking matter,” according to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader. “The administration needs to tell the American people how it will keep the terrorists at Guantánamo out of our neighborhoods and off of the battlefield.”
Members of Congress were already playing the NIMBY (Not in My Backyard) game, pleading with Gates not to send the detainees to their states. “Please not at Leavenworth,” said Senator Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas. “This is a hot topic in my state.”
Gates has asked for $50 million in case a facility needs to be built quickly to house the detainees. He said he is aware that such a facility would be unpopular with lawmakers.
Republicans in Congress say Guantánamo should remain in operation and are mobilizing to fight the release of any detainees into the United States.
Critics of the administration’s actions have tended to label all Guantanamo detainees as “terrorists,” although many have been cleared for release and there is substantial evidence that other detainees were “sold” to the U.S. military for cash while others were simply “in the wrong place at the wrong time” and should never have been imprisoned in the first place.
Saturday, May 02, 2009
UN: RIGHTS ABUSED IN IRAQ
By William Fisher
Iraqi prisons are torturing detainees, locking people up for months without charges and, in most cases, allowing the perpetrators of these human rights to escape justice, according to a new United Nations report.
“Security may not be sustainable unless significant steps are taken in the area of human rights such as strengthening the rule of law and addressing impunity,” the report warned.
The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) said it “remains concerned about the overall human rights situation in Iraq since indiscriminate attacks remained a frequent occurrence; the targeted killings of security forces, high ranking officials and civil servants, religious and political leaders, professional groups such as journalists, educators, medical doctors, judges and lawyers and other civilians continued at a high rate, as did criminal abductions for ransom.”
It said the last half of 2008 “was also characterized by the attacks against minority leaders and the large displacement of over 12,000 Christians from Mosul in October. Violence against women in the Region of Kurdistan and the rest of Iraq remained one of the issues of serious concern as the pattern of the recorded incidents of suicide often points towards ‘honor’-related homicides.”
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, whose staff helped compile the report, said, “The situation of Iraqi women is extremely difficult. Violent actions are taken against them on a daily basis and I urge the authorities to make it a priority to both improve legislation, and law enforcement in order to protect them properly.”
The UN report said the improvement in the security situation “was not accompanied by a full reestablishment of the rule of law and by systematically addressing impunity.”
“Allegations of torture should be promptly and thoroughly investigated, and criminal proceedings taken against officials found to have abused detainees in their custody. Every effort should be made to ensure that juvenile detainees are held at the appropriate and separate locations equipped with rehabilitation facilities, and additional resources devoted to address the issue of overcrowding at detention places,” the report said.
Francis A. Boyle, Professor of Law at the University of Illinois, told us, “Under the Laws of War, the United States still remains the belligerent occupant of Iraq and is therefore vicariously responsible for these war crimes and human rights atrocities.”
He said, “Nothing has changed as a result of the so-called Status of Forces agreement with respect to the Laws of War and the analysis set forth in there except the termination of the Security Council Resolutions with the side letters from the USA indicating a willingness to abide by the Laws of War as a condition for the renewal.”
Prof. Boyle added, “That does not alter the status of the U.S. as the Belligerent Occupant of Iraq and the fact that we are vicariously responsible for these war crimes and human rights atrocities, as indicated by the relevant sections of U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10, which is still valid and binding.”
The UN report found that:
The 26,249 people being held in Iraq prisons in December faced “months or even years in overcrowded cells” and many had not been formally charged.
The use of torture as an interrogation method and the ill-treatment of detainees remains “a serious challenge to Iraq’s criminal justice system.”
There is no known case in which any official in the powerful Ministry of Defense, which has its own jails, “has been held accountable for human rights abuses.”
The report also criticized jails in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region for poor treatment including beatings and electric shock.
Kurdistan also came under fire for its high rate of so-called “honor killings” of women and the many cases of women burned or coerced into suicide in honor cases. It said, “The vast majority of women still face at least one form of domestic violence.”
The report also charged that the amnesty law, which was promoted by the U.S. to encourage reconciliation, has largely failed to have it intended affect. Only 7,500 detainees were released from prison out of a total of some 127,431.
The report also faulted U.S. forces for detaining people “for prolonged periods without judicial review” and urged U.S. officials to continue investigations into two shootings by guards for the American embassy working for Blackwater Worldwide, now known as Xe.
In December, five Blackwater guards were charged with manslaughter in the deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians in a shooting incident at a busy Baghdad intersection. A sixth Blackwater guard has pleaded guilty to manslaughter in a U.S. court.
As of December 2008, the number of detainees under Iraqi control was 26,249 and those under the control of the Multinational Force Iraq (MNF-I) was 15,058, the report said. It raised concerns about the conditions of detainees, many of whom have been deprived of their liberty for months or even years in overcrowded cells, and about violations of the minimum rules of due process as many did not have access to defense counsel, or were not formally charged with a crime or appeared before a judge.
The report recommended that the Government of Iraq “ensure the effective implementation of the legislation regulating prisons and bring all detention facilities and prisons under the authority of the Ministry of Justice.”
The Iraqis “should address urgently all allegations of abuse of detainees, including juveniles. And law enforcement personnel and detaining officials known or suspected of having tortured or ill-treated detainees in their custody should not enjoy immunity from prosecution.”
The report called on the Iraqi government to “increase efforts to alleviate overcrowding in prisons and detention facilities and improve sanitation and hygiene conditions; in particular, institute urgent measures to examine conditions at juvenile detention facilities in respect of overcrowding and lack of adequate rehabilitation programs.”
It urged the Iraqi government to “investigate incidents involving gender-based violence, in particular the so-called ‘honor crimes’ perpetrated against women, and take measures to ensure that persons found responsible for committing these crimes are held accountable and brought to justice.”
And it urged MNF-I and U.S. Government authorities to investigate reports of deaths caused by privately hired contractors working on behalf of the US Government, and strengthen effective mechanisms for holding these contractors accountable for unlawful killings.
The U.S. must “ensure that offenses committed in Iraq by all categories of U.S. contractor employees are subject to prosecution under the law.”
Iraqi prisons are torturing detainees, locking people up for months without charges and, in most cases, allowing the perpetrators of these human rights to escape justice, according to a new United Nations report.
“Security may not be sustainable unless significant steps are taken in the area of human rights such as strengthening the rule of law and addressing impunity,” the report warned.
The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) said it “remains concerned about the overall human rights situation in Iraq since indiscriminate attacks remained a frequent occurrence; the targeted killings of security forces, high ranking officials and civil servants, religious and political leaders, professional groups such as journalists, educators, medical doctors, judges and lawyers and other civilians continued at a high rate, as did criminal abductions for ransom.”
It said the last half of 2008 “was also characterized by the attacks against minority leaders and the large displacement of over 12,000 Christians from Mosul in October. Violence against women in the Region of Kurdistan and the rest of Iraq remained one of the issues of serious concern as the pattern of the recorded incidents of suicide often points towards ‘honor’-related homicides.”
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, whose staff helped compile the report, said, “The situation of Iraqi women is extremely difficult. Violent actions are taken against them on a daily basis and I urge the authorities to make it a priority to both improve legislation, and law enforcement in order to protect them properly.”
The UN report said the improvement in the security situation “was not accompanied by a full reestablishment of the rule of law and by systematically addressing impunity.”
“Allegations of torture should be promptly and thoroughly investigated, and criminal proceedings taken against officials found to have abused detainees in their custody. Every effort should be made to ensure that juvenile detainees are held at the appropriate and separate locations equipped with rehabilitation facilities, and additional resources devoted to address the issue of overcrowding at detention places,” the report said.
Francis A. Boyle, Professor of Law at the University of Illinois, told us, “Under the Laws of War, the United States still remains the belligerent occupant of Iraq and is therefore vicariously responsible for these war crimes and human rights atrocities.”
He said, “Nothing has changed as a result of the so-called Status of Forces agreement with respect to the Laws of War and the analysis set forth in there except the termination of the Security Council Resolutions with the side letters from the USA indicating a willingness to abide by the Laws of War as a condition for the renewal.”
Prof. Boyle added, “That does not alter the status of the U.S. as the Belligerent Occupant of Iraq and the fact that we are vicariously responsible for these war crimes and human rights atrocities, as indicated by the relevant sections of U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10, which is still valid and binding.”
The UN report found that:
The 26,249 people being held in Iraq prisons in December faced “months or even years in overcrowded cells” and many had not been formally charged.
The use of torture as an interrogation method and the ill-treatment of detainees remains “a serious challenge to Iraq’s criminal justice system.”
There is no known case in which any official in the powerful Ministry of Defense, which has its own jails, “has been held accountable for human rights abuses.”
The report also criticized jails in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region for poor treatment including beatings and electric shock.
Kurdistan also came under fire for its high rate of so-called “honor killings” of women and the many cases of women burned or coerced into suicide in honor cases. It said, “The vast majority of women still face at least one form of domestic violence.”
The report also charged that the amnesty law, which was promoted by the U.S. to encourage reconciliation, has largely failed to have it intended affect. Only 7,500 detainees were released from prison out of a total of some 127,431.
The report also faulted U.S. forces for detaining people “for prolonged periods without judicial review” and urged U.S. officials to continue investigations into two shootings by guards for the American embassy working for Blackwater Worldwide, now known as Xe.
In December, five Blackwater guards were charged with manslaughter in the deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians in a shooting incident at a busy Baghdad intersection. A sixth Blackwater guard has pleaded guilty to manslaughter in a U.S. court.
As of December 2008, the number of detainees under Iraqi control was 26,249 and those under the control of the Multinational Force Iraq (MNF-I) was 15,058, the report said. It raised concerns about the conditions of detainees, many of whom have been deprived of their liberty for months or even years in overcrowded cells, and about violations of the minimum rules of due process as many did not have access to defense counsel, or were not formally charged with a crime or appeared before a judge.
The report recommended that the Government of Iraq “ensure the effective implementation of the legislation regulating prisons and bring all detention facilities and prisons under the authority of the Ministry of Justice.”
The Iraqis “should address urgently all allegations of abuse of detainees, including juveniles. And law enforcement personnel and detaining officials known or suspected of having tortured or ill-treated detainees in their custody should not enjoy immunity from prosecution.”
The report called on the Iraqi government to “increase efforts to alleviate overcrowding in prisons and detention facilities and improve sanitation and hygiene conditions; in particular, institute urgent measures to examine conditions at juvenile detention facilities in respect of overcrowding and lack of adequate rehabilitation programs.”
It urged the Iraqi government to “investigate incidents involving gender-based violence, in particular the so-called ‘honor crimes’ perpetrated against women, and take measures to ensure that persons found responsible for committing these crimes are held accountable and brought to justice.”
And it urged MNF-I and U.S. Government authorities to investigate reports of deaths caused by privately hired contractors working on behalf of the US Government, and strengthen effective mechanisms for holding these contractors accountable for unlawful killings.
The U.S. must “ensure that offenses committed in Iraq by all categories of U.S. contractor employees are subject to prosecution under the law.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
