HRW: France, Germany and UK should stop using foreign intelligence obtained under torture in the fight against terrorism

France, Germany, and the United Kingdom use foreign intelligence obtained under torture in the fight against terrorism, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
 
The 62-page report, “No Questions Asked: Intelligence Cooperation with Countries that Torture,” analyzes the ongoing cooperation by the governments of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom with foreign intelligence services in countries that routinely use torture. The three governments use the resulting foreign torture information for intelligence and policing purposes.

The intelligence services in France, Germany, and the UK do not have detailed instructions on how to assess and follow-up on information coming from countries that torture, Human Rights Watch said. Parliamentary oversight in each country is also inadequate.
 
Intelligence services in all three countries claim it is impossible to know the sources and methods used to acquire shared information. But officials in the UK and Germany have made public statements indicating that they believe it is sometimes acceptable to use foreign intelligence even if it is obtained under torture. Such statements send the wrong message to abusive governments, Human Rights Watch said.
 
Information tainted by torture has also been used in criminal and other proceedings in France and Germany, Human Rights Watch said, despite both international and domestic rules banning the use of torture evidence in any proceedings.
 
The report cites the case of Djamel Beghal, whose statements made under ill-treatment in the United Arab Emirates were used against him in a French court, where he was on trial for plotting a terrorist attack. In another example, the alleged confession of a man known as Abu Attiya under ill-treatment in Jordan was used against terrorism suspects on trial in France. German courts have allowed as evidence the summaries of interrogations of three high-profile terrorism suspects in incommunicado US detention, as well as evidence collected as result of statements made by Aleem Nasir, a Pakistan-born German citizen suspected of terrorist ties, while in the custody of the notorious Pakistani intelligence services.
 
Human Rights Watch said that in practice, overseas torture material can end up being used in court because the burden falls on defendants to prove it was obtained under torture, a nearly impossible task.

“The rules meant to exclude torture from the courts don’t work,” Sunderland said. “It should be up to prosecutors to prove that evidence originating in countries that torture wasn’t obtained through abuse.”

The use of torture intelligence in the fight against terrorism by France, Germany, and the UK damages the credibility of the European Union, Human Rights Watch said. The actual practices of these leading EU states contradict the EU’s anti-torture guidelines, which make eradicating torture and ill-treatment a priority in its relations with other countries. Over the long-term, abuses in the name of countering terrorism also feed the grievances that fuel radicalization and recruitment to terrorism, Human Rights Watch said.
 
France, Germany, and the UK can engage in necessary intelligence cooperation without undermining the global torture ban, Human Rights Watch said. To do so, they must make genuine inquiries of countries that provide information to determine whether torture was used to obtain it and to determine what steps the authorities have taken to hold to account those responsible for any abuse that comes to light.
 
Cooperation should be suspended in cases where there are grounds to believe torture or ill-treatment were used to obtain shared information. There is also a need for tighter parliamentary oversight of intelligence cooperation, and stronger rules to prevent torture material from entering the judicial process.

“Europe has been forced to confront its complicity in US counterterrorism abuses,” Sunderland said. “It is time for France, Germany, and the UK to take responsibility for their own role in third-party abuse, and to ensure that their intelligence cooperation isn’t perpetuating abuse.”

Human Rights Watch called on the governments of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom to:

    * Publically repudiate reliance on intelligence material obtained from third countries through the use of torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment;
    * Reaffirm the absolute prohibition on the use of torture evidence in any kind of proceeding;
    * Clarify procedure rules on excluding torture evidence in criminal and civil proceedings to make clear that where an allegation that a statement was made under torture is raised, the burden of proof is on the state to show that it was not made under torture;
    * Ensure that national intelligence services have clear guidance on appropriate engagement with partner services with known records of torture, and that intelligence cooperation arrangements with third countries include clear human rights stipulations, including the duty to discontinue cooperation in an individual case if credible allegations of torture come to light;
    * Strengthen parliamentary oversight over national intelligence services; and
    * Ensure that any form of complicity in torture is a criminal offense in domestic law, and that state agents who are complicit in torture anywhere in the world are prosecuted, including those who systematically receive information from countries and agencies known to practice torture.

 

* EmailEmail * printPrint * Share Gen. Petraeus’s Review of Tactics Must Focus on Night Raids and Civilian Protection

General David Petraeus, the new US commander in Afghanistan, has suggested that he will review specific tactical restraints, even though the overall strategy and direction of the Afghanistan war will remain the same.

As General Petraeus takes over command in Afghanistan, he will probably need to revamp the overall practice of night raids. Night raids have long been one of the biggest complaints of Afghan civilians. More than 98 civilians were killed in night raids in 2009 (and many times that number detained or harmed) in these night-time house searches. These search and seizure operations are often accompanied by heavy use of force. Further, beyond actual harm, the raids are extremely offensive to Afghan culture.

Recognizing how much night raids clashed with the “hearts and minds” premise of counterinsurgency, General McChrystal put in place new tactical restrictions in January designed to set the bar higher for authorizing these raids, restricting certain conduct, and increasing accountability. But it’s not clear that these have had much impact.

No one yet knows how the change in leadership of the Afghanistan mission will impact the lives of civilian and soldiers on the ground.

“There will be no change in overall policy but all aspects of tactics and implementation will be looked at afresh,” a Pentagon official told The Daily Telegraph. “The issue of ‘courageous restraint’ is a controversial one on the ground and there may be ways it can be modified.”
   
Robert Gates, the Pentagon chief, said that “Gen Petraeus will have the flexibility to look at the campaign plan and the approach and all manner of things when he gets to Afghanistan”.

While the principle of avoiding civilian casualties is certain to remain at the centre of Afghanistan strategy, restrictive rules of engagement that require platoon commanders to seek higher authority before escalating force might be modified.

“Petraeus was the man in Iraq to row back from the indiscriminate use of force but he is not allergic to the use of heavy weapons and air power against an enemy area,” said a military analyst who was attached to his staff in Iraq.

Changes to allow soldiers more flexibility in using lethal force are likely to be welcomed by both American and British troops.

ACLU reveals US surveillance society

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released Tuesday 29 June a report chronicling government spying and the detention of groups and individuals “for doing little more than peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights.”

The report, Policing Free Speech: Police Surveillance and Obstruction of First Amendment-Protected Activity, surveys news accounts and studies of questionable snooping and arrests in 33 states and the District of Columbia over the past decade.

The survey provides an outline of, and links to, dozens of examples of Cold War-era snooping in the modern age.

“Our review of these practices has found that Americans have been put under surveillance or harassed by the police just for deciding to organize, march, protest, espouse unusual viewpoints and engage in normal, innocuous behaviors such as writing notes or taking photographs in public,” Michael German, an ACLU attorney and former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, said in a statement.

Here are a few examples related to surveillance and terror threats:

A Joint Terrorism Task Force in Illinois went on a three-day manhunt in Chicago searching for a Muslim man for his suspicious activity of using a hand counter on a bus. As it turned out, the man was counting his daily prayers.

A Kentucky minister was detained at Canadian border trying to enter the United States because he had purchased copies of the Koran on the internet following the 2001 terror attacks.

A New York, Muslim-American student journalist was detained for taking pictures of Old Glory outside a Veterans Affairs building as part of a class project. The authorities deleted the pictures before releasing her an hour later.

(h/t Wired)