[Ppnews] report Text: Alleged secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers

[Political Prisoner News]

Alleged secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers of 
detainees involving Council of Europe member states - draft 
Recommendation and Resolution

http://assembly.coe.int/ASP/APFeaturesManager/defaultArtSiteView.asp?ArtId=469

<http://assembly.coe.int/CommitteeDocs/2006/20060606_RenditionsMap_EN.jpg>Graphic 
image of global ''spider's web'' (JPEG)
<http://assembly.coe.int/Main.asp?Link=/CommitteeDocs/2006/20060606_Ejdoc162006PartII-FINAL.htm>Mr 
Marty's explanatory memorandum (HTML)



Provisional version

7 June 2006

Alleged secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers of 
detainees involving Council of Europe member states

Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights

Rapporteur: Mr Dick Marty, Switzerland, Alliance of Liberals and 
Democrats for Europe

A. Draft resolution

1. The Council of Europe is both the point of reference and the 
guardian for human rights, democracy and respect for the rule of law 
in Europe. It draws its legal and moral authority from, inter alia, 
the common standards of human rights protection embodied in the 
European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the European 
Convention on the Prevention of Torture (ECPT), to which all of its 
46 member States subscribe.

2. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe places human 
rights at the heart of its work. The Assembly must raise the alarm 
internationally whenever human rights are set aside, or when 
established standards of their application are undermined.

3. The Assembly reaffirms its absolute commitment to overcoming the 
threat of terrorism; but it must equally speak out in the strongest 
possible terms against the numerous and systematic human rights 
abuses committed in the pursuit of the so-called "war on terrorism". 
It considers that such violations play into the hands of the 
terrorists and ultimately serve to strengthen those who aim to 
destroy the established political, legal and social order.

4. The United States of America finds that neither the classic 
instruments of criminal law and procedure, nor the framework of the 
laws of war (including respect for the Geneva Conventions) has been 
apt to address the terrorist threat. As a result it has introduced 
new legal concepts, such as "enemy combatant" and "rendition", which 
were previously unheard of in international law and stand contrary to 
the basic legal principles that prevail on our continent.

5. Thus, across the world, the United States has progressively woven 
a clandestine "spider's web" of disappearances, secret detentions and 
unlawful inter-state transfers, often encompassing countries 
notorious for their use of torture. Hundreds of persons have become 
entrapped in this web, in some cases merely suspected of sympathising 
with a presumed terrorist organisation.

6. The "spider's web" has been spun out with the collaboration or 
tolerance of many countries, including several Council of Europe 
member States. This co-operation, which took place in secret and 
without any democratic legitimacy, has spawned a system that is 
utterly incompatible with the fundamental principles of the Council of Europe.

7. The facts and information gathered to date, along with new factual 
patterns in the process of being uncovered, indicate that the key 
elements of this "spider's web" have included a world-wide network of 
secret detentions on CIA "black sites" and in military or naval 
installations; the CIA's programme of "renditions", under which 
terrorist suspects are flown between States on civilian aircraft, 
outside of the scope of any legal protections, often to be handed 
over to States who customarily resort to degrading treatment and 
torture; and the use of military airbases and aircraft to transport 
detainees as human cargo to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba or to other 
detention centres.

8. The Assembly condemns the systematic exclusion of all forms of 
judicial protection and regrets that, by depriving hundreds of 
suspects of their basic rights, including the right to a fair trial, 
the United States has done a disservice to the cause of justice and 
has tarnished its own hard-won reputation as a beacon of the defence 
of civil liberties and human rights.

9. Some Council of Europe member States have knowingly colluded with 
the United States to carry out these unlawful operations; some others 
have tolerated them or simply turned a blind eye. They have also gone 
to great lengths to ensure that such operations remain secret and 
protected from effective national or international scrutiny.

10. This collusion with the United States of America by some Council 
of Europe member States has taken several different forms. Having 
carried out legal and factual analysis on a range of cases of alleged 
secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers, the Assembly 
has identified instances in which Council of Europe member States 
have acted in one or several of the following ways, wilfully or at 
least recklessly in violation of their international human rights obligations:

10.1. secretly detaining a person on European territory for an 
indefinite period of time, whilst denying that person's basic human 
rights and failing to ensure procedural legal guarantees such as habeas corpus;

10.2. capturing a person and handing the person over to the United 
States, in the knowledge that such a person would be unlawfully 
transferred into a US-administered detention facility;

10.3. permitting the unlawful transportation of detainees on civilian 
aircraft carrying out "renditions" operations, travelling through 
European airspace or across European territory;

10.4. passing on information or intelligence to the United States 
where it was foreseeable that such material would be relied upon 
directly to carry out a "rendition" operation or to hold a person in 
secret detention;

10.5. participating directly in interrogations of persons subjected 
to "rendition", or held in secret detention;

10.6. accepting or making use of information gathered in the course 
of detainee interrogations, before, during or after which the 
detainee in question was threatened or subjected to torture or other 
forms of human rights abuse;

10.7. making available civilian airports or military airfields as 
"staging points" or platforms for rendition or other unlawful 
detainee transfer operations, whereby an aircraft prepares for and 
takes off on its operation from such a point; and

10.8. making available civilian airports or military airfields as 
"stopover points" for rendition operations, whereby an aircraft lands 
briefly at such a point on the outward or homeward flight, for 
example to refuel.

11. Attempts to expose the true nature and extent of these unlawful 
operations have invariably faced obstruction or dismissal, from the 
United States and its European partners alike. The authorities of 
most Council of Europe member States have denied their participation, 
in many cases without actually having carried out any inquiries or 
serious investigations.

12. In other instances such attempts have been thwarted on the 
grounds of national security or state secrecy. The Assembly takes the 
view that neither national security nor state secrecy can be invoked 
in such a sweeping, systematic fashion as to shield these unlawful 
operations from robust parliamentary and judicial scrutiny.

13. The Assembly highlights the widespread breach of the positive 
obligations of all Council of Europe member States to investigate 
such allegations in a full and thorough manner. It has now been 
demonstrated incontestably, by numerous well-documented and 
convergent facts, that secret detentions and unlawful inter-state 
transfers involving European countries have taken place, such as to 
require in-depth inquiries and urgent responses by the executive and 
legislative branches of all the countries concerned.

14. While the Assembly has been seized in this instance with looking 
into allegations concerning very specific facts, it cannot ignore 
other allegations surrounding the existence of other secret detention 
centres in Europe, apparently also set up in the context of the "war 
on terrorism". In particular, the Assembly expresses its deep concern 
at the continued reports of secret detentions in the North Caucasus. 
The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture issued a Public 
Statement on this subject in 2003, which was recently supplemented by 
new, detailed victim testimony and credible allegations from 
non-governmental organisations. Further serious investigation and 
analysis of secret detentions in the North Caucasus is clearly required.

15. The Assembly also regrets that detention centres in Kosovo were 
not accessible, until very recently, to the European Committee for 
the Prevention of Torture. The lack of access seems all the more 
unacceptable in light of the fact that the international community 
intervened in that region with the declared aim of restoring order, 
peace and the respect for human rights.

16. The Assembly's central objective is to prevent violations of the 
sort described in this resolution from occurring in the future.

17. The Assembly therefore commends the Secretary General of the 
Council of Europe for the swift and thorough use of his power of 
inquiry under Article 52 ECHR.

18. The Assembly calls upon the member States of the Council of Europe to:

18.1. undertake a critical review of the legal framework that 
regulates the intelligence services, with the dual objective of 
enhancing their efficiency and strengthening accountability 
mechanisms against abuse; clear regulations must also govern 
co-operation with foreign services and the activities of foreign 
services on national territory;

18.2. ensure that the laws governing state secrecy protect persons 
who disclose illegal activities of state organs (so-called 
"whistle-blowers") from disciplinary or criminal sanctions;
18.3. undertake a review of bilateral agreements signed between 
Council of Europe member States and the United States, particularly 
those on the status of US forces stationed in Europe and on the use 
of military and other infrastructures, to ensure that these 
agreements conform fully to applicable international human rights norms; and
18.4. urge the United States to dismantle its system of secret 
detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers and to co-operate more 
closely with the Council of Europe in establishing common means of 
overcoming the threat of terrorism in line with international human 
rights standards and respect for the rule of law.

19. The Assembly also calls on the United States of America, which is 
an Observer State to the Council of Europe and Europe's long-standing 
ally in resisting tyranny and defending human rights and the rule of law, to:

19.1. send a strong message to the world by demonstrating that 
terrorism can be vanquished by lawful means, thereby proving the 
superiority of the democratic model founded on respect of human dignity;
19.2. co-operate more closely in identifying and employing the most 
effective means with which to prevent and suppress the terrorist 
threat in conformity with international human rights norms and the rule of law;
19.3. align its definitions of torture and other cruel, inhuman or 
degrading treatment with the definition used by the UN Committee 
Against Torture;
19.4. prohibit the transfer of persons suspected of involvement in 
terrorism to countries that practise torture and that fail to 
guarantee the right to a fair trial;
19.5. issue official apologies and award compensation to the victims 
of illegal detentions against whom no formal accusations, nor any 
court proceedings, have ever been brought; and
19.6. refrain from prosecuting any officials, former officials or 
journalists who, by providing testimony or other information, have 
helped to bring to light the system of unlawful detentions and mistreatment.

20. The Assembly calls upon its Committee on Legal Affairs and Human 
Rights urgently to establish an ad hoc Sub-Committee to continue this 
inquiry into alleged secret detentions and unlawful inter-state 
transfers involving Council of Europe member States, in view of new 
facts that are still in the process of being uncovered.

21. The Assembly further urges its members to call for rigorous 
inquiries in their respective national parliaments, especially in 
those states from which no or insufficient information has been forthcoming.

22. The Assembly recognises, in the context of the present inquiry 
into secret detentions, that it lacks appropriate investigative 
powers akin to those provided to parliamentary inquiries in member 
States, including the powers to subpoena witnesses and compel 
disclosure of documents, and calls for consideration of this issue.

23. Finally, the Assembly expresses its appreciation to the relevant 
European Union institutions (European Commission, European Parliament 
and EU Satellite Centre), as well as to Eurocontrol, for their 
invaluable contributions to this inquiry, whilst reiterating the 
Council of Europe's role as the guardian of human rights throughout Europe.

B. Draft recommendation

1. The Parliamentary Assembly refers to its Resolution ... (2006) on 
alleged secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers 
involving Council of Europe member states.

2. The Assembly also recalls its Resolution 1433 (2005) and its 
recommendation on the legality of the detention of persons by the 
United States in Guantanamo Bay.

3. The Assembly urges the Committee of Ministers to draft a 
recommendation to Council of Europe member States containing:

3.1. common measures to guarantee more effectively the human rights 
of persons suspected of terrorist offences who are captured from, 
detained in or transported through Council of Europe member States; and
3.2. a set of minimum requirements for "human rights protection 
clauses", for inclusion in bilateral and multilateral agreements with 
third parties, especially those concerning the use of military 
installations on the territory of Council of Europe member States.

4. The Assembly urgently requests that:

4.1. an initiative be launched on an international level, expressly 
involving the United States, an Observer to the Council of Europe, to 
develop a common, truly global strategy to address the terrorist 
threat. The strategy should conform in all its elements with the 
fundamental principles of our common heritage in terms of democracy, 
human rights and respect for the rule of law.
4.2. a proposal be considered, in instances where States are unable 
or unwilling to prosecute persons accused of terrorist acts, to bring 
these persons within the jurisdiction of an international court that 
is competent to try them. One possibility worth considering would be 
to vest such a competence in the International Criminal Court, whilst 
renewing invitations to join the Court to the United States and other 
countries that have not yet done so.

5. The Assembly finally recommends that the Committee of Ministers 
should consider means of improving the Council of Europe's ability to 
react rapidly and effectively to allegations of systematic human 
rights abuse involving several member States.


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