Recently in UK Category
Human rights group Liberty joined forces with its American counterpart to demand a public inquiry into allegations that a terror suspect has been secretly detained in a British territory.
The activists wrote to Foreign Secretary David Miliband urging him to launch a formal investigation into claims about US activities on Diego Garcia, the UK territory in the Indian Ocean.
The government is once again using the fig leaf of national security to hide the truth about torture
Lawyers acting for Binyam Mohamed, a British resident incarcerated in Guantánamo Bay, are asking the high court to order the government to disclose information that, they say, would show the evidence against him was obtained by torture.
The government is fighting the case. Of course, it does not want to reveal what Britain's security and intelligence agencies knew about the US secretly transporting "enemy combatants" to places where they were likely to be tortured, the practice known as extraordinary rendition. To bolster its case, it has used its last resort, hoisting the flag of "national security". We have seen it before, most recently over the decision to stop the Serious Fraud Office inquiry into allegations of bribery in the sale of warplanes to Saudi Arabia, and we will no doubt hear it again.
UK - Renewed fears over terrorist renditions after flight to Guantanamo lands at RAF base | CIA Renditions , U.S.A. , UK |
By Jason Lewis
Last updated at 9:01 AM on 04th August 2008
Fears that the UK is still being used as a stop-off point for the CIA’s controversial terrorist renditions resurfaced last week when a flight to Guantanamo Bay landed at an RAF base.
Mystery surrounds the mission of the US military aircraft which touched down at RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk last Sunday amid tight security, refuelled and then flew on to the prison camp in Cuba.
Amnesty International has accused Britain and the US of helping Pakistani security forces in the "enforced disappearances" of more than 560 people.
Calling on Pakistan's new government to reveal details about hundreds of missing people who are being held by security forces, the human rights group said Britain and the US had benefited from some of the detentions.
In a new report, Amnesty said partners in the US-led "war on terror", including Britain, bore a responsibility for condoning or assisting in the "enforced disappearances", in which Pakistan security forces apprehend and detain people in secret locations.
Kim Howells with troops of the High Mountain Battalion of the Colombian Army including General Mario Montoya (behind him and left of Howells)
It might have been any one of hundreds of stiffly posed official photos taken on ministerial visits to military establishments around the world and then duly posted and ignored on government websites - if it had not been for the attention of human rights campaigners.
UK - Freedom Of Information: Government blocks access to secret military papers on Diego Garcia | CIA Renditions , UK |
MPs and human rights group have accused ministers of a cover-up over government knowledge of rendition flights and the use of British military bases to hold suspects after the United States launched its war on terror more than six years ago.
Now ministers have blocked an attempt by an influential parliamentary committee to secure the release of secret military papers which they believe will reveal whether the British island territory of Diego Garcia was used as a detention centre for rendition prisoners.
By Ruan Pethiyagoda
The British Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has indicated that it is considering prosecuting former TMVP head and LTTE renegade Eastern Commander Karuna Amman for war crimes and human rights abuses on the basis of evidence forwarded to them by the Metropolitan Police, including reports forwarded by leading human rights organisations.
