United States: Torture should qualify for trial and not running the CIA

Geneva, 14 March 2018, The World Organisations Against Torture (OMCT), the principal coalition against torture, is alarmed of the proposed appointment of Gina Haspel to lead the CIA amidst serious allegations of responsibility for torture.

“The appointment of a person against whom there is serious evidence having responsibility over serious international crimes, including torture and enforced disappearance, is truly shocking”, said Gerald Staberock, OMCT Secretary General.

Gina Haspel has been nominated to lead the US Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, as part of yesterdays’ government reshuffle in the Trump administration. There are serious allegations against her having run and overseen the operation of a so-called black site in Thailand during the Bush area. Records show that she has overseen interrogations that included in one case more than 80 sessions of waterboarding and other forms of torture. She is also known for ordering the destruction of tapes that allegedly show torture during interrogations.

“This sends an alarming message to all those who are concerned over the return of the US torture policies. These policies have done tremendous harm, have been outright illegal and a crime, but ultimately have also done nothing to make us safer”, added Gerald Staberock.

The US Government under the Bush administration had operated a policy of torture, prescribed in various ‘legal memos’ and a spider-web of secret detention facilities that made disappearance, kidnapping and the use of torture possible in an environment outside any legal protections. The US Senate Committee with access to confidential intelligence information concluded not only its unlawfulness but also its complete non-effectiveness to yield credible intelligence.

Torture is absolutely prohibited under international law under any circumstances and a crime anywhere it happens. The US bears legal responsibility to bring those responsible for torturing or overseeing it to trial and justice. Appointing alleged torture perpetrators to high level government positions is incompatible with this obligation and unprecedented in a democratic state.

“This must be a wake-up call also to all remaining allies to the United States. We need European and other partners of the US, notably in the UK, and their security apparatus to speak out and make clear that they would not be able to work with US intelligence if torture is returning. It should also be seen as an insult to the ethics and integrity of all the women and men that work within the security sector within the law to keep us safe,” said Gerald Staberock.

Let us not be naïve: this is not only about the US, it concerns all of us.

A world in which torture is the rule is not the world we strive for, it is also not a safer world. To the contrary, torture increases sympathy for extremist causes, serves as recruiting ground and will make us less safe – anywhere, not only in the United States.

For media inquiries please contact Lori Brumat, OMCT Head of Communications at  +41 22 809 49 33 or lb@omct.org.

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United States: Torture will make terrorism – not America – great again, OMCT warns

Geneva, 26 January 2017 – Torturing suspects is illegal, ineffective and will only heighten the risk of terrorism, the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) warned after Donald Trump again condoned tortureon hisfirst televised interview yesterday as United States President.

In a live interview with ABC News, President Trump said yesterday he believed torture worked and that his country should “respond to fire with fire”.  Yet he added he would leave it to his Defense Secretary James Mattis and Central Intelligence Agency Director Mike Pompeo to decide what should be done to keep the U.S. safe, saying he wanted “to do everything within the bounds of what you’re allowed to do legally.” These statements came after a Trump Administration draft executive order about reopening the CIA’s offshore “black site” prisons where terrorism suspects are detained and tortured was leaked to the press.

These comments in line with President Trump’s campaign statements constitute a U-turn in U.S. policy, which had under President Barak Obama aimed at closing such torture sites and punishing the use of so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” instated under the Bush Administration to combat terrorism after the 9/11 attacks. OMCT, which leads a coalition of over 200 anti-torture NGOs around the world, stresses that sacrificing what is a core principle of international law and democracy will not yield useful information to combat terrorism, but only lead to more attacks around the world.

“Torture will make terrorism – not America – great again,” said OMCT Secretary General Gerald Staberock. “We won’t defeat the Islamic State by being more ruthless and brutal than it is. We will only manage that feet if we – contrary to those who torture and murder – go by the rules ourselves and uphold human rights against the violations we want to stop.”

Torture and disappearing suspects in secret detention, as was done during the “War on Terror” under President George Bush, will only push people across the world to support or sympathize with extremist groups such as the Islamic State. OMCT therefore encourages European and other long-standing partners of the U.S., notably the United Kingdom, to speak out against such declarations by the new U.S. President to make clear that they would not be able to cooperate with U.S. intelligence if torture were authorized.

At odds with his own and with the facts

Mr. Trump’s declaration is at odds with his own newly appointed intelligence chief Mr. Pompeo, who during his confirmation hearing officially ruled out using torture.

Most practitioners agree that torture does not yield useful intelligence, as an authoritative study by the United States Senate has concluded in 2014. “The Committee finds, based on a review of CIA interrogation records, that the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques was not an effective means of obtaining accurate information or gaining detainee cooperation,” the report read.

Republican Senator McCain[1], himself a prisoner of war who has been tortured, has also concurred: “I know from personal experience that the abuse of prisoners will produce more bad than good intelligence. I know that victims of torture will offer intentionally misleading information if they think their captors will believe it. I know they will say whatever they think their torturers want them to say if they believe it will stop their suffering. ”

About the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT)

OMCT is short for the World Organisation Against Torture – in French, as the organization created in 1985 is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. OMCT works for, with and through an international coalition of over 200 non-governmental organizations – the SOS-Torture network – fighting torture, summary executions, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, and all other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment in the world.

For more information, please visit: www.omct.org.

For our latest campaign #HumanAgainstTorture: www.joinhat.org.

Follow us online: Twitter, Facebook, https://vimeo.com/omct, Instagram.

For all media inquiries: Lori Brumat, OMCT Head of Communciations: lb@omct.org.

Source 

 

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[1] Sen. John McCain, remarks in Congressional Record, daily edition, vol. 160, no. 149 (December 9, 2014), p. S6411