SALON

Tuesday, Feb 5, 2013 3:44 PM UTC

Report: 54 countries supported CIA rendition

More than a quarter of the world's governments covertly helped the U.S.'s controversial program

By

Topics: Torture, Extraordinary Rendition, CIA, War on Terror, osji, Human Rights,

Report: 54 countries supported CIA rendition Activists protest U.S. treatment of terror suspects (Credit: Shutterstock/Lilac Mountain)

According to a new report from human rights organization the Open Society Justice Initiative, more than a quarter of the world’s governments covertly helped the CIA carry out the kidnapping, detention and torture of terror suspects in some of the most chilling episodes of the U.S.’s “war on terror” after 9/11.

The report directs blame at the Bush administration for the rendition program, but stresses that the dozens of other governments covertly supporting the activities must also be held to account:

There is no doubt that high-ranking Bush administration officials bear responsibility for authorizing human rights violations associated with secret detention and extraordinary rendition, and the impunity that they have enjoyed to date remains a matter of significant concern.

But responsibility for these violations does not end with the United States. Secret detention and extraordinary rendition operations, designed to be conducted outside the United States under cover of secrecy, could not have been implemented without the active participation of foreign governments. These governments too must be held accountable.

Syria is noted as among the “most common destinations for rendered suspects,” while countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, Jordan and even Iran participated in the program with efforts such as handing over terror suspects to U.S. authorities. Meanwhile European countries including Poland, Lithuania and Romania hosted secret prisons, while many others offered covert support. The Guardian notes that Israel is among countries “conspicuous by their absence from the rendition list.”

Last December saw the first case relating to the U.S.’s practice of transferring terror suspects across borders for interrogation reach the European Court of Human Rights. The court ruled that the CIA illegally subjected a German-Lebanese man, Khaled El-Masri, to extraordinary rendition in a secret Afghan prison sinisterly dubbed “the salt pit.” The ruling placed blame with both the Macedonian government for the innocent man’s kidnapping and the U.S. government for his detention. However, such cases have been summarily thrown out under the now-infamous “state secrets” doctrine, which allowed the government to have cases like El-Masri’s dismissed without ever getting to the merits.

The Guardian commented Tuesday that the publication of the OSJI report, titled “Globalizing Torture,” “appears to have been timed to coincide with the confirmation hearing on Thursday of John Brennan, Barack Obama’s choice to head the CIA. Brennan is widely expected to be questioned about his association with the so-called enhanced interrogation policies adopted by Bush.” As noted earlier Tuesday, Brennan’s hearing this week also coincides with the leak of a Justice Department memo noting the controversial and vague legal justifications that appear to go behind the Obama administration’s targeted killing program — an issue about which Brennan will also likely be questioned.

As far as the U.S. legacy of extraordinary rendition, the OSJI report calls on all governments to immediately end such programs and secret prisons still in existence. It calls on the U.S. to mount a criminal investigation into human rights abuses and create an independent and nonpartisan commission to investigate and publicly report on the role that officials played in such abuses.

“Despite the efforts of the United States and its partner governments to withhold the truth about past and ongoing abuses, information relating to these abuses will continue to find its way into the public domain,” the report noted.

 

Natasha Lennard is an assistant news editor at Salon, covering non-electoral politics, general news and rabble-rousing. Follow her on Twitter @natashalennard, email nlennard@salon.com. More Natasha Lennard.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 4 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
239 points240 points | 8 comments
vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the persecuted late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
170 points171 points | 1 comment
vote
Loaded terminology like "entitlements" and "welfare" skews the debate and alters America. How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government.
150 points151 points | 42 comments
vote
Obstruction will ruin the GOP: Playing politics and abusing the system can excite the extremes, but it's a recipe for long-term political disaster
49 points50 points | 8 comments
vote
How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government -- "...much of the U.S. economic security support system consists of subsidies for the affluent in the form of tax breaks, like those for private retirement savings plans such as 401(k)s and private employer-provided health insurance."
29 points30 points | 3 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations