A visit by ex-Guantánamo prisoners here raises fears about the US's "rendition" plan, writes Seán Love
Amnesty members in Ireland are currently working on the case of Omar Deghayes, a UK resident, who was in Pakistan when the authorities there rounded him and others up in April 2002 and sold them to the US military as "enemy combatants".
The US military reportedly paid $5,000 for Omar and transferred him to Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan.
He was transferred to Guantánamo Bay in September 2002, where he has since been detained without charge. He has experienced abuses including sexual assault, pepper-spray in the eyes and face, high-pressure water sprayed up his nose until he thought he would suffocate, and has been blinded in one eye. He was kept in solitary confinement for over eight months. He has not seen his four-year-old son since he was a few months old.
President Bush has identified detainees in Guantánamo as the worst of the worst, the most evil terrorists in the world. Yet detainees have included children as young as 12 years of age, and people transported there for such heinous crimes as wearing a Casio watch or an olive green jacket. At least 250 detainees have been released because, actually, they weren't terrorists after all.
The US authorities argue that their treatment of Guantánamo detainees does not amount to torture - but only because President Bush has authorised a redefinition of torture. According to a 2006 UN report, interrogation techniques currently authorised by the department of defence for use by US personnel amount to degrading treatment in violation of the Convention against Torture; and, where they have caused severe pain or suffering, to torture.
At least 500 prisoners remain in Guantánamo, some for over four years, mostly held in chains, subject to ill-treatment, charged with no offences, denied access to justice. According to the Bush administration, they are not entitled to Geneva Convention protection. They are not guaranteed a lawyer, and do not see all the evidence against them. If they ever go for trial before the military commission (bearing no resemblance to a US court hearing or even a court martial), any commission decision can be overturned - without appeal - by Defence Secretary Rumsfeld. The UN has called for the closure of Guantánamo. So has the European Parliament. So has Ireland's Minister for Foreign Affairs.
Many of the prisoners held in Guantánamo have arrived there via "extraordinary rendition". This is the secret transfer of individuals - usually illegally detained or abducted - from one country to another outside due process, with the aim of facilitating their interrogation using brutal methods outside the reach of national law. The practice is generally initiated by the US, and effected with the collaboration, complicity or acquiescence of other governments.
Detainees end up in US custody in Guantánamo Bay, detention centres in Afghanistan or Iraq, or in secret CIA-run facilities known as "black sites" - or they are sent to countries known to practise torture, for interrogation there.
Former director of the CIA's counterterrorism centre Vincent Cannistraro said of a detainee rendered to Egypt: "They promptly tore his fingernails out and he started telling things." Robert Baer, a former CIA official in the Middle East, told the BBC: "Syria takes torture to the point of death, like the Egyptians. The way you get around involving Americans in torture is to get someone else to do it." Morocco, Yemen, Pakistan and Jordan also appear to be particularly happy to join this macabre coalition of the willing.
Renditions, which the US government openly acknowledges using, therefore involve multiple human rights violations and thrive on secrecy.
Many of those illegally transported in this way have subsequently "disappeared", including in US custody. Many have died. Every former Guantánamo detainee interviewed by Amnesty has described incidents of torture and other ill-treatment. Noam Chomsky says rendition is just a fancy word for torture.
Regrettably, Ireland has been firmly implicated in renditions. Amnesty International brought to the Government's attention last December flight logs showing that six aircraft known to be used by the CIA for renditions had made at least 50 landings at Shannon.
This is probably just the tip of the iceberg.
The secretary general of the Council of Europe highlighted a few weeks ago that controls exercised by the Irish authorities over foreign state aircraft do not provide adequate safeguards against abuse of its airspace and territory. He said member states must also inspect civil aircraft landing in their jurisdiction, or crossing their airspace, if there are serious reasons to believe that prisoners bound for torture elsewhere may be on board.
Research published by Amnesty on Monday shows that 76 per cent of the Irish public want Ireland to play no role in the grotesque practice of renditions, and want the Government to investigate each of these CIA flights through Shannon.
This evening, we are hosting a screening of The Road to Guantánamo, which tells the story of three young men from Tipton, near Birmingham, imprisoned in Guantánamo for over two years. The three, Rhuhel Ahmed, Asif Iqbal and Shafiq Rasul were released without charge in 2004. They will be participating in a Q&A session after the screening, along with the film's co-director, Mat Whitecross.
Also today, Amnesty publishes a shocking new report on renditions, available on www.amnesty.ie
Seán Love is executive director of Amnesty International Irish Section. The Road to Guantánamo is being shown at 6pm today in the Irish Film Institute, Temple Bar