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POLAND WAS COMPLICIT in the USA’s rendition, secret detention, and torture of alleged terrorism suspects, a top human rights court has ruled.
The judgement, made by the European Court of Human Rights, found that the Polish government colluded with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to establish a secret prison at Stare Kiejkuty.
The decision by the court makes Poland the first European Union member state to be found to have involvement in the USA’s extraordinary rendition programme.
The prison was in operation between 2002 and 2005. Located 180km north of Warsaw, detainees were held in secret detention and tortured.
The articles of the European Convention on Human Rights Poland were found to have violated in both cases are:
On the ruling, Amnesty International’s expert on counter-terrorism and human rights Julia Hall said:
Today’s historic rulings finally unlock the truth about a dark period of Poland’s recent history and mark a milestone against impunity. Poland knowingly became part of the USA’s illegal network of black sites that was used to secretly detain and torture individuals rounded up in counter-terrorism operations.
The two men who brought the claim are Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi Arabian national, accused of involvement in the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000 and Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn (also known as Abu Zubaydah), a Saudi-born Palestinian.
Al-Nashiri described being subject to “enhanced interrogation techniques”, “mock execution” and threats of sexual assault against his family members.
In his 2010 memoirs, former US President George W. Bush outlines that he authorised the use of waterboarding against Abu Zubaydah. Waterboarding is the controversial practice of simulated drowning.
The government was ordered to pay the two claimants €100,000. The cases were brought to the European Court in 2011 and 2013.
Both men are currently being held at the US Navy’s Guantánamo Bay detention facility in Cuba.
On the ruling John Lannon, spokesperson for Shannonwatch, said:
I welcome the judgement. I’d also note that as well as being particularly pertinent in relation to Ireland. We know that the detention centres existed in places like Romania, Poland and Lithuania.
Joanna Trzaska-Wieczorek, a Polish presidential spokesperson said: “The ruling of the tribunal in Strasbourg on CIA jails is embarrassing for Poland and is a burden both in terms of our country’s finances as well as its image.”
On the issue, executive director of Amnesty International Ireland said:
Poland is not alone. Many other EU governments colluded with the USA to abduct, illegally transfer, ‘disappear’ and torture people in the course of rendition operations. While today’s judgments are a significant step forward, much more needs to be done to ensure accountability across Europe’
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Ireland allowed rendition (kidnap) flights through Shannon and now we could well end up in court. funny thing is that whenever anyone tried or tries to highlight there are howls of protest and derision.
Hopefully they will be done for it
@Brian Are you a communist?
Brian the two TDs were not met with ridicule because they were protesting rendition, the rendition programme has been over for years, many in the US national security establishment were disgusted by it, and it, and the associated torture programmes at GITMO, produced no usable intel, so the process was terminated.
They got most of the information of KSM, OBL etc from standard interrogation techniques, the guy who questioned Saddam Hussain just became his confidant and got him to confess to loads.
They were ridiculed not for standing up in the Dail and demanding that the government tell the US it would never participate in something like this again…not for proposing a more specific neutrality policy or anything that might be within the terms of how their job is meant to work, they were ridiculed for acting like teenage activists who KNEW they’d never get near the planes
Yeah Brian you must be a Commie Red Ba5t4rd for criticising illegal US human rights violations. Off to Moscow with you.
Thanks Gabbi “Mr 1950′s” Johnston for making me laugh so hard I snorted my tea up my nose.
Gabbi – Are you a right wing Terrorist ?
Gabbi – referring to your outrageous remarks – Are you a right wing Terrorist ?
So will Ireland also get its day in court as well?
No …Ireland is a lovely Catholic Country and Poland is ………… oh hang on St. John Paul 2 was from Poland wasn’t he ?
Oh jeeny mac !
Actually here’s aquestion ; Is he St. John Paul or St. Whatever his polish name was ?Genuine question I never thought of it before ?
And why don’t the church number their St.s like Kings do. So we could have St. John 1 , St. John 2 and so on !
What were we on about again, oh yeah ;torture …. In the old days it used to be just Kings and Popes that did it now it seems democracies do it as well ; very strange !
I hope so. As I hope that any other craven, money grubbing gang of shitbags get their day in Court. It will be richly merited.
In answer to your well thought out and reasoned question there Kerry – no. Because Ireland didn’t facilitate the housing of any prisoners. We just let our friends with some planes land here to refuel.
Would it make a difference Gabbi if they were going the other way loaded with bombs or ordnance?
All of the Western countries are complicit in the military actions of the USA, and so what. This isn’t a goddamn Disney movie we are living in. There is a world full of people who want to destroy our way of life and impose their own medieval standards and practices. Humans are a vicious species and we need to be stronger than the other civilisations lest we be doomed. The ironic thing is that our sheltered civilised society is producing weak idiots who have the ignorance and arrogance to think that we can all hold hands and be friends. Utter delusion.
You seriously think the behaviour of the US is acceptable? Wouldn’t wish anyone a day in an illegal US holding cell, that’s for sure.
Let’s call these things what they are — concentration camps!!
Who’s trying to impose their medieval standards on us exactly? The west has been the aggressor in all these middle eastern conflicts, yet it is them trying to impose their standards on us? We may not be living in a Disney movie, but we ain’t living in a Fox News delusion either.
If you don’t think that the Islamic nations, Russia, certain Communist nations don’t want to watch the West burn, then you are delusional
They might want to watch the west burn, but the west has been setting about burning down the Middle East for quite sometime now. How you think the invaded are forcing their values on the invaders is beyond me.
Who’s burning the Middle East?The inhabitantsof that region have being doing a good job of that themselves.They have being doing it for millenia now,and were doing it a long time before there was any such entity known as the ‘West’.
Scipio ; the Catholic crusades introduced a whole new dimension to the thing although Rome invaded before and were thrown out, the british , the crusuaders, and the Israelis are just next to enjoy a period of violent control in the region …Long term The Middle east is an arab area …the more the west interferes in it the more the arab world will interfere with the west …It’s the eternal bonfire of the vanities of politicians …..nothing like a good war to keep a lad in office or at least up the andrenalin flow when in charge of one far from the action! Both sides have these type of lunatics in charge and society keeps picking them because you have to be mad if you think that one person or a very small collection of individuals should have the power to decide such issues !
And politics is quite often hereditary so the madness must be genetic as well !
I’d much rather live in a world the American’s/EU control than one dominated by Islamist crackpots or Communist China. Until these people stop buying goods at the expense of poor people across the world I will not take them seriously. They’re just as guilty as any American.
Sir banned well said . Our place in the world is earn not a entitlement . There are people and nations that despise our way of life and who we are .
@Sir Band a terrorist group by definition cannot destroy our way of life only we can do that through fear of them and sadly that is what has happened to the USA, they used to be a shining city on a hill and now look at them…I remember when I was a kid watching the Clinton impeachment my mother saying with pride ”it’s politically motivated but he did technically commit perjury…this is America and why it’s so great, even the most powerful man in the country is not immune from the law”.
…then the Bush era took a giant dump on that whole thing.
Let me assure you as someone who has exhaustive knowledge of this topic from my own efforts, one of my previous jobs, and knowing people who work in JSOC: No usable intel was got from torture, and not a single terrorist attack was prevented by it…it does…not…work.
Mark would you not prefer to live in an Ireland under Irish control ;- that way you are not dragged into other people’s stupid decisions through their control over you.
That is what happened fianna Fail on the night of the bank guarantee ; they became so caught up with bankers that they were compromised from making a clear decision … and Merrill lynch supplied a figure of between 7 and 17 billion ; who wouldn’t trust the great foreign Merrrill Lynch ?
that kinda thing …. the bigger the partner the more it will screw you ; no partner no screwing !
Dermot it’s clear your history of the Middle East is skewed somewhat.Did you learn the Muslim Brotherhood version?The Arabs themselves were invaders out of the Arabian desert.Before they came most of the Middle East and North Africa was Christian or Zoroastrian(the religion of the Sassanids).Islam was the religion of the invader.
The Crusades was Christianity pushing back against Islam,after 400 years of Islamic expansion into Christian lands.
and before Zoroastrianism ?
the point scipio is this ….. the only invader that wins is the one that imposes the religion through inspiration ….. Islam is the dominant and aggressive religion in the region , The jewish religion is doing itself no favours and that means eventual annhialation based on numbers plain and simple !
The only way the jewish faith can survive in that area of the world is within a mutual respect attitude anything else and they invite their own destruction. they may win for a few years or generations but if they maintain a brutal outlook then they will be shoved out one way or another !
Whatever about Europe at least over time we have learnt peaceful co-existence between religions …relatively speaking …
the more Israel behave in this manner the more paole will move from Europe to fight them, Those people will return home and they will changed utterly and their attitude to where they live will have changed completely ! I ‘m not just blaming Israel in this last point either ; Syria etc. is valid to this point as well !
I love the way US apologists for their global domination use the new Red Terror, Islamists, to put you on one side of this imaginary fence or the other. All these Muslim countries were no issue to the US when their regimes were playing ball – when some of them got their own ball they were considered enemies. The sad thing is that there are increasing numbers of Islamists precisely because of the actions of the Bush 1 & 2 AND Clinton administrations. They created them.
America thinks that they are always right ; that’s the problem ! As far as they are concerned “democracy is something that should be shoved down everyone else’s throat while openly criticising the religious practices of islam , and they preaching religious tolerance in their own country; Have you seen of the nutjob religions operating in America ? But it’s o.k in America but not anywhere else because they know best !
It’s media dominance
OBL’s original goal in 9/11 was to get the Americans to withdraw from the Islamic world like Reagan did from Lebanon after the terror bombing of the barracks, at most he expected a few cruize missile attacks hitting empty camps.
He did not expect what came.
It’s quite likely, that 9/11 would have happened anyway, even if the US had a better policy towards the Islamic world.
Remember the US had gone to war to protect Muslims in Kosovo, even threatening a ground invasion (a bluff, but they didn’t know that then). OBLs reasons for attacking the US changed all the time.
His first reason was because the US troops were on Saudi holy soil..Bush withdrew them..he was then annoyed they were in Afghanistan…well Osama whos fault is that? See OBL, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, went back to SA and Kuwait offering fighters and a resistance campaign but the Saudis had no interest, they wanted the UN coalition it was faster and easier, and OBL felt butt hurt over that so that was one of his problems…so what should we have done? Allowed Iraq to seize the most strategic part of the entire globe, inc possibly parts of Saudi Arabia? Just to avoid upsetting Bin Laden?
‘the only invader that wins is the one that imposes the religion through inspiration’ People were not ‘inspired’ to convert to Islam.They did so because they were they subjugated and forced to pay ‘Jizya’ if they did not do so.
Well the problem is Dermot Islam finds it quite difficult to exist on an equal basis with other religions in areas where Muslims are in the majority.As the Christians of Mosul and Syria have found out to their cost quite recently.Being Arab is a linguistic and cultural identity,but you seem to be saying being a Muslim is an integral part o being an Arab.Not true.There are millions of Jewish and Christian Arabs.
For Israel the numbers game does not matter,when they have such a vast technological advantage over the surrounding nations that will not be ending anytime soon.
@Dermot that’s called ”American Exceptionalism”
I’ve two friends who are officers assigned to JSOC , all military guys are patriotic, but these two are patriotic not in the ‘US is always right’ way the old skool US patriotism (liking that the cops need a warrant to boot your door down at 3am etc)
I was watching the TV with them one day some Obama speech he was saying at least in America the government was accountable to the people, with peaceful transition of power and all this was ”uniquely American”, I uncrossed my legs and hurled my still 10% full cup of OJ at the tv.
”What did he say to p1ss you off I thought you liked our esteemed commander in chief”, they got that impression because I defended Obama to them in a conversation about the Neptune Spear mission.
I told them I felt the ‘unique’ point nauseating. These usually incredibly smart guys looked at each other confused ”well it is isn’t it?”. ”Our government has to sit IN congress and answer questions several times a week, we have peaceful elections all the time…and I might add with more than 2 parties…theres no bonkers amendment in our constitution that was interpreted to allow people on the terrorist watch list to buy a gun at the supermarket (perfectly legal in the US)…” I continued ranting for another few minutes while they stole looks at each other, greatly amused, eventually they understood but you can tel they still think ‘yeh ok Ireland might be good at democracy but were great at it’
LH – there is a fence between Islam and the West. It’s fundamentally anti-Western. Human rights are non existent, non-Muslims, women and ethnic minorities are treated brutally for a start. The trendy left in Ireland never acknowledge this in their pro-Palestinian and anti-American crusades. We’ve been invading, killing and stealing each other’s wealth since time began. Western countries just happen to have greatly advanced while these countries have kept one foot in the Stone age.
Spot on Sir Banned, but your comment falls on delusional and deaf ears. They’d rather have jihadists eating breakfast with them rather than see them suffer a day of inconvenience.
There is some truth in what you say dermot,but the islamics have the same notions about themselves but are far more extreme in their quest for world domination because their religion teaches them they are the annointed ones and all others are infidels that need to be eradicated,maybe you think otherwise but i would much prefer i was free to choose and not be forced to accept islamic beliefs and sharia law because they say you have to,and the penalty for any member that rejects their beliefs is far more severe not just for them but also for their families.
Mark, I think you’ll find that various major advancements in maths and science originated in the Middle East. Just because something isn’t in line with western standards doesn’t mean it is backwards, it just means it isn’t in line with western standards. I’m sure many people around the world view various things in the west as backwards
Scipio ; would you support the Zoroastrian annexation of Israel ? They were there first like !
Yet another crime committed by successive irish governments that could end up costing us millions and leave our claim to neutrality in the trash, not to mention the damage it would do to our image.
That’s just it though Ruairi..our neutrality is a mix of myth and joke, and it’s never been properly defined.
…that never happened. It sorta evolved in a haphazard way. we never had a vote on it. It started in WWII when Dev, throwing his toys out of the pram over the north, decided he did not want to be on the Brits side in anything, and they feared German attack, with a few, and this is historical fact, hedging bets to see who would come out on top, maybe with the Brits weakened they’d move on NI?
But even that neutrality was a total joke..we were pro allies for 90% of the war, esp after we saw they were gonna win after 41. We interned German pilots crashing here and let the allies go. We helped with the preparations for the Normandy invasion. Then at the end for reasons lost to history Dev decided one ‘show’ of neutrality was needed by condolences on Hitlers death!
So after the war did we declare neutrality in the new world? NO! We refused to join NATO for the same childish ‘can’t be on the Brits side’ reasons, proposing a separate military alliance with the US instead..yes that’s right. The US turned us down, said it was all or nothing.
So since then we pretended to be neutral in the Cold War while (once again) being de-facto pro-NATO.
So when was the next dance of the farce of neutrality? The Falklands war…a clear case of a war of aggression and invasion of territory, a slam dunk case where we ought to have been on the UK’s side and CJH stayed neutral just to annoy Thatcher.
Afghanistan…we were not neutral we supported it, even sent troops later.
Iraq…apart from Berties comments when Baghdad fell we were neutral once again.
We’ve been all over the place with this for decades, it’s time to have a referendum with a simple choice:
-REAL neutrality (w/our own 3branch military, no foreign forces on our soil)
-NATO membership.
This was known. Any word about the Czech republic et al?
Morroco and Thailand and elsewhere
Poland barring none is the biggest US lackey in the EU.For that reason and it’s ancient enmity with the Russians ,it should never be listened to on geo-politcal matters such as the crisis in Ukraine.They’re hot-heads when it comes to that issue,and are responisble for stirring up much of the unrest that led to the Kiev putsch
What about the UK? Surely they’re worse
@Danny, the UK played the game in a more clever manner. No secret US prisons.
Truly shocking findings, but will action be taken against the US ….
If Germany doesn’t take action against the US for spying then there won’t be action taken against the US for this
Does it really matter who the biggest lackey is? We’re all complicit.
Nope ..Germany!!
Ah Scipio it is the most ridic thing to say. Because of Irish ancient problems with GB Ireland should never ever make any comments about Falklands for example and so on. Completely stupid comment to make. Go on live your life of no problems.
Fianna Fail and Fianna Gael !
or is it Fine Fail and Fine Gael ?
If two idiots tried to interfere with a plane in Poland they would be shot dead immediately. Why oh why couldn’t the same have happened here
There is no evidence Ireland has done anything wrong.
If I kidnap someone and murder them, I’m going to jail.
If, on my way home, I stopped off at your house with the victim in the trunk, and despite hearing noises in the trunk and muffles for help you helped to send me on my way, you’d be done as an accessory or for failing to report a crime.
Nobody is saying, I think, that we should have got the Rangers to shoot their way onto the planes and set the people free, that’s not realistic, but once we knew at least some of those flights contained rendition victims we should have said to the US ”sorry…as long as you are doing this we can’t take the chance of being part of torture of someone who might be innocent, you’ve made mistakes before, and we ourselves have a dark history with locking up and torturing innocents in a terror war on this island, we won’t get blood on our hands a second time, your overflight rights are revoked”.
We’d have faced some diplomatic protest , but that’s all. Their corporations are here because we are a tax laundrette, not because were a political ally.
If you deny a prisoner of war his basic needs of medical care , food , water and sleep then you can be accuse of torture . If you tie a prisoners hands to tightly behind his back then you can be accuse of torture . Torture comes it all shapes and forms . Twenty yrs ago you could be drag into a Garda station and giving a god beaten . It was call discipline back then . Today it would be consider to be torture . After the gulf war Iraqi prisoners came forward and accuse the uk of torture for the reasons I said earlier . There was a nice big pay check at the end of it for them .
“You’re either with us or against us”…
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