The take-no-prisoners approach to counterinsurgency adopted by the Sri Lankan government in 2009 was hailed in many corners as evidence that letting the military off the leash was more effective than a nuanced strategy of political engagement.

As disturbing stories emerged of Sri Lankan military and paramilitary units executing prisoners, silencing civil society critics and displaying a cavalier disregard for civilian casualties these were dismissed by government apologists as a price worth paying to secure democratic rule on the island.

In October last year the Obama administration even went so far as to brief the Sri Lankan Attorney General on the Military Commission system operating at Guantanamo. Sri Lanka is considering the Commissions as a possible model for Special Tribunals to try 12,000 potential LTTE suspects.

Then last month the Sri Lankan government arrested General Sarath Fonseka – military architect of the aggressive military strategy that led to the defeat of the LTTE and the death of Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.

General Fonseka had been the main challenger of President Mahinda Rajapaksa in the January 2010 general election and it seems pretty apparent that the Sri Lankan regime is determined to send a strong message to future challengers that serious political opposition will not be tolerated.

The arrest of General Fonseka, the internment of Tamil civilians in poorly run camps, and the disappearance of human rights activists and journalists from the streets of Colombo are all part of the same pattern and spell disaster for the future of one of the oldest democracies in Asia.

One aspect of torture and human rights abuse often ignored in the counterterrorism debate is the impact that draconian and even illegal tactics have on the fabric of the society using them.

In the 1960s the French journalist Pierre Vidal-Naquet famously described torture as “the cancer of democracy” and chartered how counter terror and the use of water boarding and electric shock treatment on terrorist suspects in Algeria eroded the democratic values of the French military.

As French forces got sucked deeper and deeper into the conflict elite frontline units were called upon to break more and more of the taboos of civilized society. Democratic control began to break down as soldiers began to see themselves as being above the law.

Ultimately, as the civilian government moved towards a withdrawal from Algeria, French generals mounted a coup in Algiers and established their own terrorist movement, the Organisation de l’Armée Secrète (OAS), that declared war on the French government and came close to assassinating French President and national hero Charles de Gaulle.

Illegal tactics like torture and indefinite detention are not consequence free for those who use them. They erode values, discipline and ultimately even relatively stable democracies. The truth is that in the real world you can’t destroy the village to save it. That approach just leaves you with a pile of rubble.

The Iranian government has repeatedly insisted that it cooperates with the international human rights community and abides by internationally recognized human rights instruments and agreements. However, these assertions are belied by Iran’s dismal performance at its Universal Periodic Review (UPR) by the U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva on February 15 and 17. The Iranian delegation incredibly denied its government’s egregious human rights violations, asserting that any criticisms of Iran’s human rights record were merely politically motivated and deliberate mischaracterizations of its efforts to protect its people from “terrorism.”  The Iranian delegation also rejected important recommendations made by the UNHRC which were intended to address the deplorable human rights situation in Iran.

Even before the UPR took place, the Iranian authorities provided evidence that its position would be one of obstruction and denial rather than cooperation and commitment to universally accepted human rights standards. In its submission for the UPR process, Iran claimed full compliance with international human rights mechanisms, and that torture, forced confessions, and other abuses did not occur.  Amnesty International issued a report that thoroughly dissected Iran’s submission. The report’s conclusions were summarized by Hassiba Hadjsahraoui, the Deputy Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Program, who said “The Iranian authorities seem either to have lost touch with reality or are unwilling to acknowledge it.” Although it is true, as Iran’s submission claims, that Iran’s Constitution guarantees many rights such as those of freedom of expression and the right to a fair trial,  those are routinely denied in practice. Even though Iran insists that it permits religious freedom it continues to carry out a harsh campaign of repression against the Baha’i community.  Whereas Iran’s submission maintained that it cooperates with the international human rights community, Amnesty International has not been granted access to the country to carry out research there since 1979 and Iran has not permitted U.N. human rights experts to visit the country in the last several years. And while Iran has made great strides in some areas since the 1979 Revolution—most notably in literacy rates and in education for women and girls—Iran’s overall record is abysmal, as was made clear in Amnesty International’s submission to the UPR process.

At the UPR on Monday February 15, Iran was urged to fulfill many of the recommendations that Amnesty International had been promoting—such as to end execution of juvenile offenders, torture of detainees and the arrest of those exercising their rights to freedom of expression and assembly—including peaceful protesters, journalists and women’s rights activists. The response of the Iranian delegation—led by Mohammad Javad Larijani the director of Iran’s Human Rights Headquarters—was essentially complete denial. They maintained, for instance, that all of those arrested and sentenced for their involvement—alleged or real—in the post-election protests were actually guilty of terrorism, espionage and endangering national security.

In the end Iran rejected many of the crucial recommendations in the draft report of the Working Group on the UPR of Iran, issued on February 17. Amnesty International and other organizations have recommended that Iran permit U.N human rights experts—such as the Special Rapporteur on Torture and on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions to visit the country and conduct rigorous and impartial investigations. But the Iran delegation ruled out the visits by independent U.N. experts. “That’s totally out of the question,” Seyyed Hossein Rezvani, the Iranian Foreign Ministry’s deputy director-general for human rights, told The Associated Press, saying that Iran had numerous domestic mechanisms for handling such issues.

Iran also rejected the recommendation to ensure the immediate release of illegally detained persons, to halt the execution of juvenile offenders and political prisoners and to prosecute officials involved in torture, rape and killing. The delegation accepted the recommendation to respect freedom of religion but rejected a recommendation to end discrimination against the Baha’is. Iran confounded observers by simultaneously accepting and rejecting similarly worded recommendations, which suggested that Iran does not intend to honor even the commitments it has made in regards to the recommendations it has accepted.

The whole purpose of the new UPR process is to engage UN member states in a constructive dialogue to promote human rights best practices, to enhance the fulfillment of each state of its human rights obligations and commitments, and to strengthen the cooperation by states with the Human Rights Council and its mechanisms. The success of the process depends on the good will of the participating countries. Sadly, Iran has exhibited only recalcitrance and contempt for the entirety of human rights norms and structures to which the international community insists all nations must adhere.

Last week Attorney-General Eric Holder wrote to Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell about the circumstances surrounding the arrest of underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on Christmas Day 2009.

A plainly exasperated Holder sought to counter the hysterical reaction that greeted the decision to handle Abdulmutallab’s case within the criminal justice system with a few pertinent facts and a solid dose of common sense.

His letter is well worth reading for the insights it offers into the choices facing Americans as they seek to respond to future terrorist attacks.

The debate is not about whether or not the Obama administration has somehow applied a less robust approach to the underwear bomber than the Bush administration did to similar incidents.

It has not, despite Rudy Giuliani’s selective memory loss. Shoe bomber Richard Reid was treated precisely the same way in 2001. Both administrations allowed the law to take its course.

The more important debate is whether or not the law enforcement paradigm is the best method for handling such events. It is.

Much has been made in some quarters about the need to extract actionable intelligence without delay. This – much like that old chestnut, the ticking bomb scenario – is a meaningless rhetorical device routed in TV drama, not reality.

The idea that an apprehended suicide bomber like Abdulmutallab is likely to possess much actionable intelligence – that is, intelligence requiring an immediate operational response – is patently absurd.

Terrorist groups know that there is a fair chance any operation will fail and that their operative could be detained alive. Indeed, Al Qaeda has seen as many plots fail as it has succeed.

As a result, suicide bombers are typically sequestered with a handler at a safe house for days, or even weeks, before an attack.  This is both to bolster their resolve and to inoculate the rest of the network from blowback after the operation.

As soon as the operation is set in motion the safe house will be sanitized and abandoned. The handler will escort his charge to the point of attack and then disappear.

Someone expendable like Abdulmutallab is highly unlikely to know the whereabouts of Al Qaeda’s leadership or possess meaningful insights into the group’s current operations.

However, he might conceivably have knowledge about a secondary device or another aspect of the operation already underway.

The public safety exemption to the Miranda caution recognized by the courts allows law enforcement officials to temporarily question a suspect on capture without advising him of his rights if they have reason to believe public safety is at immediate risk.

In the longer term, Abdulmutallab will likely be able to provide useful background on Al Qaeda’s recruitment methods and networks in London, Yemen and Nigeria. He should also be able to provide useful information about the group’s modus operandi and tradecraft.

This is the sort of information best drawn out of him over time by experienced debriefers going over his story time and time again. This process works best with his cooperation.

Adversarial exchanges driven by coercion are not conducive to discursive responses. The brass knuckle approach favored by Dick Cheney is less likely to produce results than an old-fashioned law enforcement interview.

Abdulmutallab has no incentive to cooperate with investigators locked up indefinitely in Guantanamo. By contrast, in the criminal justice system investigators have plenty of leverage to encourage cooperation.

The Attorney General notes in his letter that Abdulmutallab has provided intelligence to FBI investigators since being charged. In other words, the justice system works. On December 25^th, 2009, America got it right.

Another January 11th  Guantanamo  anniversary has come and gone, and still 198 men are detained at the facility (and hundreds more at Bagram). Over the last year there has been some progress, but not with the kind of momentum that we had hoped for last January.  Tomorrow marks the first anniversary of the Executive Order that President Obama drafted to have the Guantanamo Detention Facility closed within a year, but unfortunately, the detention facility is still open.  The military commissions process continues. And some in the Obama Administration seem to be flirting with the idea of indefinite detention (just in a US-based facility vs. Gitmo). The failed Bush-era policies on torture and indefinite and illegal detention sadly continue to linger on.  And thus the need for our important human rights work continues!

Last week on January 11th, we launched 10,000 Against Torture, a project to demonstrate to the White House and Congress, that Americans want both security AND respect for the rule of law. Over the next weeks, we’ll be doing weekly actions calling for the closure of Gitmo (in a way that respects human rights!) and accountability for these failed policies on torture and indefinite detention.

To mark the missed deadline tomorrow, we’ll be joining MoveOn, ACLU, Human Rights Watch and artists like Coldplay, Tom Morello, and others, by using Twitter and Facebook to get everyone online talking about closing Guantánamo.

Join us by taking action online today, January 21 and tomorrow, January 22:

• Tweet messages with the “#closegitmo” hashtag (if you follow the  Amnesty USA, you can re-tweet messages that we will be posting)
• Spread the word! Our goal is to make #closegitmo a top trending topic, and our success depends on reaching many people in a short amount of time to jump-start the conversation. Help us deliver this important message by asking others to join us (especially those with large followings online!)

Written by Njambi Good, Director of Counter Terror with Justice (CTWJ) campaign for Amnesty International USA

“I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it.”

Writing in last Sunday’s New York Times, former CIA officer Robert Grenier channeled Jack Nicholson’s Colonel Jessup as he slammed the Obama administration for releasing the Justice Department ‘torture memos’ last year.

Grenier described the publication of the memos as “a blatantly partisan act” designed to pour “opprobrium and scorn” on intelligence officers whose only offense had been to follow “lawful orders”.

When you start invoking the Nuremberg defense it is time to take a long hard look in the mirror. The instruction to torture prisoners in US custody was not lawful. It broke established and well-publicized domestic and international criminal laws.

Furthermore, senior military leaders, like General David Petraeus and Admiral Dennis Blair, have testified that these abuses cost American lives and greatly undermined military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Those who serve on the frontlines protecting the public from terrorist violence – in many ways the ultimate human rights abuse – deserve our gratitude and respect.

However, as Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor observed in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld a state of war is not a blank check for a president. It is still less so for an intelligence officer.

In a democracy how you go about defending freedom matters. We don’t just have the right to know what has been done in our names, in a democracy, we have the obligation to find out.

Just like the police officers we ask to daily risk their lives to protect our communities, CIA officers are not above the law and they must expect to be held accountable for their actions. 

The peace activists, belonging to the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram (VCA), a group that professes a Gandhian ideology of non-violence, have been campaigning for adivasi rights in the state for the past four years.  It’s been necessary because they are caught in the middle of an increasingly vicious conflict between the Maoist guerillas (aka the Naxalites) and basically pro-government vigilantes called the Salwa Judum.

On December 10, 2009 (Human Rights Day, no less), the Chhattisgarh state police arbitrarily arrested Kopa Kunjam (a member of the VCA) and Alban Toppo, a lawyer working with the New Delhi-based Human Rights Law Network (NRLN) at Dantewada in the southern part of the state. They were taken first to the Dantewada police station and then to the Bhairamgarh police station in the neighboring Bijapur district.

Alban Toppo reported that the police tortured him and Kopa Kunjam that night at the Bhairamgarh police station. They were beaten with thick bamboo sticks and rubber canes for 30 minutes. Toppo was forced to sign a letter stating that they had come to Bhairamgarh police station of their own accord. As a result of the torture, Toppo sustained injuries on his right elbow, biceps and back, causing severe pain and swelling. He could not move his hands and back because of the pain. Kopa Kunjam sustained serious injuries on his chest, back and leg, which left him unable to walk.

Although Toppo was released that night, he remained at the police station, as he had no means of returning home. Accompanied by police personnel, he was able to return the next morning. On December 12, 2009, Kopa Kunjam appeared before a local court where he was charged, under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, with the murder of Punem Honga, a local leader and member of the Salwa Judum, who had been abducted by the Maoists on June 2, 2009.

The arbitrary detention of the VCA activists clearly violates India’s Supreme Court guidelines issued in the D. K. Basu vs State of West Bengal case and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which India is a state party. Article 9 of the ICCPR guarantees the right to liberty, which includes freedom from arbitrary detention.

The Government of Chhattisgarh needs to do the following:

1. drop the politically motivated charges against Kopa Kunjam;
2. investigate the allegations of ill-treatment again Mr. Kunjam and Mr. Toppo;
3. ensure that human rights defenders are able to their work without fear of harassment, arbitrary arrest and torture.

Given that the state was formed in 2000 to address the aspirations of adivasis, it is disappointing that the state government continues to use the heavy hand of the police to harm those practicing their constitutionally guaranteed rights of free expression.

(Originally posted on Jurist)

The Obama administration’s announcement that it intends to move “War on Terror” detainees not cleared for release to the Thomson Correctional Facility changes very little beyond enabling President Obama to honor the letter, if not the spirit, of his pledge to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

What this decision in fact demonstrates is a lasting commitment to two ideas that President Obama rejected as a candidate: Military Commissions and indefinite detention without charge.

Military Commissions amount to little more than a cynical attempt to create a trial format with a sufficiently low burden of proof that it will admit evidence that could not be used in a real court. The concept of indefinite detention violates one of the most fundamental tenets of American – and international – justice that every defendant has a right to challenge his accusers in court. Both set disastrous precedents.

The decision to move the detainees will also have little positive impact on the position of the detainees themselves – indeed it will most likely further retard cases already unconscionably delayed. Nor will their day-to-day lives be improved, it is likely to be quite a while before the recreational facilities at Thomson match those now on offer at Guantanamo.

The bottom line is that the Obama administration is not fooling anyone either at home or abroad. Changing Guanatanmo’s zip code does not make indefinite detention any less palatable or military commissions any more legitimate.

Sadly, the good citizens of Thomson, Illinois, should get used to the idea that the name of their hometown will soon join Guantanamo and Abu Garaib as a shorthand term for American double standards and that it will likely become as effective a recruitment tool for Al-Qaeda as its predecessors.

Amnesty International does. It looks like Human Rights Watch does too. So do countless family members of those who have been “disappeared”, arbitrarily detained, tortured, or well, all of the above. The new report just released from AI includes some emblematic cases of human rights violations committed by the Mexican military….just in the past year. Keep in mind this report is in by no means exhaustive either. Many other NGOs have been documenting these types of cases for years, and it doesn’t look like things are getting better.

The Calderon Administration does have a tough job to do. Between combating the organized crime and drug cartels that have left some cities in a state of almost lawlessness, to working through the economic hardships that any current administration has felt, to dealing with high profile US/Mexico border issues… it’s a difficult task. Human rights have no borders though, so why has it been such a struggle to put human rights at the core of any and all governmental initiatives?

The National Human Rights Commission (of Mexico) received nearly 2,000 complaints of abuse by the military between January 2008 and June 2009. By comparison, there were 367 complaints in 2007 and 182 in 2006. An improvement? You tell me.

Kerrie Howard, Deputy Director of the AI Americas Program in London stated: “The cases that we have been able to investigate are truly shocking, but what is more shocking is that we know that this is only the tip of the iceberg.”

So if you want to do something about this, take action here.

When the father of Dr. Ramin Pourandarjani was contacted by Iranian authorities, telling him that his 26-year-old son had broken his leg in an accident, and that his permission was needed for an operation, the concerned father rushed to Tehran.  Upon his arrival he discovered that his son was in fact dead. The government has claimed that the young doctor committed suicide, even that a note had been found near his body suggesting that he had been suffering from depression. But Reza-Qoli Pourandarjani insists that he talked to his son the night before his death and that he had been in good spirits.

The mysterious circumstances around Dr. Pourandarjani’s death have raised questions about the authorities’ account. Dr. Pourandarjani, whose body was found on November 10 in a room at Tehran Police Headquarters, had been doing his required military service by tending to those held in the notorious Kahrizak Detention Center, which was used to detain large numbers of people arrested during the unrest following the June 12 Iranian presidential elections.

There were persistent reports of widespread and brutal torture of detainees at Kahrizak. At least three people were tortured to death there, including Mohsen Rouhalamini, the son of a top aide to presidential candidate Mohsen Rezaei, who reportedly died of cardiac arrest and bleeding in his lungs two weeks after he was detained on 9 July; according to some reports, his body bore the marks of severe torture, including disfiguring facial injuries. The Iranian authorities were not able to ignore the reports of torture, and on July 29, the Kahrizak facility was closed by order of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Officials admitted that abuses had taken place and announced that a special parliamentary committee would be investigating.

Dr. Pourandarjani attended the detainees who suffered from torture and ill-treatment including, reportedly, Mohsen Rouhalamini. He was interviewed by the parliamentary committee charged with investigating allegations of abuses. Before his death he reportedly received threats to prevent him from revealing the abuses he had witnessed at Kahrizak. He had also reportedly been forced to say that one detainee had died of meningitis and not of torture.

The fact that the Iranian authorities put out multiple versions of what happened to Dr. Pourandarjani does not inspire confidence that the public has been told the truth about the cause of his death. After first telling his father that he had suffered a broken leg, they claimed he had died of a heart attack. They later said he had been poisoned.  Finally they reported that he had committed suicide.

Amnesty International, together with Physicians for Human Rights and the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, just issued a joint letter to Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani and Tehran Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi, welcoming the announcement by Dowlatabadi’s office that an investigation into the death would be taking place, and urging that the investigation be fully impartial, thorough and independent, and that international experts be permitted to take part, in order to ensure the integrity and transparency of the investigation.

If the Iranian authorities have nothing to hide, they should welcome the opportunity to dispel the cloud of doubt and suspicion surrounding the death of Dr. Pourandarjani by inviting international experts to participate; Physicians for Human Rights has offered to send a forensic team to assist in the investigation.

Amnesty International urges that the investigation into Dr. Pourandarjani’s death fully comply with the United Nations Principles on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-Legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions.

Earlier today an Italian court convicted in absentia twenty-two CIA officers and a colonel in the US Air Force of charges relating to the February 2003 kidnapping of Muslim cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr aka Abu Omar.

Abu Omar was a victim of the extraordinary rendition program established by the Clinton administration and greatly expanded under President George W. Bush in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

He was snatched off the street in Milan and flown secretly to Cairo where he was handed off to Egyptian security officials. Abu Omar was tortured extensively in Egyptian custody. He was finally released without charge in 2007.

The Italian decision is a graphic illustration of just how damaging practices such as kidnapping and torture are to America’s national security.

Armando Spataro, the deputy Milan public prosecutor, told reporters:

“This decision sends a clear message to all governments that even in the fight against terrorism you can’t forsake the basic rights of our democracies.”

Yet, the Obama administration has given no commitment to end the practice of extraordinary rendition. Indeed, the administration has asserted that this is an option that it plans to retain as part of its counterterrorism strategy.

This is a terrible mistake. Continuing these practices will inevitably have a chilling effect on other countries’ willingness to work with the United States until they can be sure that America will no longer operate as a rogue nation outside the law.

Two Italian intelligence officers were also convicted for their roles in the Abu Omar abduction and it is hard to imagine that this lesson has been lost on counterterrorism officials in other western countries.

These policies are toxic. We gain nothing but shame from them. There is no upside. Extraordinary rendition famously produced the false intelligence that linked Iraq to Al Qaeda and helped precipitate the rush to war in Iraq perhaps the biggest counterterrorism blunder of this, or any, decade.

The United States shouldn’t need a foreign court to distinguish right from wrong. The Obama administration must repudiate the unlawful practice of extraordinary rendition – and hold accountable those responsible for having put this system in place — or his administration will end up as tarnished as his predecessor’s.