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Torture, the CIA's Renditioning across Europe - and Justice goes AWOL

"Two years after the Abu Ghraib scandal, new research shows that abuse of detainees in U.S. custody in Iraq, Afghanistan, and at Guantánamo Bay has been widespread, and that the United States has taken only limited steps to investigate and punish implicated personnel.

A briefing paper issued today, “By the Numbers,” presents preliminary findings of the Detainee Abuse and Accountability Project, a joint project of New York University’s Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, Human Rights Watch and Human Rights First. The project is the first comprehensive accounting of credible allegations of torture and abuse in U.S. custody in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo."

According to an investigation undertaken by and now a Report issued by Human Rights First, Human Rights Watch and the Centre for Human Rights Global Justice today, there are some 600 instances of abuse not only in Iraq, but elsewhere, which go virtually unpunished. Read the Media Release [which allows for access to the full Report here.

Meanwhile, the European Union has just issued its Report into renditioning by the USA's CIA. As reported by Yahoo News [read the full news item here]:

"The CIA has conducted more than 1,000 clandestine flights in Europe since 2001, and some of them secretly took away terror suspects to countries where they could face torture, European Union lawmakers said Wednesday.

Legislators selected to look into allegations of questionable CIA activities in Europe said flight data showed a pattern of hidden operations by American agents, and they accused some European governments of knowing about it but remaining silent".

All of the above should go a long way in demonstrating to those whom we in the West describe as the "bad guys" who is doing pretty nasty things themselves [people in glass houses...!], winning the hearts and minds of Middle Eastern peoples and showing people [especially the Iraqis] what democracy is all about!!! In 2 words - forget it!

Update [Thursday afternoon]: The IHT now also details [here] the result of the European Parliament investigation - and the possible consequences of the findings.

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