APPG on Extraordinary Rendition

US policy failure over Guantanamo and rendition exposed, as the Government announces British residents Jamil el-Banna, Abdennour Sameur and Omar Deghayes are to return home from Guantanamo Bay.  Andrew Tyrie MP said: “The US administration’s efforts to reduce the number of detainees at Guantanamo Bay are a reflection of the bankruptcy of the policy that created Guantanamo in the beginning.  Guantanamo Bay is a legal and moral black hole.  I welcome the fact that the three British residents, Jamil el-Banna, Abdennour Sameur and Omar Deghayes, will now live in an environment with due process and the protection of the law.”    “Many of the people at Guantanamo were kidnapped and taken there outside any due process of law.  This would be disgraceful if committed by any country, but is outrageous in the case of a leading western democracy.  The Intelligence and Security Committee found that in the case of Jamil el-Banna, information provided by the British may well have led to his subsequent kidnap and rendition to Guantanamo.”  “After four years the Government finally got round to admitting Guantanamo Bay was wrong.  A condemnation of the US policy of extraordinary rendition – whereby people have been kidnapped around the world and taken to places where they may be maltreated or tortured – is also long overdue.  It makes combating terrorism more difficult, not less.  It makes us more vulnerable to terrorism, not less.  It is also morally repugnant.”  “The Government must now do all it can to secure the release of British resident Binyam Mohamed, who is likely to face a Military Commission that our own Law Officers have concluded would not provide a fair trial.”

On Human Rights Day 2007, Andrew Tyrie MP urges an end to extraordinary rendition. Andrew Tyrie MP said: “US policies such as extraordinary rendition, whereby people have been kidnapped around the world and taken to places where they may be tortured, threaten to erode fundamental liberties which many of us now take for granted.  Yet the UK Government refuses to condemn this policy, or to put in place legislation that will give the public confidence we are not accomplices in the rendition programme.”    “The proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on this day in 1948 was supposed to herald a new age of humanity in the ruins of the Second World War.  But almost sixty years later the UK Government is still reluctant to uphold one of its fundamental provisions: the prohibition on torture.”   “Torture and kidnapping are counterproductive in the battle against dangerous extremism, as well as immoral and illegal.  Today, on Human Rights Day, it is time for our Government publicly to acknowledge this fact.”

Andrew Tyrie MP has today written to the Human Rights Council of the United Nations, requesting that it examines the involvement of the UK in the US rendition programme and the adequacy of current safeguards, as part of its review of the UK in the first session of the Universal Periodic Review.    Andrew Tyrie MP said: “The extent of the United Kingdom’s complicity in the US rendition programme is still unknown.  The Government has been unacceptably reticent in response to questions, has failed to keep proper records and has obstructed a number of Parliamentary enquiries.  This has led many to allege that the Government has, at the very least, been turning a blind eye to possible UK complicity in US rendition flights.”    “Policies like extraordinary rendition, whereby people have been kidnapped around the world and taken to places where they may be maltreated or tortured, are not only counterproductive in combating terrorism, but illegal under international law.  Yet the UK Government has still not put in place adequate safeguards to give the public confidence that they will not be carried out through or over UK territory.”    “The timely review of the UK by the UN Human Rights Council provides a further opportunity to establish the extent of the UK’s legal involvement in this practice.”    Ends.

Andrew Tyrie MP receives a reply from Kim Howells MP to his letter on the Westminster Hall Debate on Extraordinary Rendition and the Intelligence and Security Committee Report into Rendition. “The Government has once again confirmed its opposition to torture” said Andrew Tyrie, “Yet refused to condemn the US policy of rendition, whereby people have been kidnapped around the world and taken to places where they may be maltreated or tortured.” “Policies such as this are clearly counterproductive.  But the UK Government refuses to make an assessment of their effect in combating terrorism.  Secret detention, torture, and Guantanamo Bay act as recruiting sergeants for terrorists worldwide.  They make us in the West less secure, not more.” “It must appear to many that Britain’s opposition to torture is opposition in name alone.  The Government can restore some credibility in this area of policy by publicly condemning the US policy of extraordinary rendition.” Ends.

Andrew Tyrie MP has today written to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, requesting that it investigates allegations of the use of British Territory in the US rendition programme as part of its inquiry into the Overseas Territories. Andrew Tyrie MP said: “There have been repeated allegations that the US has used the British Territory of Diego Garcia in its rendition programme.  Yet the Government has done next to nothing to investigate them.”  “Time and time again the UK Government has relied on US assurances on this issue, refusing to examine the truth of these allegations for themselves.  These assurances come from the same Government that invented the rendition programme, authorised the use of techniques that all in the civilized world would call torture, and continues to hold hundreds in the moral and legal black hole of Guantanamo Bay.”  “The UK Government continues to turn a blind eye to breaches of the rule of law.  Extraordinary rendition, whereby people have been kidnapped around the world and taken to places where they may be maltreated or tortured, demands its attention.  It is high time our Government took its head out of the sand and looked into these allegations for itself.”  Ends.