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Extraordinary rendition
Extraordinary rendition
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Human rights law prohibits the use of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. This not only includes prohibiting a State from itself torturing or ill-treating a person, it includes a prohibition on ‘out-sourcing’ torture.
‘Extraordinary rendition’ refers to the deliberate apprehension and transfer of detainees to foreign countries for interrogation, outside of the law, where there is a risk that the person might be tortured or subjected to other ill-treatment.
The practice of extraordinary rendition is an affront to the rule of law as it operates well outside the law and lacks any transparency and accountability.
We now know that during the ‘War on Terror’ many people were unlawfully transferred from one territory to another in circumstances where they were subjected to torture, horrendous conditions of imprisonment and ill-treatment. The United Nations Committee Against Torture has said it believes extraordinary rendition has taken place on a significant scale, and there is evidence of hundreds of CIA flights over Europe.
We first raised our concerns about UK knowledge and involvement in extraordinary rendition in 2005, calling on the police to open an investigation into UK complicity.
In February 2008, the UK Government acknowledged that UK airspace and territory (on the small island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean) had been used for extraordinary rendition flights.
In March 2008 officials stated they were unsure how many other times such flights had passed through UK airspace. This is despite previously consistent denials by the Government of any use of UK airspace.
On 27 February 2009 the UK Government admitted that it had yet again misled Parliament over extraordinary rendition, acknowledging that UK forces had handed over individuals in Iraq to US authorities who then illegally rendered them to an Afghan prison known for its inhuman conditions.
Liberty, over many years, campaigned for the Government to order an independent and wide-ranging inquiry into the UK’s involvement or knowledge of extraordinary rendition as well as other allegations of UK complicity in torture. In July 2010 the Government announced an inquiry in to the mistreatment of detainees abroad.
The practice of extraordinary rendition is an affront to the rule of law as it operates well outside the law and lacks any transparency and accountability.
We now know that during the ‘War on Terror’ many people were unlawfully transferred from one territory to another in circumstances where they were subjected to torture, horrendous conditions of imprisonment and ill-treatment. The United Nations Committee Against Torture has said it believes extraordinary rendition has taken place on a significant scale, and there is evidence of hundreds of CIA flights over Europe.
We first raised our concerns about UK knowledge and involvement in extraordinary rendition in 2005, calling on the police to open an investigation into UK complicity.
In February 2008, the UK Government acknowledged that UK airspace and territory (on the small island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean) had been used for extraordinary rendition flights.
In March 2008 officials stated they were unsure how many other times such flights had passed through UK airspace. This is despite previously consistent denials by the Government of any use of UK airspace.
On 27 February 2009 the UK Government admitted that it had yet again misled Parliament over extraordinary rendition, acknowledging that UK forces had handed over individuals in Iraq to US authorities who then illegally rendered them to an Afghan prison known for its inhuman conditions.
Liberty, over many years, campaigned for the Government to order an independent and wide-ranging inquiry into the UK’s involvement or knowledge of extraordinary rendition as well as other allegations of UK complicity in torture. In July 2010 the Government announced an inquiry in to the mistreatment of detainees abroad.
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