Collaboration with CIA renditions highlights France’s assault on democratic rights

The IFHR and the LHR are demanding that judicial inquiries be made into the use by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of secret planes “within the context of the war against terror to take prisoners illegally to secret detention centres.” They assert they have information that the CIA has used these planes in cases where “intensive interrogations take place.”

According to the two organizations, the practice involves “torture and mistreatment ... prohibited by the United Nations Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhumane or Degrading Punishment or Treatment of 10 December 1984.” They add, “There is now every reason to fear that such practices have been carried out on prisoners while they were being transported on two suspect flights.”

The communiqué goes on to say: “On at least two occasions, planes have landed at French airports (Brest-Guipavas and Paris-Le Bourget) under suspicious circumstances, and without any clear indication of their destination. The greatest fears relate to the transport of CIA prisoners via these flights and, as a result, IFHR and LHR demand that all necessary investigations into these activities be carried out as soon as possible by the court.” It continues by saying the organizations “intend to emphasise the initial responsibility of the French authorities, to inquire into the activities and to pursue their perpetrators.”

The practice of CIA renditions, in which, in order to avoid legal restraints on torture, assassination and arbitrary imprisonment, detainees are taken to countries where such prohibitions are ignored, has become a source of embarrassment for Washington’s European allies, as evidence of their own complicity has mounted. French officials have issued disingenuous statements suggesting that they were unaware of the cargos being carried by the two identified CIA airplanes that stopped over in France.

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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/jan2006/fran-j16.shtml