EU parliament should crack down on CIA-led rights abuses in Europe


AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
PRESS RELEASE
 
EU parliament should crack down on CIA-led rights abuses in Europe
 
(Brussels, 12 April 2012) Amnesty International has urged the EU to step up pressure on the USA, to hold Washington to account for its rendition and secret detention programmes. At today’s hearing by the European Parliament’s subcommittee on human rights (DROI), Members of the European Parliament focused on the need to protect human rights while countering terrorism and preventing the abuses, including torture and enforced disappearance, which occurred under CIA-led counter-terrorism operations. 
 
“Although the US Government is responsible for kidnapping, secret detention and torture, the EU willingly helped it by hosting secret prisons, authorising airspace and airfields for renditions, and generally turning a blind eye”, said Nicolas Beger, Director of Amnesty International’s European Institutions Office. “The EU must continue getting its own house in order, and hold EU countries accountable for their complicity. It must also continue pressing the USA to come clean.”
 
Five years after the European Parliament’s first report on CIA renditions, Amnesty International has urged it to renew its commitment to investigating EU involvement. Parliament’s committee on civil liberties, justice & home affairs (LIBE) will issue a new report on EU countries’ compliance with a parliamentary resolution requiring them to hold independent enquiries into their alleged complicity.
 
Amnesty International has urged the EU to use every opportunity to: 
 
Deplore US failure to ensure full accountability for crimes under international law
 
Call on the USA to provide victims of human rights violations with genuine access to effective remedies for violations
 
Express the EU’s commitment to ensuring accountability for EU countries’ involvement in human rights violations committed under US-led counter-terrorism operations, and seek assurances of cooperation from US authorities on all European efforts to ensure accountability for violations on European territory
 
Publicly reaffirm its continued opposition to detentions at Guantánamo and give any necessary help in closing the facility, which includes offering resettlement to detainees eligible for release
 
Deplore the continued detention without charge or fair criminal trial of scores of detainees at Guantánamo, including Abu Zubaydah, and the choice of military commissions to try several detainees and pursue the death penalty against six, including Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri 
 
For more information please contact:
 
Peter Clarke 
Media & Communications Officer
European Institutions Office
Amnesty International
Tel: +32 (0) 2 548 2773