Poland asks European court to hide CIA secret torture prison case from public - RT News - 0 views
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tyranny extraordinary rendition CIA Poland ECHR cases war on terror™
shared by Paul Merrell on 02 Nov 13
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Poland has asked the European Court of Human Rights to bar media and public presence during an upcoming hearing on Poland’s complicity with the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” program that delivered terror suspects to secret prisons around the world. The public hearing in Strasbourg, France, scheduled for Dec. 3, will be the first arguments testing allegations that the Polish government allowed the CIA to operate a jail for supposed Al-Qaeda fighters in Poland. The request for a private hearing “will be examined by the court shortly,” a court spokesperson told Reuters. Poland cited national security concerns as to why it wants the hearing to remain confidential.
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"We should have the right to review this case in public," said Adam Bodnar, vice president of the Warsaw-based Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights. "I do not see a reason for confidentiality of proceedings." Bodnar added that most of the evidence about the alleged CIA jail is already public, and keeping it secret is pointless now. His organization was instrumental in uncovering evidence of Poland’s cooperation with the agency.
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The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) case was brought by lawyers for Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, both now detainees waiting for charges at Guantanamo Bay.
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The men allege they were kidnapped and held by the CIA at an intelligence training facility near Stare Kiejkuty, in northeast Poland. There, suspects “were subjected to enforced disappearance and tortured between 2002 and 2005,” Amnesty International said. Nashiri claims that while at the Polish site, he was subjected to torture, or “enhanced interrogation techniques,” and other harsh treatments, “such as ‘mock execution’ with a gun and threats of sexual assault against his family members,” Amnesty reported. Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times in one month while in secret CIA detention.
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Hosting such a secret prison violates the European Convention on Human Rights and the UN Convention Against Torture, both of which all European Union member states are bound to follow.
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I'll be surprised if the gag order is granted. The European Court of Human Rights has already handled a prior case involving CIA extraordinary rendition of a German citizen, holding the former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia liable for collaboration. That case was handled publicly and its public decision stands as a milestone indictment of the CIA's methods of waging War on Terror. http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/sites/eng/pages/search.aspx?i=001-115621