“The United Nations says it has learned of serious allegations that the US is secretly detaining terrorism suspects, notably on American military ships,” reports the BBC. “The special rapporteur on torture Manfred Nowak said the accusations were rumours at this stage, but urged the US to co-operate in an investigation.”
Nowak says that “the UN wants lists of the places of detention and those held. The comments come five days after the UN accused the US of stalling on their requests to visit Guantanamo Bay.” (See BoomanTribune story on June 23.)
Below, more news. And who is Manfred Nowak?
He said that according to the reports, the ships were believed to be in the Indian Ocean. Mr Nowak said the charges of secret detention camps were very serious, amounting to enforced disappearances.
Who Is Manfred Nowak?
From the International Commission of Jurists Web site:
He is Professor of Constitutional Law and Human Rights at the University of Vienna and Director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights (BIM). Since 1996, he has served as Judge at the Human Rights Chamber for Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo and, since 2000, as Chairperson of the European Master Programme on Human Rights and Democratization (EMA) in Venice. From 1987 to 1989, he was Director of the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM) at the University of Utrecht, and from 2002 to 2003 Olof Palme Visiting Professor at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (RWI) at the University of Lund.
Prof. Nowak was a member of the Austrian delegation to the UN Commission on Human Rights for many years, before he was appointed in 1993 as expert member of the UN Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances. During this term he also served as UN expert on missing persons in the former Yugoslavia, and after his resignation in 2001 he was appointed UN expert on legal issues relating to the drafting of a binding instrument on enforced disappearances. He also advises the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on poverty reduction strategies.
Prof. Nowak is a board member of various international and Austrian NGOs and was appointed in 2000 chairperson of a Human Rights Commission at the Austrian Ministry of Interior with the task of monitoring the police. In 1994, he was awarded a UNESCO prize for the teaching of human rights. He has published more than 350 books and articles in the fields of human rights, public law and politics.
Prof. Nowak holds an LLM from Columbia University in New York and a PhD from Vienna University.
From a June 23 NYT story on the U.N. team’s accusations that the U.S. is “stalling” on allowing them to visit Guantanamo:
One of them, Manfred Nowak of Austria, a professor of constitutional law and director of a human rights institute at the University of Vienna, said that mounting an unassisted investigation was “standard procedure” when countries resisted cooperating.
Now, monitoring of conditions can be totally evaded. Well, at least we can relieve some of the wear and tear on those rendition planes. Hopefully, the detainees are getting cuisine up to Gitmo standards.
I’m over my quota on diaries for the day at DKos. I hope one of you will take this and run with it.
I did send Steven D an e-mail asking if he’d like to post it as DKos but he hasn’t replied.
… on the subject at dKos here Susan. The diary links to this article: US suspected of keeping secret prisoners on warships: UN official.
Thanks, Olivia.
BTW that code “Indian Ocean” refers to anchorage at the base in Diego Garcia.
If you don’t know much about it, I wrote a full story you can find here. BBC’s been reporting for a year that renditions are ongoing at DG. It also looks like DG is where they’re stashing KSH (if he’s still alive).
Pax
All of this is so over the top, and so beyond any needed, rational security measures, that I can’t comprehend it.
We have a slew of convicted terrorists in prison in NY State and elsewhere, and that seems to be working alright.
Thanks for the excellent info on Diego Garcia, Soj. Great blog, I bookmarked it.
’bout the time I think I have heard it all, there comes yet another surprise. When will all this feces stop???!!!! I so want this administration locked up in jail and the others as well. Maybe when Halliburton finishes their remodeling at Gitmo, maybe we can use it to lock up the criminals we get out of this government…then ship the rest over the seas, hoping they get sea sick too…yet, lets lock them up in Iraqi prisons and see what will happen then. I am way so sick of all of this screwing of the world and us Americans and the Iraqis.
As long as we feed them rice pilaf the admin should be fine with being locked up without trial or proof. We can even chain them to the floor and let them defecate on themselves as long as we feed them well. I believe those are the rules.
It’s just like a frat prank or something.
/Rush
And waterboarding is really surfing.
…boardin’ USA!
“You’re thinking of old wooden ships covered with barnacles. Modern ships are metal and have very smooth hulls. When you’re dragged along the bottom of one of these it’s like skating or waterskiing, something many of these people have never had the opportunity to do.”
The “cruise clients” in our luxury mobile “relaxation position” facilities get even better recreational opportunities than our troops, I see.
Hi! Thanks for this pointer. The text of the BBC article you quoted is now available as a broadsheet. Like all our broadsheets, it’s easy to print [one click] and easy to read [large font] so there’s really no good reason not to print one and copy a few and spread them around. Is there? Think of all the folks in your neighborhood who only have TV and the newspapers. Do this for them. They need some truth and the only way they’re ever gonna get it is from people like us. Fortunately there are a lot of us! For more details, please visit our website.
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