Video in Streaming Flash format…
Video in Windows Media format…
Audio in MP3 format…
Earlier this week, a European Parliament committee released a report saying that the CIA had illegally detained people and used secret ‘rendition’ flights to transport them to other countries or secret CIA prisons where they were expected to be tortured.
Several members of European Parliament met in Macedonia today to investigate the story of Khaled El-Masri, a German citizen, who was abducted by the CIA. After being kidnapped, he was then ‘rendered’ to a U.S. prison in Afghanistan and held for 5 months.
The International Relations and Security Network reports:
ISN SECURITY WATCH (Friday, 28 April 2006: 10.38 CET) – European parliamentarians are on a two-day fact-finding mission in Macedonia, investigating claims that US agents arrested a German citizen there and sent him to Afghanistan for interrogation.
The European lawmakers arrived in Macedonia and Thursday, a day after a parliamentary committee released a report alleging that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had run 1,000 illegal rendition flights within the EU since 2001.
The European Parliament committee investigated the alleged CIA activities in Europe for over three months, during which time it interviewed top EU officials, magistrates, human rights activists, and people who claimed to have been kidnapped by the CIA.
“The CIA has, on several occasions, clearly been responsible for kidnapping and illegally detaining alleged terrorists on the territory of member states, as well as for extraordinary renditions,” the committee’s spokesman, Claudio Fava, told reporters.
The report did not include mention of an ongoing investigation into allegations about secret CIA detention centers in Europe.
Check out this article in the Christian Science Monitor for some insights on how the European public is forcing the EU to investigate US human rights abuses. The report concludes that many European countries were actually complicit in the ‘rendition’ flights. European leaders want to cooperate with Bush’s War on Terror (although they won’t call it a war). In contrast, the European people have a great disdain for the United States’ Government’s illegal operations.
Our Corporate Media has refused to report on this important story in National broadcasts. To their credit, PBS NewsHour did quickly mention the EU report. BBC News and BBC World News were broadcasting several extended segments for several days after the report war released.
The video has both the PBS and BBC coverage. If you know of other National networks that covered this story then please let us know.
Cross-posted at Veredictum.com