39 Missing Prisoners (by Joanne Mariner at HuffPost)

[marmar]

Joanne Mariner


39 Missing Prisoners

"What was previously just a set of allegations is now proven," begins an official European investigative report released on Friday. Terrorism suspects were "abducted from various locations around the world," subjected to "enhanced interrogation techniques" by CIA interrogators, and "held in secret prisons."

The report, issued by the Council of Europe, a regional human rights body, states that "secret detention facilities run by the CIA did exist in Europe from 2003 to 2005, in particular in Poland and Romania." It concludes, moreover, that the interrogation methods used in these secret prisons were "tantamount to torture."

The report's findings confirm what human rights groups have been saying for some time. In November 2005, Human Rights Watch pointed to Poland and Romania as among the sites used by the CIA for secret detention. And in a series of publications, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Reprieve, and other human rights groups have documented the abusive methods used against detainees held in secret CIA prisons.

Consistent with their larger global effort to eradicate these practices, these groups are trying to put a stop to the CIA's reliance on "disappearance," secret detention, and torture. Not only are they concerned about current detentions, such as the Iraqi man who in April was transferred from CIA custody to U.S. military custody, they are also trying to draw attention to the problem of missing detainees: people who were previously held in CIA custody and who remain "disappeared."

Last week, six human groups published a joint briefing paper on the missing detainees. (Besides the groups mentioned above, they included Cageprisoners, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and NYU's Center for Human Rights and Global Justice.) The paper names 39 people whose fate is unknown and whose whereabouts are uncertain, including people who have been missing for more than five years. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joanne-mariner/39-missing-prisoners_b_51487.html