“EU Parliament raises pressure for CIA flights, torture, prisons probe” @ Amnesty International
Posted on September 12, 2012
September 11, 2012: “Brussels, 11 September 2012) Amnesty International has welcomed today’s vote in Strasbourg by the European Parliament, endorsing by 568 votes (34 against, 77 abstentions) a new report on accountability for EU countries’ involvement in multiple human rights violations including torture. The report urges the countries to fulfill their legal obligation to investigate their role in the global CIA-led rendition and secret detention programmes, which involved the torture and the enforced disappearance of alleged terrorism suspects.
“This is an excellent outcome. The report has now been overwhelmingly endorsed by MEPs from all political groups, so it sends a very powerful signal”, said Nicolas Beger, Director of Amnesty International’s European Institutions Office. “We’ve been campaigning for urgent attention to this issue since the last report in 2007. But much remains to be done. We now need to see tangible action by the various governments, and an end to their evasion of responsibility.”
Amnesty International launched the campaign Unlock the Truth in Europe to coincide with the final stages of the report’s adoption. The campaign recently passed a petition with thousands of signatures to Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament. No EU country has yet met the legal obligation to hold a full and effective investigation into its role in the CIA programmes. Despite fresh information on rendition flights to and from Lithuania released by Reprieve this week, the authorities in Vilnius still refuse to re-open a criminal investigation into two secret CIA sites set up there in 2002 and 2004. ……………………..”
Read more at Amnesty International.
