let's move on-Is europe starting to revolt against the US rendition progra

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=185812846&p=y858y355z
The Government today insisted it is unacceptable for the US to transfer prisoners through Shannon Airport without permission after a convicted Marine was found on board a civilian plane.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/breaking/story.asp?j=185741540&p=y8574zz46&n=185742300
Politicians will debate the lack of inspections of CIA flights landing at Shannon Airport when the Dáil meets today.
A Labour party motion on extraordinary rendition is to be raised and debated in the Dáil following last week’s publication of the Council of Europe report which named Ireland as one of 14 countries colluding with the CIA in a spider's web of so-called extraordinary rendition flights.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/realitycheck/20060609gray.html
We have it on the authority of no less a figure than Anne McLellan, who was at the time both deputy prime minister and public safety minister, that we should not be worrying ourselves about those American planes contracted by the Central Intelligence Agency that made secret flights to Canada.
There had been suggestions that the CIA flights — 74 individual flights involving 20 planes — were involved in "rendition," the term used by the American government to describe the transport of prisoners to other jurisdictions where it is alleged they are tortured.

http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=698&Itemid=1
-snip
What he was saying – to the bipartisan laughter and applause of the assembled legislators – was that people who had merely been accused of terrorism – arbitrarily, outside all judical process, with no set standards for evidence, perhaps on the word of a single, unreliable informant or a bounty hunter – have been killed by American agents or foreign proxies. This was perhaps the most bloodchilling statement ever uttered publicly by an American president: an open boast of "extrajudicial killing." And note further that Bush has not only claimed the power to imprison or kill anyone in the world whom he arbitrarly designates a "terrorist" – or even a "suspected terrorist" – he has also delegated this death-dealing authority to lower-ranking agents in the field.
-snip

http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/411366/748517
EU lawmakers backed accusations on Monday that the US Central Intelligence Agency had kidnapped and illegally held terrorism suspects on EU territory and flown them to countries that used torture.
Their report draws largely the same conclusions as that issued by the Council of Europe last week, adding to the embarrassment faced by European governments over their possible co-operation with US policies unpopular with domestic opinion

http://www.emigrant.ie/article.asp?iCategoryID=9&iArticleID=56396
A Council of Europe report, on the role European countries may have played in aiding the CIA in the rendition of political prisoners, was one of the week's major talking points. Some countries came in for severe criticism but the worst that was said of Ireland was that we "could be held responsible for collusion". The compiler of the report, Swiss Senator Dick Marti, had concluded that aircraft that had been used in rendition had subsequently landed at Shannon when no detainees were on board.

http://www.sundayherald.com/56171
THE intercepted top-secret fax contained information that Amer ica never wanted the world to know – that the US was holding war-on-terror captives at clandestine “black site” prisons in eastern Europe.
The fax, datelined November 10, 2005, 8.24pm, was sent by the Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, in Cairo, to his ambassador in London. It revealed that the US had detained at least 23 Iraqi and Afghani captives at a military base called Mihail Kogalniceanu in Romania, and added that similar secret prisons were also to be found in Poland, Ukraine, Kosovo, Macedonia and Bulgaria.

Once more and again, DU is in a hissy when they should have been paying attention. So easily diverted, sheesh.

Now, off to read the links...

I refuse to be represented by a military lawyer, says Londoner held by Americans in Cuba
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/06/11/wguan111.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/06/11/ixnews.html
An Islamic terror suspect who lived in London as a teenager will this week take centre stage in a growing rebellion by Guantanamo Bay prisoners against United States military defence lawyers.

Binyam Mohamed, a 27-year-old Ethiopian accused of conspiracy in the so-called radioactive "dirty bomb" plot to attack targets in America, will tell a pre-trial hearing at one of the first military commissions to be held at Guantanamo that he does not want to be defended by Major Yvonne Bradley, an air force reservist.

http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu-234/0606138324134629.htm
The US secret service, CIA, was "directly responsible" for extraordinary rendition, illegal seizure, removal, abduction and detention of terrorist suspects on EU territory," according to the European Parliament's (EP) Temporary Committee investigating the use of European countries by the CIA for rendition.

The committee report, drawn up by Italian MEP Claudio Fava, was adopted by 25 votes in favor to 14 against with 7 abstentions on Monday, said an EP statement.

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/europe/article_1172334.php/EU_lawmakers_to_continue_CIA_probe_focus_on_Romania_and_Poland
Brussels/Strasbourg - European Union lawmakers investigating alleged CIA activities in Europe agreed to extend their probe with a focus on trying to find out whether Romania and Poland have hosted illegal CIA prisons.

http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/civilsociety/articles/eav060806.shtml
A Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly report on US rendition practices is putting the Bush administration on the defensive.

The council’s report, released June 7, examines US efforts to counter radical Islamic terrorism, specifically the use of the Guantanamo military base as a prison camp for suspected extremists, as well as the widespread use of renditions in order to gain added insight into the global Islamic militant network.

The main author of the report, Dick Marty, takes the Bush administration to task for creating a new legal doctrine to justify dubious American practices, writing: "This legal approach is utterly alien to the European tradition and sensibility, and is clearly contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights." The Guantanamo facility, Marty alleged, was operating outside the recognized bounds of international law and the Geneva Convention governing the treatment of POWs.

http://www.coe.int/T/E/Com/Files/Events/2006-cia/
The Council of Europe's action follows allegations revealed by the Washington Post and the NGO Human Rights Watch in 2005 about the existence of secret CIA detention centres in Council of Europe member states. An investigation was launched by the Parliamentary Assembly on 1 November 2005, investigation for which Swiss Senator Dick Marty was appointed rapporteur.

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article717614.ece

A European investigation has accused Britain and 13 other countries of colluding with the United States in a "global spider's web" of secret CIA prisons and illegal abduction of terrorist suspects.

Although the Council of Europe report yesterday offered no conclusive proof, it said that circumstantial evidence - including official logs of more than 1,000 CIA flights - suggested that secret American detention centres had existed in Poland and Romania. Other countries, including Britain, had colluded with the US in the abduction or "rendition" of terror suspects on their soil and the illegal transfer of prisoners across frontiers.

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2006/06/spain-court-launches-investigation.php
Spain's National Court said Monday it would investigate allegations that the US Central Intelligence Agency used an airport on the island of Mallorca in its alleged "spider's web" of extraordinary rendition flights to transport terror suspects. The investigation comes in response to a report released last week by the Council of Europe (CoE) , Europe's human rights watchdog, accusing 14 European countries of colluding with the CIA to transport terror suspects on secret flights. The Spanish government denies any involvement in the alleged rendition flights, and announced that it will not tolerate human rights violations, including such rendition flights, if they do occur within the boundaries of Spain. The CoE report, written by Swiss legislator Dick Marty, provided no concrete evidence of rendition flights or secret prisons , but instead was meant to pressure the 14 accused European nations to conduct "serious, transparent investigations."

-snip-
The report said...
* Poland and Romania ran secret
detention centres
* Germany, Turkey, Spain,
Cyprus and Azerbaijan were
“staging points” (from where
operations were launched) for
flights involving the unlawful
transfer of detainees
* Ireland, Britain, Portugal,
Greece and Italy were stopovers
(for refuelling) for flights
involving the unlawful transfer
of detainees
* Sweden, Bosnia, Britain, the
former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia, Germany and
Turkey handed over suspects
* Cairo, Amman, Islamabad,
Rabat, Kabul, Guantanamo Bay,
Tashkent, Algiers and Baghdad
served as detainee transfer or
drop-off points.
http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=World_News&month=June2006&file=World_News200606087164.xml

a negation and perversion of every value of the 'civilization' Bush purports to be defending. Arbitrary murder on the whim of an autocrat and his designated minions, openly admitted, even celebrated: this is the reality of American power today. Try to square that with the idea of a constitutional republic based on law and justice."

from the linked Chris Floyd article Black Pearls: Bush's European Gulag Confirmed . . .

http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=698&Itemid=1

what have we become? . . .

WASHINGTON, 7 December 2005 — The United States held captured Al-Qaeda suspects at two secret CIA prisons in eastern Europe until last month when the facilities were shut down after media reports of their existence, ABC News reported Monday, citing current and former CIA agents.

Eleven Al-Qaeda prisoners who were held in Eastern Europe were relocated “to a CIA site somewhere in North Africa,” say reports, adding that the US scrambled to get all of the suspects off European soil before US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Europe yesterday.

Germany, Hungary, Italy, Morocco, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain and Sweden have all been used as prison “transit camps.” The US has neither confirmed nor denied the existence of the secret prisons, as reported by the Washington Post last month.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice defended US treatment of terrorism suspects before leaving for Europe, but would not respond to allegations that the CIA has run secret prisons in Eastern Europe. She insisted, however, that the US does not use torture.

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=secret+cia+prisons&fr=FP-tab-web-t&toggle=1&cop=&ei=UTF-8

http://www.capetimes.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=272&fArticleId=3281911
European states 'part of global web of secret prisons

Paris: More than 20 states, mostly in Europe, colluded in a "global spider's web" of secret CIA prisons and transfers of terrorism suspects, a European rights watchdog said in a report released yesterday.

Middle Eastern and Central Asian nations played a role in the network run by the US Central Intelligence Agency and European governments were aware or participated in the operation, the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe said.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/html/20060611T220000-0500_106738_OBS_ANTI_TERROR_MEASURES_SPAWN_COURTROOM_SECRECY_.asp

-snip


Court secrecy has increased across the United States since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and attorneys say the recent hearings in Salah's case, set for trial October 12, are just one example. In many cases, prosecutors say it is necessary to protect undercover agents, informants and witnesses from reprisals.

A lawsuit filed by a German man, Khaled al-Masri, who claimed to have been illegally detained and tortured in overseas prisons run by the CIA, was dismissed last month by a federal judge in Maryland. After receiving a secret written CIA briefing, the judge ruled that going ahead with a civil trial would have exposed state secrets.

At least seven European states are involved in the functioning of the CIA secret prisons’ “global web”, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) rapporteur Dick Marti stated on June 7.
At the sitting of the PACE Commission on Juridical Issues held in Paris he presented a 67-page memorandum, which, according to the Council of Europe’s Press Service, reveals the principles of functioning of the CIA secret prisons’ network, as well as the routes of the prisoners’ illegal transportation, “The Real Azerbaijan” newspaper reports.
http://www.defacto.am/index.php?OP=71312889

THE COUNCIL of Europe this week released a chilling report detailing how a dozen European countries played key roles in a global “spider’s web” spun by the United States to transport suspects in its ‘war on terror’ beyond the reach of the law, making use of secret CIA prisons and often outsourcing torture to friendly despots.

The complicity of countries like Britain or Turkey, frontline allies of the United States, is no surprise, neither is that of clients states in the Balkans or strongly pro-American east European democracies like Poland or Romania.

The involvement of Cyprus, however, must surely raise some eyebrows. The CoE report names Larnaca airport as one of seven “staging points” for operations, defining such locations as “points from which operations are often launched – planes and crews prepare there, or meet in clusters”.
http://www.cyprus-mail.com/news/main.php?id=26297&cat_id=1

STRASBOURG — The Council of Europe, the continent's top human-rights watchdog, said yesterday that more than 20 governments, mostly in Europe, were part of a "global spider's web" that had helped the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) conduct illicit activities on the continent.

European states were aware of, or took part in, a network run by the CIA that stretched from central Asia to the Caribbean, via the Middle East and North Africa, the Council of Europe's parliamentary assembly said.
http://theseoultimes.com/ST/?url=/ST/db/read.php?idx=3470

http://english.vietnamnet.vn/international/2006/06/579090/
accompanied by this picture

http://www.afrol.com/articles/19763
A European Council investigation into the "global spider's web" of secret CIA prisons and illegal abduction suspected of terrorist has named the three North African capitals Algiers, Cairo and Rabat as "detainee transfer/drop off points", together with more famous locations such as Guantánamo (Cuba), Baghdad (Iraq) and Kabul (Afghanistan). The report documents frequent flights of CIA abductees to the capitals of Algeria, Egypt and Morocco and torture cases in Egypt and Morocco.