Preventing Torture within the Fight against Terrorism 5 by IRCT International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims

NEWSLETTER Volume 2, Issue 1

Preventing Torture Framing the Issue

January 2008

within the fight against terrorism Inside this issue:

Torture on tape: a filmmaker’s perspective

An interview with Danish documentary filmmaker Jørgen Flindt Pedersen Upholding the absolute

Jørgen Flindt Pedersen is a Danish filmmaker who has won international acclaim for his feature documentaries, including “A Family at War” [2004], about a son’s death in Iraq and “Your Neighbour’s Son” [1976], about young Greek military recruits. He is currently developing a documentary about torture in the world today, which follows UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak on several country visits. The IRCT spoke with the filmmaker after he visited the U.S. detention centre at Guantanamo Bay. IRCT: What motivated you to make such a film? JFP: Already very soon after 9/11, I got interested in the subject of what the new challenges from terrorism were doing to our society. But at the same time I also had another very specific interest in the Middle East and the Palestinian situation. Already in my film “Terror and torture” [2005], even without concentrating on torture, I learned what could happen to political prisoners, from a former officer from Shabak [or Shin Bet, the Israeli internal

security service] who talked about interrogation methods he called “moderate physical pressure”. Also I was very much inspired by an article in the Atlantic monthly by Mark Bowden called “The Dark Art of Interrogation” which told about the whole history of interviewing POWs from Vietnam, Korea and finding out how the enemy used interrogation. Bowden invented the expression “torture lite” and ended up in this article saying that there are good reasons (such as the ticking bomb scenario) for using some forms of torture…In “Terror and torture” we see that in situations where there are a lot of terrorist attacks, it creates an environment ripe for torture, because people are acting out of fear, but on the other hand, we also show the consequences, the slippery slope, of this. So in some sense, my earlier film really set the stage for this film. IRCT: You have just visited the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. What were some of your expectations going there, and did these change based on the observations you made during your visit?

JFP: My doubt about going there was confirmed, in that there was no chance for me to make any judgments about the treatment of prisoners. I could only see prisoners from a distance. It is clear that so-called compliant detainees get treated relatively better than the others and receive benefits, such as a proper toothbrush and bottle of water with their meals...While the number of detainees is declining, the number of assaults against guards has increased. On any given day, about 20 people will be on hunger strikes, and are being forcefed twice a day. I asked the admiral in charge about suicide attempts and it was quite astonishing how many there had been since he took over in May last year…I talked to a lawyer whose client had been beaten a month ago. I think this still happens, and the admiral said if this sort of abuse happens, the persons in charge will be disciplined, but it’s very difficult for the admiral to oversee all of this. IRCT: You interviewed a doctor while you were there. Did you get any insight into the role of

ban on torture: addressing the military over detainee

abuses in Iraq

Recommended reading

medical professionals at Guantanamo? JFP: One question that the lawyers are talking about is that doctors don’t give their names to the detainees. Another thing that’s very controversial is that the doctors are participating in force-feeding. But his [the doctor interviewed] argument was that he was doing it to save lives. Of course, as a journalist it is very problematic not to talk to the other side. In a normal prison situation, you would be able to interview the detainees. The only way [in this instance] is to talk with former detainees or the lawyers. The lawyers are also restricted in what they can talk about, but they can talk about the general situation if they have heard about abuse…It is of course a situation where you have people who are 100% in power over other people. IRCT: What other countries have you visited in connection with this film? Do you have indications of

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Torture on tape (cont.) how this whole post-9/11 rhetoric of “necessary” torture carries over into other countries? JFP: We haven’t done any field work yet, but I know from Manfred Nowak that he hears this argument often, recently from Sri Lanka, Jordan, and the Russians. And it’s very convenient for these countries to point fingers at the “greatest democracy in the world”. We have heard the argument many times that the Americans don’t torture and we have to look very hard at their definitions of torture, which they have redefined. We also need to work on the grey areas, especially with isolation and sensory deprivation – techniques which don’t leave marks. IRCT: In your film “Your Neighbour’s Son”, you

showed how young Greek military recruits were indoctrinated and transformed into torturers. Do you find that experience resonates in today’s world? JFP: For my current film, I interviewed Eric Fair, an American who went to Iraq, who talks about his terrible experience and how he started doing things like stripping a guy, keeping him awake. He felt this was so bad and wants to warn others how easy it is to cross that line. I think what we did in “Your Neighbour’s Son” was show how ordinary people can be brainwashed into committing acts that they normally wouldn’t do. It is important to warn potential soldiers that they could find themselves in the same situation as Eric.

Filmmaker Jørgen Flindt Pedersen at Guantanamo

IRCT: What do you hope will be the take-away message from this film? JFP: I think it’s a necessary vaccination. The virus is out there. We have been contaminated in our thinking. I hope that people, even if they are tempted to buy the torture argument, become convinced that torture is wrong, and know more about the mechanisms that lead us to think that way. It is exactly what the terrorists want us to do; they are shouting “hurrah” every time they hear about a torture case…

If you have something you want to defend, the worst thing you can do is to commit acts that undermine what you are trying to defend. I find it important that in times of devastating events like 9/11 we don’t follow our gut feelings and lose the moral compass we established in more quiet times. Jørgen Flindt Pedersen’s documentary is set for worldwide release on 10 December 2008, in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Upholding the absolute ban on torture: addressing the military over detainee abuses in Iraq by Adam Lang, REDRESS

Most of the work done by NGOs and civil society in attempts to reinforce the total prohibition against torture in the current antiterrorism climate has focused on influencing policy at the level of central government. Innumerable memoranda and reports have been compiled and addressed to ministers, parliamentary committees and the like, and placed in the public domain and promoted through the media. While all of this is necessary and important,

there is a complementary and at times more effective way for NGOs to promote and protect the total prohibition against torture. A great deal of policy is developed not by central government but by institutions such as the army and other state agencies within doctrine and policy centres. It is in influencing policy at this level that civil society could well have additional impact. Doctrine developed for operational use tends to be specific and detailed

because it is designed to advise those actually on the ground what they can and cannot do, and of course what they should do. However, much of the doctrine regarding detainee handling and the process that captured persons go though was severely deficient at the time the UK went to war in Iraq, and significant parts remain so even after changes following the 2003 death of Iraqi civilian Baha Mousa in British custody. In particular, a doctrinal gap in accountability appears to

remain between battle group troops who have custody of detainees and intelligence staff who question these detainees.1 These deficiencies were compounded by a lack of planning that meant that individuals were forced to carry out functions for which they had little experience and/or training. For example, due to lack of resources at the central detention facility in Basra, detainees had to be held, sometimes for up to three days, at battle group level,

Volume 2, Issue 1 that is, by the very units that had arrested them. These units were originally not meant to retain detainees for so long, and thus had received little training in detainee handling and treatment, nor were there sufficient numbers of military police in these units. The result was that troops had to put great reliance on deficient doctrine in difficult circumstances. While the UK Government is clearly responsible, along with the higher echelons of the military, for many of these failures, particularly regarding planning and training, NGOs should be aware that merely criticising central governments and calling on ministers to implement changes carries with it a number of problems and is not the only way to generate change. Thus there is no guarantee that governmental or ministerial statements about changes in policy will actually be followed in practice or that they will continue to be implemented over time. A glaring example is the apparent lack of knowledge of the Heath Government’s ruling from the 1970s banning the five conditioning techniques in the British Army at PJHQ2 at the time of the 2003 invasion. This continued until early May 2004.3 It is also unclear what changes have or will be made following the Al Skeini ruling that the Human Rights Act and European Convention on Human Rights apply to detention facilities abroad.4 Further, government officials and politicians often deal with issues and questions more in terms of

Page 3 political rhetoric than substance, for example, former UK Attorney General Goldsmith’s answers to the Joint Committee on Human Rights.5 This occurs because such persons tend to wish to protect themselves and their parties from controversy and criticism. The result is that there is a significant gap between such statements and the reality on the ground, and the processes put in place to fix these problems are carried out behind closed doors. If civil society can influence doctrine directly then to some extent it removes the politics by going straight to those whose job it is to create the doctrine. It must be stressed that if NGOs do attempt to influence policy documents directly, then they need to take on some responsibility to ensure that their interventions are sound, as their submissions could end up being used to inform those on the ground during operations. A number of conditions probably need to be met for the content to be appropriate. Broad sweeping statements on international law are of limited use, and instead what should be highlighted wherever possible are specific national laws and government directives, as they are likely to be more persuasive at this level. Account should also be taken of operational necessities if the advice is to be effective. These might include scarce resources or military priorities, so minimum standards should be raised, emphasised, and developed rather than

stressing unrealistic maximum standards.

if possible, as well as training for staff.

Clearly the influence NGOs can have over some agencies will be limited because of national security considerations, for example, over national intelligence agencies and military intelligence corps. However, even here there can perhaps be some impact in developing best practices for accountability in detention centres, or advice on the role of medical staff in detention centres and during questioning. Other suggestions for how this might be achieved include projects involving the rewriting of materials and reference resources in conjunction with military doctrine centres and other agencies outside of central government.

This article draws on REDRESS’ experience in investigating the British Army’s abuse of detainees in Iraq, published in the October 2007 report UK

The process of advising state agents and agencies directly is of course already being carried out, and the Istanbul Protocol6 implementation programme is a good example. The International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims and others run training programmes for legal officials in law enforcement and penitentiary institutions, referring to both international and domestic laws. Such approaches rely mainly on these legal officials in turn developing policies and undertaking training for the rest of the staff in the institutions concerned. In this article we are advocating increased involvement in the direct development of institutional policies themselves, perhaps even in individual prisons or detention centres

Army in Iraq: Time to Come Clean on Civilian Torture,

available at www.redress.org. While the UK is used as an example, the suggestions apply to all states. Adam Lang coauthored the report with Kevin Laue of REDRESS. 1 See Chapter IV (F) of the REDRESS report UK Army in

Iraq: Time to come clean on civilian torture. Other gaps relate to persons detained as criminal suspects (as opposed to security internees), including their transfer between jurisdictions. 2

Permanent Joint Headquarters in Northwood, which oversaw the British side of the invasion and occupation. 3

Memo dated 17 May 2004 from PJHQ, obtained through Freedom of Information request.

Al Skeini and others v Secretary of State for Defence [2007] UKHL 26 http:// www.publications.parliament.u k/pa/ld200607/ldjudgmt/ jd070613/skeini-1.pdf 5

See the REDRESS report at pp 54-55, and the transcript of Lord Goldsmith’s evidence at: http:// www.publications.parliament.u k/pa/jt200607/jtselect/ jtrights/uc394-iii/uc39402.htm particularly Q190, Q202. 6

The Istanbul Protocol is used to investigate and document allegations of torture. See www.preventingtorture.org.

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International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT) Borgergade 13 · P.O. Box 9049

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The “Preventing Torture within the Fight against Terrorism” newsletter is published bimonthly as part of a joint FIDH-IRCT project aimed at reinstating respect for the prohibition against torture in counterterrorism strategies both globally and in ten target countries: Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, Mauritania, the Philippines, Russia and Syria. The newsletter editors welcome submissions of content for future issues, including articles (send query first), comments, letters to the editor (up to 250 words) and suggestions for recommended reading. To submit content or make enquiries, email Brandy Bauer, IRCT Communications Officer, at tortureandterrorNL@irct.org

www.fidh.org

For more information about the “Preventing Torture within the Fight against Terrorism” project, please visit the IRCT web site (www.irct.org) or contact: Sune Segal, Head of Communications, IRCT, +45 20 34 69 14, sse@irct.org or Isabelle Brachet, Director of Operations, FIDH, +33 1 43 55 25 18, ibrachet@fidh.org

This newsletter is being published with funding from the European Commission