Looking to Poland for Accountability for CIA Torture

By Joanna Wasik, Georgetown Law '12, Guest Blogger 

This past summer, the Obama administration foreclosed the possibility that any charges would be brought against U.S. government officials for torture of terrorist suspects committed by the CIA during the Bush administration. This decision signaled an end to the prospect that a four-year-long probe into the deaths of two detainees in 2002 and 2003 would result in accountability through criminal prosecution. Earlier this year, however, an investigation in Poland and a case in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) regarding a former CIA “black site” prison emerged into public view and began to gain steam.  

As reported by the New York Times, Attorney General Holder explained that the decision not to bring criminal charges was guided by the conclusion that there was not enough available admissible evidence of torture to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and that this assessment does not mean that the actions taken by CIA officials were lawful. Holder stated that the investigation “was not intended to, and does not resolve, broader questions regarding the propriety of the examined conduct.” The decision was disappointing for many in the human rights community, such as Human Rights First, who have advocated that bringing to justice those responsible for torture is necessary to ensure that torture does not recur.

However, at the same time as the U.S. is closing the door on the possibility of trial for torture, prosecutors in another country, Poland, may be opening it. A staunch ally of the U.S. in the War on Terror under the Bush Administration, Poland hosted a CIA black site used to interrogate and allegedly torture Al-Qaeda suspects in Stare Kiejkuty, a town 100 miles north of Warsaw. According to the Council of Europe, the site opened in 2002 and housed “high-value” detainees, possibly including Khalid Sheikh Mohammad. Documents reveal that Mohammad was waterboarded 183 times in 2003, which may have occurred while he was at Stare Kiejkuty.

The Polish investigation first garnered public attention in March 2012, when it became known that the Prosecutor General’s office had charged Poland’s former Intelligence Chief with unlawful detention and corporal punishment. There have also been rumors that Leszek Miller, Poland’s Prime Minister at the time of the alleged black site’s operation, may be charged.

While President Obama’s statements in 2009 that he wanted to “look forward as opposed to backwards” foreshadowed his reluctance to prosecute Bush-era human rights violations, current Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s attitude is starkly different. In 2012, he stated: “Poland is a democracy where national and international law must be observed […] [t]his issue must be explained. Let there be no doubt about it either in Poland or on the other side of the ocean.”

In addition to the Polish investigation, accountability for CIA torture may emerge from a closely related case in the ECHR. The Open Society Institute is representing Al-Nashiri, the terrorist suspect allegedly responsible for the USS Cole bombing currently facing trial by military commission at Guantanamo Bay, in his claim against Poland before the ECHR. In an important development in the case in July 2012, the ECHR ordered the Polish government to turn over all documents relevant to a possible CIA secret prison in Poland. In particular, it asked Poland to confirm whether or not al-Nashiri had been held at Stare Kiejkuty from 2002-2003. In September 2012, the government of Poland responded by requesting that public access to the documents be limited. To date, it remains to be seen how the Court will rule regarding disclosure of the documents to the public.

The Polish investigation, if it does result in prosecution, may bring a glimmer of the accountability hoped for by the human rights community. Although the investigation is proceeding very slowly and the U.S. government is refusing all requests of assistance, it could eventually bring to light many of the details of the treatment of detainees such as Al-Nashiri. Although the Polish investigation targets Polish government officials who illegally allowed Stare Kiejkuty to be used as a site for extraordinary rendition and torture, and the actual perpetrators-- U.S. government officials working for the CIA -- will not face trial, the investigation may still be an important step, and Poland should be applauded for being the only country currently pursuing such an investigation. Other countries which hosted black sites should be encouraged to follow Poland’s lead. In addition, Al-Nashiri’s case at the ECHR may finally bring about official acknowledgment of facts that, for the time being, have not been confirmed by the U.S. government. Because accountability for Bush-era torture will not happen at home, the U.S. human rights community should turn abroad to these cases to carefully monitor, publicize, and support them. 

Victory in the ICC, But Without More Signatories, How Much Can the Rome Statute Do?

Louis Michel, via WikiMediaCommo

By Andrew G. Mosher

Ten years after it was established, the International Criminal Court has announced its first verdict.

A three-judge panel unanimously convicted Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, 51, a Congolese militia leader, of conscripting soldiers under the age of 15 and using them in an armed conflict in the Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 2002 and 2003.

What #Kony2012 Should Have Asked For

Pierre Holtz, via Wikimedia Commons

by Kayleen Hartman

By now the story of #Kony2012 is growing old. The viral video on Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has received almost 80 million hits, and is famous in some circles more for the backlash against it than for its advocacy ask: to stop the LRA’s deplorable use of child soldiers, tell the Obama administration to continue to provide the support it’s already providing to the Ugandan military’s mission against the LRA.

There’s been loads of commentary about the concerns with a video like this, whether or not or it’s useful, and its questionable accuracy. There is also the fact that there are other organizations in Uganda, founded by former child soldiers and for child soldiers, that might be a great place to put your money if you’re feeling moved. But we've missed the fact that not only is simple maintenance of the status quo a wasted use of the advocacy power of millions, there is another, much more necessary, powerful, and on-point demand that those affected by the video could ask of their president.

Fight for Human Rights in Alabama Recalls Civil Rights Movement 50 Years Ago

WikiMediaCommons, Abernathy Family Photos

by S. Amanda Shelton

     On New Year's Eve, 2011, I walked around downtown Montgomery, Alabama. The tranquil streets in this city of over 200,000 were so quiet that I saw more police officers than residents, a somewhat disquieting fact given the subject of my visit—the state’s often troubled history of public oppression of minorities.

     This history of struggle with racism and acceptance has come back into sharp focus in the last year; in June, Governor Robert Bentley signed into law HB 56, the Beason-Hammon Alabama Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act, which the ACLU called the “harshest immigration law in the country.”

Japan’s Human Rights Challenge: International Parental Child Abduction

Wikimedia Commons, US Department of State

by Asafu Suzuki

     In 2009, Christopher Savoie made international headlines when he flew to Japan to forcibly take back his children, who had been “abducted” by his Japanese ex-wife in defiance of an American court order. While the incident ultimately prompted review of Japan’s child custody laws, it shed light on a serious problem that affects many international families upon the parents’ divorce.

     As international marriages become increasingly common in today’s globalized environment, so have international divorces. International divorces generally present various challenges, and custodial issues in international divorces can be particularly problematic. Difficulty arises when one parent illegally removes his or her children from their habitual residence. This phenomenon, commonly known as international parental child abduction, involves actual and potential human rights violations of all parties involved.

Can Governments Protect Sex Work to Prevent Human Trafficking?

flikr/The Intrepid Traveler

by Marie Greenman

More than a decade after the Dutch government lifted its ban on brothels, thereby decriminalizing sex work in the Netherlands, the international human rights community remains divided on whether or not the decriminalization of voluntary sex work is an effective anti-human trafficking tool.

Why is Dutch decriminalization of the regulated sex industry so controversial? There are two sets of intensely held beliefs, which center around the nature of commercial sex itself. Some see the regulation as creating a support and safety network for registered sex workers and allowing them to reclaim a sense of control over the use of their bodies. Others argue that it endorses the commodification of the human body and allows for the exploitation of disempowered and socioeconomically pressed workers.

Revolutionary Rights and the Arab Christian ‘Plight’

	Carlos Latuff, WikimediaCommons

Carlos Latuff, WikimediaCommons

by Alex Schank

 

Violent acts against Christians in the Middle East have spurred a series of calls both regionally and internationally for the protection of a vulnerable religious minority in a Muslim-dominated part of the world. Salafist attacks on churches in Egypt, the bloody Maspero clashes between the army and Coptic demonstrators, and an apparently increasingly sectarian popular uprising in Syria have raised alarm bells in international and regional Christian networks and foreign policy circuits about the plight of Middle Eastern Christians.

The notion that Christians are threatened by a changing, revolutionary Middle East is not necessarily unfounded. The blood spilled in Cairo in recent months and the armed conflict in Syria raise real concerns about the safety of all citizens, particularly ethnic and religious minorities, and all those demonstrating for their rights. Indeed, the specters of sectarian civil war and Christian persecution from the recent historical experiences of Lebanon and Iraq, respectively, seem to loom over the region.