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UN Human Rights experts call for end to secret detentions
Four United Nations Human Rights investigators are calling for the abolition of secret detention, saying it constitutes a violation of international human rights and humanitarian law. In a report to the United Nations Human Rights Council the experts warn that secret detention might reach the threshold of a crime against humanity, especially in cases where death of those held against their will occurs. Patrick Maigua reports from Geneva.
Manfred Nowak
In their report the four UN Human rights investigators said states were using secret detention on the pretext of countering terrorism. They said arbitrary arrests and secret detention had taken on a global scale since September 11 2001, with armed forces, law enforcement bodies and intelligence agencies given extraordinary powers to detain individuals, often with little or no oversight or accountability mechanisms. Manfred Novak the Special Rapporteur On Torture and Arbitrary Detention was one of the authors of the report.
"After 9/11, under the lead of the United States of America, also highly democratic countries became involved in a practice that up to that time was more known to be occurring in military or other forms of dictatorships. These years of the Bush administration had seriously undermined the whole fabric of international human rights law and the rule of law in general, and that had a negative effect on many other countries also engaging in serious violations of Human Rights including keeping suspects in secrete detention facilities. But in principle I am optimistic that with the Obama administration and also changes in the way how European and other states are cooperating with the United States of America, that we are already in a process where these practices are more challenged and are actually on the decrease."
The experts are calling for explicit legislation prohibiting secret and other unofficial detention, the mandatory keeping of detention records and independent inspection of all detention sites. They say families should be given information about their relative's capture, location, legal status and heath conditions.
Patrick Maigua, UN Radio, Geneva
(duration: 1'59")
