September, 12 2014, 09:15am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Donald Campbell at Reprieve: +44 (0) 207 553 8166 / donald.campbell@reprieve.org.uk
UK Government Changes Story Again on Destruction of Diego Garcia Renditions Evidence
A British minister has today admitted that a number of records relating to flights passing through the island of Diego Garcia - which is known to have been used by CIA rendition jets - have been "damaged [by water] to the point of no longer being useful."
LONDON
A British minister has today admitted that a number of records relating to flights passing through the island of Diego Garcia - which is known to have been used by CIA rendition jets - have been "damaged [by water] to the point of no longer being useful."
The Government first informed Parliament that flight records for Diego Garcia were "incomplete due to water damage" on 8 July this year. The revelation led to further questions from MPs, as ministers have previously admitted that the island - part of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) and home to a US military base - was used by CIA rendition flights.
However, just a week later, on 15 July, Foreign Office Minister Mark Simmonds told the Commons that "previously wet paper records have been dried out...no flight records have been lost as a result of the water damage."
Today, the Government's position appears to have changed again, with the confirmation in a statement given to the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee that immigration records relating to civilians landing on the island have been destroyed beyond use. Although there is no indication of the identities of the civilians concerned, such records are potentially significant as they could relate to the civilian CIA agents who operated the 'rendition' flights which saw detainees flown to countries where they could be tortured.
The Foreign Office is also yet to respond to the revelation that June 2014 - the month in which they say saw "extremely heavy weather" which led to the destruction of the records - was in fact a relatively dry one, according to FCO records. Questioned over the discrepancy by Vice News recently, a FCO spokesperson said: "I don't think it's very helpful for us to have a discussion about how much rain is a lot of rain."
Ministers have also refused to answer questions in Parliament over whether the US sought permission to use Diego Garcia for the 2004 rendition to Libya of Gaddafi opponent Abdel-Hakim Belhadj and his pregnant wife Fatima Boudchar.
Commenting, Cori Crider, legal director at Reprieve, a charity which is representing victims of rendition said: "This is the second time the Government has changed its story on the destruction of what is potentially evidence of CIA renditions via Diego Garcia. On top of that, ministers continue to stonewall questions over when what is left of these documents will be made public, and whether the US sought permission to use the island for the rendition of Abdel-Hakim Belhadj and Fatima Boudchar to Gaddafi's Libya. People will rightly draw the conclusion that the Government still has something to hide when it comes to the UK's role in supporting CIA torture fights."
Reprieve is a UK-based human rights organization that uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantanamo Bay.
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IDF Kills 18 Children in Rafah Hours After US House Approves Billions in Military Aid
"Members of Congress should understand that approving more military aid could subject them to personal liability for aiding and abetting an ongoing genocide in Gaza."
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Hours after the U.S. House approved legislation that would send billions of dollars in additional military aid to Israel, the country's forces killed nearly two dozen people in Rafah, the southern Gaza city where more than half of the enclave's population is sheltering.
Gaza health officials said Sunday that the weekend strikes on Rafah—a former "safe zone" that Israel has been threatening to invade for weeks—killed 22 people, including 18 children. The Associated Pressreported that the first of the Israeli strikes "killed a man, his wife, and their 3-year-old child, according to the nearby Kuwaiti Hospital, which received the bodies."
"The woman was pregnant and the doctors saved the baby, the hospital said," AP added. "The second strike killed 17 children and two women from an extended family."
Israeli forces have killed more than 14,000 children in Gaza since October, but the Biden administration and American lawmakers have refused to back growing international calls to cut off the supply of weaponry and other military equipment even as U.S. voters express support for an arms embargo.
The measure the House approved on Saturday includes $26 billion in funding for Israel, much of which is military assistance.
"Just a day after the House voted to send $14 billion in unconditional military funding to [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu's campaign of death and destruction, he bombed the safe zone of Rafah AGAIN, killing 22 Palestinians, of which 18 were CHILDREN!" U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), one of the 58 House lawmakers who voted against the legislation, wrote on social media late Sunday.
"History books will write about today and the past seven months, and how our nation's leaders lacked the courage and moral clarity to stand up to a tyrant," she added. "Shameful."
The military aid package for Israel now heads to the U.S. Senate, which is set to consider the bill early this week. U.S. President Joe Biden, who has continued to greenlight arms sales to Israel amid clear evidence of war crimes, is expected to sign the measure if it reaches his desk.
"Rather than sending more weapons to Israel, Congress should declare an immediate arms embargo on Israel."
U.S. law prohibits "arms transfers that risk facilitating or otherwise contributing to violations of human rights or international humanitarian law," according to a White House memo issued in February. The U.S. State Department has said repeatedly that it has not found Israel to be in violation of international law, a position that runs directly counter to the findings of leading humanitarian organizations and United Nations experts.
The investigative outlet ProPublicareported last week that a "special State Department panel recommended months ago that Secretary of State Antony Blinken disqualify multiple Israeli military and police units from receiving U.S. aid after reviewing allegations that they committed serious human rights abuses" prior to the October 7 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel.
"But Blinken has failed to act on the proposal in the face of growing international criticism of the Israeli military's conduct in Gaza, according to current and former State Department officials," ProPublica noted.
Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), said in a statement Sunday that senators "should reject sending additional weapons to Israel not only because our laws prohibit military aid to abusive regimes, but because it's extremely damaging to our national interests."
DAWN's advocacy director, Raed Jarrar, added that "at a time when Israel is bracing for International Criminal Court arrest warrants against its leaders, members of Congress should understand that approving more military aid could subject them to personal liability for aiding and abetting an ongoing genocide in Gaza."
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"Short-sighted business interests must be out of the room because the only way to achieve equitable livelihoods is when we have a healthy planet."
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(Photo: Break Free From Plastics)
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- Eliminating toxic chemicals and additives from plastics;
- Bolstering reuse systems for plastics that are non-toxic;
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"Plastic doesn't just become pollution when it's thrown away," said Jessica Roff, the U.S. and Canada plastics and petrochemicals program manager for the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives. "Plastic is pollution, from the moment the fossil fuels are extracted from the ground to the eternity of waste it spawns."
Chrie Wilke, global advocacy manager for the Waterkeeper Alliance, said "Clearly the crux of the plastic pollution crisis is too much plastic being produced. There is no way to recycle our way out of this. We must face the fact that plastic and petrochemicals, at current production levels, endanger waterways, communities, and fisheries across the globe. Cutting production and implementing non-plastic alternatives and reuse systems is essential."
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Rescue workers said they had removed at least 200 bodies as of 12:00 pm local time on Sunday, and they estimated that at least another 200 remained, Middle East Eye reported.
"We found corpses without heads, bodies without skins, and some had their organs stolen," the director-general of the Government Media Office said in a statement shared by Quds News Network.
"Following the mass graves at Al-Shifa hospital, it looks like Israel is a voracious death machine turning hospitals in Gaza into graveyards."
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The news came as the U.S. House of Representatives voted on Saturday to send another $26 billion to Israel, including for military aid.
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