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In the News - Archive 2005

01 January 2006

December 2005

Signals intelligence and human rights: the ECHELON report prepared by Duncan Campbell for the Electronic Privacy Information Center (June 2000, link)

Bush Secretly Lifted Some Limits on Spying in U.S. After 9/11, Officials Say (Cryptome, link)

Belarus: Lukashenko signs new amendments to the Criminal Code: Members of independent human rights NGOs at risk (link). The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), expresses its deepest concern at the signature by President A. Lukashenko of amendments to the Belarusian Criminal Code, which strengthen penal responsibility concerning “acts against people and public security”.

Harold Pinter – Nobel Lecture: Art, Truth & Politics (link)

European Roma Rights Centre report: Always somewhere else: Anti-Gypsyism in France, Country Report Series, No. 15 November 2005 (link)

Der Speigel article: The CIA in Europe (link)

November 2005

Poland and Romania marked as likely locations for CIA camps (link to euobserver)

The Origins of the National Security Agency (NSA), 1940-1952, link

UK: Identity cards in Britain: past experience and policy implications by Jon Agar in History and Policy (link)

Cyprus: Protestors heckle Le Pen and journalists attending speech (link)

October 2005

Amnesty International press release: Spain/Morocco: The authorities must be held accountable for the violation of migrants' rights (link)

USA: CIA sets up internal "clandestine service (link)

HM Inspectorate of Prisons has published a new report of an announced inspection into Haslar Removal Centre near Portsmouth
Download a copy of the report at: http://www.irr.org.uk/pdf/haslar_report.pdf

The politics of fear are blinding us to the humanity of others: A culture of guilt and apathy threatens to undermine our values and turn us into a traumatised society by Joanna Bourke, professor of history at Birkbeck College and author of Fear: A Cultural History (Guardian, link)

Documents show how Special Branch infiltrated Anti-Apartheid Movement (Guardian, link)

September 2005

Suspicious behaviour on the tube (Guardian, link)

UK: Report on the unannounced inspections of four short-term non-residential holding facilities: Gatwick Airport, North Terminal, Gatwick Airport, South Terminal, London City Airport, Dover Asylum Screening Centre, November 2004 – January 2005, by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons (pdf)

Refugees and the Development of Africa: The Case of Eritrean Refugees in the UK by Petros Tesfagiorgios (link to IRR News Service)

August 2005

UK: Throwing mud at Muslims - Branding moderates as extremists will have disastrous consequences, by Madeleine Bunting (Guardian. link)

UK: The VISOR project run by PITO (Police Organisation Technology Organisation) holds information on individuals convicted of sex offences, or jailed for more than 12 months for violence, as well as unconvicted individuals who are still assessed as posing a risk (link)

UK: Parliament Square: The website of Brian Haw - peace protestor and defender of the right to protest outside of Parliament (link)

Stay calm, the government says, in a mad panic itself: Proposed new anti-terrorist laws will be counterproductive article by lawyer Louise Christian (Guardian, link)

July 2005

Fearful Europe steps up security (Guardian, link)

Combining cryptography with biometrics effectively by Feng Hao, Ross Anderson, John Daugman Computer Laboratory, Cambridge University, UK (link)

UK: The Campaign for Freedom of Information has published a Users Guide to the Freedom of Information Act (link)

UK: Jaya Sacca, a long term peace activist was remanded in Lewes Prison (July 14th). On Wednesday 13th July he was "arrested" and handcuffed by members of Guardian Security hired by arms dealers EDO MBM for allegedly stepping onto the road which constitutes the "no protest zone" (Indymedia, link)

Greater surveillance of German Muslims? (link to DW-world DE)

June 2005

Italy-CIA: International Herald Tribune (link) Abroad, anger over U.S. tactics... "MILAN The extraordinary decision by an Italian judge to order the arrest of 13 people linked to the CIA on charges of kidnapping a terrorism suspect here dramatizes a growing rift between American counterterrorism officials and their counterparts in Europe...."

Norway: Update on the Krekar case (link) Norway: All charges dropped against Krekar (Statewatch News Online, June 2004)

New publication: The glass consumer: Life in a surveillance society edited by Susanne Lace. The Policy Press (pdf)

EU: Forsenic DNA databasing: A European Perspective (link)

USA: Justice Department, Inspector General's crticial report on the role of the FBI in investigating leads prior to 11 September 2001 (link)

Lord Steyn: Britain accused of creating terror fears: Law lord says UK and US tried to bend international law with Belmarsh and Guantánamo detentions (Guardian, link)

SIPRI Yearbook 2005: Press release (pdf, link). The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute annual report shows that global military expenditure rose again, topping one trillion

Transform Drug Policy Foundation: After the War on Drugs: Options for control (link). Excellent report examining the key themes in the drug policy reform debate, detailing how legal regulation of drug markets will operate, and providing a roadmap and time line for reform

Greece has broken European consensus: JOINT PUBLIC STATEMENT - Amnesty International, European Bureau for Conscientious Objectors and War Resisters' International (link)

May 2005

Physicians for Human Rights Report: "Break them down: Systematic use of psychological torture by US forces" (link)

Italy-USA: The Sgrena/Calipari shooting in Iraq: Unclassified report by the Italian government (lnk). US "unclassified" documents with the bits blanked out restored: US Army "unclassified" document (link)

April 2005

Council of Europe: Progress report on the application of the principles of Convention 108 to the collection and processing of biometric data (2005)

UK: A new special forces regiment has been formed to conduct covert surveillance operations Guardian (link) A new special forces regiment has been formed to conduct covert surveillance operations, mainly in pursuit of international terrorists, the defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, announced. The Special Reconnaissance Regiment, the SRR, is the first special forces unit to be created since the end of the second world war and will be based in Hereford, home of the SAS.

France: Amnesty International report: The search for justice (report, link). "The effective impunity of law enforcement officers in cases of shootings, deaths in custody or torture and ill-treatment." The French government ministers, judges and senior police officers are allowing members of the police force to use excessive and sometimes lethal force against suspects of Arab and African origin without fear of serious repercussions, Amnesty International says in its report.

March 2005

UK: "Operations in the UK: The Defence contribution to resilience" (link to large 3MB pdf). This 266 page document sets out the military's internal role for terrorism, natural disasters and strikes/public order. It is now based on the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (link) and the Emergency Powers Act 1964..

UK: Control order flaws exposed: First interview with ex-detainee reveals a regime that leaves him in despair : Ex-detainee exposes flaws in terror control orders (Guardian, link)

'One huge US jail': Afghanistan is the hub of a global network of detention centres, the frontline in America's 'war on terror', where arrest can be random and allegations of torture commonplace. Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark investigate on the ground and talk to former prisoners (Guardian, link)

Interview with de Vries, the EU's Counter Terrorism Coordinator (link)

February 2005

France: Proposal to introduce electronic ID card (pdf)

Dutch National Sigint Organisation building plans (Bits of Freedom, Netherlands, link)

CIA prisoners 'tortured' in Arab jails (link to BBC)

January 2005

Spain: Women in prison conference, Barcelona, 8 April 2005 (pdf)

UK: Identity Card Bill as amended in Committee dated 27 January 2005 (pdf)

EU: Initiative from Austria, Finland and Sweden: Draft Council Framework Decision on the European enforcement order and the transfer of sentenced persons between Member States of the EU

MI5 plan Scottish base to tackle terrorism (Scotsman, link)

Malta: Inquiry into Safi Barracks incidents starts - 26 illegal immigrants and two soldiers were injured during a protest (The Times, Malta, link)

European Commission: Communication to members of the Commission: Memorandum concerning the establishment of a Strategic Partnership between the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Commission of the European Communities in the field of protection and assistance to refugees and other people of concern to the UNHCR in third countries (pdf - this will not be published in the Official Journal)

'They beat me from all sides': A German car salesman says that a year ago he was kidnapped in Europe, beaten and flown to a US-controlled jail in Afghanistan. Now the German government is collecting evidence to back up his story. James Meek hears Khaled el-Masri's account of life in America's secret offshore prison network (Guardian, link) ("rendition")

US: National Intelligence Council assessment on Iraq and terrorism (link) Link to full report: "Mapping the global future"

U-turn over Palestinian help group (Guardian, link) Palestinian aid groups' bank accounts closed (Guardian, link)

Norway: Unregistered phone ban urged (link, Aftenposten)

UK citizens to face fingerprint checks from 2007 when entering the "Schengen area" (Guardian, link)

More on CIA jet story (link) See also: Statewatch: Update: Sweden: Expulsions carried out by US agents, men tortured in Egypt - second Swedish TV4 transcript with more details on the US abduction - Shannon airport on west of Ireland used as stop-over for US plane (from Village magazine)

Council of Europe (15.12.04): Free speech on the internet? Recommendation gives the "right of reply" (link) Article 19 submission to the draft recommendation (22.08.2003). EDRI comments that: "Only the United Kingdom and the Slovak Republic reserved the right not to comply for online services with the recommendation"

CIA Jet story (link) "Jet Is an Open Secret in Terror War", By Dana Priest, Washington Post Staff Writer, Monday, December 27, 2004. The airplane is a Gulfstream V turbojet, the sort favored by CEOs and celebrities. But since 2001 it has been seen at military airports from Pakistan to Indonesia to Jordan, sometimes being boarded by hooded and handcuffed passengers..... See also: Statewatch: Update: Sweden: Expulsions carried out by US agents, men tortured in Egypt - second Swedish TV4 transcript with more details on the US abduction - Shannon airport on west of Ireland used as stop-over for US plane (from Village magazine) (11.10.04)