Opinion:

Using ‘torture’ but talking human rights in Sri Lanka

by Daya Gamage

Canada depicts itself as a ‘Paragon of Virtue’ and acts as the model of excellence on democracy, good governance, rule of law and human rights, giving advice and counselling to nations such as Sri Lanka.

Information obtained from those behind bars

In November this year, Sri Lanka will host the 23rd Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister of Canada has announced that he will not attend the meeting, citing the country’s dismal human rights record.

Despite the ‘counselling’ position Canada has thrust upon itself to give lectures to Sri Lanka, Canada has given the country’s spy agency - Canadian Security Information Service - permission to use information extracted from suspects through torture, despite claims that it would never use such data, Press TV reported.

Canada's intelligence services, including the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC), have recently been given an annual budget of about $400 million to use and share information extracted through the use of torture, despite the Canadian government saying it does not condone such acts.

Human rights activists condemned the move, arguing that Canada is propagating the use of torture.

“Whenever information obtained under torture is used by other people, whoever that may be - a police officer, a government agency, a journalist, anyone - then all that is doing is encouraging the torturers to continue to torture. It’s essentially creating a market,” said Robert Alexander Neve, Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada.

In a directive issued in December 2010, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service was given permission to employ such information in cases where it claimed ‘public safety is at stake’.

The move is part of a broader, so-called Five Eyes intelligent sharing network involving the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

International law

Last year on September 20, columnist Mathew Behrens in the popular Canadian website rabble.ca wrote: “The ease with which self-described democratic states embroil themselves in torture continues to be illustrated by the manner in which agencies of the Canadian state, from spies to judges, have wedged open a door to legitimise complicity in a practice that both domestic and international law ban outright.”

He then justified what he wrote in this manner: “Before dismissing that paragraph as preposterous, it is worth considering that two federal inquiries into the torture of Abdullah Almalki, Maher Arar, Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin revealed a sinister level of Canadian complicity in torture, from which no accountability or systemic changes have emerged. Further, damning documents reveal Canadian knowledge of and culpability in the renditions and torture of Benamar Benatta and Abousfian Abdelrazik. Meanwhile, the Federal Court, while accepting CSIS memos acknowledging that secret trial “security certificate” cases are based largely on torture, continues with hearings that could result in deportations to torture.

That latter possibility is courtesy of a 2002 Supreme Court of Canada decision that left open the possibility of such complicity in torture under “exceptional circumstances.”The Canadian government has quietly given Canada's national police force and the federal border agency the authority to use and share information that was likely extracted through torture.Newly disclosed records show Public Safety Minister Vic Toews issued the directives to the RCMP and the Canada Border Services Agency shortly after giving similar orders to Canada's spy service.

Government directives

The government directives state that protection of life and property are the chief considerations when deciding on the use of information that may have been derived from torture.

They also outline instructions for deciding whether to share information when there is a “substantial risk” that doing so might result in someone in custody being abused.

Canadian Broadcasting Service (CBS) News contacted the public safety minister's office about the story, obtained by The Canadian Press, and asked if the government would use information obtained by torture.

“Our government does not condone the use of torture and certainly does not engage in it,” said Julie Carmichael, the director of communications for Vic Toews. “The minister's directive is clear, the primary responsibility of Canadian security agencies is to protect Canadian life and property,” she told CBC. “At all times we abide by Canadian law.”

As key members of Canada's security apparatus, both the RCMP and border services agency have frequent and extensive dealings with foreign counterparts.

The directives are almost identical to one Toews sent last summer to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service - instructions that were roundly criticised by human rights advocates and opposition MPs as a violation of Canada's international obligations to prevent the brutalisation of prisoners.

Each of the directives is based on a framework document - classified secret until now - that indicates the information-sharing principles apply to all federal agencies.

“The objective is to establish a coherent and consistent approach across the government of Canada in deciding whether or not to send information to, or solicit information from, a foreign entity when doing so may give rise to substantial risk of mistreatment of an individual,” says the four-page framework.

Courtesy: Asian Tribune