The head of a European investigation into alleged CIA secret prisons in Europe said yesterday that evidence pointed to the existence of a system of "outsourcing" of torture by the US, and said it was highly likely that European governments knew of it.
But Swiss senator Dick Marty said that there was no formal proof so far of the existence of clandestine detention centers in Romania or Poland as alleged by the New York-based Human Rights Watch.
"There is a great deal of coherent, convergent evidence pointing to the existence of a system of `relocation' or `outsourcing' of torture," Marty said in a report presented to the Council of Europe, the human rights watchdog on whose behalf he is investigating.
"Acts of torture or severe violation of detainees' dignity through the administration of inhuman or degrading treatment are carried outside national territory and beyond the authority of national intelligence services."
The report said more than 100 terror suspects may have been transferred to countries where they faced torture or ill treatment in recent years.
"The entire continent is involved," Marty told the Council of Europe's parliamentary assembly, a body comprising several hundred national parliamentarians. "It is highly unlikely that European governments, or at least their intelligence services, were unaware."
In the report, Marty analyzed the cases of an Egyptian cleric allegedly kidnapped from Milan in 2003 by CIA agents and a German captured in Macedonia and taken to Afghanistan in an apparent case of mistaken identity.
Citing a US lawyer, Marty also said six Bosnians were abducted by US agents on Bosnian soil.
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RISKY BUSINESS: The ‘incentives’ include initiatives that get suspended for no reason, creating uncertainty and resulting in considerable losses for Taiwanese, the MAC said China’s “incentives” failed to sway sentiment in Taiwan, as willingness to work in China hit a record low of 1.6 percent, a Ministry of Labor survey showed. The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) also reported that the number of Taiwanese workers in China has nearly halved from a peak of 430,000 in 2012 to an estimated 231,000 in 2024. That marked a new low in the proportion of Taiwanese going abroad to work. The ministry’s annual survey on “Labor Life and Employment Status” includes questions respondents’ willingness to seek employment overseas. Willingness to work in China has steadily declined from
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
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