Britain, Poland, Italy, Germany and seven other EU nations were aware of the running of secret CIA prisons in Europe, according to a European Parliament report.
The draft report, written after months of a special committee investigation and released on Tuesday, also accused senior EU officials, including EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, of not coming clean about the alleged US-run secret jails and secret abductions of terror suspects across the EU. The report criticized EU anti-terror coordinator Gijs de Vries and Solana of "omissions and denials" made during their testimonies to the committee.
The draft, presented to the EU assembly's special committee investigating alleged CIA kidnappings and prisons in Europe, called on national authorities to launch separate legal probes into claims whether their national security services were involved and whether state authorities violated EU human rights laws.
No EU governments have admitted that the alleged anti-terror operations were being carried out on their soil.
Governments have been warned by EU Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini that if they were found to have known of the CIA renditions and secret flights they could face lawsuits for violating EU law.
While thin on proof to back up their allegations, the committee report claimed it got information from secret documents and information from several sources, including recorded information from an informal meeting of EU and NATO foreign ministers on Dec. 7 last year, which included US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
"The temporary committee has obtained, from a confidential source, records of the informal trans-Atlantic meeting ... confirming that member states had knowledge of the program of extraordinary rendition and secret prisons," the report said.
It said further evidence was taken from additional records of other meetings between EU and senior US State Department officials during the first half of this year.
"At least 1,245 flights operated by the CIA have flown into the European airspace or stopped over at European airports," the draft said.
Vice-chair of the parliamentary committee, British Liberal Democrat Sarah Ludford said the EU now had to take action against member states to force them to acknowledge information.
"If the EU's aspirations to be a human rights community have any meaning whatsoever, there must now be a forceful EU response to this strong evidence that the CIA abducted, illegally imprisoned and transported alleged terrorists in Europe while European governments ... turned a blind eye," she said.
Human rights group Amnesty International called on EU governments to implement safeguards "to ensure that such human rights violations cannot happen again."
The report said 11 EU nations -- Britain, Poland, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Austria, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Cyprus -- had knowledge of the alleged US secret anti-terror measures taking place on European soil.
It said the committee had "circumstantial evidence" showing that Poland may have hosted a detention center for the CIA.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique