Amnesty wants investigation into RUC waterboarding claims

[Saoirse go Deo]

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL has called for an investigation into the use of waterboarding torture techniques by the British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) to interrogate prisoners in the North of Ireland in the 1970s.

The call came following a BBC Radio Ulster documentary on Sunday, Inside the Torture Chamber.

Waterboarding is a technique that involves a cloth being placed over a person’s face and water being poured over it to simulate the effects of drowning. It was widely used by US forces and the CIA under the Bush administration.

Patrick Corrigan, a programme director with Amnesty International, called on the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) to launch a criminal investigation into the claims:

“In the 1970s, Amnesty International investigated and exposed allegations of torture by the security forces in Northern Ireland.

“Despite a public outcry and a public renunciation of torture by the Prime Minister of the time, it seems that sections of the security forces in Northern Ireland may have continued this criminal activity.”

http://www.anphoblacht.com/contents/22332

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-19869203

Death sentence man Liam Holden: 'I was tortured into a false confession'

It happened almost 40 years ago, but Liam Holden can still recall the sensation of gasping for breath as water was slowly poured on to a towel covering his face.

"That feeling will never leave me," he says.

"Even talking about it now, I get a gagging sensation in my throat."

He was 19 at the time and was being questioned by members of the Parachute Regiment about the murder of a soldier, Private Frank Bell.

He died three days after being shot in the head as he patrolled in the Springfield Avenue area of west Belfast in September 1972.
Signed statement

The teenage chef was taken from his home and brought to an army post at Blackmountain school, where he was held for almost five hours.

By the end of his time in military custody, he had agreed to sign a statement admitting he had shot the soldier.

"By the time they were finished with me I would have admitted to killing JFK," he says.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-18525630

It's commendable that Amnesty want an investigation into the RUC's torture, but they continue to turn a blind eye on the cases of Marian Price and other republican prisoners.

[Holly]

The unionist majority in Stormont will oppose this.

[C. Flower]

Was it not established at the time that the British army was torturing people ?

[PaddyJoe]

Was it not established at the time that the British army was torturing people ?

Parker Report 1972

10. Domestic Law ...(c) We have received both written and oral representations from many legal bodies and individual lawyers from both England and Northern Ireland. There has been no dissent from the view that the procedures are illegal alike by the law of England and the law of Northern Ireland. ... (d) This being so, no Army Directive and no Minister could lawfully or validly have authorized the use of the procedures. Only Parliament can alter the law. The procedures were and are illegal.

ECHR 1976:

...unanimously considered the combined use of the five methods to amount to torture, on the grounds that (1) the intensity of the stress caused by techniques creating sensory deprivation "directly affects the personality physically and mentally"; and (2) "the systematic application of the techniques for the purpose of inducing a person to give information shows a clear resemblance to those methods of systematic torture which have been known over the ages...a modern system of torture falling into the same category as those systems applied in previous times as a means of obtaining information and confessions.[18][19]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Demetrius