EU diplomat backs claims on tortureToronto Star: Richard Colvin's repeated warnings to the Canadian government about detainee torture in Afghanistan were an expression of the common concerns of like-minded Western nations, a European colleague says. Michael Semple, former deputy head of the European Union's mission in Afghanistan when Colvin was second-in-command of the Canadian embassy, said his own records from his time in Kabul are littered with the same findings...
Colvin told a special Commons committee on Afghanistan that Canada took vastly more battlefield prisoners than either the British or Dutch militaries operating in southern Afghanistan. He said that those detainees were, by and large, innocent taxi drivers and farmers rather than Taliban operatives, and that abuse was the 'standard operating procedure' of Afghan authorities, regardless of the intelligence value of a prisoner. The implements of torture were wire cables, electrical shocks and physical and sexual abuse, he said.
Colvin says his verbal and written warnings, sent far and wide to Canadian diplomats and military officials, were at first ignored. Once newspaper reports brought the problems to light, Colvin said he was instructed to keep quiet... Diplomats were told not to put torture allegations on paper.
The Globe and Mail: The April 2007 memo was obtained by Amnesty International during its court battles with Ottawa over whether Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies to the actions of Canadian soldiers overseas...
Paul Champ, a lawyer acting for Amnesty, said the Harper government is incorrect to dismiss Mr. Colvin's testimony by saying there are no other credible voices saying all detainees handed over to Afghan authorities are tortured. He points out the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, which has received significant funding from the Harper government, reported in April 2009, that more than 98 per cent of Afghan detention-centre inmates interviewed said they had been tortured.
The Guardian: 'According to our information, the likelihood is that all the Afghans we handed over were tortured,' Colvin told Canada's parliament... 'In other words, we detained, and handed over for severe torture, a lot of innocent people.'... The allegations have shocked a country that generally regards itself as an upholder of humanitarian values...
Colvin said his complaints about the torture of Afghans were 'mostly ignored' for a year. After that he was told by government officials to keep quiet and to express his concerns by telephone rather than put them on paper. He said 'the paper trail on detainees' was reduced after the arrival of Arif Lalani, Canada's ambassador in Kabul from May 2007. 'Reports on detainees began sometimes to be censored with crucial information removed.'
