Derry City Council looks set to put pressure on airport authorities
across Europe next week, when it signs up to an Amnesty International
policy on CIA extraordinary rendition flights. Amnesty has said it
intends to use City of Derry airport as a good example in order to
encourage Scottish airports to ban the extraordinary rendition flights.
The move comes on the back of last year’s Amnesty report – Below the Radar: Secret Flights to Torture and “Disappearance” –
which alleged that a number of UK airports, including Glasgow,
Edinburgh, Prestwick, Wick and Derry, were all implicated in the
practice of rendition, and challenged the authorities to open up their
flight logs to scrutiny.
The report claimed that as many as 1,600 flights could be linked to
the CIA, which it said was using “front” companies and planes hired
from US aviation companies to illegally transport terror suspects in
secret.
City of Derry airport, which is owned by Derry City Council, denied
reports that it was being used for rendition flights, and was found to
be in the clear by Amnesty activists, after making available its flight
logs to scrutiny. No evidence that rendition flights were landing at
the airport was found.
Naomi McAuliffe, a campaigner for Amnesty International in Scotland,
said that the organisation was pleased with its findings and will be
encouraging Scottish authorities to join Derry in adopting its
anti-rendition policy. “We welcomed the opportunity to give them the
all clear and we found that the jets that landed at Derry were for
legitimate business purposes and not unlawful CIA flights.”
A spokesperson for Derry City Council explained that at the end of
business on 20 March, a notice of motion was submitted from Councillor
Gerry MacLochlainn from Sinn Fein regarding an antirendition policy for
City of Derry airport. The matter will be discussed by members of Full
Council at its meeting on Tuesday, March 27 2007.
Agreement on the issue would make Derry the first local authority in
Europe to adopt the new anti-rendition policy drafted by Amnesty
International. Adoption of the policy will mean that the airport will
maintain a register of aircraft operators whose planes have been
implicated in rendition flights, requiring operators to provide
detailed information before allowing them landing or flyover rights.
Detailed information about any passengers listed as prisoners or
detainees will be required, including their destination and the legal
basis for their transfer and, where there is reason to believe that an
aircraft might be used to carry out rendition or associated operations,
the airport will notify the relevant law enforcement authorities, and
maintain public records of all such notifications.
The council is also being asked to subsequently contact other
airport authorities in the UK and Ireland to urge them to adopt similar
policies. Wick airport could come in for particular scrutiny, as it
falls under the jurisdiction of Highlands and Islands Airports, which
is a company wholly owned by Scottish ministers and sponsored by the
Scottish Executive through the Transport Group of the Enterprise,
Transport and Lifelong Learning Department.
Scottish Nationalist MEP Alyn Smith criticised the Scottish
Executive for its failure to do more on the matter: “There is nothing
saying that the relevant authorities in Scotland couldn’t stop
rendition flights from happening if they wanted to and they have chosen
not to. Tavish Scott has made himself useless in this debate and good
on Amnesty for keeping up the pressure on the Scottish Executive.”
Legal advisers to the human rights body The Council of Europe have
stated that European states must inspect aircraft landing in their
jurisdictions if there are “serious reasons” to believe that prisoners
bound for torture or secret detention are on board. Yet it is known
that neither the UK nor Irish governments have been insisting on these
safeguards. Amnesty’s antirendition policy for City of Derry airport
would commit it to taking these steps.
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