{"id":93700,"date":"2019-05-20T01:11:52","date_gmt":"2019-05-19T23:11:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/2019\/05\/20\/revised-mod-guidance-could-leave-door-open-for-torture\/"},"modified":"2019-05-20T01:11:52","modified_gmt":"2019-05-19T23:11:52","slug":"revised-mod-guidance-could-leave-door-open-for-torture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/?p=93700","title":{"rendered":"Revised MoD guidance could leave door open for torture"},"content":{"rendered":"

Updated protocol allows information sharing even if torture may have been usedThe Ministry of Defence has insisted that newly emerged departmental guidance on the sharing of intelligence derived from torture with allies, remains in line with practices agreed in the aftermath of a series of scandals following the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.An MoD document discreetly rewritten in November 2018 and made public on Sunday night says that UK ministers can share information obtained from third parties where there is a \u201cserious risk\u201d of torture \u201cif ministers agree that the potential benefits justify accepting the risk and the legal consequences that may follow\u201d.In a statement, the department said that the Investigatory Powers Commissioner\u2019s Office, which regulates government conduct in the area, was \u201centirely satisfied\u201d with the MoD\u2019s \u201cactivities and standards in this area\u201d.It added that \u201call our policy and activities in this area comply with the Cabinet Office\u2019s consolidated guidance\u201d on torture, which was last published in November 2011 by then prime minister David Cameron in response to a series of torture and rendition scandals the decade before.The carefully written 2011 document says that the UK does \u201cnot participate in, solicit, encourage or condone the use of torture\u201d, a violent practice it notes there is \u201can absolute prohibition of \u2026 [in] international law\u201d.But it also says that when Britain works with other countries where \u201ca serious risk of torture at the hands of a third party remains, our presumption would be that we will not proceed\u201d \u2013 therefore not completely ruling out obtaining intelligence via the illegal practice.A year ago a group of human rights organisations, including Reprieve, Redress and Amnesty International complained that the UK was recasting its guidelines on torture in secret. Writing to the foreign secretary at the time, Boris Johnson, the human rights groups said: \u201cWe therefore have serious concerns that the government may be seeking to amend or even water down its guidance on torture behind closed doors.\u201dCameron\u2019s government revised the consolidated guidance and agreed to make it public after the Guardian highlighted a series of cases in which terrorism suspects were tortured by overseas intelligence agencies while being asked questions that had been drawn up by the UK\u2019s intelligence agencies. Continue reading…
\nVia: Revised MoD guidance could leave door open for torture<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Updated protocol allows information sharing even if torture may have been usedThe Ministry of Defence has insisted that newly emerged departmental guidance on the sharing of intelligence derived from torture with allies, remains in line with practices agreed in the aftermath of a series of scandals following the wars in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=93700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93700\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}