EMBARGOED UNTIL 1 PM SUNDAY 1 MAY 2011

Special Air Service’s Complicity In Torture

The following statement has been issued by Amnesty International following the publication of Metro’s article “Eyes Wide Shut” on the New Zealand Special Air Service’s (SAS) complicity in human rights abuses in Afghanistan.

Metro’s article shines a spotlight on a dark shadow that has been cast over New Zealand’s human rights record. It is time for that shadow to be lifted.

Torture is never justified; no matter where, when or why it happens, or who it happens to. If New Zealand’s soldiers were being tortured, we would be outraged. We would demand it stop and that those responsible be held to account. We must demand the same for those our SAS are fighting; not only for reciprocity but to respect the dignity of all human life.

The United States’ ill-treatment of SAS detainees from the raid on Band e Timur in May 2002 put the New Zealand Government on notice that torture was occurring in Afghanistan - that they needed to revise their policies and practices to ensure the SAS did not transfer detainees to torture in the future.

Amnesty International calls for the immediate release of the findings of the New Zealand Defence Force's investigation into its compliance with international humanitarian and human rights obligations in Afghanistan. Amnesty International also calls for an independent and transparent investigation to be launched. If New Zealand has been complicit in torture in Afghanistan, those responsible must be held to account for their actions. New Zealanders deserve certainty that their soldiers are complying with our international obligations; that they are not complicit in torture.

Until the SAS stops transferring detainees to the sole custody of Afghan authorities, knowing there are substantial grounds for believing that they would be in danger of being subjected to torture, they will be complicit in torture if it occurs. While the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is working to build the capacity of the Afghan Government to comply with its human rights obligations, until that capacity exists so will the risk of torture.

New Zealand has a written agreement with the Government of Afghanistan which states that all detainees will be treated in accordance with the requirements of international law. Amnesty International has consistently received reports of torture, other ill-treatment, and arbitrary detention by Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security in particular and the Afghan detention system generally. These reports document detainees being whipped, exposed to extreme cold and deprived of food.

Given the Afghan authorities’ record of torture, the New Zealand Government must provide proof that it has been diligent in assuring that no detainee in Afghan custody will be subjected to torture or ill-treatment. Amnesty International sees no evidence of that and the New Zealand Government cannot and should not accept flimsy and discredited "diplomatic or other assurances.”

The Minister of Defence, Hon Dr Wayne Mapp, has said that the Government is determined to uphold international human rights and humanitarian law. Yet the very same Government has a policy, of handing all detainees to the Afghan authorities, that risks breaching that law and making the SAS complicit in torture.

With allegations and evidence of the SAS’s complicity in torture mounting, the New Zealand Government must show its citizens and the world we are still a country that believes torture to be abhorrent and we will not tolerate it.

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