No More CIA Torture Flights
antrim |
anti-war / imperialism |
news report 
Tuesday June 20, 2006 15:18
by Young Socialist - Socialist Youth
Socialist Youth protest against US rendition flights through Belfast
Here is a copy of a leaflet a Socialist Youth distributed to highlight the use of Belfast International Airport (Aldergrove) by US military 'rendition' flights.
Leaflets were handed to every one entering the airport, sometimes there was a small queue of traffic to get the leaflets. Most people were supportive of our protest. Hopefully, this will help to expose the state collusion in assisting torture flights.
Leaflet to advertise Socialist Youth protest at Belfast International Airport held on Sat 17th June
NO TO CIA TORTURE FLIGHTS AT BELFAST INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
Socilaist Youth are organising this protest outside Belfast International Airport following evidence that it and Derry City Airport have been used by the CIA in "renditions flights".
These flights - through a questionable legal loophole which allows the transportation of terror suspects to countries where they may be tortured in special "prison camps" - have passed through British and Irish air-space a total of 281 times since January 2001. Five of these have travelled through Aldergrove and Derry.
Among the planes that have passed through Aldergrove is the "Gulfstream", which has made over 200 trips to the notorious Guantánamo Bay torture camp.
Bush and Blair cited Saddam Hussein’s violation of UN resolutions to justify invading Iraq. Yet they are now in violation of the UN Convention Against Torture.
The torture carried out by the US at Guantanamo has been well documented. In allowing facilities here and in the South to be used to transport prisoners to this hell hole, the British and Irish governments are both in breach of Article Four of the UN Convention which makes complicity in torture an offence.
Bush decided to invade Iraq in order to seize its oil resources and protect US economic interests. The ongoing occupation is being conducted under the banner of a "war on terror". In reality this has been a war of terror conducted against the Iraqi people. Up to 100,000 Iraqis have died and the country is now descending into the nightmare of civil war.
We call for an immediate end to the disastrous occupation of Iraq, the closure of US-sponsored torture camps like Guantánamo Bay, and an end to all covert detentions of those suspected of terror crimes.
As socialists we are opposed to terrorist attacks such as the sectarian attacks that are now a regular occurrence in Iraq. But Bush’s so called "war on terror" is no alternative. The US sponsored Iraqi "security" forces are operating death squads of their own, conducting their own sectarian war by murdering Sunnis who are opposed to the invasion.
It is the working class and the oppressed people of Iraq who must come together both to end the occupation and to prevent a bloody civil war. We must oppose the use of airports here to assist the US in the shifting of prisoners to US torture centres like Guantanamo.
- No CIA flights through Aldergrove or City of Derry
- End the occupation
- For a socialist Iraq