Failure to disclose evidence relating to torture is an affront to justice
The Government's determined silence in the face of mounting allegations over its complicity in torture should ring alarm bells, warns the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture (MF).
Potential evidence that the UK was involved in the torture of several terrorism suspects is being suppressed against the interests of justice and hidden from public scrutiny, supposedly in the interests of national security.
While it might be conceivable that information relating to national security should remain confidential in certain circumstances, no such argument can be made for withholding details about how that information was obtained where it is suspected that British intelligence and security services have been complicit in torture.
Documents relating to the ill treatment of Guantánamo detainee Binyam Mohamed have been withheld from public disclosure after the High Court was advised by Foreign Secretary David Miliband that releasing the information - which could implicate British intelligence in the torture of Mr Mohamed - could damage relations with the US.
At the same time, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has come under increasing pressure from both the High Court and in Parliament over allegations that MI5 colluded in the torture of suspects arrested in Pakistan at the request of British authorities.
In both cases, justice continues to elude the victims because of the persistent failure of the Government to reveal the truth about what happened to them.
This is a calamitous step, says the MF. "It is the rationale used by governments the world over who remain indignant when challenged about their role in persistent human rights abuses," said a spokesperson for the organisation.
"The noble pledges made by President Barack Obama and UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband in declaring the "war on terror" to be a mistake, and in declaring that neither the US nor the UK use torture, are nothing but hollow words if they do not turn those pledges into practice.
"Renewing the commitment to the absolute and unqualified ban on torture requires a visible and meaningful acknowledgment of any violations of that ban. As such, the national interest is best served by the disclosure of information that should be subject to the scrutiny of the court and the public."