A report
for Europe's human rights watchdog has called for greater scrutiny of secret
services and support for whistleblowers.
 |
| Bradley Manning was arrested in 2010 |
The Council
of Europe investigated how countries like Britain, Germany, Romania and
Lithuania assisted the US with the rendition of terror suspects.
It said a
"cult of secrecy" had helped Western governments cover up abuses.
Defending
"whistleblowers", it singled out US soldier Bradley Manning, accused
of passing secrets to Wikileaks.
He had
"acted as a whistleblower and should be treated as such", CoE
rapporteur Dick Marty wrote in the report, which was due to be submitted to the
CoE's Parliamentary Assembly.
The soldier
is currently in a US military prison awaiting trial for passing restricted
material to the controversial website.
But the
report praised Mr Manning, and Wikileaks itself, for uncovering evidence of
rendition.
The CoE
represents 47 member-states, including both EU countries and Russia and other
ex-Soviet states.
Mr Marty's
report focused on the record of Western states, explaining that it was based on
investigations into European links to the controversial US policy of
"rendition" for terrorism suspects.
The CIA
allegedly flew terror suspects around the world for interrogation in the years
after 9/11, holding them in secret prisons in Europe and elsewhere.
'No licence
to kill'
In his
48-page report - entitled Abuse of State Secrecy and National Security - Mr
Marty looked at the level of control exercised by European states over their
security services.
He urged
all states to use independent parliamentary committees to oversee the work of
their secret services, saying this was of "vital importance for the rule
of law and democracy".
Mr Marty
argued that Western governments were using the notion of state secrecy to
shield their intelligence services from accountability for serious violations
committed during anti-terrorist operations.
"We
consider that this is simply unacceptable..." he wrote.
"A
'licence to kill' (or to abduct and torture) only exists in certain films, and
in dictatorial regimes. In democratic systems, parliaments, as representatives
of the people, have a right and duty to know what the government is doing in
the name of the people."
Mr Marty
praised investigative journalists and non-governmental organisations for their
work in exposing abuses of authority.
Stressing
the "fundamental role" whistleblowers had to play in an open society,
he warned against "a real cult of secrecy... as an instrument of
power".
While it
was up to the courts to decide if Bradley Manning had committed any crime, he
wrote, the CoE was "indebted to him" for the publication of a
recording of a helicopter attack in Iraq "in which the crew seems to have
intentionally targeted and killed civilians".
Thanks to
Mr Manning, he said, a large number of embassy reports had "allowed us to
learn significant details of important recent events... which are obviously of
general interest".
"We
therefore join Amnesty International in expressing our worries as to the
treatment he receives," Mr Marty wrote in the draft report.
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