Government urged to review ‘hooded men’ torture claim

Amnesty International has called on the Government to press for the re-opening of a key European case on the alleged use of torture in Northern Ireland in the 1970s.

This follows revelations by RTÉ’s Primetime earlier this year that the British government appears to have known at the time of the long-term psychological effects of five key interrogation techniques used on the 14 so-called ‘hooded men’ and considered them as torture.

The case, which Ireland took to the European Court of Human Rights in 1971, alleged the UK had breached the European Convention on Human Rights by the torture and ill-treatment of 14 interned men by members of the British army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

The interrogation techniques that led to the allegations were sensory deprivation; hooding; ‘white noise’; wall-standing in stress position; and sleep, food and water deprivation.

A 1978 ruling of the Strasbourg court rejected the claim that these amounted to torture and instead called them inhuman and degrading treatment. “A special stigma” was reserved for torture, it said, and the five techniques “did not occasion suffering of the particular intensity and cruelty implied by the word torture”.

Calling on the Government to seek a reopening of the case before the December 4th deadline, Amnesty said the RTÉ investigation, 'The Torture Files', showed London withheld crucial evidence from the Strasbourg court during the hearing.

Documents from the British archives showed the government there “knew that its core argument – that the effects of techniques used on the ‘hooded men’ were not severe or long-lasting – was untrue,” the organisation said.

"They also showed that the UK authorities, including senior government ministers, sanctioned the use of the five techniques in Northern Ireland, which they had also denied before the European court."

Amnesty argues that the new information could have led to a different finding by the court in 1978.

“These men and their families have a right to truth and justice,” said Colm O’Gorman, executive director of Amnesty International Ireland. “We recognise the diplomatic challenges in Ireland’s seeking to have this case reopened. However, we hope the Irish Government today shows the same determination of its predecessors in 1971 who took a bold and unprecedented step to uphold the rule of law and expose human rights violations.”

Francis McGuigan, among nine of the ‘hooded men’ who attended a press conference to highlight the issue in Dublin, said that during his nine-day interrogation he had suffered three broken ribs, broken skin on his wrists and bruising all over his body. He also suffered post-traumatic stress disorder.

“We have no doubt that it was torture,” he said. “Each one of us believed the end result was going to be death – we were going to be found in a ditch or dumped on the road somewhere. None of us believed they were going to release us to tell the world what they had done to us.”

Amnesty also called on British prime minister David Cameron to establish an independent investigation into the allegations.