In the face of outrage from around the globe, the White House has gone into damage control mode while still refusing to confirm or deny that the CIA operates secret prisons, known as "black sites" or "ghost houses", in Eastern Europe and other places around the world.
In the past few years American intelligence agencies have used several methods to keep prisoners away from the eyes of the International Red Cross and other human rights bodies. It has long been known that rendering and torturing of prisoners has taken place "off-shore" at Baghram Base in Pakistan and also in Afghanistan. Others have been held on ships and then delivered by helicopter to intelligence services in Egypt, Jordan and Morocco. But the report that eastern European countries were among the locations is new. The chain of illegal prisons has been denounced by Amnesty International as a "gulag of our times."
Now at least ten countries have rushed to deny they are involved. The Czech Republic was one country that was approached and refused. The Czech Republic's Interior Minister Frantisek Bublan said the government refused a request from the United States that it site a detention centre for prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay military base on its territory.
At least ten countries are denying involvement in secret CIA prisons. Romania's prime minister said his country doesn't have CIA bases, while an aide to Poland's president said authorities had "no information" of such facilities existing there. Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Georgia and Armenia also issued denials. Thailand, which was mentioned in the initial reports, has also claimed they were not involved.
European Union officials, Europe's top human rights organization and the international Red Cross say they'll investigate whether the reports are true. An EU spokesman says such prisons would violate EU human rights laws.
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