February 2017

EVIDENCE SUBMISSION BY REPRIEVE

International Development Committee inquiry into UK aid: other government departments

Reprieve is an international human rights organisation that seeks to uphold the rule of law and the rights of individuals around the world. Our work focuses on capital punishment, assassinations, and unlawful detention.

Executive summary

1. Reprieve welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the International Development Committee’s inquiry into aid spending by Departments other than the Department for International Development (DfID). This submission concerns the following questions raised in the inquiry’s terms of reference:

1. Do other Government Departments (OGDs) have the right focus in their spending of ODA?
2. What level of oversight should DFID have of ODA spend by OGDs?
3. How effective is the current system of scrutiny of ODA spend by OGDs, including scrutiny of OGDs by the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI)?

2. Reprieve’s submission principally addresses security and justice assistance programmes, which are counted toward the Government’s ODA target, but are administered by Departments such as the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), the Home Office, and the Ministry of Defence (MoD).

3. Government provides security and justice assistance to a number of countries where the security sector is accused of serious human rights abuses, including the death penalty, and the use of torture to extract ‘confessions.’ Some examples are discussed below. 

4. The Government has said that this assistance is designed in a way that would “promote rather than undermine human rights.”[i] However, Reprieve has collected evidence of programming that appears to carry a significant risk of UK complicity with abuses. A lack of clear ministerial oversight and transparency has raised fears over the management of this risk.

5. Reprieve believes that proper safeguards and conditions should be applied to any UK expenditure that risks contributing to human rights abuses overseas. Similarly, such spending should be subject to particularly stringent scrutiny by Parliament and the public. Unfortunately, the reverse is currently true: sensitive security and justice projects overseen by Departments other than DfID are far less transparent, and subject to less exacting risk assessments.

6.     This submission argues that clarity is urgently needed in relation to the provision of security and justice assistance by non-DfID Departments. We have divided the submission into the following areas of concern:

1. A lack of accountability and ‘ownership’ of programmes;
2. The risk of complicity in human rights abuses such as torture and the death penalty;
3. Concerns over transparency.

7. Finally, there follow a number of case studies that Reprieve believes to be relevant to these concerns, and to the inquiry.  

A lack of accountability and ‘ownership’ of programmes

8. Reprieve is concerned by a lack of clarity around Departmental responsibility for security programmes. On several occasions, Reprieve has received conflicting information on this point. For example:

1. Home Office Ministers have told Parliament that their Department has “lead responsibility for international counter-narcotics policy”, which would include the provision of assistance to overseas counter-narcotics forces (an issue discussed in detail below).[ii] However, separately, the Home Office has told Reprieve that the issue is “the responsibility of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office”.[iii]

2. The FCO and MoD are currently overseeing a training project for forces in Ethiopia, despite the fact that in 2014, a similar, DfID-run programme was halted due to concerns over “risk and value for money.”[iv] The project is included as a case study below.

9. Concerns relating to a lack of ‘ownership’ of security and justice programmes have gained urgency with the introduction of the £1bn Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF), which replaces the Conflict Pool as a mechanism for funding overseas security projects. Reprieve understands that under the CSSF, a series of Ministers, Departments and UK overseas posts share responsibility for a single assistance project; for example, Pakistani counter-narcotics support involves the Home Office, the FCO, the National Crime Agency, and the British High Commission in Islamabad.

10. A recent report on the CSSF by the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy raised concerns that “there is no single Minister” responsible for the Fund.[v] This concern reflects Reprieve’s own. Although Parliamentary statements on the Fund are generally given by the Minister for the Cabinet Office[vi], that Department has told Reprieve that it does not hold datasets relating to CSSF projects, and that inquiries about the Fund should be directed to the FCO.[vii] 

The risk of complicity in human rights abuses such as torture and the death penalty

11. There are significant concerns that UK security assistance projects continue to be approved that carry a strong risk of complicity in abuses, despite the existence of a policy that aims to guard against this: the Overseas Security and Justice Assistance policy (OSJA), announced in 2011. At the time, the Government confirmed its commitment to “tackling issues related to security and human rights in an open and transparent way.”[viii]

12. The OSJA policy requires UK officials to review the risk posed by a particular programme by following a step-by-step ‘Assessment and Approvals Process’. The process is required for “all departmental and agency project/programme officers and HMG officials making policy decisions on UK engagement in justice and security assistance overseas, including where the actual engagement will be undertaken by external agencies on behalf of HMG and/or with HMG funding”.[ix] The final step in the process says:

“[if] there is a serious risk that the assistance might directly or significantly contribute to a violation of human rights and it is assessed that the mitigation measures will not effectively mitigate this risk [and] should such assurances not be forthcoming, the official in question is required to seek additional Ministerial consultation.”[x]

13. Despite the policy, Reprieve has encountered UK programmes that appear to involve a significant risk of complicity in abuses, including torture and the death penalty. We have listed some of these below. There is a significant concern that Departments are approving projects that risk making a situation worse, whilst giving the imprimatur of approval to a rights-abusing government.

14. In addition, it is difficult to judge how well the Government’s internal safeguards are working without full transparency. Notably, in 2015, news emerged of a Ministry of Justice bid to provide assistance to the Saudi prison system. This sparked fierce public debate, leading the then-Justice Minister to cancel the plans.[xi] It is concerning that the details of similar projects, outlined below, are hidden from public scrutiny. 

Concerns over transparency

15. Reprieve is concerned that an increase in non-DfID spending on assistance programmes may lead to a lack of consistent reporting on the use of taxpayers’ money overseas.

16. DfID deserves credit for its DevTracker platform, which provides comprehensive details about DfID-funded projects, their progress, and the rationale behind them.[xii] By contrast, transparency for non-DfID programming is patchy across Departments, and this is particularly apparent where security and justice projects are concerned. For example, in relation to projects under the CSSF, the Cabinet Office has provided only four topline categories that divide the entire £1bn budget. This marks a departure from DfID, as well the CSSF’s predecessor the Conflict Pool.[xiii]

17. Reprieve is particularly concerned by the level of secrecy applied to human rights risk assessments carried out according to the OSJA policy. Although the OSJA aims to tackle human rights concerns in a ”transparent” way, several Departments and Government bodies have refused to make their assessments public.[xiv] DfID is the only department that has ever provided Reprieve with details of its OSJA decision-making through Freedom of Information requests.

18. Following recent criticism from the Home Affairs Committee that “a total lack of transparency” around the UK’s overseas policing assistance raised the question of whether the OSJA process was “fit for purpose”, the Government published a revised version of the policy in January 2017.[xv] Whilst many of the amendments were welcome, the policy failed to substantively address concerns around transparency, noting in its foreword that the Government would “only rarely able to publish the full reasoning behind its decisions.”

19. The Home Office has previously refused to disclose details of an agreement to provide security and justice assistance to the Saudi Ministry of the Interior, which oversees abuses such as torture and executions.[xvi] The FCO has argued at the Information Rights Tribunal that it should not have to disclose any details of its assessments relating to UK counter-narcotics assistance to Pakistan.[xvii] Very little is known about the true amount of UK spending on these programmes, and the decision-making behind them.

20. It is hard to justify what the Joint National Security Committee has called the “fundamental lack of transparency”[xviii] associated with some Government programming. While Reprieve recognizes that it may not be possible to disclose full details of sensitive projects, the current confused disclosure and non-disclosure of information makes proper public scrutiny of security and justice programming extremely difficult. It also seriously undermines confidence in the effectiveness of programmes.

Case study 1: Counter-narcotics assistance to Pakistan

21. The UK has provided at least £20m in multilateral funding to Pakistan’s Anti-Narcotics Force, or ANF, through programmes run by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. The ANF has received training and equipment that supports its raids on alleged drug offenders.

22. The UK also provides an unknown amount of bilateral aid to the ANF, support that is believed to be overseen by the Home Office. As noted above, there is very little information publicly available on the bilateral portion of UK funding to the ANF, and the Home Office has previously denied that it has oversight of the programme.

23. Pakistan retains the death penalty for drug offences, and the ANF has boasted that its ‘prosecution achievements’ include the securing of death sentences.[xix] Alleged drug offenders are tried in special drug courts, which routinely fail to meet international fair-trial standards.

24. In 2015, following the lifting of a moratorium on the death penalty in Pakistan, the FCO said that the Government had reviewed its security engagement with Pakistan.[xx] However, strong cooperation on counter-narcotics appears to have continued. In November 2016, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar – who has responsibility for the death-penalty system, as well as counter-narcotics – met with the current Home Secretary in London. The Pakistani government said these talks included “narcotics control.”[xxi] The UK has also supported training for Pakistani customs police, who have arrested individuals alleged to be carrying quantities of drugs that carry a death sentence under the Pakistani penal code.[xxii]

25. Given the resumption of executions in Pakistan since 2014, and the prevalence of the death penalty for drug offences in the country, Reprieve believes it is unacceptable for the Government to refuse to disclose basic information about these counter-narcotics programmes.  

Case study 2:  Support for ‘reform’ in Bahrain

26. The Government’s assistance to Bahrain includes a £2.1 million annual package of ‘reform assistance’ to the Bahraini security sector, overseen by the FCO.[xxiii] While there is little publicly available information about the programme, Reprieve has established that it includes support and training for guards in the country’s death-row prison, a prison inspection regime, and two torture investigatory bodies: the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) and the Interior Ministry Ombudsman.

27. Torture, forced ‘confessions’ and other abuses remain common in Bahrain. In January 2017, the authorities resumed executions after a seven-year moratorium, executing three men who were convicted on the basis of forced ‘confessions.’[xxiv]

28. The Government has strongly suggested that UK assistance to Bahrain is effective. In a visit to Bahrain in December 2016, the Prime Minister said that the UK would be a “partner” to Bahrain and other Gulf states as they “continued[d] to see through… reforms.”

29. Reprieve is extremely concerned that FCO-funded interventions in Bahrain carry the risk of UK complicity in abuses, or involvement in the ‘whitewashing’ of those abuses, amid a deteriorating human rights picture. For example, the Ombudsman and the SIU have declined to investigate several cases of prisoners whose forced ‘confessions’ led to them being handed the death penalty – including several of the men who were executed in January 2017.[xxv]

30. At least one prisoner, Mohammed Ramadan, still faces execution on the basis of a confession he claims was extracted through torture. Despite having received multiple complaints about Mr Ramadan’s mistreatment from his family and from NGOs, the Ombudsman failed to investigate his torture allegations for more than two years – during which time Mr Ramadan was sentenced to death. Significantly, when Reprieve and other NGOs alerted the FCO to the Ombudsman’s failure to investigate, the Ombudsman’s office responded by misleading the FCO, falsely telling ministers “there have been no allegations of mistreatment or torture”.[xxvi] A fresh ‘investigation’ into the case since announced by the Ombudsman’s office has failed to meet the international minimum standards for torture inquiries. 

31. Reprieve believes that the resumption of executions in Bahrain points to a worsening, not an improvement, in the human rights situation in the Kingdom – raising questions about the effectiveness of the UK’s spend on programmes there.

Case study 3: Ethiopia and Andargachew Tsege

32. In February 2016, the FCO told Reprieve, in response to a Freedom of Information request, that CSSF funds were assisting two training programmes in Ethiopia:

1. ‘Support’ to the Ethiopian Peace Support Training Centre (PSTC) - £546,500
2. A ‘Regional MSc in Security Sector Management’ - £500,000

33. The Regional MSc – administered by Cranfield University – appears to be the same as, or similar to, a DfID programme that was halted in 2014 due to concerns over “risk and value for money.”[xxvii] Reprieve had previously raised concerns with DfID that the programme may support Ethiopian security forces who were involved in the kidnap and rendition to Ethiopia of a British man, Andy Tsege, who is held illegally under sentence of death.[xxviii]

34. The Government has said that the project is “primarily managed by the Ministry of Defence (MOD)”, and that the OSJA was “signed off at senior civil service level, in this instance by the Head of International Policy Planning.” The Government has failed to disclose its risk assessments in relation to the programme, and has not explained the steps it has taken to guard against complicity in Mr Tsege’s ordeal.[xxix]

35. Ethiopian media reports have reinforced concerns that the new MSc is a continuation of the 2014 programme. One report claimed that “senior security officials of Ethiopia attend Masters degree courses on security. The courses are fully financed by the UK government.”[xxx]

36. Reprieve is concerned that a minister has not been involved in the decision-making relating to the resumption of the project, which appears to be at least similar to a project that was deemed by DfID to present too much of a ‘risk’. Given Mr Tsege’s ordeal, and an increase in political repression in Ethiopia, it is unclear what developments have changed the Government’s calculation of the risks involved in the project. It is also unclear how the Government intends to measure the effectiveness of the programme.  

Case study 4: UK support to Kenya’s ATPU

37. According to the FCO, “the UK-Kenya partnership is strong and wide”,[xxxi] and is underpinned by a bilateral Security Compact between the FCO and the Kenyan government. The UK says this Compact “provides assurances on Kenya’s commitment to adhere to its international human rights obligations.”[xxxii]

38. The UK is understood to be the biggest donor to Kenya’s Anti-Terrorism Police Unit (ATPU). The FCO, which appears to oversee this support, has said it includes equipment, “capacity building in investigative skills, operations management, forensics and evidence recovery as well as infrastructure.[xxxiii]

39. The ATPU is accused of carrying out serious human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests and mistreatment of prisoners. A 2015 human rights report by the US State Department highlights the prevalence of extrajudicial killings and ‘disappearances’ in Kenya,[xxxiv] while a database compiling extrajudicial killings in Kenya has registered 262 killings by security forces since the beginning of 2015.[xxxv] A leaked report by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights called these abuses “widespread, systematic, and well-coordinated.”[xxxvi]

40. Policemen in Kenya have told journalists that they function as “government sanctioned hitmen” whose role is the “elimination of the bad guys.”[xxxvii] The ATPU has also harassed British journalists; in December 2016, ATPU officers detained Times reporter Jerome Starkey for 24 hours, without explanation and without lawyer access, before deporting him.[xxxviii]

41. Reprieve has been told by US officials, and ATPU officers, that the US government has temporarily suspended funding to the ATPU, pending an investigation into claims of human rights abuses.

42. Reprieve understands that the UK has provided support for the construction of a new ATPU headquarters, with holding cells, on Kenya’s coastal region near Mombasa. Reports suggest this is “the area that has experienced the highest number of extrajudicial killings.”[xxxix]

43. The British High Commission in Kenya has said that support to the ATPU is “delivered in line with guidelines for assistance to foreign security services. It is designed to improve Kenyan capacity in accordance with international human rights standards.”[xl]

44. The government has not made public details of OSJA assessments carried out in relation to this support. When asked in 2016 in Parliament what assessment the government had made of reported human rights abuses by Kenyan security forces, FCO minister Baroness Anelay said only that “we urge the Kenyan government to fully investigate any credible allegations of non compliance and hold those responsible to account.”[xli]

45. Reprieve is extremely concerned that UK support to the ATPU carries a significant risk of complicity in serious human rights abuses, and that these are not being considered adequately. These concerns are heightened by a lack of public information about the government’s assessment of the human rights risks involved.

For further information, please contact: alice.gillham@reprieve.org.uk / 0207 553 8160

Notes