Torture "widespread" under US custody: Amnesty

[CptSternn]

http://news.**********/s/nm/rights_amnesty_dc

GENEVA (Reuters) - Torture and inhumane treatment are "widespread" in U.S.-run detention centers in Afghanistan, Iraq, Cuba and elsewhere despite Washington's denials, Amnesty International said on Wednesday.

In a report for the United Nations' Committee against Torture, the London-based human rights group also alleged abuses within the U.S. domestic law enforcement system, including use of excessive force by police and degrading conditions of isolation for inmates in high security prisons.

"Evidence continues to emerge of widespread torture and other cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of detainees held in U.S. custody," Amnesty said in its 47-page report.

It said that while Washington has sought to blame abuses that have recently come to light on "aberrant soldiers and lack of oversight," much ill-treatment stemmed from officially sanctioned interrogation procedures and techniques.

"The U.S. government is not only failing to take steps to eradicate torture, it is actually creating a climate in which torture and other ill-treatment can flourish," said Amnesty International USA Senior Deputy Director-General Curt Goering.

The U.N. committee, whose experts carry out periodic reviews of countries signatory to the U.N. Convention against Torture, is scheduled to begin consideration of the United States on Friday. The last U.S. review was in 2000.

It said in November it was seeking U.S. answers to questions including whether Washington operated secret detention centers abroad and whether President George W. Bush had the power to absolve anyone from criminal responsibility in torture cases.

The committee also wanted to know whether a December 2004 memorandum from the U.S. Attorney General's office, reserving torture for "extreme" acts of cruelty, was compatible with the global convention barring all forms of cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment.

UNTIL THE END

In its own submission to the committee, published late last year, Washington justified the holding of thousands of foreign terrorism suspects in detention centers abroad, including Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, on the grounds that it was fighting a war that was still not over.

"Like other wars, when they start, we do not know when they will end. Still, we may detain combatants until the end of the war," it said.

The U.S. human rights image has taken a battering abroad over a string of scandals involving the sexual and physical abuse of detainees held by American forces in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.

In its submission, Washington did not mention alleged secret detention centers.

Amnesty listed a series of incidents in recent years involving torture of detainees in U.S. custody, noting the heaviest sentence given to perpetrators was five months in jail.

This was the same punishment you could get for stealing a bicycle in the United States, it added.

"Although the U.S. government continues to assert its condemnation of torture and ill-treatment, these statements contradict what is happening in practice," said Goering, referring to the testimony of torture victims in the report.

Anyone else think the US has a bad problem with torture? We watch COPS and whatnot here on telly, and to watch cops in the US today is like watching the military. Do they show Street Crime UK in the states? Ever seen the difference in policing?

[Cambodian Breakfast]

No becuase the street crime in the UK is weak. If you where a cop and you had to deal with a dude on pcp that might have a gun. What would you do?

[Crom Crauch]

Originally Posted by Cambodian Breakfast

No becuase the street crime in the UK is weak. If you where a cop and you had to deal with a dude on pcp that might have a gun. What would you do?

I'd definetly shoot first, ask questions later... especially if the guy were coming at me. Besides... the criminals in Britain are better armed then the fuckin' cops, so there's really no contest, eh?

[Blushing Heliophobe]

Everybody stabs people here. It's so weird that nobody has guns but stabbings are so common.

[DarkIce]

A bullet can easily wound more than one human, if fired once. One knife stab usually only wounds one human. That´s why I guess stabbing is prefered over firing arms.
But of course peace is as much as we (should) want.

[Ticklish]

http://www.democracynow.org/article....6/09/29/150254
Pretty sure this is relevant.

[CptSternn]

Ticklish -

Good article.

It points out the 'new' way of american thinking.

As bush says...

WE ARE AGAINST TORTURE!

....unless we feel it is nessesary...

Every time he speaks out against something, he hedges his words with statements making his whole comment irrelevant.

Saying TORTURE is WRONG and WE WILL NOT DO IT! ...except when <fill-in-the-blank> is saying the opposite.

Much like saying (as an example) I am not racist, I just hate the following groups <fill-in-the-blank>.

Everytime bush comes out for or against something, it's like he always adds a '*' to his statement And of course the us media always picks up the first part and seems to skip the second part.

Like 'I will fire anyone in my administration who is found to have leaked documents in the Plame affair' ...except those who did it under my orders...

I could go on and on, but you get the idea.

[CptSternn]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/01/wo...syahoo&emc=rss

German Court Challenges C.I.A. Over Abduction

FRANKFURT, Jan. 31 — A German court on Wednesday issued an arrest warrant for 13 people in the mistaken kidnapping and jailing of a German citizen of Lebanese descent, in the most serious legal challenge yet to the Central Intelligence Agency’s secret transfers of terrorism suspects.

Prosecutors in Munich said the suspects, whom they did not identify, were part of a C.I.A. “abduction team” that seized the man, Khaled el-Masri, in Macedonia in late 2003 and flew him to Afghanistan. He was imprisoned there for five months, during which, he said, he was shackled, beaten and interrogated about alleged ties to Al Qaeda, before being released without charges.

His ordeal is the most extensively documented case of the C.I.A.’s practice of “extraordinary rendition,” in which terrorism suspects are seized and sent for interrogation to other countries, including some in which torture is practiced...

This is the second case in the EU being brought against the CIA. It is a step in the right direction - as the article points out, the bush admin is not going to hand over its under cover CIA operatives, but thanks to the Italian and German government we now have a complete list of names and pictures of at least 50 operatives who won't be working 'in the field' trying to 'rendition' people anymore.

I think it's insane that a nation would take it upon itself to travel outside its borders and kidnap people it had little evidence to accuse of a crime and whisk them away to a third country in efforts of torturing a confession of some type of crime out of them, and then try and claim to be a world leader in human rights.


This goes along with this related article on the national guard now patrolling the us border.

http://news.**********/s/ap/20070131...tkBHNlYwM3MTg-

Border standoff rattles National Guard

The article talks about how 'rules of engagement' like in Iraq are now being used on american borders. That in combination with the new laws forcing citizens to carry passports whenevr leaving the states and id when traveling in the states paints a grim picture.

Much like the armed military border patrols in the eastern block, and travel papers right out of nazi germany. No doubt a further slip down the proverbial slope into the new american police state.