Denounce Torture

Responding to the U.N. Human Rights Committee conclusions regarding the United States' compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Amnesty International said that the United States government must recognize that it is failing to meet a range of fundamental human rights obligations at home and abroad. Curt Goering, Senior Deputy Executive Director for Amnesty International USA,  asked:

How many times does the United States need to hear that it is promoting some of the most shameful practices in the world today? How many times does the U.S. government need to be reminded how far its human rights practices have strayed from international norms? It now must adopt the Committee's sensible recommendations post-haste, and finally begin to restore its commitment to respect human rights.

The Committee expressed concern at a wide range of U.S. practices -- including, secret and incommunicado detentions, the use of interrogation methods that violate the prohibition on torture and on cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the policies of "rendition", police brutality, the shackling of pregnant inmates during labor and delivery, and the use of electro-shock weapons such as TASERs.

The United States appeared before the Human Rights Committee on July 17 and 18 in Geneva. It was only the second time that the United States had reported to the Committee, and the first time since it launched the "war on terror" following the attacks of September 11, 2001 in the United States.

A fundamental issue of contention between the Human Rights Committee and the United States at the Geneva hearing is the U.S. government's view that the ICCPR does not apply extraterritorially - that is, that the treaty does not apply to those held by the United States outside U.S. territory, which today includes thousands of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo and secret locations. The Committee, like other international bodies and experts, rejects this U.S. interpretation of its obligations under the treaty. It concluded that the United States applies an unacceptably "restrictive interpretation" of its obligations, including a refusal to accept the applicability of the ICCPR to its operations abroad.

Human Rights Watch's recent report, which discloses the routine torture of Iraqi detainees by U.S. military personnel, has prompted the Iraqi governent to call for an investigation. Ahmed Abdel-Kareem, a senior official at the Ministry of Human Rights, stated:

We urge the US government to explain the accusations present in the HRW report and punish severely those who have used torture. Since the Abu Ghraib scandal in 2004, the US military has claimed that it had abandoned such procedures and that serious investigations were underway. But now we see that the problem has only worsened.

John Sifton, author of the report and senior researcher on terrorism at Human Rights Watch (HRW), also said:

These accounts rebut US government claims that torture and abuse in Iraq was unauthorised and exceptional. On the contrary, it was condoned and commonly used.

According to the report, U.S. military commanders in Iraq authorized abusive interrogation methods while military lawyers incorrectly informed interrogators that the Geneva Conventions were inapplicable. Interviews with U.S. soldiers revealed that soldiers who objected to the controversial interrogation techniques were repeatedly instructed to refrain from reporting complaints.

See: "IRAQ: Torture of detainees is commonplace, says rights group"

Tags: Abu Ghraib | Human Rights Watch | Iraq | torture

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Amnesty International released its new report, Jordan: "Your Confessions are Ready for You to Sign": Detention and Torture of Political Suspects, exposing Jordan for its continued use of torture on political suspects. The report reveals that Jordan maintains a military security agency that detains, interrogates and tortures suspected political opponents and alleged terrorist suspects. Jordan has also received and allegedly tortured nationals transferred to the country in apparent coordination with the United States, United Kingdom and other governments. Larry Cox, Amnesty International USA's Executive Director, stated:

The use of torture is widespread in Jordan, especially when political opponents are involved. Rather than demanding that Jordan cease this practice, the United States, United Kingdom and other nations have chosen Jordan as a central hub for transporting terror suspects knowing full well of Jordan's reliable use of torture, cruel and inhuman treatment of detainees. The irony is that these governments have criticized Jordan's use of torture numerous times, yet, the transport of terror suspects through Jordan continued with a wink and a nod.

The General Intelligence Department (GID) -- a military security agency directly linked to the Jordanian prime minister -- is the primary instrument of abuse of political detainees and for obtaining forced "confessions." GID agents have a wide range of powers and are virtually free from impunity. According to the U.S. State Department 2006 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, the most frequently reported methods of torture included beating, sleep deprivation, extended solitary confinement, and physical suspension. Defendants charged with security-related offenses before the State Security Court claimed they were tortured to obtain confessions and claimed to have been subjected to physical and psychological abuse while in detention.

Amnesty International describes dozens of cases of individuals subjected to torture and ill-treatment in Jordan, ten of whom appear to be victims of the United States' renditions program. According to the report, Jordan has been known to obtain "confessions" of political prisoners through torture. Once these "confessions are attained, cases go to the State Security Court (SSC) -- where judgments regularly appear to be based on little more than these "confessions". Over the last ten years, over 100 defendants have alleged before the SSC that they were tortured to make them "confess". The SSC has failed to adequately investigate any of these claims. Disturbingly, the SSC has imposed death sentences in a number of these cases -- some of which have already been carried out. Amnesty International has been documenting the same torture concerns in Jordan and the same absence of safeguards for more than 20 years. Amnesty International recognizes that the Jordanian government has put in place certain mechanisms aimed at reducing incidences of torture, but notes that they have been largely ineffective, as torture persists in Jordan and is particularly entrenched in the GID.

Among the organization's recommendations to the Jordanian government is curtailing the powers of the GID and ensuring a separation of power -- both in law and in practice -- between the authorities responsible for detention of suspects and those responsible for interrogation and ceasing Jordan's participation in renditions and other secret transfers of prisoners.