Amnesty: Torture by US widespread

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Amnesty: Torture by US widespread​

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Thursday 04 May 2006, 0:03 Makka Time, 21:03 GMT​

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There is still widespread torture of prisoners held by the US in its war on terrorism, despite outcry over Abu Ghraib and other scandals, Amnesty International has said. ​

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The human rights organisation made its criticism on Wednesday in a report to the UN Committee Against Torture, which will start meeting in Geneva this week to consider American compliance with the UN Convention Against Torture and other cruel forms of punishment.​

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"Evidence continues to emerge of widespread torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees held in US custody in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Iraq and other locations," the report said.​

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The report alleged that no senior American officials have been held accountable for incidents of torture or ill-treatment and said legislation passed by Congress in 2005 has "serious limitations".​

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One section of that law, it said, refers to "cruel, unusual and inhumane treatment" banned under the US constitution as defined by a series of reservations the US has expressed regarding the UN Convention Against Torture. ​

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The law is a step forward but still could mean the US can employ a narrower interpretation of what constitutes such treatment than is recognised under the convention, Amnesty said. It said that the US should withdraw its reservations to the convention.​

Curt Goering, Amnesty's senior deputy executive director for the US, said: "Although the US government continues to assert its condemnation of torture and ill treatment, these statements contradict what is happening in practice.​

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"The US 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."​

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Amnesty also expressed concern over domestic US violations of the UN torture convention, including use of excessive force by police and abuses against women prisoners.​

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In Afghanistan, hundreds of detainees remain in American custody with no recourse to due legal process or human rights protection, Amnesty said.​

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According to Amnesty, there is no longer an international armed conflict in Afghanistan, nor is there a clear or recognised legal framework governing the actions of US forces there.​

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In the cases of Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States has reportedly improved its procedures for handling prisoners since the Abu Ghraib scandal. But Amnesty said it continues to receive reports of torture or ill-treatment of detainees by American troops.​

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Committee Against Torture: http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cat/index.htm​

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AP​

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Source:​

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http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/.htm​

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Links:​

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'Unknown Americans' Are Provoking Civil War in Iraq (The independent-UK)​

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US guards abuse the Quraan​

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1,000 secret CIA flights revealed Documents show 'strange routes' and stopovers​

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US officer charged over Iraq jail abuse - I object because...​

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America's Iraqi Slaughterhouse, Not a Civil War – who bombed the Golden-domed mosque​

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Iraqi Taxi Driver Who Stole Wood Gets His Vehicle Crushed by US Troops​

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BEST OF BESt (THE US ARMY) Images​

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People detained illegally in Iraq, says UN 29,565​

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US Like Nazis: British Iraq Refusnik​

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Congress Should Investigate Bush​

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Bush and his team caught up in their web of lies​

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The Democracy of Democraies (soldiers of peace)video​

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The Us Army And Iraqi Animals (video)​

(= *Peace and love* =)​

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Yours Sincerely,​

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Cat Stevens​

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Cat Stevens' latest threads​

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My sig ​

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Note: Silly , repeated, Irrelevant, and the like, responses, posts, comments will be ignored (it depends on my mood and time if I won't ignore them), taking off the topic is losers' style, if I'm not replying to your relevant post maybe because of this , ask yourself: will you write such response if the writer wasn't a Muslim!​

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I used to write my congressman (House rep) EVERY day regarding the torture issue. After a while I stopped being polite, and stopped getting responses. Congressman John Boehner of Ohio simply loves the fact that people are tortured. He just plain "gets off" on it.

But now the US Congress no longer has the legal authority to enact legislation- Bush has declared himself to be the final word on which laws are laws and which are merely "suggestions." No court has stepped in to stop him, so now we're technically a dictatorship, and all in the name of forcing democracy on others.

 

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Disgusting world​

Bush has broken more than 750 laws ​

*Peace and love* ​

Yours Sincerely,​

Cat Stevens​

Note: Silly , repeated, Irrelevant, and the like, responses, posts, comments will be ignored (it depends on my mood and time if I won't ignore them), taking off the topic is losers' style, if I'm not replying to your relevant post maybe because of this , ask yourself: will you write such response if the writer wasn't a Muslim!​

 

Amnesty accuses US, British governments of war on terror abuses
(AFP)
23 May 2006
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LONDON - Amnesty International on Tuesday accused the United States and its main ally Britain of jettisoning human rights in the wars they have declared against terrorism. In its annual report, Amnesty lashed out at the US government for holding thousands of people without charge or trial in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Guantanamo naval base in Cuba, since the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the United States. The London-based human rights group also took British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government to task for its security crackdown following the July 7, 2005 suicide attacks in London that killed 56 people, including the four bombers. “Measures purporting to counter terrorism led to serious human rights violations, and concern was widepsread about the impact of these measures on Muslims and other minority communities,” the report said. The developments were part of a broader trend, it added. “The (British) government continued to erode fundamental human rights, the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary, including by persisting with attempts to undermine the ban on torture at home and abroad, and by enacting and seeking to enact legislation inconsistent with domestic and international human rights law,” it said.
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The report referred to an anti-terrorist law adopted in March, before the bombings, which allow the government to use secret documents to impose “control orders” that sharply restrict the movement and communications of suspects who have not been tried. A new law was adopted at the end of the year, which extended the time that suspects could be detained without charge from 14 days to 28 days. However, it noted that the British parliament rejected a more draconian proposal to extend detention periods to 90 days. It also denounced the British government for striking agreements with Jordan, Libya and Lebanon that allow for sending security suspects to those countries based only on diplomatic assurances that they would not be mistreated. It accused the Blair government of allowing the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to use British territory to transfer security suspects between countries, outside any legal framework. And it accused the British authorities of breaching international and domestic human rights law “through its role in the internment without charge of at least 10,000 people in Iraq”.
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The United States -- which has received loyal support from Britain in its war on terror following the September 2001 attacks -- was charged by Amnesty with human rights abuses not only in known jails but also in “secret” prisons. “There were reports of secret US-run detention centres in undisclosed locations where detainees were held in circumstances amounting to “disappearances’,” Amnesty said. “Reports of deaths in custody, torture, and ill-treatment by US forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo continued to emerge,” Amnesty said. “Despite evidence that the US government had sanctioned interrogation techniques constituting torture or ill treatment, and ’disappearances’, there was a failure to hold officials at the highest levels accountable,” it said.
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It said there was no investigation of the CIA, whose activities remained shrouded in secret. It added that there was information published about ”interrogation techniques officially approved at various periods for ’war on terror detainees’, which included the use of dogs to inspire fear, stress positions, exposure to extremes of heat or cold, sleep deprivation and isolation.” Such methods violated international norms banning torture and ill treatment. The US base at Guantanamo, which currently holds around 500 suspected members of the ousted Afghan Taleban movement or their Al Qaeda terror network allies, tops the list of reproaches aimed at the US authorities. These “enemy combatants” come under the Combatant Status Review Tribunals set up in 2004, which can “consider secret evidence and evidence extracted under torture,” it said.
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*Peace and love*
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Yours Sincerely,
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Cat Stevens
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Amnesty blasts US-Mideast secret prison partnership​

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(AFP)​

23 May 2006 ​

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Source​

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LONDON - Growing evidence has emerged of a secret prison partnership between Western and Middle Eastern countries in the “war on terror,” resulting in widespread human rights abuses, Amnesty International said on Tuesday.The group also blamed US-led and Iraqi security forces for ”grave human rights violations,” with thousands being held without charge or trial in US detention centers in Iraq and reports of systematic torture by Iraqi forces.“Torture and ill-treatment were reported in secret detention centers, police stations and official detention centers,” the group said in its annual report.Around 14,000 people -- most of them Sunnis arrested in rebel strongholds -- were being held as of November last year in four notorious US-run facilities including Abu Ghraib prison, Amnesty said.Meanwhile, covert detention facilities and harsh emergency laws in several other Arab countries paved the way for a wider net of arbitrary arrests, incommunicado detention and torture of terror suspects as well as political dissidents.​

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*Peace and love*​

Yours Sincerely,​

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Cat Stevens​

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Since the "War on Terror" never was anything more than a War on all political and economic opposition, it stands to reason that reality doesnt coincide with rhetoric. There is no "shadowy" terrorist threat and notions of widespread wahabist capabilities (including supposed "sleeper cells" around the world which amazingly never awaken to prove such imminent and widespread threat) are simply part of the mythical paradigm made possible by the wholly home-brewed treasonous mass murder known as 911 (and its equally false flag reinforcement acts in Istanbul, Madrid and London).

Of course, reports like these from Amnesty will do no more to stop the real terrorists and war criminals (readily identified by their actions, not mere words) than any other public outcry. Only by dragging them forcibly out of their offices in chains to be publically tried and executed for the traitors they are (along with all their enablers and financiers) will any significant message be sent to those who would continue what they have started.

Until that day comes, expect a very long ride of misinformation, unmitigated warmongering, illegal detentions, torture, etc.

 

america has been torturing people for ages. as i've said previously on this forum, this is why suicide bombers are used. if you are outgunned, outmanned, against an organisation that both practices, condones and proliferates torture, suicide bombing is the only logical step. from the arab worlds perspective, america will not leave them alone, it has has grown from a worrisome flea into a monster worthy of any horror novel. if you suicide and kill at least more of the enemy than yourself then you "win" the bonus is that you are not tortured for months on end. indeed it is americas policy against human rights that ultimately creates fanaticism. leave these people alone and don't get involved with their squabbles unless sanctioned by the UN (in an anonymous vote for/against ) then maybe we could all return back to reality.

 

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*Peace and love*​

Yours Sincerely,​

Cat Stevens​