December 1, 2014 UN Damns Washington As World’s Worst Violator Of Human Rights The United Nations Committee Against Torture issued a lengthy report today assessing the performance of the 156 countries whose governments have ratified the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which took effect two decades ago. The report subjected a major country to a wide-ranging critique, indicting it for a long list of human rights violations including: Refusal to prosecute officials who engage in or sanction torture of prisoners Detaining prisoners indefinitely without trial or other judicial proceeding, or any hope of release Kidnapping individuals overseas and torturing them in secret prisons Approving a manual for interrogation of prisoners that includes methods classified as torture under the Geneva Conventions Imprisoning immigrants under degrading conditions and refusing to acknowledge their claims as refugees fleeing persecution Imposing the death penalty on hundreds of prisoners, many of them from oppressed racial and ethnic minorities, many of them demonstrably innocent or unfairly tried Widespread use of solitary confinement, considered a form of torture, at all levels of the prison system Severe abuse of juveniles, pregnant women and other vulnerable groups both in police custody and in prisons Maintaining a regime of police violence, particularly against young men from racial and ethnic minorities, and refusing to restrain or punish police who kill, wound or torture It will not come as any surprise to readers of the WSWS that the country named is not China, or Russia, or Iran, or some other target of the American ruling class, but the US itself. The government that claims the right to bully, blockade, and attack any country in the world in the name of “human rights” and “democracy” is guilty of the most heinous crimes. The Senate report is hardly a real indictment of the CIA. Lawyers for the Guantanamo Bay prisoners who were waterboarded dozens of times say that Senate investigators never took testimony from them. In other words, the only account of the torture comes those who participated in the torture, or sanctioned it, not from those who were its victims. It also reportedly does not level any accusations against the top executive, military and intelligence officials who drew up and sanctioned the criminal policy. That even such a document, with thousands of lines blacked out and vital information withheld, cannot be made public, speaks volumes about the decay and collapse of American democracy. The US ruling elite is incapable of coming clean about the period when, as Obama admitted, “We tortured some folks.” That is because the entire state apparatus is preparing for the use of similar methods against a much-feared upheaval among workers and young people at home. Patrick Martin, wsws.org
Posted on: Sat, 06 Dec 2014 22:27:00 +0000
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