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UN Rapporteur: Obama Admin Should Probe Torture The United Nations independent expert on torture has criticized the Obama administration for refusing to launch an extensive probe of torture committed under former President George W. Bush. On Wednesday, Manfred Nowak, the UN special rapporteur on torture, said the administration risks laying the groundwork for more torture by refusing to investigate recent policies. Manfred Nowak: “There are so many other reasons for the Obama administration to really establish a high-level, blue-ribbon commission or a special investigative has all the investigative powers to really look into the practices. That us to declassify certain documents, to tell the American public what happened, but those of the world, what were major human rights violations committed by the Bush administration and, in my case, of course, what kind of torture methods. Perhaps we don’t know everything.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/11/headlines#14
"This is my criticism of the Obama administration: There is not enough done to remedy what has been done in the past," Manfred Nowak, UN special rapporteur on torture, told journalists. "I think it's a legal question," he said. "The US are a part of the UN Convention against Torture, but there are very clear legal obligations -- wherever you have indications, complaints about torture, then you have to investigate them independently and effectively."
http://www.expatica.com/ch/news/swiss-rss-news/un-expert-slams-us-for-not-looking-into-torture-claims_30109.html
GENEVA, March 10.—The reaction of the United States and its allies to the September 11, 2001 attacks to intensify the use of torture in their investigations has had a highly negative influence on the rest of the world, stated Manfred Nowak, the UN special rapporteur on torture. “Many countries felt that if even the United States is officially torturing, why should not we also torture,” the expert explained during a press conference in Geneva, in which he took stock of his five years of his mandate. Nowak highlighted the contradiction between the fact that the United States is seen as the country “that invented human rights,” while he added that the “entire world knows that the United States practiced torture although it (the government of then President George W. Bush) denies it.” ... Nowak stated that the principal reason given for the use of torture is to obtain a confession, a statement that will later be used in trials.
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2010/marzo/juev11/torturas.html
And, taking a world view on 3/10/2010 ...
According to Austrian human rights lawyer Manfred Nowak, there is a growing gap between the high aspirations of human rights law and the sobering reality on the ground. ...
swissinfo.ch: How extensive is the use of torture as outlined in your five-year report?
M.N.: Unfortunately torture is a global phenomenon. In all my missions there was only one state – Denmark – where I didn’t come across any serious allegations of torture. In all other countries there are isolated cases, like in Uruguay and Jamaica, more widespread, like in China, Mongolia and Indonesia, or systematic, like in Equatorial Guinea and in Nepal, a few years ago. It is much more widely practised than usually recognised.
The fact that torture is so widely practised is surprising, but even more surprising for me was that in many countries the general conditions of detention in police lock-ups, pre-trial detention facilities, prisons, psychiatric hospitals and special detention facilities for illegal immigrants amount to cruel and degrading treatment.
swissinfo.ch: What are the main reasons for this widespread practice?
M.N.: The general administration of criminal justice in many countries is not functioning properly. It is not funded enough, judges are not independent and politicians want to be tough on crime, so a lot of pressure is put on police to solve cases.
Of course the fight against terror is another reason, but in quantitative terms most torture victims are ordinary criminal suspects. But the fight against organised crime, terrorism and the global fight against terror since 9/11 have done quite a lot to undermine the ban on torture. ... There is a growing gap between a very high level of legally binding obligations for states and the reality on the ground. We have to overcome this through prevention and stronger mechanisms to monitor states’ implementation of human rights. There are major proposals, such as a World Human Rights Court, or a global fund to strengthen national human rights implementation mechanisms, but what is lacking at the moment is political will to take human rights seriously.
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/index/Torture_expert_blasts_Human_Rights_Council.html?cid=8454360 |
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