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From: "US Human Rigths Network"
<info@ushrnetwork.org><br>
Sent 6/26/2008 2:14:33 PM<br><br>
Subject: Beyond Abu Ghraib and Gitmo Stop Torture in the U.S.<br><br>
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<div align="center"><b>Beyond Abu Ghraib and Gitmo:</b> <b>Stop Torture
in the U.S.<br><br>
</b></div>
June 26 marks the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims
of Torture. The spotlight has been shining for months on U.S. government
torture of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay detention
facilities, and these abuses will likely be a major focus of attention on
June 26. But the U.S. Human Rights Network and its 255 member
organizations have long argued that torture does not begin and end
outside U.S. borders, and we urge that local, state and federal
governments take immediate steps to stop the domestic physical and mental
abuses that contravene international anti-torture law. "Examples of
torture in the U.S. have been documented by U.S. organizations and
verified by the U.N. for more than a decade," says Network Executive
Director Ajamu Baraka. "It is high time for these practices to be
abolished."<br><br>
Though most people associate torture with waterboarding, sleep
deprivation and other interrogation techniques, the actual definition
goes well beyond that narrow scope to include "cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment or punishment." Various international agreements
and covenants that have been ratified by the U.S. use this language,
including the universal Declaration of Human Rights and the U.N.
Convention Against Torture, which came into force on June 26, 1987.
<br><br>
Under that broader definition, several common practices in the U.S.
deserve closer scrutiny, for example, forced psychiatric drugging is
being done in domestic jails and prisons, psychiatric institutions, wards
of general hospitals, juvenile detention facilities and residences,
nursing homes, as well as by outpatient commitment orders and mental
health courts, to name a few. Forced electroshock is also on the
rise, alarmingly, including for behavior control. "These
repressive measures are mislabeled as help and healing -- unimaginably
so. Whether they are considered torture or cruel, inhuman and
degrading treatment, they constitute severe forms of violence condoned
and authorized by the state and by public opinion - and must be
stopped", says Daniel Hazen Torture Survivor and organizer with
StopForce<br><br>
The sentencing of juveniles to Life Without Parole (LWOP), for example,
would arguably contravene international anti-torture law. According to
research by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, there are at
least 2,225 child offenders serving LWOP in U.S. prisons. The majority of
these inmates (59 percent) are first-time offenders. Such sentences,
which effectively mean death by incarceration, violate international
human rights law as well as the principles of fairness and justice that
should underpin the U.S. criminal justice system. <br><br>
The indiscriminate use of TASERs by law enforcement - and a series of
deaths that have resulted - is another example of torture that would fit
under the broader definition. Rather than a substitute for lethal force
as the devices were intended, TASERs are routinely used to incapacitate
suspects deemed unruly or simply uncooperative. In its final report on
U.S. compliance with the Convention Against Torture in May of 2006, the
U.N. Committee Against Torture noted that the extensive use of TASERs
"raises serious issues of compatibility" with the
Convention.<br><br>
The report criticized several other criminal justice practices in the
U.S., including housing children in adult jails and prisons; the
prolonged isolation of prisoners housed in so-called "supermax"
prisons; the circumstances and lack of accountability around the Burge
police torture cases in Chicago; and the treatment of women inmates,
including gender-based humiliation. The Committee noted that many of
these same concerns were the subject of its previous review in 2000, but
that the problems had persisted without resolution.<br><br>
Rather than arguing the fine points of what constitutes "cruel,
inhuman or degrading," as U.S. officials have often done, a more
enlightened approach would be to address these problems at their source
and bring US practice in line with objective international standards.
Anything less would undermine U.S. credibility on the subject at a most
critical juncture. "It is important that defenders of human rights
in the U.S. express our fundamental solidarity with all victims of
torture and ill treatment in this country and around the world,"
Baraka says. "This day reminds us of our moral responsibility to
demand that the humanity of marginalized and vulnerable individuals and
groups is recognized and protected by all governments, under all
circumstances."<br><br>
<br><br>
<b>The images above were drawn by Todd (Hyung-Rae) Tarselli, a prisoner
confined in a Pennsylvania "close-security" or
"supermaximum" prison, tell a story-one that graphically
portrays the devastating effects of a prison on the mental health of its
inmates. To reach him: BY 8025 175 Progress Drive Waynesburg, PA
15370-8089 <br><br>
<br>
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