Amnesty International Calls For Investigation Of Ferguson Police Tactics

[jakeXT]

Source: The Huffington Post

Amnesty International is calling for an investigation of the police tactics used by police in Ferguson, Missouri, where local law enforcement have clashed with protesters following the death of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown.

After sending a 12-person delegation to Ferguson to monitor police activity, meet with officials and work with activists, the human rights organization concluded that the city's policing standards must be scrutinized to ensure they meet key standards.

“Amnesty International has a long and tested history of monitoring and investigating police conduct, not just in foreign countries, but right here at home in the United States,” executive director Steven W. Hawkins said in a Sunday statement. “Our delegation traveled to Missouri to let the authorities in Ferguson know that the world is watching. We want a thorough investigation into Michael Brown’s death and the series of events that followed.”

In addition to a review of local police training and tactics, the group called on state and federal officials to complete a "prompt, thorough, independent and impartial investigation" into Brown's death. (Brown was shot and killed by Darren Wilson, a white police officer.)

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/17/amnesty-international-ferguson-police_n_5685952.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

[FarPoint]

1. Excellent.

Make this an international investment to secure the truth.

[candelista]

2. Amnesty International endorsed the Kuwait "incubators" story.

You know, the one that got us to salivate our way into the Gulf War. That cost them their credibility with me.

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. Did not realize they did that.

Hmmmmmm...

[candelista]

4. And President Bush used the Amnesty claim to help "justify" the war.

On October 9, 1990 at a Presidential news conference, Bush stated:

I thought General Scowcroft [Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs] put it very well after the Amir left here. And I am very much concerned, not just about the physical dismantling but of the brutality that has now been written on by Amnesty International confirming some of the tales told us by the Amir of brutality. It's just unbelievable, some of the things at least he reflected. I mean, people on a dialysis machine cut off, the machine sent to Baghdad; babies in incubators heaved out of the incubators and the incubators themselves sent to Baghdad. Now, I don't know how many of these tales can be authenticated, but I do know that when the Amir was here he was speaking from the heart. And after that came Amnesty International, who were debriefing many of the people at the border. And it's sickening.

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=18911

Alex Cockburn wrote:

The story had been given the imprimatur of a December report by Amnesty International which swallowed whole the account (which he soon began to emend) of a Red Crescent doctor in the employ of the Kuwaiti government-in-exile and lodged in the Sheraton Hotel in Taif’ as an employee of that government. After extensive investigation Aziz concluded there was no credible eyewitness or testimony to sustain the charges of mass baby murder. Bush apparently fortified his resolve in the pre-war hours by reading the Amnesty report with set lips, before attending divine service conducted by the Rev. Billy Graham who, in former non-good old days, urged Nixon to bomb the dikes in North Vietnam.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v13/n03/alexander-cockburn/right-stuff

More here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_(testimony)