U.S. Torture and Detention Policies Highlighted in Geneva By American [View All]

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

(cont. from headline: Human Rights Group

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), now the largest and most active U.S.-based civil liberties organization with special consultative status to the United Nations as a non-governmental organization, now attending the U.N. Commission on Human Rights session in Geneva, called for immediate action to address the abuse and torture of prisoners by the United States in Iraq, Afghanistan and at other U.S.-controlled detention centers.

“If the United States government truly wants to be a beacon of liberty and freedom around the world, it must abide by the same universal human rights principles it requires of the rest of the world,” said Ann Beeson, the ACLU Associate Legal Director, presently attending the Geneva session.

A delegation of attorneys from the ACLU attending the 61st meeting of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights seeks to bring issues of torture and detention, racial profiling, and the exploitation of migrant domestic workers to the Commissions attention.

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“Nearly a year after the (Iraq’s) Abu Ghraib torture and abuses came to public light, serious violations of human rights continue to be committed in U.S. controlled detention centers around the globe,” said Jamil Dakwar, a senior human rights attorney with the ACLU, who is a member of the delegation to the Geneva session. “No country is above the law, and the United States should not be permitted to violate fundamental human rights in the name of national security,” he said.

Citing serious violations of fundamental human rights, the ACLU makes several urgent recommendations to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights session in Geneva, including:

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