Human dignity denied, Torture and accountability in the 'war on terror'

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http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/document.do?id=F71A5A50894D58D880256F2E00422F73

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Human dignity denied
Torture and accountability in the 'war on terror'
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A report based on Amnesty International's 12-point Program for the Prevention of Torture by Agents of the State
Summary

Then brought a box of food and he made me stand on it, and he started punishing me. Then a tall black soldier came and put electrical wires on my fingers and toes and on my penis, and I had a bag over my head. Then he was saying 'which switch is on for electricity?' Iraqi detainee, Abu Ghraib prison, 16 January 2004(1)

The image of New York's Twin Towers struck by hijacked airliners on 11 September 2001 has become an icon of a crime against humanity. It is tragic that the response to the atrocities of that day has resulted in its own iconography of torture, cruelty and degradation. A photograph of a naked young man captured in Afghanistan, blindfolded, handcuffed and shackled, and bound with duct tape to a stretcher. Pictures of hooded detainees strapped to the floor of military aircraft for transfer from Afghanistan to the other side of the world. Photographs of caged detainees in the United States (US) Naval Base in Cuba, kneeling before soldiers, shackled, handcuffed, masked and blindfolded. Television images of orange-clad shackled detainees shuffling to interrogations, or being wheeled there on mobile stretchers. A hooded Iraqi detainee sitting on the sand, surrounded by barbed wire, clutching his four-year-old son.(2) And the photos from Abu Ghraib – a detainee, hooded, balanced on a box, arms outstretched, wires dangling from his hands with electric torture threatened; a naked man cowering in terror against the bars of a cell as soldiers threaten him with snarling dogs; and soldiers smiling, apparently confident of their impunity, over detainees forced into sexually humiliating poses. The United States of America (USA), and the world, will be haunted by these and other images for years to come, icons of a government's failure to put human rights at its heart.

The struggle against torture and ill-treatment by agents of the state requires absolute commitment and constant vigilance. It requires stringent adherence to safeguards. It demands a policy of zero tolerance. The US government has manifestly failed in this regard. At best, it set the conditions for torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment by lowering safeguards and failing to respond adequately to allegations of abuse raised by Amnesty International and others from early in the "war on terror". At worst, it has authorized interrogation techniques which flouted the country's international obligation to reject torture and ill-treatment under any circumstances and at all times.


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