UN calls for probe into US inaction on torture

[unhappycamper]

UN calls for probe into US inaction on torture
By Daniel Tencer
Saturday, October 23rd, 2010 -- 10:17 pm

The United Nations' point man on torture is calling on the Obama administration to open a full investigation into newly-released documents that suggest the US may have turned a blind eye to torture in Iraq.

Manfred Nowak, the UN's special rapporteur on torture, told the BBC Saturday that the US has an "obligation" to look into reports of torture within the nearly 400,000 war documents released by WikiLeaks on Friday.

The documents chronicle numerous allegations of torture by Iraqi forces against their own citizens, as well as what appears to have been a standing order in the US military to ignore the allegations -- potentially a violation of international conventions on torture.

"There is an obligation to investigate whenever there are credible allegations torture has happened – and these allegations are more than credible – and then it is up to the courts," Nowak, an Austrian human rights lawyer, said, as quoted at the Telegraph.

"It is then up to the courts on the one hand to bring the perpetrators to justice and also on the other hand to provide the victims with adequate reparation for the harm they have suffered."

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

Oh...I'm sure the US will look into it when anyone else does the torturing....unless the US is also involved, that is....

What the US will not do is investigate and prosecute its own war criminals. Well, unless it can jail low-ranking, albeit very much guilty, nobodies and claim some bullshit about "bad apples", "good faith", and 'isolated' cases.


That's it! Iraq can just claim they tortured in good faith. Works in the US.

[Dragonfli]

2. I am still waiting for this Administration to follow the law, I don't think they want to

This saddens me deeply that we no longer are a nation of laws, we are a nation that still sanctions torture and does not consider it a crime worthy of prosecution.

That is the most bi-partisan thing about this country and it sickens me.