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Amnesty International Report 2006
Amnesty International
May 23, 2006
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Head of state and government: George W. Bush
Death penalty: retentionist
International Criminal Court: signed but declared intention not to ratify
UN Women’s Convention: signed
Optional Protocol to UN Women’s Convention: not signed
Thousands of detainees continued to be held in US custody without charge or trial in Iraq, Afghanistan and the US naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. There were reports of secret US-run detention centres in undisclosed locations where detainees were held in circumstances amounting to “disappearances”. Dozens of Guantánamo detainees went on hunger strike to protest against their harsh treatment and lack of access to the courts; some were reported to be seriously ill. Reports of deaths in custody, torture and ill-treatment by US forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo continued to emerge. Despite evidence that the US government had sanctioned interrogation techniques constituting torture or ill-treatment, and “disappearances”, there was a failure to hold officials at the highest levels accountable, including individuals who may have been guilty of war crimes or crimes against humanity. Several trials took place of low-ranking soldiers charged with abusing detainees; in most cases sentences were light. There were reports of police brutality and use of excessive force in the USA. Sixty-one people died after being struck by police tasers, a huge rise over previous years. Sixty people were executed, taking the total to over 1,000 since executions resumed in 1977.
National security and the ‘war on terror’
Hypocrisy and a disregard for basic human rights principles and international legal obligations continued to mark the USA’s “war on terror”.
Thousands of detainees remained held without charge in US custody in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, and in secret detention centres known as “black sites” believed to exist in Europe, North Africa and elsewhere. Torture and other ill-treatment continued to be reported and further evidence emerged that the US authorities “outsourced” torture by means including “rendition” — the transfer of individuals to another country without any form of judicial or administrative process, sometimes in secret.
Around 500 detainees remained in Guantanamo Bay, where they were held in conditions amounting to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and continued to be denied their right to challenge the lawfulness of their detention.
Despite mounting evidence that the US government had sanctioned “disappearances” as well as interrogation techniques constituting torture or other ill-treatment, there was a failure to hold officials at the highest levels accountable, including individuals who may have been responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
US “war on terror” policies that undermined human rights standards were challenged during 2005. Legislation was passed prohibiting the torture and inhumane treatment of detainees anywhere in the world, despite initial objections from the Bush administration that the prohibition would hamper its ability to obtain information from detainees. However, the bill also severely limited the Guantanamo detainees’ access to federal courts and called into question the future of some 200 pending cases in which detainees had challenged the legality of their detention.
The USA increased its military assistance programme in Colombia despite continued evidence of grave human rights violations by military personnel and paramilitary groups operating with their active or tacit support.
Guantánamo Bay
At the end of 2005 around 500 detainees of around 35 nationalities continued to be held without charge or trial at the US naval base in Guantánamo Bay; most had been captured during the international armed conflict in Afghanistan in 2001 and were held for alleged links to al-Qa’ida or the former Taleban government. They included at least two juveniles who were under 16 when they were taken into custody.
Legislation passed in December (the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005) removed the right of Guantánamo detainees to file habeas corpus claims in the US federal courts against their detention or treatment, allowing instead only limited appeals against the decisions of the Combatant Status Review Tribunals (see below) and military commissions. The legislation called into question the future of some 200 pending cases in which detainees had challenged the legality of their detention following a US Supreme Court ruling in 2004 that they had the right to file such claims.
By March, the Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT), administrative panels set up in 2004, had determined that 93 per cent of the 554 detainees then being held were “enemy combatants”. The detainees had no legal representation and many declined to attend the CSRT hearings, which could consider secret evidence and evidence extracted under torture.
In August an unknown number of detainees resumed a hunger strike, initiated in June, to protest against their continued lack of access to the courts and alleged harsh treatment, including beatings, by guards. More than 200 detainees were said to be taking part at one stage, although the US Department of Defense said the number was much lower. Several detainees alleged they had been verbally and physically abused while being force-fed, sustaining injuries when guards roughly inserted feeding tubes through their noses. The government denied any ill-treatment. The hunger strike was continuing at the end of the year.
In November, three UN human rights experts declined an offer by the US government to visit Guantánamo as it had placed restrictions inconsistent with the standard terms of reference for such visits.
Military Commissions
In November the US Supreme Court, ruling in the case of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, agreed to review the legality of the military commissions set up under a presidential order to try foreign terror suspects. However, a further five Guantánamo detainees were named to stand trial before the commissions, which are executive bodies, not impartial or independent courts, bringing the total number designated to appear before them to nine. The government scheduled arraignment hearings before the commissions for January for two of those charged. One of them was Omar Khadr, who was 15 when taken into custody and whose mental health and alleged ill-treatment remained a particular cause for concern.
Detentions in Iraq and Afghanistan
During the year, thousands of “security internees” were held without charge or trial by US forces in Iraq. Regulations governing detentions stipulated that internees must either be released or transferred to Iraqi criminal jurisdiction within 18 months. They also provided that detainees could continue to be interned by the US-led Multi-National Force indefinitely for “continued imperative reasons of security”. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) visited detainees in internment facilities but not those held in US division or brigade holding facilities immediately after arrest.
In Afghanistan, hundreds of detainees continued to be held in US military custody without charge or trial or access to families or lawyers at Bagram airbase, some for more than a year. Although the ICRC had access to detainees at Bagram, it had no access to detainees held in an unknown number of US forward operating bases. There were reports of ill-treatment in such facilities, including detainees being stripped naked during interrogation and deprived of food and sleep.
Detentions in Undisclosed Locations
There were continued reports that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operated a network of secret detention facilities in various countries. Such facilities were alleged to detain individuals incommunicado outside the protection of the law in circumstances amounting to “disappearances”. Three Yemeni detainees told AI that they had been held in isolation for between 16 and 18 months in three detention facilities apparently run by the USA in unknown locations; their cases suggested that such detentions were not confined to a small number of “high value” detainees as previously suspected. In November the Council of Europe launched an investigation into reports that the network of US secret prisons included sites in Eastern Europe. The US authorities refused to confirm or deny the allegations.
Allegations of US involvement in the secret and illegal transfer of detainees between countries, exposing them to the risk of torture and ill-treatment, continued.
Torture and Ill-Treatment Outside the USA
Evidence continued to emerge of the torture and ill-treatment of detainees in Guantánamo, Afghanistan and Iraq, before and after the abuses in Abu Ghraib prison, Iraq, which came to light in April 2004. Further information was published describing interrogation techniques officially approved at various periods for “war on terror” detainees, which included the use of dogs to inspire fear, stress positions, exposure to extremes of heat or cold, sleep deprivation and isolation.
There was continued failure to hold senior officials accountable for abuses. The final report of Naval Inspector General Vice-Admiral Church into Department of Defense interrogation operations worldwide, a summary of which was published in March, found “no link between approved interrogation techniques and detainee abuse”. This was despite the fact that many such techniques violate international standards that prohibit torture and ill-treatment. The Church investigation did not interview a single detainee or former detainee, nor did it interview Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. No inquiries examined the CIA whose activities remained shrouded in secrecy.
The US Army reported in March that 27 deaths of detainees in US custody in Iraq and Afghanistan during raids, capture or in detention facilities had been listed as confirmed or suspected homicides. Some cases were under investigation while others had been referred to other agencies or were recommended for prosecution.
Other sources, including court records and autopsy reports, strongly indicated that some detainees had died after torture during or after interrogations. There was also evidence to suggest that delays and deficiencies in investigations had hampered prosecutions.
In March the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Human Rights First filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of eight men who had been tortured and ill-treated in US military detention facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, seeking a declaration that Secretary Rumsfeld was responsible for violating US and international laws. The lawsuit, which was still pending at the end of the year, also sought compensatory damages for the victims.
Several trials of US military personnel accused of abusing detainees took place during the year, mainly involving low-ranking soldiers. Many received sentences that did not reflect the gravity of the crimes.
In March the government rescinded an April 2003 Pentagon Working Group Report on Detainee Interrogations which stated, among other things, that the President had authority during military operations to override the international prohibition against torture with regard to interrogations. In November the Pentagon approved a new policy directive governing interrogations, which would allow the army to issue a long-delayed revised field manual. The directive stated that “acts of physical or mental torture are prohibited”. However, it did not elaborate other than to order that detainees be treated humanely “in accordance with applicable law and policy”. In December the Army announced it had approved a new classified set of interrogation methods to be added to the revised Army Field Manual. Although the manual would specifically prohibit stripping, prolonged stress positions, sleep deprivation and use of dogs in interrogations, there was concern that the classified addendum may still include abusive techniques.
In December, Congress passed legislation prohibiting the cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of people in the custody or control of the US government anywhere in the world. However, concern remained that a statement attached by President Bush when signing the bill into law effectively reserved the right of the executive to bypass the provision on national security grounds.
• In August and September, trials took place in a military court of US soldiers accused of abusing two Afghan detainees, Dilawar and Habibullah, who died from multiple blunt force injuries while being interrogated in an isolation section of the Bagram airbase in December 2002. As of December 2005, seven low-ranking soldiers had been convicted and received sentences ranging from five months’ imprisonment to reprimand, loss of pay and reduction in rank. No one had been found responsible for serious offences such as torture or other war crimes.
Detention of ‘enemy combatants’ in the USA
• Jose Padilla – a US national held for more than three years without charge in US military detention – was among five people indicted in a US federal court in November on charges of conspiracy to murder US nationals overseas and supporting terrorists. The charges made no mention of the alleged conspiracy to detonate a “dirty bomb” in a US city for which he was originally detained. The Justice Department sought permission from the Appeals Court to transfer him to the federal prison system. However, the court did not agree and instead issued an order requiring both the government and his lawyers to submit briefs on whether it should withdraw its earlier ruling upholding the President’s power to detain Jose Padilla indefinitely as an “enemy combatant”. The issue had not been decided on by the end of the year.
• Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, a Qatari national, remained detained without charge or trial as an “enemy combatant” in military custody. A lawsuit was filed in August alleging that he was suffering from severe physical and mental health problems as a result of his treatment, which included sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, punitive shackling, exposure to cold, and disrespectful handling of the Qu’ran. Prisoners of conscience
• Kevin Benderman, a US army sergeant, was sentenced to 15 months’ imprisonment in July for refusing to redeploy to Iraq on grounds of his conscientious objection to the war, developed during a first term of service there. His application for conscientious objector status was refused on the ground that his objection was not to war in general but to a particular war.
• Camilo Mejia Castillo, Abdullah Webster and Pablo Paredes, three former soldiers imprisoned for their conscientious objection to serving in Iraq, were released during the year. Trial of Ahmed Omar Abu Ali
Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, a US national, was convicted in a US federal court in November on charges of conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism. The trial was flawed as the jury was not allowed to hear evidence supporting claims by Ahmed Abu Ali that his videotaped confession, on which the prosecution relied almost exclusively, had been obtained following torture in Saudi Arabia. Ahmed Abu Ali alleged that he was flogged and threatened with death by the Interior Ministry’s General Intelligence (al-Mabahith al-Amma) while being held incommunicado in Saudi Arabia in 2003. During the trial, general statements on the treatment of detainees from Saudi Arabian officials were used to undermine Ahmed Abu Ali’s allegations, while the defense lawyers were not allowed to present any evidence pertaining to Saudi Arabia’s human rights record on torture.
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