Document - USA: Congress rubber stamps torture and other abuses
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
PRESS RELEASE
News Flash
AI Index: AMR 51/157/2006 (Public)
News Service No: 255
29 September 2006
USA: Congress rubber stamps torture and other abuses
By passing the Military Commissions Act, the United States Congress has, in effect, given its stamp of approval to human rights violations committed by the USA in the “war on terror”. This legislation leaves the USA squarely on the wrong side of international law, and has turned bad executive policy into bad domestic law. Amnesty International will campaign for repeal of this act and fully expects the constitutionality of this legislation to be challenged in the courts.
In the “war on terror”, the US administration has resorted to secret detention, enforced disappearance, prolonged incommunicado detention, indefinite detention without charge, arbitrary detention, and torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
Thousands of detainees remain in indefinite military detention in US custody in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay. Congress has failed these detainees and their families. President Bush has defended the CIA’s use of secret detention and in the debates over the Military Commissions Act, members of Congress have done the same. This policy clearly violates international law.
See also:
USA: Rubber stamping violations in the "war on Terror": Congress fails human rights, 29 September 2006
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAMR511552006
USA: Military Commissions Act of 2006 – Turning bad policy into bad law, 29 September 2006
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAMR511542006
USA: Justice at last or more of the same? Detentions and trials after Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 18 September 2006
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAMR511462006
USA: Rendition – torture – trial? The case of Guantánamo detainee Mohamedou Ould Slahi, 20 September 2006
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAMR511492006
Public Document
****************************************
For more information please call Amnesty International's press office in London, UK, on +44 20 7413 5566
Amnesty International, 1 Easton St., London WC1X 0DW. web: http://www.amnesty.org
For latest human rights news view http://news.amnesty.org