Many of the segments in the documentary were several years old, e.g. A fierce debate regarding non-standard interrogation techniques exists within the U.S. civilian and military intelligence community, with no general consensus as to what practices under what conditions are acceptable. She suggested that she had spoken to this person by telephone sometime in 1995, more than four years before she was giving her testimony. (3) read as follows: “ ‘United States’ includes all areas under the jurisdiction of the United States including any of the places described in sections 5 and 7 of this title and section 46501(2) of title 49.” 1994—Par. . However, the Bush administration explicitly endorsed the use of interrogation techniques such as waterboarding in memos to the CIA,[68] and one Pentagon official has publicly admitted that torture was conducted at Guantanamo Bay.[69]. Michael John Garcia, Legislative Attorney American Law Division. These sources state that CIA and military personnel beat up uncooperative suspects, confine them in cramped quarters, duct tape them to stretchers, and use other restraints that maintain the subject in an awkward and painful position for long periods of time. Allegations emerged that in the Coalition occupation of Iraq after the second Gulf war, there was extensive use of torture techniques, allegedly supported by American military intelligence agents, in Iraqi jails such as Abu Ghraib and others. Torture is, sadly, an established part of U.S. history dating back to pre-Revolutionary times. Media in category "Torture in the United States" The following 20 files are in this category, out of 20 total. In 2005, a Channel 4 documentary "Torture: America's Brutal Prisons" showed video of naked prisoners being beaten, bitten by dogs, forced to crawl like worms, kicked in the groin, stunned with Taser guns and electric cattle prods. Among the more common methods used were whipping, prolonged restraint, and "smoking," the prolonged imprisonment of an enslaved person inside a sealed shed with an aromatic burning substance (usually tobacco). However, the U.S. has declared that the Convention is not self-executing and therefore the Convention's definition does not directly apply in U.S. law. [58] However, many influential U.S. thinkers also believe that Rumsfeld himself is a major part of the problem, quote the New York Times columnist Bob Herbert: ... there is also the grotesque and deeply shameful issue that will always be a part of Mr. Rumsfeld's legacy—the manner in which American troops have treated prisoners under their control in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. But only such severe actions that do rise to the level of "torture" are grounds for preventing deportation under the terms of Article 3 of the Convention. Photos are shown of Frank Valdes, a convicted killer on Death Row, who was beaten to death after writing to local Florida newspapers with allegations of prison officer corruption and brutality. One was the 1963 CIA document, KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation, which describes interrogation techniques, including, among other things, "coercive counterintelligence interrogation of resistant sources." The scandal, documented by graphic photographs, calls attention to the widespread problem of post-9/11 torture. Tom Head, Ph.D., is a historian specializing in the history of ethics, religion, and ideas. CIA agents have anonymously confirmed to the Washington Post in a December 26, 2002 report that the CIA routinely uses so-called "stress and duress" interrogation techniques, which human rights organizations claim are acts of torture, in the U.S.-led War on Terrorism. It has not officially denounced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights nor rejected the tenets contained therein. Human Intelligence Collector Operations, September 2006) and counterinsurgency (FM 3-24. Whilst the Obama administration has tried to distance itself from some of the harshest counterterrorism techniques, it has also said that at least some forms of renditions will continue. Torture and the United States includes documented and alleged cases of torture both inside and outside the United States by members of the government, the military, law enforcement agencies, intelligence agencies, health care services, and other public organizations.. "Torture in the United States: A History." Victims were usually black men, often accused of acting uppity towards (being insolent), assaulting, having sex with, or raping white people. Box 1142," outside Washington D.C. 5 Times the United States Intervened in Foreign Elections, Impeached Presidents of the United States, U.S. Policy in the Middle East: 1945 to 2008. . "Torture and State Violence in the United States is a very useful bit of research, bringing together many resources that readers would require hours or days to assemble on their own." [nb 1] After the U.S. dismissed United Nations concerns about torture in 2006,[1] one UK judge observed 'America's idea of what is torture ... does not appear to coincide with that of most civilized nations'. It is likely that this represents only a small fraction of authorized uses of torture in the post-9/11 era. Furthermore, as a signatory, the U.S. was bound to comply with the 1949 Geneva Convention. American officials were involved in counter-insurgency programs in which they encouraged their allies, such as the ARVN to use torture, and actively participated in it, during the 1960s to the 1980s. She claimed that if returned to Nigeria, she would be imprisoned and tortured as a result of her U.S. conviction. To justify torture and abuse in the "global war on terrorism," the government narrowly defined torture and argued that the prohibition against cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment does not apply outside the United States. Organized around five broad thematic periods in American history—colonial America and the early republic; slavery and the frontier; imperialism, Jim Crow, and World Wars I and II; the Cold War, Vietnam, and police torture; and the war on terror—this annotated documentary history traces the low and high points of official attitudes toward state violence. The Torture Manuals was a nickname for seven training manuals that had excerpts declassified to the public on September 20, 1996, by the Pentagon. Documents released by the Obama administration reveal that the Bush administration had ordered the use of torture against two al-Qaeda suspects an estimated 266 times during a short period in 2003. ", Print Collector/Getty Images / Getty Images. Torture in the United States. Overview of holidays and many observances in United States during the year 2021 For the purpose of determining whether there are such grounds, the competent authorities shall take into account all relevant considerations including, where applicable, the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights. . Get this from a library! From 1967 to at least 1972, the Central Intelligence Agency coordinated the Phoenix Program, which targeted the infrastructure of the Communist National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam ("Viet Cong"). the United States has not transported anyone, and will not transport anyone, to a country when we believe he will be tortured. [47] C. Murray Henderson, one of the wardens brought in to clean up the prison, states in one of his memoirs that the systemic sexual slavery was sanctioned and facilitated by the prison guards. M-B-A also presented evidence that she had a chronic ulcer, asthma and suffered from depression; that she was on medication but had no one to help her with medicine if she ended up in jail; that her father was deceased and her mother lived in the UK and that she had no relations to help her in Nigeria, aside from an uncle who had sexually abused her as a child. In 2003 and 2004, there was substantial controversy over the "stress and duress" methods that were used in the U.S.'s War on Terrorism, that had been sanctioned by the U.S. Executive branch of government at Cabinet level. Political will is critical. But critics of the Bush administration who describe state-sponsored torture as unprecedented are also in the wrong. The program killed 26,000 Viet Cong and captured over 60,000. ... this policy is a lawful sanction and, therefore, does not constitute torture.... [Also] there is no evidence that Haitian authorities are detaining criminal deportees with the specific intent to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering. COMMITTEE AGAINST TORTURE. [37][38], In 1983 Texas sheriff James Parker and three of his deputies were convicted for conspiring to use waterboarding to force confessions. Etiquette, Lynching, and Racial Boundaries in Southern History: A Mississippi Example. [30], In a July 2002 memo sent to the Pentagon's chief lawyer by the military's Joint Personnel Recovery Agency, or JPRA, the military agency that provided advice on harsh interrogation techniques for use against terrorism suspects, not only referred to the application of extreme duress as "torture" but warned that it would produce "unreliable information". law. Torture and the United States includes documented and alleged cases of torture both inside and outside the United States by members of the government, the military, law enforcement agencies, intelligence agencies, health care services, and other public organizations. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has complained about this prominent newspaper coverage and its implications. There is no longer any doubt that large numbers of troops responsible for guarding and interrogating detainees somehow loosed their moorings to humanity, and began behaving as sadists, perverts and criminals. Human Intelligence Collector Operations, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture, National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam, U.S. Agency for International Development, List of wrongful convictions in the United States, Human rights in the United States § Prison system, Sexual abuse of women in American prisons, tortured and murdered by CIA officials in Guatemala, Court of Appeals for the District Court of Columbia, Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture, European Parliament report of February 2007, United Nations Convention against Torture, Water cure (torture)#Philippine-American War, United States and state-sponsored terrorism, Unethical human experimentation in the United States, Rubber stamping violations in the "war on terror": Congress fails human rights, U.N. Therefore, he argued, Article 3 of the Convention prevented his being deported. [citation needed], American trainers and intelligence coordination officials supported the internal security apparatus of the regimes of South America's southern cone as those regimes carried out kidnappings, "disappearances", torture and assassinations during the 1970s and 1980s as part of Operation Condor. While the term "torture" is defined in numerous places, including dictionaries and encyclopedias of various nations or cultures, this article addresses only those practices qualifying as torture under the definition of that term articulated in the codified (primarily statutory) law and case law of the United States. The Government of the United States of America reserves the right to communicate, upon ratification, such reservations, interpretive understandings, or declarations as are deemed necessary. Several lawsuits was filed against the prison which resulted in the inmates favor. In an effort to force him to plea, local officials piled boulders on his chest for two days until he suffocated. 33, which authorized imprisonment in her situation. Torture in the United States: A History. What Is Birthright Citizenship in the United States? International law defines torture during an armed conflict as a war crime. 2. The Board consists of up to fifteen immigration law specialists, who sit as immigration appellate administrative law judges. The Board found that there was, in Haiti. Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State ultimately told the CIA the harsher interrogation tactics were acceptable,[71][72] In 2009 Rice stated, "We never tortured anyone. Her own evidence about enforcement was either (a) her own speculation or (b) based on the conversation with her friend's experience during a different Nigerian regime. It has neither signed nor ratified the Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture. Eventually the CIA's psychological methods were spread worldwide through the U.S. Agency for International Development's Public Safety program and U.S. Army Mobile Training Teams.[29]. These practices have resulted in a number of deaths. Slaves as well as free Blacks were regulated by the Black Codes, and had their movements regulated by patrollers and slave catchers, conscripted from the white population, who were allowed to use summary punishment against escapees, which included maiming or killing them. Judge Schmidt's dissent cited the U.S. State Department's report on Nigeria's prison system, reported that one area of abuse in Nigerian prison was the intentional withholding of medical aid or medication. The majority decision does not address the question of the likelihood of torture within prison; instead, it finds that M-B-A did not show, by the required evidence standard, that she would be imprisoned at all, which rendered the question of treatment within prison as moot. Sensory manipulation. The Board set out the five-part test for torture and noted that. The City of Chicago's Office of Professional Standards (OPS) concluded that the physical abuse was systematic and, "The type of abuse described was not limited to the usual beating, but went into such esoteric areas as psychological techniques and planned torture."[35]. Overseas detention facilities are known to be or to have been maintained at least in Thailand, the Philippines, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Cyprus, Cuba, Diego Garcia, and unspecified South Pacific island nation(s). An act of torture committed outside the United States by a U.S. national or a non-U.S. national who is present in the United States is punishable under 18 U.S.C. [24] Americans were present as supervisors in the Mariona Prison in San Salvador, El Salvador, well known for a wide variety of forms of torture. [55] The aversion of some military personnel forced to administer torture has been so strong, that one soldier, Alyssa Peterson, is believed to have committed suicide to avoid further participation. Arizona Couple Arrested for Child Abuse of Adopted Children By: Elena Nicosia Feb 21, 2018. These documents developed a legal basis for the use of torture by U.S. interrogators if acting under the directive of the President of the United States. In the 1970s and 1980s the Chicago Police Department's Area 2 unit under Commander Jon Burge repeatedly used electroshock, near-suffocation by plastic bags and excessive beating on suspects. Torture is illegal and punishable within U.S. territorial bounds[citation needed]. This generally included the placement of a towel over the nose and mouth of the prisoner and the pouring of water in the towel until the prisoner began to move, jerk, or otherwise indicate that he was suffocating and/or drowning. 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