 Hello and welcome to creating a human rights culture which aims to promote a lived awareness of the interdependency and invisibility of human rights principles in our minds, hearts and bodies, that is, dragged into our everyday lives. What after all is freedom of speech to a person who is homeless and lives in a world at war? Therefore, it is dedicated ultimately to the application of the human rights triptych which in brief consists of the universal declaration of human rights at its center, the conventions, that is, international treaties on the right and implementation measures on the left. Hello, I'm Joseph Franca again and welcome to another episode of creating the human rights culture which calls for a lived awareness of human rights principles in our minds and hearts and integrated into our everyday lives. Now this is part two of our discussion on the United States report to the United Nations on the Convention Against Torture which ultimately is an international treaty which must be ratified, implemented by the United States according to Article 6 of the U.S. Constitution which says that all treaties ratified must become law. So this is part two of our discussion. I'm here with Martha Spiegelman, she is the group coordinator of Amnesty International, and Mohamed Elgadi who is an adjunct professor at Springfield College and I must add is also a survivor of torture himself, 180 days in a Sudanese prison. So we left off with you, Martha, talking about your part of the convention. It's been divided into three parts and just keep on going and then we'll have Mohamed. There are two sections in this report that relate to juveniles in detention, that is they have not had hearings, they have not had trials, and also juvenile prisoners who are serving sentences. These two parts emphasize two very important provisions that should be made for juveniles, provisions that the UN recommends under its UN standard minimum rules for administration of juvenile justice. These two are no solitary confinement for juveniles, no solitary confinement under any conditions for any offense, and that includes capital offenses, no solitary confinement for juveniles. And the other provision is no life sentences, no lifetime sentences, again no matter what the offense is, no lifetime sentences for juveniles. So those are, I mean if you think about it in terms of somebody who's 14 or 15 years old who has been shipped off to prison and would be spending the rest of his or her life in prison, I think you would be somewhat concerned and sympathetic about the situation. I'd like to highlight at this moment something that's probably been seen by a lot of people the film made by Eva DuVernay entitled When They See Us, it's been showing on HBO in the last week or so about the investigation and the confessions, the supposed confessions and the sentencing of five young black and Hispanic boys from the ages of 13 to 16 back in New York City in around 88, 89. They all eventually confessed and then took back their confessions because they had all been treated to intense interrogation and confusion over a period of like a full day without the presence of their parents, without any legal counsel, and they were scared to death and they confessed and later on when they had their parents and vice, central, what's known as the Central Park Five, they ended up being convicted and going to jail and about 12 years or so later it was found that a single individual had committed the crime, it was a rape and a beating of a woman in Central Park, a single individual who had nothing to do with these five who were taken into custody confessed and there was one DNA sample on the woman and that DNA sample matched the person who confessed, his name is, I won't say his name, so the men, now men because they had been in prison so long were released I don't think there has ever been an apology by the city, by the prosecutor's office, by anybody and they got a settlement from New York City, among the three of them I think it was over 40 million dollars, but they didn't get it because the city was generous and said oh we did a terrible thing, this is awful, we better recompense them in some way, they sued to get recompensed and they won, they won that, but that film tells you something about cruel inhuman and degrading treatment, what happened was they confessed, took the confession back but they failed to convince a jury because the prosecution really drummed up evidence that just seemed to convince the jury and I'd like to mention one other kind of abuse and that is people who are hauled in by the authorities usually by a sheriff's office for minor offenses like having a broken tail light on a car and they're held, they're detained, they're not convicted of anything, they're detained, they're held because, why? Because they can't come up with bail money and that hasn't come into this report that I noticed, I didn't see it, but it is really a terrible abuse, it certainly is cruel, people being held because they can't find a relative who can put $500 up, this is something that is used in many jurisdictions as an income stream for the sheriff's office and I just bring it up as an example that troubles me a lot, so those, particularly the plight of juveniles in detention and in prison troubles is very troubling and it troubled this committee when it issued its report, so thank you for listening to my story. It's a pleasure listening to your story. Thank you. Okay, Mohamed Elgadi, so when Joe gave me this assignment or this homework, so I looked at it like, oh, death penalty, excessive police brutality, electric discharge weapons, sexual violence and rape and U.S. military, so wow, this is almost like everything related to my own story, everything what happened to me, because first I thought like death penalty is as, we have a stand in Amnesty International, we are against death penalty, but unfortunately many, many people who are members of Amnesty International, especially who are coming from a different country, they don't strongly support that part and sadly, like I was one of these people a long time ago and when it started like reading, reading more and more one, of course, also on my own episode, I thought like, no, this is, it makes a lot of sense Amnesty International and every single human rights defender to stop to work against death penalty. So this is a little bit intro. The death penalty article 25 in this report speaks about like one good thing that's during the time of the implementation of the report to the convention. There were only six states abolished capital punishment during that period, which is a good thing. We talk about 2009, 2014 at that time and it was very strong. We read over the last maybe a few years, many, many real stories, people who were in prison for 30, 40 years, because they did not commit that crime and there was no any kind of good scientific evidence at that time, the DNA. So we know that death penalty does not work and many people who are actually like on this row, they did not commit the crime, but no one will believe them. Two major things here was conserved in the report that torture, regarding torture and death penalty was excruciating pain and prolonged suffering during the, I can't even say it, during the execution itself. And I asked my brother once, he was, he passed away. He was a medical doctor and about this kind of report, he said yes, even people say like they give some kind of anesthesia or some people, people know. Still now the medicines, they don't know exactly when people, they are dying what kind of pain they are feeling. Just imagine if it was prolonged more than because in many, many cases of execution it will take longer cases. And this is exactly happened in Arizona, Oklahoma and Ohio, this is the report. The other point regarding the death penalty is the long waiting years in prison. And we know that like the average is between 19 to 22 years until you get executed. And this is a horrific time, you don't know when this is happening, when they will come and take you. During this time many people will try to kill themselves because they cannot take the win. And this resonate like to my own case, like when I was in prison, even I was only for 118 days, but the torture was happening every night. And usually the torture will happen after the curfew at night, because it's in a paralegal detention center, it's spread all over the capital city, and so they don't want to do it during the days so people cannot hear the screams of the torture when the torture happening. So what happened when I was reading the report here and the torches are waiting, the long waiting, I just imagine myself like when we were 11 in one cell, the cell cannot survive more than two or three people, we were 11 in that one. We did not know at that time when the door will open, is it going to be a dinner meal, or is it only one meal a day? Or is it going to snatch one person to go for a torture? And the torture are very cruel and they don't make you to expect when this will happen. So this is exactly what was happening here when I read about the death penalty. You don't know when you will be taken for execution. And sometimes at the last moment when you are ready to go, it will come, it will be stay. That's a legal word, stay, right? So the judge will say like stay. Stay of execution. So this is one point is very, very troubling to me in the report. The second one is excessive use of force and police brutality and the major case here during that time it was Chicago, Chicago police department commander. Yeah, that's a commander, what's his name, something in Birch. Yeah, Birch, yeah. Yeah, Birch, yeah. But before that the report notice very clearly there was specific targeting for racial profiling group, African American and Latinos, immigrants and LGBTI too. LGBTI people come being targeted more than other people. This is very strange. Yeah, it did not come to my mind at all like how they target these people. Usually LGBTI people are very, very peaceful people. I just want to interrupt in the field they talk about people in multiple jeopardy or intersectionality. So if you're LGBTQIAI I would say and you're also African American and Hispanic, you're in like triple jeopardy. Yeah. And it's a serious problem. So a lot of this is sometimes are serious than people that aren't anyway good. So the report also notice with a major concern that there were only 20 investigations from in 3300, no, sorry, 330, 330 police officers were criminally prosecuted. So this is a huge number during only four years. But also what's troubling more is that the police commander in Chicago for almost like 19 years he was doing all this kind of a brutality during his time when he was in command. All this brutality was happening. And also there was no any kind of data available data in the report like to have these people because they was about torturing people because they said well there was a statute of limitation for the police so they could not collect it. So this one of the major thing here is the report asking for enhanced collecting data on torture and the police brutality. The third point and concern here is electric discharge weapons and tasers. Tasers is actually this is a torture. Do we know that like many United States, United Kingdom and a number of other European countries are actually one of the major exporter of these devices to the dictatorship. They know it's going to Sudan during the meantime in Uganda during not Hilla, Hilla says the guy who was the dictator came after him in Ethiopia. But anyway, this is here. We know that these things are used for torture in prison. Not again to disperse riots or anything, no again is it. I'm one of the person who suffered from this one, yeah, torture. You don't know the torture. And one of the weird things like for this kind of tortures, they use soft areas behind ears, testicles, and you don't expect it when you are being like interrogated when that like the heat will come. And when the torture happened when one of these tasers, you convulsed or I'm not sure this is the right word in English convulsed and you spread like you jumped like you don't know. I hit my head. I hit my many times during this year. Thanks for sharing that. Yeah, these are really like devices legally manufactured in this country and the United Kingdom. These are the two major countries. And now of course, it was outsourced to China. China is making it like I think soon it will be sold in the Dollar Tree. It's painful, I know. They just might. Yeah, sexual violence and rape is a belief in the US military. This is another case. And I think, you know, it's during that report, we are doing some kind of progress, but it's not enough. I feel like even after that time, it started, we're doing more and more here because it's what's a movement. It wasn't me. It was me to meet you. Me too. Me too. A spread everywhere. And people now they are taking this very serious. And the report said like we need, we welcome the result, but we need more information and we need more here. And they suggested some kind of good comments. So this is what I really appreciate about this kind of report. If we keep doing this report, because this is the last part of it, every four years or every five years, we can enhance the general human rights in this country. And every, of course, if every country are doing this, this is the only country, unfortunately, like I keep reading. I think England also issued very strong one every five years, right? Yes. All the countries that ratified it, it's roughly a hundred and fifty. Yeah, but I read one of the reports, like one of the Egyptian reports is bogus. It's nothing there. It's nothing of the facts because it's done by a government. People who are paid by the government, working even as a human rights commissioner in Egypt or in Sudan would be like supervised by the government. Yes. Yeah. No, they don't mention anything. And there's a whole school of thought that that's a white wash. Yeah, it's a white wash. First time they use a white pejoratively. Usually it's black, old, black listed, but that's another story. That's a whole school of thought, but we have to keep it up. But after them, this is why you have an industry. Yeah. I'm looking forward for our discussion here about how we can make these three parts together. It's a discussion because I love to talk a little bit about the confession and how the confession get from people used to, and then later send you to a solitary confinement or being sent to be for a death penalty. And we don't under torture. I will say anything. I will say and unfortunately and I saw this in my eyes. I saw this people will have like a, you know, like crying and punishing. They order you to punish or slash another person because if you don't do this, we'll do this for you. So they order and they order you to confess to something because otherwise there will be punishment exacted on your family members. So you're going to give in. Yeah. I mean, when Donald Trump says torture works, he is so wrong. Because I've said this before on this on this program in the past. If some if I were suffering torture, I would probably admit to almost anything. I think why not? Yeah. And so it doesn't work. You get exact. You get no result whatsoever. You get either no result or you get false information. Yeah. So it doesn't work. People under torture are very smart. I know immediately what that guy wants to say. I would of course like hold myself for a while and say, but hey, if you want me to say it, I will say it. Just get me out of here. Unfortunately, I got out of there like after 118 days. 118. Yeah. And I go back to the fact that it's not always torture, especially if you're dealing with people who may have limited education or have poor self image. They can be coerced just by being told that you're not worth anything. Nobody cares about you. I mean, there may not be physical torture, but there's enough going on enough abuse, verbal abuse that you believe that you may even believe that you did something that you didn't do. You may even get it into your mind. I think it was last week about a facility for people that have disabilities and were quote unquote mentally retarded that the caretakers would hit them while they were eating dinner and lunch and they're afraid to eat dinner and lunch. They'd hit them. They'd abuse them. They'd call their names front page of the New York Times. And like you said before, Martha, that's a form of degrading treatment. Right. And that has to, that has to, has to change. Can I say something positive? Yeah. Well, I tried to at the beginning. Yeah, you did, of course. No, you did. Yeah, say something positive about our local community. I work in the field of human services for the last 20 years. And I really appreciate how our police department here in Amherst, specifically how they're dealing. I work with 55 people with mental issues here, living in the community independently. And of course, during crisis, and we call Amherst police and they were all like, they always like do very professional how they deal with these people. They will never go and arrest or use it. Teaser. I never saw any taser here. I went to the police department many times. They don't have these tasers. And they many to de-escalate the person. And I'm going to ask a number of the police. It's like we go through a lot of, a lot of training here, locally here, our police commandment. I'm sorry. I forgot her name. She always believe we can avoid like any kind of confrontation. Yeah. This is something really positive. This is something I would love to see here because I know there is many other communities here in the U.S. who are really good here in dealing. The report in several places that I was reading, the report emphasizes training and of personnel, training of police, training of guards, training of investigators in, in knowing when someone can't be pushed and knowing how to treat people. And that's, that's, and they bring up, the report brings up standard several, several acts like the rape elimination in prison act. I didn't even know there was such a thing, but there is. And obviously it must have. And the viewers don't know. Yeah. Obviously it must have certain recommendations, certain procedures that are to be followed. And probably many of the guards and police officials don't even know about this act. And I bet you, I bet you dollars to donuts. They don't even know about this. By the way, there's a great training manual by the United Nations called Human Rights and Training and Law Enforcement. That is a wonderful document. You could just Google that. Yeah. Well, that, that's the kind of, that's the kind of document and others like it that have standards that should be, should be taught to all people who have that kind of responsibility, police and prison guards and other staff like that. Let me, let me ask you guys a question. Because you're members of Amnesty. There was a place, I was called the School of the Assassins in Fort Benning, Georgia, where they use school of America. Now they change the name. That's what you do when you get in there. And it used to train people that would go to Latin America. Not only allegedly, I mean, it was proven, and people were constantly protesting. And the guy that led the protest, he was Father Roy Bouchois, was put in prison for a couple of years. And I don't know the circumstances. But I was surprised that that School of the Americas, an international cooperation or something, it wasn't mentioned in the report. And I'm just wondering what's going on. Is that, is that School of the Americas? No, it's no longer. Yeah. It's, it's, it's nothing. I don't think it, I don't think it exists now. Yeah. But there may be sort of spread out or there may be something, there may be something. And as you said, spread out, it may, it may have been not, you know, not having this one focus that a lot of people knew about and protested about. So instead, maybe they've, they've distributed similar kinds of schools in various places. And we don't know about them. And we don't know about them. That's, yeah. And of course, during the during the time of Bush, George W. Bush, they were always like they were extraditing or sending torture, torture people to the, what's it called, the black sites. Yes. So they did not need to do it here. So they would send them to Syria, Egypt, Morocco, Ethiopia, and Pakistan. These were the five countries at that time they were being used here. And we know that like when we are sending someone to Syria or Egypt, that person, oh, we need this information and who will get from, so it will be torture and the person will get the information there. If you remember when Donald Trump came to power, I'm sorry, I'm still using the dictator country. He came to power. So when he was elected. Notice we have about 10 years. When he came to office. Oh, sorry. I'm trying to wrap up. Yes. So when he, maybe you should like wrap up. It's the end of it. Wrap up. Thanks everyone. See you again. Take care of yourself and take care of others as needs be. I think he will, he will ask you like to do it like that. Oh, you want to do the ending again? Yes, because we did not do it. Yeah. I'm sorry it was my mistake. The ending? Yeah. Okay. So I'm cut to the fifth part, my part. Yeah. Okay. I will do it after. Okay. So we'll start again. Okay. I notice we have 10 seconds left. Do you have anything profound or not profound to say at the end? The only thing I'd like to say is that Amnesty, the local chapter, does a table on Saturdays near the farmers market, usually from 10 to noon. Yeah. For the last 40 years. Okay. And you can write to get political prisoners out of prison. And this is how I got released from prison. Thanks for people like this here. Okay. And thank you. Words of wisdom or lack there? Well, okay. Dorsher does not work at like a prison. Trump was believing and he, we know that he's collecting more of these kind of people from their work and to bring them here. One of them is Ambassador of Sudan, Muhammad Atta, which he was mainly brought here so he can coordinate and facilitate Torsher in Sudan. So anyone like we need information would be sent over there. Luckily, the revolution started Sudan and the guy was out of his position and he fled the United States because he knows that most of the Torsher survivors in this country were following him. So he went to Turkey. Thank you for sharing and thank you for viewing. Hope to see you again. We'll definitely have a sequel after the second report comes out. So take care of yourself and take care of others as needs be.