 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. I'm Joseph Franca and welcome to another episode of creating a human rights culture which calls for a lived awareness of human rights principles in our minds and our hearts especially here and integrated into our everyday lives. Today we're going to talk about the United States report to the United Nations on torture. Of course, there are other reports by other countries, all you have to do is go Google on the Saudi Arabia's report, on Iran's report, whatever, and you'll be able to find them. We're emphasizing the United States now because we live in the United States and this is our primary audience, but you really should look at those other reports as well. When I was in Geneva, I was at the hearing for Iran before the Human Rights Council and the council said, is it true that you cut off hands for stealing? They were after Iran for something like 20 minutes until they finally admitted, yes, we do. We do it on the third time they steal and if they express no remorse and the council of course said that needs to stop and things will go on. Let's just invade Iran, it doesn't work like that, violence will not end more, violence. Anyway, I'm here today with Martha Spiegelman, she's the chapter coordinator for Amnesty International and Mohammed El-Gadi. He is a torture survivor himself, 180 days in a Sudanese prison, he's also an adjunct professor at Springfield College where I teach also on a professor. And for our viewers out there, I would like you to know that this is being shot during what is called Torture Survivors Week and June 26 has been designated by the United Nations as Torture Survivors Day. Now unbeknownst to many of you out there, the United States of America comes out with a report to what is called the United Nations Monitoring Committees on CAT, C-A-T which is the acronym for the Torture Human Rights Convention. Now all conventions are actually treaties, they have judicial force and treaties once ratified according to Article 6 of the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution must be implemented and the judges bound thereby. So we ratified it and it must be implemented. It is a fundamental document of the human rights triptych and the United States ratified it in 1994 under the Clinton administration. And around that time even, President Clinton to give further impetus to the convention issued an executive order, I believe it was 1998 that said it should be implemented along with other conventions we signed ratified on racism and civil and political rights but we can't do everything. Now given the prison in Iraq, Abu Ghraib reports of extraordinary rendition, reportedly torture in Afghanistan, you the viewer may find it difficult to believe. But during the 1990s and even the 80s in a notorious case preceding United States federal court decision referred to as Foulartiga v. Pina where a police officer, Pina Aralia and Paraguay was convicted of torturing a 17-year-old Jovalita Foulartiga in Paraguay. For those of you like to see films, they do a film on this called One Man's War, I think it was HBO and it starred Anthony Hopkins if you like to see this sort of stuff. This occurred in Paraguay, we can't get into everything. But Pina Aralia was convicted in a federal court. It was a major landmark decision where they referred to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as customary international law which all nations must abide. We used to say, I don't know if you remember but I remember I was coordinator for Amnesty for a while in the 80s. We would say there will be no safe haven for torturers in the United States. And we were a leader back. It was a legacy of the Carter administration. I'm not really sure. But we really were major leaders in my view and view of many others. But something happened over the years and now we have a president, Trump, who has supported waterboarding, a heinous practice I think, and President Trump said, torture works. Anyway, we can't do everything in these two brief episodes. So we've collectively decided to discuss here. The United States report, which I have right here and you can get it on the internet, well whatever, and to the human rights on the United Nations Convention against Torture and other cruel and human or degrading treatment or punishment. And as the producer of the show, I ordered my colleagues to discuss the report. Failure to do so would result in 100 lashes of a wet noodle. You would be tortured for that reason. Anyway, every five years, governments who ratified the CAT convention against torture as we have must submit a report. Now the most recent report that we have is the one submitted under the Obama administration in 2014, which for all intents and purposes I think will suffice for now. We are going to have a sequel. Please stay tuned because the five-year follow-up report should come out in 2019. They're usually a few months late, sometimes a year late, but after it comes out, we're going to meet again and see how you guys are doing. So we have divvied up this 30-page report, each of us roughly taking a third of it and what we think are substantive issues addressed by the Human Rights Committee, and these are called concluding observations by the committee. Don't be so quiet. Any comments? Because I will go first, then Martha, okay, and then Mohamed. Okay? So just go ahead. Maybe I would just say one thing. You Joe put us onto this, and I looked it up, and I guess all of us looked at the amnesty, what you call the shadow report. Amnesty International has put out a couple of reports about this report and emphasizes and agrees with the recommendations of the Committee Against Torture of the United Nations, which is what we're talking about, what the recommendations of the Committee Against Torture has recommended that the United States do, and amnesties, documents, as I say, agree with all of these recommendations. Okay. Agree, maybe it's a polite word to sort of keep an after, they're saying, you know, let's make sure we do that. Okay, thank you for that. Okay, so I will talk about the first one-third of the concluding observations. Now often these reports start off with making the country feel good. So the Human Rights Monitoring Committee did just that, and remember this was under the Obama Administration, and their aim is to engage in a creative dialogue, not really to get on their case, but in some ways they do, but they still want to resolve issues and then move forward. So you know, you say positive things, but then you say areas of concern. So some of the things they said were that the UN, the Committee will actually view, and we can say, curtly whatever, that they appraise the United States for saying that a time of war does not suspend the operation of the convention. So even you're at war, you don't torture. They also like that the United States promulgated, fancy legal term I guess, of national standards to prevent, detect, and respond to sexual abuse in confinement facilities. They also praised the Supreme Court decision in Graham v. Florida, a 2011 decision, which prohibited sentences of life imprisonment without parole for children convicted of non-homocidal offenses. I have to say here I read once in the Catholic Reporter that 2,500 children in the mid-2000s were facing life imprisonment without parole, which get this guys is 10 times higher than all the other five countries combined. I read that in the National Catholic Reporter, so there was something like 250 or so in the other five countries. So it was a serious problem. So finally we got to it. Okay, so let's get into its concerns. Is this life without parole, sentences without parole? The children. Yeah, I'm quite sure like 20, what is it, like 23 hours a day in solitary confinement? Sometimes, yeah. Yeah, well solitary confinement is in addition to this as another issue. Some people are in prison, where kids were in prison without solitary confinement, but without parole, okay? And solitary confinement is another issue and it's absolutely horrendous. I teach policy, the use of metaphors that people use to get things done, they say things like we have to break them down, what a stupid metaphor, who are you breaking, I mean what's going on? I'm a kid, but anyway, sad stuff, don't cry, Mark. So the first thing that the committee said, they had a number of concerns, and I just kind of picked and chose, can't do everything, so they said that they did not like the fact that the United States has said that psychological torture can be called prolonged mental harm. It's torture. They'd like them to change the language. So we'll see in 2019 what they did under the Trump administration. The committee also expressed grave concern over extraordinary rendition, people just go to the country, take someone out and put them in a prison, secret detention and forced disappearances of individuals suspected of being involved in terrorism related crimes and the interrogation program operated by the Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA. The committee also expressed concern, well actually they called it regrets, that regarding all those issues, the United States has provided only scant information on their network of secret detention facilities and their abusive interrogation techniques such as waterboarding. Now the viewers may wish to know that there is another human rights convention called the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances, which is one of the latest conventions I believe, which the committee urged the United States to ratify. As I understand it, we haven't even signed it. Once you sign something, you'll consider it in their legislative bodies and then when you ratify it, it becomes law according to Article 6, like I mentioned. It also expressed concern about the absence of criminal prosecutions, maybe I should say persecutions, well prosecutions over alleged destruction of torture evidence by the Central Intelligence Agency. What example for this? Do you have an example for this kind of methods? No, evidence of what they mean by that? Well, there was a lot of evidence that the United States had tortured and now we've got a lot of evidence that they've been trying to prove. What they meant was destroying the evidence. What they mean by that, like the report, like they destroy the evidence. Well, it's in here. I can go back and read it. Basically, nowadays, just press a button. There goes, I don't know, years of evidence. So I'm not entirely sure. No, because this is very interesting when the United Nations assigned a human rights investigator for Sudan in 1995 where the place I was in prison on Torsher was they did. So this is exactly, they destroyed the place completely and they overnight they built a new building, said, hey, no, this is just a company related to one of the government. All the cells who were here demolished. This is why now Torsher survivor requesting the international community to have that place as a museum for Torsher. So, yeah, Sudan, yeah. They have it now as a museum. No, sorry, my brain. No, no, me and my language. So we are requesting, we put announcing for the whole world that place because many companies are coming to buy said like, hey, that is belong to the victim of Torsher who died in that place or who survived. That will be a museum of Torsher. Yes. Sudan to be an education tool for everyone. Should be, like the Skull Museum. This came to my mind when they destroyed and demolished the evidence of Torsher. So it could be here. Abu Ghraib. Abu Ghraib, yeah. Abu Ghraib that. Yeah, those, yeah. Those films that were made at Abu Ghraib have disappeared. I mean, they must exist out in cyberspace somewhere. But as far as being documents, you know, in a book someplace that people can open up and say, oh, look what happened. No, that doesn't exist anymore. So a lot of the evidence. Yeah, just to rise this way. So it's good to see this. And there is this claim that all of this has to be secret. It has to be secret. Well, in the part of the report that I was reading, there is a recommendation that that secrecy be eliminated and that the information be declassified so that victims of torture can go to counsel, legal counsel, and get some kind of reparation. But they never would be able to do that if the evidence is just secret. Yeah, it's like, hasn't our government heard of transparency telling the truth? I don't get it. And you're torturing people. Well, you don't want anybody to know that you're torturing somebody. I know. We have a lot to do. We have just so much to do. Let me just go on and then we'll move on. I just want to finish. The committee also welcomed the fact that the United States, their Department of Defense, conducted thousands of investigations, prosecutions, and disciplinary proceedings against military personnel for abuses. However, it regrets that the United States provided only minimal information on that. Minimal information on the number of investigations, prosecutions, disciplinary proceedings, let alone the disciplinary sanctions imposed by the perpetrators and the military. So, again, they're moving towards a creative dialogue. Okay, you've done some, but come on, you've got to do more. Finally, there's Guantanamo Bay. I'm sure our viewers heard about that. And the committee said that the United States should cease the use of indefinite detention without charge for individuals suspected of terrorism and even terrorism-related activities. They should put an end to forced feedings of detainees on hunger strikes, and they should investigate all allegations of detainee abuse. Appropriately prosecute those responsible and ensure effective redress for victims. So that's my part. I think we should just move on. Anyone have any comments or concerns? We'll just move on, Mark. Yeah, well, in the part that I was assigned. No, come on. Order. No, you weren't. The part that I volunteered to read, it continues a little bit with the Guantanamo situation. And I'll just make one comment about returning detainees to another country or sending them to another country. And the committee said that it's not enough to take the word of the other country that we will not torture them if you send them back to us. That's not enough. If there is a record of torture in that country, then you're not allowed to send a Guantanamo detainee to that country. For instance, there's a good record in Saudi Arabia of torture, and it would be wrong for the United States to send any detainee to Saudi Arabia for that reason. And it even goes so far as to say that, I don't know how this, maybe you know, Joe, I don't know how this would work, but it even goes so far as to say, if you send a detainee to another country like France, and then France in turn sends the detainee to Saudi Arabia, the original country, the United States, is still at fault for doing that. So I don't know how that can be enforced. It's just a difficulty. This is one sort of criticism of the UN. It's hard to enforce things and implement them. But I just think it's great, because at least you have the countries talking, and then you get the information out. And if the world knows about this, the governments must abide by the will of the people. So the will of the people says it shouldn't be tolerated, and then they want to follow suit. Yeah, well I agree. The discussions are extremely important, and they highlight, they bring light to critical issues and critical behaviors by different countries and different actors on the international scene. So I think it's very important that all of this sees the light of day through discussions at least. And the United Nations is essential. I don't know how we would be where we are today without the United Nations. I think the UN has all sorts of influence, unbeknownst to us. Equal pay for equal work. It's all in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We discovered women in 1976. Remember that? The International Year of the Woman. We don't have to get into that one. Another time. Although women come up in some of these also. So keep on going, Martha. Another recommendation regarding military interrogations or military treatment of detainees or other sorts of suspects in their hands is this kind of surprised me. Something called separation techniques. And what separation techniques mean, I thought it meant you're separated from somebody, from a person. No, it means separation from the physical environment so that it is improper to use things like blindfolds and earplugs and other sensory impediments on detainees because it has an effect, a mental effect on them because they're separated from sensory cues, sensory, the environment around them. And they also must be accorded a minimum, and this is pretty minimal, a minimum of four hours of continuous sleep in every 24 hours. Yeah, I read that. So that's also something sleep deprivation would also cause mental problems in the individuals. So you don't think of these necessarily as torture, but I like to state for the record the complete title of this convention. It's the convention against torture and other cruel and inhuman and degrading treatments and punishment. So if it's cruel or inhuman or degrading, that is also the country that is part of this convention is also supposed to abide by all of those provisions. So I thought that was interesting that the sensory deprivation came in here. Other parts of what I read on this report are related to prison conditions, prisoners in U.S. jails and prisons, and solitary confinement comes up, and solitary confinement should be, according to the committee, should be very, very limited, and in fact it recommends, this is never done, I think, it recommends that when solitary confinement is imposed that there should be judicial review of whether or not it is justified. I don't think there's ever any judicial review on solitary confinement. I think it's all in the hands of the local officials in jails and prisons. So solitary confinement should be very limited. It should not be used for juveniles, for pregnant women, for women with young children, or for individuals who are mentally incapable or their mental capabilities are reduced. So it shouldn't be used in any of those cases, but it has been and it is still. Did that report say it's been disproportionately used against minorities? It didn't say that in the report. That's in a different article, I think, after 27. Oh, okay, we'll talk about that. And then there are also problems, everybody knows about these problems, about violence in prisons, violence between prisoners, violence by the staff, the personnel against prisoners, and again the committee urges that all acts of violence, including sexual violence, not acts, but reports, whether or not the act actually took place. If there is a report of violence, including sexual violence, it should be impartially and immediately reviewed. And if there are any culprits to be taken action against, that should happen very promptly. And they should be removed from staff positions. So those are some of the problems with prisons. And then all deaths of prisoners or detainees while in custody need to also be promptly reviewed and investigated. And that's very rarely done, very rarely. And that would happen if it was some kind of high profile. I want to wrap up. We have seven seconds. Thank you, Martha. I'm a habit for your input. We're going to continue this in part two. So I hope you'll tune in again. So take care of yourself, everyone, and take care of others as needs be.