News roundup

News roundup for the week includes: stories on solitary confinement in the US; Palestinian children in Israel detention; new Supreme Court decision in Mexico may stomp out impunity; Argentina’s torture problem. 

Human Rights Watch estimates that, on any given day, there are 80,000 US prisoners in solitary confinement; many who have been subjected to this form of torture for years, even decades in some cases. Photo by x1klima on Flickr; available through Creative Commons License.

United States:
An editorial at Al Jazeera notes that media and perhaps legislative consensus is growing around the issue of long-term solitary confinement as torture. UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez has previously stated that solitary confinement longer than 15 days can constitute torture. Some prisoners in the US detention system have been in some form or another of solitary confinement for as long as 40 years. The editorial also indicates that this form of punishment and cruel treatment may be more often applied to black prisoners, such as the infamous Angola 3.

Occupied Palestinian Territory:
Defence for Children International, an international children’s rights NGO, has released a staggering report on abuse of Palestinian children in Israeli detention. “The first 48 hours after a child is taken are the most important because that’s when the most abuse happens,” DCI’s lawyer Gerard Horten told Al Jazeera in an interview, echoing the findings of an upcoming IRCT report on children and torture in the Philippines, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Most children are detained for allegations involving throwing stones at Israeli troops. Some are as young as 12, and can be detained for months without access to a lawyer or their parents. A majority of those detained faced verbal threats or harassment, physical abuse, interrogation by officials, and were blindfolded and restrained. Read the full report here [PDF].

Mexico:
Human rights group in Mexico have celebrated a recent Supreme Court ruling that military human rights violations may be turned over to civilian, rather than military, courts. “The Supreme Court ruled Thursday to send the case of Jethro Ramses Sanchez, a 27-year-old auto mechanic who authorities say was tortured and killed by soldiers at a military base last year, to civilian court,” reports The Washington Post. Human rights groups say this ruling may be a blow to the consistent impunity for military human rights violations in Mexico.

Argentina:
Several torture cases in Argentina have been widely reported in the media recently. And just this week, a report emerged that there have been as many as 7,000 human rights violations in Argentine prisons. Some point to the lack of reform in the prison system since the military junta that ended in the 1980s and that was marked by several thousand extra-judicial killings and torture, the so-called ‘dirty war’. Read about a visit to many of the sites of the ‘dirty war’ by IRCT’s Brita Sydhoff here.

A lacking debate

With a Republican VP running-mate finally named, the countdown to the U.S. election begins. But with only 85 days remaining, there is a glaring lack of debate on human rights and torture in America.

Pvt 1st Class Bradley Manning has been accused of provided the largest leak of state secrets in US history. The government’s treatment of Manning, particularly during eight months of detention at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, has been called torture by the UN’s chief torture investigator.

In the United States and beyond, newspapers are being filled with the ongoing policy discussions related to the U.S. presidential election. With less than three months to go, however, next to nothing has been said about America’s ongoing problem with torture.

Just this weekend, candidate Mitt Romney announced his choice for a vice-presidential running mate; it’s Paul Ryan, a Republican representative from Wisconsin and a “fiscal policy wonk”, as he’s most consistently described. It’s a pretty clear signal — this election is about the economy and the diverging ideologies of how to remove the U.S. from the ongoing recession.

And lost within these debates on domestic and economic policy is any discussion on torture, or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in the U.S.; the 80,000 prisoners detained in long-term solitary confinement, the rendition and torture programme of the Bush years, or the particular case of Bradley Manning.

Manning, 24, who is accused of supplying the largest leak of state secrets in U.S. history to Wikileaks, was detained for more than eight months in conditions his lawyers describe as a “flagrant violation” of his rights, in a motion published this Friday.

According to the motion, Manning was subject to “cruel and unusual” treatment in military detention. He was forced to remain awake every day from 5:00 to 22:00, during which he could not lay down or lean against a wall or other support – “he had to sit upright on his rack without any back support”, his lawyer writes. Manning was also only permitted 20 minutes outdoors a day; any time outside of his cell he was forced to wear leg and arm restraints.

Following a 14-month investigation, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez described the treatment of Manning as torture.

These are also issues that also need to be addressed and raised during the next 85 days. When the media has gone so far as to debate a candidate’s treatment of his pet during the 1980s, and not yet raise the issue of torture, it’s a depressing sign of America’s depleted authority on human rights.

Let’s finally have this proper debate on torture in the U.S. So let these candidates know that we want them to tell us about their views – on long-term solitary confinement, on cruel treatment of Bradley Manning, and on impunity of those involved in the US rendition and torture programme. Ask them on Facebook, Twitter and townhall meetings.

Tessa, a US citizen living in Denmark, is Communications Officer at the IRCT.

“They become shells of their former selves”: Long-term solitary confinement is torture

Walking across the cell would probably take no more than three paces. There is no light. There are no other people. And a prisoner will be there for 23 of 24 hours a day.

A BBC article today recalls the solitary confinement experience of one member of the infamous Angola 3 – three prisoners of one of America’s most brutal prisons who have long claimed their innocence and been the subject of a growing call to address justice issues in the U.S. The three men have spent a combined 100 years in solitary confinement, in cells no larger than three by two meters.

And that is not uncommon in the country with the most people in prison (the U.S. has, by far, the highest incarceration rates in the world – twice as many Americans are imprisoned as in China, where there are five times as many people). Although determining figures are hard to come by, some estimate there are anywhere between 25,000 to 80,000 people locked up in long-term solitary confinement.

“Lock yourself in your bathroom for 10 years, then come out and tell me that that’s not torture”, said one former inmate.

And the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mendez, agrees. Just last year in his first report as the special investigator, Professor Mendez reported that, “Segregation, isolation, separation, cellular, lockdown, Supermax, the hole, Secure Housing Unit (SHU)… whatever the name, solitary confinement should be banned by States as a punishment or extortion technique”. Any terms of confinement where an individual is alone for more than 22 hours per day, for a total of more than 15 days, may constitute torture or cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment.

Sarah Shourd would agree. The American woman became famous a few years ago when she, her fiancé, and their friend were apprehended by Iranian security forces during a hiking trip on the border with Kurdistan. She spent 9,495 hours in solitary confinement. She recently wrote about this experience:

After two months with next to no human contact, my mind began to slip. Some days, I heard phantom footsteps coming down the hall. I spent large portions of my days crouched down on all fours by a small slit in the door, listening. In the periphery of my vision, I began to see flashing lights, only to jerk my head around to find that nothing was there. More than once, I beat at the walls until my knuckles bled and cried myself into a state of exhaustion. At one point, I heard someone screaming, and it wasn’t until I felt the hands of one of the friendlier guards on my face, trying to revive me, that I realized the screams were my own.

As we find ourselves often having to reiterate, no person shall be subject to torture, and, as Professor Mendez has stated, that includes long-term solitary confinement.

2011 – We look back at a year of human rights

Happy New Year, to all our readers from World Without Torture.

As we look to start 2012, we would like to take a moment to look back at 2011 – the events, revolutions, human rights defenders, and victorious moments that shaped us and will undoubtedly shape this upcoming year.

Note: These are in no particular order. Click any photo for slideshow view.

This year, UN torture investigator Juan Mendez declared long-term solitary confinement as a form of torture. Pictured here are two of three American hikers who were detained and tortured by Iran. The final two were released this year, while the third, Sarah Shourd (left) wrote about her experience in Iranian prison and the torture she endured through long-term solitary confinement there.

While it may be for only a handful of cases, nonetheless, several perpetrators of heinous crimes of torture were brought to justice this year. This included some high-level authorities during Argentina’s ‘dirty war’. Pictured at left is one of the Mother of La Plaza de Mayo, whose family members are among the estimated 30,000 tortured or disappeared victims of the junta. At left is Ratko Mladic, the former Serbian Army general who was arrested and extradited to the Hague for crimes, including the massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslim boys and men.

2011 marked the final year of our project on forensic evidence in the fight against torture, and we were able to make huge strides in this – our forensic expert team were used in several cases, in particular in Egypt with Khaled Said and in Iraq. Pictured here is Dr. Maria Dolores Morccillo Mendez, a forensic medical doctor from the National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences in Colombia who won the IRCT’s competition for best poster or oral presentation on human rights or torture related issues at the recent joint conference.

The second trial against the main authorities of the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia began this year for thousands of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and torture. Pictured here is Nuon Chea, one of the four on trial currently.

Despite the ouster of several dictators in the MENA region, Syria’s Assad has held firm, doing so through a brutal crackdown on protesters. Experts estimate that 5,000 people have been killed, and several hundred have been detained and tortured. We will continue to monitor this situation as it progresses to the new year.

In the Persian Gulf island of Bahrain, protesters joined the Arab Spring movement, taking to the streets throughout early spring to demonstrate against their undemocratic government. What followed was one of the most brutal crackdowns in the Middle East, with hundreds of allegations of torture and extra-judicial killings. Shockingly, even several doctors and surgeons were arrested, tortured, and sentenced for doing their jobs – treating the injured and wounded protesters. The situation in Bahrain continues today.

Khaled Said was the face of a revolution. The 28-year-old Egyptian was tortured and killed by police in 2010, but his face lent fire to the fury – protests and demonstrations beginning in January eventually led to the ouster of dictator Hosni Mubarak, currently on trial for the deaths of several thousand protesters. The Arab Spring, seen most vividly in Egypt, was in part an outcry against state abuse and torture.

While the election will only happen in 2012, the Republican primary season in the U.S. led to a shocking statement of consensus among the candidates – almost all of them declared their support of torture in U.S. interrogation policy. Sadly, the year also ended with a New Year’s Eve signing by Obama of the National Defence Authorisation Act, which allows the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens.

In another example of the impact of Arab Spring revolutions, rebel forces took control of Tripoli by the end of the summer 2011, and led to the removal and killed of dictator Muammar Gaddafi. We look to the next year with hopes for the rehabilitation of the several thousand torture survivors.

Monday News Updates

As I mentioned Friday, we at the IRCT Secretariat have been very busy the last few weeks – tomorrow is the first day of our annual Council Meeting, our governing board of representatives from 26 member centres around the world and three independent experts. Their role is to ensure the formulation and implementation of major IRCT policy, and includes the membership in the democratic process of the organisation. It is truly a gathering of the rehabilitation movement in support of torture victims.

We will be sure to provide a full report from our annual Council meeting, but until then, here are the most updated news from around the world on torture and rehabilitation.

Political changes may be under way in Burma, but we echo Amnesty International’s concern for the current political prisoners being held in horrendous conditions.

“Prison conditions in Myanmar fall far short of many international standards.  Food, water and medical care are insufficient; political prisoners are often held far away from their families; and many have been subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, including prolonged solitary confinement.”

Sarah Shourd ( left) her fiance Shane Bauer (right), and their friend Josh Fattal were arrested and detained after they unknowingly crossed the Iranian border on a hike through Kurdistan. Shourd writes in the New York Times of her torture experience with solitary confinement; she spent 9,495 hours alone in an Iranian prison cell leaving her with post-traumatic stress disorder. Available via Flickr, permission under Creative Commons license.

Sarah Shourd, one of the three hikers detained in Iran when they unknowingly cross the border from Kurdistan, has written about her torture experience with solitary confinement.

“It’s impossible to exaggerate how much the company of another human being means when you’ve been cut off from the world and stripped of your rights and freedom.”

Shourd calls on reviews of prison policies of solitary confinement, describing it as a torture with long-lasting impact on her life. Juan Mendez, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, has also called for a complete ban of the practice.

The U.S. is working on a deal with Afghanistan officials for the transfer of all detention facilities to Afghan control. However, among the reported issues holding up the deal – night raids and a timeline for the transfer – a UN report issued a few weeks ago documented ‘systematic torture’ in Afghanistan run prisons.

The Zimbabwean reports that the country’s High Court has ruled that two ‘thugs’ of Mugabe’s ZANU (PF) party who tortured a man who was a supporter of MDC during the 2008 political violence must pay the victim compensation for their crimes. The survivor reports he will use the funds to begin paying medical bills for his injuries. From a Zimbabwe human rights group (emphasis added by Editor):

The rights group commended the ruling by Justice Makone as a positive step towards promoting respect for human rights. “This serves to deter future violators of human rights thereby fostering a culture of accountability in the communities,” said the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum in a statement.

“The order serves not only to compensate Katiyo for the ordeal he suffered but also as an expression of the shared societal outrage at the ill-treatment he experienced. This is a positive step towards promoting respect for human rights and serves to deter future violators of human rights thereby fostering a culture of accountability in the communities.”

EU sees ‘important changes’ in Myanmar (AFP)
Myanmar political prisoners held in dog cells and denied water (Amnesty International)
Tortured by Solitude (New York Times)
Night raids, prison control stymie US-Afghan deal (Reuters)
High Court rules in favour of tortured MDC member (The Zimbabwean)