The harsh treatment of Tibetan activists in Beijing on the eve of opening of the Olympics has drawn world criticism, and very rightly so, yet a criticism from George W. Bush seems to be nothing but comical. Here is a person who is guilty of gross violations of human rights both at home and abroad. Had America been a lesser country, he would most certainly be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity and with overwhelming evidence against him, possibly convicted. His intervention is patently surreal also because he does not seem to realise that the American record of human transgressions is no less sordid than the Chinese, particularly, if one takes account of American human right transgressions outside America. Of course, George W. Bush has made the record decidedly worse. He is possibly the greatest living epitome of human rights violations in the present day world.
As Kenneth Roth, the president of the Human Rights Watch (HRW) pointed out, ‘Quite apart from the fall out of its ill-fated Iraq invasion, its (US) credibility as a proponent of human rights has been n tarnished by the abuses it practices in the name of fighting terrorism. Few ambassadors dare to protest another government’s harsh interrogations, detention without trial, or even “disappearances” knowing how easily an interlocutor could turn the tables and cite U.S. misconduct as an excuse for his government’s own abuses.’
He further added:
‘…the last year dispelled any doubt that the Bush administration’s use of torture and other mistreatment was a matter of policy dictated at the top rather than the aberrant misconduct of a few low level interrogators. The administration claimed to foreswear torture but refused to classify mock execution by drowning—the classic torture technique now known as water boarding—as prohibited torture. Despite the absolute treaty prohibition on cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, the administration claimed it could impose such abuse so long as the victim was a non-American held outside the United States—a position it abandoned only after the US Congress adopted the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 by a veto-proof majority.…
When the news of atrocities committed by the US armed forces in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq became public, the administration claimed such incidents as aberrations. However, it is commonly known that such techniques have been part and parcel of military interrogation in America and was part of the training program of the school of Americas, a training school funded by Congress for Latin American military personnel. Some of the military personnel trained in this school turned to be the worst human rights violators in Latin America.
Unfortunately, it is not commonly recognized either within America or outside that in spite of legal and constitutional safeguards, a vibrant media and numerous public interest groups monitoring and exposing human rights violations, torture, inhuman and degrading treatment of convicts, including women and children, are daily occurrences in American prisons. In this web log, an attempt is made to highlight some of the major human rights abuses practiced within America. This section draws extensively on the reports of the Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch (HRW). However, one of the most instructive documents is the State Department’s Initial Report submitted to the UN Committee against Torture in
October 1999. This report candidly concedes that ‘there continue to be areas of concern, contention, and criticism. These include instances of police abuse, excessive use of force and even brutality, and death of prisoners in custody. Overcrowding in the prison system, physical and sexual abuse of inmates, and lack of adequate training and oversight for police and prison guards are also cause for concern.’
The Amnesty International’s Report 2001 covering the year 2000 pointed out that the, police brutality continues. In 2000, police shot unarmed suspects at the end of vehicle pursuits, during traffic stops, or during police street patrols. A disproportionate number of the victims came from ethnic minorities, the Afro-Americans and the Latinos. As one example of excessive use of force by the police, Amnesty International quoted the highly publicized case of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed West African immigrant, who in 1999 was shot forty-one times outside his home. The four New York Police Department (NYPD) officers were acquitted of all criminal charges.92 According to the Human Rights Watch (HRW) most police officers violating departmental rules or the law go without punishment for lack of adequate investigative and disciplinary arrangements. Victims
who complain are subjected to overt intimidation. During the fiscal year 1999, of nearly 12,000 civil rights complaints brought to the Department of Justice, only thirty-one officers were either convicted or pleaded guilty to crimes under the civil rights statute. The Amnesty International Annual Report 2006,mentions continued reports of ill treatment and death in police custody as a result of excessive use of force by the police. It reported sixty-one deaths resulting from the police use of lasers;
as many as 142 people died as a result of the use of lasers by the police between 2001 and 2005.
Death Penalty
According to the AI Report 2006, in 2005 as many as 60
convicts were executed in the United States. Since 1976 when the Supreme Court lifted a moratorium on executions, a total of 1006 convicts have been executed. In March 2006, the Supreme Court banned the execution of Child offenders under 18 at the time of committing the crime. But the execution of convicts with mental disorders still continues. This is in violation of international standards.
The death penalty is permissible in 38 states of which 29 have conducted executions since 1977; the majority of death penalties have been given in the states of
Texas,Virginia, Florida, Louisiana, Maryland, and Georgia. In fourteen states, offenders aged less than 18 at the time of committing the capital offense cannot be subjected to the death, penalty. Twenty states allow the death penalty if a prisoner convicted of a capital crime has reached the age of 16; in four others, the age is 17. Although U.S. law prohibits the execution of the legally insane, the standard for judging mental competence varies among states. Only twelve states and the federal government specifically prohibit the execution of the mentally retarded.
Cruelty in Prisons
Both Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch
report on cases of torture and ill treatment, of both adults and juveniles, in prisons and in juvenile detention facilities. Such cases include beatings, use of excessive force, sexual misconduct, misuse of electro-shock weapons and chemical sprays, and the cruel use of mechanical restraints, including holding prisoners for prolonged periods in a four-point restraint. The conditions are particularly cruel in super-maximum security (supermax) prisons, where prisoners are kept in prolonged isolation. Most prisons in the United States use electro-shock weapons, including stun belts, stun shields, and stun guns. Contrary to the claims of manufacturers of such weapons, experts suggest that such weapons ‘can be harmful, even lethal, for people with high blood pressure, for pregnant women and for those suffering epilepsy and some other conditions. In light of this, stun weapons have been banned for law enforcement use by a number of countries, including Canada and most West European countries, as well as some U.S. states.’ One of the devices, remote controlled electro-shock stun belts for use on U.S. prisoners, is of particular concern. Pushing a button from a distance activates this belt, causing severe pain and instant incapacitation; when activated it
can cause the person to defecate or urinate. This belt is being used by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, the U.S. Marshall’s service, and more than 100 county agencies and 16 state correctional agencies. It is also used on prisoners during judicial hearings, which is a contravention of international standards on the treatment of prisoners.
The AI Report 2001 also notes that the use of excessive force, restraint devices and stun-devices has led to deaths of prison inmates. The AI Report 2006 mentions that as many as 7000 police and correctional agencies used electro-shock weapons. 61 people in custody died as a result of the shocks received from such weapons. The number of such deaths between 2001 and 2006 totaled 142.
Cruelty to Women
Various reports by Amnesty International, the Human Rights Watch and other human rights related public interest groups repeatedly refer to ill-treatment of women inmates, including sexual abuses by male guards, including rape, parading partially naked in front of male inmates; forced strip searches by male guards, and fondling by male officers while dressing. AI’s Rights for All report points out that it is not only female inmates who are coerced into having sex by male staff; sexual coercion by female staff against both male and female inmates, and by male staff against male inmates are not uncommon. This happens because the U.S. prisons employ both men and women to supervise prisoners of the opposite sex, allow them to undertake searches involving body contact, and to be present when inmates are naked. The practice of employing male staff to supervise female inmates is contrary to international standards.
Women inmates have to suffer the indignity of being shackled even when they are pregnant; sometimes they remain shackled while in labor or are re-shackled shortly after. This practice has been denounced by a Washington D.C. court as ‘inhumane’—yet the practice continues.
Cruelty to Children
In as many as 20 states, children can be convicted as adults
and be imprisoned in adult prisons and housed with adult
inmates in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and other international standards, which require that juvenile prisoners should be kept separate from adults. Juveniles can be treated as adults only in exceptional circumstances. Nevertheless, many states are legislating to broaden the circumstances in which children may be prosecuted as adults and held in adult prisons. A special AI report on the ill-treatment of children in U.S. prisons states that children are often held in cruel conditions in overcrowded facilities, deprived of adequate mental health care, education and rehabilitation programs. They are also subjected to cruel punishments, including shackles, chemical sprays and electro-shock devices. Children are also kept in solitary confinement in violation of international standards. In a lawsuit against the State Training School in Plankinton, South Dakota, a juvenile detention facility, it emerged that children are placed in punitive handcuffs and shackles and forced to lie spread-eagled in four-point restraints for hours at a time, even through the night. It is common for male staff to forcibly strip girls while held in four-point restraint. Children, including those who are mentally ill, are routinely held in isolation for 24 hours a day, sometimes for months at a time.
According to the HRW there are as many as 2,225 child offenders in the United States who are convicted for life without parole. Over half of them are first time offenders. The United States is one of the fourteen countries which allows for such convictions. Reportedly, only twelve child offenders outside the United States are serving such sentences. The Convention of the Rights of the Child, ratified by all countries in the world except the United States and Somalia, bans such punishments.
Ethnic Minorities
In view of the widespread geographic and racial disparities in the application of the federal death penalty nationwide, the AI report, Rights for All, calls the application of the death penalty ‘to be racist, arbitrary, and unfair.’ The American criminal justice system’s vulnerability to personal or social prejudice is clearly unfair to minorities, particularly to African Americans. The fact that such an injustice takes place is confirmed by the State Department’s report to the UN Committee against Torture. It concedes that ‘African Americans are disproportionately more likely to be sentenced to death and executed than other racial or ethnic components of the U.S. population.’ The minorities have also suffered disproportionately as a result of the war on drugs. African Americans, constituting only 12 per cent of the total population accounted for 46.5 per cent of state prisoners and 40 per cent of federal prisoners convicted for drug offenses. For the country as a whole, African American men were eight times more susceptible to imprisonment than white men, with an incarceration rate of 3408 per 100,000 African American male residents, as against only 417 per 100,000 for white males. In eleven states, the African American incarceration rates ranged between twelve and twenty-six times those of white men. In September 2000, in its Initial Report to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination, the U.S. Department of State conceded the persistence of racism, racial discrimination, and de facto segregation in the United States. It pointed out that ‘while the scourge of officially-sanctioned segregation has been eliminated, de facto segregation and persistent racial discrimination continue to exist. The forms of discriminatory practices have changed and adapted over time, but racial and ethnic discrimination continues to restrict and limit equal opportunity in the United States.’
Asylum-seekers
Highlighting the human rights violations of asylum-seekers
in the United States, Rights for All pointed out that an increasing number of asylum-seekers are, on arrival in the USA, often detained indefinitely, confined with criminal prisoners and are held in inhuman and degrading conditions. They are liable to be stripped and searched; shackled and chained; sometimes verbally
or physically abused. They are often denied access to their
families, lawyers and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and even telephones. They cannot even receive letters. The passing of the new Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) in 1996 has led to a considerable rise in detentions. People without valid documents can be summarily sent back under the ‘expedited removal provisions’ of the act114 International law provides an opportunity for a review of the decision to detain depending on the merits of the case, taking into account the overall circumstances of the asylum-seeker, not just procedural correctness. U.S. practice does not allow for such an examination.
Foreign Nationals
In violation of the Geneva Convention, foreign nationals
have been executed in the United States without being given their treaty-based consular rights. These rights have been denied to as many as 90 foreign nationals on death row in the U.S.A. In a case brought to the International Court of Justice in The Hague by Germany in the context of the execution of two German nationals in Arizona in 1999, the Court, with an overwhelming majority, found the United States in violation of the Vienna Convention on consular relations.
There are many other areas of concern in so far the protection of human rights is concerned. In both China and America there are sufficient legal and constitution provisions to safeguard human rights of individuals. It is the implementation of laws that is often at fault. The enforcement agencies have low paid and inadequately trained people to implement legal and constitution provisions. At times, policies such as ‘zero tolerance’’ or ‘strike hard,’ go against the safeguarding of human rights. Lack of transparency is a major issue in China. It is imperative for the government to allow independent non-governmental organizations to monitor the progress of implementation of legal provisions. The Chinese do not need sermons from America. In fact, guaranteeing basic minimum needs, the Chinese have gone much beyond what Americans have done in spite of their wealth. Unfortunately, there has been a retardation in this respect because of the adoption of the so-called liberalization as a result unemployment and inequality of income and wealth has increased in China, so has crime and corruption. If this trend continues there is risk of further undermining of human rights.
For a more detailed analysis please see Radha Sinha, ‘Sino-American Relations: Mutual Paranoia,’ (paperback), (New Delhi, Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 2008) Ch. 6.
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