Despite its claim to be the world leader in human rights, the United States is failing to respect fundamental rights at home and abroad, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL said on October 6. AI has released a report on US human rights and launched its first worldwide campaign to highlight that country's human rights situation.
"All countries, irrespective of their power or political system, have a duty to protect the rights of all their people. But across the US, thousands are falling victim to human rights violations", said Pierre Sani, AI's secretary general. "Too often, human rights in the USA are a tale of two nations: rich and poor, white and black, male and female."
AI's campaign will highlight the arbitrary, unfair and racist use of the death penalty; abuses by US police and prison officials (often carried out with high-tech repression tools like electro-shock devices and chemical sprays); and the growing incarceration of asylum seekers.
The campaign will also focus attention on the USA's double standards in foreign policy and international human rights.
Abusing the world
"As the world's largest producer and exporter of arms, the USA contributes to human rights abuse by supplying equipment and training to governments and armed groups known to have carried out torture, political killings and other abuses", Sani said.
Electro-shock weapons produced by the US have been used to torture victims around the world, and are now banned in some western European countries and in Canada. Items used and exported by the US — like leg-irons, thumb-cuffs, electro-shock weapons and pepper spray — easily or inherently lend themselves to torture or ill-treatment, according to AI.
The US State Department in 1995 reported there was "highly credible" evidence that US-supplied military equipment had been used to violate human rights in Turkey. Turkey's special units of paramilitary gendarmes and police — two of the forces most frequently accused of political killings, "disappearances" and torture — have used assault rifles, grenade launchers and helicopters obtained from the US.
Responding to pressure, the US government delayed some arms exports to Turkey in 1997, but recent reports indicate that further exports have been allowed. In April 1998, a US company was negotiating to sell 10,000 electro-shock weapons to the Turkish police, despite its long, well-documented record of practising electro-shock torture.
AI is highly critical of the selective approach of the US government to condemning human rights violations. "The US authorities are quick to criticise human rights violations in countries considered hostile, but unwilling to take appropriate action when abuses are committed by US allies or when the USA's political or economic interests could be compromised", Sani said.
The US government's long-standing refusal to criticise blatant human rights violations by Israel against the Palestinian population, its passivity in the face of gross human rights violations in Saudi Arabia, and the playing down by US officials of the genocide in Rwanda are some of the examples AI highlights.
Abusing its own
The US is also failing to deliver the promise of human rights for all people within its own territory. According to AI, "there is a dangerous trend towards the erosion of human rights in the USA".
In its report, AI says there is a widespread and persistent pattern of police brutality. Police abuse is such a widespread problem in the US that millions of dollars are paid out every year to victims. Reports of discriminatory treatment by police toward racial and ethnic minorities are common, and black people arrested for minor offences, for instance, are particularly liable to suffer police brutality.
Many suspects in police custody have died while forced face down in restraints — most often when being "hog-tied" (wrists and ankles tied together). While a number of police departments have now banned this method of binding, others continue to use it.
AI also reports endemic physical and sexual violence against prisoners. The US authorities' response to crime focuses on the imposition of harsher punishments, and the country now has one of the largest prison populations in the world.
Some of the larger prison units show a high level of inmate on inmate violence — with guards at times inciting attacks or not acting to prevent them. Inmates have also been beaten by guards and subjected to sexual abuse, including rape, as a form of torture.
A particularly disturbing development, says AI, is the growth of high-tech security units, where prisoners — including pregnant women — are placed in long-term or even permanent isolation. Prisoners, many mentally ill, are frequently placed in mechanical restrains for hours or days on end.
Despite being outlawed under international standards, shackling of prisoners — including transportation in leg irons — is widespread in the US prison system. In some jurisdictions, pregnant women have been shackled.
Not all sections of the population are equally affected by this, AI points out. More than 60% of prisoners come from racial minorities. Up to one-third of all young black men are in jail or prison, or on parole or probation.
The death penalty is an arbitrary, unfair and racist punishment, declares AI.
In the US, the death penalty is a political campaigning tool and is being applied in a racist way. Black and white people are the victims of violent crime in roughly equal numbers, yet 82% of people executed since 1977 have been convicted of killing whites.
In violation of international standards, execution of the mentally impaired and juvenile offenders continues in the USA. In addition, at a time when there is a worrying escalation in the number of executions, many capital defendants are not receiving adequate legal representation.
Most US states have now adopted execution by lethal injection, claiming that it is "more humane". The cruelty of this punishment is inescapable, regardless of the method used. In many cases, inmates have suffered prolonged deaths due to medical staff having trouble finding a vein to inject the poison, or through having to wait with needles in their arms while last-minute appeals are heard.
A growing number of people fleeing persecution are finding themselves behind bars after arriving in the US. Asylum seekers have committed no crime, yet they are often held in prisons. Unlike criminal suspects, they are often denied bail and do not know when they will be released.
Asylum seekers are treated like criminal inmates: they are often held in inhumane conditions, strip searched, shackled and chained, and verbally or physically abused. They are often prevented from meeting with their lawyers, interpreters and asylum organisations.
Women asylum seekers are more likely than men to be detained with criminals, and there is a lack of alternative accommodation for children — who, according to international law, should be kept together with their families and never be held in detention.
Leadership
AI reports that the level of human rights protection recognised in US law often falls short of the minimum standards set down in international treaties.
Important internationally recognised rights and standards are not always reflected in domestic law in the US — like the ban on using the death penalty against juvenile offenders. People in the US whose rights have been violated are denied the possibility of recourse to international protection mechanisms.
AI is calling on the US to ratify without reservations all international human rights treaties — especially the Convention on the Eradication of all Forms of Discrimination against Women, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the American Convention on Human Rights — and withdraw its reservations to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention Against Torture.
"How can a country that has so far refused to ratify international human rights treaties destined to protect the welfare of women and children, for instance, aim to set an example to the international community in the area of human rights?", Sani asked.
"How can the international community send a clear message that acts of genocide and other crimes against humanity will not be tolerated when a world-leading country like the USA is actively opposing the creation of a truly independent and effective International Criminal Court?"
"Starting today, more than a million Amnesty International members worldwide will be calling for a renewed commitment by the US authorities to placing humans rights protection at the heart of US domestic and foreign policy", Sani concluded.