Amnesty launches Campaign on USA Human Rights Abuses/AI FWD
Tom Boland (wgcp@earthlink.net)
Thu, 8 Oct 1998 18:38:44 -0400
=46WD http://commondreams.org/pressreleases/Oct98/100698a.htm
OCTOBER 6, 1998
=46OR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Amnesty International
AMENSTY INTERNATIONAL LAUNCHES 1-YEAR CAMPAIGN TO
FIGHT HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES IN THE UNITED STATES
Washington - October 6 -
Statement by Pierre San=C8
Secretary General, Amnesty International
Today Amnesty International members all over the world are starting a
campaign to improve human rights protection for all those who live on US
soil. We are doing this at a time when the US political establishment is
immersed on issues of morality in politics and society.
The concept of right and wrong is high in today's news agenda. This is the
time,
then, to address seriously long standing human wrongs in this country. To
address
the violation of the dignity of the voiceless. Of the prisoners subjected
to inhuman
treatment. Of the members of ethnic minorities brutalized by the police. Of =
the
asylum seekers jailed like criminals.
Amnesty International has been knocking on the doors of Congress for the
past 37
years. We have been telling the US authorities that cruelty does not just
happen
elsewhere. Serious human rights violations are not just a foreign affair.
They are
happening in the US today and -- worst of all -- some are on the increase.
And where is the public outcry? Where are the zealous defenders of morality
when
a mentally ill inmate is shackled to a four-point metal restraint board for
12 weeks?
When a pregnant woman is shackled during her seven hours of labour?
Where is the public outcry at the shockingly cruel conditions in many of the
nations's jails and prisons? Or at the New York Police department's 3
million dollar
purchase of the right to kill Anthony Baez with impunity?
What we have in the US political establishment today is a clear case of
hypocrisy
and inconsistency.
The words of a refugee who was detained in harsh conditions for 14 months
before
being granted asylum painfully illustrates the situation: "Everyone says
America is
the place for human rights. I thought maybe I had arrived in the wrong
country."
A greater focus on the punishment rather than the rehabilitation of
prisoners has led
to cuts in programs and facilities in many US prisons. Prison authorities
are turning
to other ways of dealing with prisoners. Ways that are cruel, painful and
often life
threatening: supermaximum security units, electro-shock devices, chemical
sprays,
lethal injections.
Not all sectors of society are equally affected by this, however. This is a
country
were racial discrimination remained legal until the 1960s, underpinning a
system
where black people faced discrimination at work, at school and at the hands
of the
In a country still struggling to eradicate racial discrimination, more than
60 per cent
of prisoners come from racial minorities. Up to one third of all young
black men in
the US are in jail or prison, or on parole or probation.
You have all received copies of the one-hundred-and-fifty page report
published for
this campaign. The abuses it describes, should shock the conscience of peopl=
e
everywhere. It is one of several reports on human rights in the USA to be
published
this year, but only one of many produced by our organization in the past
decade.
Since the report was completed, we have continued to receive information of
disturbing cases from around the country: INS detainees in a Florida jail
subjected
to electroshocks, beatings, punitive solitary confinement and prolonged
shackling.
Use of restraint chairs in juvenile facilities in Maine. Sexual abuse of
women in
prison. Retaliation against those who dare to complain or denounce.
What Amnesty International is saying today, has been said many, many times
before, and not only by us.
A large and very active NGO community in the USA has repeatedly raised its
voice
as well against the persistent pattern of police brutality, the endemic
violence
against prisoners, the punitive treatment of asylum seekers, the arbitrary,
unfair and
racist use of the death penalty.
As we speak, the State of Virginia is preparing to execute next week a
young man
who was just 17 at the time the offense was committed.
There is nothing new here. It has all been denounced again and again. And
that is
the reason for this campaign. Enough has been written and said.
In a perfect symbol of the current state of human rights in this country,
juvenile
justice measures are being proposed that would encourage the trial of
15-year-old
children as adults. Many of these children could end up in adult prisons,
where they
could face the risk of being raped, tortured and murdered.
The truth is that many standards of human rights protection in the United
States
have not kept pace with evolving international standards of decency. The Uni=
ted
States has one of the worst ratification records of all industrialized
nations. Together
with Somalia, the US is the only country in the world not to have ratified t=
he
International Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Even though the US government uses these same international standards to jud=
ge
others, it fails to apply the same yard stick at home. It has campaigned
vigorously to
block the establishment of a truly effective and independent international
criminal
court. And it continues to fuel violations abroad by providing weapons and
expertise
to governments that deliberately violate the rights of their citizens.
Amnesty International can only welcome at the current soul searching on
morality
in politics. But unless this exercise addresses the central needs for the
protection of
the dignity of the weakest groups in society human rights in the USA will
continue to
be a tale of two nations: rich and poor, white and black, male and female.
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