Only US seeks to justify abuse: Human Rights Watch

Con­gress Should Reject Pro­posed Exemp­tion From Ban on Inhu­mane Treatment

The Bush admin­is­tra­tion is now the only gov­ern­ment in the world to claim a legal jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for mis­treat­ing pris­on­ers dur­ing inter­ro­ga­tions, Human Rights Watch said today.

The admin­is­tra­tion recently approached mem­bers of the U.S. Con­gress to seek a waiver that would allow the CIA to use cruel, inhu­mane, or degrad­ing treat­ment on detainees in U.S. cus­tody out­side the United States.

While many other gov­ern­ments prac­tice tor­ture and other forms of mis­treat­ment and have records of abuse far worse than the United States, no other gov­ern­ment cur­rently claims that such abuse is legally per­mis­si­ble, Human Rights Watch said.


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United States: Thou­sands of Chil­dren Sen­tenced to Life with­out Parole

There are at least 2,225 child offend­ers serv­ing life with­out parole (LWOP) sen­tences in U.S pris­ons for crimes com­mit­ted before they were age 18, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty Inter­na­tional said.…

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5 Responses to Only US seeks to justify abuse: Human Rights Watch

  1. CMAR II says:

    Thou­sands of Chil­dren Sen­tenced to Life with­out Parole

    Oh! They were chil­dren? I thought they were cal­lous bru­tal mur­der­ers! You might have a dif­fer­ent word for them if it were YOUR mother, brother, sis­ter, or father that they butchered.

  2. LadyBird says:

    I thought they were cal­lous bru­tal mur­der­ers! You might have a dif­fer­ent word for them if it were YOUR mother, brother, sis­ter, or father that they butchered.

    What about Amer­i­cans kill Iraqis?? Sen­tenced to Life???

  3. Charles says:

    She tries to com­pare mur­der and rape with buy­ing cigarettes…

  4. jeff says:

    Exactly. A 17yo who bru­tally mur­ders some­one is not a child. Note to Lady­bird: look up the mean­ing of ‘non sequitur’

  5. Jon says:

    There are cur­rently about sev­enty mil­lion Amer­i­cans under the age of 18, or a quar­ter of the total US pop­u­la­tion. Juve­nile crime sta­tis­tics report that 2.3 mil­lion juve­niles were arrested in 2002. This accounts for 17 per­cent of all arrests and 15 to 25 per­cent of all vio­lent crimes. Accord­ing to juve­nile crime sta­tis­tics, mur­der accounted for five per­cent of vio­lent crimes com­mit­ted by juve­niles, 12 per­cent for rape, 14 per­cent for rob­bery, and 12 per­cent for aggra­vated assault.

    Accord­ing to 1997 juve­nile crime sta­tis­tics, 1700 juve­niles were involved in 1400 mur­ders that year. One hun­dred thirty of these mur­ders were per­pe­trated by a female. Approx­i­mately eighty per­cent of juve­nile mur­ders involve the use of a firearm. Forty per­cent of these crimes involve two or more juve­nile offend­ers. Fifty six per­cent of the vic­tims in these crimes are acquain­tances of the mur­derer and 34 per­cent are strangers.