Civil Liberties
Related: About this forumU.N. torture envoy appeals again for visit to U.S. prisons
Source: Reuters
U.N. torture envoy appeals again for visit to U.S. prisons
GENEVA | BY STEPHANIE NEBEHAY
The U.N. torture investigator urged the United States on Tuesday to allow his long-sought visit to all places of detention in the country and to reform the widespread use of prolonged or indefinite solitary confinement affecting tens of thousands.
Juan Mendez, the United Nations' special rapporteur on torture, also urged the Obama administration to investigate and prosecute mistreatment and human rights violations suffered by security detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Any inmates transferred to other detention facilities as part of the planned closure of Guantanamo should be treated in line with international standards, he said.
"My request to visit the United States of America has been pending for five years over the terms of reference in order to obtain access to all places of detention," Mendez told the U.N. Human Rights Council.
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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-rights-un-usa-torture-idUSKCN0WA2B8
Tree Frog
(25 posts)The US runs around the world calling out human rights abuse and look at what is going on at home. Who on the planet can hold the US accountable?????
jack528
(11 posts)I want to tell you my own story about persecution.
I am from Anshan in Liaoning province, I got my bachelor degree in Landscape design from Shenyang Agriculture University in China in 2007 and then I worked as a landscape architect for more than one year in Dalian. I went to France for my master study in September of 2009. Before that, I had heard of some negative comments about France and knew the strange personality of French people, but I thought that I should try to adapt them . But I can not believe that my stay for study in France was a beginning of a nightmare. In the first year of my stay in France, I was always facing the language school teachers unwarranted sarcasm and the hysterical screams of the harsh landlord who always looked for a small thing to quarrel with me about, my life in France was overshadowed by this living situation. The cheat of a telecom staff for my insurance fee and the bank employees blatant theft of my money by deducting the balance of my account destroyed even more the remaining good first impressions of France of mine. I was living every day with depression and pain, and finally things that should not have happened happened. After a heated quarrel with the landlord, an old lady, she and her son who is a policeman and a ferocious dog brutally evicted me from home before the expiration of the contract in April 2010. I had lived in the house only for a few days even though I paid rent for a whole month. Is this something that would happen in a civilized society? All of this made me completely change impression of France and of French people. With this bad impression of France, I entered the university in France in September 2010. Unfortunately, I found out that the specialty that had received me was not the one that I applied for. I felt that I was deceived once more by French people. Therefore, I began to become careless in the class. Some professors found out that I had a prejudice against French which is maybe not tolerated by the proud French people and gave lots of trouble to me. I would have finished my study in France early but they made me redouble the first academic year. Because of these unfair treatments, I became so desperate that I didnt know how to do in the next coming year. I began to get angry over small things. One day, when I was stopped by the security person who wanted to close my handbag with a discriminate look at me at the entry of the supermarket Auchan, I suddenly got angry with him. From then on, Auchan made always troubles for me when I paid for my shopping, they always treated me as a thief and asked for checking my bag with a rude attitude. I thought Auchan had colluded with the french government and blacklisted me unlawfully.
I tried to apply for another master programme in Belgium and to flee from France but I failed finally. I suspect the admission process to be disturbed by French people as the president of the programme make things difficult for me about the documents for admission. I could not bear anymore what they have done to me, so I posted negative remarks about France and French people on a Chinese internet forum, which maybe generated a great response among Chinese students, therefore the number of the Chinese students who go to France for study reduced. Thats why the French government began their revenge, they stonewalled my graduation and intercepted my e-mail, letters and phone messages to stop me from finding a job in France, they also detained my luggage that I want to deliver back to China, its been one year since I am waiting for my luggage that I sent from Paris in April 2014. They monitored my electronic communications, tracked me by my cell phone and spread rumors all over the world to defile my personality, which made me be discriminated against no matter where I am. I really had no choice but to return to China in April 2014. But the nightmare is not over. I received the same treatment in China as in France, so I realized that the French government had colluded with the Chinese government to bully me, and that I became a victim of a political deal. They spread rumors all over the country in the planes, in the trains, in the hotels, in the restaurants, among my friends and my family members, no matter where I am to everyone that I contacted or I would contact. My friends and my family gradually alienated from me. I tried to make myself better and went to Shanghai to look for job in the end of April 2014. But Chinese government made every effort to make me to spend money and to drive me away from Shanghai. There are so many times that they called the landlords that I had made a agreement with to break their promise to delay the entering time or to cancel the agreement that I had to stay in the hotel and spend more money. In addition to this, I realized that my computer was hacked and that there were always someone laughing ironically next to my hotel room no matter where I am. Im sure that these are the spies of the Chinese communist party. I became angry and started to condemn the government by making some radical statements about the human rights on a website of a Chinese social media which is designated to Chinese students. I think my statements caused great repercussions in China as the Chinese government introduced socialist values curriculum into obligatory courses in the universities to control students ideology and to prevent them from being westernized and implemented a series of measures in order to strengthen the control of public opinion. Propaganda and brainwashing is the Talisman of the Chinese communist party, and they are good at inciting national sentiment. In this situation where nationalism prevailed in China, I am described as a traitor by the government. I felt so helpless and desperate in Shanghai because I found out that those nationalists in the restaurants that I visited had started to put laxative into my food as I went to the bathroom every time after meal and I saw that they put an evil eye on me. With disappointment and fear I went back to my home town Anshan in September 2014. After my return, the Chinese NSS called me to invent me to visit them to have a talk. I went to their siege in Anshan. During the meeting, they tried to make me compromise and said that they didnt make troubles to me, I acquiesced because I had nothing to say at that moment. I thought that this nightmare could disappear, a few days later, I opened my online shop that sells the clothes on an online platform. Unfortunately, they didnt stop persecuting me. I found out that they intercepted the message between me and my client, and continued to make troubles to me. I realized that they had cut off all my source of income. In this new situation, I became irritable. I heart that familiar ironical laugh from the floor over my apartment which is in a new residence and saw hacker attacks. The spies upstairs monitored me and knew everything about me. They knew what I like to ate, my habits and my schedule. I was tired of living under constant surveillance, and started to give them verbal abuse and to tell my story to everybody that I met on the internet. In order to make me shut up, they drove fast straight to me for threatening me when I was taking a walk outside. I became more angry and kicked their door upstairs for hitting back. Maybe they noticed that I would not compromise so they wanted to kill me. They knew that I went to the supermarket nearby to buy yogurts every week, thats why they could succeed to poison in the yogurts that I bought from there. After I ate the yogurts, I felt bloating, chest tightness, fatigued, anorexic, and always burp, aflatoxin poisoning was suspected, it was almost to the brink of death. I went to the hospital for examination, the doctor was perfunctory under external intervention, so I had to condition myself and barely survived. This was not finished, they found out that I had stopped to eat the yogurt so they took other measures. I always heart that they were cutting the floor and moving machines and I felt that the speed of my thinking gradually slowed down especially when I woke up in the morning. I suspected that they were illuminating my head using the machine when I was sleeping. In order to verify my suspicion, I putted my head on the end of the bed when I slept, to my surprise, I heart at once restless footsteps after their realizing that I had found out what they had done to me. I suddenly realized that my head had been illuminated by french spies when I was living in Residence Galois in the campus of University of Lille 1 in Villeneuve d'ascq in France for the Academic year 2011-2012 because I also heard that someone had been moving the machine from the floor over my room and I felt unconscious after I had moved there. I thought this was why the french government could spread rumors all over the world saying that I am a idiot.
With the hope to find the proof, I went to Beijing in June 2015 with the rest of yogurts in order to look for a NGO who might help me. I called the Doctors Without Borders, but they refused to help me under external pressure. I was so hopeless that I throw away the yogurts and went to Hong Kong. To my surprise, I found out that spies were always monitoring me no matter where I am. I thought that I could not live in China with fears and pains and had to flee from China to survive.
So I hopefully came to Saipan from Hong Kong by plane on June 18th, I thought that I could get rid of spies and live quietly. But thats not true, I found out that the spies just stayed in the next room in the hotel. I saw also the discrimination looks from the supermarket salespersons. I know that the forces of the Chinese Communist Party have extended here in Saipan. I am both physically and psychologically devastated endlessly.
I went back to Hong kong to find some other solutions, but just after my going back to Hong kong on July 1st, the Chinese government began to arrest the human rights activists and lawyers, so I thought that the situation had aggravated and went back to Saipan again on July 17th fearing I would be arrested in China. The had never left me away, from the rude attitudes of the staffs in the hotel and the discriminate looks from the salespersons of the supermarkets, I was aware of that I was not welcomed in Saipan. They also made troubles to prevent me from renting a house, I had never felt being rejected like this.
I went back again to China on July 22th with miss to my family hoping that they would not harm me if I didn't condemn the Chinese Communist Party. But just after I arrived on July 22th in Shenzhen where I would take the train for going back to Anshan, the spies in Shenzhen had poisoned in the cakes that I bought from the supermaket in face of my hotel for breakfast of the next morning. After I had eaten the cakes, I felt fatigued, chest tightness, ill with vomiting, I even stayed in bed for all day of july 23th. After I had returned to Anshan, I found out that the spies were still there waiting for my arrive. They illuminated my head as usual and they hacked my computer to prevent me from making profits from doing forex trades. They had totally deprived my right of life feeling that leaving China is my best solution. So I came back to Saipan on January 28th hoping american people could save me. To my surprise, I feel that this is a ilands fully bribed by the Chinese Communist Party as people here in Saipan help them spread rumors and defile my personality. I can't see human rights here.