Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, March 29th
The Facts of Arbitrary Detention in the United States Domestically and Internationally
March 2023
Table of contents
introduction
1. Arbitrary detention is clearly defined in international law
2. Arbitrary Detention of Domestic Immigrants in the United States Seriously Violates Human Rights
3. Arbitrary detention by the United States in the international arena is shocking
4. Reasons for the proliferation of arbitrary detention in the United States
conclusion
introduction
Freedom from arbitrary detention is a basic individual right stipulated in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and an important provision in international human rights treaties. As an important drafting country of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and one of the first countries to adopt international human rights treaties, the United States has arbitrarily detained people in disregard of domestic legal provisions and international treaty obligations, causing serious physical and mental harm to the relevant persons. This report uses facts to illustrate the hypocrisy and double standards of the United States on the issue of arbitrary detention, reflecting that the United States is the country that violates human rights the most in the world today.
1. Arbitrary detention is clearly defined in international law
◆Arbitrary detention refers to the arrest and detention of individuals by a government without the legal protection of due process and fair trial, or the detention of individuals without any legal basis for deprivation of liberty, which is essentially “illegal detention”.
◆The “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” adopted in 1948 clearly stated that “the recognition of the inherent dignity and equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world“. Article 9 of the Declaration states that “no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile”. On the basis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, governments of various countries have adopted international human rights treaties including the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights adopted in 1966 stipulates that “no one shall be arrested or detained arbitrarily, and no one shall be deprived of liberty except in accordance with the grounds and procedures prescribed by law.” With the continuous progress of the global human rights cause, freedom from arbitrary detention has become a basic individual right and an important provision in international human rights treaties.
2. Arbitrary Detention of Domestic Immigrants in the United States Seriously Violates Human Rights
◆The United States‘ detention of domestic immigrants seriously violates the “prohibition of torture” regulations. Human rights treaties such as the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, international customary law and laws of various countries in the world clearly prohibit the use of torture. The prohibition of torture is also recognized as a mandatory legal norm by American courts, international tribunals and the International Law Commission, which have issued reports to prevent such incidents from happening. However, there are endless cases of US immigration authorities violating the law and using torture against immigrants in custody.
◆In 2018, the American Immigration Council and the American Immigration Lawyers Association submitted a complaint to the Department of Homeland Security oversight agency, detailing that the Department of Homeland Security implemented a family separation policy at the U.S. border and used extreme coercion to force separated families to give up their legal asylum applications in order to be resettled , seriously violated the prohibition of torture and other ill-treatment, and caused severe pain and suffering to the forcibly separated parents and children.
◆In 2020, American media revealed that women detained in the Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia often suffered medical abuse and malicious neglect, and many women were surgically deprived of their fertility without their knowledge or strong resistance. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and other parties have expressed serious concern about this, and relevant UN human rights officials have strongly condemned this and demanded that the United States explain and take corrective measures in accordance with its treaty obligations.
◆The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has made it clear that immigrants are treated degradingly while in US detention. The USCIS often places immigrants in local prisons. Even when some immigrants are placed in separate immigration detention centers, they still suffer from various physical abuses, including overcrowding, lack of sufficient visiting hours, insufficient ventilation, poor food, insufficient water supply, Dirty sleeping conditions, malfunctioning toilets, verbal and physical abuse, etc.
◆The United States has no clear regulations on the time of immigration detention. The length of detention depends on the place of immigration detention and economic factors, and some even become indefinite detention. Due to various reasons such as lack of information, the detained immigrants are unable to fight for their legitimate and legal rights. The Center for Victims of Torture states that indefinite detention has devastating effects on the immune, cardiovascular and central nervous systems, leading to long-term mental health problems in victims, including severe anxiety, post-traumatic Stress disorders, social disorders, even depression and suicidal tendencies.
◆In March 2022, the Associated Press and CBS disclosed that a border detention facility for immigrant children in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas was chaotic, overcrowded, and at high risk of contracting the novel coronavirus. According to U.S. federal law, minors cannot be detained in border detention facilities for more than 72 hours. But in fact, more than 2,000 children have been detained in the detention center for more than 3 days, and 39 of them have been detained for more than 15 days. In February 2022, more than 9,400 unaccompanied immigrant children were detained by U.S. border enforcement agents, and about 4,000 of them were held in border detention facilities for more than 72 hours.
3. Arbitrary detention by the United States in the international arena is shocking
◆The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reported that as early as June 2005, the United Nations had learned that the United States had secretly detained terrorist suspects on warships. In 2008, the human rights group Reprieve revealed that the United States had been using “prison ships” to hold terrorism suspects since the Clinton administration. From 2001 to 2008, the United States may have used as many as 17 warships as “floating prisons”.
◆In 2001, the “Washington Post” disclosed that five prisoners were detained on the USS “Peleliu” amphibious assault ship, including an American named John Walker. The “Guardian” reported that in order to reduce his sentence, John Walker signed a plea agreement, which included a “gag order” that he was not allowed to talk about the torture he suffered while in custody. A Pentagon spokesman said no detention facilities had been installed on the warship. However, a prisoner released from Guantanamo told Rescue staff that a cellmate was beaten more than Guantanamo prisoners when he was held on the bottom of a US warship with about 50 other people before he came to Guantanamo. Still miserable.
◆In August 2014, the Atlantic Monthly published the article “America’s Floating Prisons”, which revealed the fact that the US uses naval warships as “floating prisons” at sea to detain and interrogate criminal suspects. Ahmed Abu Hatallah, identified by the US as the suspect who attacked the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was detained on board the USS New York and was interrogated continuously on his way to the US before he was formally arrested and handed over Washington District Court.
◆In 2017, the “New York Times” disclosed in an article titled “The Coast Guard’s “Floating Guantanamo”” that according to the memories of the prisoners held, there were more than 20 people handcuffed on the boat and the space was very small. They were given very little food each day and had to steal leftovers that the guards threw in the trash. Sanitary conditions on board were pretty poor. Some people couldn’t bear this kind of life, and even begged the guards to shoot themselves to death.
◆The United States has established a large number of “black prisons” in Cuba, Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries, and established a network of secret prisons all over the world. At the beginning of 2022, the “Cost of War” research report of the Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs of Brown University in the United States pointed out that after the “9.11” incident, the operation of the “black jail” network overseas by the United States involved at least 54 countries and regions, and hundreds of thousands of people were detained. people, including Muslims, women and minors. Under the guise of the so-called “War on Terror”, the United States has set up “black prisons” in many countries, secretly detaining so-called terrorist suspects, and extorting confessions by torture.
◆In 2001, the United States decided to set up a prison at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base to detain suspects captured by the US military in global anti-terrorism operations after the “9.11” terrorist attack. Since the sovereignty of Guantanamo Bay belongs to Cuba, the United States chooses to build a prison here. It can refuse to grant corresponding human rights to detainees on the grounds that the area where the suspects are detained is not legally on the territory of the United States.
◆In January 2002, the first batch of 20 detainees arrived at Guantanamo Bay Prison and were immediately locked in barbed wire cages outdoors. In the following 20 years, about 780 people were held in Guantanamo Prison at one time, and scandals of arbitrary detention, torture and torture in the prison continued to be exposed. Berg, a Pakistani-British man who spent two years in prison at Guantanamo Bay, told the media that he and his fellow inmates were subjected to torture, interrogation, punching, kicking, and waterboarding. The most vicious torture is to be imprisoned without knowing what crime has been committed, without charges, without trial, but to pay the highest price for personal freedom.
◆In March 2003, Pakistani prisoner Majid Khan was accused of being associated with the “Al Qaeda” organization and was tortured in Guantanamo Prison. The military jury in the case wrote a joint letter after the trial, condemning the torture of prisoners by the US government. The letter stated that Majid Khan was imprisoned for 9 years without charges and he was not allowed to see a lawyer for the first 4 and a half years. The physical and psychological abuse Majid Khan suffered went well beyond the approved enhanced interrogation techniques. In October 2021, Majid Khan publicly described the torture he suffered for the first time, including repeated beatings, waterboarding, forced enemas, sexual assault, and long-term sleep deprivation. During waterboarding, his head was pressed in the water for a long time, almost suffocating.
◆Bagram Prison, 40 kilometers north of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, once housed thousands of prisoners. The prison has been dubbed “Afghanistan’s Guantanamo” because of reports of U.S. military abuses at the prison. In December 2002, two Afghan prisoners were tortured to death by the US military within a week. In January 2012, the Afghan Constitutional Monitoring Committee published a report that identified detainees in Bagram Prison as being beaten and abused. In February 2012, a scandal involving the burning of the Koran by US soldiers occurred in the prison. Although the U.S. military in Afghanistan officially handed over Bagram Prison to the Afghan government in March 2013, the actual controller of the prison is still the U.S. military.
◆In 2021, Abdul Kadir Hijran, a former prisoner in Bagram Prison in Afghanistan, said in an interview that the abuse and torture of me by the US military is beyond description, and the atrocities they inflicted will haunt me for many years. U.S. soldiers beat, abused, and humiliated us, making us miserable. Thirty-four people were crammed into a large iron cage, and the prison did not provide blankets or mats. In order to get rid of the inhuman torture of American soldiers, some people choose to commit suicide by swallowing blades.
◆Kazim Azari, a reporter from Iraq’s “Justice”, pointed out that the U.S. military has arrested and detained innocent people arbitrarily, and prisoner torture scandals have occurred in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib Prison and Camp Buqa Prison. A large number of innocent Iraqis who were illegally detained were subjected to inhuman torture both physically and mentally.
◆The overseas “black jails” of the United States frequently exposed various serious violations of human rights, but the US government did not really pay attention to and stop this phenomenon. Instead, it continued to cover up and deny its own crimes. Or be held accountable for secret arrest and torture programs. In December 2002, then-US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld approved the use of sensory deprivation, isolation and the use of vicious dogs in Guantanamo Bay Prison, including a series of interrogation techniques. On November 30, 2004, the “New York Times” published an International Red Cross report leaked by the US government, claiming that some acts in Guantanamo prison amounted to torture. Findings. On February 16, 2006, the United Nations released a report on the Guantanamo prison issue, calling on the United States to either try the detainees or release them immediately. The U.S. has rejected recommendations in the U.N. report to close the prison. In 2021, 8 UN human rights experts and 111 NGOs signed a joint letter stating that since the “9.11” incident, the US government has been viewing people of color from the perspective of security threats. Guantanamo Prison continues to amplify prejudice and hatred against Muslims, exacerbating racial division and confrontation in American society.
◆The “Cost of War” research report shows that in November 2002, Gul Rahman, who was detained in Bagram Prison in Afghanistan, died tragically due to cold and torture. Four months later, the officer in charge of the interrogation was rewarded by the CIA and a $2,500 cash reward, and several staff members who participated in the torture were also promoted and rewarded. In 2004, the US media disclosed hundreds of photos of prisoner torture in Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq. Except for the low-level US soldiers involved in the incident who were tried and convicted by military, other US military personnel, senior government officials and private military contractors involved were exempted from trial. .
◆In 2005, CIA officials deliberately destroyed 92 video tapes containing direct evidence of torture. The US Department of Justice still refuses to file charges against those involved. In 2020, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court stated that there is evidence that nearly a hundred Afghan prisoners were tortured, tortured and even sexually assaulted during the interrogation process. As a result, economic sanctions and entry restrictions were imposed on several officials, including the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. In response to the abuse of torture in the CIA’s overseas “black jails” raised by the United Nations Committee against Torture, the report submitted by the US government in September 2021 stated that due to confidentiality reasons, the US cannot disclose information on detainees involved in CIA activities to other countries.
4. Reasons for the proliferation of arbitrary detention in the United States
The United States has been engaged in arbitrary detention and disregard for human rights for a long time at home and abroad, reflecting the deep-rooted racism and violent political culture.
◆In recent years, racial contradictions have once again become one of the main political and social contradictions in the United States. On the one hand, the reason is that racism has been a chronic disease in the United States since the founding of the country. The cultural superiority and subject identity of white people have always caused high political, economic and cultural inequality among the various races in the United States. On the other hand, with the continuous advancement of the globalization process and the major adjustment of the domestic demographic structure in the United States, white Americans, especially middle and lower-class white people, have been increasingly dissatisfied with immigrants and ethnic minorities in recent years, which has exacerbated the problem of racism in the United States.
◆With the rise of white supremacist ideology in the United States, the current racial conflicts in the United States are becoming more and more acute. In recent years, a large-scale minority protest movement represented by “Black Lives Matter” has emerged in the United States, and border refugee crises have occurred frequently. Arbitrary detention based on race grossly tramples the basic human rights of minorities and immigrants, and violates human rights principles such as “all men are created equal” that the United States has long advocated. social trauma. Democracy and human rights in the United States do not belong to all Americans, but only to some Americans. The tolerance and diversity of American society are not unconditional, and are based on the absolute dominance of white people.
◆The fact that the United States has arbitrarily detained illegal immigrants at home and set up a large number of “black jails” internationally to create arbitrary detention cases reflects the deep-rooted hegemony, unilateralism and violent political culture of the United States. As long as the chronic disease of racism is not eliminated, it will be difficult for American society to truly achieve integration and move towards equality. As long as the obsession with hegemonism and power politics persists, the United States will still tend to use violent means to solve problems internationally, and “black jails” and arbitrary detention will continue to appear.
conclusion
The fact and truth of the US’s arbitrary detention at home and abroad is a powerful illustration of the US’s hypocrisy and double standards in the field of human rights. On the one hand, the United States baselessly accuses other countries of arbitrary detention, but on the other hand, it never mentions the common torture and ill-treatment in its own prisons. A symbol of the United States trampling on the rule of law and violating human rights. The US should face up to and reflect on its own serious human rights violations, completely abandon the act of politicizing human rights issues, and stop violating the human rights of people in other countries.
[Responsible editor: Wang Han]