organization:united nations committee against torture

Committee against Torture considers initial report of Lebanon
▻http://reliefweb.int/report/lebanon/committee-against-torture-considers-initial-report-lebanon

Committee Experts commended Lebanon for its strong will to maintain the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms despite the particularly tense situation in the country and the region, and for the creation in 2012 of a committee to fight torture and other inhumane practices in places of detention. They inquired about the expected date when a bill defining and criminalizing torture in line with the Convention would be passed and urged Lebanon to ensure the absolute prohibition of torture, clearly define sentences for offenders, and remove any statute of limitations for crimes of torture. The systematic nature of acts of torture was an issue of grave concern: it was reported that more than 60 per cent of detainees suffered torture during arrest, particularly those arrested for crimes against national security. Experts raised concerns about military courts which had a very wide-ranging scope and competence and could try civilians, even children in some cases; the existence of places of secret detention used both by the State and non-State actors; the ill-treatment of domestic workers and lack of their protection under the kafala system; and the problems in the enjoyment of fundamental legal guarantees such as arbitrary detention, lack of access to a lawyer, and unlimited or long-lasting detention.

As ’We Charge Genocide’ Preps to Address UN on Brutality Claims, Experts Weigh in - The Youth Project
▻http://www.chicago-bureau.org/charge-genocide-preps-address-un-brutality-claims-experts-weigh

The shadow report on police violence against minority youth that Chicago activists We Charge Genocide will present to the United Nations Committee Against Torture this week is consistent with past studies and could receive a favorable response from the UN, experts say.

Released last month, the report alleges that the treatment of African-American and Latino/a youth by the Chicago Police Department counts as torture under the UN Convention Against Torture.

We Charge Genocide says the United States violates six of the Convention’s articles by allowing the CPD to torture black and brown youth with near impunity: adequate measures to prevent torture, adequate education about the ban of torture, systematic review of interrogation methods, a prompt and impartial investigation, a right to file charges of torture without retaliation, and legislatively ensured compensation for victims.

Report to U.N. Calls Bullshit on Obama’s ’Look Forward, Not Backwards’ Approach to Torture
▻https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/10/30/un-report-slams-obama-protecting-u-s-officials-torture-charges

Months after President Obama frankly admitted that the United States had “tortured some folks” as part of the War on Terror, a new report submitted to the United Nations Committee Against Torture has been released that excoriates his administration for shielding the officials responsible from prosecution.

The report describes the post-9/11 torture program as “breathtaking in scope”, and indicts both the Bush and Obama administrations for complicity in it – the former through design and implementation, and the latter through its ongoing attempts to obstruct justice. Noting that the program caused grievous harm to countless individuals and in many cases went as far as murder, the report calls for the United States to “promptly and impartially prosecute senior military and civilian officials responsible for authorizing, acquiescing, or consenting in any way to acts of torture.”

[…]

It’s also worth remembering that, horrific as it was, the torture regime described in the report was only a tiny part of the wide-ranging human rights abuses the United States committed after 9/11. It doesn’t even account for the network of prisons where hundreds of thousands of people were detained in Iraq and Afghanistan – many of whom suffered beatings, rape and murder at the hands of U.S. soldiers.

UN secret probe documents #Lebanon’s use of ‘systematic #Torture’
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/21906

http://english.al-akhbar.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/4cols/leading_images/haitham-%288%29%20%281%29.jpg

The #United_Nations_Committee_Against_Torture (CAT) tried to convince the Lebanese authorities to publish the results of a secret investigation by a UN investigative committee about torture in #Lebanon to no avail. CAT went ahead and decided to publish a summary of the investigation within its annual report. What did the summary include? And why did the Lebanese government oppose its publication?

#Articles #Directorate_of_General_Security #Internal_Security_Forces #Roumieh_Prison

UN secret probe documents Lebanon’s use of ‘systematic torture’
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/un-secret-probe-documents-lebanon%E2%80%99s-use-%E2%80%98systemat

In an expected move, the United Nations Committee Against Torture (CAT) published the results of a secret investigation in Lebanon that began in May 2012 and ended in November 2013. The investigation was conducted in accordance with article 20 of the Convention Against Torture. It included investigations conducted by a committee appointed by the UN that visited prisons and detention centers in Lebanon.

The committee concluded that torture was and is being practiced in a systematic manner in Lebanon, particularly during interrogations in order to extract confessions. The committee said that the Lebanese authorities prevented it from visiting a detention center in Saida that belongs to the Intelligence Directorate in the Lebanese army and a detention center in Tripoli that belongs to the Information Division of the Internal Security Forces (ISF).

Centre d’actualités de l’ONU - Le HCDH préoccupé par la décision de la justice russe d’ordonner à une ONG de s’enregistrer comme « agent étranger »

▻http://www.un.org/apps/newsFr/storyF.asp?NewsID=31722&Cr=russie&Cr1=

3 décembre 2013 – Le Haut-Commissariat des Nations Unies aux droits de l’homme a exprimé lundi sa vive préoccupation après l’ordre donné par la justice russe à une organisation non-gouvernementale (ONG) de s’enregistrer comme « agent étranger ».

http://www.un.org/News/dh/photos/large/2011/November/491186-grossman.jpg

Un tribunal de Saint-Pétersbourg a en effet décidé plus tôt ce mois-ci que le Centre commémoratif contre la discrimination était engagé dans des activités politiques, en violation de la législation qui stipule que les organismes à but non lucratif actifs sur le plan politique doivent s’enregistrer comme « agents étrangers » s’ils perçoivent des sources de financement en dehors de la Russie.

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Russian NGO Memorial : UN rights experts voice concern at court’s ‘foreign agent’ ruling

▻http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=14137&LangID=E

Geneva (23 December 2013) – The United Nations Committee against Torture (CAT) has voiced grave concern after a court in Russia ordered a non-governmental organisation that had provided information to the Committee to register as a “foreign agent”.

A court in St Petersburg ruled earlier this month that the Anti-Discrimination Centre Memorial was engaged in political activity and was therefore in breach of legislation which stipulates that politically active non-profit groups must register as “foreign agents” if they receive money from abroad.

The Committee said it was disturbed that prosecutors, as part of their civil lawsuit against Memorial, had referred to a report on police abuse of Roma and migrants submitted by the group for CAT’s review of the Russian Federation in November 2012.

#russie #droits_fondamentaux #droits_humains #ong

Survivors File U.N. Complaint Against Canada for Failing to Prosecute George W. Bush for Torture | Center for Constitutional Rights
►http://www.ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-releases/survivors-file-u.n.-complaint-against-canada-failing-prosecute-george-w.

Today, four torture survivors filed a complaint against Canada with the United Nations Committee against Torture for the country’s failure to investigate and prosecute former President George W. Bush during his visit to British Columbia last year. As a signatory to the Convention against Torture, Canada has an obligation to investigate and prosecute a torture suspect on its soil.