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US Questioned by UN on Police Abuse

Chicago Police Torture Cases, “Operation Meth Merchant”
Highlighted by UN Human Rights Committee
US INTERROGATED ON RECORD OF
POLICE BRUTALITY AND RACIAL PROFILING

Chicago Police Torture Cases, “Operation Meth Merchant”
Highlighted by UN Human Rights Committee

July 19, 2006 (GENEVA) – Over the last two days, the US Delegation, including officials from the State Department and Department of Justice, were questioned about human rights violations by police during a review of US compliance with international human rights law.

Committee members raised continuing reports of police brutality in the US, citing to the Chicago police torture cases, in which over 100 African American men were tortured to secure false confessions by former Commander Jon Burge and detectives under his command at the Chicago Police Department over a twenty year period. Torture techniques used by the police officers included electrically shocking genitals with cattle prods and electric shock boxes, suffocations with plastic bags, and beatings about the body with telephone books and rubber hoses. Despite numerous investigations and judicial findings that Burge and his officers “systematically” and “methodically” tortured African Americans at police headquarters, not a single officer or official has been prosecuted.

“The US government repeatedly told the UN Committee that allegations of police brutality are investigated, and if the facts warrant, prosecuted. The reality is that prosecutions for police brutality are the exception, not the rule,” said Joey Mogul of the People’s Law Office, which represents many of the victims of police torture.

“That police officers can systematically shock, beat and suffocate confessions out of African Americans and get away with it puts the US government’s expressed commitment to prosecuting violations of human rights into serious question. It also sends a clear message to law enforcement officers at home and abroad that they can engage in torture and brutality with impunity, and to African Americans that even the most egregious violations of our human rights will go unpunished,” said Andrea Ritchie, a civil rights attorney based in New York City.

The results of the ninth independent investigation into the Chicago Police torture cases are scheduled to be released today in Chicago. One Committee member raised the need for the federal government to step in where there is a failure of remedies at the state level for police abuses.

The UN experts also expressed deep concern about structural racism in the US and the widespread use of racial profiling. They emphasized that international law goes beyond protection against purposeful discrimination and reaches policies or acts that are discriminatory in purpose and effect.

One Committee member encouraged the US government to take legislative measures to address racial profiling, while another expressed concern about the lack of accountability and tracking measures in place to oversee activities of regional task forces set up to wage the “war on drugs” and the “war on terror.” He specifically cited to “Operation Meth Merchant,” a recent sting operation in Georgia, where South Asian convenience store clerks and owners were disproportionately targeted by a regional task force for prosecution for sale of common household items -- such as aluminum foil, matches and cough medicine – which would allegedly be used for the preparation of crystal methamphetamine.

“We’re glad to hear the US government state today that if you are selected for prosecution based solely on race, you are entitled to have the criminal charges against you dismissed, regardless of guilt or innocence,” said Naju Mavany of the Racial Justice Campaign Against “Operation Meth Merchant,” a coalition of civil and human rights groups organized to expose the racial targeting and stop the prosecutions. “This leaves us optimistic and we look forward to seeing the charges dropped against those indicted in Operation Meth Merchant.”

The US government was also questioned about discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity by law enforcement officers in the US. The US was specifically asked about its response to the findings and recommendations of Amnesty International’s recent report Stonewalled: Police Abuse and Misconduct Against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People in the U.S. Committee members highlighted statistics indicating that transgender people are subject to high rates of violence by police and extraordinarily high murder rates in comparison to the general population.

“The Committee’s questions of the US government were a landmark moment for the rights of transgender people,” said Davim Horowitz of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project,” an organization providing legal services to transgender people of color and low income people.

The UN Committee also expressed concern regarding the potential criminalization of dissent, suggesting that the current definition of “terrorism” under the PATRIOT Act is so broad as to reach “robust political expression,” and inquired as to what measures the US government is taking to ensure that an overbroad notion of “terrorism” does not limit legitimate exercise of freedom of expression or privacy.

“From the Panthers to protesters, law enforcement agencies in the US have a long history of targeting political activists for harassment and prosecution in violation of their human rights,” said Meron Wondwosen of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, which presented a report on ongoing violations of the rights of political prisoners in the US to the Committee.

The currently unregulated use of TASERs, which shoot 50,000 Volts of electricity, by law enforcement agents across the US also came under fire by the Committee. Citing to evidence that TASERs are not, as the US government has claimed, used primarily as a substitute for lethal force, a Committee member referred to cases in which TASERs were used against school children, mentally disabled people, elderly people, and pregnant women and that TASERs, are often used against individuals who “argue with police officers.”

“People are justifiably outraged by the use of electroshock on prisoners in Abu Ghraib,” said Andrea Ritchie, one of the co-authors of a report submitted to the Committee on police abuses in the US on behalf of over 40 national and local organizations. “But people are routinely being shocked on the streets of the U.S. by police officers every day while the government studies the issue of TASER safety.”

The UN review is a routine procedure that occurs every four years for countries that have ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The ICCPR is one of two treaties that together are equivalent to an international “Bill of Rights.” The US signed and ratified the treaty in 1992. The U.N. Human Rights Committee is expected to release its findings on July 28, 2006.

For more information, please contact:
Andrea Ritchie at (646) 831-1243 or andreajritchie (at) aol.com
 
 

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