UN: Those Who Order Or Inflict Torture Cannot Be Exonerated

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United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, stated today that the United Nations anti-torture convention made clear that "...those who order or inflict torture cannot be exonerated and the roles of certain lawyers, as well as doctors who have attended torture sessions, should also be scrutinized."

"Guantanamo showed that torture and unlawful forms of detention can all too easily creep back in to practice during times of stress, and there is still a long way to go before the moral high ground lost since 9/11 can be fully reclaimed."

Pillay said "there should be no half-measures, or new creative ways to treat people as criminals when they have not been found guilty of any crime."

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said last week that the U.S. government had decided the fate of about half the detainees at Guantanamo, of whom more than 200 are still being held. Some U.S. lawmakers have voiced concern about bringing them to the United States. In recent weeks, several countries have agreed to take some Guantanamo inmates. Pillay urged others to follow suit, "including first and foremost the United States itself."

The remaining Guantanamo inmates "...must either be tried before a court of law -- like any other suspected criminal -- or set free," Pillay said, adding that those who risked ill-treatment in their own countries must be given new homes elsewhere.

Pillay conceded that what happened at Guantanamo "pales in comparison" to torture taking place in prisons in some other countries which she described as "some of the darkest corners of our planet." She called on world leaders to send a clear message "that torture will no longer be tolerated."

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