Geneva Panel Says U.S. Prisoner Restraints Amount to Torture
By ELIZABETH OLSON
GENEVA, May 17 -- Use of electric stun belts and restraint chairs, which human rights groups say is widespread in the United States, almost inevitably violates the international treaty against torture, according to a United Nations monitoring group.
The United Nations Committee Against Torture, which examines compliance of 118 countries that have ratified the 1984 pact, also cited as problem areas in the United States police brutality, chain gangs, sexual assaults of female prisoners by law enforcement officials and detention of minors.
The committee's panel of 10 human rights experts urged American officials to "abolish electro-shock stun belts and restraint chairs as methods of restraining those in custody," on the ground that their use "almost invariably leads to breaches" of the treaty, which the United States ratified in 1994.
There was no immediate response from the administration, whose representatives received the recommendations on Monday without comment.
Stun belts, which are placed around a prisoner's waist, are reportedly used in as many as 100 United States jurisdictions. The Clinton adminstration's top human rights official, Harold H. Koh, argued that no lawsuits had been brought that substantiate the accusations of death or serious injuries to prisoners from such restraints.
He said that such devices are used only to transport dangerous inmates, although Amnesty International asserted that in at least one case a judge had ordered an electric shock be given to a prisoner during a public court proceeding.
In its first review of the American record on torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, the committee also asked Washington to "ensure that minors are not held in prison with the regular prison population."
The committee's conclusions, which took three pages to list, came in response to last week's American government report, which is required for all countries that have ratified the United Nations Convention Against Torture. The United States was nearly five years late filing its report.
Drawing on many examples provided by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and other rights groups, the experts closely questioned State and Justice department officials last week about practices that fall under the rubric of torture. The committee has no independent investigative capacity so it must rely on information provided by human rights advocates and, in countries like the United States, uncensored media reports. The expert panel also has no authority to sanction countries.
Amnesty International argued there were numerous instances of mistreatment by police and custody officials "disproportionately directed at racial and ethnic minorities." The American report, which admitted that the American record was not perfect, listed well-known cases like that of Abner Louima, the Haitian immigrant sodomized with a broomstick by New York policemen.
Committee experts concluded that "the number of cases of police ill-treatment of civilians, and ill-treatment in prisons" were matters of concern. This was particularly true, they said, because "much of this ill-treatment by police and prison guards seems to be based upon discrimination."