The UN human rights chief says that the global ban on torture is becoming a casualty of the "war on terror," singling out the reported US practices of sending terrorist suspects to other countries and holding prisoners in secret detention.
Louise Arbour's comments on Wednesday sparked an immediate rebuke from US Ambassador John Bolton who said it was "inappropriate and illegitimate for an international civil servant to second guess the conduct that we're engaged in the war on terror, with nothing more as evidence than what she reads in the newspapers."
It would be far more appropriate if Arbour had used Human Rights Day to talk about "the real human rights problems that exist in the world today," Bolton said, without elaborating on what they were.
Arbour told a news conference she chose the theme of "terrorists and torturers" to mark Saturday's annual commemoration of the UN's adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 because the absolute ban on torture, once believed to be unassailable, is under attack.
"The absolute ban on torture, a cornerstone of the international human rights edifice ... is becoming a casualty of the so-called `war on terror,'" she said.
Arbour said "two phenomena today are having an acutely corrosive effect on the global ban on torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" -- seeking diplomatic assurances to justify the return or transfer of suspects to countries where they face a risk of torture and holding prisoners in secret detention.
Diplomatic assurances may make countries complicit with torture carried out by others and secret detention facilities create the conditions for torture by a country's own agents, she said.
Arbour called on the US and other countries to state clearly and unambiguously what practices they accept and don't accept in the interrogation of suspects, and whether they operate secret detention centers at home or abroad and provide details.
The UN high commissioner for human rights also called for a ban on returning people to countries where they may face torture and on secret detentions, access to all prisoners, and prosecution of those responsible for torture and ill-treatment.
‘HYANGDO’: A South Korean lawmaker said there was no credible evidence to support rumors that Kim Jong-un has a son with a disability or who is studying abroad South Korea’s spy agency yesterday said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who last week accompanied him on a high-profile visit to Beijing, is understood to be his recognized successor. The teenager drew global attention when she made her first official overseas trip with her father, as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts have long seen her as Kim’s likely successor, although some have suggested she has an older brother who is being secretly groomed as the next leader. The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) “assesses that she [Kim Ju-ae]
In the week before his fatal shooting, right-wing US political activist Charlie Kirk cheered the boom of conservative young men in South Korea and warned about a “globalist menace” in Tokyo on his first speaking tour of Asia. Kirk, 31, who helped amplify US President Donald Trump’s agenda to young voters with often inflammatory rhetoric focused on issues such as gender and immigration, was shot in the neck on Wednesday at a speaking event at a Utah university. In Seoul on Friday last week, he spoke about how he “brought Trump to victory,” while addressing Build Up Korea 2025, a conservative conference
DEADLOCK: Putin has vowed to continue fighting unless Ukraine cedes more land, while talks have been paused with no immediate results expected, the Kremlin said Russia on Friday said that peace talks with Kyiv were on “pause” as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin still wanted to capture the whole of Ukraine. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said that he was running out of patience with Putin, and the NATO alliance said it would bolster its eastern front after Russian drones were shot down in Polish airspace this week. The latest blow to faltering diplomacy came as Russia’s army staged major military drills with its key ally Belarus. Despite Trump forcing the warring sides to hold direct talks and hosting Putin in Alaska, there
North Korea has executed people for watching or distributing foreign television shows, including popular South Korean dramas, as part of an intensifying crackdown on personal freedoms, a UN human rights report said on Friday. Surveillance has grown more pervasive since 2014 with the help of new technologies, while punishments have become harsher — including the introduction of the death penalty for offences such as sharing foreign TV dramas, the report said. The curbs make North Korea the most restrictive country in the world, said the 14-page UN report, which was based on interviews with more than 300 witnesses and victims who had
RSS