U.S. Must Do More on Civil Rights, Officials Agree
2015/5/11— The United States acknowledged that it needed to do more to uphold civil rights and improve policing in a review of its human rights record at the United Nations on Monday, but faced calls for action by states on issues ranging from the death penalty, torture and targeted killings to mass surveillance by intelligence agencies.
“We must rededicate ourselves to ensuring that our civil rights laws live up to our promise,” James Cadogan, a senior Justice Department official, told the Human Rights Council in Geneva.
United States authorities brought criminal charges against 400 law enforcement officials in the last six years, Mr. Cadogan said. But the deaths of Freddie Gray in Maryland, Michael Brown in Missouri, Eric Garner in New York, Tamir Rice in Ohio and Walter Scott in South Carolina “challenge us to do better and work harder for progress,” he said.
His comments came as officials from eight federal agencies and the state of Illinois presented an account of developments in human rights under which the council reviews all states every four years.
David Bitkower, a deputy assistant attorney general, said intelligence collection programs in the United States were subject to “extensive and effective oversight to prevent abuse” and were not employed to suppress dissent or to give businesses a competitive advantage.
Brig. Gen. Richard C. Gross, legal counsel to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, responded to calls from many countries for the closing of the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, saying that doing so remained a “national imperative.” The number of detainees has dropped to 122 from 240 at the start of the Obama administration, General Gross said, and 57 more are cleared for transfer.
Human rights groups, however, said the United States had left largely unanswered the concerns voiced by states on issues such as the detention of migrants, the conduct of drone strikes and ratifying core international human rights treaties on the rights of children, the rights of people with disabilities and on curbing discrimination against women.
Mary McLeod, acting legal adviser to the State Department acknowledged that the C.I.A.’s detention and interrogation program had “crossed the line, we did not live up to our own values,” but did not address questions on what action the United States proposed to take to investigate and prosecute those responsible for its torture policy and practice or to compensate those who were subjected to it.
“It was the same old story of the U.S. dragging its feet on taking effective action to fully implement its human rights obligations,” Jamil Dakwar, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s human rights program said.
Source: The New York Times
