Amnesty International Report 2006 - USA

Thousands of detainees continued to be held in US custody without charge or trial in Iraq, Afghanistan and the US naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. There were reports of secret US-run detention centres in undisclosed locations where detainees were held in circumstances amounting to "disappearances". Dozens of Guantánamo detainees went on hunger strike to protest against their harsh treatment and lack of access to the courts; some were reported to be seriously ill. Reports of deaths in custody, torture and ill-treatment by US forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo continued to emerge. Despite evidence that the US government had sanctioned interrogation techniques constituting torture or ill-treatment, and "disappearances", there was a failure to hold officials at the highest levels accountable, including individuals who may have been guilty of war crimes or crimes against humanity. Several trials took place of low-ranking soldiers charged with abusing detainees; in most cases sentences were light. There were reports of police brutality and use of excessive force in the USA. Sixty-one people died after being struck by police tasers, a huge rise over previous years. Sixty people were executed, taking the total to over 1,000 since executions resumed in 1977.

Guantánamo Bay

At the end of 2005 around 500 detainees of around 35 nationalities continued to be held without charge or trial at the US naval base in Guantánamo Bay; most had been captured during the international armed conflict in Afghanistan in 2001 and were held for alleged links to al-Qa'ida or the former Taleban government. They included at least two juveniles who were under 16 when they were taken into custody.

Legislation passed in December (the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005) removed the right of Guantánamo detainees to file habeas corpus claims in the US federal courts against their detention or treatment, allowing instead only limited appeals against the decisions of the Combatant Status Review Tribunals (see below) and military commissions. The legislation called into question the future of some 200 pending cases in which detainees had challenged the legality of their detention following a US Supreme Court ruling in 2004 that they had the right to file such claims.

By March, the Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT), administrative panels set up in 2004, had determined that 93 per cent of the 554 detainees then being held were "enemy combatants". The detainees had no legal representation and many declined to attend the CSRT hearings, which could consider secret evidence and evidence extracted under torture.

In August an unknown number of detainees resumed a hunger strike, initiated in June, to protest against their continued lack of access to the courts and alleged harsh treatment, including beatings, by guards. More than 200 detainees were said to be taking part at one stage, although the US Department of Defense said the number was much lower. Several detainees alleged they had been verbally and physically abused while being force-fed, sustaining injuries when guards roughly inserted feeding tubes through their noses. The government denied any ill-treatment. The hunger strike was continuing at the end of the year.

In November, three UN human rights experts declined an offer by the US government to visit Guantánamo as it had placed restrictions inconsistent with the standard terms of reference for such visits.

Military commissions

In November the US Supreme Court, ruling in the case of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, agreed to review the legality of the military commissions set up under a presidential order to try foreign terror suspects. However, a further five Guantánamo detainees were named to stand trial before the commissions, which are executive bodies, not impartial or independent courts, bringing the total number designated to appear before them to nine. The government scheduled arraignment hearings before the commissions for January for two of those charged. One of them was Omar Khadr, who was 15 when taken into custody and whose mental health and alleged ill-treatment remained a particular cause for concern.

Detentions in Iraq and Afghanistan

During the year, thousands of "security internees" were held without charge or trial by US forces in Iraq. Regulations governing detentions stipulated that internees must either be released or transferred to Iraqi criminal jurisdiction within 18 months. They also provided that detainees could continue to be interned by the US-led Multi-National Force indefinitely for "continued imperative reasons of security". The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) visited detainees in internment facilities but not those held in US division or brigade holding facilities immediately after arrest.

In Afghanistan, hundreds of detainees continued to be held in US military custody without charge or trial or access to families or lawyers at Bagram airbase, some for more than a year. Although the ICRC had access to detainees at Bagram, it had no access to detainees held in an unknown number of US forward operating bases. There were reports of ill-treatment in such facilities, including detainees being stripped naked during interrogation and deprived of food and sleep.

Detentions in undisclosed locations

There were continued reports that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operated a network of secret detention facilities in various countries. Such facilities were alleged to detain individuals incommunicado outside the protection of the law in circumstances amounting to "disappearances". Three Yemeni detainees told AI that they had been held in isolation for between 16 and 18 months in three detention facilities apparently run by the USA in unknown locations; their cases suggested that such detentions were not confined to a small number of "high value" detainees as previously suspected. In November the Council of Europe launched an investigation into reports that the network of US secret prisons included sites in Eastern Europe. The US authorities refused to confirm or deny the allegations.

Allegations of US involvement in the secret and illegal transfer of detainees between countries, exposing them to the risk of torture and ill-treatment, continued.

Torture and ill-treatment outside the USA

Evidence continued to emerge of the torture and ill-treatment of detainees in Guantánamo, Afghanistan and Iraq, before and after the abuses in Abu Ghraib prison, Iraq, which came to light in April 2004. Further information was published describing interrogation techniques officially approved at various periods for "war on terror" detainees, which included the use of dogs to inspire fear, stress positions, exposure to extremes of heat or cold, sleep deprivation and isolation.

There was continued failure to hold senior officials accountable for abuses. The final report of Naval Inspector General Vice-Admiral Church into Department of Defense interrogation operations worldwide, a summary of which was published in March, found "no link between approved interrogation techniques and detainee abuse". This was despite the fact that many such techniques violate international standards that prohibit torture and ill-treatment. The Church investigation did not interview a single detainee or former detainee, nor did it interview Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. No inquiries examined the CIA whose activities remained shrouded in secrecy.

The US Army reported in March that 27 deaths of detainees in US custody in Iraq and Afghanistan during raids, capture or in detention facilities had been listed as confirmed or suspected homicides. Some cases were under investigation while others had been referred to other agencies or were recommended for prosecution.

Other sources, including court records and autopsy reports, strongly indicated that some detainees had died after torture during or after interrogations. There was also evidence to suggest that delays and deficiencies in investigations had hampered prosecutions.

In March the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Human Rights First filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of eight men who had been tortured and ill-treated in US military detention facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, seeking a declaration that Secretary Rumsfeld was responsible for violating US and international laws. The lawsuit, which was still pending at the end of the year, also sought compensatory damages for the victims.

Several trials of US military personnel accused of abusing detainees took place during the year, mainly involving low-ranking soldiers. Many received sentences that did not reflect the gravity of the crimes.

In March the government rescinded an April 2003 Pentagon Working Group Report on Detainee Interrogations which stated, among other things, that the President had authority during military operations to override the international prohibition against torture with regard to interrogations. In November the Pentagon approved a new policy directive governing interrogations, which would allow the army to issue a long-delayed revised field manual. The directive stated that "acts of physical or mental torture are prohibited". However, it did not elaborate other than to order that detainees be treated humanely "in accordance with applicable law and policy". In December the Army announced it had approved a new classified set of interrogation methods to be added to the revised Army Field Manual. Although the manual would specifically prohibit stripping, prolonged stress positions, sleep deprivation and use of dogs in interrogations, there was concern that the classified addendum may still include abusive techniques.

In December, Congress passed legislation prohibiting the cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of people in the custody or control of the US government anywhere in the world. However, concern remained that a statement attached by President Bush when signing the bill into law effectively reserved the right of the executive to bypass the provision on national security grounds.

• In August and September, trials took place in a military court of US soldiers accused of abusing two Afghan detainees, Dilawar and Habibullah, who died from multiple blunt force injuries while being interrogated in an isolation section of the Bagram airbase in December 2002. As of December 2005, seven low-ranking soldiers had been convicted and received sentences ranging from five months' imprisonment to reprimand, loss of pay and reduction in rank. No one had been found responsible for serious offences such as torture or other war crimes.

Detention of 'enemy combatants' in the USA

• Jose Padilla – a US national held for more than three years without charge in US military detention – was among five people indicted in a US federal court in November on charges of conspiracy to murder US nationals overseas and supporting terrorists. The charges made no mention of the alleged conspiracy to detonate a "dirty bomb" in a US city for which he was originally detained. The Justice Department sought permission from the Appeals Court to transfer him to the federal prison system. However, the court did not agree and instead issued an order requiring both the government and his lawyers to submit briefs on whether it should withdraw its earlier ruling upholding the President's power to detain Jose Padilla indefinitely as an "enemy combatant". The issue had not been decided on by the end of the year.

• Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, a Qatari national, remained detained without charge or trial as an "enemy combatant" in military custody. A lawsuit was filed in August alleging that he was suffering from severe physical and mental health problems as a result of his treatment, which included sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, punitive shackling, exposure to cold, and disrespectful handling of the Qu'ran.

Prisoners of conscience

• Kevin Benderman, a US army sergeant, was sentenced to 15 months' imprisonment in July for refusing to redeploy to Iraq on grounds of his conscientious objection to the war, developed during a first term of service there. His application for conscientious objector status was refused on the ground that his objection was not to war in general but to a particular war.

• Camilo Mejia Castillo, Abdullah Webster and Pablo Paredes, three former soldiers imprisoned for their conscientious objection to serving in Iraq, were released during the year.

Trial of Ahmed Omar Abu Ali

Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, a US national, was convicted in a US federal court in November on charges of conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism. The trial was flawed as the jury was not allowed to hear evidence supporting claims by Ahmed Abu Ali that his videotaped confession, on which the prosecution relied almost exclusively, had been obtained following torture in Saudi Arabia. Ahmed Abu Ali alleged that he was flogged and threatened with death by the Interior Ministry's General Intelligence (al-Mabahith al-Amma) while being held incommunicado in Saudi Arabia in 2003. During the trial, general statements on the treatment of detainees from Saudi Arabian officials were used to undermine Ahmed Abu Ali's allegations, while the defence lawyers were not allowed to present any evidence pertaining to Saudi Arabia's human rights record on torture.

Ill-treatment and excessive use of force

There were continued reports of ill-treatment and deaths in custody involving tasers – electro-shock weapons deployed by some 7,000 US police and correctional agencies.

Sixty-one people died after being struck by police tasers, bringing to 142 the total number of such deaths since 2001. Coroners found tasers had caused or contributed to at least 10 of the deaths in 2005, increasing concerns about the safety of such weapons.

Most of those who died were unarmed men who reportedly did not pose a serious threat when they were electro-shocked. Many were given multiple or prolonged shocks, potentially harmful acts highlighted in a Department of Defense preliminary study into taser safety published in April 2005.

Several police departments suspended the use of tasers, others tightened the rules for taser use. However, most departments continued to authorize tasers in a wide range of situations, including against unarmed people who resisted arrest or refused to obey police commands. Mentally disturbed and intoxicated individuals, children and the elderly were among those shocked.

AI renewed its call on the US authorities to suspend use and sales of tasers and other stun weapons pending a rigorous, independent inquiry into their use and effects.

• In February police in Florida tasered a 13-year-old girl who had been fighting with her mother. The girl was handcuffed in the back of a police patrol car when she was shocked.

• In February, a 14-year-old developmentally disabled boy went into cardiac arrest after being shocked with a police taser in Chicago, Illinois, as he was sitting on a sofa in a care home and, according to police, attempted to stand up "in an aggressive stance". Doctors who treated him said the taser shocks had caused a potentially fatal disturbance of the heart rhythm and that he would have died had he not been immediately resuscitated by medical staff at the scene.

• Seventeen-year-old Kevin Omar, who was acting erratically under the influence of drugs, lapsed into a coma after being shocked three times by police officers from Waco, Texas; he died two days later. The medical examiner said he believed the taser was a contributory factor in the death.

Abuses of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people

In September AIUSA published a report, Stonewalled: police abuse and misconduct against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the United States. The report found that, although there was greater recognition of the rights of LGBT people, many still faced discriminatory treatment and verbal and physical abuse by police. It also showed that within the LGBT community, transgender individuals, people of colour, youth, immigrants, homeless individuals and sex workers experienced a heightened risk of abuse. The report found that police often failed to respond adequately to hate crimes or domestic violence against LGBT people.

Death penalty

In 2005, 60 people were executed, bringing to 1,005 the total number of prisoners put to death since executions resumed in the USA in 1977 following a moratorium. Two people were released from death row on grounds of innocence, bringing to 122 the total number of such cases since 1973.

On 1 March the US Supreme Court banned the execution of child offenders – those aged under 18 at the time of the crime – bringing the USA into line with international standards prohibiting such executions. Twenty-two child offenders had been executed in the USA since 1977.

Executions continued of people with mental illness and disorders, of prisoners who had been denied adequate legal representation at trial, and in cases where the reliability of evidence had been questioned.

• Troy Kunkle was executed in Texas on 25 January, despite suffering from serious mental illness, including schizophrenia, evidence of which was not presented to the jury that sentenced him to death. He was just over 18 at the time of the crime and had suffered a childhood of deprivation and abuse.

• Frances Newton was executed in Texas on 14 September, despite doubts over the reliability of her conviction. She was found guilty on the basis of circumstantial evidence, and always maintained that she was innocent.

Hurricane Katrina

In August Hurricane Katrina swept across Louisiana, killing more than 1,000 people and leaving hundreds of thousands of others homeless or temporarily displaced without their basic needs for food, clean water and medicines met. There was widespread anger at the federal government's slow response to the humanitarian disaster.

Scores of inmates in New Orleans Parish Prison were allegedly abandoned by guards following the hurricane. Prisoners reported being left locked in cells for days without food or drinking water as flood waters rose. There were reports, denied by the Louisiana authorities, that some prisoners had drowned. AI called for a full inquiry and for the authorities to ensure that all prisoners were fully accounted for. It also called for an investigation into allegations that evacuated inmates were ill-treated.

Other concerns

A joint study published in October by AI and Human Rights Watch, The Rest of Their Lives: Life without Parole for Child Offenders in the United States, reported that at least 2,225 child offenders under 18 at the time of the crime were serving sentences of life without parole. Such a sentence for child offenders is prohibited under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, signed but not ratified by the USA. Of the cases examined, 16 per cent of the offenders were aged between 13 and 15 at the time of the crime and 59 per cent received the sentence for their first conviction. Many were convicted of "felony murder" based on evidence of their participation in a crime during which a murder took place, but without direct evidence of their involvement in the killing. The report called on the US authorities to stop sentencing children to life without parole and to grant child offenders serving such sentences immediate access to parole procedures.

Daniel Strauss and Shanti Sellz, volunteers with a group called No More Deaths, were stopped by the US Border Patrol in July while they were taking three Mexican migrants found in the Arizona desert for urgent medical treatment. The volunteers were charged with offences linked to illegally transporting aliens and faced up to 15 years' imprisonment. Hundreds of irregular or undocumented migrants die in the desert each year after crossing from Mexico into the USA, many from exposure to extreme temperatures which reached record levels in Arizona in July. AI called for the charges against the two volunteers to be dropped on the ground that they had not assisted the migrants to evade immigration controls but were acting solely to protect life.

AI country visits

AI delegates visited Yemen in June and September/ October to visit former US "war on terror" detainees.

In November an AI observer attended the trial of Ahmed Omar Abu Ali.