grab_grab_the_haddock
June 16th, 2009, 08:50 PM
http://baltimorechronicle.com/2009/061509Lendman.shtml
On May 26, the UN Human Rights Council issued a report of the Special Rapporteur (Philip Alston) on "extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions."
Alston was damning in his criticism regarding "three areas in which significant improvement is necessary if the US Government is to match its actions to its stated commitment to human rights and the rule of law:
1. Its imposition of the death penalty under which innocent people are executed.
Alston was shocked about "glaring criminal justice system flaws," citing Texas and Alabama as examples, but many other states are as derelict. He criticized politicized judges and recommended that Congress "should enact legislation permitting federal court habeas review of state and federal death penalty cases on their merits."
2. America needs "greater transparency into law enforcement, military, and intelligence operations that result in unlawful deaths."
Domestically, it provides inadequate information about deaths of immigrants and other detainees, but the worst failures are in international military and intelligence operations.
3. The government fails to "provide greater accountability for potentially unlawful deaths in its international operations."
It ignores civilian casualties, both their number and conditions under which they occur, and fails to provide ordinary people, including US citizens, with basic information regarding investigations and prosecutions when laws were violated. It fails to assure safeguards are in place to prevent so-called collateral damage - that is, civilians wrongfully (and at times willfully) targeted and killed.
On May 26, the UN Human Rights Council issued a report of the Special Rapporteur (Philip Alston) on "extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions."
Alston was damning in his criticism regarding "three areas in which significant improvement is necessary if the US Government is to match its actions to its stated commitment to human rights and the rule of law:
1. Its imposition of the death penalty under which innocent people are executed.
Alston was shocked about "glaring criminal justice system flaws," citing Texas and Alabama as examples, but many other states are as derelict. He criticized politicized judges and recommended that Congress "should enact legislation permitting federal court habeas review of state and federal death penalty cases on their merits."
2. America needs "greater transparency into law enforcement, military, and intelligence operations that result in unlawful deaths."
Domestically, it provides inadequate information about deaths of immigrants and other detainees, but the worst failures are in international military and intelligence operations.
3. The government fails to "provide greater accountability for potentially unlawful deaths in its international operations."
It ignores civilian casualties, both their number and conditions under which they occur, and fails to provide ordinary people, including US citizens, with basic information regarding investigations and prosecutions when laws were violated. It fails to assure safeguards are in place to prevent so-called collateral damage - that is, civilians wrongfully (and at times willfully) targeted and killed.