miércoles, 29 de enero de 2014

Torture in the Age of Obama — RT Op-Edge

Torture in the Age of Obama — RT Op-Edge:



Article 5 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights expressly forbids that any person “be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

When then-Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama promised to end torture, close the Guantanamo Bay gulag and restore habeas corpus, he was speaking to a fundamental desire within the American public consciousness to restore the ideals upon which the United States is based – ideals which had been all but discarded under the Bush administration.

Americans wanted an end to CIA torture sites, an end to “enhanced interrogation” and an end to arbitrary and indefinite detention. Once elected, President Obama did his best to present the appearance that the country had restored its humanity by signing Executive Order #13,491, effectively ending the “enhanced interrogation” policies enacted under George W. Bush.

 AFP Photo / Paul J. Richards