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US: Joint Appeal to Investigate Torture

Rights Groups, 111,788 Individuals Press for Special Prosecutor

(Washington, DC) – Human Rights Watch, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Amnesty International called on United States Attorney General Loretta Lynch in a June 23, 2015 letter to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate torture and other…
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US: Support Anti-Torture Legislation

Legislation is No Substitute for Criminal Investigations, Prosecutions

UPDATE: On June 15, 2015, the Senate passed, with strong bi-partisan support by a vote of 78-21, the below amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016:  (Washington, DC - June 9, 2015) – Proposed legislation to…
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US: Support Anti-Torture Legislation

Legislation is No Substitute for Criminal Investigations, Prosecutions

(Washington, DC) – Proposed legislation to reinforce the US prohibition on torture could help prevent the United States from again engaging in torture, Human Rights Watch said today. However, until the US criminally investigates and prosecutes past…
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Dispatches: High Time for US Whistleblower Reform

Today marks two years since the first of Edward Snowden’s revelations about United States government surveillance shocked the world. Yet despite the international debate on privacy and the proper role of government surveillance that his disclosures set in…
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Obama & Counterterror: The Ignored Record

At his first inauguration, Barack Obama rejected “as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.” On his second day in office, he announced plans to close the Guantánamo detention facility within a year and to end immediately George W. Bush’s…
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US: Reform Policing, Criminal Justice

High-Profile Cases Highlight Longstanding Problems

(Washington, DC) – State and local officials in the United States should address racial discrimination and police abuse in the criminal justice system that sparked widespread demonstrations last year, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2015…
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When it comes to torture, America is nothing special

In his Dec. 9 statement on the release of the Senate torture report summary, President Barack Obama insisted that the detainee abuses by Central Intelligence Agency officials revealed in the document were “inconsistent with our…
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US: Investigate, Prosecute CIA Torture

(New York) – Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union have written to US Attorney General Eric Holder urging him to order a criminal investigation into torture and other serious abuses relating to the Central Intelligence Agency’s…
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Torture Is Still on the Table

Senate Intelligence Committee’s Report on CIA Interrogations

The recent Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on CIA interrogations is a parade of horribles. Detainees by the dozen arrested wrongfully and later released, including innocent nobodies and even men with mental disabilities. Poorly vetted interrogators…
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Torture Still Unaddressed

The publication of the long-awaited summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA’s torture provides a useful moment to consider the lessons learned from this sorry chapter in American history and the steps that might be taken to avoid…
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The CIA Torturers Should Be Prosecuted

The primary international treaty against torture, the Convention against Torture, which the United States ratified in 1994, contains two key requirements. First, it bans torture, without exception, as well as other inhumane treatment. Second, it requires…
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The CIA’s rap sheet

It is not every day that a prosecutor is handed 500 meticulously documented, heavily footnoted pages detailing a years-long pattern of egregious criminal activity. Yet Tuesday’s release of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA’s torture…
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Time for Criminal Investigations

The summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA torture program describes in horrifying and sometimes gruesome detail the CIA’s systematic and frequent use of brutal techniques that the U.S. and the world have long banned and condemned …
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US: Senate Report Slams CIA Torture, Lies

Release Full Study; Investigate Senior Officials

(Washington, DC) – The US Senate Intelligence Committee’s report summary on the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) detention and interrogation program is a powerful denunciation of the agency’s extensive and systematic use of torture, Human Rights Watch…
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Whatever Happened to Winning Hearts and Minds?

Listening to the debate in Europe on the threat from the extremist group Islamic State (IS) and returning fighters feels like Groundhog Day. Its black-and-white presentation, the existential nature of the alleged threat, the notion that governments should…
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USA and Torture: A History of Hypocrisy

After the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, the US government authorized the use of so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” on terrorism suspects in US custody. For years US officials, pointing to Department of Justice memorandums…