| USA_Press Release_June 26_2015 2 pages / 700 KB |

Until today the worlds leading democracy with a proud
legal system has been unwilling or unable to redress its torture policies
following 9-11. This continues to set a dangerous crack in the international
framework against torture. Accounting is not the same as accountability.
‘Far from being an issue of the ‘past’ the torture
policies continue to be protected by a deliberate policy of laws and
regulations designed to ensure that those subjected to this treatment are
prevented from speaking out, seeking real remedies and accessing fundamental
rehabilitation services’.
The case of
Mustafa al-Hawsawi:
Mustafa al-Hawsawi is a detainee at Guantanamo.
Following his forced disappearance by the CIA in 2003, he was subjected to
various forms of torture over lengthy periods.
The U.S. Government hid his torture for 12 years. On 9 December 2014,
the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released its report
on the CIA Torture Program[1] and
revealed that Mr. al Hawsawi is a victim of some of the most brutal acts of
torture imaginable, which he endured during his years in the CIA Torture Program.
The torture included being sodomized during rectal exams conducted with
“excessive force”[2]
as a form of behavior control, and it resulted in a torn rectum, chronic
hemorrhoids, and a rectal prolapse that requires him, despite excruciating
pain, to reinsert exposed tissue back into his rectal cavity with his fingers
when he defecates or strains.
Because the U. S. Government was intent on hiding his
torture from the world, Mr. al-Hawsawi has been denied the basic right of
rehabilitation under the Convention Against Torture[3], to
which the United States is bound and by which it must abide. Mr. al-Hawsawi
continues to suffer daily from the injuries inflicted upon him by the United
States Government. As he continues under the total control, for more than 12
years now, of the same Government that tortured him, Mr. al-Hawsawi still has
not received adequate medical treatment or rehabilitation while imprisoned at
Guantanamo Bay.
‘Torture
does not end at the moment when the torturer stops abusing the victim. Torture,
instead, ends at the moment when the victim no longer endures its physical or
psychological scars. Denying the right to an effective remedy and access to rehabilitation
continues to violate the international prohibition of torture’, said the OMCT.
On 26 June 2015, International Day in Support of
Victims of Torture, the global community should speak out against denial of remedies
and rehabilitation. One of the most cruel, humiliating, and degrading acts of
torture is actually an omission:
mutilating a victim’s mind and body and then stepping back to allow and
to watch the victim’s agony unabated, for years. The U. S. Government’s continuous
denial of rehabilitation to its victims is a denial of the rule of law. We ask
that you call upon the U.S. Government to provide rehabilitation to Mr.
al-Hawsawi, and all persons subjected to torture at its hands, by circulating
this message at:
#RehabilitateHawsawiNow #Guantanamo #Torture
For more information on the case of Mr. Mustafa
al-Hawsawi contact OMCT at omct@omct.org or
his legal defense team directly via walter.ruiz@osd.mil.
The OMCT wishes to thank the
European Commission for their financial support to the OMCT global campaign on
June 26 ‘nothing can justify torture under any circumstances’.
[1] Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Committee Study of the Central Intelligence
Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program, 9 December 2014), available at: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/09/world/cia-torture-report-document.html?_r=0
[2] Ibid at page 100, FN 584.
[3] Convention against Torture and Other Cruel,
Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, GA res. 39/46, annex, 39 UN GAOR Supp. (No.
51) at 197, UN Doc. A/39/51 (1984); 1465 UNTS 85
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