UN: US police brutality violates anti-torture treaty [View all]

[damnedifIknow]

GENEVA (AP) — Police brutality, military interrogations and prisons were among the top concerns of a U.N. panel’s report Friday that found the United States to be falling short of full compliance with an international anti-torture treaty.

The report by the U.N. Committee Against Torture, its first such review of the U.S. record since 2006, expressed concerns about allegations of police brutality and excessive use of force by law enforcement officials, particularly the Chicago Police Department’s treatment of blacks and Latinos."

“There are numerous areas in which certain things should be changed for the United States to comply fully with the convention,” Alessio Bruni of Italy, one of the panel’s chief investigators, said at a news conference Friday in Geneva. He was referring to the U.N. Convention Against Torture, which took effect in 1987 and the United States ratified in 1994.

The U.N. committee’s 10 independent experts are responsible for reviewing the records of all 156 U.N. member countries that have ratified the treaty against torture and all “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

http://thegrio.com/2014/11/29/un-police-brutality-torture/