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UN Human Rights Council to certainly discuss use of torture by CIA - Churkin

“I’m sure it will be discussed, because there is the Convention Against Torture, there is a special rapporteur on this issue,” the diplomat told Russian journalists in New York

© ЕРА/JUSTIN LANE

UNITED NATIONS, December 20. /TASS/. The issue of the use of torture against suspected terrorists by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) will be certainly discussed at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin said on Friday.

According to him, this issue will be raised when the U.S. undergoes the Universal Periodic Review procedure, which requires countries to report regularly on the human rights situation in their territories.

“I’m sure it will be discussed, because there is the Convention Against Torture, there is a special rapporteur on this issue,” the diplomat told Russian journalists in New York.

Russia’s permanent representative said all 193 UN member states pass the Universal Periodic Review. Churkin said that when the United States passed this procedure in 2010, “it received 300 critical remarks” regarding the country’s human rights situation.

On December 9, the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence issued a report on the use of torture by American secret services against persons suspected of terrorist activities and who were held in secret CIA prisons abroad following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. According to the document, the suspects were deprived of sleep, humiliated, doused with water and subjected to waterboarding. In addition, they were threatened with sexual violence. Many countries, as well as a number of UN officials have condemned such practices.

However, Vitaly Churkin expressed serious doubt that the U.S. government will be brought to responsibility for the use of torture that is prohibited. The thing is that Washington has not signed the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). “Therefore, it cannot be taken to the ICC unless the UN Security Council adopts the corresponding decision,” he said. According to him, the consideration of this issue in the Security Council will certainly come up against the United States’ veto.

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