Home » Opinion » Chinese Views
US shame cast shadow over holiday season
Print Edition
THIS should be the happiest times of the year: Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day.
Seven years ago I was a visiting scholar in Marietta College, Ohio. It is a beautiful small town where people were very nice to me. I can still remember happy moments celebrating together with many American friends.
But right now, bad news after bad news has cast a dark shadow over this holiday season.
First, a white policeman shot an unarmed black teenager, a Grand Jury reached a non-indictment decision. This led to protests across the nation.
Second, one day after Thanksgiving, the United Nations’ Committee Against Torture issued a report. In it its authors stated: “The Committee expresses its grave concern over the extraordinary rendition, secret detention and interrogation programme operated by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) between 2001 and 2008....” This was the first full review of the US human rights record by the UN watchdog since 2006.
Thirdly, recently a grand jury decided not to indict a white New York City policeman who put a black man in a chokehold (a grappling hold on somebody’s neck to stop the flow of air and blood) for 19 seconds.
The man died an hour later. It led to public protests against police brutality.
Fourth, On December 9, the US Senate Intelligence Committee released the Feinstein Report, the torture report of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program. It reveals that following 9/11 the CIA’s so-called Enhanced Interrogation Techniques program of torture was brutal and ineffective. These techniques were last used in December 2007, and prohibited by an Executive Order issued by Barack Obama when he took office in January 2009.
It is a thorough investigation, having examined more than 6 million pages of CIA records.
Many of the details in the report are shocking, far more brutal than has been previously described. Detainees were subjected to “rectal feeding,” a process by which food or nutrients are pumped in through the anus. A detainee who had been held partially naked and chained to a concrete floor died from suspected hypothermia.
Hard pill to swallow
Senator Dianne Feinstein stood there grim-faced, calling the program “a stain on our values and on our history.” Senator John McCain said “The truth is sometimes a hard pill to swallow.” Americans used to review the past and tried to make amends for their wrongdoings. Martin Luther King said: “The time is always right to do what is right.” Ben Emmerson, UN Special Rapporteur on counter terrorism and human rights, made a statement: “It is now time to take action. The individuals responsible for the criminal conspiracy revealed in today’s report must be brought to justice, and must face criminal penalties commensurate with the gravity of their crimes.”
The writer is associate professor in the culture and communications department and research fellow of the Sino-Denmark joint research center on China and International Relations, University of International Relations, Beijing. Johnliu1963@yahoo.com. Shanghai Daily condensed the article. The views are his own.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
