"We’re demanding that the Justice Department end its silence about CIA torture,” Shah said on Friday. “Essentially, the Justice Department wrote permission slips for torture. They are part of why torture happened from 2002-2008.”
Shah accused the Justice Department of sitting on evidence of human rights violations.
“They haven’t even apparently read the senate report on torture that was released six months ago,” she said.
Shah also said she found “remarkable” the fact that the department in charge of enforcing the law in the United States had yet to act on such an important issue.
“Pretty much every year, the US government is releasing a statement on this day saying that it stands with victims of torture. So we’re asking it to actually do that when it comes to survivors of torture that the US government itself inflicted,” she stated.
Shah explained no US law could possibly be invoked to make the practice of torture legal because international human rights law clearly defines it as unlawful.
Moreover, she argued the practice of torture remained illegal at any time and there were no exceptional circumstances whatsoever where it could be applied.
“I think the US wants to have a double standard where it allows people to get away with torture where it says the rest of the world shouldn’t,” Shah said.
On Thursday, the US Department of State released its annual Country Reports on the human rights violations committed by every government around the world, the activist noted.
“Well, we’re releasing a report card too. “We’re demanding that the Justice Department hold itself to the same standards the US government demands of every other country in the world,” she concluded.
Amnesty International is a global movement of people fighting injustice and promoting human rights, according to the organization’s web site.
