Senate Votes to Ban Waterboarding, Other Forms of Torture
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - The US Senate voted to outlaw many forms of torture, including waterboarding, "rectal feeding," mock executions, hooding prisoners, and sexual humiliation in any sector of the US government.
By a vote of 78 to 21, the Senate agreed on an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that limits the US government to interrogation and detention rules delineated in the US Army Field Manual. The amendment also requires that US officials immediately notify the International Red Cross in the event of an individual taken into US custody or control.
The amendment was introduced last week by Republican Sen. John McCain and is co-sponsored by Democrat Dianne Feinstein, the former chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The committee released in December a report detailing harsh interrogation and torture methods employed by the Central Intelligence Agency following the attacks of September 11, 2001.
“We must continue to insist that the methods we employ in this fight for peace and freedom must always — always — be as right and honorable as the goals and ideals we fight for,” said McCain, the current chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“Our enemies act without conscience. We must not.”
The measure would also require that the Army Field Manual be updated every three years so that it is consistent with US law and "reflects current evidence-based best practices for interrogation designed to elicit reliable and voluntary statements that do not involve the use or threat of force.”
The Army Field Manual does allow interrogation methods such as stress positions and sleep deprivation that are “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment,” according to a group of medical ethicists who wrote to the Obama administration calling for changes to the Manual in 2013.
Human rights advocates applauded the amendment even though it is based on future prevention of torture – already illegal under domestic and international law – and not the prosecution of those responsible for torture following September 11, 2001, RT reported.
“This is the US Senate’s first vote on torture in years, and it’s a clear and necessary legislative repudiation of the CIA’s horrific abuses,” said Amnesty International USA’s Executive Director Steven W. Hawkins in a statement.
“Without this amendment, abuses committed in the name of national security, such as forced rectal feeding and mock burials, would be all too easy for the CIA to repeat in a climate of fear-mongering about terrorism.”
The US House must now vote on the amendment within the larger defense authorization bill, which sets budget and expenditure limits for the US Department of Defense.
